Cecelia thought Pam was following her. Every way she turned, Pam turned. Finally, Pam went another direction. Only then did the sixteen year old head toward the rendezvous.
Pierce was a quick thinker. That day she had kept Pam talking for close to a half hour, carrying out her part in the first-degree murder investigation with great aplomb. She glibly took a slap at her own mother, calling her a “witch,” and poked Pam for seeming surprised when Cecelia first walked in. “I thought you saw Greg standing behind me or something,” the girl had said. Had the conversation been secretly videotaped, Cecelia was the type who probably would have winked at the camera.
If Pierce had any failings that day, it was that she may have been a little too chatty. Perhaps she should have held back a little and let Pam, who seemed quite willing, run on for a while.
All the same, the teenager had done a fine job.
But it was not enough.
◆◆◆
That evening, the Derry police called Cecelia and her mother. They wanted Cecelia to give it one more shot so they could hammer the case down beyond any jury’s idea of reasonable doubt.
The second body wire conversation was set for the next day, Friday the thirteenth.
Cecelia was to pick up where she left off the day before, only adding a new twist or two.
The whole operation, meanwhile, was not going over very big with Cecelia’s relatives who were visiting from the Midwest. Most of the clan from Mrs. Eaton’s side of the family was in town: Cecelia’s grandmother, an aunt and uncle, and some cousins. A number of them were against Cecelia taking part in this; it was too dangerous, they said.
Cecelia was nervous, but now she wanted to do it and get it finished. Leaving her cousin at home this time, Cecelia pulled up into the parking lot around 12:50. She went into SAU 21, but Pam was away at lunch, so the girl went back to the maroon-colored Ford Tempo.
The cops were ready for the show. This time, Pelletier and Charewicz sat in the unmarked car and Captain Jackson, along with Mike Surette, manned the surveillance van. Surette tested the recorder three times. All was go.
The only potential problem was some men who were working not far away, using heavy machinery. But background noise was a hazard in any undercover operation.
Everyone waited. Then, at around 1:10, Pam wheeled into the parking lot, noticed Cecelia, and climbed into the Tempo.
PIERCE: What’s up?
SMART: Hello. I was going to call you but, oh, I figured I’d call you some other time. Your mother answers. Have you gone yet?
PIERCE: I didn’t go.
SMART: Why?
PIERCE: Because Captain Jackson called and he wants me to meet him at 3:30. I’m not going to the attorney general’s today.
SMART: Do you know why? Because I talked to my lawyer and I told him they asked you and it’s ‘cause they’re doing an investigation.
PIERCE: Oh, they are?
SMART: They are calling like everybody now. They have to go to like grand jury to see if they have any evidence.
PIERCE: They’re gonna subpoena me, I know they are.
SMART: They are. They’re gonna subpoena everyone else, too, and any friends I have [inaudible].
PIERCE: They are?
SMART: Yeah, like everybody is going at different times [inaudible] like all Bill’s and JR’s and Pete’s teachers have to go and [inaudible], um, like everyone. They would subpoena me but I’m not going because it’s a conflict of interest ’cause it’s my husband.
PIERCE: Oh?
SMART: But they wouldn’t subpoena me really [inaudible].
PIERCE: I hate this. What happens if I lie on the stand and they find out?
SMART: How would they find out?
PIERCE: Later on.
SMART: How would they find out?
PIERCE: If they, I mean, if somebody says that I did know. I don’t know.
SMART: Well, who would know? Who would say that?
PIERCE: Does JR know what I know?
SMART: Even if he did know that, it’s his word against yours and they can’t prove it….Where are you going? The Derry police?
PIERCE: Yeah. But what I was saying is if I’m, I mean, obviously I knew about it beforehand and if I get up there and lie and if then they find out about it after, I’m gonna get in trouble.
SMART: Well, if you knew about it beforehand and then you say you knew about it beforehand you’re gonna be in trouble.
PIERCE: But I did know about it beforehand.
SMART: Yeah, but if you say that you’re gonna get in trouble anyways.
PIERCE: Uh, hmm.
