by Fred Rosen
But somebody was, Rainey thought, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Instead, he said, “Amongst this group are there some that are talking junk more than others about this issue?”
“No. They were all talking.”
“When we say ‘all,’ we’re talking Jim Elstad, Wayde Hudson?”
“Yes.”
“Larry Martin?”
“Yes.”
“Crazy Joe?”
“Yes.”
“Is Angel even contributing to some of this stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Linda?”
“Linda said she didn’t know about it, but her and Angel were pretty tight.”
“What about Cameron? Cameron talking crap?”
“They were all talking crap.”
“Ric, can you think of anything else?”
Mary trusted Raynor a hell of a lot more than Rainey. Based on her previous experiences with Raynor, Mary felt that he would acknowledge and advocate her point of view. She seemed to be more open answering his questions.
“Have any of these people ever given you any indication that they have discussed this in a roundabout way through letters, through phones or anything with Beau, and that Beau is in any way involved in this?” said Raynor.
“I have no indication that Beau’s involved,” Mary replied quickly.
“Is there any indication,” Raynor continued, “that Beau even knew about Aaron being killed?”
“No.”
“Getting back to that same discussion we had a little bit earlier about ‘what ifs,’” Rainey broke in. “Is there anything that any of these people could say that you somehow furnished them any kind of support to make this happen? ‘Support’ meaning you gave them a sketch of the place [Aaron’s house]. Or that you drove them to and from the location. In other words, other than the gun, is there anything else that you might have assisted in disposing …”
“No!”
“… of on their behalf?”
“The only support they got from me was immediately after when I took Joe home and dropped him by the river, and then waited for him and took him to his house.”
Rainey wanted to know if at any time during the interview, Mary had deliberately tried to mislead them. “So there was no conscious effort on your part to …”
“Throw you guys off?”
“Right.”
“No. There was not. Even knowing what I know, I still am having a hard time believing it.”
“Why did you decide to finally come forward, Mary?” Rainey wondered.
“’Cause I figured it out yesterday when Angel looked me in the eye and said, ‘Jim did it.’ And everything just kinda fit together.”
“Were you really afraid that someone else would talk first and you’d be left holding the bag?”
“No! No! There’s a lot of things that went through my mind. I know how much time you guys put in solving cases. You guys are busting your ass. I had to tell you. I tried to get a hold of Ric yesterday. And it wasn’t meant to be ’cause I guess he was trying to get a hold of me and I was grounded to the house. I just had to do it.”
“Is there anything you told us today where you weren’t totally truthful? Anything you’ve held back from us we need to know about?”
“Not that I can think of, feel right now, today, that it’s been all put out there. Win, lose or draw.”
“What, what do you think should happen to you, Mary, for what you’ve done? I mean, do you think you should be charged with a crime?”
“I’m sure that there’s room there to be charged with a crime. I was totally stupid all the way around in this. I think my major crime is being flipped out for the last three weeks ’cause of everything that happened and not paying attention.”
“Would it, would it be fair to say that you coming in here today and sitting down and cooperating with us like you have, is maybe an effort on your part to try to set things straight?”
“Yeah!”
“Make things right?”
“To tell the truth.”
“Okay.”
“You know, I can’t bring Aaron back by being here. And I can’t change what I’ve done by being here. But it’s telling the truth, and that’s what needs to happen. Everybody needs to tell the truth.”
“Okay.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been asking?” said Raynor earnestly. “Isn’t that what I said over and over is all we want is the truth and nothing more?”
“Right.”
“Do you feel that you’re willing to keep helping and keep telling the truth, and keep helping us try to get to the bottom of this?” Raynor continued.
“Yes. Yes. Very much so.”
“Okay, anything else you can think of, Mary, right now? I mean, there may be further questions that are gonna come up or something like that. But at least at this point, do you feel comfortable with what you said so far?” Rainey asked.
“I still worry about maybe I said too much. I fear for my family.”
The cops were satisfied that they had gotten all they could out of Mary. The tape recorder was turned off. While Mary and Raynor chatted, Rainey left the room. He came back a few minutes later, and whispered something to Raynor. What the hell is going on? Mary wondered.
Rainey turned back to her.
“Mary, the detective who’s supervising this case thought there was one more thing you could help us out with,” said Rainey.
“Sure,” Mary replied, “anything I can do.”
“We’d like you to make a call.”
“I’m not a snitch!” Mary declared.
“Oh, nothing like that, we just want to clarify a few points. And make the people who killed Aaron pay. You do want to do that, don’t you?”
Mary nodded.
“Besides, it’s just one phone call.”
“Okay,” Mary answered. “One call.”
They started to walk out with Rainey explaining exactly what they wanted her to do. “Would you like to meet the detective supervising?”
“Sure,” she said, and they ushered her over to Michaud’s desk. He was on the phone with his back to her. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll call you back.”
He hung up the phone and turned around.
“Hello, Mary, how the heck are you?” said Michaud jauntily.
