A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder And Its Aftermath

by Jeanine Cummins

  “And now, folks,” Robin announced in her most game-show-hosterly voice, “I give you a poet of substantial local acclaim and unprecedented talent. One whose works have been published in countless literary journals to glowing reviews by all of academia. My sister, the brilliant JULIE KERRY! A few words, please, Miss Kerry.”

  Julie bowed deeply from the waist. “Why, thank you for that moving introduction, dahling,” she drawled, cooling herself with an invisible fan. “I just want to say, to all my admirers out there, that of all my celebrated works, the piece we are about to view is undoubtedly my favorite, my crowning glory, my pièce de résistance . . .”

  “You’re a piece of something, all right,” Tom retorted. “Can we just go look at it and get outta here? This place is creepy. How do we get in anyway?”

  There was no traffic on the road now and it was entirely quiet as Tom studied the treeline. He still saw no visible evidence of the river, but he thought he could sense it from the dampness in the air.

  “Okay,” Julie relented, undeterred by Tom’s lack of enthusiasm. She bounded over to the chain-link fence and quickly found the place where she had gotten through so many times before. There was a gaping hole, an entire section cut out of the fence that the three of them walked through easily. On the other side, Julie led them single-file down a well-worn path through the trees toward the place where her poem shone, its big white letters bright against the dark concrete deck of the old bridge. She ran over the now-familiar words in her mind, repeating some of the phrases with whispering lips as she stomped her way through the light underbrush.

  They came into the clearing suddenly and the moon opened up above them, lighting the cracked and broken concrete that stretched like the decaying bones of giants between them and the abandoned Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. Tom stopped dead in his tracks, causing Robin to stumble into his back. He willed himself to move forward but he felt stuck, mesmerized by the menacing old bridge that loomed up before him. The massive steel structure was wild with leaves, and the undergrowth near the base was dense and uninviting. A few enormous hanging vines dangled from the top of the bridge’s skeleton, and they shifted and swayed eerily in the darkness.

  “What’s the matter? You’re not scared, are you?” Julie teased.

  “Course not. Let’s go,” Tom replied, finding his machismo.

  The Mississippi was no longer quiet as the three companions drew near the bridge. It made its rushy music as they went forward, and Tom relaxed a bit, enjoying the conversation and the walk. The two sisters and their cousin laughed and joked as they strolled along together, now three abreast in the moonlight, passing a fresh cigarette among them.

  Less than a mile away, Gray, Clemons, Richardson, and Winfrey were nearing the Illinois end of the bridge. They had walked the length of the aged structure, pausing now and again to examine the graffiti. Gray was in a particularly intense mood, almost giddy, like a big kid — St. Louis was his playground and this old bridge was his jungle gym. As they neared the Illinois end, they noticed a campfire on the bank below and realized how far they had wandered. Someone suggested they turn back, so they about-faced and headed toward the Missouri end, toward Julie and Robin and Tom.

  As Robin’s little black ankle boots took their first resounding steps onto the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge at a couple of minutes before midnight on April 4, 1991, they were accompanied on the right by the petite boots of her sister Julie, and on the left by the dilapidated Nike hightops of her cousin Tom. For a few minutes, the only sounds hanging in the night air were their own footsteps and the low echo of the traffic from the parallel bridge, which they could see — well lit, eighteen hundred feet north of where they now strolled. Tom had grown nervous again when Julie warned him to watch out for the uncovered manholes in the surface of the scarred roadway.

  “We wouldn’t want you to fall through now,” she joked, and Tom tried to join her in a smile.

  His eyes were working overtime, constantly scanning the ground in front of him before each careful step. He muttered curses under his breath and wished aloud that they had brought a flashlight. Julie and Robin were used to walking here though, and their nerves and footsteps were unwavering. So they spent their energies on searching the visible surfaces for new and interesting graffiti.

