A Death in Canaan Read online

  Sergeant Salley got behind the wheel of the cruiser.

  “How do you feel?” he asked Peter.

  “I feel all right,” Peter said.

  The cruiser headed north on Route 7, leaving the murder house behind, with all the lights and bustle. The night closed in again, thick and black. Mickey watched the cruiser disappear down the long straight road, past the dark swamp, then he got into the Toyota and drove home.

  Mickey wasn’t worried yet.

  The Connecticut State Police Barracks, Troop B, is a solid, square, red-brick building about a mile from the center of Canaan, right at the Massachusetts border. The town was very quiet at 2:00 A.M. when Sergeant Salley and Peter drove through.

  Sergeant Salley took Peter into a big room. The room was used as a kitchen and lunchroom by the troopers, and there were a table and chairs in the center and several vending machines along the wall.

  “Do you want a cup of coffee?” Sergeant Salley asked Peter.

  “No thank you,” Peter said. He never drank coffee. He was hungry, though. He hadn’t eaten since lunch at school on Friday, more than fourteen hours before. He bought himself a candy bar from a vending machine and ate it, sitting at the table across from Sergeant Salley.

  For a while he tried to make conversation. He told him a little about school and who his friends were. He said he was very interested in cars.

  But as the morning dragged on, Peter yawned more and more often. He put his head down on the table, and finally he asked Sergeant Salley if he could lie down. “Not yet,” Sergeant Salley said. “Wait a few more minutes. Lieutenant Shay will be here, and then you can get some sleep.”

  The lieutenant was still out at Barbara’s, where the lights were all on, the scene still busy and hectic. When Sergeant Chapman had taken all his pictures, Dr. Izumi finally had a chance to examine Barbara further. He picked up the clothes near the body, the underpants inside the blue jeans. They were still wet. He took off her T-shirt, which was pushed up around her breasts, and her outer shirt, which was unbuttoned and partly off. He straightened out the fingers of her right hand and saw that something had pierced the palm all the way through. He tied plastic bags around Barbara’s hands.

  Mickey had just got into the house when the phone rang. It was a Corporal Logan, asking whether Mickey and Marion and Fran would mind coming down to the barracks in the morning to give statements.

  “We’re still up,” Mickey said. “We might as well come on down now.”

  “No, no,” the policeman said. “Tomorrow’s soon enough. Get some sleep, and we’ll see you in the morning.”

  “What about Peter Reilly?” Mickey asked. “Will he be finished soon?”

  “In about half an hour, maybe three quarters of an hour,” Corporal Logan said.

  “Do you want me to come down and get him?” Mickey asked.

  “No,” said Corporal Logan. “We know where you live, Mick. We’ll run him up to your house when we’re finished.”

  Mickey hung up, and soon everybody went to bed. Marion had already opened the sleep sofa in the den; she left the porch light on. It was between 2:30 and 3:00 then, just about the time a policeman was knocking on the door of John Sochocki’s house. Peter had driven John home after the Teen Center meeting, and the police wanted to talk to him down at the barracks. John was in bed, but the police didn’t want to wait. Tomorrow wasn’t soon enough.

  It was after four in the morning when they took Barbara away. First they rolled her to the left and put a sheet on the floor under her. Then they rolled her to the right and put the rest of the sheet under her. In this way, four people could carry her out without touching her, simply by holding the four ends of the sheet. When they rolled her over, they saw slashes and puncture marks on her back. But they didn’t know her legs were broken until several hours later, at Sharon Hospital, when her body was lifted to the autopsy table and Dr. Izumi heard a sound, the sound of grating bones.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Peter said once more. And again, a trooper went along into the bathroom with him. Back in the lunchroom, he put his head down on the table again, but still he couldn’t sleep. He was very, very tired. He had sat in the cruiser out at the house for three hours, and now he sat in the barracks kitchen for four hours more, waiting for Lieutenant Shay.

  Sergeant Salley left the room a few times, and when he came back in, after one of his trips out, he had a card in his hand. He told Peter he was going to read him this card, which listed his constitutional rights. “It is my responsibility to give it to you, and it is very much your responsibility to pay attention to it,” Sergeant Salley said.

