by Gary Michaels
Thesis and Dissertation Writing Consultant and Editor
Editing-Writing.com
It was one of those July days we pine for in the icy days of February, but loudly curse when they actually arrive. Not only was every day extremely hot, the increased humidity had turned the North East into a steamy sea of miserable people. It seemed like everyone was complaining about the heat. Swimming pools everywhere overflowed with simmering people seeking relief while air conditioners of all shapes and sizes gulped electricity the way people slurped everything liquid. It was the lead story on every newscast. This heat wave had grown roots on the front page of newspapers nationwide. The studio-cooled talking heads on the Weather Channel were enjoying themselves every day by telling us exactly how hot we were. The thought of their air-conditioned smiles only made my own temperature rise, so daily, I made it a point to drum those images out of my consciousness. Even when complainers were reminded about our dreams in frigid February, spirits were rarely lifted. Instead, people seemed to slowly trudge from place to place without any spring in their step. The heat had drained us and it seemed like there was no fill-up in sight.
Black Diamond’s coolerator was doing an excellent job at keeping her cabin frosty as I again crossed the bridge from the United States into Canada. Below me was a vast river of peaks and swells that looked so refreshingly cool that, for a split second, I wished I were swimming in it. But then the roar of a huge eighteen-wheeler’s air horn snapped me back to the reality I was in; it was boiling hot outside, there was little chance of escape and soon I would be forced to leave the cool comfort of my precious Black Diamond. It had been a long time coming, but I had uncovered what I hoped would be another piece of the puzzle now ruling my life. Maybe I would finally solve this miserable mystery of motive that had plagued me for about eight years. Facing the heat would be a small price to pay.
The Coroner spoke at length in a rambling expressive voice. Naturally, I did not want to interrupt the flow of his valuable recollections. Therefore, very few of my questions are included here. Instead, his words are presented in as close to his narrative as possible.
The Coroner: Now son, I want to say something first. It’s important. There’s someone else you should talk to, you know. Now, I don’t know if she will talk to you because what happened still bothers her from time to time, just like it does to me. I’ve seen her get upset, cryin’ and such, for no good reason. It looks like everything is hunky dory and then she starts tearing up real fast. It doesn’t take long. Not very many people know why she does it, but I do. They just think she’s bonkers or has some kind of sickness. But I know. We were both there that night. Most everyone else has died off, but she was younger when it happened, so she’s hangin’ on. She knows what happened and maybe, just maybe, why it happened but I don’t know that part for sure. Well, at least she knows her side. I can’t say for sure she’ll talk to you. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. If you get her on a good day, maybe she’ll talk to you. Maybe ‘cause your family used to live here, right across the road from them, maybe that’ll help.
But there’s only two people left who know more about what happened than anyone else, and I’m not one of them. I saw a few things that didn’t add up and so did some of my people, but I don’t know the whole story back to front. All I did was come around and clean up the mess they made. And by George, it was a real mess, but I’m not going to get into that. It wouldn’t be right. That’s personal stuff. But these other two people are still around. At least they know more than anyone else because they were involved with the family. I know that for a fact ‘cause I always wondered what would happen to that case. I’ve been keepin’ an eye out over the years, not every day, but every so often. I always thought it might be a good movie and Hollywood people’d be hunting around for clues. But that never happened thank God!
I guess you figured out this is a small community; at least it was back then. Now everything’s grown up and turned to shit, malls and donut shops everywhere. Back then you could go across the street for a cup of coffee and not have to worry about getting killed by some tractor trailer racin’ a sports car! Now, it takes forever to cross the street and there’s no restaurant on the other side to relax in; just some fast food drive-thru taco joint or some other horseshit place just like it. Excuse my language, but nothing upsets me more than what this world has turned into. Even my business had to move because our place was getting too small for all the people dyin’ early deaths around here. Back then we’d get them one at a time, now we’ll get three or four in a week. My two sons run the business now and they tell me they’re makin’ money hand over fist, which is good for them and their families, but it tells you a lot about our town. The bigger the place, the more dead people you have to prepare and that’s progress? Nah, I don’t think so.
Pardon me son. I didn’t mean to get all jumpy there. But these things bother me because it’s only going to get worse, not better. One more thing before I change the subject; I don’t know if you know it or not but I remember hearing about you the last time you came around. It was a few years ago, if memory serves me right, and people got upset about you pokin’ around. You caused quite a kafuffle in the neighborhood. Some people were pretty angry with you for diggin’ up that crime again. At least everyone who remembers it, but even their kids were mad because their grandparents were mad and all like that. I wasn’t around because my wife and me were visiting her sister in Calgary, but I heard about it when we got back. Oh Lordy, did I get an earful! I was sad I missed you, but you’re here now so let’s get on with it.
