A Death in Canaan Page 8
K:
That’s bothering you too. You whipped out on that question.
P:
What bothers me is my yelling to my mom. When you ask me that question, that’s the first thing I think of.
K:
But I explained to you what I meant by that.
P:
Right.
K:
When I ask you how her legs were broken, you react to that. Did you hurt her? Do you know who hurt her? We go back to this test, see. Then we go back to the last test, same thing again. Look what happened to you here this time when I said: Last night, did you hurt your mother? That’s why I started asking you: Do you recollect everything that happened last night? Look at this reaction. See?
P:
Is that a no or yes?
K:
You said yes. But, the way you reacted shows me—
P:
I was unsure. That’s the question—
You were unsure as to what happened in that house last night, aren’t you? You’re unsure as to what—
P:
What I did?
K:
Yes.
P:
I’m sure what I did.
K:
Then why did you say here a moment ago you’re not sure if you hurt your mother last night?
P:
Wait a second, you got me confused now.
K:
No. I’m not trying to, Pete. But you said a moment ago that you had doubt in your mind if you flew off the handle last night and you don’t recollect.
P:
It doesn’t seem like me. I’ve never flown off the handle.
K:
There’s always the first time.
P:
It still doesn’t seem like me, because I remember coming in the yard, and I remember driving home, and I remember walking straight in that door from—
K:
Pete, we’re missing the boat. Now, from what I read in the reports, your mother likes to walk around at night, in the yard or something.
P:
She likes to sit in the front yard and read.
K:
Now is there a possibility that you came in that yard like a bat out of hell last night and you hit your mother?
P:
No.
K:
And you become frightened and you said, “Holy Christ, what do I do now?”
P:
No, I’m positive.
K:
Accidents can happen.
P:
Right.
K:
And probably you’re so ashamed to admit that this happened that you set it up to look like something real violent happened in the house.
P:
I see what—
K:
This is a possibility.
P:
—you mean. But it wouldn’t have been like me. Honestly, if I had hit my mom, the first thing I would have done was call the ambulance.
K:
All right. But, what if your mother was dead after you hit her? This would scare the shit out of anybody.
P:
But, I also said on the report that she was breathing.
K:
Right. But maybe she died shortly afterwards. You see?
P:
I don’t recall doing it. They can check the car.
K:
I’m just talking to you. From what I’m seeing here, I think you got doubts as to what happened last night. Don’t you?
P:
I’ve got doubt because I don’t understand what happened.
K:
Are you afraid that you did this thing?
P:
Well, yes, of course I am. That’s natural.
K:
Is there any reason where you’ve had a lapse of memory before?
P:
No, no.
K:
For any reason in the past?
P:
No. None. Absolutely none, except once when I tied on a bender.
K:
Well, you certainly weren’t drunk last night.
P:
No.
K:
No. The police officer said that. You’re not sure, are you?
P:
What do you mean?
K:
In your mind, if you hurt your mother last night.
P:
I’m not sure. It scares me a little bit. You know what I mean?
K:
I think you need a little help. If you and I talk this out about last night …
P:
With the polygraph or without it?
K:
Without it. Just man to man. You tell me what happened.
P:
I drove home about forty, and I distinctly remember that because there was a car in front of me I thought was a cruiser. I walked in the front door. Both doors were not quite closed all the way. I yelled, “Mom, I’m home.” There was no answer. I looked up at the bed, the bed light was on and the bed was turned down. I did a double take, because first I figured I’d seen her, because I’m so used to her being up there, then I looked down and I saw her on the floor. There was some blood, and her T-shirt was pulled up. I remember she had no pants on. My first reaction was like, oh my God. As he said, I should have gone to her. But I went to the phone.
K:
What I’m talking about, Pete, is, do you have any recollection as to how she got hurt?
P:
No. I absolutely do not.
K:
Are there any blank areas? Could you have had an argument with your mother last night and not realized it?
P:
No. I don’t know. I’m not the one to say.
K:
You were there, Peter. I see things here that I don’t like. On the question about hurting your mother, you gave me quite a reaction to that.
