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

by Jeanine Cummins

  The detective in the passenger seat turned to face Tom while they talked, and the one in the driver’s seat kept glancing at him in the rearview mirror. They asked him about his vacation that week, about spending time with Julie, about his family background. Tom told them his father had been in the Navy and they had moved around a lot, that he and Julie had only become close friends in the last year or so. They encouraged him to talk about her and he did so without reserve, with the candidness that Julie had helped him to nourish in himself. And in accordance with his new mood, he spoke about her with the lightness of the present tense.

  When he grew quiet, they chatted to him more about his job as a rookie fireman. They asked him what kind of station he worked in and what his crew was like. They asked him about the police department in Washington. How closely did they work with the fire department? Did he have many friends on the force?

  “We’re gonna do everything we can to find your cousins and catch those bastards,” Stittum assured Tom during a lull in the conversation. “We feel just awful about all this. And you’re practically one of our own.” He shook his head as he said this and turned back to face the windshield.

  Tom gazed out the window at the passengers in the stopped cars beside them and he slumped down self-consciously in his seat as he did so, pulling the collar of his father’s flannel shirt up closely around his neck. The Midwestern speech patterns were not totally foreign to Tom, but often he still found himself bewildered by the oddness of a phrase or a pronunciation. The detective’s words “practically one of our own” rattled around strangely in Tom’s head, and the vinyl of the seat squeaked under the movement of his bottom sliding around in the too-big jeans.

  The passenger detective had now turned his attention to the radio, flicking it on and judiciously flipping past the news station in search of some music. There wasn’t much on but drive-time talk, so he soon grew bored and flicked the radio off again.

  Tom stared into his lap and realized that his right index finger was stuck inside the cuff of his left sleeve, rubbing the flannel repeatedly. It was a comfort-seeking habit he’d had since he was a small child. His mother used to tease him about it. “Silkying,” she called it. “If you keep silkying that pillowcase, there’s gonna be nothing left of it,” she would laugh when she caught him in the act. But it had become such an ingrained habit for him that he was usually unaware that he was doing it. He was embarrassed when he caught himself silkying the shirt cuff, and he stopped immediately, jerking his hand out of the sleeve and up toward his face. Then, after a moment, he purposely placed the finger back against the soft material and resumed the rubbing, hoping to suppress the tears that had inexplicably sprung to his eyes.

  While their brother sat in the back of a squad car on his way to police headquarters, Tink and Kathy Cummins were returning from walking their dog around their grandparents’ neighborhood. Tink had tied the red bandana that Julie had given her the night before around her right wrist and she wrapped Blarney’s leash around her left. She didn’t know why she was wearing the bandana that way. She usually wore them in her hair. But this one smelled like Julie and she wanted to keep it that way. The phone was ringing as they came in and, as usual, Grandma Polly answered it. Kathy slumped onto the blue couch and was yanking her shoes off when their grandmother appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Girls,” she said to the two of them, “Jamie’s on the phone. Which one of y’all wants to take it?”

  Kathy shrugged and nodded at her sister.

  “I will,” Tink said as she bent to release Blarney from her leash.

  Jamie was having one hell of a morning. She wanted to know if Kathy and Tink could come over and keep her company.

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes,” Tink said, with an air of authority in her voice that was quite new to her.

  Kathy relayed the news to their mother through the basement bathroom door. Kay opened the door in a towel gathered firmly under her arms and followed her youngest daughter quickly up the steps and into the now-sunny kitchen.

  “We don’t even have a car here, guys,” she said to her daughters, who were both determined to get to Jamie immediately. “And we have a million phone calls to make to aunts and uncles, before they all see this on the news . . .”

  “There’s a phone at Aunt Ginna’s house,” Kathy stated matter-of-factly. She had already put her shoes back on.

  “And of course, you can take my car,” Grandpa Art added.

  Kay closed her mouth and looked up at the ceiling, weighing the options. She ran one hand through her sopping wet hair, shaking heavy drops of water from her black ringlets and onto her mother’s tiled kitchen floor.

  “Yeah, okay,” she decided. “It will probably do you guys and Jamie both some good to be together right now. But let me at least get dressed first. I can’t go like this.” Before long, they were on their way.

  Petite Drive was quiet, almost abandoned-looking, when the female constituent of the Cummins family pulled into Ginna’s driveway. It was close to eight o’clock and most of its residents were at work or school for the day. Tink and Kathy were out of the car before Kay had even managed to put it in park and, after knocking lightly on the front door, they pushed it open and stepped inside. Jamie was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the big television in the front room. She gripped the Nintendo controller with both hands and her eyes never left the screen in front of her.

  “Hey,” she said to her cousins, without looking at them.

  “Hey yourself,” they both answered her. Kathy left the door open a crack for their mother and sat down on the floor beside Jamie while Tink dropped onto the low comfy couch behind them.