She recognized him instantly.
“Hello, Detective Michaud, nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you, Mary,” and Michaud did nothing to disguise his smile.
EIGHT
In the post-World War II era, a construction firm named Levitt and Sons built small, one-family ranch houses on postage stamp-sized lots east of New York City, on Long Island. Named Levittown, the idea was to provide affordable housing to returning vets in a community within easy commuting distance of New York City.
Levitt-style houses proved so popular that other contractors across the country began building similar types of bedroom communities. Eugene was no exception to this building boom and as it turned out, Mary Thompson, her contractor husband John and her son Beau shared one of these Levitt-style houses in a middle-income community on the fringes of town.
The Thompson home may have been small at 1000 square feet with two bedrooms, but with its construction of cement, brick and wood, and its neat, square, flat roof, there was a feeling of security about the place. Floor-to-ceiling front windows gave it an open air, which wasn’t surprising since Mary’s house, as she’d said, was always open to Eugene’s troubled teens who had joined gangs.
The cops, with Rainey supervising, set up their listening equipment on the living-room phone.
“Ready?” Rainey asked.
Mary nodded, picked up the phone and dialed Angel Elstad’s number. Angel came on the line immediately and after they exchanged pleasantries, Mary got right into it. She pumped Angel for what she knew about the murder. And Angel, trusting her “Gang Mom,” fell right into the trap.
“Okay, from what Jim told me is
that, and I’m only telling you so don’t think I’m a narc or something. I drove my car over with Jim and Joe and dropped them off near Aaron and then they went over to Aaron’s house. They were in the back and they said that there was five people sitting in the house with Aaron. So that was like okay. And so Jim comes back later with Joe and they’re telling me all this stuff and he goes, ‘Now we’re gonna try it in a little bit later.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ And … your phone’s not tapped, right?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s like, ’cause ours isn’t. But then, so they left again and we waited and waited and Jack and Cameron were here and we were visiting and chatting and then we heard this ‘pop.’ And all three of us stopped. We’re like going, ‘Wow!’ You know? ‘Was that it? Was that it?’ We go, ‘That was it.’ And not even a minute later, the boys come walking in the door. And Jim’s shaking, you know, going, ‘I did it! I did it!’ And I’m like, ‘Well, how do you feel?’ And he goes, ‘I feel great! ’Cause you get such a thrill from it, you know?’ And I’m like ‘What?’ And Joe is all, ‘Yeah, you get a thrill from it.’ And I was like, ‘Okay!’ And Joe had his hand open and he showed me four bullets and one shell. I was like, well, they had to have done it then. And Jim said that, you know, he got there and Aaron was like lifting up his head or something and Jim got him in the back of the head.”
“Wow!”
“They watched him fall on the pillow. Jim said nobody could have survived that.”
“So you knew they were gonna do this?”
“Yep,” Angel confirmed, hanging herself. “Everybody kept telling them to do it. And after hearing it so many times, they did it. It was Jim who did it. It was Jim who finally did it.”
“I never thought they’d do it,” Mary said plaintively.
“’Cause Jim said that he talked to you on the phone and you said it needed to get done soon.”
“I wasn’t serious. You know that,” Mary replied earnestly.
“Then after it happened we went over to your house because Jim said that he was supposed to tell you if he did it. And so we went over to your house.”
“Well, you know, I was the one said I didn’t want to know about it.”
Every time a hole was dug further, Mary found a way out.
As the cops continued to listen, Rainey went outside to his squad car and picked up the car radio.
“Ten-four, ten-four, this is Rainey.”
“Dispatcher here, Detective,” the voice crackled over the radio.
“Patch me through to Michaud.”
There was some clicking on the line and then the familiar voice.
“Michaud here.”
“Jim, it’s Les. Angel admitted to Mary that Elstad and Brown did the murder.”
“Pick them up as soon as she’s finished talking.”
Rainey got back not more than a minute later.
“I told them,” Mary was saying, “I told them they’d talk that crap over here and I’d say, ‘I don’t want to know about it.’”
“Yeah.”
“And you were here when I said that.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think Wayde knows about what happened?”
“No, I think Wayde has a vague idea, but I don’t think he knows all the details. I think it’s pretty much Cameron and Jack and I. To tell you the honest truth, I didn’t think Jim had it in him.”
“Well, I been saying that all week.”
“So, I’m gonna get off here and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Alrighty.”
“All right. Bye.” The line went dead.
Rainey was all set to turn off his tape recorder and pack up his equipment when the phone rang. Mary looked at the detective.
“Answer it,” Rainey said. So Mary picked up the phone on the third ring.
“Hello?” said Mary.
“Hello,” said the voice on the other end of the line. It was Lisa Fentress.
“I heard you had to go downtown?” Mary asked.
“They might arrest me ’cause they think I’m withholding evidence,” said Lisa, sounding obviously disturbed.
“Well, what do you know?”
“What?”
“What do you know?” Mary repeated.
“I don’t know anything.”
