trimming trees that morning.) The attendant became suspicious and noted the license plate number of the 2001 silver-green Honda this individual was driving, which he’d report to police that evening after the 10 P . M . local TV news.
A bundle of bloodied men’s clothing—T-shirt, jeans, socks—would be discovered next morning in a Dumpster behind a McDonald’s twelve miles west on Route 39: so carelessly jammed into a J & J Men’s Discount Clothiers plastic bag, it was spilling out and immediately caught the attention of the trash pickup workers who reported it to police.
At approximately 7 P . M . of May 11, in a Radio Shack near the Dunkirk, New York, exit of Interstate 90, the murderer attempted to purchase a $376.99 CD/video player but again fled when the salesman questioned the Visa card with a woman’s name on it; this time, the murderer left the card behind.
By 10:25 P . M . of May 11, a tentative I.D. of the murderer of Gwen Eaton had been made by New York State police. Fingerprints found in Gwen’s house would substantiate the I.D. The murderer had a prison record: he’d served five years of a seven-to-ten-year sentence at Red Bank Men’s Facility for drug-related felonies, check forgery, and burglary. He was tracked to his grandmother’s residence in Erie, Pennsylvania, about twenty-five miles beyond the state line, where the stolen 2001 Honda registered in the name of Gwendolyn Eaton was found in a barn and where he was taken into custody without offering resistance.
Amid numerous items in the car, officers found Gwen Eaton’s emptied wallet. Beneath the driver’s seat, a bloodstained Swiss Army knife.
“See, most criminals are stupid like I told you. Especially meth-heads looking for quick cash.”
It was Detective Strabane who told us these things. Though he frowned and squinched up his monkey-face, swiped at his nose and shifted his shoulders inside his dun-colored sport coat (not only unbuttoned but missing one of its plastic buttons) you could see that the plainclothed officer had all he could do to suppress his excitement and elation. Oh, he felt good about this professional police work! He had been at the prow of it, you could be sure.
We stared at him, stunned into silence. Clare, Rob, me.
Finally Clare said, “‘Ward Lynch.’ That was his name. I’d gotten it backward. I met the man myself, once. At Mom’s. I’d thought he was a joke. One of Mom’s lame ducks, to tease about. Oh, Jesus.”
In the Chisholms’ living room (“cathedral-style” ceiling, hardwood floors) Clare and I were seated on a sofa, Rob was a few feet away in a chair. And there was Detective Strabane leaning forward, earnest and eager, elbows on his knees, in another chair. My niece and nephew had been banished upstairs, what the “policeman” had to say wasn’t for their ears. Clare had begun to cry, bitterly. Yet not hiding her face as you’d expect, just sitting rigid and furious, fists clenched at her sides. I knew that I was expected to cry with my sister, to hug her tight, but my arms were like lead, my legs were like lead, I hadn’t the strength to turn to her, couldn’t move an inch. She might have been on the far side of the room.
evil
Reading The Diary of Anne Frank when I was fourteen .
“Mom, you just can’t face it that some people are evil.”
And Mom said quickly, “Oh I know that, honey. Some people are evil. I know.” But speaking without conviction like someone agreeing the earth is round though in her heart she knows otherwise.
crazy
“Well. People have to eat, you know.”
These were Mom’s brave, bright words, after Dad’s funeral. At the crowded buffet brunch in Aunt Tabitha’s old stone house on Church Street. Where so many people were turning up—“company people” from Beechum Paper Products, unknown to most of us in the family—it was a good thing that Tabitha had prevailed over Gwen, hosting the funeral brunch in her house and not in the smaller house at
A bundle of bloodied men’s clothing—T-shirt, jeans, socks—would be discovered next morning in a Dumpster behind a McDonald’s twelve miles west on Route 39: so carelessly jammed into a J & J Men’s Discount Clothiers plastic bag, it was spilling out and immediately caught the attention of the trash pickup workers who reported it to police.
At approximately 7 P . M . of May 11, in a Radio Shack near the Dunkirk, New York, exit of Interstate 90, the murderer attempted to purchase a $376.99 CD/video player but again fled when the salesman questioned the Visa card with a woman’s name on it; this time, the murderer left the card behind.
By 10:25 P . M . of May 11, a tentative I.D. of the murderer of Gwen Eaton had been made by New York State police. Fingerprints found in Gwen’s house would substantiate the I.D. The murderer had a prison record: he’d served five years of a seven-to-ten-year sentence at Red Bank Men’s Facility for drug-related felonies, check forgery, and burglary. He was tracked to his grandmother’s residence in Erie, Pennsylvania, about twenty-five miles beyond the state line, where the stolen 2001 Honda registered in the name of Gwendolyn Eaton was found in a barn and where he was taken into custody without offering resistance.
Amid numerous items in the car, officers found Gwen Eaton’s emptied wallet. Beneath the driver’s seat, a bloodstained Swiss Army knife.
“See, most criminals are stupid like I told you. Especially meth-heads looking for quick cash.”
It was Detective Strabane who told us these things. Though he frowned and squinched up his monkey-face, swiped at his nose and shifted his shoulders inside his dun-colored sport coat (not only unbuttoned but missing one of its plastic buttons) you could see that the plainclothed officer had all he could do to suppress his excitement and elation. Oh, he felt good about this professional police work! He had been at the prow of it, you could be sure.
We stared at him, stunned into silence. Clare, Rob, me.
Finally Clare said, “‘Ward Lynch.’ That was his name. I’d gotten it backward. I met the man myself, once. At Mom’s. I’d thought he was a joke. One of Mom’s lame ducks, to tease about. Oh, Jesus.”
In the Chisholms’ living room (“cathedral-style” ceiling, hardwood floors) Clare and I were seated on a sofa, Rob was a few feet away in a chair. And there was Detective Strabane leaning forward, earnest and eager, elbows on his knees, in another chair. My niece and nephew had been banished upstairs, what the “policeman” had to say wasn’t for their ears. Clare had begun to cry, bitterly. Yet not hiding her face as you’d expect, just sitting rigid and furious, fists clenched at her sides. I knew that I was expected to cry with my sister, to hug her tight, but my arms were like lead, my legs were like lead, I hadn’t the strength to turn to her, couldn’t move an inch. She might have been on the far side of the room.
evil
Reading The Diary of Anne Frank when I was fourteen .
“Mom, you just can’t face it that some people are evil.”
And Mom said quickly, “Oh I know that, honey. Some people are evil. I know.” But speaking without conviction like someone agreeing the earth is round though in her heart she knows otherwise.
crazy
“Well. People have to eat, you know.”
These were Mom’s brave, bright words, after Dad’s funeral. At the crowded buffet brunch in Aunt Tabitha’s old stone house on Church Street. Where so many people were turning up—“company people” from Beechum Paper Products, unknown to most of us in the family—it was a good thing that Tabitha had prevailed over Gwen, hosting the funeral brunch in her house and not in the smaller house at
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