SMART: So you are better off just—just lying. There is no way. They wouldn’t, in order to arrest you and convict you for accessory to murder, that which means you knew before it happened, they would need to have evidence that you knew, somebody saying something like that is hearsay.
Like these guys are never gonna get convicted for murder unless they have fingerprints and hair and shit and everything. You know what I mean? Like, they’re never just gonna get convicted because Ralph said. They’re not. You know? And right now they could give two flying shits about—about anything regarding anybody else except for, they’re gonna, if they truly have a letter from Jenny, like they’re gonna want to know, they’re gonna want to prove in court that I was having an affair with Bill.
PIERCE: Sure.
SMART: But I told you even if I got arrested tomorrow and they said here’s a letter from Jenny and it’s signed “I love you, Bill, be mine forever,” or whatever—I don’t know, I can’t even remember—then, uh, then it’s, I’m gonna have to say, “OK, yeah, I was.” But I’m not going to say, I’ll just say nobody knew about it besides me and Bill and whoever Bill might have told.
PIERCE: What did they do with the stuff they stole?
SMART: I don’t know. I have no idea.
PIERCE: Did they really steal stuff.
SMART: Uh, yeah.
PIERCE: They did?
SMART: Yeah, things were stolen from my house. But I don’t know. I would assume they threw it out.
Cecelia was now tossing out simple declarative statements about the murder and waiting for Pam to react. The teenager went on to say she hoped Bill did not leave evidence in his bedroom and recollected the night that Bill and Raymond got lost and arrived in Derry too late to kill Greg.
PIERCE: You know what? Remember that time you let Bill use your car to go up there?
SMART: Where?
PIERCE: Well, that time, if he hadn’t have forgotten directions he could have killed Greg then and…
SMART: I know, I really…
PIERCE: …and then I wouldn’t even have spent the next week with you. So if I had…
SMART: I know, but it’s history now. We can’t talk about shit that should have happened. [Inaudible] should have happened, though, you know. Um, the only thing is that…oh, yeah, remember, I don’t know if my phone’s been tapped, but if it was, there was a time when I was talking to you on the phone and you said to me, uh, “You should have just got divorced.”
PIERCE: Yeah.
SMART: Something like that, and hopefully my phone wasn’t tapped when you said that, ’cause I coulda shit when you said that. But if any, if my phone is tapped and anybody asks about that I’ll—I’ll just say that you meant like why—why if, you couldn’t understand why I would have killed Greg, ’cause I would have just gotten divorced.
Pam then talked about Jenny Charles. Smart seemed doubtful that the girl would keep a love note that wasn’t hers for so many months. “If they don’t have that,” Pam said of the investigators, “they don’t have shit.” And what’s more, even if they did have it, why would they want to ask Cecelia about it? Why not ask Jenny?
SMART: I mean, frigging, that’s what I keep saying. Everyone asks me, like the reporters: “Well, so Ralph said this.” I’m like, “Well, fucking ask Ralph, I guess. You know, don’t ask me. Ask Ralph. I don’t know. You know, I don’t know wha
t to tell you, lady. Just ask fucking Ralph.”
Um, but, you know, they might tell you a detail like, “Well, we’ve talked to Bill and Bill said.” OK? That’s bullshit, ’cause those kids have not talked to a fucking soul since they’ve been arrested besides their lawyers, you know, and that’s it.
And even if—if Pete, if they say, “Well, Pete said that, that Bill told him that you knew,” then all you have to say is, “Well, Bill told Pete the wrong thing. Then if Bill’s the murderer, he’s obviously a liar, so, you know, what the hell.” That’s just it. I mean, they’re not going to believe Bill and Pete on the witness stand against you. I mean, come on. They’re friggin’…
PIERCE: Yeah.
SMART: They’re gonna be on trial for murder you know; they're not gonna be believing you and them. All they want to know is—is there anybody else that knew about this before it happened? Because if there is, then they can really bag ’em. You know? But that’s the thing. So I don’t know, you know?