  When they arrived at police headquarters, Stittum, Ghrist, and Tom walked shoulder to shoulder down the long linoleum hallway and someone pressed button 4 in the rickety old elevator. Once upstairs in the homicide squad room, the two detectives offered Tom more coffee, which he gladly accepted.

  After a few minutes Gene arrived, and Tom was shown to the bathroom, where he quickly changed into the fresh clothes his father had brought and splashed water on his face. His eyes were beginning to burn from the lack of sleep and his tongue felt downright hairy with river water and coffee. He wished he had asked his dad to bring a toothbrush. He didn’t even bother checking his reflection in the mirror before, buttoned and zipped into the new clothes, he banged open the bathroom door and returned to the small company. They were gathered at a messy desk talking seriously when he strode up. His new clothes seemed to have endowed him with a renewed energy and sense of purpose.

  “Let’s do this,” he said.

  Gene would not be permitted to remain in the interrogation room during the interview, but the detectives allowed him to have a short look around and satisfy himself that there was nothing out of the ordinary. Once again they emphasized that this was not a courtesy that they would usually allow to the family member of a witness; it was Gene’s status as a fireman that motivated them to extend the invitation to him. One of the detectives instructed Tom to make himself comfortable and told him they would be in shortly to conduct the interview. Then they left him alone.

  As the door clicked shut, Tom fell into the hard metal chair at the room’s empty table and allowed the backlog of tears to drip quietly from his eyes. It was his first moment alone and at rest since he had squatted, panting and terrified, beneath the stop sign at the St. Louis Waterworks a few dark hours before. He spread his arms out on the table in front of him and examined them. Tink had written her name in capital blue ink letters on his forearm the night before — during their poker game — and it was still there. He was surprised that it hadn’t washed off in the water, and the sight of the ink there stunned him. His bottom lip trembled as he touched the TINK letters on his arm. With a suddenness that almost made him woozy, he realized how dramatically his life was mutating around him. Just hours before he had been sitting with his sisters and cousins; they had been playing games and harassing
each other. And now he had to shake away the images of what Julie and Robin had endured on that bridge. He had to chase away the fact that they were still missing, that they might not have survived their ordeal. He put his head down on the table and battled these thoughts. In a matter of seconds, he was fast asleep, his head cradled into the crooks of his bent elbows, and his ankles crossed loosely under the table.

  When Stittum and Ghrist returned to the room some forty-five minutes to an hour later, Tom woke with a start. He snapped his head up in confusion. A moment later, the expression of distress returned to him as he remembered where he was and why he was there. His sleep had been mercifully black and dreamless — the sleep of pure physical and emotional exhaustion.

  The detectives sat down opposite Tom and one of them placed a small, handheld tape recorder on the otherwise empty table between them. Tom looked at it suspiciously, not quite sure why its presence made him uncomfortable. He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs that had accompanied his sleep. He loosened his cramped arms from their cradled position and brought his hands up to rub his face and hair. After a good yawn and a few stretches, Tom was waking up, but he was still quiet, looking expectantly at the detectives for guidance. He felt comfortable with these cops. He felt they were good guys, smart guys — and they were clearly the only path toward the possibility of finding his cousins.

  “Do you need anything before we get started?” one of them asked Tom. “Some more coffee, another trip to the john?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” Tom said and he took a deep breath.

  “Okay. Now, there’s nothing to be nervous about,” the detective explained. “This is absolutely, one-hundred-percent routine. We do this with potential homicide witnesses whenever possible. It’s going to be a great help to our investigation, so just answer the questions as clearly as you can remember, and if at any time you start to feel uncomfortable or you need a break, you just let me know.”

  Tom nodded, trying to ignore the word “homicide.”

  “Now, I’m going to have to read you your Miranda rights when the tape starts,” he explained further. “Don’t let that scare you. It doesn’t mean you’re in custody, it doesn’t mean you’re a suspect, it doesn’t mean we’re arresting you. It’s simply the law to protect anyone who is making a taped statement. Again, one-hundred-percent routine — as if I have to tell you all this. I’m sure you’re already familiar with the procedure. I just want to reassure you. I know what an awful night it’s been.”

  Tom nodded again and felt a little foolish for all the nodding he seemed to be doing.

  “Let’s go then,” he said.

  The transcript of that taped statement begins as follows:

  Q: Today is April fifth, 1991, I am Detective Raymond Ghrist, G-H-R-I-S-T. In the room with me, and we’re in interview room number two of the Homicide Office, is Detective Gary Stittum, S-T-I-T-T-U-M, seated across from me is Thomas Cummins, for the purpose of this tape it is now 9:02 A.M., and at this time, Thomas, we talked before this tape started, and I told you I was going to advise you of your rights.

  A: Yes sir.

  Q: Okay, I want to advise you that you have the right to remain silent, that anything that you tell us can and will be used in a court of law. Do you understand that?

  A: Yes sir.

  Q: Okay. You have the right to an attorney, do you understand that?

  A: Yes sir.

  Q: If you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you. Do you understand that?

  A: Yes sir.

  Q: Do you understand that this attorney will be appointed for you at no cost?

