A Death in Canaan

by Barthel, Joan;

  K:

  Peter, you had a real problem with your home life.

  P:

  I did. I hated being home. I’d go to my friends’ house for a week or two, then I’d miss home. I’d go home, and I’d be there for an hour, and I’d hate it all over again. I’d miss my mom, but once I was back, I had to go out. And I kept getting harped on about a job. All my friends work. I don’t work. I quit a job washing dishes. She said she could handle the job.

  K:

  She was really on you, wasn’t she?

  P:

  Constantly. Could I have a cigarette?

  K:

  Sure. What was she on you for last night, Pete? Huh? What was it all about? That made you go this far and get so upset? It had to be something really drastic to have you lose your cool this badly?

  P:

  I don’t know. But violence is coming into it now. With the straight razor, slashing and stuff. But not much. One thing toward her throat. I may be imagining it. And shaking her up a lot.

  K:

  Slashing at her throat with the straight razor?

  P:

  Yeah.

  K:

  How about her legs? What kind of a vision do we get there?

  P:

  I don’t want to remember that because I’m going to get sick if I do. Something like that makes me sick anyway. And to think I did it.

  K:

  Did you step on her legs or something? While she was on the floor? And jump up and down?

  P:

  I could have.

  K:

  Or did you hit her?

  P:

  That sounds possible.

  K:

  Or did you hit her with something?

  P:

  No, if I hit her with something, it probably would have been my guitar, and no matter what I did, I’d have never used my guitar.

  K:

  I don’t blame you. Can you remember stomping her legs?

  P:

  You say it, then I imagine I’m doing it.

  K:

  You’re not imagining anything. I think the truth is starting to come out. You want it out. You want that second chance.

  P:

  The thing that bothers me is people saying, he murdered his mother.

  K:

  Murder is premeditated. I don’t think this was. You just kept slashing and kicking and hitting and it was too late. You lost all your composure because of all the build-up over the past year or two, and all this came out at one time. I don’t think you murdered anybody.

  P:

  But other people will look at it that way.

  K:

  Let’s talk turkey. Let’s get it out.

  P:

  I think I walked in the door, and she said something.… Whether she threatened to break my guitar—not allow me to use the car …

  K:

  Where did you get the straight razor?

  P:

  Probably on the kitchen table. But when I asked the police officer, he said they didn’t find one. Maybe I threw it, either over to the gas station or behind the barn. Because whenever I wanted to get rid of something, that’s where I threw it. One time I threw some pot behind the gas station, once, a bottle of booze.

  K:

  So where did you cut her with this razor?

  P:

  The throat is the only thing I can think of.

  K:

  More than once?

  P:

  Once.

  K:

  Anyplace else?

  P:

  Not that I can think of.

  K:

  How about the water? Did you try to clean her up?

  P:

  Yeah, but wouldn’t I have been out of breath if I carried her in?

  K:

  From where?

  P:

  From the bathroom.

  K:

  Maybe you did it right there on the floor and tried to clean her up. I don’t know, Peter. I wasn’t there. You were there. If this is true, it shows that you’re sorry for what happened.

  P:

  I am sorry for what happened.

  K:

  I know you are.

  P:

  Do you think we could quit now? So I could get some sleep? I think I’m saying things that I don’t mean to say.

  K:

  Oh no. You’re telling me the truth now. You told me about slashing her throat with a straight razor. I’ll have to see if this is true or not. Now, how did we break the legs? How do you think it happened?

  P:

  Jumping up and down. If it was me.

  K:

  Oh, Pete. You know it was you.

  P:

  What would you do if something came up where it turned out that it absolutely wasn’t me?

  K:

  I’d apologize to you. But this isn’t going to happen. Now, we’ve got to get it out. If I was there, I could help you. But I wasn’t there. This is the next day. Now I’m trying to help. Did she come at you with something last night? Was she going to beat you up?

  P:

  No, she was smaller than me.

  K:

  How about the water?

  P:

  Something about swimming registers, almost like a pond. It seems that with her clothes off I was trying to clean her up. Maybe I thought it would make it all better.

  K:

  Is this why you put the water on her?

  P:

  Things aren’t clear, you know? I remember thinking, Oh my God, when I saw her lyin’ there. But I don’t remember whether that’s when I came home and saw her.