P:
I know it.
K:
If something happened, let’s get it ironed out so we can see what we can salvage out of this thing.
P:
I don’t understand you.
K:
I think you hit your mother, from what I’m seeing here.
P:
I don’t.
K:
Then why the reaction?
P:
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just nervousness. I mean, my mom did die.
K:
All right. I’ll buy that.
P:
That’s why I’d like to come in and take another test, rather than go by this one.
K:
You said you’re not sure if you hurt your mother last night. Why aren’t you sure?
P:
If I had a lapse of memory, I wouldn’t remember. What I say I did, I’m absolutely sure of. If I had a lapse of memory, that’s what I’m not sure of. Do you understand what I mean?
K:
Do you think you had a lapse of memory?
P:
No.
K:
That’s what I’m trying to get at here, Peter. I don’t know if you did or not. This is why I’m asking you these questions. Because you do give me a certain amount of response when I ask you, did you hurt your mother? See this one …
P:
How about on the first one, when you first ran the test?
K:
First test? We normally don’t look at that. Right here, about your mother, you give me a reaction there. Your heartbeat changes right then. Exactly like your heartbeat changes on the number. We go into this test there. Right there you get the same type of change in your heartbeat when I asked, did you hurt your mother last night? Now on this test, there’s a little bit there, and a great amount here, the last time. A great amount. Then I asked you, do you recollect everything that happened last night?
P:
That was the question I said I did not understand.
K:
The doub
t.
P:
Yes.
K:
You answered yes. Then I said, is there any doubt in your mind? And you hesitated and, as you said, you didn’t understand what I meant. And that’s when I stopped. But that’s the reason I asked you that at the end. Because I don’t think you recollect everything that happened.
P:
Everything I say I mean. If I don’t, it’s not my fault. I’m not doing it on purpose.
K:
Is there any possibility, Peter, you’re covering up for somebody?
P:
No, no. Absolutely none.
K:
Did anybody ever say you might need a doctor?
P:
No.
K:
I’m going to take these across the hall. I want Jack to look at them. If he feels the way I do, maybe we’ll give you another test.
P:
Now?
K:
No, not today.
P:
Good. But if I did it, and I didn’t realize it, there’s got to be some clue in the house.
K:
I’ve got this clue here. This is a recording of your mind.
P:
But there has to be something in that house, someplace. If I did it. Or whoever did it. There’s got to be something, somehow, somewhere.
K:
Right. Right.
P:
They must have found something by now.
K:
They’re working on it, Pete. I’m not in contact with them up there. I’m only a little cog in the big wheel.
P:
Have you ever been proven totally wrong? A person, just from nervousness, responds that way?
K:
No, the polygraph can never be wrong, because it’s only a recording instrument, recording from you. It’s the person interpreting it who could be wrong. But I haven’t made that many mistakes in twelve years, in the thousands of people who sat here, Pete.
P:
That’s right.
K:
Is there any doubt in your mind, right now, that you hurt your mother last night?
P:
The test is giving me doubt right now. Disregarding the test, I still don’t think I hurt my mother.
K:
But you have a doubt, don’t you?
P:
Yes. I’ve been drilled and drilled and drilled.
K:
Did I drill you?
P:
No.
K:
OK.
P:
I don’t know. The doubts—like, when they tell me—
K:
What? Tell you what?
P:
I’m trying to think of what he did say. I know he told me something. I’m losing all memory now because I’m getting tired. But he did tell me that I could have forgotten. That really shook me.
K:
I want my partner to look at these.
P:
Could I go out and have a cigarette?
K:
In about two minutes. OK?
P:
Two minutes. OK.
K:
I just want to have him look at them, and then I think we’ll get you out of here. I don’t want to keep you here anymore. I’ve been looking at your eyes, and they’re sort of sinking down.
P:
What’s going to happen? Am I still going to be staying up at the barracks again, or are they going to let me go?
K:
Well, where could you stay?
P:
I’ve got two families—the Madows, they already offered, and—
K:
Well, we’ll have to take that up with the investigators. I’ll be right back.