I mean, I wish this wasn’t the circumstances. You know, I hate the fact that you have to be interviewed; I hate the fact that you’re scared; I hate the fact that you’re probably going to have to take a lie detector test. But I don’t know what to tell you. If I thought if you told the truth it was going to do you any good, that’s one thing, but it’s not.
If you tell the truth, you cannot change what you know. You know? You can’t. And if you tell the fucking truth you are probably going to be arrested. And even if you're not arrested, you’re gonna have to go and you’re gonna have to send Bill, you’re gonna have to send Pete, you’re gonna have to send JR, and you’re gonna have to send me to the fucking slammer for the rest of our entire life. And unfortunately, that’s the situation you’re in.
And not only that, but your parents are gonna be like, “Fucking Cecelia,” you know, “What the hell?” I mean, I think your parents will get over the fact that you decided you didn’t want to take a lie detector test. But I don’t think they will get over the fact that for the next two years you’re going to be going to trials sending everybody up, you know, to the slammer for the rest. I’m just saying…
By now, Captain Jackson and Surette were all smile in the surveillance van as they listened to Pam incriminating herself left and right. “Yes!” one of them would say after a particularly ruinous statement. Then they would exchange high fives. “I can’t believe this,” they said. “I can’t believe she’s saying this!”
If Cecelia and Pam had looked over, they might well have seen the van rocking with all the excitement inside. Instead, the roar of the heavy machinery from the nearby work crew was distraction enough, especially for Cecelia.
PIERCE: What the hell are they doing?
SMART: That’s the thing. You’re gonna. I mean (laughs). I don’t know. But all I have to say is I feel like totally feeling you, ’cause I’m afraid one day you’re gonna come in here and you’re gonna be wired by the fucking police and I’m gonna be busted.
PIERCE: All I can say is if Raymond hadn’t run his mouth off…
SMART: I know. Give me some signal that if you ever come down to me and you’re wired that you are going to give me.
PIERCE: I’ll just wink.
SMART: All right. You know, go like this, or…
PIERCE: All I have to say is (laughs)—I thought my watch said quarter past two, I was like great, um, if Raymond hadn’t run his friggin’ mouth off this would have been the perfect murder…
SMART: Right.
PIERCE: …because they set everything up…
SMART: No shit.
PIERCE: …to look like a burglary just like you said.
SMART: No shit. So it’s not my fault. I, fuckin’ Raymond…
PIERCE: If he had not run his mouth off, everything was set up perfect.
SMART: No shit. But the thing is that—that you have to realize that no matter what. Bill’s not gonna drag you into it—
PIERCE: Uh, huh.
SMART: ’Cause it is just going to make it even worse for him.
PIERCE: Right.
SMART: And what good is it going to do to drag—to Pete and JR—to drag you into it?
PIERCE: Yeah.
SMART: Nothing. It’s nothing! You know? Plus, Pete and JR never talked to you about the murder, right? They never said, “Oh, Cecelia, you know.” Right?
PIERCE: Yeah.
SMART: So as far as they know, Bill told them you know. That doesn’t really mean you knew. You know I, that’s the thing…
PIERCE: Right.
SMART: So no one’s ever, don’t worry about them fuckin’, don’t worry about anybody. Pretend like no one is ever going to say you’re lying in twenty years or two days down the road, ’cause no one is ever gonna catch you in a lie, ’cause people are gonna try and catch you in a lie. If anyone, it’s gonna be Pete and JR and it’s just gonna be their word, their convicted-criminal-arrested-for-murder word against yours, you know…
PIERCE: Yeah.
SMART: I mean, and any fuckin jury in the world is gonna, they can’t even arrest you on criminal word. I mean, they know they’re gonna say anything they have to get, to get, you know, off. And that’s the whole thing. So you have to go there and just fucking say the same goddamn fuckin’ story. You know? And don’t change it and that’s it.
And the only thing is I don’t know what they are going to ask you. I would totally shit if they said to you, “Well, Bob Smith who lives next door to Pam said she saw Bill walking into the house on the night of Greg’s murder.” But I’d be like, “The stupid bitch, she waited fucking three months to say what she saw.” You know what I mean?...
