A Death in Canaan

by Barthel, Joan;

P:

  That’s why I love hanging out around there. That’s why they like to take me, because I enjoy the way they get along.

  S:

  Mm.

  P:

  And, I don’t know, I started dressing this year, for school, better because I noticed Paul dresses very well. He works in a clothing store also. So he dresses very well and I like the way he dresses, you know, that’s the way people …

  S:

  Is Paul your age?

  P:

  Paul’s seventeen, I’m eighteen. And, we’re like that. We’d do anything for one another.

  S:

  Yeah, right.

  P:

  And, oh—where was I?—Mrs. Beligni said that out of all the kids that ever went up there, I was the only kid that really associated, and all the other kids that came around, they always had to do something and they weren’t content with just sitting around the house and enjoying it.

  S:

  You should have had it.

  P:

  And it’s because I didn’t have it and I missed it. That’s why I like it up there.

  S:

  That’s obvious.

  P:

  And Madows also. Because it’s not just the way they get along. I’m sure they have family arguments and the parents and the kids argue back and forth, that’s normal. They are gonna have a disagreement.

  S:

  Do you think it was too much to expect?

  P:

  I never expected that from my mom.

  S:

  But was it too much to expect?

  P:

  What do you mean?

  S:

  Well, was it too much for you to expect this kind of relationship with your mother and father?

  P:

  No, I think that’s normal.

  S:

  Sure.

  P:

  That’s the basis of having a family.

  S:

  Well, this is the basis of your problem. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last hour. Now, if you let us, we’ll help you. We don’t want to see you go down the drain. What the hell good would it do me to see you go down the drain?

  P:

  Wouldn’t do you any good. I’m not going to allow myself to go down the drain. I’ve already put my mind to it.

  S:

  Right. If you’d really put your mind to it.

  P:

  I could never give up no matter how hard it is, I always try to get it. Just like when I quit smoking. I was really smoking but I stopped because there was this girl that I cared about and she doesn’t want to smoke and every time she started telling me I smoked too much, I stopped. She’s the type of person—when my mom has the funeral, she’s gonna be there.

  S:

  Let’s do something.

  P:

  I really want to. I really want to try. Can you give me a chance to get it gradual? Because, you know, I’ve never had it. It’s something I’ve got to get used to.

  S:

  Are you hungry?

  P:

  Yes.

  5

  Joanne Mulhern called Marion early Saturday evening.

  “Jim isn’t here,” Marion told her. “He hasn’t brought Peter back from Hartford yet.”

  Joanne was concerned. “Jim hasn’t had any sleep,” she said. “I’m afraid for him to drive when he hasn’t had sleep.” She told Marion that she’d seen Peter at the baracks.

  “How did he look?” Marion asked.

  “He looked a little dazed,” Joanne said. “He was just putting on his belt. They asked me whether those were the same clothes he had on last night.”

  “Were they the same clothes?” Marion asked.

  “Yes, they were the same clothes,” Joanne Mulhern said.

  They were still the same clothes, in the interview room at Hartford, when Jim Mulhern came in with food.

  M:

  Ham and cheese. Can you eat that?

  P:

  Yep.

  M:

  Cupcakes.

  P:

  Thank you very much.

  M:

  What’s happening?

  P:

  Oh, I’m messed up.

  M:

  You’re messed up?

  P:

  But it’s getting all together and I’m just seeing why everything happened.

  M:

  What do you mean, why everything happened?

  P:

  Well, I mean, the way I was brought up.

  M:

  Why, what happened?

  P:

  Well, it turned out I did it.

  M:

  You killed your mother? How did you do that?

  P:

  Well, we haven’t really gotten into it. We’ve been digging and digging and digging and Lieutenant … what’s his name?

  M:

  Shay.

  P:

  Shay. I keep thinking … from some TV show. Want half of this, Jim?

  M:

  No. I’ve already ate downstairs. Why did you do it?

  P:

  The whole situation was that I flew off the handle. We must of had an argument ’cause everything showed up on the polygraph. So, ah, the reason behind it was the way I’d been brought up. I never had the love that I should have had. The basics. You know what I mean?

  M:

  Yeah.

  P:

  And that’s what it all built up to.

  M:

  And it terminated in this, killing your mother?

  P:

  Mm-hm.

