Socks, of course, come in pairs – and one interesting feature of this story is that, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, there might have been no way of being sure that the bloodstained sock Nate Appleyard saw in Kristie Reville’s car was the same one that later showed up in Melody’s school bag. However, both Annette Chapa and Kristie Reville separately told detectives that it had proved impossible to find Melody a matching pair of socks that morning, and so, for the first time in her life, Melody set off to school wearing only one sock with a border of lace around the top of it. The other sock she wore that day was white and ribbed, with no lace. Hence, detectives were able to conclude that the sock that had shown up in the school bag was very likely to be the same one Nate Appleyard had seen in Kristie Reville’s car.
There were also strands of Melody’s hair in her school bag, and lots of dead blowflies and larvae from the same species – one that’s known as the coffin fly on account of it regularly being found in close proximity to corpses. Tests on the strands of Melody’s hair revealed that she had been subject to arsenic poisoning for a period of at least three months.
On May 22, 2010, the day the case was put before a grand jury to see whether Kristie Reville should stand trial for murder, Bonnie Juno interviewed Annette and Naldo Chapa live on Justice With Bonnie. Melody’s parents won over many Americans by insisting that Jeff and Kristie Reville could not possibly have abducted or hurt their daughter. Most people by this point believed that Kristie Reville had murdered Melody and hidden her body, and that Jeff was covering for her. Nevertheless, the Chapas’ determination to believe in the goodness of their trusted neighbors and friends endeared them to the nation. Bonnie Juno told the Chapas that she understood only too well why they believed the Revilles to be innocent, strongly implying again that they themselves were guilty. Annette Chapa broke down, and she and her husband walked off the set, ending the interview prematurely.
Bonnie Juno, by now as unpopular as Kristie Reville, was attacked extensively across all media platforms. Juno is six feet tall and sturdily built, and she was accused by legal commentator Mark Johnston of being ‘a rancid, vindictive transvestite-drag-act bitch’ – an insult for which Johnston later publicly apologized. Juno’s former husband, renowned defense attorney Raoul Juno, gave an interview to his ex-wife’s professional rival, HLN’s Nancy Grace, in which he went into detail about the problems that had ended their marriage and revealed much that was embarrassing to Juno. Her attempt to sue him for his revelations was unsuccessful, and on June 18, 2010, she was arrested for causing a disturbance of the peace outside Raoul Juno’s home. After this incident, Bonnie Juno was absent from her own show for two months. When she returned on August 21, it was to announce that she would soon have the privilege of interviewing, live on Justice With Bonnie, a guest whose testimony would change everything in the Melody Chapa case.
10 October 2017
‘I just don’t get it.’ I look up from the iPad. ‘This all happened – the bit I’ve read so far – before anyone declared Melody officially dead. How can this Bonnie woman suggest Melody’s parents are murderers on live TV and get away with it?’
I’m at Swallowtail’s Mountain View Cocktail Bar with Tarin and Zellie Fry, sitting at a table on the terrace. It’s going to be a while before I can think of them as anything but Badass Mom and Highbrow Daughter. Tarin is the mother. Zellie is short for Giselia. As we sat down, Tarin told me, ‘You can say what you like in front of Zellie. Don’t think of her as any kind of child. She’d seen every episode of Dexter by the time she was thirteen.’
She’s sixteen now and should be at school but isn’t because, according to her mother: ‘What’s the point? No one in that sorry-ass establishment teaches her anything worth missing a vacation for. She’ll learn more reading on her own. Her father disapproves, so I left him at home. If you’re married to a whiner, you’ve gotta come down hard, soon as he starts to complain.’
‘Like you wouldn’t have found some excuse to leave him at home anyway,’ Zellie muttered.
‘Welcome to American justice,’ Tarin says now with a grin. She seems to be enjoying the situation, and my bewilderment in particular, as if it’s all precisely what she’d hoped for as an accompaniment to her holiday.
‘You mean this is all normal and … allowed?’ I take a sip of my latest mocktail – a blue one this time, with some purple towards the bottom – and wonder if I’ll end up having dinner with these two strangers. I want and need to talk to someone about everything that’s happened, but a whole meal together feels like a big commitment to people I don’t know.