Our first home is on the same street as theirs except at the top of the street. They were at the very bottom of the street, last house on the right and we were on the same side but at the top near the gas station. The same tracks that ran behind their house ran behind our house and when those trains rolled past, the whole house would shake I tell you! When I say shake, I mean shake! You’d have to hold onto your drink at the dinner table or else it would spill all over you. And it happened a lot, sometimes once a week. We had two little boys and a baby girl when we lived there, so lots of drinks got spilled.
To tell you the truth, I hated that house. I hated it when we bought it and I hated every minute we lived in it because of those damned trains. Up and down, back and forth, those trains would go past our back windows all the time. They would go slow because they were within the town limits, but they were so heavy with steel and iron ore everything would shake. Those trains would even run on Christmas morning!
But that’s all we could afford at the time. I was just getting started in the business and most of my profits had to go back into the business to improve my services. My father was a real stickler of a man, God rest his soul. You couldn’t tell him to wind his watch without getting something back. When he insisted on me going to college for a medical degree, I had no say in it. The funeral business was his originally. Back then they called it a mortuary. He was going to let me have it when I got older, but I had to go to college first. I had to have a medical degree so I could get the county coroner job as well as being a funeral director. Both services would be in one place and we’d make money twice as fast. It worked too. The best thing about that time in my life was my business. It was in the downtown area so I’d be away from those trains all day. But try sleeping with trains going by your windows every night! After a few years, things got better and we could think about a better house in a different part of town. I’m sure you know about this town, how it’s divided, but in case you don’t, I’ll give you a geography lesson. It’s easy really; that big river over there? That’s the divider. People on this side of the river are middle class and up. Everyone on the other side are middle class and down.
We started out on the other side of the river in the house with the trains, but as soon as my business got going better, I moved us out of there to this part of town. I bought this house in 1960 and we’re still in it. Oh yeah, we thought about moving many times, getting a fancier house in a richer part of town, but we never did. We fixed things, a little here and a little there, but never went anywhere mostly because the kids loved living here. Their school is over there, the arena’s down the street, you got a park with a swimming pool right across the street, why should we move? Everything’s right here! It was always quiet enough so the kids played road hockey right in front of the house. Now we’re too old to move so we’re staying put.
Another good thing about moving here was leaving those neighbors. Over there, our neighbors were hard workers, but when they got home, they were loud. Not the parents that much but the kids. Some of those kids were like wildcats, running around like crazy, yelling and nobody would stop them. We didn’t want our kids to turn out like them. Especially in the summer when you have to keep your windows open, you can hear everything people say. It’s hot. This is before air conditioning was affordable. So my wife and I could hear things we didn’t want our kids to hear. I don’t have to be specific, but I’m sure you can imagine the yelling going on. Money was tight, couples would argue even though the men worked hard in the steel mills. It was hard work, dirty work. Men would come home filthy, exhausted, sometimes injured but they’d go back the next day anyway. They had to. They needed that paycheck.
Maybe that’s why I’m still around when most of them are long gone. My job was easy peasy Japan-easy! (laughs) Because I had a pretty easy job, at least physically, my life has been extended somewhat. I’ll tell you, the heaviest thing I ever had to lift was a coffin, and I always had help. Every day I left for work in the morning in a suit and tie and came home like that. Oh maybe I was a little ruffled, but nothing like them. I think I’ve lived longer because I didn’t have to work so hard physically, but by the same token, I think their lives were cut short because they had to work so hard. But what do I know? It’s just my silly little theory.
As far as I know, no one around at the time of the crime is still alive. Except the two people I mentioned before; they’re still here. Like I said before, I’ve always kept a close eye on that crime, and I still do. It really stirred things up. Over the years, I’ve read the obituaries of everyone else. Some of them I buried. And with the coffin went the story or maybe I should say, the true story. There’s always been a story or two or three about that crime. Oh, people talk and talk. They try to pretend like they know something everybody else doesn’t. It makes them feel important, at least for a minute or two, but then they go back to being regular folk.
When those two passed, I was called in since I was the county coroner and could be the funeral director if that’s what the surviving family members asked for. It was the middle of the night, maybe 4 am when the police called me. My wife had to wake me up because I didn’t hear the phone. Our phone was in the kitchen, on the wall, and I could never hear the damn thing in our bedroom. My wife could hear it. She had the hearing of a cat. She could hear the milkman coming down the street four houses away! You probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but don’t worry about it. Old geezers like me like to talk about stuff we remember, you know, little details like that. They stick in your mind. Did you know that cats hear 20 times better than humans? I’ll bet you didn’t know that.
