A Death in Canaan

by Barthel, Joan;

  In the ambulance, Mickey was trying to get Sharon Hospital, but he couldn’t get through, so he called Canaan barracks. They said they had sent the Falls Village ambulance as a backup and had dispatched a trooper.

  “I know,” Mickey said. “He’s passing me right now.”

  Mickey swerved a little to let the approaching cruiser whiz by him, then speeded up, and pulled up to Peter’s house just behind the trooper.

  Bruce McCafferty, curly haired, blue-eyed, and boyish, the prototypical rookie cop, just ten months on the force, was working the four to midnight shift. He’d been traveling Route 44 near Furnace Hill Road, doing routine highway patrol, when he got the radio call from Trooper John Calkins at the barracks, who’d just heard from Sharon Hospital. The police got the call from the hospital at 9:58 P.M.

  When the blue police car with its flashing lights came into view, Peter began jumping up and down, waving, motioning it into the yard. Trooper McCafferty got out and ran over to Peter and Geoffrey.

  “Where is she?” McCafferty asked.

  “She’s in the bedroom,” Peter said.

  McCafferty hurried into the house. He knelt on one knee beside Barbara and felt her left wrist for a pulse, but couldn’t find it. He went out to the car and radioed the barracks, to ask his supervisor to come. Then, as though he could not be sure of so dreadful a sight, he went back into the house. He looked at Barbara again, then he came outside and made a second radio call to the barracks.

  “I have a possible one twenty-five,” McCafferty said, giving the code number for a homicide.

  “Are you kidding?” the other voice said. “Then you better seal off the house.”

  Peter and Geoffrey were pushing furniture around in the living room, making a path for the stretcher. One of them had knocked over the little portable heater. When McCafferty came back in, he told them to stop. Peter looked at him, then went over near the kitchen, as far away from the bedroom door as he could get. He sat on a chair at the edge of the kitchen doorway, near the kitchen cabinet with the brown leather pouch hanging from its side. There were three or four knives in the pouch, including a knife that Wayne Collier, one of Peter’s friends, had given Barbara when she had complained that she didn’t have a really good carving knife. That knife was in the pouch now, with part of the handle sticking out. The knife had a six-inch blade, or a little less, because its tip had been broken off.

  Mickey came into the bedroom, knelt down, and felt for a pulse. Fran Kaplan felt for a pulse too. Then Mickey went out to the ambulance to get a blanket to put over Barbara.

  From the doorway to the bedroom, Marion looked at Barbara, but she didn’t go in. She could see blood spattered around the room, on some freshly ironed shirts hanging on the curtain rod. A green chair with brown wooden legs, in the corner of the bedroom, was spotted with blood. There was a gray steel tool chest near Barbara’s foot. The back door was standing partly open.

  Barbara lay flung across the floor, her feet pointing toward the doorway where Marion stood. Her head was turned toward her left. Her nose was pushed to one side; blood had oozed out of the nostrils and from her mouth. Marion noticed that the soles of her feet were filthy.

  She turned away then and saw Peter sitting on the chair, near the kitchen. He was shivering. She went over and put her arms around him.

  Peter looked up at Marion.

  “Can I come home with you?” he asked.

  “Yes, Peter,” Marion said. “I’ll yell at you, just like I yell at my boys, but you can come home with me.”

  “Did I do the right thing?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, you did,” Marion told him.

  Peter wasn’t wearing a jacket, only his long-sleeved brown knit shirt. He was still shivering and Marion asked Geoff to let Peter wear his coat. Geoff took off his beloved navy pea coat, the coat he wore nearly twelve months of the year, and Marion draped it around Peter’s shoulders.

  At nine minutes past ten, McCafferty’s supervisor, Sgt. Percy Salley, arrived. He went into the bedroom and looked at Barbara, then he came back out into the living room, where Peter and Marion stood.

  “Are you all right?” Sergeant Salley asked Peter.

  “Yes, I’m all right,” Peter said.

  Sergeant Salley told Peter to open his shirt and hold out his hands. He examined Peter’s chest and turned his hands over, the palms up, then down. Peter looked blank and, watching him, Marion realized that no one had told him his mother was dead.