  Julie thought of this bridge as a kind of eclectic collection of philosophies, a how-to book for life. And the best part, she thought, was that everyone could add their ideas, so it was an ever-changing, constantly updated handbook of collective wisdom. There was so much to learn and absorb here and she felt so honored, so empowered to have added a piece of her own poetry to the collection. She had a rough idea of the poem’s location, but she had never measured it exactly, so as they approached the area, the three slowed their pace from leisurely to barely moving. Tom wished again for a flashlight as the three companions all drew their Bic cigarette lighters from interior pockets and leaned into the pavement with their tiny flames flickering in the river breeze. They scanned the crowded, overlapping artwork for Julie’s words, Tom and Julie taking baby steps, each with one hand on one knee and a lighter aloft. Robin got down on her hands and knees and scooted along beside them, carefully studying the artwork, enthralled by the bridge’s spray-painted intricacies.

  It was Julie who spotted the first trace of the poem — the peace symbol she always used when she signed her work glowed up at them like a smile in iridescent white. She beamed broadly and wordlessly, elbowing Tom to attention. She tugged at his sleeve and Robin scampered up from all fours to join them, lighting another cigarette to mark the occasion. Then the three friends silently and soberly marched the length of the shining white poem, reading by the light of the stars and the three cigarette lighters.

  It was a Spike Lee-inspired poem about the universality of humanity, a plea for understanding and an end to racism. It was Julie’s and Robin’s wake-up call to their often lethargic, sometimes ignorant generation of peers. Tom had a lump in his throat when he finished reading and Julie, glimpsing her cousin’s sentiment, let out a giant whoop and threw her arms out over the water, spinning, embracing the world. Julie knew that the poem wasn’t her best in a literary sense, that it wasn’t very scholarly. But it was one that very closely represented her life philosophy. Its simplicity, its accessibility were part of its beauty. Inclusion was the whole idea, and nobody who read this poem could miss the point. She knew that Tom really got it, and she felt elated.

  The three cousins huddled close together there on the bridge with Julie’s words under their feet and the wide St. Louis sky above them. Julie was in one of her poetic moods and she spoke dreamily about the bridge, not as a span between two masses of land, but rather as a communion of earth, water, and sky, and as a place of profound peace and contemplation. The moon was hanging low in the sky over Illinois — a half moon, orange-red in color. An autumn moon, Tom commented, and how odd that it should hang so low and so orange at that time of year.

  Robin was the first to hear the voices drawing near and she hushed her sister and cousin. The three stopped in their tracks and drew instinctively into the bridge’s shadows. Julie and Robin had never gotten in trouble for being here before, but legally they were trespassing and none of them had any desire to spend a night in jail. Tom’s heart raced as he thought of his parents discovering that he had sneaked out. A moment later Winfrey and Richardson came into view, followed closely by Clemons and Gray. The three cousins were somewhat relieved at the sight of the four strangers, but nevertheless they stayed quietly frozen. These four guys were clearly not the police — they were just teenagers like them, out to enjoy the fresh air and the night. As they sauntered up, the tallest one, Gray, stuck his hand out toward Julie and smiled.

  Introductions were made in short order, Gray introducing himself as Marlin, from Wentzville. He asked the three cousins where they were from. Tom replied, “Maryland,” and the two sisters said, “North County.” Gray recommended that they continue out toward the center of the b
ridge, and Richardson remarked that the graffiti was really amazing out there. Someone had painted an incredibly lifelike dragon right in the bridge’s center. Robin’s ears perked up when she heard this and she nodded enthusiastically to her sister. Winfrey and Richardson bummed cigarettes from the girls while the two groups stood chatting. When Gray asked if they had ever partied under the bridge, the three cousins exchanged puzzled glances. He then explained that it was possible to drop through the uncovered manholes and walk along the bridge’s sub-deck beneath.

  “You guys wanna join us underneath for a party?” Gray smiled. “It’s really cool.” He turned to Tom while he explained further. “You can go down there with your woman and be all alone and just watch the river go by,” he finished with a knowing wink.

  “I don’t think so,” Julie responded for the group. “Thanks anyway.”