“Well, have you talked to Crazy and all that?”
“I talked to him, but I didn’t talk to him about anything important.”
“Well, they’re just jammin’ ya,” Mary said calmly.
“That’s all anybody talks to me about anymore. The murder. That’s all I’m good for anymore. Like I’m not a real person. I just feel bad because people are calling me crying. People are calling me asking me if their kid’s a gang member.”
Mary chuckled.
“Everybody’s calling me for everything. I don’t know why people think I know so much.”
“Okay, honey. Bye bye.”
Mary hung up the phone. Rainey unplugged the recorder from the phone, then went out to his squad car again and called Michaud. After being filled in on the substance of the “tap,” Michaud gave serious consideration to bringing Mary in for murder.
“Hang there, Les, let me call Skelton.”
Michaud called Steve Skelton, the assistant district attorney who had arrived at the crime scene to assist the investigating officers. After consulting with Skelton, Michaud realized they didn’t have a case against Mary.
At no time had Mary commissioned the murder. Merely suggesting that “it had to be done soon,” or that after it was done to contact her was not enough to get a murder one indictment. Even a lesser charge of murder two would be hard to prove. There was no physical or forensic evidence, or any evidence for that matter, to tie her into the crime. Michaud got back to Rainey.
“What about motive, Les?”
Rainey thought that if Mary did sanction the murder it was to prevent Aaron from testifying against Beau and putting him back in jail for violating probation. But Michaud had another theory. Before he shared it with anyone, he needed to check it out.
“Listen, Les, re-interview Mary, tie up whatever loose ends you can and come in.”
Michaud turned to his computer and called up the crime statistics for the city. They showed that in recent months, there had been a wave of unsolved burglaries and auto thefts. Drug dealing was also on the rise.
If his theory was right, then the death of Aaron Iturra was actually tied into the crime wave. Either way, he’d need a hell of a lot more on Mary to sustain a murder charge, let alone a conviction.
Rainey set his tape recorder down on the coffee table in Mary’s living room. Mary sat next to him, Raynor on the other side. It was like any other early fall afternoon, just three people sitting around talking—except this talk was about murder.
“To the best of your knowledge, did Lisa Fentress have any involvement in Aaron’s murder?” Rainey asked.
Mary said she wasn’t aware she had any. She described how she met Lisa through her “Gang Awareness” seminars, and how Lisa had taken an instant liking to Mary. “She kind of ‘glommed’ on to me,” was the way Mary put it.
As for the most recent time she had spoken to Lisa, it was “… last night. I kept the conversation with her real short and sweet because I was trying to figure out what to do, and I didn’t want her to try to sway me one way or the other.”
“Really?”
Mary nodded. “I knew I had to make an independent decision. I knew I didn’t want her to know if I had decided to talk to the police or not because I know that she would tell everybody else.”
And Mary would get the reputation of being a “stoolie” once again.
“Anything else you can think of in terms of your contacts with Lisa concerning the homicide?”
“Well, we talked about it through the week,” Mary continued, “because it was Lisa’s mother who was the Victims Services advocate that was called out on it.”
“Lisa’s mom was?” Rain
ey asked in astonishment.
“Yeah. Her name is Parr. Heather Parr. She has a different last name than Lisa.”
“Anything else you can think of right now, Mary?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll be concluding this interview regarding Lisa Fentress. The time is now 1822 hours.”
Click.
While there was no evidence that Victims Services advocate Heather Parr in any way leaked information to her daughter Lisa about the Iturra killing, Lori Nelson, the Victims Services manager, removed her from the case and substituted herself instead.
Late in the day on October 6, 1994, police arrested Jim Elstad and Crazy Joe Brown for the murder of Aaron Iturra. Michaud could see that they were preening. They felt like media stars, what with all the attention the police gave them. Michaud decided to interrogate Elstad.
“So tell me what happened that night,” Michaud asked Brown casually. He had changed into his “Pink Floyd” T-shirt, the one he liked to use during interrogations. If he felt more casual, then the suspect would, too, and begin to trust him. And he’d put him in the soft interrogation room that looked like a living room, with muted lighting, sofa and coffee table.
An old cop named Fred, whom he considered to be his mentor, had taught Michaud to be patient during questioning. Fred always reminded him that suspects hated silence. “Just work the suspect,” Fred would say. “Sooner or later they’ll talk.”
So Michaud did as his mentor had taught him. He chatted lightly with Elstad, making sure to leave a lot of silence, which Elstad happily filled in. Quickly, proudly, he admitted to being responsible for Aaron’s death. It was the gang code of honor to take responsibility for their actions, especially when such actions were to enforce gang unity and honor, as they were, he claimed, in this case.
“Aaron was killed because he snitched to the cops about the knifing of the Blessing kid.”
“Really?”
Silence.
“Yeah, and that like caused you guys to revoke Beau’s parole and you sent him back to MacLaren.”
“So?”
The silence filled the room until Elstad confessed, “We had to get Aaron for that.”