Anyway, they called me at home. While I was getting dressed in my suit, my wife ran to the kitchen and perked me some coffee, bless her soul. She wanted me to wake up and be alert. It was Bokar, if I remember correctly, Bokar coffee. That stuff really got me going in the morning! So I drove over there in our hearse because the officer told my wife there were two ‘casualties’. That was nice of him. If he had been talking to me, he would have called them ‘stiffs’ but I guess he didn’t want her to have bad dreams so he called them casualties. Pretty fancy name for dead people I’d say!
When I got there, the Chief of Police grabbed my arm and told me to hurry up and make all the arrangements. He wasn’t very nice about it either. I couldn’t figure out what he was in such a hurry about. It’s not like the stiffs were going to escape or anything! Now that I think of it, Chief Bravo was pretty upset about something. He was acting like he was related to one of the stiffs, but that wasn’t the case at all. Maybe it was because of how cold it was that night, but I’d swear I saw a tear in his eye. But that’s another story all together. Maybe we’ll get to that another time. Anyway, what I couldn’t figure out was why the Chief of Police was at a crime scene in the middle of the night in the first place! And why was he running around, barking orders and telling everyone what to do? This was our Chief Bravo and he never did that! He was famous for assigning other officers to do the dirty work while he sat in his warm squad car and ‘observed’. Then again, this was a really big thing to happen in our little neighborhood, you know. If it got Chief Bravo out of his warm bed on a cold November night, it had to be big stuff.
Or maybe there was another reason or two for him being there, I don’t know. But one thing I do know for sure, he never grabbed my arm and ordered me to start working before that night, never. And he never did it after that night either, for any reason. Usually he never showed up at crime scenes, but when he did show after that cold November night in 1958, he always stayed calm and cordial to me and everyone else around. Not that night, no-sir-ee; Chief Bravo was pretty worked up. Everyone else could tell too. I could see it in their eyes. The Chief wasn’t himself.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes before an officer motioned for me to enter the premises. This guy didn’t look too happy either. He was coming out the front door with his handkerchief held tightly to his nose. After two more steps toward the front door, I reached into my vest pocket for my handkerchief and rushed to cover my nose as well. The pong wafting out the front door was strong and upsetting. As we passed, the officer mumbled, “All yours” and hurried down the front stairs into the fresh air.
From the time the police turned the crime scene over to me ‘til the two caskets were six feet under, I was in charge. This one was a tough one, probably the toughest of my career. It wasn’t the bodies so much. We fixed her up pretty good, so she was an open casket. The father was a different story all together. Without the head and one shoulder, an open casket was out of the question. I mean, we could usually work miracles with some stiffs, but it’s kind of hard to create a head and shoulder. No, it wasn’t the bodies. It was something else all together. For me, it was everything I saw that night. That’s what bothered me. Sometimes it still bothers me.
I’m sure you want the “inside story”; everyone does. There’s not very much kept private these days. Everybody wants to know everybody’s business so they can tell someone else. It makes me kind of mad if I let it get to me. Don’t people have anything better to do with their time? It wasn’t as bad back then, but there were nosey people around who tried to find out things that nobody else knew about. And this case was no different.
But I don’t know everything. I’ve got some facts because I know what I saw with my own eyes. And I’ve got some excellent information from very reliable sources, people who’ve been loyal to me for my entire life. And then the rest of the story is my speculations, just putting the pieces together. That’s why I told you when we started this little conversation. There are two more people you have to talk to. I can point you in the right direction, but that’s about it. After that my son, you’re on your own.
And I’m warning you again. Be mighty careful. There are people in this town who don’t want the true story to ever get out. They want it to stay buried with the bodies I lowered into the ground. If they catch you in the wrong place, they’ll kill you, son.
You can bank on it.
About the author
GARY MICHAELS
After over 25 years of teaching at the college/university level, Dr. Gary Michaels continues to guide students in their quest for academic excellence. He is an outstanding content editor who helps decode committee comments and guides the rewrite process.
Dr. Michaels has authored five books and eight articles that explore, describe and analyze a wide variety of criminal and deviant behavior. Topics of qualitative inquiry include detailed studies of young offenders, uniformed police subcultures, hockey enforcers, outlaw motorcycle clubs, arsonists, youth gangs and how detectives use informants. Further, a nine-year qualitative investigation closed a previously unsolved murder/suicide case, granting closure to the remaining victims.
During his teaching career, Dr. Michaels was the proud recipient of six teaching awards including the Robert F. Kennedy Teaching Excellence Award, the Who’s Who of American Teachers Award, the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Top Five Professors of the Year Award, the University-Wide Contribution to Teaching Award and the esteemed John O’Neill Award for Teaching Excellence. Courses such as Introduction to Sociology, Social Problems, Conformity, Deviance and Social Control, Troubled Youth, Victimology, the Sociology of Policing, Leadership, Music and Society and Qualitative Methods are some of his specialties.