  Gray shrugged. Tom and his cousins were friendly to the four young men — they had no reason not to be. But they weren’t interested in spending the rest of their evening with them, and they weren’t terribly impressed with Gray’s apparent idea of fun. Gray sensed that he hadn’t quite won over the three strangers, so as the conversation started to wind down, he made one last attempt to capture their interest. In one swift athletic movement, he scaled the bridge’s railing and jumped over the side. Julie and Robin both rushed to the railing and leaned over, only to see Gray standing a few feet below. He waved up from the concrete pier before disappearing under the bridge’s trelliswork and emerging a moment later from one of the open manholes nearby. Clemons duplicated Gray’s antics, disappearing over the side and then popping his head up through the deck a few moments later like a gopher.

  Julie and Robin laughed in spite of themselves, more out of relief than amusement, but Tom remained quiet, rolling his eyes. A few more pleasantries were exchanged before the guys said they were leaving and the two groups parted on friendly terms, shaking hands before turning away from each other. Richardson called back over his shoulder to say that he had lost a flashlight — if they found one, it was his.

  Once the men were out of earshot, Robin muttered sarcastically that he had probably lost the flashlight while he was busy climbing around the framework of the bridge like a maniac. They laughed and Tom added, “If they think I’m climbing up there to look for it, they can think again.” No one questioned Richardson’s strange assumption that they would somehow be able to return his missing flashlight to him. Perhaps they didn’t think they would really find it, or maybe it was just one of those details that didn’t seem important at the time.

  The four men headed toward the Missouri bank as the Kerry sisters and their cousin excused themselves and made their way farther out onto the bridge. The men slowed their pace as they approached the end of the bridge and their voices grew soft as they spoke to each other in conspiratorial tones.

  “Let’s go back and rob them,” someone suggested in the darkness.

  “Yeah.” Gray nodded, smiling and rubbing his hands together. “I feel like hurting somebody,” he said.

  And it was as easy as that. In a matter of moments, their four minds were made up. The four separate paths that had led them to this moment in their lives all joined and locked together in an instant, with the nodding of their heads in the damp river air. There was no looking ahead and no looking back. The decision the preacher’s son, the hoodlum, the entertainer, and the kid made collectively at that moment would alter the course of their lives and others’ forever. In a breath, the moment was gone and they moved forward with their plan, completely unconcerned about the horrors they were about to unleash.

  Gray reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of condoms. He handed one each to Clemons and Richardson. Then he turned to Winfrey, proffering the condom to the reluctant fifteen-year-old. Winfrey shook his head timidly. He had agreed to the robbery and maybe a bit of confrontation, but that was as far as his adrenaline would take him. Gray wasn’t one for tolerating dissension though, and his glare prompted Winfrey to accept the wrapped condom as it was pressed into his hand. Winfrey stuffed it hesitantly into his pocket and took a deep breath before the foursome set off in pursuit of the intended victims.

  Approximately fifteen to twenty minutes later, the three cousins neared the far end of the bridge. They didn’t realize how far they had come until they spotted the campfire on the bank. They gathered in a clump on the north side of the bridge and lined up quietly by the railing, not speaking — just watching the fire and the water below. The Illinois end of the bridge was not far from where they stood, a dark blotch, covered in the same uninviting growth as the western end. The two mouths of the old bridge, east and west, were like twin gothic bookends, different in small ornamental ways, but matching in their spooky unwelcomeness.

  Tom was more than happy to pause here, to go no farther toward the gaping portal on the black eastern bank. He concentrated on the campfire below and the animated silhouettes of the people gathered around it. He and Julie and Robin passed a few minutes silently, drinking in the scenery.

  It was peaceably quiet on the bridge where the three friends stood enjoying the low murmur of the Mississippi far below them. So they were startled when, once again, they heard voices and footsteps approaching. Robin snapped to attention and they turned their faces west toward Missouri, waiting anxiously for the people attached to those voices to appear. It was misty on the deck of the old bridge, but it wasn’t an ordinary fog — over their heads, the stars winked sharply in the cloudless sky. This mist seemed ominous, rising up from the river below them, clinging to their ankles and thinning as it rose, making eye-level visibility hazy. Robin darted her eyes at Julie, looking to her barely older sister for reassurance.

