orange giraffes, sunflowers. As the needle in her fingers darted and winked Mom hummed loudly to herself.
I was jealous! I was too old for a baby quilt.
You’ve had your turn, sweetie. This is for a new baby.
I didn’t wake until after 10 A . M . Sunshine was beating into my face. I smelled of my body and of what had happened in the garage and my brain was aching as if broken glass had gotten inside my skull. I seemed to be wearing the identical blood-stiffened sweat-smelling clothes I’d worn the day before. Sweatshirt, jeans. I’d kicked off my running shoes but hadn’t the energy to pull off my dirty socks. My underarms were caked with stale deodorant and my mouth tasted like tar. I’d been sleeping on my face, the entire right side of my face was imprinted with the whorled knit of the afghan like a bizarre tattoo.
The childish thought came to me, Is Mom still dead? Maybe something happened while I’ve been gone, to change that?
case closed!
There is a romance of mystery, but when my mother Gwen Eaton was murdered there was no romance, and there was very little mystery. For within four hours of her reported death her murderer had been tentatively identified by Mt. Ephraim Police and within twenty hours he’d been positively identified. Within forty-eight hours, he’d been arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, robbery, burglary, theft, criminal trespass, and credit card violation.
None of this was like TV or the movies. Believe me. It was not suspenseful or what you’d call exciting. It was revealed to us, Gwen Eaton’s family, those whom newspaper obituaries call “survivors,” as a rapid-fire recitation of facts so bluntly presented, we were like Little League batters at the plate as adult hardball pitches slam by at one hundred miles an hour. Maybe we’d assimilate these facts at a later time, but only later.
And maybe not ever.
Mom had been murdered at approximately 11 A . M . of the morning of May 11. Approximately forty-five minutes earlier, at the Mt. Ephraim Tiger Mart service station on Route 33 north of town, evidently on her way to the Northland Mall, Gwen was seen giving a ride to an individual who approached her on foot as she was waiting for her car to be serviced. By chance this individual, a Caucasian male twenty-nine years old with a history of methamphetamine abuse, was known to the proprietor of the Tiger Mart who, after news of Gwen’s death was broadcast on local TV that evening, would call police to report what he’d witnessed.
Once the hitchhiker was in Gwen’s car, he forced her to drive back into Mt. Ephraim and to 43 Deer Creek Drive where he would ransack the house looking for cash, credit cards, pawnable items, and he would stab her with a weapon similar to a Swiss Army knife some thirty-three times, including six separate stabbings in the throat. He then fled in Gwen’s car, with some of Gwen’s jewelry and household items. At approximately 11:45 A . M ., a man attempted to use Gwendolyn Eaton’s Visa card at the Wal-Mart on Route 33 south of Mt. Ephraim, but fled when a cashier called a store manager to examine the card with a woman’s name on it. (This transaction was captured on Wal-Mart videotape.) Forty minutes later, the same individual succeeded in using the card, forging Gwendolyn Eaton’s signature, at J & J Men’s Discount Clothiers a few miles farther south on Route 33 where his purchases were: a $23.98 cotton shirt, a pair of $29.99 chino trousers, a pair of $34.99 running shoes, and a pair of $2.98 socks. At approximately 12:45 P . M ., this same individual approached a gas station attendant at Hal’s Mobil Service at the intersection of Routes 33 and 39, asking for the key to the men’s room, where it was believed he changed his soiled clothes. (He was wearing a canvas jacket, not visibly stained, over a bloodstained T-shirt and jeans. He laughingly attributed the way he looked to an “accident with a chain saw” he’d had while
I was jealous! I was too old for a baby quilt.
You’ve had your turn, sweetie. This is for a new baby.
I didn’t wake until after 10 A . M . Sunshine was beating into my face. I smelled of my body and of what had happened in the garage and my brain was aching as if broken glass had gotten inside my skull. I seemed to be wearing the identical blood-stiffened sweat-smelling clothes I’d worn the day before. Sweatshirt, jeans. I’d kicked off my running shoes but hadn’t the energy to pull off my dirty socks. My underarms were caked with stale deodorant and my mouth tasted like tar. I’d been sleeping on my face, the entire right side of my face was imprinted with the whorled knit of the afghan like a bizarre tattoo.
The childish thought came to me, Is Mom still dead? Maybe something happened while I’ve been gone, to change that?
case closed!
There is a romance of mystery, but when my mother Gwen Eaton was murdered there was no romance, and there was very little mystery. For within four hours of her reported death her murderer had been tentatively identified by Mt. Ephraim Police and within twenty hours he’d been positively identified. Within forty-eight hours, he’d been arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, robbery, burglary, theft, criminal trespass, and credit card violation.
None of this was like TV or the movies. Believe me. It was not suspenseful or what you’d call exciting. It was revealed to us, Gwen Eaton’s family, those whom newspaper obituaries call “survivors,” as a rapid-fire recitation of facts so bluntly presented, we were like Little League batters at the plate as adult hardball pitches slam by at one hundred miles an hour. Maybe we’d assimilate these facts at a later time, but only later.
And maybe not ever.
Mom had been murdered at approximately 11 A . M . of the morning of May 11. Approximately forty-five minutes earlier, at the Mt. Ephraim Tiger Mart service station on Route 33 north of town, evidently on her way to the Northland Mall, Gwen was seen giving a ride to an individual who approached her on foot as she was waiting for her car to be serviced. By chance this individual, a Caucasian male twenty-nine years old with a history of methamphetamine abuse, was known to the proprietor of the Tiger Mart who, after news of Gwen’s death was broadcast on local TV that evening, would call police to report what he’d witnessed.
Once the hitchhiker was in Gwen’s car, he forced her to drive back into Mt. Ephraim and to 43 Deer Creek Drive where he would ransack the house looking for cash, credit cards, pawnable items, and he would stab her with a weapon similar to a Swiss Army knife some thirty-three times, including six separate stabbings in the throat. He then fled in Gwen’s car, with some of Gwen’s jewelry and household items. At approximately 11:45 A . M ., a man attempted to use Gwendolyn Eaton’s Visa card at the Wal-Mart on Route 33 south of Mt. Ephraim, but fled when a cashier called a store manager to examine the card with a woman’s name on it. (This transaction was captured on Wal-Mart videotape.) Forty minutes later, the same individual succeeded in using the card, forging Gwendolyn Eaton’s signature, at J & J Men’s Discount Clothiers a few miles farther south on Route 33 where his purchases were: a $23.98 cotton shirt, a pair of $29.99 chino trousers, a pair of $34.99 running shoes, and a pair of $2.98 socks. At approximately 12:45 P . M ., this same individual approached a gas station attendant at Hal’s Mobil Service at the intersection of Routes 33 and 39, asking for the key to the men’s room, where it was believed he changed his soiled clothes. (He was wearing a canvas jacket, not visibly stained, over a bloodstained T-shirt and jeans. He laughingly attributed the way he looked to an “accident with a chain saw” he’d had while
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