Demarco had a long relationship with the criminal justice system. All of it was related to drugs. Much of it was misdemeanor stuff, possession, use. Now, that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t selling. What’s on a conviction record and what the original arrest was based on are not necessarily one and the same. I’m sure you’ve watched enough television to know the kind of wheeling-dealing that goes on between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Trials take time and cost money. And no one cares about pot these days. So while his sheet went back over a decade, there was just one distribution conviction. June of last year. Two weeks and four days after Jenny’s rape.
Demarco had spent six months in a level four facility in Bridgeport. I imagine it was not a pleasant experience for such a slight young man with that soft white skin. Is this aberrant? I fear that the time I spend at Somers has imbued me with knowledge that should not be shared so casually with the rest of the world. I am normally quite cautious about the assumptions I make—even the jokes I laugh at or don’t laugh at, in social company—out of fear of being misunderstood. Surely I would not have prison rape pop into my thoughts just from a discussion involving a small man with soft white skin. But if you spent eight hours a week hearing about life behind bars in a level five institution, you would also start to connect these things. My wife has scolded me on more than one occasion.
You did it again, sweetheart, my wife would say. She always uses that term of endearment, even when she’s angry. A catcher is the guy behind home plate. That’s it. No one finds it interesting.
I don’t know if that’s true or not true. I think there’s enough empirical evidence in our media and entertainment to suggest otherwise. Still, it is not always appropriate dinner conversation. (The catcher is sometimes used to describe the person “receiving” when two men engage in sex.) I suppose that’s why I find dinner parties so excruciatingly dull.
The good news for Parsons was that he now had something to use for leverage. He had two felony charges in his pocket. Adding those to the prior conviction made Demarco a repeat offender with mandatory sentencing triggers.
I go back in with the sheet. And I’m, like, “Oh man, tough break. This prior, and now two felony charges,” and he starts to squirm a little. “Maybe you should take that PD,” I say to him, “get yourself a lawyer.” His feet start shuffling around on the floor. He’s got his fists clenched together. Then my partner pulls me in, whispers some bullshit. It was all for show. Just wanted it to look good, you know? And then I say, “Listen … any chance you were in town last May? You might be able to help us out with something.” He shrugs his shoulders as if to say he might have been if there’s something in it for him. I figure, we get him to admit he was in town, and then we go from there. But he doesn’t budge.
I did not understand the logic of this. If Demarco was the rapist, he wouldn’t go anywhere near an admission of presence at the scene of the crime. Still, Parsons got back on the right track.
We had enough to lock him up. He got a PD from Cranston. Guy who knows his way around, but no way he’s gonna want a full trial at PD rates. It was time to go back to that night. Now that we had a face. First, to Teddy Duncan. That kid who was chasing his dog. Second—now that we had something to use to shake up those kids, we could go back at them. None of them, not one kid from the party, admitted to seeing a blue Civic. But if it was Demarco, he was probably there selling drugs. Sees Jenny stumbling into the woods. Easy prey. And those kids, not one of them was gonna cop to buying drugs. But now that we knew, had the car, had the driver—we had a chance to roll one of them and get the ID.
Parsons was optimistic, gleeful even. So were the Kramers. I did not share Parsons’s conclusions about Demarco. But it was not my place to dissuade him from his plan of action. He had been kind enough to keep me apprised so I could be helpful to Jenny and her family. What was I going to say? This is not your man. Don’t go back to interview those kids or Teddy Duncan. Don’t go down this road. I wished him good luck and waited for the next report. My regret is profound.
Chapter Twelve
The resurfacing of the blue Civic had two immediate repercussions. The first was the interference with my treatment of the Kramer family. The second involved my son.
Jenny and her parents had been seeing me on an individual basis for several weeks. My work with Charlotte and Tom was not complicated. The primary purpose was to have them fill in the blanks about Jenny and the year leading up to the suicide attempt. But our sessions quickly shifted focus to address their own pain from this horrible chapter in their lives. This, of course, led us into the underlying problems in their marriage, and further back to their childhoods, where all marital problems begin.