All That Is Mine I Carry With Me, page 7
“I told Jeff. Miranda, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because she wouldn’t understand. She was too young.”
“What wouldn’t she understand, exactly?”
“Just the way my dad looked at Sarah. What he saw when he looked at her.”
“And that was…?”
He tipped his head and shrugged. You know.
“Your mother was attractive, too, wasn’t she?”
“Of course, of course. I’m not being disrespectful. But this was different. Let me be clear: I’m not saying my father was right to fall for her; only that as a man, I can understand how it happened.”
“Why did you think Jeff would understand that but Miranda wouldn’t?”
“He was a little older.”
“He was just a kid.”
“He was thirteen, Phil. That’s not a kid, it’s a young man. Remember what you were like when you were thirteen.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Imagine your friend Jeff, then. He was no kid.”
“I remember Jeff at thirteen. So did he understand?”
“I think he understood up here”—he pointed at his temple—“not here”—he indicated his heart.
“But you understood.”
“I understood that people fall in love.”
“Even married people?”
“I’m not sure that’s a serious question. These are human beings. Flesh is weak.”
“And you understand now. You forgive him.”
“I forgive him for being human, yes.”
“That’s a lawyerly way to phrase it. I don’t think the charge against your dad has ever been ‘being human.’ I think Jeff would say—at a minimum—that he betrayed his wife, he cheated.”
“I’m not condoning it, Phil. I said I could forgive him. You can’t forgive someone who’s done nothing wrong. My point is: the thing he’s been accused of—the thing you’re accusing him of in this book—is a hell of a lot worse than adultery.”
* * *
—
Alex’s discovery of his father’s affair put him well ahead of the detectives. It would be weeks before they discovered Sarah Bennett’s relationship with Dan. First they had to rig the Larkins’ home phone with a pen register and a phone trap, which were the pre-digital devices used to capture outgoing and incoming calls, respectively. In those years, there was no way to review local telephone traffic on that line in the weeks leading up to Jane’s disappearance; no such records were kept. On the other hand, pen registers and phone traps did have the advantage of not requiring a warrant, because they captured only the time and number dialed rather than recording the actual conversation, as a phone “tap” does. So, once the trap was in place, the investigators were able to monitor Dan Larkin’s phone traffic despite the near-complete lack of evidence against him. Those phone logs led the police to Sarah. From the pattern of calls, the investigators might have guessed that Dan and Sarah had initially tried to hide their affair. There were no phone calls at first, then a few, often late at night, and finally the calls became quite frequent as, apparently, Sarah’s discipline broke down. Of course Dan must have presumed the affair would be discovered eventually. So he made no serious attempt to hide it beyond telling Sarah to keep her distance until things cooled off, and when she was not able to do that and the affair was discovered, he readily admitted it to the detectives.
In terms of actual evidence, it hardly mattered. The discovery did not move the case ahead all that much. The question remained: if Dan Larkin wanted to be rid of his wife, why not just divorce her? That puzzle, more than anything else, stymied the investigators. After all, husbands leave their wives all the time but almost never kill them. The answer was not money, either. Dan could have afforded a divorce, even an expensive divorce, and there was no insurance policy or other financial reason to kill Jane.
Only Tom Glover was not dissuaded by this problem. To him, the affair was a smoking gun. It completely answered the question of motive: Dan did not want Jane anymore; the rest was just details. Almost forty years later, Glover still had no doubts. In one of our 2015 interviews, he said, “[Dan] didn’t want to just be separated from her. He wanted Jane not to exist, he wanted to erase her. There was no room for an ex-wife in Dan’s new life with his new woman.”
It sounded a little fanciful to me. It just wasn’t enough to establish motive. Certainly it would not be enough to a jury. I suspect that Glover’s frustration led him to overvalue the affair. Empty-handed, the investigators were desperate for a break in the case. Also, Glover may have been a little prudish about Dan’s adultery. As a monkish younger man, he might have attached too much significance to it. Marriage was sacred to him, perhaps because he was so profoundly alone then. (Glover would marry much later, about a dozen years after Jane went missing.)
In any case, Alex never shared his discovery of Sarah with anyone but his little brother. It never occurred to him to report The Kiss to the police, apparently. Make of that what you will. It must have been an agonizing position for a young man. He could betray his father by telling or betray his mother by not telling. Personally, I can’t criticize him for keeping his father’s secret. I probably would have done the same thing.
An aside:
In the same 2015 conversation in which Tom Glover discussed Dan’s affair, I made an interesting discovery: to this day, he keeps a picture of Jane Larkin in his wallet. He produced the photo without my asking. I simply mentioned that this case seemed to have affected him in an unusually deep way, and he took out his wallet, tweezed the photo out with his fingertips, and held it up like a passport, the proof of his devotion to Jane.
I asked, “Does your wife know you carry that around?”
“It’s okay. You can’t cheat with a picture.”
That was not true, of course. You can cheat with a picture. You can fall in love with an image of someone, with a memory or an idea of her. For that matter, the image is generally easier to love than the actual person, since the image will never change, never grow old, never argue or disappoint you.
