Chapter 42: Closure
A couple of weeks after our meeting in Truckee, Lynda called to apologize for being angry with me on our last day at Dick Penniman’s house.
“It’s hard for me to talk about Duncan’s life without getting very sad. I guess I’ve avoided doing it all these years because it would have sapped my strength to fight for the truth of how he died.”
While Lynda had suppressed her feelings for her son because they hurt too much, my own emotional connection with him had steadily grown. I often found myself watching the video of his last television interview, just before he departed for Europe. There was something notably graceful about him, and it wasn’t just his good looks. What exactly was it? The best I could figure is that, in our world in which image and status count for so much, he seemed so real. He was humble and brave and capable of putting disappointment into perspective, and I found these moral qualities far more admirable than any athletic achievement. I knew that if we’d crossed paths in Europe in the summer of 1989, I would have liked him immensely.
“When you’re ready, I’d love to hear more about Duncan as he was in life,” I told Lynda. “For now, just tell me what he would say about this crazy story.”
She laughed. “He would say it’s ridiculous that so much time and energy was wasted trying to cover up his death. All of the charades and lies—was it really necessary? So the driver of the grooming machine screwed up and accidentally killed him. All the driver had to do was confess, say he was sorry, and resolve to be safer. Maybe he would have had to spend some time in jail for negligent homicide, but surely that would have been preferable to the burden of carrying this secret with him for the rest of his life. I mean, if he’s even remotely normal, can he ever feel free and lighthearted again? In a way, I feel sorry for him. The same goes for everyone else. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to have come out with the truth and dealt with the reality of it?”
If Lynda had asked me this question before I began researching this story, I would have answered yes. But the more I have thought about human nature in high stress situations, the more it has made me question my earlier assumption. Could it be that most of us behave ethically most of the time because doing so doesn’t conflict with our instinct for self-preservation? The imperative to do unto others as we would have them do unto us has great appeal at the level of conscious intellect, but how much motivational force does it have for an individual in the grip of fear that his life will be ruined if he does the right thing ethically?
Imagine driving home after you’ve had several drinks and accidentally hitting a pedestrian. After pulling over and perceiving that he’s dead from his lack of breathing and pulse, you realize that no one saw the accident. Would you: (1) report the accident and go to prison for vehicular manslaughter, or (2) drive away and suffer no consequences? I suspect that a large percentage of people would go with the latter option. Of course, the above scenario doesn’t involve concealing the dead pedestrian.
“I have a recurring vision,” Lynda continued. “After Duncan dies, his spirit sees the Snowcat driver hiding his body in the crevasse. During this terrible moment, he knows the man isn’t going to report the accident, but leave us to worry ourselves to death. He could have forgiven the driver for accidentally killing him, but he hates the guy for hiding his death from us, because that is the real crime of this story.”
She’s right; the monstrous act is the concealment, and it therefore seems to me that hiding a body should be treated as a separate crime, far graver than negligent homicide, with no statute of limitations (currently the Austrian penal code deems it an aggravating circumstance).
Shortly before I published this book, I talked to a man from Calgary named Terry Fishman, who had, in his younger days, worked at a summer camp near Stubai called Club Igls. After watching the fifth estate documentary in 2006, he’d called Lynda and told her he reckoned a slope worker had intentionally buried Duncan after hitting him with a Snowcat. At the time, Lynda had considered this a crazy notion, but after I ultimately came to the same conclusion, she remembered her conversation with Terry and suggested I call him.
“It’s simple,” he said. “The driver felt he had to conceal the body in order to protect his company from bad publicity. It didn’t matter that it was an accident; it shouldn’t have happened, and he knew that if it ever got out to the media, it would make the ski hill look bad, and everyone in his village lives from the ski hill.”
Two days after I spoke with Terry, the former Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was indicted for multiple sexual offenses against children, including one incident in the coaches’ locker room shower. Virtually the entire country was shocked to hear allegations that numerous high-ranking officers at the university had learned about the incident but failed to report it to the police. Amid all of the speculation about how this could have happened, a forensic psychiatrist named Roy Lubit pointed out that “Organizations are very self-protective. The number-one rule is, ‘Don’t embarrass the organization.’”
This ugly side of esprit de corps, rooted in primitive, tribal instincts, may cause an otherwise decent man to ignore or even cover up heinous acts in order to protect his association. Setting aside moral scruples is understood as a necessary sacrifice for preserving the greater good of his club. In such a situation, the would-be whistle-blower may come under extreme pressure to remain silent.
Cognitive psychologists would say that Lynda MacPherson has suffered from an unfilled “need for closure.” She never liked ambiguity to begin with, and for twenty-two years her life has been dominated by it. I suspect, though, that her yearning for clarity is part of her greater yearning for meaning. Duncan meant everything to her, so she found it unspeakably jarring to be confronted with signs that his life meant so little to others. To this day, when she thinks about the incorrect date of death and his name initially misspelled on his death certificate, or the order for his jaws to be removed, or his bones left behind on the ski slope, she feels an implacable rage.
Insight into how the MacPhersons feel may be gleaned from comparing Duncan’s death with that of young men killed in war. To prevent the grief of parents from turning into rage, we have created a host of symbols, rituals, and myths to express the idea that it is heroic to die for one’s country. At a fallen soldier’s funeral, his body is presented to his parents in a polished, flag-draped coffin before which they listen to testimonials about his character, bravery, and the great cause for which he died. His officer gives thanks and his comrades salute him as he is laid to rest. The entire ceremony attaches dignity, honor, and respect to the dead young man.
In 1989, when Lynda and Bob MacPherson learned that their missing son was probably dead, they had no body and no convincing explanation for his disappearance, not even a record of the investigation. All they got was their consul, Ian Thomson, advising them on the phone “to get on with their lives” and a misleading letter from Commander Hofer, forwarded to them four months after he’d written it to Thomson.