  “Am I being charged with something?” Peter said.

  “No,” Sergeant Salley said. But he began to read the rights anyway. He was still reading when Lieutenant Shay walked in. It was about six in the morning.

  Lieutenant Shay and Peter went upstairs then, to a small back room on the second floor, away from the street. The officer took out a constitutional rights card, too. The language was similar to the others, except that this form, which Lieutenant Shay asked Peter to sign, included a waiver as well.

  “Does this mean I can’t have a lawyer?” Peter asked.

  “No,” the lieutenant said. “It just means you are willing to talk to me without a lawyer.”

  Peter signed the warning form then, waiving his rights. In fact, he signed two of them. Then he began to talk.

  He related the day, just as he’d told it to Bruce McCafferty in the cruiser and to Shay himself in the Kruses’ kitchen. When he got to the part about Barbara lying on the floor, Lieutenant Shay was surprised that Peter didn’t cry.

  Peter and Barbara. This is what it kept coming back to. Although Lieutenant Shay asked Peter questions about school, and his cars, and whether he had any relatives in Connecticut or anyplace else, and whether he went out with girls, he talked mostly about Barbara. He asked Peter whether he’d ever had sexual relations with Barbara. Peter said he hadn’t. Lieutenant Shay talked in such a probing way that finally Peter asked him some questions.

  “Say, how many years of psychology have you had?” Peter asked.

  Lieutenant Shay seemed taken aback, but he answered.

  “Two years,” he said.

  “Am I a suspect?” Peter asked.

  “Yes,” Lieutenant Shay said.

  “Then could I have a lie detector test?” Peter asked.

  “That’s a good idea,” Lieutenant Shay told Peter. “I’ll arrange it for you. Meantime, I think some sleep is in order.”

  They had been in the little room about an hour, maybe a little longer, starting about 6:30 in the morning. It was a quiet room, in the back of the barracks. It was a quiet Saturday morning. The window and the door were closed, only Peter and Lieutenant Shay in the room, ten by twelve feet, facing one another across a table. The entire conversation between the two of them, in this quiet little room, was recorded, but later, when people tried to listen to the tape, and many people did, they found it was far too garbled to make any sense.

  Lieutenant Shay took Peter to one of the barracks bedrooms. There were two single beds, one of them all ready for Peter, with the top sheet turned down over a gray wool blanket. As he left, Lieutenant Shay took Peter’s shoes.

  Dr. Izumi was sleeping down the hall, in a room just like Peter’s. He had left the house a little after five, but instead of going home, he had come to the barracks to get a few hours sleep before he did the autopsy on Barbara. Dr. Izumi’s door was closed, but the door of Peter’s room was open. A trooper sat on a chair in the hall, facing into the room, watching Peter.

  Peter said later he couldn’t seem to fall asleep. He turned over one way, then the other. He couldn’t stop thinking about the night before, about things people had said. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed. He dreamed that he hadn’t gone to the Teen Center, that he’d stayed home, and that somebody came into the house. Peter dreamed about Barbara.

  Just as he was falling asleep, t
he Madows were getting up. In the morning sunshine, the porch light was still on.

  3

  “Hey, Pete,” Jim Mulhern said. “Wake up. Hey, Pete.”

  Peter came awake suddenly, with a start. For a few seconds he didn’t remember where he was—a few, unfocused seconds when he didn’t remember any of it. Then he remembered that something bad had happened, and he wanted Barbara. She always told him she would be there, if he needed her. Peter stared at Mulhern, then it all came back, a crash within his head. He’d been in bed about four hours. It was noon.

  “Are you hungry?” Jim Mulhern asked. “Do you want something to eat or drink?”

  “No thank you,” Peter said. “I don’t have any appetite.”

  “Well, come on then,” Mulhern said. “We’re going to Hartford now.” That was where the polygraph tests were given.

