by Liza Rodman
The search party slowly walked past where the VW had last been seen and deeper into the woods on a narrow dirt road, so overgrown with saplings that any vehicle attempting to drive in would lose a fair amount of paint on both sides. About twenty minutes down the road, members of the Truro Rescue Squad spotted a patch of ground about ten feet off the road that was slightly sunken, about four feet long and two feet wide, that looked like it had been recently disturbed. They called the detectives over to take a look. Among them was trooper Tom Gunnery, the same officer who had pulled Tony over for a noisy muffler in September. As he approached the area, Gunnery saw the edge of a piece of green cloth sticking up out of the soil at the bottom end of the depression. He pulled on the cloth; it was the strap of a US Army duffel bag with what looked like blood on a small hook at the end of the strap. When he pulled the bag loose from the ground, a foul stink escaped with it, like something had rotted beneath. Gunnery felt the ground under his feet; it was slightly spongy. He got down on both knees and began digging with his hands; the sandy soil came away easily. With other officers now gathering to watch, Gunnery dug down about twelve inches when he felt something hard beneath his fingers.
“I’ve got something!” he shouted, as he pulled an object from of the hole.
“Jesusmaryandjoseph!” he exclaimed, falling back onto the pine needles and leaves as the men stared.
It was a human hand.
The search was immediately suspended while Lieutenant Killen was called to the scene. Killen then called Flynn and Dr. Daniel Hiebert, who would act in his other capacity as Barnstable County’s medical examiner, and instructed them to meet him in Truro. The old doctor put on his heavy winter coat and headed out the door, telling his patients in the waiting room that he’d return as quickly as possible.
When the call came into the Yarmouth barracks looking for Killen and Flynn, Bob Turbidy and Gerry Magnan, Mary Anne’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, were standing at the front desk talking to the duty sergeant. The two men had driven up from Providence and were at the station delivering photos of Pat and Mary Anne, at the request of Bernie Flynn, whom Turbidy had spoken to the day before. When Turbidy overheard that a body had been found in the Truro woods, his blood went cold.
“You better get down there,” the desk clerk said.
Turbidy got directions to the scene, and he and Magnan jumped back into his VW bus and sped to Truro.
When they reached the entrance at the end of Hatch Road, a police officer was walking out of the woods. His face was ashen, and his eyes looked a bit too large for his head.
“We found a body,” the cop said, stating the obvious.
When Turbidy explained that he and Magnan were looking for Bernie Flynn, they were then allowed to ride in the back of the medical examiner’s truck taking Hiebert to the scene. As the truck bumped along the rutted road, Hiebert complained to the driver, “Why do they always have to find bodies on Saturday?”2
They came to a stop, but only Hiebert was allowed out of the truck; Turbidy and Magnan were told to stay put and away from the dig site—police protocol when human remains were being exhumed. Turbidy for one didn’t want to dig up any bodies, especially if it was Pat’s.
In the woods, the digging resumed with Killen, Flynn, and Hiebert now part of the crowd gathered around the hole. First, Gunnery unearthed the remaining arm, then part of a leg and then the other separated arm—all of which looked as if they’d been chopped off by an ax. In particular, the left thigh had almost no soft tissue on it, indicating repeated and irregular cuts that sliced away much of the meat before the limb was successfully severed. At the end of the arms, both hands were clenched into fists, and on the left ring finger there was a gold ring with five small diamonds in it. Below that they found the pelvis and hip joints, separated from the torso at about the belly button. The skin from both the anterior and the buttocks had been entirely removed; it was never found. Then below that mess was a human head in a plastic bag with the words Horizon Electric Blanket on it. Untying the knot in the bag, Gunnery removed the head and saw that it was a woman whose face was frozen in a grimace of terror and pain. Whoever she was, she had taken a ferocious beating; the nose and left cheekbones were broken, nearly flattened, the face was bruised, and four upper teeth were missing, Digging deeper, he finally revealed the torso, around which was wrapped an industrial-size white cotton laundry bag (forty-five inches by sixty-six inches), the sort that motels use. Gunnery removed the bag; like the pelvis, the torso had large sections of skin that had been peeled back, cut away in a sweater-like pattern. The breasts, which were still attached to the loose flap of skin, were missing their nipples. Finally, at the bottom of the grave they found a pair of blood-soaked pink bikini panties with Thursday embroidered near the waistband.