  K:

  You’ve tried to blank it out of your mind. That’s why you thought you came home and found her. But you can’t blank it out. Now your mind is going to be relieved of it. You got a second life now.

  P:

  But the one thing that bothers me is, what right I had to take her life? That’s something I’ll never be able to get over. Is there any way, when all this is over, that it could be wiped out of my head?

  K:

  I don’t know. It’s possible. How do you think you broke her legs?

  P:

  Jumping up and down.

  K:

  Yeah? When she was on the floor?

  P:

  Yeah.

  K:

  OK. Where was she when you first came in the house? In the living room or what?

  P:

  No. It would seem to me she was in her bed.

  K:

  Oh. Did she get out of bed?

  P:

  The fact that her book was on the table means that she could have gotten out of the bed and put her book on the table and then we started yelling—

  K:

  Ya.

  P:

  —screaming and everything started happening.

  K:

  Right. Is this how you think it went?

  P:

  Yeah.

  K:

  Where did you keep this razor?

  P:

  Probably on the table in the living room.

  K:

  Right where you were arguing.

  P:

  So I’d have just reached out for it. Or she reached out for it and came after me.

  K:

  That’s what I asked you before … you remember slashing at her throat?

  P:

  I think I remember.

  K:

  You told me you did remember it.

  P:

  But if I did it, wouldn’t there be some marks on me? Wouldn’t I have been wet if I tried to clean her down?

  K:

  I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I don’t know how you tried to clean her down. Maybe you dried your hands very carefully. Did you change your clothes?

  P:

  Mine? No. I wore these clothes to school yesterday. I’ve had them on since it happened. She always used to harp at me about my clothes.

&
nbsp; K:

  I used to wear dungarees myself, bell-bottoms, twenty-five years ago when I was in the navy. Now we have to get this straightened out.

  P:

  I think it’s pretty well straightened out now.

  K:

  You think the razor’s behind the barn? Or behind the gas station?

  P:

  Those are the two places I could think of. I wish I wasn’t so tired because things come into my head and go right out again. What time is it?

  K:

  Six-thirty.

  P:

  I keep thinking I gotta be home, so my mom doesn’t miss me.

  K:

  What else, Peter? Did you take her pants off?

  P:

  I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. That just doesn’t register, but her pants were off. Maybe she didn’t have clothes on when I got there.

  K:

  Run through the whole picture again.

  P:

  I walked in the door. I looked up. Let’s say she’s in bed.

  K:

  All right.

  P:

  She gets out of bed. We start arguing.

  K:

  You think it was the car, or what?

  P:

  I don’t know. I don’t think that’s important, though.

  K:

  Just another goddamned argument. A continuous one.

  P:

  Yeah. Either she picked up the razor, or I did. She may have come toward me, and I would have taken it away from her and then gone after her with it. I remember slashing, and if I had, she may have fallen right back over. If there are any other injuries, I don’t remember. But even if I do remember slashing at her throat, that’s all I really have to remember. Because I remember doing the damage.

  K:

  Now, the legs.

  P:

  I think I could have jumped up and down on her. I don’t know if there were any ribs broken.

  K:

  I don’t know.

  P:

  Maybe I could have kicked her.

  K:

  Do you remember kicking her?

  P:

  No. I never had a real fight, but I always told myself in a real fight, I’m not going to fight clean. You fight to win. Right?

  K:

  Right. Maybe we should let you talk to the investigator, this last part we just talked about.

  P:

  I don’t want to get thrown in a cell.

  K:

  We’ll see what we can arrange. I’m not going to lie to you, Peter. I just work here, you see? I want you to tell these people what you just told me.

  P:

  Do you have any records of this? Have you been tape recording me?

  K:

  No. I got my tape right here. That’s all I need. That’s you. That’s your conscience.

  Peter was right when he told Sergeant Kelly “there’s got to be some clue in the house.” A little past noon on Saturday, when the sun was bright and the house didn’t seem nearly as eerie as it had in the darkness, Trooper Don Moran found the straight razor Barbara had got Peter from Mario’s Barber Shop, the razor he said he used to slash her throat. It wasn’t thrown behind the barn, or behind the gas station. It was lying on the third shelf in the living room, the odds-and-ends shelf. The usual place.