  Sergeant Salley went out to his cruiser, then, and called his own supervisor, Lt. James Shay, at his house on Silken Road in Granby. Shay directed Salley to get everybody out of the house. The sergeant walked back to the little crowd of people standing in the living room and told them to go outside. Peter got up from the chair and followed Marion across the room, to the front door. As he passed the bedroom door, he turned his head and looked. He saw the white sheet over Barbara, covering her head. He looked away and walked past, out of the house.

  Now the darkness outside was sliced with the flashing lights of the police cars, lined up in front of the house like bright sentinels. Bruce McCafferty took Peter into the front seat of the cruiser, so he could make a statement. McCafferty turned on the overhead light and another light that had been installed in the front seat for reading. McCafferty took the statement on paper that had the constitutional rights printed on it. He gave the paper to Peter to read, then Peter put his initials after each of the five items.

  1.

  You have a right to remain silent. If you talk, anything you say can and will be used against you in court.

  2.

  You have the right to consult with a lawyer before you are questioned, and you may have him with you during questioning.

  3.

  If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you, if you wish, before any questioning.

  4.

  If you wish to answer questions, you have the right to stop answering questions at any time.

  5.

  You may stop answering questions at any time if you wish to talk to a lawyer, and may have him with you during any further questioning.

  Peter asked McCafferty if he was being accused of a crime. McCafferty said no.

  McCafferty asked Peter if he had any idea who did it. Peter said no.

  I, Peter A. Reilly, aged 18 (DOB 03/02/55) of Route 63, Falls Village, Connecticut, make the following voluntary statement: I went to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, with Geoffrey Madow this afternoon. Geoffrey had to check in to see if he was working this weekend. He works at Shopwell in Great Barrington. We left there between 3:00 and 3:30 P.M. When we left there we went to Geoffrey’s house and watched TV. Geoffrey had dinner and we started to my house. We passed the ambulance by Deely Road. We figured it was going to pick up Geoffrey’s uncle who has been having chest pains. After passing the ambulance we went to the Arco station located at the intersection of Route 7 and 44. Geoffrey bought $1 worth of gas and we went back to see where the ambulance was going. When we found it, it was by Locust Hill Road in East Canaan. We followed the ambulance to Norfolk, then turned around and went back to Geoffrey’s house to see if it was his uncle. I waited in the car when Geoffrey went into the house. We left Geoffrey’s house and went directly to my house. We arrived at my house around 6:45. I was late for dinner and apologized to my mother for being late. We both stayed at my house until 7:20 P.M. At this time we both left for the Teen Center in North Canaan. Geoffrey drove his car and I drove my mother’s car. We got there around 7:30–7:35 P.M. and waited until about 7:50 P.M. for Father Paul to get there. We stayed there until about 9:30 P.M. I dropped John Sochocki off at his house located on the road to the dump. After dropping John off I came directly home. I arrived home between 9:50–9:55 P.M. I parked the car in front of the house and got out to fix a headlight. I got back in the car and shut it off. I got out and locked the car. I went inside and said, Mom, I’m home. My mother didn’t answer. I looked through the doorway and didn’t
see her in bed. I then saw her lying on the floor. She was having a problem breathing and she was gasping. I saw the blood at this time. I didn’t touch my mother but went straight to the telephone and called Mickey Madow and told her that my mom was lying on the floor and was having trouble breathing and said that there was blood all over the place. Mrs. Madow told me to call my family doctor, that they would be right down. I then called information and asked for Dr. Bornemann in Canaan. I got the number and called him. I got Mrs. Bornemann and told her the situation. She told me Dr. Bornemann was out of town and that I should call the Sharon Hospital Emergency Room. I went outside and threw the charcoal grill out of the way. I then moved my car to the right side of the house. I then went to the driveway and waited for the police or ambulance. While I was waiting, Geoffrey Madow came and we both went in and looked at my mother. Then we went back outside to wait.

  I have read the above and it is the truth.

  Each of the four pages was signed Peter A. Reilly and witnessed by Trooper Bruce McCafferty, badge number 723.