The officers stood over the obscene pile of body parts. Whoever this poor girl was, they knew that the face was neither that of Patricia Walsh nor Mary Anne Wysocki.
Suddenly a routine search for two missing Rhode Island women had become a grisly murder investigation of now a third, unknown woman.
That afternoon, George Killen and Chief Berrio held a news conference announcing that a grotesquely dismembered body had been found in the Truro woods but that it was neither of the missing Rhode Island women. And, Berrio added, the shallow grave had recently been disturbed by an animal. Little did they know the animal had a name.
When word of the discovery hit the Sunday papers, Susan Perry’s mother finally filed a missing person report, six months after anyone had last seen her daughter. When asked what took her so long to contact the authorities, she answered, “You never know with kids these days.”
46 TONY
Bob Turbidy watched the police, rangers, and plainclothes detectives walk down the path in a somber line. They looked like a squadron of defeated soldiers after a nasty battle in the trenches. He asked which man was Bernie Flynn and was pointed to the detective. Flynn looked as if he might have aged a decade while he was in the woods. His face was etched with exhaustion and sadness, and his trench coat and pants were covered in filth—both dirt and something else that Turbidy couldn’t distinguish but could smell. Flynn positively reeked of rot. Both he and Gunnery would later burn every article of clothing they wore that day; no matter how many times their wives put them through the wash, they could never entirely get rid of the stench.
“Officer?” Turbidy said, silently praying. “I’m Bob Turbidy. Pat Walsh’s boyfriend. Is it…?” he nodded his head toward the woods.
Flynn slowly shook his head.
“It’s not Patricia,” he said, and then looked at Magnan. “Or Mary Anne. We don’t know who it is, but it’s not either of them. You should go.”
Turbidy nodded, his knees weak with relief. He nodded at Magnan, and the two men walked the half mile out of the woods and back to their VW bus. As the car bumped back onto Hatch Road, they decided to head into Provincetown and check out the women’s rooming house at 5 Standish Street.
They introduced themselves to Mrs. Morton as friends of Pat and Mary Anne, there to find out anything they could about the missing women. The men found Mrs. Morton “scatterbrained” and a real “cuckoo clock” as she showed them through the guesthouse. As she walked, she rambled on about her various renters and about how one tenant, Antone, had been moving stuff out of his room all week and just yesterday his mother had called demanding Mrs. Morton return his hair dryer; something she refused to do until Antone returned his room key.
“She says to me: ‘I don’t want my Tony to get into no trouble.’ Real townie, you know what I mean?” Mrs. Morton said.
Mrs. Morton said she hadn’t seen Antone in over a week, so she supposed he had moved out, but did he tell her he was leaving and return the key? No siree, he did not. Did the men have any idea how much money she’d spent on lost keys and replacement locks? It was a small fortune, but you know tourists and renters—totally oblivious as to what it takes to run a guesthouse!
But Turb
idy and Magnan were no longer listening to her chatter; they were looking at each other, each silently wondering: Why does a man need a hair dryer?
“Could we see Antone’s room?” Turbidy asked.
She walked them into what she called her best room—the Bay Room, number four.
“The police were here last night, so I don’t know what it is you’ll find,” she told them as she pushed the door open and stood aside.
Turbidy and Magnan walked by her and slowly circled through the room, looking under the bed and mattress, into drawers and behind the desk. When Turbidy opened the closet door, he saw three sweaters folded on the shelf.
Turbidy reached up and pulled one down that looked familiar to him; it had a distinctly female scent. “This looks like Pat’s,” he said to Magnan.
