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

by Jeanine Cummins

  “Yeah,” Richardson responded without offering more.

  Trevor flipped his badge open and proffered it toward the narrowing eye behind the door.

  “St. Louis police. We need to talk to you. We have reason to believe that you may be a material witness in a case we’re working on. Would you mind opening the door please?”

  Richardson yawned loudly and shut the door. Trevor and Brauer exchanged brief, uneasy glances but, a moment later, they heard the telltale flick of the chain unlocking, and Richardson flung the door open to them. He didn’t invite them in, but turned instead and strolled back to the couch, where it seemed he may have spent the night. His T-shirt and shorts were rumpled, and the afghan on the couch curled lazily around his legs as he slumped into a reclining position. He stretched and yawned again — a typical sleepy and grumpy sixteen-year-old, unimpressed at being awakened from his Sunday-morning slumber by the police. The two detectives entered the room and closed the door behind them. They didn’t intend to make themselves at home, but allowed Richardson to slump in front of them while they talked.

  “Do you know anything about a flashlight bearing the inscription HORN 1, Antonio?”

  A fleeting moment of panic rippled through Richardson, waking him more than the unexpected knocking had. He sat up a degree or two in his seat. His mind raced. They must know something about it, or they wouldn’t be here, he thought. He knew he had to admit at least some connection.

  “Yeah,” he began sheepishly, “that was my flashlight. I lost it on the bridge a few days ago.”

  “That’s why we’re here, Antonio. There’s not going to be any trouble about you stealing that flashlight from Mr. Whitehorn. But we do know that you were a witness to what went down at the Chain of Rocks Bridge on Thursday night, and we need your cooperation in that matter.”

  Antonio shifted uncomfortably in his seat, using one arm to lever himself into a more upright position. He chewed his bottom lip and thought it over for a moment, pulling at a loose thread on the multicolored afghan as he did so. The two detectives silently awaited his response.

  “Yeah, okay,” Richardson said finally. He glanced at the two men’s faces before continuing. “I got important information about that actually. I know what happened. I can help y’all.”

  “Will you make a statement?” Brauer asked.

  Richardson nodded. A few minutes later, he was dressed in a T-shirt and pair of blue jeans that were not noticeably less wrinkled than his previous ensemble, and ready to head downtown with Trevor and Brauer. Richardson was silent as they left his apartment, and he hung his head low as Brauer unlocked the squad car and opened the back door for him. He got in quickly and immediately slouched down in his seat. Trevor and Brauer weren’t sure if the kid just had posture as bad as his attitude, or if he was trying to hide from his neighbors. With a potential homicide witness, just about anything was possible.

  In the backseat, Richardson continued to stare moodily out the window. He already knew what he was going to say — he was just hammering out the details in his head. He would tell the truth, more or less, but only about Marlin Gray and his cousin Reggie Clemons. He’d tell them what Marlin and Reggie had done and he’d blame the whole thing on them. He’d say he was scared — that they’d threatened to kill him if he squealed. He’d say he had been a silent bystander, unable to stop the crimes because he was so young and so frightened. And he wouldn’t even mention Danny — Danny was the most likely to break down. He knew that if they brought Danny Winfrey in, they’d get the whole truth out of him and that would be the end of everything.

  It’s gonna be all right, he told himself. I’m gonna get myself out of this.

  For the first time in history, Tink and Kathy didn’t fight their brother for time in the bathroom. Tom stayed in there for well over an hour, scrubbing and washing and shampooing and shaving and grooming. The RID that Kay had bought for him at the supermarket had been largely successful in evicting the rather persistent lice that had found a home on him during his time in jail, but he still felt less than presentable in his dress clothes for Mass. When he looked in the mirror he still saw a shambles staring back at him. His hair, annoyed at being left unwashed for so long, refused to lie down flat on his head and instead stuck up in three or four inappropriate cowlicks. His eyes were bloodshot, his shave looked prickly, and his skin still felt dirty, although in fact he was immaculate down to the fingernails. He shook his head and switched the light off.

  They were all ready and waiting for him upstairs: his sisters, his parents, and his grandparents. But nobody complained that he had kept them waiting.

  “Ready, son?” Gene looked at Tom, who steeled himself and nodded his head.

  Grandma Polly and Grandpa Art went into the church first. They were always so considerate, Tom thought. How kindhearted and brave they were being now. He followed them, limping noticeably and flanked by Kathy and Tink. He was sure that neither of his sisters had ever held their heads so high as they did that morning, yet he caught the unmistakable trace of water in their eyes as they helped him down the aisle behind their grandparents and into the front pew. Kay and Gene brought up the rear. All seven of them knelt down and prayed. In a few moments, Kay had the Kleenex out of her purse and was quietly passing it along the pew. Tom blessed himself and sat back, and his sisters joined him.

  Tink and Kathy had never been so protective of him before, and while he was touched, he was also a little worried by it. The truth was that he was more than slightly uncomfortable being out in public for the first time. Since his release the day before, he had seen his own picture on television countless times, paired with phrases like “alleged murderer” and “suspect.” He was sure that everyone in the church had seen these pictures as well, and that they were now watching him, wary and disgusted. But they were in church, after all, he thought. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Maybe people here would give him the benefit of the doubt. He saw a few parishioners snap their eyes away when he glanced at them, and he really couldn’t sort out the paranoia from the reality. He breathed deeply and tried to concentrate.

  The priest talked in soothing Midwestern tones and soon Tom felt himself getting sleepy again. His energy hadn’t quite caught up with him. He didn’t know how he’d last the whole hour without further disgracing his family by falling asleep. He’d have to find something to keep himself alert. Just then Tink nudged him in the rib cage and showed him her hands. She was doing “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open it up . . .” She usually finished it off with an Indian burn or a middle finger or an uppercut to the jaw instead of the more traditional “. . . and see all the people.” Tom looked up at his sister’s face, pale pink and blue and green from the stained-glass light, and she stuck her tongue out at him and smiled. Tom chuckled quietly and if the priest noticed, from where he was preaching about four feet away, he didn’t let on. Grandma Polly leaned forward in the pew and winked at the two of them. Tom’s spirits lifted a little.

  After several hours of questioning and a couple of taped statements from Richardson, the St. Louis Homicide Division was ready to take its investigation in an entirely new direction. It was beginning to dawn on them that Tom Cummins might actually be telling the truth. And Richardson had something further to add to Tom’s seemingly unbelievable story — he had names and addresses. He knew only two of the assailants: Marlin Gray from Wentzville and Reginald Clemons from Northwoods. The additional assailant that Tom had described was unknown to Richardson. He admitted to having seen him, but he kept emphasizing that he wasn’t important. Clemons and Gray were the ringleaders. Clemons and Gray were the rapists and the murderers.

  “Surely you’ve seen this story on the news the past two days. You knew those two girls were still missing, probably dead. And that kid Cummins has been to hell and back. If you saw all this happen and you knew who had done it, why didn’t you come forward?” Brauer pressed him after the tape recorder clicked off.

  Richardson shrugged. �
�I was scared,” he answered.

  You sure as hell don’t look scared to me, Brauer thought, shaking his head.

  “Antonio, we’d like for you to accompany us to the bridge this afternoon, if you will. We’re going to make a videotape, and you can map out the sequence of events for us logistically. How does that sound?”

  “Fine,” Richardson responded.

  When the detectives left him alone in the interrogation room, Richardson stretched and linked his hands behind his head. He even risked a little smile. He had managed the performance of a lifetime, he was sure of it. He had given them exactly what they needed, and they didn’t suspect him of a thing. Sure, he would go along to the bridge and he would reenact the crime for them. In fact, he was quickly getting used to the idea of seeing the whole thing from the outside. He was warming to his role as frightened bystander. He was going to pull this thing off without a hitch.

  By the time police arrived in Northwoods to take Reginald Clemons into custody, Richardson was back in his apartment, socks on the coffee table, flipping through early-evening television. Six o’clock, nothing on but news. As he flipped channels, he caught a brief glimpse of Tom Cummins’s grim-looking face. It was too soon for the media to have gotten wind of the new developments, and as a result Tom was still being labeled “alleged murderer.” But Richardson wasn’t interested. He flipped channels again, hoping for a game show or something.

  The afternoon had been another long and tense one for the Cummins and Kerry families. Everyone had gone to church, and every church in the St. Louis area was asking for prayers for the two missing sisters, Julie and Robin Kerry. When Tom and his parents had left Fabbri’s office the previous evening, his final word to them had been one of caution.

  “I know you’re relieved right now and this is great,” Fabbri had said, “but just be warned that this thing is far from over. You are still the number-one suspect, and the police are still determined to obtain evidence against you. As soon as they find a body or anything else, you should expect to be rearrested.”

  Tom had nodded, but inwardly he had blanched at the thought. To think that just a week before his worst fear had been heights. Now he was terrified at the thought of going to jail for murdering his cousins. So as the rest of the family spent Sunday hoping and praying for word of some discovery, Tom was torn. The families knew at this stage that there was very little likelihood of finding either girl alive, and their hopes had drifted, slowly but surely, to finding their bodies. Ginna needed closure. Tom, for his part, had to hope for the impossible. He wanted peace for Ginna, but he was sure that the discovery of a body would get him rearrested. He didn’t know what to pray for. So he just held on and hoped. He barely dared to breathe.

  When the phone rang early that evening, everyone jumped, as had become their habit. Later, the psychiatrists would identify this phenomenon as “exaggerated startle response.” Right now however, all the Cumminses knew was that the phone would bring news, and with it heartache, hope, terror.

  “Gene,” Grandma Polly said from the kitchen, “the police are on the phone. They need to talk to you.”

  This was the phone call they had all been dreading. Tom was sure of it. They had found something. Gene’s face turned sickeningly ashen as he heaved himself up from the couch and tottered dizzily toward the kitchen phone. He didn’t look Tom in the eye as he went. Tink and Kathy gripped each other and tears welled up in their eyes while they waited. Tom looked wildly from his sisters to his mother and he trembled. Only Kay met his eyes.

  “I won’t go back,” he said quietly. “I’m not going back. I’ll run. Whatever I have to do — I can’t go back there. Mom, you can’t ask me to. I can’t go back, I didn’t do this.”

  His voice was rising in pitch and volume with each word, and by the time Kay had crossed the room and rested her hands on her son’s shoulders, he was near hysteria. She sat down next to him and looked him levelly in the eyes.

  “We’re not asking you to go back, honey. Let’s just wait and see what they have to say, okay? Try to stay calm.”

  Tom shook his head and leapt up from the couch to pace. The pain shooting through his hip reminded him to be careful as he did so. In the days that had passed since Tom’s fall from the bridge, he still hadn’t seen a doctor, still didn’t know that his hip was throbbing because it was fractured. The discomfort registered low on his list of priorities.

  Gene wasn’t more than two minutes on the phone and when he returned, his face carried a hint of a smile. He opened his mouth to speak but momentarily faltered. It took him an additional few seconds to process his thoughts into words. Tom was in agony waiting for him to speak.

  “They’ve got a guy in custody,” Gene began simply. “I don’t know how they found him, but they arrested one of the four guys this afternoon and he ... I guess he confessed. He has basically corroborated your whole story.”

  Tom’s gaze left his father’s face and he sat down beside his mother with a thump on the blue velvet couch. He folded his hands across his lap and stared into middle space, struggling to digest this latest news. He hadn’t even known that the police were investigating any other leads. His efforts at hope thus far had been extended to clearing his own name. That they would actually have found even one of the four monsters who did this had seemed too grand a possibility to even hope for. Kay was throwing her arms around him now, and he watched in stunned silence as his sisters sprang up from their seats and rushed toward him. Tom just couldn’t take it in. There was a loud buzz in his ears and everything seemed slow and contorted. Until all at once, the joyful sounds of his family burst upon his ears and he crumpled, crying, while his sisters tackled him.

  Gene briefly disappeared from the room, and when he returned he set two bottles of cold Budweiser on the coffee table, peeled the smiling, teary-eyed Tink and Kathy off of their brother, and handed his son a beer. Tink and Kathy looked at each other wide-eyed, but Kay shot them a warning glance before they could comment on the fact that their father had just handed their brother an actual beer. It was unprecedented. Again Gene opened his mouth to try to speak but found himself unable. There were just too many things to say. Nineteen-year-old Tom stood up and embraced his father.

  “I know, Dad,” he said.

  It didn’t take long for the euphoria to subside, as everyone’s utter relief was replaced by guilt for experiencing joy while there was still no word of Julie and Robin. Still, the next hour’s worth of phone calls were certainly easier than any others Gene had made in the last two days. He phoned Ginna first, then his father and brothers and sisters. The response was the same each time.

  “Oh thank God,” they all said.

  When the six o’clock news came on, it became abundantly clear that while the police had turned their scrutiny away from Tom, the media as yet had not. The story was still at the top of every newscast. A reporter had questioned Jacobsmeyer earlier that day and Channel Four aired the interview: “Police say Cummins tried to sexually assault one of his cousins. One of the women fell from the bridge; the other fell trying to help her. Is that still what the police believe at this point?”

  “Yes it is,” was Jacobsmeyer’s response.

  “Tomorrow morning, searchers and family members will continue their agonizing wait for the bodies to surface,” the reporter concluded. “In the meantime, police say, Cummins is free to return to Maryland.”

  The Cummins family watched the report with stony faces. Their knowledge that the truth would come to light, probably as soon as the eleven o’clock news, did little to quell their hurt and rage.

  Smoothing things over with Eva had not been as easy as Gray had hoped, but as usual, his charm had won out in the end. Gray wasn’t the type to waste much time with apologies or making up. He figured that Eva would either forgive him or she wouldn’t, and that was it. Sure enough, in a couple of days the whole incident seemed to have blown over, and on Sunday evening the couple drove to Mike and Chrissy’s to spend an evening much lik
e the one Gray had spent there with his friends the night they killed Julie and Robin.

  No one took much notice when the knock on the door came, just after nine o’clock. Mike and Chrissy’s was an open household, with friends constantly dropping in unannounced. Mike handed his drink to his wife before getting up. Detectives Walsh and Trevor already had their badges out when Mike opened the door.

  “St. Louis police,” Trevor announced. “We’re looking for Marlin Gray.”

  Mike, stunned, took several steps back from the door as the two plainclothes detectives, flanked by several uniformed officers with guns drawn, spilled through the doorway without awaiting an invitation.

  “Um,” Mike stammered. “He’s in . . . he’s in the bathroom.”

  Mike indicated the direction to the bathroom with a jerk of his head. He hadn’t had a lot of dealings with the police, but he knew enough not to make any sudden movements in the presence of so many unholstered weapons.

  By this time, Eva and the others were on their feet in the living room, staring openmouthed as the half dozen or so police moved through the little house, converging on the bathroom. Gray was still inside, oblivious to the fact that he had visitors. By the time the officers were stationed outside the bathroom door and knocked, somebody had switched off the television and the house was silent. Gray made some unintelligible response to the knock, but made no move to come out.

  “This is the police,” Walsh shouted. “You have five seconds to come out with your hands up.”

  Gray was silent inside. At the count of one and a nod from Walsh, the officer nearest the doorknob twisted it and pushed the door open. Three of them rushed into the little room and grabbed Gray before he could even react. They immediately frisked and handcuffed him.

  “What the hell is this? What’s going on?” Gray demanded.