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

by Jeanine Cummins

  “It’s over,” Fabbri said quietly, looking Tom straight in the eye.

  “What?” Tom asked.

  “It’s over. All the questioning is over,” Fabbri said again.

  Tom blinked across the table from Fabbri. He couldn’t allow himself to hope that this man was telling the truth. He shook his head. Fabbri reached slowly into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and drew out his wallet. He removed his driver’s license and his Missouri Bar Association card and slid them across the table toward Tom, gesturing for him to pick them up and examine them.

  “I’m an attorney,” he explained slowly, “and a friend of your family’s. Your aunt Sheila called me and I’m here to tell you that this nightmare of a day is over.”

  Tom studied the two cards, flipping them over incredulously in his hands and reading every word he could find on them. He looked back to Fabbri and remained silent.

  “So we’ve got good news and bad news,” Fabbri continued. “I’ve already told you the good news. No more questioning. No more lies. No more shit. I am not a cop. And this is the one thing that the cops are not allowed to lie about. It is illegal to impersonate an attorney. I am your attorney. Do you understand what I’m telling you? It’s all over. I’m on your side. Nobody can touch you now. They can’t ask you any more questions. It’s all over.”

  Tom let the Missouri Bar card drop out of his fingers and land upside down on the table. He tipped his head back and allowed tears of relief run down his face.

  “Now the bad news is that the police are going to arrest you. Here’s what’s going to happen. They are going to take you somewhere in this building. They are going to take your mug shots, and they are going to book you on two charges of first-degree murder.”

  Tom nodded. He didn’t appear scared — he didn’t even seem surprised. He just listened intently. Fabbri wondered if the boy was in shock.

  “It’s going to be okay. They kind of just have to do this now that I’m here. They are going to take you to a jail cell, again somewhere in this building, and you are going to have to spend the night there. I want you to know that this is all okay. This is good. This is what has to happen for right now and it’s the first step towards clearing you, okay? We’re going to get through this now. All your family is behind you,” Fabbri said in the most conciliatory tone possible.

  He was speaking to Tom as a teacher might talk to a kindergartner, and Tom didn’t mind at all. In fact, it was exactly what he needed to hear, and exactly the tone in which he needed to hear it. He felt like collapsing with relief. The news that his family was behind him restored some hope to him, lifted him from rock bottom, and as a result he now felt more terrified than ever. He hadn’t tried his voice in a while and he wasn’t sure what kind of a squeak or tremor might come out when he opened his mouth, but Fabbri’s words gave him the courage to try.

  “I just want to know that you believe me,” Tom said softly. “I need to know that somebody believes me.”

  Fabbri was unexpectedly moved by the boy’s words. The desperation of suspects had ceased to affect him emotionally years before, but this young man was different. His plea was so genuine, his voice so purely grief-laden as he searched the face of this complete stranger for affirmation.

  “Tom,” Fabbri answered unwaveringly, “I believe you.”

  And at those four simple words, Tom collapsed into a blubbering heap on the table. His fingers gripped tightly at the hair on the back of his head while he cried and Fabbri watched mournfully. He let Tom cry for a few minutes. When he quieted down a bit, Fabbri handed him a handkerchief and explained a few more details of what to expect in the coming hours.

  “You are not to speak to anyone tonight while you are in this building. After you are booked and taken to your cell, you may experience some further harassment. If they come for you and they start trying to question you, say nothing. Not a single word. Don’t even tell them your name. I will be back for you in the morning.”

  Fabbri stood up to go and Tom felt like throwing himself at the man. He wanted to scream, “Don’t go,” and hug and kiss this man in the expensive suit and the silk tie. But he didn’t scream or throw himself bodily at Fabbri. Instead, he stood like a man and held his hand out to his savior.

  “Thank you,” he said simply.

  Fabbri took Tom’s hand and shook it firmly.

  “I don’t know the details just now and I don’t need to,” he said before he left, “but I believe you are telling the truth. And we are going to get you through this.”

  Tom nodded and swallowed hard. Fabbri put his identification back into his wallet, lifted his briefcase lightly from the table, gave Tom a parting smile, and then was gone.

  It was only a matter of moments before two new detectives came into the room to take Tom up to booking. Tom was a little surprised and altogether relieved that they didn’t produce any handcuffs and didn’t attempt to restrain him in any way. They simply opened the door and said, “Let’s go.”

  Tom was standing flanked by the two detectives at the now-familiar elevator, waiting for the doors to open, when Fabbri and Gene emerged from the squad room. Gene looked ashen and nauseated — almost seasick, Tom thought. And when he spotted his son, he dropped the hushed conversation with the attorney and moved quickly to where Tom stood. The two detectives did not attempt to interfere as Gene threw his arms around his son in the most abandoned, most heartfelt tenderness he had ever displayed. Father and son clung to each other and wept heavily.

  “I didn’t do this, Dad,” Tom said between sobs.

  “I know, son,” Gene responded. “I know.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kay wasn’t exactly sure what to tell Tink and Kathy, but so far today she had been painfully candid with them and they had held up remarkably well. She wasn’t sure if that fact spoke more of their maturity or of their youthful resilience, but either way she was relieved. She had enough on her plate right now without having to worry about one of her daughters having some kind of a breakdown. So as she hung up the phone and looked at them, standing clinging to each other in Grandma Polly’s bedroom doorway with frantic faces, she knew she had to tell them the whole ugly truth.

  She walked past them down the narrow hallway into the living room and they followed her, still holding hands. Her daughters had never held hands before, Kay thought — they were archenemies, sworn rivals. How terrible that it took a moment like this for them to finally learn to cling to each other for support.

  Kathy and Tink walked silently to the blue couch and sat down together while Grandpa Art turned off the television and Grandma Polly came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Kay’s two brothers were there as well and their faces were filled with concern. Everyone was silent, waiting for Kay to speak. She steadied herself with her hands on the back of her father’s chair and cleared her throat before she began. Her eyes were unnaturally wide and she looked as if she couldn’t close them at all, they were so busy with fear and disbelief. Her brother Art Junior stood up from his chair to go and support her, but then thought that his approach might make her even more emotional, that she might not get through what she had to say, so he sat uneasily back down, ready to spring up when the real need presented itself. She cleared her throat again and found that the lump wouldn’t budge — she would simply have to resolve to speak past it. So she did.

  “Tom has been arrested,” she began.

  Tink and Kathy both bolted toward the bathroom. They didn’t want to hear the rest. They didn’t need to hear the rest. They both just needed to throw up the few bites of dinner they had managed to wrestle down. Kay continued.

  “We’ve hired an attorney — Frank Fabbri — and he went down to put an end to the questioning. He said Tom was too tired . . . too tired to be of any use and that they had to stop the questioning. So they . . . they arrested him for two counts of first-degree murder and . . .” Kay’s hand was in front of her mouth now and her words were becoming a garbled mess.

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bsp; Art Junior rose from his seat and walked over to Kay, encircling his baby sister in his big strong arms while she wept. Grandma Polly and Grandpa Art silently reached for each other’s hands, their eyes never leaving their daughter’s tortured face in front of them, while Skip slipped from the room to check on his nieces.

  Frank Fabbri’s office was in an airy, old-fashioned home in a quiet residential neighborhood in midtown St. Louis, not far from police headquarters. It had a big stretch front porch and an oversized cherry door that hung heavily on its hinges. Gene followed Fabbri into the small, empty parking lot and parked the van haphazardly across two spaces. If Fabbri had known Gene at all, he would have recognized this as absurdly rash behavior, but he didn’t know Gene. So he just assumed that the man wasn’t a terribly good driver.

  Gene was still intensely disturbed by the evening’s events and his ever-ready handkerchief had taken about as much abuse as one could. Inside his office, Fabbri supplied a box of ordinary paper Kleenex and Gene thanked him with a loud honk and a clearing of the afflicted sinus passages. Despite the country charm of the house’s exterior, the office was modern, sleek, and efficient inside. A large Cuban flag on the wall and a desk calendar of Che Guevara were the only real hints of Fabbri’s personal character. There wasn’t a speck of dust or a loose paper to be seen, but legal documents were stacked neatly everywhere in working piles. Fabbri sat down behind his big tidy desk, placed his speakerphone in between himself and Gene, and dialed the number of Kay’s parents on Fair Acres Road.

  Gene Cummins was a man of order, of organization, and of preparedness. During his long naval career, he had been known as a go-to man, the kind of person who got things done. There had been very few situations in his life that he hadn’t been able to somehow climb on top of and conquer — and his family depended on him in that way. When the kids were young they had thought their dad could fix anything. The tape recorder that was left on the back porch during a thunderstorm? Don’t worry — Daddy can fix it. The doll who got her hair cut the same day Tink did? Don’t worry — Daddy can fix her. The beanbag that was leaking teeny Styrofoam balls all over the playroom? Don’t worry — Daddy can fix it. And he did. He fixed all of these things and a lot more in the late evenings while his children were tucked up in their beds and his wife smiled and chuckled, calling him the Miracle Worker or Doctor Dad, depending on the job.

  But now, as he sat in Fabbri’s chrome and leather office, Gene was faced with an insurmountable tragedy. This type of destruction was completely overwhelming. His usual staid determination had been futile — he had been unable to gain control of the situation. Gene simply could not fix this. And this feeling of utter helplessness was new to him — he didn’t know how to handle it. It became terror and unbearable frustration when he looked at it too closely, so instead he concentrated on deep breaths and answering the questions Fabbri was asking him.

  During those moments when he paused to take stock of the situation, here is what he gathered: his nieces were gone, almost undeniably dead, though there was still no definite word on that front. His own two terrified daughters were at their grandparents’, waiting for him to bring their brother home. And his son had just been taken away from him, taken to jail, charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He shook his head again. It was just all too much. Back to the deep breaths and the questions.

  Kay’s voice was on the speakerphone now in Fabbri’s office. She had wanted to be present for this meeting but hadn’t wanted to leave Tink and Kathy alone, so this was the result. The three-way conversation lasted over an hour and neither Kay nor Gene could remember much of what was said. Fabbri told them that Tom was being booked and placed in a holdover for the night, at which point Kay urgently interrupted.

  “A holdover? What in God’s name is that? You don’t mean to tell me he’s going to be kept in a cell with a bunch of criminals, do you?” she asked.

  “Just overnight, Mrs. Cummins. After the hearing tomorrow — ”

  “Overnight! There has to be some way to get him out of there. He can’t. He’s only a kid, and he’s not even a tough kid. He’s never even been in a fistfight. What if one of these guys from last night gets picked up for drugs or something, and gets thrown in there with him? They’d kill him. You have to get him out of there!”

  Kay was near hysteria.

  “You know what, Kay,” Fabbri said calmly, “I think you’re right. I will phone the station as soon as we are finished here and tell them to put him on a suicide watch. That way they have to give him his own cell.”

  This served to pacify some of Kay’s worries, and Gene agreed that it was a good idea. Fabbri went on to explain what he expected to happen the next day. From the time of Tom’s actual arrest, the police department had twenty hours in which to procure warrants against Tom for the alleged offenses. If they were unable to acquire the warrants, they would have to let him go. But if they did obtain the warrants, which Fabbri felt was more likely, Tom would probably not be offered bail — he would have to stay in jail until the trial date, which could be anywhere from six to eighteen months away. Kay gasped audibly when she heard eighteen months and this time Fabbri had no words of comfort for her.

  “Will we be able to see him?” she asked. “Will his sisters be able to see him?”

  “For now, no,” he answered. “We’ll cross that bridge tomorrow after the twenty-hour deadline has passed. We’ll have to see then what we’re dealing with.”

  Kay and Gene sat on opposite ends of St. Louis, nodding solemnly at Fabbri’s words and feeling their old life in Gaithersburg, their life from yesterday, slip further and further into unreality.

  The holdover cell wasn’t so bad really. Kay probably would have been mildly relieved had she actually seen it. The whole place was painted a minty, institutional green and the hard metal benches were crowded but not full. Tom looked around hazily at the other suspects in the all-metal room, but they didn’t have names or faces or voices. They were just moving, breathing blobs that occupied spaces around him. He was asleep sitting up when the two arresting officers came back for him.

  “Come on, get up. You’re being put on a suicide watch,” one of the officers said. “Apparently you’re gonna kill yourself tonight. Your cousins last night, yourself tonight. You’re on a roll,” he sneered.

  Tom trudged along sleepily beside the guard on the way to the new cell. Now that the idea of sleep had been planted firmly in his head, he seemed powerless to stay awake. The nastiness of the officer had ceased to affect him. His eyelids drooped shut as he walked automatically, following the man by the sound of his heavy, echoing footfall and the jangle of the keys on his belt.

  If the communal holdover cell had rated a “not bad” on Tom’s sleep-deprived comfort scale, then the new cell was definitely in the “marvelous” range. It was smaller, with two metal shelves along each wall for people to sleep on, but he was alone and it was darker and quieter. To Tom, it felt like the Ritz-Carlton. There was a commode with no seat or lid, coupled with a metal sink, in one corner. Everything in the room was painted with several flaking coats of the same industrial mint green. Sherwin-Williams must have had a sale that day, Tom thought as he collapsed onto the nearest bench. He didn’t hear the ominous whir and heavy clunk of the metal cell gate as it yawned itself shut above him. He didn’t feel the lice bouncing off him and nipping his skin raw as he slept. And he was only vaguely aware of the sounds of his PCP-addicted neighbor slamming himself repeatedly into the walls in his adjoining cell. Tom slept in blackness.

  On Petite Drive, Ginna’s house felt like an empty tomb despite the constant level of activity. After Kay and her daughters had left late that afternoon, all incoming information had pretty much seemed to dry up. People rattled around the house quietly and awkwardly, and the silence and grief pervaded everything. The television was on and there were pockets of conversation around the house, but somehow the silence seemed to thicken and harden like a film over all the quiet sounds of waiting.
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  When it began to get dark, Sheila and Lisa both kissed their sister Ginna, offered hugs and prayers, and then headed home to their respective families, who would no doubt be curious and hungry because of their mothers’ absences. They both had over an hour’s drive to get home, and kids to comfort when they got there.

  Ginna’s brother Kevin was at the house too, but he felt awkward and in the way. To Kevin, Ginna’s house had always felt like women’s territory, crowded as it always was with females. But now more than ever it felt like a feminine world. Julie’s and Robin’s rooms were already beginning to take on shrine-like qualities. People would wander in and sit quietly on their beds, looking around with reverence, absorbing memories and trying not to disturb anything. Ginna’s friend Marianne was there too now, and all the women in the house were clucking and cooing around the tormented mother, offering her the brand of comfort that only women seem able to effortlessly conjure up.

  Kevin, for his part, was having a very male reaction that felt out of place here: he was seething with rage. The thoughts of what had happened to his nieces and the suffering even now of his nephew were stirring up a wrath in him. He wanted to find these four men and rip their heads off with his teeth. He paced around the house and tried to get his head in order. Tomorrow he’d feel useful and helpful. Their parents and the remaining siblings would be flying and driving in from all over the country, and Kevin would be the airport-shuttle-bus driver and navigator. He would collect grandparents, carry suitcases, help organize sleeping arrangements. These practical thoughts calmed him while the women fussed and whispered to each other.