‘NFA – normal for America.’ Tarin chuckles.
‘How can it be normal?’ I say. ‘If anything goes to trial, the jury’ll be massively biased, having heard all this on a … daily justice show, or whatever it is.’
‘Oh, it goes to trial – just not the trial anyone was expecting,’ says Tarin. ‘You know it’s Melody’s parents who are in jail for murder, not Kristie Reville?’
‘Yeah. And from what I’ve read so far, that makes no sense.’
‘You need to read the rest. We Yanks were lucky: we got the story spread out over years by the time the trial came around. Bonnie Juno was obsessed that whole time. She kept finding new people to interview – anyone who’d ever met Naldo Chapa at a conference, anyone who’d ever sold Annette Chapa a sandwich – she’d have them on the show and ask for their decades-old impressions, as if that was going to tell anyone anything. You weren’t lying, huh? None of this reached you over in England?’
‘Nothing. I’d never heard of Melody Chapa until today.’
‘Lucky you.’
I don’t feel lucky. What am I supposed to do if the resort manager won’t take me seriously? Should I ring the local police myself? How? I don’t know the names of the two detectives who were here, and I’ve no reason to think anyone would listen to me any more than they listened to Mrs McNair. Why should they? As the internet reminds me every time I check, Melody Chapa is dead.
‘The bloodstained sock …’ At this rate I’ll soon be as obsessed as Bonnie Juno. ‘I mean, everything Nate Appleyard said on Justice With Bonnie about what he saw in Kristie Reville’s car … it’s like the whole trial – evidence, arguments – is happening on TV instead of in court.’
‘You’re right.’ Tarin nods. ‘Whole system’s fucked. It’s not justice, it’s a farce. Google “Melody Chapa justice farce” – you’ll find a hundred long analyses of how twisted it all got.’
‘So there’s really no rule over here about not publicly saying anything that might bias jurors?’
‘Nope. Appalling, right? I’m telling you, you’d be horrified.’
‘I am.’
‘We’ve got it all in the good ol’ US of A: jurors signing up to sell their stories before the trial’s even started and facing no sanctions whatsoever, bereaved family members banned from courtrooms because the psycho that sliced up their loved one managed to convince a judge that he finds their presence in court traumatic. Yeah, right. More like: the jury’s less likely to convict if they can’t see his victim’s sobbing family members. And don’t get me started on the doctoring of crime scenes.’
‘Tell us how to get you stopped,’ says Zellie.
Tarin, in full flow, ignores her. ‘You won’t believe this, Cara. Sometimes juries are taken on tours of the crime scene, so they can get a real feel for things. Great idea, huh? Except wouldn’t you think the court’d impose some kind of obligation for the crime scene to be kept as it was immediately after the crime was committed? Wouldn’t you think a defence attorney’d face a fine – or, better still, contempt charges – if he had all the blood and brain matter cleaned away so the place was spotless, and hung framed photos of the wife and kids his sicko client killed all the way up the stairs, as if they’d been there all along – as if the killer ever gave enough of a shit about them to bother?’
‘The longest rhetorical question in the world,’ Zellie murmurs. She picks up
her mother’s glass and takes a sip of Campari and soda, giving me a look that clearly says, ‘Say one word and you’re dead.’ Tarin doesn’t notice. It’s turning into a beautiful night; I can already see a sprinkling of stars. Camelback Mountain looks stunning: a black outline against a deep blue sky.
I scroll down on the iPad, scanning the text for the words I’m looking for. ‘I can’t find the bit I saw before, about Melody’s head. The girl I met last night didn’t stop rubbing the top of her head. I wondered about it at the time.’
‘That’s right. Melody had a mark in front of her hairline.’ Tarin points to her own head. ‘Here, right?’
I nod. Exactly where the girl rubbed, same spot.
‘It’s a big, dark brown circle, like an oversized freckle – about as big as a quarter. Americans know it intimately. Bonnie Juno had photos of it on her show for months, enlarged, zoomed in … It came up in court at the Chapas’ trial. Melody had cradle cap as a baby. You’re not supposed to pick it off, though it’s tempting – like picking at a scab. Everyone warns you: scraping off cradle cap can lead to infection and/or scarring for life. Annette Chapa admitted in court that she’d picked off a large globule from Melody’s head – she couldn’t resist. Course, that gave the rabid Bonnie Juno an opportunity to do a whole show around “What kind of terrible, abusive mother would do such a thing against official medical advice?” Do me a favour!’ Tarin snorts. ‘I did all kinds of stuff I wasn’t supposed to do when Zellie was a baby. Once I gave her a jar of anchovy paste instead of baby food – I was so goddamned bored of that stinky mush you’re supposed to give them. She was sick everywhere.’
Zellie reaches for the Campari again. This time Tarin notices and slaps her hand away. ‘Cut that out!’ Turning to me, she says, ‘Annette Chapa didn’t heed the warnings. She picked off the cradle cap and it left a brown spot. As Melody’s head increased in size, so did the spot. That doesn’t make Annette Chapa a murderer.’
‘So how did she and her husband end up in prison for killing Melody?’
Tarin nods at the iPad. ‘Read on. I’m guessing you haven’t got to the part about Mallory Tondini?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you will.’
‘The girl I saw must have been Melody. Why else would she do that rubbing thing? She didn’t know I’d never heard of Melody Chapa. She was scared I’d see the brown mark on her head and recognise her.’
Zellie makes a dismissive noise. ‘You’re talking as if she isn’t dead. She’s dead.’
‘How do you know?’ Tarin asks.
‘What, you actually believe this crap?’ Zellie turns to me. ‘I’m not accusing you of lying, okay? But come on. Melody Chapa’s long dead. Any girl can have a weird fixation and name her soft toy Poggy and rub her head for, like, a wide variety of possible reasons.’
‘They never found her body,’ says Tarin. ‘Plus, they found her bag with Poggy not in it.’
‘Yes, and that means the body and the toy could be literally anywhere. The school bag they found had Melody’s hair in it, and tests showed arsenic poisoning. And there were flies in the bag – the kind that only bother to turn up if someone’s dead.’
‘I know.’ Tarin is unperturbed. ‘Still no body, though.’
‘Mother, a court decided she was dead.’ Zellie rolls her eyes. ‘Her parents are in prison, never to come out. It’s so typical of you to think you know better.’
‘Is your job something to do with the law?’ I ask Tarin.
‘Ha! Go on, Mother, tell Cara what you do. District Attorney, is it? Supreme Court judge? Oh, wait, no, it’s neither of those two things.’
Tarin’s grinning. I have the impression Zellie has said this or similar to her before. ‘I’m a florist. Got my own shop in Lawrence, Kansas. So fucking what, right? Doesn’t stop me thinking.’
‘It’s only fair you know this, Cara. My mother is totally biased. She wants you to have seen Melody Chapa, and she wants Melody to be not dead. You know why? Because then Bonnie Juno’d look like the biggest moron that ever lived, and she hates Bonnie Juno.’
‘That is true,’ Tarin confirms. ‘All civilised Americans hate Juno. She’s a hypocrite, or an idiot, or both. Probably both. When she was a prosecutor, everyone was guilty. Especially the people she prosecuted – they were the guiltiest of all, naturally. Then she switches careers and becomes a legal commentator on TV, and suddenly everyone’s being callously and cynically framed according to her. The cops are always wrong, the prosecutors always wrong, defendants always innocent. It’s like something happened to turn Juno against her former profession and push her into the arms of the other side, the darker side. Melody Chapa disappears and Kristie Reville looks guilty as hell, and the cops think she’s responsible? Juno makes a point of declaring her blameless. No one suspects the parents? Oh, wait, someone does! Bonnie Juno does, mainly because the police don’t. She’d say anything to be contrary. I swear to God, if the cops had pointed the finger at Melody’s parents from the start, Juno would have protested their innocence like her own life depended on it. Narcissism – that’s what it is. She’s a narcissist. Those accused of crimes are guilty or innocent to suit the needs of her ego at any given time.’
‘If Melody’s parents are in jail for her murder, that might mean …’ I don’t finish the sentence.