  M:

  What did you argue over?

  P:

  We’re still trying to take it apart. But there’s a time lapse in there. And we finally found a blank spot I couldn’t remember and that’s when we got into it.

  M:

  What was the argument?

  P:

  It had something to do with the car.

  M:

  The Corvette?

  P:

  Mm. To have traded it in, most likely. I’m not positive. I’m really gonna have to think this one out. I want to go back down to the house. Just to be in the surroundings of the place, you know, maybe it will give me a little push.

  M:

  Why you did it?

  P:

  Right. I feel terrible about it, of course.

  M:

  Well, it’s an awful shock.

  P:

  I know. You knew me, and you wouldn’t expect me to do something like that.

  M:

  In other words you blew up, and you lost control. Is that what you’re saying?

  P:

  Something just snapped with all the tension and everything, you know. I mean not having this and always having her on my back and always calling up for me, and always saying you can’t use the car, you can’t use the car and everything’s my fault when it starts breaking down, and I always pick out duds for cars, and stuff like that. And everything builds up. And saying I make bad deals when I swap things for something. Trading in something. It all built up and it finally broke last night.

  M:

  Well, just what happened?

  P:

  Well, I remember using—I say it’s the straight razor that I used and I slashed my mother’s throat with it. And that came in out of nowhere. And I remember, I think, jumping up and down on her. I’m pretty sure.

  M:

  You say a straight razor. You mean a straight razor like a barber uses when he shaves your hair?

  P:

  Yes. I know, what did I have one of those for? Model airplanes. My mom picked it up from Mario in Canaan.

  M:

  I never even knew that you built them. I thought you were a fisherman.

  P:

  Oh, I’m a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none. I do a little bit of everything. Models, old cars, records, music. Music is my big thing though. Like music?

  M:
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  What did you do, do it as soon as you came home from the Youth Center?

  P:

  When I looked at the bed she was in bed, and when I looked down she was on the floor. And in between those two things was a lapse of time. That’s what we’re digging into.

  M:

  Did you cut her throat?

  P:

  That’s right. I can remember it, yes.

  M:

  What did you do with the razor?

  P:

  I don’t know. I think I threw it. And if I’d thrown it, there were only two places that I would have thrown it that I’d know. One would be behind the gas station and the other would be over that red barn by the house.

  M:

  The gas station across the street?

  P:

  Yes. If I used the razor. That’s something that pops into my head.

  M:

  Did she scream or anything?

  P:

  I don’t remember.

  M:

  Well, I knew you were having trouble with your car but didn’t know that you were thinking—you mentioned quite awhile back that you were thinking about trading it in for a van or wagon …

  P:

  A Vega wagon or something.

  M:

  Plus the fact that she calls up the Madows and Belignis and all over looking for you.

  P:

  I never got any real affection from her. I never knew what it was really like to grow up normally.

  M:

  So in other words, even though you loved her there was a conflict there between you.

  P:

  Yeah. That’s something I didn’t realize. Something you never had you don’t miss.

  M:

  Well, you got a problem. Something’s wrong.

  P:

  Something’s wrong.

  M:

  Have you ever fought with her before?

  P:

  We’ve had arguments. I threw a flashlight at her once, underhand, just quick loss of temper and hit her in the shin.

  M:

  Did you get any blood or anything on you when you cut her?

  P:

  That’s what I don’t understand. There’s nothing on me. I’m still wearing the same clothes. I can’t understand that.

  M:

  Well, they look like new pants. Are they?

  P:

  No, they’ve been through the washing machine, once.

  Lieutenant Shay had been listening and watching through the oneway mirror. He came back into the room where Peter and Jim Mulhern were talking. Shay sounded tired.

  S:

  All right. It’s getting late. You’re tired, we’re tired. We’re going to reduce what you said to writing. We’re gonna try to cover what you told us. How you came home, how you came in the house and you said, “Ma, are you there?” and the fact that you had words, and you’re not sure what they were about, but it was something about a car. Now, did she come after you, do you recall?

  P:

  I don’t recall.

  S:

  But you recall cutting her throat with a straight razor?

  P:

  It’s hard to say. I think I recall doing it. I mean, I imagine myself doing it. It’s coming out of the back of my head. But I’m not absolutely positive of anything.