  At 11:10, Lieutenant Shay arrived, tall and square-jawed, the very image of a flinty detective on the trail of murder. Lieutenant Shay had worked out of Hartford in the detective division for nearly a dozen years and had been promoted to command Troop B in Canaan just four months before Barbara died. Since he’d taken over the Canaan command, this was his first homicide. He walked over to the cruiser and spoke to Peter. “Let me see your hands,” the detective said. Peter held out his hands. The detective looked at them closely, then walked away from the cruiser, back toward the house.

  Lieutenant Shay was not in uniform, and when he walked away, Peter turned to McCafferty, sitting behind the wheel.

  “Who’s that?” Peter asked. McCafferty told him that was the commander, Lieutenant Shay. “I’d like to become a state trooper,” Peter told McCafferty. “I wonder what kind of marks you need to get in high school for that job?”

  It was about 11:30 when McCafferty finished taking Peter’s statement, and the scene, by now, was bustling. A police van had pulled up in front of the house, one of a line of police cars that rimmed the highway. Mickey could see that they didn’t need the ambulance, so he drove it back to Geer, picked up the car, and drove back. Lieutenant Shay was annoyed that Mickey had covered Barbara with a blanket and told him so.

  Other troopers had awakened the Kruses, in the big house next door, and told them about Barbara.

  “She’s a mess,” one of them said to old Mr. Kruse, who stood in the back doorway. The Kruses said they had gone to bed around ten, as usual, after their usual hot cocoa. They’d seen Barbara outdoors reading, sometime during the evening, but after that they’d seen nothing, heard nothing.

  Lieutenant Shay came back to the car and told Peter to come along with him. He took Peter to the back door of the Kruses’ house, and into the kitchen, and told him to take off all his clothes.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Peter said. Lieutenant Shay waited in the kitchen while another trooper went into the bathroom with Peter.

  Back in the kitchen, Lieutenant Shay again told Peter to strip, and when Peter had taken off all his clothes—the brown shirt, the Landlubber jeans with the brown braided leather belt, his shoes and socks and underwear and was standing naked in the big, bright, chilly kitchen, Lieutenant Shay searched his body. The officer asked Peter to tell him briefly what had happened; Peter told him what he’d told Bruce McCafferty. Lieutenant Shay asked him about the rear door to the house; Peter told him that the door was generally kept closed. When Shay searched Peter, he found that one of his knuckles was red, but there was nothing else. After the search Peter was taken back to the cruiser.

  Jim Mulhern got a call to report early for duty; there’d been a homicide. He had been here before, when Barbara had complained that she was getting harassing phone calls. Shay now gave him the job of visiting all the houses on the south end of Route 63. Mulhern started on his rounds, but first he went over to the cruiser and spoke to Peter. “If there’s anything I can do, let me know,” Jim Mulhern said.

  Dr. Ernest Izumi, the county’s assistant medical examiner, was in bed when he got the call at 11:15, but he dressed quickly and was at the house at 11:40. Dr. Izumi had a habit of blinking often, with a half-smile on his round face. He said hello to Mickey when he saw him. Dr. Izumi said he would prefer to wait for Dr. Gross, the Chief Medical Examiner, who had also been notified, but when the chief didn’t arrive, Dr. Izumi decided he ought to go in.

  In the bedroom, he stepped carefully. He took off the blanket that was covering Barbara and knelt down. There was no room between her right arm and the bunk bed, so he took her left pulse. He put his hands on Barbara’s stomach to feel for body heat. Her stomach was still slightly warm. Her arm was not stiff; rigor mortis had not set in. But the wrist was cold. At 11:45 P.M., Dr. Ernest Izumi pronounced Barbara Gibbons DOS—dead on the scene.

  Dr. Izumi didn’t want to examine Barbara any further, or move her, until pictures had been taken. So he walked back and forth through the house, looking around. He noticed the light shining by the top bunk. He noticed that there was a sleeping bag on each bunk. The sleeping bag on the top bunk had the flap open; on the bottom bunk, that flap was closed.