I suspect that Glover is not the only old cop who carries a victim’s photo in his wallet. Many more, I am sure, carry a mental image, a face they cannot forget. Detectives, even the hard ones, often develop tender feelings for some special victim. Even homicide victims inspire this sort of devotion, despite—or because of—the fact that they can never be known.
Obviously Jane was important to Tom Glover somehow. At least, his conception of Jane was important, what she represented, since he never actually met her. Maybe Alex was right: People fall in love in their different ways. Flesh is weak.
* * *
—
Glover arrived at the head of a search-warrant team on December 2, at around five o’clock p.m. There were a dozen or so cops, state and local police, all in plain clothes. Glover wore a tie and sport coat.
Marked cruisers idled at either end of the street, sealing off traffic, discouraging gawkers.
Miranda stood behind her father as he opened the door to the phalanx of policemen. Seeing them arrayed on the little porch, she thought that even Glover’s fellow cops hung back from him a little, or he from them.
To her, Glover seemed different that day than he had earlier, when they sat together by the lake. Harder, resolved. Gone was the deferential, tentative man she had met. Glover had apparently reached a conclusion about Miranda’s dad. His investigation was over; he was only interested in gathering evidence now, building the case against him. Even so, Miranda liked him and felt hurt when her new friend did not acknowledge her somehow as he stood on the front porch.
Dan Larkin eyed him—with contempt, Miranda later recalled.
(Miranda told me, “Do you know what Tom Glover was to my dad? He was the little piece of gristle that you chew and chew but you can’t swallow and you can’t spit out. Dad just wanted to spit him out, but he never could.”)
“We have a search warrant,” Glover announced. He handed over a paper.
“You didn’t need to do all that, Tom. You know that. I’ve told you, you can search here anytime you like.”
“Are you consenting to the search, then?”
A beat.
“No. I do not consent. Give me a minute to read the warrant.”
Larkin stood in the doorway, reviewing the document with a theatrical frown of disapproval. He lingered over the affidavit, Glover’s sworn statement of the facts justifying the search. He extended this moment longer than necessary, until the cops began shifting their feet like horses in a starting gate.
“This won’t stand up.”
“We’ll see.”
Larkin turned to his little daughter. “Come on, Miranda. Let’s go sit in the living room while the policemen do their work.”
“What are they doing?”
“They’re looking for Mom.”
“Here?”
“Mom’s not here, sweetheart. I don’t think these men know what they’re looking for. But we’ll let them have a look so everyone is satisfied, and when Alex and Jeff get home, we’ll have our dinner, okay?”
So they sat on the couch and waited. Miranda slumped against her father’s hip, an encroachment he might not have tolerated had they been alone.
At length, Glover came down from the second floor with a pile of clothes.
“We’re taking these suits.”
“Which suits?”
“All the gray ones. Are there any missing? At the cleaner?”
“No, that’s all of them. Those are good suits. I expect them all back.”
Glover ignored him. “The shoes too.”
“Just take the black.” Larkin’s eyes flicked down and up, registering Glover’s outfit, a wide-lapeled plaid blazer and a wide tie of a different plaid. “You don’t wear brown shoes with a gray suit. But you knew that.”
Glover ignored him.
“Tom, would you at least explain why you are taking my suits? Do you really think, if I were going to kill my wife, I would put on a suit to do it? Is that your theory?”
“We need to get into the garage, Mr. Larkin.”
“Is that your theory, detective? I wore a suit to a murder?”
“The garage, please. Is it electric? I need you to open the door. And I need your car keys.”
“Tom, how many murder trials have you seen? Do you even know—”
“The garage, please.”
A sigh. “Of course. Let me get it for you.”
Larkin went into the kitchen, followed by Glover, and fished a remote control out of a cluttered drawer. He pointed the remote control, a bulky plastic block, out the kitchen window toward the detached garage.
Watching Larkin with the remote, Glover frowned. “Is there something on your fingernails?”
“No,” Dan said.
“Yes, there is. What is that?”
“Oh. It’s polish.”
“You wear nail polish?”
“Clear nail polish, yes. It makes your nails stronger, it looks neater. Makes you look finished. You should give it a try, Tom. Take a little pride in your appearance.”
Glover winced, as if Larkin had suggested he take up cannibalism or bestiality. “Car keys.”
(Miranda would remember Glover’s reaction, one of the first cues she had that her father’s fastidiousness might be odd. It surprised her. She had always adored the way her father dressed, especially his work suits—the contrasting white collars, French cuffs, vests, gold collar pins. Miranda’s mom used to tease Dan about all this, especially the way he kept his hair carefully blown out and sprayed, even on weekends. But Miranda had no way to judge which parent was right. It is hard for a kid to gauge a parent’s quirks. Every family is odd, but every family seems normal to a young child born into it, for a while at least.)
They spent another hour searching the car and the garage. They swept the garage floor and sifted through the dust pile. They took the Larkins’ heavy digging shovel away with them, but left the snow shovels.
They pulled the car out of the garage and swarmed over it. It was a 1973 Mercedes 450 SEL sedan, white with a black interior, for which Dan had paid an appalling $26,000, precipitating a fight with Jane. Miranda stood on the back patio and watched the detectives. They removed the floor mats from the car. They removed the jack and the L-shaped lug wrench from the trunk and put both in evidence bags. At one point, she remembers, Glover leaned so far into the trunk that his feet came off the ground. When he emerged, he was pulling the fabric liner off the trunk floor, tugging and tearing it away, torquing his body for leverage. She thought: Dad will be mad at Tom for doing that. He loves that car.
Before the cops left, Glover asked Dan if he could speak with Miranda alone.
“No, you may not.”
“She can talk to me or the DA can subpoena her to the grand jury. Don’t make us do that. She’s just a kid.”
Dan hesitated. “You’re not taking her anywhere. I have to be present.”
They went up to the master bedroom, accompanied by a state trooper to ensure there were two witnesses to whatever exchange was to take place. The room was messy—drawers left open, clothes strewn about—but no real damage. They were still treating Larkin with a little reserve, Glover thought, because they were uncertain and because they were intimidated by him.
On the bed was a pile of silk neckties, reds and yellows and blues, with splashes of green and pink, repp stripes and foulards and polka dots.
Glover got down on one knee and said to Miranda, “Do you remember you told me your dad wore a red necktie the day your mom went away?”
The girl nodded.
“I want you to look through these neckties—be very careful, take your time—and tell me if that red necktie is here.”
Miranda stood at the foot of the bed and looked. She spread them out on the bed, felt their cool, slick surfaces, folded and arranged them in groups by color as her dad would have wanted, to appease him for her disloyalty in cooperating with the policemen. When she was satisfied, she looked at Glover—but not her father—and shook her head. “No.”
* * *
—
The district attorney for Middlesex County at the time—thus the man who would decide whether Dan Larkin would be charged with any crime related to his wife’s vanishing—was John Kearney. He had been in office since 1959, long enough that most voters could not remember the DA’s office without him. He was sixty-four but looked older. His hair was white and he was mostly bald, with just a few wisps remaining on top. His face was jowly. To voters, inside the county and out, he was the picture of an old-school, sharp-elbowed Irish pol. He had a reputation as an aggressive prosecutor too—a strict law-and-order man, blunt, fearless, the kind of DA “who would indict his own mother.” It was a persona he had carefully crafted and clearly enjoyed. Over his fifteen years in office, he had been involved in a number of high-profile prosecutions, including the Boston Strangler case.
But beneath the surface, in 1975 Kearney was becoming vulnerable. His health had begun to fail in small but noticeable ways. In conversation, he sometimes paused to swallow with great effort. His voice could be slurred and soft, especially when he was tired. Walking, he was unsteady, off-balance, stiff-legged. These were early symptoms of Lou Gehrig’s disease, though Kearney’s illness was a closely guarded secret. Reporters were told that he had a “viral infection.” To squelch rumors about his health, Kearney’s inner circle constantly talked up his strength and sharp mind. The secret was easier to maintain in 1975 than it would be now, perhaps; most voters never heard him speak or saw him walk.
Even if he had been healthy, Kearney’s political future would have been cloudy. He had never been able to jump from the DA’s office to a higher job. He was drubbed in 1964 when he ran for governor and drubbed again in ’72 when he ran for U.S. Senate against Ed Brooke. That last failure damaged his image badly. Kearney was comfortably reelected to a fourth term as district attorney in 1974, but a new narrative emerged: Kearney was yesterday’s man. Too old, too long in office, the public had tired of him. Kearney had been in politics, one way or another, for nearly three decades. Before taking office, he had been a longtime campaign organizer for John Kennedy, an insider and confidant beginning with Kennedy’s first run for the U.S. House in 1946, when both men had just returned from Navy service in the Pacific. But in 1975, that all felt like ancient history. Kearney could no longer play up his link to President Kennedy; it only called attention to his age.
Sharks were circling. Younger, TV-friendly candidates had begun to plan for the 1978 election. Momentum was growing to dump the old man for a more polished, more modern sort of politician.
This was the man who would decide Dan Larkin’s fate at this crucial stage of the process. The charging decision is one of the prosecutor’s great “soft” powers; he has the sole discretion to decide whether a suspect will be charged and with what crime. Did Kearney’s circumstances—his age, illness, precarious political position—have any effect on his decision in the Larkin case? There is no way to know for sure, but I suspect they played to Larkin’s advantage. A man in Kearney’s position, late in his political life, is free to follow his conscience. He is less likely to be stampeded into an indictment when the evidence is not there.
There was something else, too, another reason Dan Larkin was fortunate to have Kearney in office just then, as he was fortunate in so much else. Kearney’s unique experience made it quite easy for him to believe in Larkin’s innocence. But then, maybe Dan knew that too.
* * *
—
The charging conference took place in Kearney’s corner office on the second floor of the then-new courthouse in East Cambridge. It was shortly before Christmas. The room was paneled in walnut and adorned with plaques and photos of the district attorney with various politicos, including JFK and RFK, but the building’s grim design and shoddy construction—thin carpet over hard concrete-slab floors, molded-concrete facades, drafty windows—made the room feel shabby and cold.