  Peter felt a little better across the hall in the interview room than he had in the polygraph room. It was no larger, but the window was open to the early evening breeze, the furnishings were comfortable. There was a leather couch along one wall, a desk, and a leather armchair by the desk, rather like a doctor’s office. Peter was sitting in the leather armchair when Sergeant Kelly came in with Lieutenant Shay.

  S:

  Hi ya, Pete.

  P:

  Hi.

  Well, it really looks like I did it. The thing is I must have flown off the handle. I’m kind of pooped, you can tell him what I told you about how much I got nagged.

  K:

  His mother’s been on his back, Jimmy, for the past couple years. Nag this, nag that …

  P:

  Every day.

  K:

  He said he came home last night and she started …

  P:

  I said that we argued about something but I didn’t know what. Remember I said I had a double take at the bed and then the floor? What I must have done was walk in and actually see my mom in the bed and then that’s when everything went blank. And, what happened was—’cause the reading light was on—she must have come out into the living room ’cause her book was on the table. And, we got in an argument about something. But I remember picking up the straight razor off the thing. I think it was the straight razor that I used. And, uh, I slashed for her throat. I remember when she was on the floor that I jumped up and down on her.

  K:

  Well, maybe the lieutenant can clarify this. Were there any bruises, Jim?

  S:

  Yeah. You say that you used a straight razor?

  P:

  Yes.

  S:

  What did you do with it?

  P:

  I don’t know. I think I either threw it behind the gas station or over the barn.

  S:

  What about a knife, Pete? Remember using a knife?

  P:

  I don’t, but a straight razor thing registers.

  S:

  And a knife, Pete.

  P:

  Maybe. Could you give me the details?

  S:

  I think you know the details.

  P:

  I’m not absolutely sure of it, though. I mean, everything hasn’t come out yet.… When you checked my shoes, did you find anything wrong?

  S:

  Well, they’re still checking.

  P:

  What did they find at the autopsy?

  S:

  They’re still checking that.

  P:

  The only thing that bothers me, I’m afraid my friends will find out what I did.

  S:

  Well, Peter, I told you at the onset of our conversation this morning that I think anybody that knows you realizes …

  K:

  I’ll be right back, Jim.

  P:

  What trouble I had.

  S:

  What you were up against with your mother for the past sixteen years of your life record, and I don’t think anybody is going to hold it against you, Peter … more than likely, before this is all over, you will receive psychiatric treatment. There are many forms of therapy—outpatient clinics, all kinds of possibilities, Peter. I’m going to tell you right now. We know by time now, when your mother became deceased—when she died—you were in the house. We know that. We can prove that. So, this is academic. I want you to understand that this is the best for you. I want you now to sit back there and recite for me what happened. I know this may be painful to you …

  P:

  It is.

  S:

  You’re tired and I’m tired. We on the State Police are not your enemies.

  P:

  I know.

  S:

  We don’t find happiness in other people’s misfortune. If we can help you, and I know we can help you, we will help you.

  P:

  Before I start going over it, I’ve got to have someone to turn to.

  S:

  Now, Peter, you’ve got us to turn to.

  P:

  Right.

  S:

  You don’t have any parents.

  P:

  Well, I mean I want one particular person who’s on my side, to help me. I don’t mean a lawyer, I mean someone like an adult. A father, a mother or something.

  S:

  Is there anybody here that you trust? Do you trust Trooper Mulhern?

  P:

  Yes, absolutely.

  S:

  All right. Would you be willing to sit down with Trooper Mulhern and trust him enough to tell hi
m in detail what happened? From beginning to end, what happened.

  P:

  Well, I trust you that much, and I also trust …

  S:

  Sergeant Kelly?

  P:

  I don’t know. The man who gave me the test. I feel so guilty about it, you know.

  S:

  Once you get this thing straightened out, and I mean out, you will realize that perhaps what motivated this action on your part was years of unhappiness, of deprivation, of embarrassment, of a mixed feeling towards your mother. And you’re not as guilty and you’re not as responsible as you perhaps think you are now.

  P:

  I’ve got to get this out in the open so I can see what happened. And say, it’s done, I’ve done it, I’ve got to live with it. And I could start again now.