  S:

  Peter, you spent an hour here talking about trust and you said to us repeatedly that you were responsible for your mother’s death. Now the last hour you said this emphatically at least two-dozen times. You told us a half-dozen times that you cut your mother with a straight razor.

  P:

  I said I thought I did.

  S:

  No, you said you did. You didn’t say you thought you did, you said you did. OK. Now, all I want to do now is reduce this to writing.

  M:

  Look, Pete, it doesn’t make that much difference whether you say it orally or whether it’s reduced to writing. It’s just a question of logistics for us.

  P:

  Well, I’m still not positive that I did it.

  M:

  You just told me that you did it.

  P:

  I told you that I’ve been drilled so much that it seems like I did it. And the chances are that I did do it. That’s what it’s boiling down to. But, I’m not positive.

  S:

  Get it down on paper, Jim, and we’ll go from there. You know, Peter, obviously what you’re doing is playing headgames. You said here for the last two hours—at least two-dozen times—that you are responsible for your mother’s—for what happened to your mother.

  P:

  Yeah, I know I said it. But, everyone is saying that everything shows that I did do it.

  S:

  Here you go playing headgames again. I told you that we got you locked into the house at a time between nine-thirty and ten minutes to ten and I told you that we got your mother on the phone with the doctor at nine-thirty. So, when your mother died you were in the house. We can prove this.

  P:

  I already said that when she died I was in the house.

  S:

  All right. So, if she died when you were in the house and there were only the two of you there, somebody is responsible for the other’s death. The other is you, Pete.

  P:

  Wait a minute. My original statement, when I walked in the house, she was already lying …

  S:

  You made a statement to the effect that she was in bed, she got out and advanced on you and that you …

  P:

  I said I was not sure that she advanced on me.

  S:

  You didn’t say may have, Pete. You’re playing headgames again.

  P:

  No, I’m not. I know what I said there. I said I wasn’t sure if she advanced on me or whether we just argued or what. Or whether she came after me with something or what.

  Peter was never a scholar. He was not interested in most of his school subjects, and his report cards reflected that. He was especially not interested in geometry. “Peter gave up a long time ago,” his geometry teacher wrote in May, the year Barbara died. He was a dreadful speller. Besides music, his best subject was United States history. His school grades, all in all, were barely passing. To pass from junior to senior at Regional, a student needed sixty-five credits, minimum. Peter had sixty-seven.

  But as he had told Sergeant Kelly, he was no dummy. He had a quick and clever mind, when he chose to use it. Beyond the lack of interest in schoolwork, beyond his own remoteness, he was aware. When Peter told Lieutenant Shay, after five or six hours of intensive questioning, “I know what I said there,” he did know. He had a mental resilience, an ability to sort things out, to anticipate, that most observers never suspected.

  Barbara had known, though, ever since she had taught Peter to play chess, when he was eight. They played two games together, and after that he beat her all the time. He wasn’t a brilliant player, just better. “I could never think more than two or three moves ahead,” Peter explained, “but she could never go more than one or two.”

  M:

  Is there a report in here to write this down on?

  S:

  Yeah, in the drawer.

  P:

  I don’t know what to do, Jim. I’m still not positive any of that happened. The only things I’m positive about are when I walked in and I saw her on the floor. My original statement was the only thing I was positive about …

  M:

  Well, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to take a statement and you tell me just what you just told me here a few minutes ago.

  P:

  Now wait a second. Can this be used against me now? The statement?

  M:

  Oh, yes.

  P:

  Then why should I say something that I’m not sure of if it can be used against me?

  M:

  Well, this is what I’m saying. I’ll take the statement. You give it to me
and I’ll write it up.

  P:

  Mm. In the statement, can we say that I’m not sure of …

  M:

  Yeah, whatever you tell me I’ll put onto here.

  P:

  The whole statement that I make, I’m not sure of.

  M:

  This will be included in here.

  P:

  OK. But the entire statement that I make, I’m not sure of.

  M:

  Now you’re eighteen, right?

  P:

  Mm-hm. Will I stay at the barracks again tonight?

  M:

  I don’t really know. All right. Today’s Saturday …

  P:

  Twenty-ninth.

  M:

  No, this is Thursday evening when this happened …

  P:

  Friday evening.

  M: