“Who’s that?”
A woman who was to become one of Chris’s closest allies in the coming months and years had arrived at the station house after getting a call from one of the detectives working the case. Jennifer Hunt was one of New Hampshire’s victim’s advocates. According to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, the victim’s advocate’s “primary job function is to help victims and witnesses of all ages understand and maneuver through the criminal court system.” Hunt was going to be there for Chris, Nicole, Drew or anyone else in Jeanne’s family needing emotional support. Hunt was a sounding board, the person to speak to regarding the judicial side of Jeanne’s murder. Her job was to walk Chris and Jeanne’s friends and family through the minefield of the judicial system and explain best she could what was happening as the investigation proceeded.
After Detective Linehan introduced Hunt to Chris, he headed back down the hall to ask Billy a few more questions.
Hunt quickly explained that Drew had been brought to the station house. “Mr. McGowan,” she added, “Drew is going to be taken home to his father’s house. His dad is here to take him.”
“What?” asked Chris. He was “overwhelmed,” he recalled, at the thought of Anthony stepping in now to be Drew’s father when, in Chris’s opinion, the man hadn’t done anything since Chris knew Jeanne and the kids to even remotely resemble a parent.
“Yeah, Drew is going to go with his dad back to Massachusetts for now. He said that’s what he wanted.”
This wounded Chris, as well as confused him. He must have heard Hunt wrong.
“Tony is here to take his son home?”
The name alone was enough to disturb Chris. In fact, he became so animated that Hunt, he remembered, felt threatened and backed away from him as he spoke.
“What! Tony’s here? You cannot let Drew go with him.”
“Tony is Drew’s legal guardian. We have no choice in the matter.”
“You can’t. Jeanne would not want that.”
Realizing there was little he could do to stop Anthony from taking Drew, Chris decided to get out of there as fast as he could and over to Amanda’s so he could let her know what had happened.
Everything else could wait.
CHAPTER 23
The NPD is a contemporary, multifloored redbrick building located centrally between Everett Turnpike (Route 3) and Routes 111 and 130. Situated just south of Mill Pond and west of downtown Nashua, the station house allows law enforcement easy access to the interstate, which splits the city of Nashua, like a subdivision, in two. Entering the building from the parking lot, there are concrete steps leading up to the main entrance.
As Chris McGowan left the building with family members, he was so overcome by emotion that he walked right by Drew, who was sitting on the top of the steps out front. The boy’s head was bowed into his bent knees. Jeanne and her youngest child hadn’t been getting along well lately. And there was no doubt as Drew sat and thought about the past few months, replaying all the arguments he’d had with his mother, he wished he could take back some of the things he had said. Later, in a memorandum message Drew wrote on the Internet, the boy expressed his regret: “Mom, I miss you so much. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most. I’m sorry I let you down. I love you.”
When Chris, his mother, brother and sister made it to the car, Chris turned and looked up toward the front steps.
“I think that’s Drew sitting there,” he said. “Don’t leave.” He wanted a minute alone with the boy. “I need to speak to him.”
Approaching Drew, Chris looked off to the side and saw Anthony standing yards away, staring off into the distance.
Chris put his arm around Drew.
“We’re going to be OK. We’re going to get through this.” He had no idea what to say. Were there words available to make the boy feel better? “Are you going to be OK going with your father?”
“Yeah,” answered Drew.
A brief period of silence then followed between Chris and Drew. In his opinion, Chris had tried the best he could to fill a void in Drew’s life. He had taken him to baseball and hockey games, supported his Little League career. Now the boy was wading in a pool of disorder and despair. How many people walk out of their homes every day after an argument with a loved one and think they’ll never see that person again? How many people truly live in the moment?
“It’ll be OK,” Chris said again in a whisper.
Drew looked up and stared Chris in the eyes, according to what Chris later recalled.
“What is it?” Chris asked when he saw the look in Drew’s eyes. He could tell the child wanted to say something.
“He did it,” Drew blurted out softly.
“What? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“Billy.”
“What are you talking about? No. The police have no idea.”
“I’m telling you. He did it.”
“No, that’s not true.”
“He did it.” Drew kept saying his name, shaking his head, repeating the words over and over, according to Chris.
“Drew, listen,” said Chris, hugging him, “forget that. We’re going to get through this. Just hang on.”
“I know he did it.”
CHAPTER 24
Detective Denis Linehan had been a police officer for nine-and-a-half years, a detective with NPD’s CID unit for two-and-a-half. Jeanne’s case was Linehan’s fifth murder investigation as a detective. Since arriving at the NPD with Billy, Linehan had spoken to him only briefly. Walking into the station house, Linehan had led Billy through the lobby, into the main hallway, up the elevator to the second floor and directly into a small interview suite attached to the CID section of the building. Billy later said that at no time did Linehan, or anyone else, explain to him that he didn’t have to talk, or that he could leave the building whenever he wanted. As far as Billy Sullivan was concerned, he had to do what the members of the NPD told him to.
According to Billy, he sat down, looked around the room and said, “I want to get out of here. I don’t like police stations. Even innocently, I would not be willing to walk into a police station for any reason. I know how you can get talked into corners.”
“Are you OK?” asked Linehan. Billy was bouncing his leg up and down nervously.
“I’m good.”
Linehan briefly stepped out of the room. “I’ll be right back.”
“OK,” said Billy.
Linehan conferred with colleagues who had interviewed several of Jeanne’s neighbors in other rooms. Other than learning that Parker Smith thought he saw Billy and Nicole in Jeanne’s backyard somewhere around 4:00 P.M., Linehan hadn’t learned much else. In any event, it was a start. At least he knew where Billy was at a certain time of the day. Now he could ask Billy about it and see what type of answer he was willing to offer.
When Linehan reentered the room, Billy stood with his back to him. He had his cell phone open and appeared to be calling someone. As Billy heard the door open, he quickly flipped the telephone back together and put it in his pocket.
“Were you calling someone?” asked Linehan, sitting down. “Here, take a seat, William.”
Billy sat.
“My mother. I couldn’t get the call to go through.”
“Do you want to use our phone? No problem. I’ll take you to a landline.”
“No, not at this time.”
Linehan sat momentarily and studied his notes. Billy seemed fidgety and uncomfortable. He ran his hands through his butch haircut. Wiped his brow. Cleaned his eyes with his fingers. Took a deep breath.
“What’s going on here?” asked Billy.
“You know Jeanne Dominico?”
“Yeah…why?”
“She was seriously injured tonight?”
Billy didn’t say anything.
“As a result of her being seriously injured, myself, as well as other detectives, we’re trying to speak to as many individuals as we can to try to obtai
n information—”
“Wow,” said Billy.
“We’re also looking to see,” Linehan added, “what information people have in regard to helping us identify suspects in this incident.”
“Well, I wish to cooperate and provide any information I can.” Billy later insisted he was eager to help.
“So, Nicole, Jeanne’s daughter, she’s your girlfriend? We talked about that a little bit on the way here.”
Billy said, “Yeah.”
“How’d you guys spend the day today?”
“We went to Leda Lanes. We must have stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts twelve hundred times.” Billy laughed.
“Are you OK?” asked Linehan. Billy began shaking. He looked pale. Had a tough time once again keeping still. By Linehan’s later judgment, Billy was “unsettled in his chair. He seemed jittery to me. He could not sit still.”
For the next twenty minutes, Billy and the detective discussed the town Billy was from, his family background and who lived at the Dominico home on Dumaine Avenue. At one point, Linehan asked, “When was it that you last spoke to Miss Dominico?”
“She called the house at about, I don’t know”—Billy looked at the wall to imply that he was thinking about the time—“maybe two o’clock. Yeah. Nicole was in the shower. Jeanne wanted to remind Nicole to let the dogs out.”
“OK. And?”
“Then she asked me about supper. Jeanne told me she was picking up a pizza and Chris McGowan would be coming over to the house.” Linehan took notes while Billy talked. “Yeah, and I remember Jeanne saying that she was looking forward to all of us playing Pictionary.”
“Where else did you and Nicole go today?”
“Leda Lanes, Dunkin’ Donuts…um, yeah, and Pheasant Lane Mall.”
“Where’d you and Nicole go shopping?”
“I think it was…um, Spencer Gifts.”
“Did you buy anything?”
“No. We just walked around.”
After discussing a few more telephone calls Billy said he made earlier that day from his cell phone, he pulled it out, flipped it open and showed Linehan the list of numbers he had dialed, along with the corresponding times, backing up, essentially, what he had said.
While Linehan went through and wrote down each call, he couldn’t help but notice that Billy was once again shaking, his leg bouncing uncontrollably underneath the table.
“You OK, man?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Listen, would a bigger room make you feel more comfortable?” Linehan felt the room was closing in on Billy. Maybe it was making him act more nervous?
“Yes. That would be great.”
“I’ll be back, William, OK. Let me see if we can find a bigger room. You just hang out here and try to relax a little bit. You need something? Juice? Soda? Water?”
“No.”
Detective Mark Schaaf was in an interview suite down the hall with Nicole. Schaaf had already gone home for the night, but had been called back in after his colleagues discovered Jeanne’s body. His first assignment was to question Chris McGowan, but then Nicole had been brought in during that time and Linehan had Schaaf conduct the interview. So while Linehan asked his boss about obtaining a larger room for Billy, Schaaf secured permission from Anthony Kasinskas to interview Nicole formally and take a statement from her. With Nicole being a minor, Schaaf had to be careful. He read her what are called Benoit rights, or warnings, which are the juvenile equivalent to Miranda. Nicole didn’t have to answer any questions if she didn’t want to. She was visibly upset over hearing that her mother had been “seriously injured.” She was crying so hard at times, in fact, it was difficult to understand what she said. Thus, in a comforting way, Detective Schaaf asked Nicole to give him an account of what she and Billy did that day. It was important to lock down a story from Nicole right then.
“Try to relax. We’re here to help you.”
Nicole started hyperventilating. She tried to speak, but couldn’t.
Eventually she was finally able to talk about what she had done with Billy throughout the day, and explained as best she could where they had gone, what they had done and who it was they had seen.
“Billy and me went to Wal-Mart. Then we went to see a movie, Pirates of the Caribbean.”
While listening to Nicole talk about the day, Schaaf noticed a piece of paper sticking out of her pocket.
“At this point, Nicole and Billy,” Attorney General (AG) Will Delker, who was on his way to the NPD as Schaaf and Linehan questioned Nicole and Billy, later said, “were still just witnesses. They (detectives) really didn’t suspect Billy and Nicole necessarily. They hadn’t ruled anybody in or out, to be specific, at that point. Early on there were [other] suspects…. Chris McGowan was an obvious suspect. The ex-husband, Anthony Kasinskas, and [Drew, too], simply because he was missing for a while. Nicole and Billy, like Jeannie’s neighbors, were witnesses.”
After Nicole gave Schaaf a brief account of the day she spent with Billy, Schaaf met Linehan in the hallway as he was roaming around trying to find a larger room for Billy.
The two detectives compared versions of the day as described by Nicole and Billy.
“Nicole said they bought clothing?” Linehan noted.
“Yeah.”
They talked some more.
“There are discrepancies, Mark, huh?”
“Yeah. Let me go back and talk to her again.”
Schaaf asked Nicole about the piece of paper sticking out of her pocket.
“Can I see it?”
“No.”
“What is that?”
“Oh,” said Nicole, “it’s a receipt.”
As Schaaf continued speaking with Nicole, Linehan poked his head into the room Billy was waiting in.
“I’m still working on it,” Linehan said. “Can I get you a glass of water or something?”
“Sure,” said Billy.
Linehan soon found a larger interview suite on the same floor.
“Come with me,” he told Billy.
Down the hall was a suite equipped with a video camera and audio recorder. Linehan sat across from Billy at a small table, but didn’t turn on the equipment.
“This room is more comfortable. Thanks.” Billy looked around and made note, Linehan recalled, of the video camera.
“What’s with that video camera?”
“No one is recorded without their knowledge.”
“OK.”
“Let me ask you, William, about your day again. It seems the information we are getting is not consistent with what you have provided. The victim here was seriously injured. I need to get accurate information so we can proceed with this case, you know what I’m saying.”
Billy showed “extreme nervousness” and once again started bouncing his legs. As he thought about what to say, he “continually shifted from side to side in his chair.”
“I know,” said Billy. “I’m willing to speak to you.”
“OK. Let’s go over it again.”
Linehan outlined the differences in Billy and Nicole’s stories.
“We went to Wal-Mart,” Billy blurted out. “Yeah, I almost forgot.”
“Did you go to Wal-Mart before you went bowling—or after?”
“Actually, I’m not sure if we went to Wal-Mart today or yesterday. We talked about going to a movie, but we never did.”
Linehan made note of the inconsistency. But more than that, it was the way Billy continued fidgeting and acting edgy whenever he explained what Linehan knew to be contradictory to what Nicole had said.
“That shirt,” asked Linehan, looking at Billy’s chest, which made Billy look down at himself, “is it new, Wiliam? It seems new to me.”
“Yeah. Nicole bought it for me. Not today, though. Yesterday.”
“Huh. You know, William,” Linehan sounded disappointed, “we need accurate information while speaking to people.” Billy shrugged his shoulders. Bowed his head. “As a result of this investigation,” explained Linehan, �
��we are going to get DNA evidence and surveillance video from the area businesses, fingerprints…. It’s going to be an aggressive investigation.”
“What? What do you mean?” Billy became angry, riled. Linehan struck a nerve. “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything, William, let’s get that straight. I’m just explaining the steps we take in an investigation.”
“Why is this so important?”
Linehan didn’t respond at first. Then, “It’s part of our investigation.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with Jeanne being injured,” Billy said defiantly.
“You’re upset with me now, William. Try to collect your thoughts as best you can and I’ll be back in a few minutes, OK.”
Linehan left the room. As he closed the door, he heard a loud crash and bang. Then he walked around the corner and stood on the opposite side of a two-way mirror focused on Billy. Watching, Linehan saw Billy slap his hands on the table in frustration. When he finished, he jumped out of his chair, headed for the corner of the room, hung his head over a blue plastic bucket in the corner and stuck his face in the barrel.
Is he vomiting?
When Linehan realized Billy was, in fact, getting sick, he rushed into the room.
“You OK? You need to use the restroom?”
Linehan found it strange that Billy was hyperactive to the point where he had to vomit. “We deal with a lot of people,” the detective said later in court, “and people react differently.”
Still, it piqued his interest that the situation had affected Billy so strongly that he was getting sick to his stomach. Why?
“I’m fine,” responded Billy, wiping his lips with his wrist before sitting back down at the table.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” Linehan said.
Detective Sergeant Richard Sprankle had returned to the NPD by that point. He was in his office. After sitting down across from him, Linehan said, “We’ve got serious inconsistencies from the two kids.”
“What else?”
“Well, the Sullivan kid appeared to be very nervous and got sick after I left the room.”
“All right. Let’s both go in and talk to him.”
Because You Loved Me Page 10