  A: Yes sir.

  Q: Okay. If you consent now to talk to us, Detective Stittum and I in this room, with no one else present, you may stop answering questions at any time. Do you understand that?

  A: Yes sir.

  Q: And, at any time during this conversation, if you feel you may need a lawyer, you can request one. Do you understand that?

  A: Yes sir.

  Q: Okay, are you willing to give us a statement about an incident that occurred in the evening hours in, of the fourth of April, into the early morning hours of the fifth of April?

  A: Yes sir.

  It was disconcerting to Tom, hearing those words he had heard so many times before, on television, in movies, and even on the job. They were offered in such a different tone from the one he had heard them in before — a quiet, sympathetic, and helpful tone. Still, the words themselves were alarming. He took a deep breath and began his story all over again.

  The detectives interrupted him occasionally to ask him for further explanations or clarifications of certain points, but by and large, it was Tom’s voice that filled that audio tape — Tom’s weary and miserable voice, recounting the evening’s events in all their horror to these two strangers who sat nodding and prodding him from across the table. He started by telling them about Julie, by trying to explain the closeness of their friendship, how unconventional and good it was. “A real strong bond between us,” was how Tom defined it. At this description, the two detectives raised their eyebrows at each other, but Tom didn’t notice. Ghrist’s next question startled him.

  Q: But you’ve never been physically intimate with her?

  A: No sir.

  Tom responded emphatically, a bit confused by the query.

  Q: You never had sex with her at any time?

  A: No. Absolutely not.

  Tom was a little annoyed, not to mention somewhat disgusted, at the suggestion, but he shook it off. They had explained to him before the interview started that they might have to ask him a couple of uncomfortable questions. They assured him that this was purely to rule out every possibility. After all, this statement would be the beginning of the official police record for the case. Besides, Tom thought, these guys were professionals — they knew what they were doing. Upon further reflection, he supposed that Detective Ghrist probably had encountered first cousins who were sexually involved before. That’s probably why he had asked. Still. Yuck.

  Tom continued his statement as carefully and completely as he could manage in his ever-heightening state of exhaustion. He racked his brain meticulously for every detail he could grasp, shuddering at the more physically sickening ones, but pressing on nonetheless.

  Outside the homicide room, in a nearby office, Gene Cummins was settling in to wait for his son. His head was still spinning a bit, but the police officers were showing him every courtesy so that, despite the horror of the situation, he found himself at least well looked after. They had seated him at someone’s empty desk and offered him the use of the phone there. He was working on his fourth cup of coffee already that morning and agonizing over the decision of whether to telephone his parents in Florida or wait for more definitive news before alarming them. He was, after all, the oldest sibling and he had insisted on being the one to make that call. He had a very special relationship with his father, and if Gene Senior really had to hear terrible news like this about his grand-kids, Gene Junior felt that it was only right that it should come from his eldest son. The family had all agreed wholeheartedly — nobody wanted to make that call. While he sat thinking it over, a passing officer remarked that he must be a glutton for punishment.

  “That police-issue coffee is disgusting. You may as well drink a vat of tar,” he joked.

  “Not at all,” Gene responded. “If you want tar, you should try Navy coffee sometime.”

  Gene smiled to himself as he sipped the cooling coffee. He was remembering an act he used to put on for his kids when they were younger. They would be seated around the breakfast table, heads bent over cereal bowls and backpacks flung down beside chairs, when he would shuffle in. He would still be wearing his glasses, just up out of bed in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, and his three kids would hear him coming. They would all put their spoons down and wait anxiously for their father’s comical arrival in the kitchen. He would trudge with closed eyes toward the spot where his timer-efficient pot of warmed co
ffee was waiting for him on the counter. He would reach for the regular mug in the regular place and pour the coffee into it, still with his eyes shut tightly. Not until he had that first slurp of black, sugarless coffee would he shake his head vigorously and pop his eyes open as if the coffee itself had awakened him. The first time he had done this, it had been almost real, but his three kids had howled with laughter. He enjoyed that so much — the sound of his kids laughing — that the morning coffee trudge had become a ritual in their house. One that had worn away in recent years. They were growing up so fast.

  Now, as he brought his thoughts back to the present, his mind flooded with grief for Ginna, and he shook his head, unable to imagine what she could possibly be going through. He set the mug on the desk in front of him, folded his hands, and bent his head for a moment, thanking God for his family, and praying against all hope for the safe return of Julie and Robin.

  In the room next door, Tom felt fairly confident that the interview was going well. After he overcame the brief shock at being asked about a sexual relationship with Julie, he settled into a groove and answered all of the detectives’ questions in earnest. He was surprised and a little impressed with the sturdiness of his own memory actually, particularly given the fact that he had been awake for over twenty-four hours at this point.

  Yet try as he might, he could not come up with any names. He knew that they had been exchanged during the initial conversation with the four men, but Tom hadn’t considered them even remotely important at that time, and consequently they had gone in one ear and out the other.