by Sue Russell
Lee called the motel for the fourth time that day at 6.20 p.m. She had something else to tell Ty about the car: she didn’t think there were any prints, so everything was cool. Just do me a favour, she asked, and keep your mouth shut.
Ty, pausing for a loud and decidedly unladylike belch, sat back on the bed in her room and listened as Lee talked around and around the familiar topics. Ty had nothing to worry about; she had proof she had been at work. Sandy or one of the others at the Casa Del Mar must have said the drawings resembled them. How could Lee help it if she was in a car that somebody got hurt in a week later?
She spoke of her fate. She imagined she’d have to stay in for ninety days before her trial, then she’d either get probation or have to serve a little more time.
She switched back to the sketches. It was because she and Ty wore hats and glasses all the time and looked like damn cops, that’s why people thought it was them. Because they were together like glue. But they didn’t have concrete evidence, Lee said.
‘This is gonna be one hell of a lawsuit if they start on me.’
What she’d told Ty? Most of the time she was bullshitting. Always trying to be a big bad-ass. The toughies of Daytona. Getting eighty-sixed from every bar. Ty laughed. For a minute, they sounded like any old couple, reminiscing.
‘Remember that three hundred and twenty-five bucks you blew on stuffed animals?’ Lee asked.
‘Yeah, I remember that.’
Ty made a noise down the phone. Awww, said Lee, touched, blowing a couple of kisses back. No, it wasn’t a kiss she was sending her, Ty corrected her, it was a drink of beer.
Unable to leave the mistaken identity tack for long, Lee bet Ty ten bucks it was the two chicks from Minnesota they really wanted, the two who go around ripping off cars and pretending they’re cops. Ty should say nothing about the storage, Lee reminded her. It was gone. Gone with the wind. It would be best if Ty forgot about their place on Burleigh (where they moved the day of Richard Mallory’s death) and didn’t even mention it. They partied too much over there.
Get drunk for me, Lee instructed Ty as she excused herself to go and get something from McDonald’s.
There was a fifth call that night. Lee had been wondering if Tracey, Ty’s sister, had said anything to the cops. Ty brushed that off.
‘I want to know if you’re alone or not?’ Lee asked.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Tell me with all your heart you are?’
‘Yes.’
The sketch, Lee reassured Ty, ‘definitely does not look like you, darling.’
‘Really?’ Ty asked.
‘Uh, uh. I mean, she’s really fat looking. I mean, real blown up in the face.’
Signing off, Lee told her to have fun.
‘I’ll drink one for you. Don’t worry,’ Ty said.
‘Fuck one! Drink ten.’
Ty’s long, taxing day wasn’t over. At 9.50 p.m., Lee came back on the line with her latest thoughts. It would be best if Ty just went back home and didn’t try to visit her in case they started hassling her or arresting her.
Was there any way—Lee had been fishing throughout to find out how much money Ty had—that Ty could leave ten bucks for her? She spoke, too, of Ty’s move up north, carefully laying the blame for it elsewhere.
‘I understand you going up there since you lost your job. That stupid dick-stain made you lose your job. Ahmad’s such a jerk … everybody loves you but he didn’t.’
She went back to trying to deter Ty from visiting the jail saying, ‘This whole accusation shit has really got me fuckin’ fired up.’ She’d been stunned, her eyes were popping out of her head, when she read the newspaper reports about a woman suspect being picked up in a bar. Lee blew Ty a goodnight kiss which Ty did not return.
Call no. 7 arrived early on Tuesday 15 January, with Ty yawning exaggeratedly. Lee anxiously reassured her that if she hadn’t been questioned thus far, she had nothing to worry about. She should get on with her own life.
‘Ty, you write me a letter first, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘And then … and then I’ll write you back. Then we’ll start like that, OK?’
‘Mmmm … mmm.’ Ty was still playing sleepyhead.
‘Awww.Ah, I can just see what my little baby’s face looks like. I remember how you used to wake up, mmm, cute little …’
‘Yeah,’ Ty said, with a hint of sarcasm. ‘Look like shit, probably, right now.’
Lee suddenly did an about-face and began talking about two pretty little crystal balls she’d put in the storage unit. It made what later sounded to the detectives as if she was trying to get a message across without spelling it out.
‘If you wanna go and get ’em,’ she told Ty, ‘just take a hacksaw and open it up and get what you want outta there. OK?’
The previous day, she’d told Ty the unit was gone, but evidently she’d since been fretting about what was in it. She made what sounded to the listening detectives like another thinly disguised reference.
‘You know that, uh, water pistol I have?’
Ty chuckled in response.
‘I gave that away.’
She told Ty she could take what she wanted from the storage unit, including the Eagle blanket. There was a little computer, a little duck, a dog and a butterfly. The crystal balls were in a little plastic bag with her gold chain, on the left side of the unit.
‘All you have to do is get a little hacksaw, saw off the fuckin’ lock, no biggie,’ she asserted.
Lee gave Ty a taste of her life behind bars, describing the funky, whipped, pukey-looking orange jumpsuit she was forced to wear. There was an orange cell and a yellow cell, but she was confined to the blue, maximum security cell, purportedly ‘the baddest cell around’, where the officers never took their eyes off the inmates. Wow, Ty retorted.
‘It’s a joke,’ Lee said. ‘It really is. And they treat us like we’re really criminals … you know?’
She veered back to the storage unit and mistaken identity, before warning Ty: ‘I’m just worried about ya because I know how the Volusia County fuckin’ cops are. They’re … they’re typical jerks. They … everybody’s a criminal and they are just angels, and they’re not… .’
Since Ty had landed a job so fast up north, Lee thought she might go up there, too, when she got out. Then she reminded Ty: ‘Whoever’s been fucking killing these people, you were at work all the time.’
If she was approached, she should demand proof, Lee advised. That’s what she intended to do.
‘… I’m gonna throw a lawsuit on you people. Big time. And I’m not talking about thousands. I’ll go for the millions.’
Call no. 8 began with Lee’s idea of good news. A friend behind bars who was going to be a paralegal had told her they’d got a couple of people up in Minnesota with the same modus operandi.
Lee believed she’d be coming before Judge Gayle Graziano. ‘I heard she’s a real bitch,’ she added. (Played later in the courtroom in front of none other than Judge Graziano herself, that tape segment raised a few wry smiles.)
While Lee rambled on, Ty’s contributions to the conversations remained largely monosyllabic, almost uncommunicative.
‘… You know, today is the 15th and twelve o’clock tonight is the beginning of a war. And it’ll be eight o’clock in the morning in Iraq. And there’s gonna be the bombshelling. And they’re … they’re checking out for terrorists in the United States because … they’re probably planted. They’re infiltrated all over the United States and they’re just gonna start … some shit.’
Ty told Lee that she’d rather nurse a beer in the bar even though it cost $1.50, than sit in her hotel room alone at night. Lee’s voice turned soft and hopeful: ‘Do you think we could ever get back together?’
‘Oh, I doubt it.’
‘I mean as roommates?’
‘I doubt that.’
Presumably not surprised, and definitely undeterred, Lee said she hoped they could just be friends and
live near one another and party down. She said she was drying out from all the alcohol and intended to stay sober; her kidneys couldn’t take it any more. When she got out, she’d just be a good girl and work, eat, sleep and pay bills, like everybody else in the human race.
‘So, Ty, you’ve been honest with me about everything?’
‘Mmm … mmm.’
Saying goodbye, Lee praised Ty for being ‘the beautifullest person I’ve ever met’.
At 8.30 p.m. Tuesday evening, Ty was interviewed in-depth for two hours on videotape by Larry Horzepa and Bruce Munster at the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office operations centre.
When Ty’s phone first rang on the morning of Wednesday 16 January, it was a false alarm—Ty’s brother, Brett. When Lee rang through, Ty swiftly took the initiative, switching to a more confrontational stance. She was supposed to be leaving for Ohio that day, so it was becoming a case of now or never. Ty plunged in: ‘I don’t … what the hell’s going on, Lee? They’ve called … they’ve been up to my parents again. They’ve got my sister now, asking her questions. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.’
They were coming after her, she knew it. Her family were nervous wrecks, her mom had been calling.
‘You evidently don’t love me any more,’ she continued. ‘You don’t trust me or anything. I mean, you’re gonna let me get in trouble for something I didn’t do.’
‘Tyria, I said I’m NOT. Listen. Quit crying and listen!’
‘I can’t help it. I’m scared shitless.’
Lee told Ty she should tell the police whatever she needed to tell them. She loved her.
‘I’m not so sure any more,’ Ty replied, sounding weak.
‘I love you. I really do. I love you a lot.’
‘I don’t know whether I should keep on livin’ or if I should …’
‘No, Ty. Ty, listen. Ty, listen,’ Lee said, cutting off her negative train of thought.
‘Why?’
‘Just go ahead and let them know what they need to know what they wanna know or anything, and I will … I will cover you, ’cause you are not … you’re innocent.’
‘I know I am.’
‘And I know you are. I will let them know that.’
Ty went off to blow her nose while Lee held on.
‘Tyria, listen, honey,’ Lee continued.
‘What?’
‘I’m not gonna let you go to jail. Listen, if I have to confess, I will.’
There it was, the elusive promise. Unable to hear but getting the gist of what was going on, the officers in the adjoining room held their breath. Ty pushed her luck further, asking Lee why she’d done what she did? Lee didn’t know. Suspicion rising again, she asked Ty if she had come to Florida to talk to detectives. Ty denied it.
‘Ty, listen to me. I don’t know what to say, but all I can say is self-defence.’
‘OK.’
‘All right? All I can say is that, all right? All right? Did you hear me?’ Lee asked, nervously.
‘Yes, I heard ya.’
‘I’m not letting you go to jail.’ Lee muttered something Ty couldn’t hear. ‘… ’cause you didn’t do anything. I love you. I won’t let this happen to you.’
Ty was crying quietly, but Lee wouldn’t let her hang up the phone. She couldn’t bear the inevitable parting just yet.
‘I just don’t understand why you did it,’ Ty went on.
‘I don’t either. I’m telling you, I don’t. Tyria, I’m so in love with you, I never wanted to leave you. You don’t know how much I love you.’
Then Lee let slip her intention to revert to her earlier line of defence—that she couldn’t help it if she rode in the car of someone who got hurt later. Hearing that, Ty insisted again that Lee must tell the truth, that she wouldn’t lie for her. Lee told her she didn’t have to, she didn’t know what happened anyway. Lee offered to say she was driving the car they wrecked, but Ty refused.
Lee’s tears were tumbling, too, as she promised the woman who was surely the love of her life that she wouldn’t let her take the fall for her, even though the price she’d pay would be death.
‘You want me to ask one of the guards to come to the door and let me go ahead and talk to ’em and tell ’em I’m the one?’ Lee asked.
‘If you want to.’
‘I will do that for you.’
Suddenly, Lee felt motivated to call her sister, Lori, and tell her what was going on. She wanted Ty to try to call her. Alluding to them cryptically, never using the word ‘murder’, Ty said, ‘I mean, I know of three, so … I mean, that’s bad enough right there.’
They took a ten-minute break then Lee called Ty back. She was ready to get on with it. But she wished none of this had happened, that they still were together.
They must have got fingerprints from that car, Lee speculated. She loved Ty, who was as innocent as apple pie, right next to God. She’d get into the Bible real hard, and die knowing she’d go to heaven and would see her mother.
‘When I die,’ she said, ‘my spirit’s gonna follow you and I’m gonna keep you out of trouble and shit, and if you get in an accident, I’ll save your life and everything else. I’ll be watching you.’
‘OK.’
‘I won’t watch ya when you have sex, though. When you have sex, I won’t watch ya, but I’ll watch ya every other way. OK?’
Suddenly, she was facing her future, wondering what happened to people on Death Row. Did they keep them in a cell their whole life, or what? Ty came out with another suicide threat, more direct this time, but Lee shouted her down. She would confess, and Ty wouldn’t even have to go to prison.
‘And I’ll probably die of a broken heart or a heart attack. I probably won’t live long, but I don’t care. Hey, by the way, I’m gonna go down in history.’
‘Huh,’ Ty said.
‘Yep. I’ll be like… ’
‘What a way to go down in history,’ Ty interjected in disgust. ‘That’s something really to be proud of, isn’t it?’
‘No. I’m just saying … if I ever write a book, I’m gonna have … give you the money. I don’t know. I just … let me tell you why I did it, all right?’
‘Mmmm … mm.’
‘Because I’m so … so fuckin’ in love with you that I was so worried about us not having an apartment and shit, and I was scared that we were gonna lose our place, believing that we wouldn’t be together. I know it sounds crazy but it’s the truth.’
Ty agreed it sounded crazy. She persuaded Lee to let her off the phone so she could go and buy some beer to help calm her down. Lee said she would call back in half an hour. It would be their last call. Ty had promised to catch the 3 p.m. bus out of town.
Lee renewed her resolve to tell all. Her life was messed up anyway, and she didn’t want to go on wandering and wandering. Her life was a fucking wreck. She didn’t deserve to live any more … but she wasn’t going to commit suicide or anything. She was a good girl. She just didn’t understand what she’d done.
Ty grabbed her chance and went on one last fishing expedition for her own sake and for the cops: ‘How much of it don’t I know?’ she asked.
Lee declined to answer that. The less she knew, the better for her. She loved Ty because she was sweet and innocent and kind. Too kind, perhaps, Ty asked? Lee was sorry if she’d taken advantage of her. She’d been really in love with her and still was.
‘Well, you’ll probably have to get over that now,’ Ty retorted, not unsympathetically.
Ty could hear Lee call across to Officer Marjorie Bertolani, saying she needed to talk to her when she got off duty. She was a good woman, that officer, and Lee had decided she was going to confess to her. Her thoughts were coming fast and furiously.
‘I knew that my life was fucked when I left home at fifteen. I’ve had my glory days. I’ve had my fucking fun. Now it’s over.’
Lee didn’t want to hang up just yet. She knew it would be their last call. If they’d stayed in the trailer for $150 a month, this wou
ld never have happened. She wished she’d never met Toni and another woman, Barb, who turned her into a lesbian. Then she fucked up, she mused, because when she loves someone, she loves them with all her heart and soul and mind and she’ll do anything. She’ll go nuts. She didn’t want to hurt people. She did go nuts. Right in her soul, right then, she couldn’t do what she’d done. She regretted it all. And she thought she deserved to die. She hoped they would go ahead and fry her. Then she’d go up to Heaven and get right with the Lord.
‘And just do me a favour,’ she told Ty. ‘Be good. Don’t ever get involved with somebody like me and don’t get involved with anybody, because you never know what that person’s gonna do. Love does strange things.’
37
Sobbing and distraught, Lee flopped down on a chair in the day room. Across the table was Marjorie Bertolani, the officer she’d called out to from the pay phone as she was giving Ty her word that she’d make a clean breast of it. Bertolani had told Lee she’d be off-duty at 4 p.m. and could talk then, but Lee couldn’t wait that long. It was 10 a.m. and suddenly everything was going haywire. Bertolani, who’d got wind of what to expect from the cell block’s ‘mystery guest’ via inmate gossip, listened intently as Lee announced that she’d done something terrible, something she had to get off her chest.
Safely assured that Bertolani was a Christian, Lee told her of her drunken confession one night to her female lover (whom Bertolani thought Lee called Tessie) regarding a murder. Bertolani quickly made one thing clear: anything Lee told her couldn’t be in confidence. She was duty bound to repeat it to her superiors. Lee kept talking. She desperately wanted to go to heaven and was afraid she wouldn’t; that’s why she was compelled to confess. She’d talk to investigators, police, anyone.
‘What would you do?’ Lee implored Marjorie Bertolani.
‘I’d ask for forgiveness. And I’d forgive myself,’ the officer replied, making a mental note that Lee might be a suicide risk. Soon after, she and several other officers were escorting Lee down to the office of the superintendent of corrections.