The other family Peter meant was the Beligni family.
Jean and Aldo Beligni, their teen-aged sons Ricky and Paul, and their seven-year-old daughter Gina, lived on Furnace Hill Road in East Canaan, not far from the Madows on Locust Hill Road. The Beligni and Madow boys were friends. But their parents had little in common, and until Barbara died, they had never been in one another’s houses.
The Belignis were thoroughly hometown people. Jean was a brisk, take-charge person. She had short hair with bangs, blue eyes that saw just about everything there was to see, and a habit of saying whatever was on her mind. She had studied nursing, but after she married and had children, she stayed home and kept the books for Aldo’s well-drilling business. Jean was born a Speziale, one of the best-regarded and best-known families in their corner of Connecticut. The family prestige didn’t have anything to do with money, though some Speziales acquired it. It had more to do with roots and character, cousins and politics. Jean’s father Sam had been the town barber, a man so well-liked he was called “Sam Special.” When Sam’s funeral procession went through town, all the shopkeepers along Main Street turned off their lights. Another Speziale, Jean’s cousin John, who lived in Torrington, became a lawyer, and then was appointed a Superior Court judge.
Aldo had been born in the house on Furnace Hill Road and expected to die there too. Not that Aldo talked much about dying. In fact, he was an enormously cheerful man, with bright brown eyes and a way about him that suggested, somehow, that everything was going to be all right. He was an old-fashioned man who didn’t drink or smoke and wouldn’t even keep liquor in the house, because of the boys. He had had to drop out of school at age sixteen, but he never stopped reading. Philosophy was his favorite subject, and Kant was his favorite philosopher. But the most remarkable thing about Aldo was not that he was a philosophical well driller, but that for such a sturdy, old-fashioned, hardworking, churchgoing man, he was so popular with the teen-agers, with his sons and their friends. “The most terrible lesson I’m learning in Contemporary Problems is that my father is always right,” Ricky Beligni said. Peter Reilly liked Aldo a lot.
K:
Did you know your mother made a phone call last night? About nine-thirty, to Dr. Lavallo. She was discussing her condition—liver, or something …
P:
I hadn’t heard whether the test came through.
K:
She called him at nine-thirty, which puts you home at almost the exact same time.
P:
That was when I left the Teen Center. I’m positive.
K:
I’m talking approximate. From what the doctor says, she was all alone when she called him, the way she was talking.
P:
How did she sound, did he say?
K:
No. Pete, I think you got a problem. And Jack feels the same way. We go strictly by the charts. And the charts say you hurt your mother last night.
P:
The thing is, I don’t remember it.
K:
The charts don’t say that, Pete. Did she have some fatal disease? Maybe what happened here was a mercy thing. Maybe she asked you to do something to her.
P:
No.
K:
They’ve found out you left the Teen Center before nine-thirty. Your mother hadn’t been dead that long.
P:
She hadn’t?
K:
She talked to the doctor about nine-thirty. That leaves a very short time, Pete. If you say you didn’t do it, the person who did it would have had to be there when you arrived home.
P:
They told me they found the back door open. As much as I remember—and I think I remember all of it, I believe I remember all of it, I never went past the bedroom door, so I couldn’t get to the back door.
K:
Maybe your mother left it open. But I think you got something on your mind, Peter, and you just don’t know how to come out with it.
P:
Would that show you what I’m actually thinking right now?
K:
That shows me from your heart that you hurt your mother last night. How, I don’t know.
P:
I don’t k
now either.
K:
I’m trying to figure this out. If you came roaring into the yard, a Corvette is a car you go like hell with. My brother-in-law has one, and I know how he drives it. You come flying in with that damned thing, and you went over her with the car, and you panicked.
P:
I didn’t, though. I don’t remember it.
K:
Then why does the lie chart say you did?
P:
I don’t know. I can’t give you a definite answer.
K:
You don’t know for sure if you did this thing, do you?
P:
I don’t. No, I don’t.
K:
Why?
P:
Well, your chart says I did. I still say I didn’t.
K: