All That Is Mine I Carry With Me, page 8
As Glover recalls now (he did not preserve any notes from the meeting), six men sat at a round table, representing the DA’s office and state and local police. On the table in front of them were a few thick file folders. The first assistant DA—Kearney’s top aide—had a three-ring binder, the so-called murder book, the repository of all the most important original documents and notes in the case.
The day before, Dan Larkin had broken his silence in the media, telling a Globe reporter this: “I am entitled to a decision. I am an innocent man. There is no evidence that I have done anything at all. The district attorney ought to do the right thing and clear my name of these rumors once and for all, rather than let an innocent man be dragged through the mud.”
(From this detail, we can date the meeting precisely. It was Thursday, December 18, 1975. The article Glover remembers was a page-one story in the Globe titled “Vexed Larkin Decries Rumors.”)
To some extent, Dan was right: he was being dragged through the mud. The public’s perception of him was changing. The same newspapers that for weeks had treated Larkin as a victim—referring to him as bereaved, grieving, stricken, distraught—were now openly suggesting he was a suspect. The latest police search of Larkin’s home had been written up in all the local papers. The Globe and Herald American both included photos of plainclothesmen around the house. If Dan was indeed innocent, then it was all grossly unfair.
On the other hand, Dan could not force the district attorney to do anything, let alone clear his name. The DA was perfectly within his rights to keep the investigation open indefinitely, in the hope that new evidence would turn up. Suspects in this position usually keep quiet, at least the smart ones do. Tactically, there is nothing to gain and much to lose by talking. So why did Dan Larkin break his silence?
The men at the conference table discussed this awhile. Maybe Larkin was guilty—and he was protesting too much. Or trying to rush the state into a hasty indictment, before the evidence was fully developed. Or maybe he was speaking to potential jurors, already arguing his “story of the case,” that he was the victim of a rush to judgment. Whatever his true motive, they were all certain he was up to something. He was a defense attorney, after all, and a particularly slippery one. To a man, they were sure that Dan Larkin had never said anything impulsive or stupid in his life; he was not going to start now.
Kearney had been leaning back in his chair, listening to all this. He said, finally, “Maybe Larkin said it because it’s true. Maybe he really didn’t do anything. Maybe there’s a reason we’re not finding any evidence.”
The first assistant said, “We’re going to have to make a decision soon anyway. We’re about to dismiss the grand jury. The session ends first of the year. I can hold them over, if we’re close. Are we close?”
The DA turned to Glover with raised eyebrows. “What do you say, detective?”
Glover did not feel confident among these men, who were more experienced and seemed to know one another. “Well, I think if we had a little more time—I think we’ve got the right guy, I really do.”
“It doesn’t matter if he’s the right guy if we don’t have a case, now, does it? We need evidence.”
“We’re still working on it.”
“Could you be wrong?”
“No. I don’t think so. He’s the only one that makes sense.”
“Does he, though? I have to tell you, detective, I’m uneasy with the whole direction of this case. I’m not entirely sure we’ve heard the last of Mrs. Larkin. It seems to me that the likeliest explanation for a woman disappearing into thin air is that she left of her own accord. Isn’t that possible?”
“We’ve considered that. I just don’t believe it. A mother leaving her children with no warning?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Everything I’ve heard, it doesn’t sound like this woman would do that.”
“Tom, have you ever heard of Joan Risch?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’ll tell you a story, then. Joan Risch disappeared in October 1961. It was my third year as district attorney. When I first saw the case, I felt exactly as you do now. Mrs. Risch lived in Lincoln. She was thirty-one or thirty-two. She had two young children whom she adored, by all accounts. Everyone said she would never leave them, either.
“There was nothing unusual about her behavior. The day she disappeared, she took her daughter to the dentist in the morning, then went grocery shopping.
“Around four in the afternoon, her daughter came home from playing at a friend’s house. The little girl saw blood on the kitchen wall. There were signs of a struggle: the phone book in the kitchen was open to the emergency numbers; a chair was overturned; the phone had been ripped off the wall and thrown in the trash can. There was a trail of blood leading from the kitchen out to the driveway.
“That afternoon, she was seen wandering near Route 128, which was just being built at the time. Witnesses said she was bloody and seemed dazed, but nobody stopped to help her.
“She’s never been seen again.
“Now, in the Joan Risch case, there was some real evidence—more than we have here. Witnesses saw a gray sedan parked in the Risches’ driveway that afternoon. There was a bloody palm print on the kitchen wall and a few fingerprints, none of which we’ve ever been able to identify, so someone was in that kitchen with her. It wasn’t her husband or anyone else in the family. Anyway, the husband was out of town on business that day. His alibi was rock-solid. We ruled him out immediately.
“So clearly Mrs. Risch had been murdered by a mysterious intruder of some kind. There was no doubt. I sat at many meetings just like this one, and everyone was sure of it.