  “OK,” Peter said. He got out of bed and put on his jeans and his belt. Mulhern had brought back his shoes, and he sat on the bed and put them on, too. They were the same clothes, the same shoes—brown knit shirt, Landlubber jeans, tan sneakers—that he had worn to school the day before; the same clothes he was wearing at the Teen Center meeting that night. Joanne Mulhern had seen him wearing those clothes at the meeting, and she saw him wearing them now. She had been asked to come down to look at Peter and she did. The police asked whether these were the same clothes Peter had been wearing the night before. “Yes,” Joanne Mulhern said, and she signed a statement saying so.

  Lieutenant Shay had told Mulhern not to discuss the case with Peter, so they talked, on the drive to Hartford, about all sorts of other things. Peter sat in the front seat, just the two of them in the car. They talked about TV commercials and about motorcycles. Barbara had always loved motorcycles. For stunt riding she preferred the big bikes, Peter recalled. She used to laugh and say that riding a little Honda was like riding a skateboard.

  Police headquarters in Hartford is a sturdy, stone block of a building, across Washington Street from the courthouse, one fortress facing another. Jim Mulhern and Peter had made good time. They had left Canaan at 12:40 and got to Hartford at two o’clock. Lieutenant Shay arrived a little later in another car.

  Peter asked to go to the men’s room, where he washed his face and tried to brush through his hair with his hands. His hair was long and needed washing, and he felt a little scraggly. Mulhern took him upstairs, to a small room where a police officer was waiting, then Mulhern left. Peter didn’t see him again for quite a while.

  Cpl. Jack Schneider was short and brisk, with a crew cut. He seemed interested and friendly.

  “Pete, you know why you’re up here, don’t you?” Corporal Schneider asked.

  “I guess I’m here just to confirm my statement,” Peter said.

  “Right,” Corporal Schneider said. “That’s the reason you’re here.”

  Schneider explained to Peter that Sgt. Tim Kelly would be doing the actual testing. “He’s reading all the reports over, so he’ll know what he’s talking about when you and him get together in the polygraph room,” Schneider said.

  “Right,” Peter said.

  Schneider gave him a form that said he was taking the test voluntarily. Peter signed it and wrote the time. It was 2:40 P.M. “This is confidential information,” Schneider told Peter. “It stays here. Everything that we do today, or any forms we make out, remain here.

  “What do your friends call you?” Schneider asked, in a friendly tone. “Do they call you Pete?”

  “Either that, or Petey,” said Peter.

  “I’ll call you Pete,” Schneider said. “Most of my friends I call Pete.”

  He asked Peter where he lived, and where he was born, and when. “Somewhere in New York City,” Peter said. “On March 2, 1955.”

  “What nationality are you?” Schneider asked.

  “English, I think,” Peter said. “And German. English and German.”

  “Basically the same thing that I am,” Schneider said. “What’s your religion?”

  “I have none,” Peter said.

  “You have none?” Schneider repeated.

  “No, I’ve never been baptized,” Peter said.

  “You’ve never been baptized?” Schneider repeated again. He paused. “You ever think about it? Do you believe in the Supreme Being?”

  “Well, I believe there’s got to be someone, someplace, always has been and always will be,” Peter said vaguely.

  “OK, good,” Schneider said. “You own a car, Pete?”

  “Well, it’s my mom’s car,” Peter said. “It’s in her name. A 1968 Corvette.”

  “You lived with your mother. Was it just you and your mother?” Schneider asked. Peter said yes. “Any idea who you’ll be living with now?” Schneider asked.

  Peter named Jean Beligni. “She told me, if anything ever happens, to come right to them, if I ever need help, if I ever need a place to stay. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Now, Pete, have you ever been in a mental institution?” Schneider asked. “Treated by a psychiatrist or psychologist?”

  “Not that I know of,” Peter said, then he thought of something. “Lieutenant—what’s his name—yeah, Shay—he told me he had a couple years of psychology. That’s the only thing I ever had to do with it. That was in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “OK,” Schneider said. He established that Peter wasn’t on drugs and hadn’t been smoking marijuana.