  “We’re gonna get in trouble,” Robin whispered, clutching her sister’s arm. “It’s gotta be the cops this time.”

  Julie wordlessly lifted the already-lit cigarette from between Tom’s fingers and took a long drag while they waited. In her mind, Julie was already practicing her “I didn’t really know we were trespassing” speech, complete with fluttering eyelashes. But she had never been terribly good at buttering people up, and she was really hoping there would be another way out of this.

  When the faces of Gray and his three companions came into view through the nighttime mist, the three cousins heaved an audible sigh of relief. Tom was even beginning to feel a little bit empowered by the cycle of needless worry and sudden relief.

  “It’s just those four guys we met earlier,” Julie said, playfully slapping her sister’s arm. “Jeez, you scared the life outta me, Robin.”

  Robin giggled then too, the same tinkling laughter as her sister, and the three companions all relaxed their postures. As the four men drew closer, Antonio Richardson skipped to the edge of the railing and heaved himself up onto the strength of his arms, shouting a friendly greeting down to the people gathered at the campfire below. There was a brief and pleasant exchange from bank to bridge and back again. The campers issued an invitation to the now rather large party on the bridge. Tom, Robin, and Julie knew that they must have been included in the intended invitation, but they still felt like observers.

  “We’re on our way down,” Richardson called. “You have enough extra sleeping bags?”

  Someone at the campfire gave the thumbs-up and Richardson laughed, turning away from the railing and rejoining his friends.

  As Tom, Robin, and Julie turned westward to head back to the waiting Hornet on the Missouri bank, their four newfound companions fell in step with them, chatting amicably. None of the four men offered an explanation as to why they were still on the bridge, why they hadn’t left a half an hour ago as they had said they planned to. But the three cousins weren’t nervous. All of their interactions so far had been friendly and uneventful.

  It wasn’t until the two groups neared the center of the old bridge, where the structure took a sharp bend high above the river, that Julie began to feel uneasy, to really notice for the first time the isolation of their si
tuation. The four men were growing quieter and Julie had noticed the gathering silence. She drew a Marlboro Light out of her king-sized soft pack and lit it, the orange glow of her cupped lighter momentarily illuminating her face. At some point during the walk, Clemons and Winfrey had neatly pulled to the front of the group and Gray and Richardson had dropped to the rear.

  While Julie had her hands cupped around her face to light her cigarette, she whispered to her cousin, “I don’t like this, Tom. I think these guys are following us or something.”

  Robin was walking just ahead of them, a few feet off to the left, her hands jammed deep into the pockets of her old brown blazer as she examined the graffiti as best she could in the dim light. Tom’s mind started running fast and he was trying not to panic. He hadn’t seen any other cars where they had parked on Riverview Drive. Maybe these guys were waiting to steal their car and leave them stranded.

  “What do you wanna do?” Julie whispered.

  But Tom couldn’t see any way out. All three of them successfully making a run for it seemed unfeasible. He shook his head.

  “I dunno,” he replied. “Just keep going, I guess, stay alert.”

  Hoping for a unified sense of safety in numbers Julie called Robin over and said something very quietly into her ear. Robin met her sister’s gaze with big frightened eyes and nodded wordlessly. Several feet behind them, Gray noticed the furtive dialogue and sensed that now was the moment for action.

  The cousins’ growing sense of fear had not prepared them for the shocking violence of the attack when it began. In an instant there was a heavy hand on Tom’s shoulder and that voice, the one they had been so relieved to hear on the Illinois end of the bridge, said in suddenly ominous tones, “Come here. I need to talk to you for a second.”

  The hand spun Tom around and he found himself looking up into the sneering face of Gray, who stood six inches taller than him. Gray pulled on Tom’s upper arm, drawing him back toward the Illinois side, separating him from his cousins, who, he now realized, were also being seized.