The police came to Dennis’s house at a little past four in the morning that day. He heard a loud banging on the front door, next to his bedroom, and as he shuffled out into the living room, he saw his mother. She was in her nightgown, and edged backwards as the cops moved in, filling the small entryway. There were at least four of them. One was Gary Arris—the family knew him, but that night his face was still, professional.
Dennis’s mother pulled her nightgown tighter around her. She wasn’t quite awake yet and couldn’t understand why anyone would come at such an early hour. Her husband stood behind the bar of the kitchen, blinking in the light, and the police started asking her son questions. He was twenty years old, standing there in pajamas. A couple of the cops looked very big.
“Did you go anywhere last night? Did you see Crystal Perry last night?”
Dennis was direct: “Is she all right?”
He didn’t get an answer, but another question.
“Dennis, were you at home last night?”
And then he panicked. Instead of answering, he asked another question. He says it was “Is she alive?” The cops say it was “Is she dead?”
She wasn’t alive. His mother caught him as he fell.
When Dennis came to, he was led out to a police cruiser for questioning. A couple of the cops stayed in the house to talk to his parents separately. He was not handcuffed. He walked through the rain and sat in the back of the car. He did his best to provide answers, alternating between numb disbelief and a frantic, instinctive desire to get to Crystal, to do something. He had gotten home from work, he said, just past eight o’clock. He remembered because that was when he called Crystal on his parents’ house phone. The microwave showed 8:07 exactly. She was upset. He was supposed to have been at our house at eight, but he had stopped to check out a car that a friend was selling. A brown 1968 Mercury Cougar. He was seven minutes late by then and twenty minutes away. He admitted that he and Crystal had argued over the phone.
“I’ll come right over, right now. C’mon, Crystal, don’t be that way. It’s okay, I’m on my way right now.”
“No,” she said. “No, don’t even bother. I’ll talk to you on Saturday.”
It was Wednesday night. Dennis usually came over on Wednesdays and Saturdays. So when I first heard fighting that night, I’d assumed it was Dennis she was fighting with. I’d forgotten he hadn’t been there when I went to bed. I didn’t even wake up enough to form these impressions into full thoughts.
I hate to think that as I drifted back to sleep, I might have felt exasperated, frustrated with Mom’s inability to leave this man who was causing us so much trouble. But I may have—I was so tired of their fighting by then. I certainly figured that I couldn’t do anything about it. Let her stand up for herself, I might have thought, had I been more awake, had it really been Dennis.
I didn’t know until many years later that she had gotten irritated and told Dennis not to come over, that she had stood up for herself. She didn’t care what he wanted; she needed to sleep. And despite his temper, it would turn out that it wasn’t Dennis I heard—he had respected her wishes and stayed home. He wasn’t in our house that night. He wasn’t the one. And so she had no one to protect her when someone else came knocking.
* * *
Dennis once failed a polygraph examination. When asked if he felt “responsible for Crystal’s death,” he said, “No,” and his body went haywire. Responsibility can mean many things. I wonder how my heart would have responded to such a question.
26
* * *
after
They flew down to Texas as a trio, a small flock of carrion birds: Chief Bob Bell from Bridgton, plus Dick Pickett and Dale Keegan—a new detective—from the Maine State Police. In Pickett’s notes from that long weekend, there’s a section, perhaps written while on the plane, where he coaches himself. His bubbly script, i’s dotted with little circles, contrasts with its content. “Appeal to her sense of justice. Don’t want it to happen again,” he writes. “Smile . . . also be serious when appropriate.” He adds, “Mother may have been an embarrassment to her. She may have wished it happened.”
They landed at Tootsie’s house after dinner on a Friday night—to see where I lived, to say hello. Angela came over, too: she was curious, she wanted to support me, and the cops wanted to see what sort of friends I had.
Chief Bell was gray-haired and quiet; he hung back. He had an almost grandfatherly air to him. He was there to represent Bridgton, of course, and to consult with Pickett, but it seems to me that the chief of police wouldn’t normally fly halfway across the country to help out with an interview from a case already nine months old. I believe his presence speaks to his dedication. To his memory of that sad little redheaded girl he once picked up when she was running away on her bike, back when they were both so much younger.
I didn’t appreciate any of this at the time. I just saw three men, come to question me. I still didn’t like Pickett very much, was still put off by his attempts to ingratiate himself with me. The way he spoke seemed calculated, false. Even while supposedly making friendly conversation, he would ask questions and then not listen to the answers; there was no natural flow. He still seemed to think I was purposely hiding something. I was glad to hear that I would spend most of the weekend with Keegan. He was younger than the others. He chatted with me and Angela in my room, and complimented my large book collection. Later, she and I agreed that he was reasonably good-looking, in a forgettable sort of way. He had, it turns out, recently been trained in new interrogation tactics at the FBI Academy in Quantico.
On Saturday morning, Tootsie drove me to the Holiday Inn downtown to be officially interviewed by Detective Keegan. We were silent in the humming elevator and walking down the hallway. He greeted us effusively, all smiles as he swept open the door. After brief hellos, Tootsie left to meet up with Pickett and Chief Bell. I let her disappear from my mind. I didn’t want to think about her talking about me, about Mom.
After some small talk, Keegan and I got settled. Thinking back on it now, I don’t know how he was alone in a room with a minor, but I suppose Tootsie must have consented. This is one of the many things about the investigation that doesn’t make sense to me, no matter how many questions I ask or how hard I think about it.