  “Did they give you any kind of medication to calm you down?” Schneider asked.

  “No,” Peter said. “I’ve been very level-headed about it.”

  “You are,” Schneider agreed.

  “I figure I would save my tears for later,” Peter said. “This is more important.”

  Schneider was about finished. “If you have any questions about the polygraph, I’ll be glad to answer them,” he said.

  “You’re the only person who has been straightforward with me the last twenty-four hours,” Peter said. “I’ve been drilled and drilled and drilled, and gone over and gone over, you know?”

  The polygraph room was quiet. It was a pleasant room twelve by fourteen feet, in soft colors—yellow acoustical tile, a green carpet. The polygraph machine was built into a desk. Corporal Schneider motioned to the chair beside it, a straight-backed chair with a leather seat and wooden arms that could be adjusted up or down.

  “Sit right here,” Schneider said. “That’s what we call the seat of honor.”

  Peter sat down. Schneider told him to roll up his sleeve and flex his muscle. “That’s good. Right there,” Schneider said. He tied a rubber cuff around Peter’s arm, a Childs Cardio-Cuff, but he didn’t tighten it yet. It was attached by a tube to a stainless-steel pen. Schneider explained the apparatus that measured blood pressure, heartbeat, pulse. “That’s very important,” Schneider said, “because that’s the only muscle in your body you can’t control.”

  “Right,” Peter said.

  “There are three things we can say here today,” Schneider said. “You told us the truth. Or you didn’t tell us the truth. Or there’s some mental or physical problem, and we can’t test you. If there’s some reason we can’t test you, we’ll test you some other time. As long as you want to. OK?”

  “Right,” Peter said.

  When Peter was ready, the apparatus set up, Corporal Schneider told him he was going to get Sergeant Kelly. The corporal looked at Peter as he left the room.

  “Just relax,” the officer said.

  Peter sat straight up in the seat of honor, waiting.

  Marion Madow knew that Peter was going to Hartford for a polygraph test. Jim Mulhern had told her when she went down to the barracks a little before nine o’clock Saturday morning. She was a little surprised, but she thought it was just routine, just a little delay until Peter came home with her. She knew Jim Mulhern. Her sons knew him. So did Peter. They all knew him, and they trusted him.

  She gave Mulhern a statement about what she had seen and done the evening before, beginning
with Peter’s phone call. Then she went home, to start her weekend chores. She did the weekly food shopping on Saturday, a big job with a family of five. And now there were six. Everybody was pleased that Peter was coming to stay with them. Nan couldn’t get over how thin he was. “Oh, I’m going to fatten him up,” she had said, with a smile.

  Sgt. Timothy Kelly was a big, strong-looking man—six feet, 220 pounds, a brown belt in judo. He had a bristling gray crew cut, and his eyes were keen behind black-rimmed glasses. Tim Kelly had been a member of the Connecticut State Police for twenty-one years, stationed all that time in Hartford. He was chief of the polygraph division, with four men working for him. But this was his last season in Hartford. In the spring he planned to retire to Fort Myers, Florida, where he was going to do private polygraph work and collect seashells. He was a big man, with a big voice, but his voice wasn’t gruff or rough. It was deep, but surprisingly soft.

  K:

  Pete, how are you?

  P:

  OK. And you?

  K:

  Good. Tim Kelly is my name. Sergeant Kelly of the state police.

  P:

  Pleased to meet you.

  K:

  Know why you’re here, Pete?

  P:

  Well, I guess, to determine whether the things in my statement are true.

  K:

  Right. Now, last night you gave a statement up in Canaan. They told you your constitutional rights. Now I’ve got to go through the same thing again. This is a new day. I’m a new person, OK?

  P:

  OK.

  K:

  You have a right to remain silent. If you talk to the police, anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to consult with an attorney before you’re questioned and may have him present during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. If you wish to answer questions you can stop answering questions at any time. In other words, Pete, you can leave here anytime you want. You just say, ‘Hey, Tim, I want to go home, let me take the equipment off.’ And you can go home. Fair enough?