by Liza Rodman
It was a cold night with temperatures in the teens, so Mrs. Morton climbed the two flights from her basement office apartment to check on the women and make sure they were warm enough. She found them sitting on the twin beds chatting, both wrapped with blankets around their shoulders. They thanked her for her concern and assured her they were fine.
“Girls, would you mind leaving your door open when you leave later?” Mrs. Morton said. “It makes the heat circulate through the rooms better. Your things will be perfectly safe, I assure you.”
“Sure,” Pat said, and Mrs. Morton went on her way.
As the women talked and put on their makeup, another boarder popped his head in the door to introduce himself. Soon, they realized they had a mutual friend in Providence, and the three talked easily about what a small world it was. Around 7:00 p.m., the women headed to the Mayflower Cafe for dinner and then onto the Fo’csle for a few drinks.
During the dreary winter months, The Fo’csle provided a rare gathering spot for those whom Tony labeled as “bohemians, artists, writers, faggots, lesbians, young folk, and fishermen”3 who stood around the juke box and “chatted merrily.” Tony was one of the regulars who would sit at the bar and watch the crowd. That night, his friend Wolf Fissler joined him at the bar and bought him a beer. Tony had already had a glass of wine over dinner at his mother’s, which was unusual for him, but he needed something to wash down her kale soup and grilled sardines, and the beer instantly went to his head. Around 9:00 p.m., he watched Pat and Mary Anne enter the place and sit at a table along the far wall, but he didn’t approach them.
The bar was crowded, and Pat and Mary Anne were sitting alone until two women approached them and asked if they could share their table. Brenda Dreyer and Irene Hare, high school friends from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, were also on a girls’ weekend trip to Provincetown, and the four were soon comparing notes about boyfriends, makeup, work, and travel.
Tony watched the women from a distance, but he still made no attempt to say hello. He finished his beer and, feeling a little light-headed, asked Wolf to drop him off at 5 Standish Street. When Tony walked into his room, he found that Pat and Mary Anne had left a wet towel on the floor. Slobs, just like Avis, he thought.4 Miffed because he felt he had generously allowed them to use his room only to find they had disrespected it, he decided they owed him a ride to the Royal Coachman in the morning to get his paycheck. He tore off a piece of brown paper from an A&P grocery bag. On it he wrote, “Can you give me a ride to Truro in the morning?” and signed it “Tony.” He went upstairs and into their open room. He tacked the note to the closet door and then returned to his room and smoked some hash.
Meanwhile, Pat and Mary Anne and their two new friends left the Fo’csle together and moved on to the Pilgrim Club, where they stayed until closing. The four women made plans to see each other again in March, when they all hoped to return to Provincetown. When they left the club, Brenda and Irene led Pat’s VW through the dark streets back to 5 Standish Street, then watched as Pat and Mary Ann safely walked up the front stairs and waved from the door. Brenda and Irene waved back then drove away.
Standing behind the curtains in his front window, Tony watched Pat and Mary Anne enter the house, wondering where they had been until almost two o’clock in the morning.5
* * *
At around 9:30 the next morning, Tony was awoken by Pat and Mary Anne, who had found his note and agreed to take him to the Royal Coachman in Truro. They were anxious to give him his ride so that they could get back to town in time to meet up with a friend around lunchtime at the Fo’csle.
Tony’s head ached, and he realized with a grimace he had a bit of a hangover and a sour stomach.
“I need to take a quick shower, okay? Give me half an hour.”
Pat and Mary Anne asked him for a place to have breakfast, and he told them Wally’s was one of the few restaurants still open in January. They returned to Standish Street shortly after 10:30 a.m., and then they and Tony headed out to the Royal Coachman so he could collect his paycheck.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Morton made her usual rounds through the house, removing the piece of brown paper from the women’s closet door. She saw that it was a note from Tony asking for a ride to Truro. Having seen them all leave together, she figured it was old news, threw the note in the trash, and continued on through the house.
