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from the blog And Sometimes the Abyss Winks at You by Mia Swain
Hello, my wonderful readers. I know you come to me for tips and chuckles about how my personal life is spiraling down the drain, but I am going to change gears here, and I hope you will stay with me. Allow me to answer one last reader question as a way of seguing into an abrupt detour that might come as a shock to you.
The reader question is this: Keeping a blog fresh every week must be hard. Where do you get all your ideas?
The way it works for me, dear Cynthia from Front Royal, Virginia, is this: First thing every morning (after a tinkle, of course), I take a book down off the shelf, any book at random, and then sit with my coffee and start to read. This will be around 5:00 or so in the a.m., with the windows still dark, and one small reading lamp on. Within a page or two, some word or phrase will hit me like a small, soft jolt, and in an instant a new idea will bloom. Anything by Anne Lamott is sure to get my creative juices flowing, but David Sedaris and Sylvia Plath are always reliable too.
This soft jolt of inspiration doesn’t happen every day, of course. Usually not at all when I’m working on a long piece, but when I have no specific plan for that morning’s work. When I am open to suggestion.
Yesterday morning, I was open to suggestion. A week earlier, my editor and I had finished the developmental edit of my very first novel (Travels with Diazepam, in case you’ve forgotten), so I was killing time until the copyedited manuscript arrives by email with its legion of traumatizing corrections. I started the day reading from Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. Within minutes I was at the laptop, ready to pound out a new short story. This had already happened six mornings in a row; six new short stories conceived and completed. Very unusual for me. Especially since I hadn’t written a short story in at least a year prior to that blitz. I told a friend, jokingly, that it was like being in an odd type of manic phase. The mania would pass the moment I typed The End on that day’s short story.
And there would have been a seventh short story too—although I lost all memory of it when I saw the news crawler headline about Grayson Rath on my start page. Something about his photo pulled me to it. He was just another scrawny kid with dirty brown hair and hooded eyes and an insolent, crooked smile. It was his senior picture from high school. I can’t tell you how many dozens of boys just like him I have known in my life. (And yes, Ian, you duplicitous rat bastard, I am talking about you.) So there was that sense of familiarity that pulled at me. Plus the strangeness of his name. The too-fitting appropriateness of his name. I mean, who names their baby boy Grayson? Gray son. Especially with a surname like Rath, which immediately brought to mind both wrath and wraith. There is a theory that our names determine our fate, the person we become. If that is true, Grayson’s parents, Alaina and Rodney Rath, damned him from the start.
That morning, I didn’t even open up a blank Word.doc to begin the new short story. Instead I read everything I could find online about this 19 year-old boy who had slaughtered his own mother and her lover and was now on the run. The jolt I received from those accounts was far from soft. It kept vibrating in me, the wavelength tightening minute by minute until I admitted to myself that I had no choice but to write about him and try to understand him. And perhaps, in some way, to make a little sense not only of this whacked-out society from which he had sprung, but also—let’s be honest here, folks—to make a little sense of my own unfocused, sometimes obsessive, possibly bipolar, hypersensitive self.
Tomorrow morning, to wit, I will be in my car on my way to Gilford, that little town outside Athens, Ohio where Grayson Rath stabbed and bludgeoned to death the woman who gave birth to him, and the man he caught in flagrante delicto with her in Grayson’s father’s bed. And oh yes, the three black labs. He killed them too.
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Grayson Rath voice recording
The way it happened is, there was a break before my 2:00 class, and I had 140 minutes to kill. And I was starving. I can’t stand the cafeterias, what with all the noise and lines and everybody jabbering about nothing important, so I figured I could blow 15 minutes driving home, make some mac and cheese or one of those frozen pot pies or both, and then decide if I wanted to blow off my afternoon classes or not.
But there’s Mom’s car in the driveway, when she’s supposed to be doing an interview. There was a dentist in Athens looking to replace a hygienist about to go on maternity leave. Anyway that’s what she told us the night before. But you could never tell about her.
The dogs have their noses pressed to the wire and are beating their tails back and forth. I’m the one that feeds and waters them, that’s why they like me so much. With anybody else they act like they want to rip out your throat. I probably would have taken them out and let them run through the house while I was there except for the car in the driveway.
And the moment I go into the house, I know what’s going on. I can feel it in the air. I think I might be a little psychic that way. Plus I smell the guy. Right Guard mixed with sweat. And that’s when everything went gray on me. I’d describe it as walking into a room full of gray. That’s how I get. Some people see red when they get mad, I see gray. With my head feeling like it’s swelling up. Like my brain is pushing hard against the inside of my skull.
Things didn’t really clear up after that until I was looking down at the guy on the floor. We’re in the living room then. And I’m feeling pretty good. Feeling empty and light and a little bit sleepy. I mean I’m feeling right with the world. So I drop the ball bat and follow the blood upstairs, and that’s when I see what I did to Mom. It doesn’t really bother me much either. Like I knew she was going to end up that way sooner or later.
Then for some reason I think about the dogs, and what’s going to happen to them now. Al never cared a damn about them, just took them in so the woman at the rescue center he was hustling didn’t think he was a jerk, which he pretty much is, even though he promised he’d hire me on commission at the dealership come summer. He said I’d make a good salesman. Had the gift, he said.