“But then strange details started to emerge. Mrs. Risch had worked in publishing in New York before she ended her career and got married and settled for the quiet life of a suburban wife and mother. A few of her friends began to tell us that Mrs. Risch was not happy with the choices she’d made. She was bored. She missed the glamour of being a publishing girl in New York City.
“Mrs. Risch still loved books, though. She was an avid mystery reader. That summer, she’d borrowed over thirty books from the public library, all on the subject of murder and disappearances. She’d been studying how women disappear.
“Then the blood, it turned out, was less than first thought. The experts thought it likely came from a superficial wound.
“And there were stories about Mrs. Risch too: that she’d been abused as a child, that her own parents had perished in a mysterious fire when Mrs. Risch was nine years old. Perhaps she was a disturbed woman.
“So,” the DA said, “what happened? Did Joan Risch run away? Or was she murdered? To this day, nobody knows. It is an open case. Now, Mr. Glover, does that story alter your opinion in this case?”
“No.”
“Why? What makes you so sure?”
“Look, I admit it is possible Mrs. Larkin ran off. Anything is possible. But I just don’t believe it. We haven’t heard one thing about Jane Larkin to suggest she wanted out. Everyone says she was devoted to those children, she would never leave them.”
“What is your theory, then? Make your case.”
“I think her husband wanted her gone. He wanted to be with his girlfriend. We have a solid motive.
“I think he left that morning and he signed in at the Social Law Library in town just to establish an alibi. But he did not stay there. He drove back home and he killed her. I don’t know how; we’ll know when we find the body. Then he took the body somewhere to dump it. He was very careful. The cars were both scrubbed clean, no prints, no blood, no hair, no damage or sign of struggle. Mrs. Larkin’s car in particular looked freshly scrubbed. The shovel in the garage also looked freshly cleaned and wiped down, so I suspect he buried her or sunk the body in a lake somewhere. I have no idea where.
“Also, Dan’s appearance was different that night than when he’d left in the morning. His red tie was gone, and there was dirt under his fingernails the next morning. You don’t get dirt under your fingernails if you’re reading law books.
“The car at the train station is a red herring. Dan left it there for us to find. There were no prints on it; if Jane was the one who dumped it there, she wouldn’t have wiped it down.
“And if she ran off, what is she living on? She did not take any cash or checks or credit cards.”
The DA shrugged. “Maybe she’s getting help. Maybe she’s got a boyfriend. Either way, it’s all just guesswork, isn’t it?”
“Every case starts with a theory.”
“Yes, but the theory, if it’s right, is confirmed by real proof eventually. And we don’t have that. We don’t have the body, we don’t have a weapon, we don’t have witnesses, we don’t have a history of abuse or violence. The reality is we have nothing.”
“Dan Larkin is a very smart, careful man.”
“Is he? Is anyone that smart? Could he have killed his wife and not left any evidence for you to find? Really? Not one mistake?”
Glover said nothing.
Kearney turned to his first assistant. “George, what do you think?”
“It’s an easy call. There’s no case here, we have zero evidence. Dismiss the grand jury and keep digging. That’s all we can do.”
Kearney: “Anyone disagree with that?”
The others shook their heads.
Kearney: “Tom, I can see you’re disappointed. But I’m not going to indict a man for murder only to have the victim stroll into court, alive and well, after hiding out in Canada or Florida or Timbuktu. You don’t want me to look like a fool, now, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. The case is still open. Keep digging.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Change my mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” The district attorney turned to his first assistant: “I want you to release a statement. Bring this thing to a close somehow. Turn down the temperature before Dan Larkin gets tarred and feathered. Keep it simple: no charges are imminent, the case remains open, we’ll continue to investigate, anyone with information is encouraged to come forward, et cetera.”
“You want to mention Larkin by name, clear him like he asked?”
“No. He hasn’t been cleared.”
“It’s a hell of a thing if he didn’t do it. All those rumors.”
“Well,” the district attorney said, “it’s also a hell of a thing if he did.”
The following year, on the anniversary of Jane’s disappearance, the press would inquire about the case, and the DA’s office would issue a similar statement: no charges forthcoming, no active leads, case remains open. A year later, on the second anniversary, a similar statement. After that, the press stopped inquiring.
* * *
—
The case might have ended there—in a way, I suppose it did. The district attorney’s statement had precisely its intended effect: the fever broke, people began to lose interest in the case. It gave the drama a kind of provisional if unsatisfying closure. The story did not end; it just stopped. The investigators—and we, the leering public—resigned ourselves to waiting.
For Dan, the DA’s decision not to clear him explicitly was devastating. It sealed his reputation. For the foreseeable future, most people would assume that Dan had something to do with his wife’s disappearance, though precisely what it was, nobody knew. This was the shadow my friends Jeff and Miranda would live under for a very long time.