At the Royal Coachman, Roger Nunes had had enough of Tony Costa; Tony hadn’t even bothered to show up to work for five days running. Nunes had a deadline to meet on the RC expansion, and he needed workers he could count on. He gave Tony’s last paycheck to Jim “Zach” Zacharias, another worker with whom Tony occasionally carpooled, and said, “If you see Tony, give him this and tell him he’s fired.”
When Tony got to the motel, he went into the office, but Atwood told him that Roger had given his check to Zach.
“Roger’s had enough, Tony. You’re through. He needs reliable workers,” Atwood told him.
Tony walked back out to the VW and got in. He asked Pat if she minded going back into town so that he could find Zach and get his check. Pat agreed, turned around, and drove toward downtown. They spotted Zach on his motorcycle turning onto Bradford Street. Tony waved him over and rolled down the window.
“Atwood says you have my paycheck.”
Zach walked over to the car, leaned down to look in the window, and nodded at the two women; they both smiled back at him. They seemed happy and carefree, just glad to be out enjoying their day on the Cape. He handed Tony the check.
“Glad I saw you. Here’s the check. But Roger says to tell you you’re fired because you didn’t show up for work. You’re through at the RC, Tony.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Tony said. “Thanks.” And he rolled up the window.
Jim Zacharias watched the VW drive off. He realized Tony had always creeped him out, and today was just another example of why. Who were those women? Why hadn’t Tony introduced them? And why in hell were they headed to Truro?6
The last time he saw the car, it was headed toward Route 6. It was around noon on Saturday, January 25.
38 LIZA
The afternoon of January 25, Ron and his kids came for Louisa’s eighth birthday party. Mom had decided to pull out all the stops and invited the whole neighborhood and all her friends and their daughters. It was more girls than we knew, and several more than we were actually friends with. Mom filled a piñata with candy, set up a pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs, stacked a mound of presents two feet tall, and made a cake large enough to feed both Louisa’s and my entire classes.
Nana came, but Grampa Georgie didn’t. Nobody said why, but I heard Nana say he’d been fired from his job and had finally thrown away the last of his nips, for good this time. Whatever had happened, Nana sounded pleased by it all. I finally learned that when they sold their house, they had bought a trailer and now lived by the highway in nearby Kingston, Massachusetts. I think Grampa Georgie liked the idea of being able to hit the road at a moment’s notice, house and all.
I sat with the other girls watching Louisa open her mountain of gifts and tried to smile and have a good time. But all I could see was Mom fawning over Louisa like she was her pet, smoothing her hair and plumping up her skirt for yet another photo while Ron looked on.
After I had ruined several family photos by sticking my tongue out, Mom stopped calling me over to be in any of the pictures.
When the party was all over, I helped Nana clear away the plates, put the last of the cake in the fridge, and start on the dishes. Mom and Ron had disappeared.
39 TONY
After Tony got his paycheck, Patricia Walsh didn’t drop him off in town. Instead, the three of them headed to the Truro woods. Perhaps Pat mentioned her hobby of making gravestone etchings and Tony told her of the Pine Grove Cemetery’s ancient headstones. Or perhaps he explained that he needed to “get something” from his drug cache and that it would only take a few more minutes. Whatever the reason, the three left Provincet
own and headed out to Truro. On their way, they stopped at Dutra’s general store off of Route 6, where the women bought a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes and a bottle of Chianti to share with Mary Anne’s friend from Providence, Russell Norton, who was hitchhiking up from the bus station in Hyannis to join them for the rest of the weekend. Tony had already dropped a hit of acid and was starting to feel its effects; suddenly he thought “Carl,” an alter ego who had appeared in one of his earlier LSD trips, was in the car with them, silently watching in the back seat. Tony would later try to finger Carl as responsible for what was to come.
What happened when they got to the woods near the cemetery can only be gleaned through comparing all the various sources of information—autopsy reports, fifty hours of interviews with Tony conducted by his defense team, transcripts from his nine polygraph tests, more than two dozen psychiatric evaluations, and finally Tony’s diary and “factual novel” written in prison. And while Tony’s writing contains the grandiose ramblings of what at least one psychiatrist would later call a delusional megalomaniac, if read with a careful and discerning eye and cross-referenced with other witnesses’ testimony, certain details of the murders and their aftermath become clear.