Then on the closet floor they saw the electric hair dryer in a faux alligator case. Magnan turned to Turbidy. “I’m pretty sure it’s Mary Anne’s.”
They asked Mrs. Morton if they could use her phone. First, Magnan called Martha Wysocki in Providence and had her describe Mary Anne’s hair dryer; he’d been right—the one in Costa’s closet was hers.
Turbidy couldn’t believe it. “Hell, the cops were right here and they overlooked everything.”
The men called the Provincetown police. Turbidy told Sergeant Meads that Mary Anne Wysocki’s hair dryer and a sweater he believed was Pat’s were found in Tony Costa’s room and that they should pick him up immediately for questioning. Again, Meads dismissed his concerns. He also wasn’t thrilled about being told how to do his job by two hippies from Providence in a VW bus.
“I’ll talk to Tony,” Meads said to Turbidy. “He owes me a few favors. I’ll find out where the girls are.”
Not for the first time, Turbidy and Magnan wondered whose side the cops were on—theirs or this Costa fellow’s.
On their way off the Cape, Turbidy and Magnan stopped at the Yarmouth barracks, where the duty officer paid little attention to their concern, insisting that there was no evidence of a crime in relation to the two Rhode Island women.
“This guy Tony Costa is the missing link,” Turbidy insisted.
As they all stood in the barracks talking, the phone rang; this time it was Meads in Provincetown, saying that Tony had called to say he knew where the girls were: “They went to Montreal to pick the lock.” The duty officer relayed the conversation, explaining to a perplexed Turbidy that “picking the lock” was slang for having an abortion.
Turbidy was outraged. Not only was Pat on the pill, but she would have been overjoyed to find herself pregnant because they both wanted to have children; they had recently talked about marriage and starting a family. Nonetheless, the officer began grilling Turbidy as if he were a suspect in his girlfriend’s disappearance. Magnan had heard enough.
“This is total bullshit,” he said and turned to Turbidy. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”1
On the drive back to Providence, Turbidy remembered his last conversation with Pat; it had been the Thursday before she and Mary Anne left for Provincetown. He remembered them laughing because he refused to tell her his surprise. He remembered his elation after leaving the tattoo parlor, the ink still wet on his shoulder. He remembered standing on that sunny California street corner and feeling as if she were right by his side. Then, with a sudden chilling shock he realized it had been Saturday, January 25, around 2:00 p.m., Eastern time.
Bob Turbidy’s blood went cold and he wondered if that was the moment when something terrible had happened to Pat.2
47 LIZA
The Provincetown friend who visited us the most in West Bridgewater was Billy, who worked at the Royal Coachman and whose father had also tried to date my mother. At first, I had really liked Billy. Tony considered him a “cool cat,” and so did I. He looked like one of the Beach Boys, and he taught me, Louisa, and Geoff how to jackknife dive in the RC pool, while Gail had to watch from the sidelines because she was still too little. And he always had a smile for me, like Cecelia and Tony. But somewhere along the line Billy’s smile seemed to change and he would look at me in a way that made me nervous. After that, I just tried to avoid him. But inevitably Mom would send me to the supply room for more toilet paper or towels or to the cigarette machine.
“Hey there, Liza,” came his high, squeaky voice from the front desk as I scurried through the lobby. “Why you in such a hurry? You got ants in your pants on the other side of France, or something?”
I was only a little girl, but I knew Billy shouldn’t be thinking about my underpants.
Then one day in late February, Billy showed up at our house out of the blue. I heard the car before I saw it—the souped-up engine sounded like a race car coming into the pit at the Indy 500. I was out playing in the snow and looked up as the car drove into the driveway. I saw Billy and waved and watched him climb out of the car, a newish Pontiac. I knew my Pontiacs; Dad drove one so I was always on the lookout for them. Mom opened the door just as he was about to knock. I ran over and followed him into the house.
“Hey there, Liza! What’s shakin’?” Billy asked as Mom pointed at my feet.