Out in Seabrook, Cecelia’s family was worried. They were waiting near Seabrook Beach, at Cecelia’s great-grandmother’s house. The plan was for Cecelia to meet her visiting relatives after the body wire interview with Pam. For safety’s sake, the girl was going to leave with them for the Midwest until Pam was arrested.
Only now, Cecelia was an hour and a half later than expected. “An hour went by and there was still no word,” remembered Mrs. Eaton. “So everybody started panicking. I was staying calm because I figured she’s safe. The police said they’d be there for her. But at the same time I got scared.
“Cecelia’s aunt was wailing over in the corner about how I should never have let her do this, that she couldn’t believe that I actually let her go, and that Cecelia’s probably never gonna come back, that Pam probably shot her and killed her. And I was like, ‘God, cut it out!’”
Back in the SAU 21 parking lot, however, the only person Pam Smart was shooting was herself—in the foot.
SMART: All I know is that, uh, that pretty soon JR is probably gonna roll. He was supposedly only in the car. I don’t know. I have no idea. And pretty soon he is gonna be like, “Fuck Pete and Bill, I’m not going to jail for the rest of my goddamn fuckin’ life.” ’Cause he’s gonna turn against them. And he is gonna blame me.
PIERCE: Right.
SMART: I know he is. And that’s when I’m gonna be in trouble. That’s when I’m gonna get arrested. But I can probably get out of it 'cause they’re not gonna have any proof. You know? But, that’s when I’m gonna be arrested, ’cause JR…
But see, I never said the words, I never said any words like, “JR, I will pay you to kill Greg.” I never said anything. JR never talked to me about the murder or anything. You know? So as far as he knows, Bill could have told them all I’d pay them. I don’t know what Bill told them to get them to go, and then that was just a lie. They’re not gonna have any proof. There’s no money. They’re saying, you know, there’s no…you know what I’m saying? Like, that, ’cause that’s not true. So they can’t convict me ’cause of fucking JR’s sixteen-year-old’s word in the slammer facing the rest of his life.
PIERCE: Well, first of all, you didn’t offer to pay him, right?
SMART: No.
PIERCE: So he’s not gonna say that you offered to pay him. He’s gonna say you knew about it bef
ore it happened, which is the truth.
SMART: Right. Well, so then I’ll have to say, “No I didn’t” and then they’re either gonna believe me or they are gonna believe JR, sixteen years old in the slammer. And then who me with a professional reputation and a course that I teach. You know, that’s the thing.
PIERCE: All right.
SMART: They’re gonna believe me.
Cecelia ended the conversation there, agreeing to drop by Pam’s condo that night, and Smart got out of the car. Seconds later, left alone, Pierce let loose a sigh of relief.
“Yeow,” she said quietly.
In the meantime, the pressure was just starting to build inside the surveillance van. Captain Jackson got behind the wheel and started driving back to the Seabrook Police Department. Thirty-two year old Surette, who had operated the tape recorder, decided to play back Pam’s and Cecelia’s conversation.
He hit the Play button and heard his own voice: “Today’s date is July 13, 1990. This is a conversation recorded between Cecelia Pierce and Pamela Smart at the Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire. This conversation that’s being recorded was with the consent of Senior Assistant Attorney General Bill Lyons.”
And then…nothing.
Surette looked at the machine in disbelief. Nothing?
“Oh, shit!” he said to himself. He looked up at Jackson, who was driving merrily along. “He is going to kill me!”
Surette tried the recorder again. Nothing once more. Not one nanosecond of the fourteen-minute conversation had been recorded. Surette did not know it at the time, but faulty wiring was to blame.
The detective’s stomach turned. He thought he was going to be ill. “How do I tell this guy?” he said to himself as he looked at Jackson. “How do I tell Pelletier?”
We’re gonna have to do it again, Surette thought. That’s it. We’ll have to do it again.
Finally, Surette took a deep breath.
“Hey, captain,” he said. “This thing didn’t record. It’s blank.”
There was no response. All the detective could see was the back of Jackson’s head. He had no desire to see the front.
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