* * *
It was a sunny and particularly mild January day. The women weren’t dressed for a walk in the woods, but because it was a beautiful day, they may have decided to take a stroll rather than wait in the car for Tony to dig up his drugs. Regardless of why, once they were deep in the woods, they all got out and walked toward Tony’s garden.
As they got farther away from the car and into the trees, the women may have balked, even insisted they turn back. Tony later made several references to Mary Anne being a “bitch” and laughing at him; she would have been unaware that her ridicule was triggering a killer’s brain. Tony wrote that one of the tree trunks looked to him like a “gigantic wrist protruding from the ground. The top of the tree… appeared to be the hand and fingers of a colossal and fearfully gruesome skeleton.”1 Maybe as the three were walking along the dirt road, the partially decomposed hand had once again become exposed and was sticking out of its shallow grave. If this is what happened, then the rest falls into place. The women, now terrified at the sighting, probably started to run back to the car, and Tony’s impulse was to stop them in their tracks. But perhaps simply having the women alone in the woods, his own private killing fields, triggered his murderous thirst.
Patricia had bruises on her neck consistent with strangulation from behind; she may even have lost consciousness. Tony then pulled out his .22 and shot her just below the left ear, severing her carotid artery and killing her instantly. Meanwhile, Mary Anne was running for her life. At the first blast, she may have looked back, horror registering as she saw her friend crumpled on the ground. She ran through the woods, tripping over the brush, downed limbs, and thorny vines that grabbed at her ankles. As she ran, Tony calmly walked behind her and took aim through the woods, fired, missed, fired again, missed again, and then, with his third shot, hit her in the back of the head.2 He saw her tumble to the ground, headfirst, her boots kicking up leaves as she fell. He walked over to her and saw that she was still alive, perhaps even pleading for her life; the bullet had hit the base of her skull but not penetrated her brain. He moved closer, put the gun behind her left ear and shot her again. To his amazement, she still didn’t die; she began making “gurgling” sounds that repulsed and terrified him. He tucked the gun in his belt, ran back to his cache, and pulled out his father’s knife that he always kept buried at the base of the big pine tree. Holding it out in front of him like a sword, he walked back to where Mary Anne lay dying. She was still gurgling. Damn, why won’t she just die, already? He knelt down and, using the blade of the knife, cut away her coat, sweater, and bra, then raised the knife high over his head and plunged it deep into her heart. And did it again. And again. And again until finally, her gurgling stopped.3
Tony looked down at Mary Anne’s body and then, through the trees, at Pat’s. He was trembling, and it felt as if the tremor started on the soles of his feet and coursed up through his entire body like an electric current—exhilarating and terrifying. His drug highs were great, but this was otherworldly. Along with power he felt rage: Why did this bitch laugh at me? Stuck-up stupid bitch. I haven’t even gone to college and I’m smarter than her. Is it any wonder I lost my temper? It’s not my fault what happened. Not. My. Fault. He felt with a thrill that an erection was pressing against his pants; he’d never felt bigger, and the urge to show her who was boss became unbearable. He looked down at Mary Anne’s body; she’d be first.
When he was finished with Mary Anne and then Pat, he rolled away, zipped his pants, and vomited onto the frozen leaves. It was probably over. He’d gone too far this time. The two naked, twisted bodies were cold but all too real. It was getting late. He looked up through the canopy of pine trees and watched, mesmerized, as “the finger of light” from the Highland Lighthouse swung its arc through the darkening winter sky. He turned his tear-stained face “up to God” and prayed for Pat and for Mary Anne, “the poor little things.” And for himself. And of course, for “Carl,” who sat nearby watching him. Carl, poor, drug-addled Carl, for whom nothing ever seemed to go right. Carl—his accomplice, his friend, his confidant.
“The deed is done, and we are the victims, Carl,” Tony said.
Carl didn’t speak; the bastard didn’t even say amen. But he was listening. Oh, he was listening, all right. Tony knew Carl heard every word he ever spoke.4
* * *
Tony was tired, now that it was all over. He’d never been so tired. Tired of everything—struggling to find work, scraping together the monthly payment to Avis, even taking the drugs—no, especially the drugs. He always seemed to be too high or too low—too many bennies or not enough. He couldn’t imagine quitting, but it was all so exhausting. He watched the beam from the Highland Lighthouse course above him. He could never seem to get ahead; someone was always preventing him from the success he deserved, success he was owed. Avis, his nagging mother, his various bosses, his three pesky kids, who hung on his back begging for treats he didn’t have. Christ! How tired he was of all of them!
Tony looked over at the gun, which had fallen on the ground earlier when he unzipped his pants. He picked up the gun; it was still warm. He ran his fingers down the barrel and over the handle. The urge became irresistible. He turned the gun, stared down the barrel, and pulled the trigger.
It clicked. He had run out of bullets.5
40 TONY
In the morning, Tony was awoken by a knock at his door. It was Mrs. Morton checking on rooms. She called through the door: Do you need anything, Antone?
Just some fresh towels, thanks.
Following her morning routine, Mrs. Morton continued down the hall, checking on the rooms, greeting guests, and collecting rents. When she climbed to the second floor, she found another note on a piece of the same brown paper grocery bag, this one tacked to the front door of number two. It read, “We are checking out early. We had a nice time. Thank you for your kindnesses.” Mrs. Morton thought the plural use of “kindness” was odd. The note was signed “Mary Anne and Pat.” Like she had with the first note, she grabbed this one and crumpled it in her hand and threw it in the trash, swiping her hands together, like a teacher at the chalkboard. That’s better! She looked in the room and saw that it was empty. She’d come back later and change the beds after she continued her rounds.
Tony woke up feeling sick, again. He’d drunk the last of the women’s Chianti, and his head pounded and his stomach was sour. Two mornings in a row. He got up and went to the bathroom. As much as he had always enjoyed bathing, he called that day’s shower “a super pleasure.” He looked at his reflection in the steamy mirror; his calm visage stared back. Perhaps last night had all been a dream? All night, snatches of memory, scenes really, had played through his head, horrific scenes of violence, blood, and death in the woods. Maybe it was the LSD, he thought. He’d often
had terrifying, graphic dreams that were only made worse when he tripped on acid, and he definitely had had his share of the stuff the day before, punctuated by some serious hash oil. But still, something nagged at him, and it wouldn’t let go. And then he opened his closet.
Fuck.
Piled on the floor of the closet in a great heap were all the clothes and shoes and shopping bags he had helped Pat and Mary Anne move into the house on Friday afternoon. And on top of the pile were his clothes from yesterday—striped pants and a jacket—with the unmistakable red stain of blood on them. In a sickening rush, he remembered coming home late, well, actually really early that morning; thank God the newspaper truck made its deliveries before dawn and had picked him up hitchhiking on Route 6. He had hopped in the back of the truck with the newspapers; he hoped the guy hadn’t gotten a good look at him. After he got dropped off in town, he had tiptoed upstairs to the women’s room, cringing every time a stair squeaked under his foot. He hadn’t dared turn on the light, so he’d had to scramble around, gathering up all those damn dresses and sweaters and pants and underpants and coats and hats and DAMN IT! Why had they brought so much shit for just two days? He’d made two trips but finally had been able to gather it all up and bring it back to his room. And there it lay in his closet.
Fuck.
He pulled it all out and threw it into a great pile in the middle of the room and started pacing back and forth in front of it. Shitfuckdamn. Now what?
Suddenly he heard a knock and his friend Herbie Van Dam stuck his head in the room without waiting for Tony to open the door.
“Hey, dude! I’ve been knocking for ten minutes,” Herbie said.
“I didn’t hear you,” Tony said, his eyes not leaving the pile of clothes.