Anyway, seeing as how that possibility was all shot to hell now, I went out to the garage and looked around for a peaceful way to take care of the dogs, because there was no way I could hang around that place anymore. Never did feel at home there. Or anywhere, to be honest about it. Even if I got rid of the baseball bat and bread knife, who knew how many people saw me drive up outside and park? Mr. Douglas next door is a busybody if there ever was one. Always coming out onto his porch and looking around because he heard a bird chirp or something.
Anyway, I saw the antifreeze and dumped out the whole bottle in a low spot on the kennel floor. They went after it right away, which made me feel good that I could leave them in peace.
I went back upstairs and peeled off my clothes and hopped into the shower, then dressed and threw stuff into a couple of leather satchels I always liked that belonged to Al, and grabbed whatever else I could find laying around, including his jewelry and a couple of her diamond rings, the cash she kept in her panty drawer, all the cash in the guy’s wallet in his pants laying at the foot of the bed, the stash Al kept in old Bible, plus my own stash of cash and my laptop, some extra Metallica and Linkin Park CDs I liked plus a bag of food from the kitchen and what was left of a case of water. The back seat of the Camaro was piled pretty high by the time I was done. Didn’t know where I was headed and didn’t much care. If you want to know the truth of it, I was feeling free for the first time in my life. And figured I wouldn’t be taking any more classes for a while, ha ha.
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from the blog And Sometimes the Abyss Winks at You by Mia Swain
Yep, a new blog already. I can’t help it; my head is spinning. So for now I am dumping the once-a-week schedule in favor of a whenever-I-feel-like-it schedule. But no worries, gentle readers; every blog will remain accessible in the archives.
And, if you were paying attention when you read the previous blog, you would have noticed that I h
ave also jettisoned the 500-word limit I used to impose upon myself. How long will my new blog posts be? Don’t know, don’t care.
Here is what I do know today:
I spent my first morning in Gilford, Ohio reading the police report and talking to the officers who responded to the 911 call. According to that report, eerie quiet was how the mail delivery person, Amber Wright, 43, described the scene. I caught her along her route, and we talked for several minutes. Later I visited the Murcko home.
“Usually by the time I reach for the mailbox handle,” Amber told me, “those three dogs are barking to beat the band. But this time they weren’t making a sound. I couldn’t even hear any birds singing. The whole neighborhood was eerie quiet.”
The house, owned by Mr. Allen Murcko, owner of three Murcko Motors dealerships and Grayson Rath’s legal guardian, is a 1996 two-story country-style home—one of 10 surrounding a small lake, with at least 100 feet of manicured yard between each home. A smooth macadam road loops around the rear of the houses, with second and third growth woods surrounding the other side of the road. The ten Balmoral mailboxes, all bronze with a powder-coated finish and golden flag, house number, and pull knob, rim the road, with the houses some 40 yards away facing the lakefront. A dog kennel made of chain-link fencing is attached to the side of the Murcko garage, with one of the narrow ends visible from the mailbox.
It was not uncommon for Ms. Wright to deliver a package too large for the mailbox, or one via airmail that required Mr. Murcko’s signature. “Lainey was always buying stuff online, and Mr. Murcko got a lot of stuff from India or China or somewhere. In which case I’d drive up to the house and go knock on the door. Just so happened this was one of those days.”
The silence as she approached the porch made her nervous. “Something just wasn’t right, you know? Why weren’t those dogs barking at me and going crazy up against the wire? And why was the back door standing open? It was a nice sunny afternoon but only about 48 degrees out.”
The dogs, when discovered by police late in the day, were already suffering from acute renal failure. An empty gallon container of anti-freeze was found in the corner of the kennel, a wide stain on the concrete floor where the liquid had been poured out for the dogs to lap up. By the time they were taken to the local veterinary hospital, one animal had died. The other two were euthanized.
Earlier that afternoon, standing just outside the back door, which opens onto the kitchen, Ms. Wright had been able to see the upper half of a male body in the living room, with a conspicuous pool of blood beneath his head. “He was naked for as far as I could see, plus about half as wide as Mr. Murcko would’ve been if that was him laying there. But too big to be the boy. I was off that porch and back inside my Jeep in three seconds flat. Took me another 30 seconds or so to get my breath. And that’s when I called 911.”
The murders took place on October 25th, a few days prior to my arrival in Athens. By the day of my visit, Mr. Allen Murcko had not yet moved back into the home, even though the scene had been processed and released to him again. I called Mr. Murcko’s local car dealership from my hotel room that day, and asked for an interview. “I can meet you at the house if you want,” he told me. “Give you a walk-through while you hear all the gory details.”
Mr. Murcko is of medium height, 52 years old, with a head of shiny back hair. His deep chest and broad physique suggest a daily fitness regime. “I’m a gym rat and proud of it,” he told me. “My workout puts a lot of those younger guys to shame.” On the day he walked me through his home, he wore a tailored blue pinstriped suit, a crisp white shirt with the top two buttons loose, thick-soled brown dress shoes, gold cufflinks and a gold Rolex watch. He has a deep tan and reeked of cologne.