‘That Bonnie Juno got it right this time?’ Tarin makes a derisory hissing noise. ‘Cara, you’re the one who saw Melody. Here, at Swallowtail. Alive. Or rather – keeping an open mind – you saw a girl who might be Melody. I suppose it’s possible the girl you saw was someone else with a toy called Poggy – a tribute to Melody’s Poggy – and it’s possible this girl happened to have an itchy head last night. Or – better idea! – her thing, her schtick, is pretending she’s Melody. Maybe she was worried you’d see no brown mark on her head and break the spell by yelling, “Wait a second – you’re not Melody!”’ Tarin laughs, sticks her arm up in the air and yells, ‘Another Campari and soda over here.’
The nearest waiter hurries away to do her bidding.
‘Don’t bother asking if we want anything,’ says Zellie.
‘I think you saw her,’ Tarin tells me, paying no attention to her daughter. ‘Real her, and real Poggy. Mrs McNair seems pretty nuts – so when I heard her blabbering on about seeing Melody Chapa, I paid no attention. But you? You’re sane.’
‘How can you tell?’ asks Zellie.
They both stare at me.
‘Easy,’ says Tarin. ‘Crazy people – as in, deluded – make shit up. They’re imaginative. Cara, when you mentioned the girl saying she’d spilled Coke on Poggy and Doodle Dandy, I’ll admit that I thought, “Here we go! Doodle Dandy – that’s a red-flag crazy alert, this woman’s invented a new character toy for a dead girl.” Then I realised: you’re not that imaginative, are you? Don’t take that as an insult. Not everyone has to be imaginative.’
‘What do you mean? I mentioned Doodle Dandy because she did – the girl.’
‘Right. That’s my point. I believe you. I don’t think you’ve got the imagination to dream up a new toy and name it.’
I can’t help bristling at this. ‘Actually, I’ve named plenty of toys. When my children—’
‘Please!’ Tarin waves my words away. ‘You named stuffed toys you had to name, because your babies were too young to do it themselves. I bet you called the white ones “Snowy” and the black ones …’ She stops and frowns. ‘Shit, my mind’s gone blank. What’s black?’
‘Nelson Mandela,’ says Zellie in a bored drawl. ‘Maybe he’s not really dead either. I swear I saw him in our bathtub this morning.’
‘My point is, Cara, if you were making up a bunch of crap, you wouldn’t need to give Melody any other toy but Poggy. He’s all you’d need for a convincing Melody encounter. I don’t think you’d make up a second cuddly thing. If you did, being British, I don’t think you’d call it Doodle Dandy, which is an abbreviation of Yankee Doodle Dandy.’
I’m getting tired
of hearing about myself from this woman who knows nothing about me. I want to have dinner alone. Not that I’m at all hungry.
‘When Mrs McNair was being an asshole before, by the pool, you moved. An imaginative person would have found a way to make her move. And you’re here on your own. Why? You’re not here for business.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You don’t move briskly enough. You seem kind of lost and unfocused, and you’re not with friends or family. If I had to guess …’
‘You don’t, though,’ Zellie advises. ‘You could mind your own business for the first time ever.’
‘… I’d say you have a problem of some kind and you don’t know how to solve it. Which proves you’re unimaginative. There must be a way to deal with it. If I knew the problem, I’d give you the solution. Not that I’m prying. But, yeah …’ Tarin nods at me as the waiter puts a full Campari and soda down on the table in front of her. ‘I believe you saw and heard what you say you saw and heard. Which means – maybe, probably – that for once Mrs McNair’s right: Melody and her male chaperone ran away last night.’
‘Because of me. Because, since I barged in on them, they think I’m a threat. They weren’t packed or anything. They were asleep, with their stuff all over the bathroom: razors, a swimming cap, hair clips. Nothing I saw indicated that they were planning to go anywhere last night.’
I sit forward in my chair. ‘The room! We can find out who’s supposed to be in that room, or the police can, if we call them – what name it’s booked in, whether anyone’s in it. Shit!’
‘What?’ Tarin grabs my arm. ‘Have you remembered something else?’
‘The opposite. I can’t remember what number room it was. It was on the third floor, but beyond that—’
‘Don’t worry about that. There’ll be a record on the system.’ She stands up and throws the rest of her drink down her throat, spilling some down her neck in the process.
Did You See Melody? Page 9