Jack Fredrickson
Silence the Dead
© 2014
As always, for always,
For Susan
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is said that truth is sometimes best told through fiction.
Mary Jane Reed was born on November 15, 1930. She died on June 25, 26, 27, 28, or 29, 1948.
It was Ted Gregory’s reporting in the Chicago Tribune that began, for me, a search for the sense in two long-forgotten unsolved murders, an aftermath that reverberates to this day, and one mayor’s relentless quest for justice. Dare we let our nation’s newspapers struggle, really?
It was Mayor Mike Arians’s story, of course, and the courage, tenacity, and patience he took to chase it, learn it, tell it, challenge it and defend it that became the truth behind much, but not all, of the fiction. It was Marge Craig’s story, and June Arians’s story, as well.
Warren Reed gave me the trust to show the youngest child’s perspective of a family traumatized by murder, conspiracy, incompetence, and indifference.
Patrick Riley, Mary Anne Bigane, and Joe Bigane read the draft and gave me the guidance to do better. Gaylord Villers corrected me about bullets, and Don Rowley set up a strange interview.
John Silbersack showed me where to fix what was wrong.
Kate Lyall-Grant gave me enthusiasm! Sara Porter gave me great edits.
And Susan gave me encouragement, love and care to help me make this, as with everything else in my life, worthy.
VISITATION
Betty Jo Dean lay as she had for over thirty years, shrouded in black vinyl, forever seventeen.
None of them – not the two gray-haired forensics people, the state’s attorney or the cops or even the bastards who’d long kept their fists on the lids in the town – dared breathe. The only sound came from the exhaust fan in the ceiling. It thrummed irregularly, loud then soft, rough then smooth, like a bad heart about to burst. As though it, too, feared what Betty Jo Dean was about to reveal.
The doctor, a man of many such exhumations, bent over the stainless-steel table and unzipped the body bag.
He froze. His assistant gasped, and dropped her metal probe to clatter on the cold tile floor.
The mayor, disgraced and exiled to the back of the room, pushed through the wall of stunned cops and looked down.
She wore only panties and a bra. No one had bothered to dress her. Her skin was mottled and gray.
Except for the skull. It was polished and shiny and, unlike the rest of her, arrogantly devoid of flesh.
And it was loose, wedged at the top of the bag like a grotesque afterthought, a thing casually tossed in. Its jaw had opened wide, as if screaming in outrage.
The mayor had imagined all sorts of horrors, but not this. He spun in a fury to shout at the hating eyes of those he’d forced to pull her from the ground.
‘That’s not her head.’
BOOK I: HER STORY
ONE
Monday, June 21, 1982
Her hands were too sweaty. The knob slipped away and the door slammed back, echoing a thunderclap through the dark, deserted town.
She pressed back against the siding at the top of the stairs, clenching her fists to make her whole body stop shaking, and looked down. No surprise he wasn’t on the sidewalk; he didn’t like the light. He’d be somewhere else, invisible, making sure she walked straight home from the phone company.
For a flit of a moment, she wanted please to believe he’d come to his senses over the weekend. Lord, she wanted that, but she couldn’t dare hope it.
She touched her cheek. Though it was three nights since Friday, the bruise still throbbed. That was OK. The pain would give her courage to be strong. That, and pretending she was in a movie, and what she feared wasn’t really real.
She stepped out of the shadow and into the light, slow and unafraid, like Kathleen Turner in Body Heat. Kathleen was purposeful. She’d had courage, even if it was for devilish purposes. Kathleen got what she needed because she didn’t let being afraid stop her.
She took out her compact, mindful of the imaginary camera, and took her time inspecting her cheek. She’d sweated like a waterfall inside her operator cubicle all through her shift, maybe from the heat, more likely from the fear. All night long, she’d trembled.
The powder was doing fine, covering the bruise. Likely Pauly wouldn’t notice, though maybe his noticing wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
She’d called him two hours earlier. It was nervousness, but she needed to be sure he’d show up.
‘So, gorgeous, we’re still on for tonight?’ he said, right off.
Relief calmed her like cool water. ‘Remember, I finish at ten,’ she said, careful to talk low so the biddies in the next cubicles wouldn’t hear.
‘The Constellation, right?’
‘Yes.’ She’d chosen it because it was just across the highway and up Second Street, so close she could practically run to it. Then, somewhat theatrically, she whispered, ‘You might want to cancel, though.’
‘What?’ He sounded real concerned.
‘Things are a little unsettled for me right now,’ she said mysteriously. She’d decided it was only fair to give him a little warning.
‘Meaning what?’ he naturally asked.
‘Meaning I’m of interest to other men. One’s important. He thinks he owns me. There might be trouble if you come to Grand Point tonight.’
‘Old boyfriend?’
‘Not hardly – at least about the boyfriend part.’ Old was right on, though.
‘An older man? Don’t worry. I don’t get afraid,’ he said, in a most manly way.
‘Because you were a Marine, right?’
‘Semper Fi.’
She did not as yet speak foreign languages, having quit high school for bigger things two years before, but she assumed he’d just said something reassuring. Absolutely, Pauly was a wonderful man.
The biddy in the next cubicle had leaned back so she could eavesdrop better.
‘See you at the Constellation.’ She clicked off, relieved. Though this would be only their first real date, she was sure Pauly Pribilski was a confident man.
That was two hours ago. Now, alone in the light at the top of the outside stairs, the comfort she’d felt was gone. The Important was somewhere down below.
She moved to the edge of the stairs and hesitated again, knowing now she was exposed to the windows above the Red Wing shoe store across the street. Likely it was nerves that imagined them going black the instant she stepped outside. Doctor Romulous Farmont liked his perch above the shoe store for looking down on them all, but that time of evening he liked the darkness of the Hacienda better, sitting back against the wall with the rest of the Importants.
She shuddered, remembering her time above the Red Wing just a few weeks before. Crazy afraid, she’d gone to the doc because he was the only doctor in Grand Point and she’d had to know. He’d drugged her a little, to calm her, he said, but not so she couldn’t feel his fingers, working. She’d wondered how much of that was necessary.
An understandable concern after a minor indiscretion, he’d said in his fancy words, without asking who’d done the deed. If anything still developed, he’d take care of it. He would, too, without saying anything to anyone. He took care of things, especially for other Importants.
There was no sense remembering that now. She took a deep breath and went down the stairs. Nothing would happen until she got to the highway and didn’t turn for home.
Like always, the sidewalks were empty. The few cars parked at the curb belonged to the other phone operators. She hurried toward the corner, her footsteps clacking the cement loud enough for even the deaf to hear.