The house was immaculate, though the scent of cleaning solvents and air fresheners was as strong as his cologne, especially in the master bedroom. There were no mattresses on his king-size bed, and the oak plank floor was bare. “This is where it got started, apparently,” he told me, and waved a hand over the bed frame. “Grayson was supposed to be at college that day, but the way things look, he came home early and caught his mother going at it with the guy who ended up downstairs.”
“Blunt force trauma,” I said, quoting from the police report.
“On him, yeah. Thirty-two inch Louisville Slugger. I bought it for the boy hoping he’d take to baseball, which he didn’t. Anyway, before using it on his mother, he stuck a bread knife in the middle of her back. While she was riding the pony, apparently. Stuck it in and left it sticking in there. Then he whacked the guy across the head with his bat, then finished off his mother while the guy tried to drag himself down the stairs. The boy caught back up with him in the living room. The blood, I’ll tell you, it was everywhere. Those cleaning people do good work. They should, for the money they get.”
He seemed strangely removed from it all. I asked, “Were you surprised that she was having an affair?”
“Nothing people do surprises me. I’ve seen it all. As for Lainey, I caught her twice already before this. Different guys.”
“Yet you stayed together?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t appreciate her doing it right under my nose, but I felt sorry for her. Her and the boy both. I’m a generous person; ask anybody. Besides, she always had her problems.”
“Such as?”
“Depression mostly. Starved for attention. Which she got plenty of, considering the way she looked. She was just weak is all. Needed somebody telling her all the time how beautiful she was. Like she couldn’t look in a mirror and see for herself.”
“She was, uh…”
“A babe? I certainly thought so. Me and every other man in town.”
“What I meant to ask about was her age.”
“About 30.”
“If I recall correctly, the police report said 34.”
“Go with that then.”
“So she had Grayson when she was…15?”
“Yep. She was one of those babymama’s like you see on TV.”
“And the male victim?” I asked.
“A little older than her, I’d say. Just another of life’s losers. He picked the wrong house this time, that’s for sure.” He smiled to himself, then turned his gaze to me. “And how old are you, may I ask?”
“Thirty-one. Did you know the man? Before he was identified, I mean?”
“Didn’t know him from Adam. Turns out he was a lawyer. Arguing a case over in Athens at the City Hall. Supposed to be on recess. How’s that for poetic justice?”
“Married, three children,” I added.
“Some people might say he got what he deserved.”
“Would you say that?”
“Eh,” he said. “I’ve never known a lawyer that wasn’t a sleazeball. There might be some of them out there somewhere, but I’ve never met one. And I’ve met plenty.”
“How long were you and Mrs. Rath together?”
“You look younger than 31, you know that? I bet you still get carded at bars, don’t you?”
“I don’t drink.”
“That’s why you have such beautiful skin.”
He put a hand to my face, finger extended to touch my cheek, but I drew back. “How long were you and Mrs. Rath together?”
He smiled again. “Grayson was nine when I hired her to work for me.”
That would make her 24 when she became employed by Mr. Murcko. “Doing what?” I asked.
“Cleaning person at the dealership. That’s all she was qualified for. She never even finished high school.”
“And then you started dating?”
“Dating?” he said. “Humping like rabbits is more like it. That doesn’t offend you, does it?”
If he was hoping to make me blush, he failed. “Words are tools,” I told him. “I believe in using the best tool for the job. So you hired her for the sex?”
He grinned at me and said, “Paying for sex is illegal, isn’t it?”
He waited for me to respond, but I chose not to.
“I hired her to clean. The fact that we got down to it that first night, after everybody else had gone home, that was just a happy coincidence. Can’t fight a mutual attraction. A week later, she and Grayson moved in and I had to hire another cleaning person.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
He didn’t like that question. For the first time all day, his smug little smile faded.
I asked, “How did you and Grayson get along?”
At this, he turned and pointed a finger at me. “Listen, I want to make it clear that I did everything I could for that boy. I was generous to a fault. To him and his mother both. I put her through dental hygiene school, did you know that? Associate of Applied Science. Shelled out for the boy’s braces, new $100 sneakers every few months, whatever he needed. Her I dressed in the best clothes and jewelry on the market. Go ahead and look through her closet, if you want. Over there’s her jewelry box. You look through it all and then tell me I didn’t treat them right.”
I cannot remember that conversation now without seeing superimposed upon it the image of another narcissist, one who also looked straight into the camera and made his own adamantine denial. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky….”
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Grayson Rath voice recording
I knew the car was a problem. It was like driving a big red box with my name scrawled all over it. I had at best a four-hour start before Al came home. It strikes me as kind of funny that I don’t even think about calling him Dad anymore. When did that stop? Sometime before my teens, I guess. He wanted me to call him that, like it was another accomplishment for his resume. CEO. Rotarian of the Year. Premier Dealer Award. That shit mattered to him. Me, I guess maybe I had no more respect for him than Mom did. He bought me stuff, so I was polite to him. That’s about all there was to it.
Incident on Ten-Right Road Page 19