“Take those boots off and put them in the kitchen,” she said.
Billy smiled at me, and even though it was his best smile, he looked awful. His summer tan had faded, leaving his skin kind of a sickly yellow. I’d never seen him with acne before, but he was sprouting a chinful of zits, some of which looked newly picked. His eyes were rimmed in red, and topping it all off, his blond hair was long and greasy and hung limp, almost to his collar. I took a step back at the sight of him.
“Hi, Billy,” Mom said, as I went to the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”
He laughed. “That’s some welcome! Aren’t you glad to see me?”
I didn’t hear her answer, and it didn’t matter anyway; he wasn’t looking for one.
When I came back into the living room, I could smell something weird and rank about him. I couldn’t quite name it, but it made my stomach do a little flip-flop. Maybe it was the heavy winter clothes; I had only seen him in his shorts and polo shirts. But my winter clothes didn’t smell, so I doubted it was the clothes.
“What brings you up to West Bridgewater?” Mom asked again, leaning toward him and giving his zitty cheek a kiss.
“I’m meeting some buddies on the Common. Thought I’d swing by and say howdy.”
“How’s my favorite place in the world?” Mom said.
“Things are pretty crazy down there right now,” he said, looking over at me. “There’s some wild shi—I mean wild stuff going on.”
Mom got the hint.
“Liza, go finish washing the dishes and make sure you dry them carefully and completely before you put them in the cupboard. Last night’s dinner dishes were still wet when you put them away.”
I didn’t argue, even though she had done the dishes the night before.
“Hey, when you’re done with the dishes,” Billy said, “maybe I’ll take you and Louisa to Pomeroy’s for a doughnut before I head into the Common.” Again, he smiled that best smile, but it was still ruined by the rest of his face.
“Sure,” I said, heading back to the kitchen. A Pomeroy doughnut was usually a big treat, but I realized I didn’t want to drive anywhere with Billy, to sit next to him on the Pontiac’s bucket seat, to be that close to his pimply face and greasy hair and dank smell.
I went to the sink and pulled the step stool over so I could better reach the dishes. I tried to not make a sound; I wanted to hear every word about the “wild shit” going on in Provincetown. But I would have had to be sitting in their laps to hear what they were saying; their voices were that low. I just heard a word here and there.
“Body… Truro… cemetery…” Then Billy forgot to keep his voice down.
“The place is crawling with cops!” he almost shouted. “I had to get away from the whole scene.”
But his voice went low again, and I gave up and started rinsing and stacking the dishes in the rack.
Then, as I reached for a plate to begin drying, I heard a name clear as a bell.
“Tony Costa.”
48 TONY
At the same time the police were digging up the body in the Truro woods, Tony called his mother from Burlington, Vermont, eager to report that he’d been hired by the Vermont Furniture Company; he was to start work first thing Monday morning. He’d arrived there only a couple of days before from Boston and he already had a job. Cecelia’s news was less cheerful: police had called her asking where Tony was; they had some questions about two missing women from Providence.
“Tony, I’m scared,” Cecelia said.
Tony told her not to worry. He hung up and immediately called his “buddy” Jimmy Meads and began to weave what would end up being the first of his convoluted tapestries of lies. He told Meads he’d met the women, not at Standish Street but at the Fo’csle, where he’d had a few drinks with them. Unaware that the hair dryer and sweater had already been found in his room, he didn’t tell Meads the truth of where he had met the women because he wanted to keep police from searching Standish Street. He also told Meads that the women were headed to Montreal so Patricia could get an abortion. Regardless of how outlandish it would be for a woman to tell a virtual stranger about her need to obtain a still-illegal abortion, Meads seemed to buy it. As they hung up, Tony assured Meads he would be in touch if he heard from Pat and Mary Anne.
The next day, Tony called Meads again, telling the sergeant he decided to come back to Provincetown and all but demanded an appointment with Chief Marshall Monday morning to “clear things up on my behalf” regarding the missing Rhode Island women.