Free THE RIGHT TIME TO DIE by Jason Whitlock

she’s such a genius, why can’t she say who killed the girls? Bodies are the easy part; who, how and why are more challenging.”
    “Look, Ed, if it’s your pride, I can speak with her on my own. You don’t have to talk with her yourself.”
    “I’ll do this my way, Rena, without interference, in my own time.”
    “Will your time be time enough?”
    Changing the subject, Dojcsak said, “I’ll see my mother today.”
    “Today? You saw her yesterday; have you forgotten? She isn’t getting better, you know.”
    Upon learning of Luba’s illness, Ed and Rena had confined Magda Dojcsak to the care of a local nursing home. Dojcsak hadn’t put up much fuss at Rena’s suggestion to move his mother from their home and the second floor bedroom she’d occupied for years. With the necessary gadgetry needed to sustain life—wires, oxygen tanks and tubes—it was no longer practical for Luba to continue to share a room with Rena and Ed. Magda herself hadn’t complained, prepared as always to accept the sacrifice of what she considered her inevitable fate.
    “She likes it when I visit.”
    “Sure, Ed, like she knows it when you visit.”
    “Okay; I like it when I visit,” he replied.
    Of course, Rena thought but didn’t say, it satisfies your sense of obligation. Instead, she asked, “Shall I make you a lunch?”
    “No, I’ll eat out. And don’t bother with supper either. I won’t be home.”
    “Suit yourself.” Studying her husband’s expression, Rena sighed, stood, and said, “Shave any closer, Ed, you’ll strike bone.”
     
    …
     
    With this thought percolating in his mind, Dojcsak left home, pulling from his driveway and directing his late model Crown Victoria along the River Road toward the center of town.
    As expected, the sky had begun to clear, the sun becoming a crescent over the tree line, lacking in warmth but emitting enough light at this hour for Dojcsak to successfully negotiate the strip of asphalt that last evening had caused him such grief.
    To his right, the river was flat, a sheet of plate glass with a fine film of mist rising from its surface like Spanish moss. The Hudson was at its widest and deepest at this point, three miles below Church Falls Bluffs, the steep precipice from which the village had taken its name. The dam had been constructed in the forties, in an effort to control the flow of water as it passed through the village. Prior to that, residents and farmers living within the flood plain had been plagued by frequent overflows, the problem often extending into the village where the channel narrowed and the river became a tumultuous sluice. With the building of the dam, property damage had been greatly curtailed, even if the death toll from recreational activities surrounding the waterway each summer continued steadily to rise.
    The police building was a two-level field stone structure located on the south side of the river. Constructed in eighteen sixty-two by Dutch immigrants to the region, it was jointly occupied by Dojcsak’s small force and a chapter of the town’s volunteer fire department.
    On the first level, the building contained two aging but adequately maintained pumper-trucks, equipped with the appropriate fire-fighting gear. Dojcsak’s office was located on the second level, together with a cubicle shared by Officers Sara Pridmore and Christopher Burke. A third office served as the local police detachment’s center of command.
    Dojcsak’s window overlooked the original Town Square, out over an expanse of yellow, still snow-flattened lawn and to the river beyond. The river was swollen now with runoff from the unusually harsh winter. Barely visible through still winter-naked trees was the recently developed town center, a triangle of new construction which included municipal offices, a community theater, and a commercial complex of over a dozen units housing shops, galleries, and a café serving espresso, latte, cappuccino, and various other exotic