  The room was so cluttered that when Sgt. Richard Chapman, the photographer, arrived, he had a hard time taking pictures from all angles. He was an experienced man, twenty-three years on the force, but it still wasn’t easy. The bunk bed was only seven feet from the opposite wall, and Barbara sprawled in most of that space. Sergeant Chapman took pictures of all the dirty laundry strewn around the room, too.

  Trooper Walter Anderson, the artist, sketched the rooms quickly, marking what Lieutenant Shay said was a bloody footprint on the bedroom carpet, near Barbara’s left foot. Sgt. Gerald Pennington, the fingerprint man from the crime lab at Bethany, dusted for prints with a gray powder. He found a print on the back door, the door that was standing open, and he took a picture of it.

  Trooper Don Moran took the old wallet from a drawer in the living room. There was no money in it, or anywhere else in the house, except for sixteen cents that Lieutenant Shay found scattered on the floor. The wallet that Barbara had bought at Bob’s Clothing Store that day was not found, and neither was the money from the check she’d cashed.

  When Trooper Marius Venclauscas arrived, he began searching the house. He found the pouch of knives in the kitchen, including the knife with the broken tip. He was especially interested in that one, and he carved his initials on the brass part of the knife, in case he needed to identify it later. He found others—throwing knives and hunting knives, and an all-purpose knife that Barbara had seen advertised at the A&P. He found a knife for cutting tar paper and a kitchen knife that Peter used for working with model cars. He found several pairs of scissors and a large pair of clipping shears. Behind the living-room door, on the coat rack, he found a machete and an ice pick.

  But it wasn’t until much later, long after Peter was gone and Barbara had been taken away, that the police found the razor. It was a straight razor with a black plastic handle and a six-inch blade, the razor that Barbara got at Mario’s Barber Shop for Peter to use when he worked with balsa wood. The razor was closed when the police found it. It was lying on the shelf in the living room, where it was always kept, in its usual place.

  Mickey was just wandering around, waiting for Peter, when he saw Geoff being taken into a cruiser by Sergeant Salley. Mickey hurried over to the cruiser and got in, too. Salley said he was going to take a statement from Geoff, and Geoff looked at his dad. “They just searched me,” he said.

  “What do you mean, searched you?” Mickey demanded.

  “They took me into the van and stripped me and searched me,” Geoff said.

  “Well, why didn’t you call me?” Mickey said angrily, though he wasn’t really angry at Geoff.

  “Well, I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Geoff said.

  Mickey got out of the car and went
looking for Lieutenant Shay. “What the hell is going on here?” Mickey asked Shay.

  “It was just something that had to be done,” Lieutenant Shay said, in a businesslike, yet soothing kind of way.

  Mickey looked at him. “Well, were you satisfied?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Lieutenant Shay said.

  The night grew colder and longer, and still Peter sat in the cruiser. Not many people spoke to him. Eddie Dickinson, his neighbor and good friend, had come running down the road when he heard the news and had said something to him, not long after Peter got in the cruiser. Geoff, too, had something to say. Geoff had noticed that Peter had a blank expression on his face, and he hesitated to speak to him. But there was something he really needed to say, and finally he just went over to Peter and said it. He asked for his coat back.

  Bill Dickinson, Ed’s dad, approached the cruiser to speak to Peter. McCafferty waved him away. “You aren’t allowed to talk to him,” McCafferty said. Bill was surprised to hear it, but he didn’t argue.

  Bill wasn’t worried yet.

  Mickey told Marion to go home, that he would wait around and bring Peter back. Marion agreed. She said she’d open the sleep sofa in the den for Peter, and she would leave the porch light on.

  Marion wasn’t worried yet.

  It was nearly two in the morning when Lieutenant Shay told Sergeant Salley to take Peter down to the barracks. By then Peter had been sitting in the cruiser for three hours. Mickey had told Sergeant Salley that he was waiting to take Peter home with him. He had told that to another trooper, too. When he heard that Peter was going down to the barracks, he said he would come along and wait for Peter there. Sergeant Salley said that wouldn’t be necessary. “Go on home,” he told Mickey. “We’ll bring him back later on.”

  Mickey persisted. “As long as I’m here, I’ll come down and wait for him,” Mickey said. But the trooper persisted too. “You go on home,” he said again. “We’ll run him up when we’re through.”