Page 82

In the next page of the report, the narrative voice shifts as a sergeant takes over the case.

Officers Chaussee and Sparks in squad #117 transported evidence packages from the scene to the county medical examiner, where a board-certified forensic pathologist was called in to conduct an autopsy. This began with the removal of the victim’s clothing, which was bagged and later discarded in their incinerator. Also recovered from the body was a gold wedding band and a gold chain necklace with a small six-pointed star, these items recovered at 11:38 p.m.

During the internal examination of the organs, I had the opportunity to take samples of the items requested in the autopsy worksheet for toxicology analysis at the regional crime lab in Milwaukee. The items collected consist of the following:

One brown envelope, containing approx. 40 to 50 hairs pulled from the head of the victim in several locations;

One 4 oz jar containing a sample from the victim’s liver;

One 4 oz jar containing a sample from the victim’s kidney;

One 50 ml tube containing a urine sample;

One 50 ml tube containing a blood sample from the victim’s heart;

One 5 ml tube containing a sample of bile;

Three 5 ml tubes containing a sample of blood from the victim’s chest cavity;

One 12 oz jar containing a sample of stomach contents;

One plastic container containing a variety of insects removed from within the body of the victim.

Sgt. DeGrave, Kenosha Police Department

Death Investigation, May 25, 1996

This must be fact, I think; no fiction writer could get away with naming the sergeant in charge of overseeing an autopsy DeGrave. The scene he describes is macabre, but it contains an unexpectedly sweet detail. I’d forgotten about Mom’s Star of David necklace. Talmudic law decrees I’m Jewish, too, but Mom never talked about her religion, never taught me any Hebrew prayers, never took me to worship at Temple Beth Hillel even though it stood smack in the center of Kenosha. As a little girl, I’d play with the dangling charm when she leaned over to kiss me good night. Why do you wear a star around your neck? I’d ask. Because you’re the brightest star in my heaven, she’d say. I’d lost that lovely memory until Sergeant DeGrave gifted it back to me.

I swallow more wine as I consider the police report, its pages fanned across my bed. It was written as a procedural, but to me it reads like a benediction. There is the honoring of the chakras—head, abdomen, feet—where energy pools in our bodies. There is the ritualistic stripping and cleansing of the corpse. There is the litany of lists, a Kabbalistic recitation of measures and substances. All that’s missing from the ceremonial naming of directions is a burning smudge of sage. I felt cheated, at Mom’s funeral, that there was no coffin into which we could speak our goodbyes. Now I know my mother had a more dignified burial than any formaldehyde-infused corpse caked in makeup for mourners to gawk at.

I turn to another page of the report, written a month after the discovery of my mother’s body:

The condition of the remains in the dunes and the presence of two prescription bottles, which were later confirmed to have been filled earlier on the day of the victim’s disappearance, and the confirmation from the crime lab that those prescription medications were found within the victim’s system at either a high level or a lethal level, at this time lead me to list the manner of death as a suicide. No further investigation required at this time.

Sgt. DeGrave, Kenosha Police Department

Death Investigation, June 22, 1996

I stare at those closing words: No further investigation required. How wrong they were even then. I’ve always had questions that warranted investigation. Here I am, twenty-five years later, still searching.

The final pages of the report hold out the promise of answers. It’s a typed transcript titled “Interview with Larry Beacon, husband of Gloria Beacon, deceased.” It was conducted by Sergeant DeGrave at the police station in early June, before Mom’s death was ruled a suicide. In it, my father reveals everything I never knew how to ask but always yearned to know.

Sgt. DeGrave: Mr. Beacon, tell me again, please, for the record, why you believe your wife’s death was a suicide.

Mr. Beacon: Because, well, um [sigh] the truth is, this isn’t the first time she tried it.

The transcript is tedious, every long-winded question, incomplete thought, and filler word duly noted. After reading it through, I close my eyes to imagine Dad telling me the story himself, in his own voice. He’s here, in Schuywich, sitting on the edge of my bed. He must have just gotten home from work, because his bandana is still tied around his head. He chafes my cold fingers with his rough, warm hands.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says, his face round and healthy again. “I’m going to tell you some things about Mom you were too young to know back then, okay?”

I nod silently, unwilling to disrupt this visitation with speech.

“Gloria was an only child, just like you. Her mom, your grandma, was born in Germany. She was sent away as part of the Kindertransport, but the rest of her family was killed in the Holocaust. Your grandma had some American relatives who sponsored her immigration to Kenosha after the war. That’s where she met your grandpa. He wasn’t a very emotional guy, and your grandma, well, she carried a lot of guilt, and trauma, too. When Gloria turned thirteen and started having depressive episodes, her mother would say things like, ‘What have you got to complain about? The Nazis didn’t murder your family, did they?’ It put a lot of pressure on your mom, growing up in that house.

“Gloria thought things would get better when she went to Madison for college, but after she got there, the depression hit worse than ever. That’s when she tried suicide for the first time. Her roommate found her overdosed on pills in their dorm room. Her parents put her in a psychiatric institution where they gave her electroshock treatments that were like torture. Gloria never forgave her parents for sending her there. Instead of going back to Madison when she was released, she moved in with some friends in Kenosha and got a job waiting tables at Kewpee’s by the bus station. That’s where we met, but you know that story. Anyway, your grandpa was so disappointed by her dropping out of college, he put in for a transfer to the company’s Miami branch. Gloria was only nineteen when her parents moved to Florida. She told me it felt like they were giving up on her.”

“That’s how I felt, when Mom died,” I tell him.