Inside the Larkins’ home, life did not return to normal, of course, but it did go on. The days and weeks continued to pass. The kids’ lunches had to be made every day, laundry washed and folded, groceries bought, meals cooked. Miranda, still only eleven years old, was more needy than the boys. Someone had to meet her after school and get her to ballet class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Dan returned to work. He had zero interest in the mundane details of running the house. Nor, in those early weeks and months, did he dare bring his girlfriend Sarah into the house to help. So for the most part it fell to Jane’s sister to fill the void. Kate did the grocery shopping and the laundry. Kate was at the house in the afternoons to meet Miranda after school every day.
Ever present, amid all this pretend normalcy, lurked the ghost of Jane. Miranda says now, “It was like living in this in-between state. We kept imagining she would walk in at any moment. My father was telling us that Mom was alive somewhere and we should not give up. Jeff and I both figured he did not want to tell us Mom was dead because then he’d have to deal with two hysterical little kids.”
One’s heart goes out to these children, of course, but I can’t help thinking of Kate too. Every day, she came to her sister’s home and stood in her sister’s place. Every day, she tried to give her niece and nephews some of the things that Jane would have. Her own kids were old enough that Kate could spend the afternoons with Miranda, driving her to ballet or watching TV, or just ensuring that Miranda would not come home to an empty house. So every day she came, and every day she seethed.
One afternoon—Miranda thinks it was just a few weeks after the district attorney’s disappointing decision, when the wound was still raw—the two sat side by side on the couch watching a game show on TV. Miranda cuddled against her aunt. She craved contact, and Aunt Kate pulled her close, though Kate’s body was leaner and harder than Miranda’s mother, less good for snuggling.
“Miranda, can I ask you something just between you and me?”
“Okay.”
“This is something you won’t tell your father, it will be just our secret.”
“Okay.”
“You’re sure you can keep a secret, just you and me?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you afraid here?”
“Afraid of what?”
“Him.”
“No.”
“You would tell me if you were?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel safe here, in this house?”
“Yes.”
“Has he ever done anything or said anything that made you feel frightened or worried?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Because you know, if you want to come live with me and Uncle Stephen, you can do that. You would be safe. Nobody would be able to get to you.”
“What do you mean, get to me?”
“Nothing. We’re just talking. I just want to be sure you know: if you’re ever afraid, of anybody, you can come to me. You know that, right?”
“I guess.”
“Okay then.” She kissed the little girl’s forehead.
Miranda understood what her aunt was implying, but the thought of being turned out of her home, of being orphaned by a wicked father, seemed ludicrous, a Gothicism right out of Dickens. Besides, Miranda was genuinely not afraid, even though she understood the possibility that her father might have done something horrible. He was her father, after all. She could not have stopped loving him even if the worst was true.
Kate was not through with the subject, however. She brooded over it the rest of the afternoon, saying less and less to Miranda as the house darkened.
By the time Dan got home that evening, around 5:30, before either of the boys, his sister-in-law was boiling, and she was not very good at—or interested in—hiding her emotion.
Kate lingered in the kitchen, gathering up her purse, slowly buttoning her coat. She planted a decorous kiss on the top of Miranda’s head, then stood by Miranda a moment too long, as if reluctant to leave, and it occurred to the little girl that her aunt wanted to take her away right then and there, whether Miranda wanted to go or not.
Kate glared at Dan until he could not ignore it any longer.
“Is something wrong?” he said.
“You know what’s wrong.”
“It’s a tough time. I know. We’re all…”
“That’s not it.” She would not take her eyes off him.
“What, then? Tell me.”
She moved closer, as if she intended to keep Miranda from hearing. But when she spoke, she did not lower her voice. “I know what you did.” She pointed her finger at him. “I know what you did.”
BOOK 2
He killed me. You know that, don’t you? He killed me because he was bored, he was disappointed. That’s what it comes down to. He was disappointed in his life. He was disappointed in his marriage. Mostly he was disappointed in me. I didn’t make him happy anymore, I didn’t excite him.
I was unhappy too. That’s over, at least.
* * *
—
To my kids, Alex, Jeff, and Miranda:
There are a few things I want you to know, things I did not have the chance to say before I left.
First, I do not hate your father. I am angry, yes. I do not forgive him, and I do not love him anymore. I should have got rid of him. But I could never bring myself to hate him. It would be like hating myself; there is no me without him. We grew up together. We were kids together. We made each other.
And of course we made you. Without your dad, you three precious, beautiful kids don’t exist. So how could I ever regret my life with him? The end does not erase everything that came before. It does not erase you.
So here’s the thing: I do not want you kids to hate him, either. Certainly I don’t want you to hate him for me, out of loyalty. I want you to be happy. That is every mother’s wish for her children: just be happy. Simple as that. Let it go. After all these years, I want it to stop—all the smoldering and contempt, the grievance, the sadness. Especially you little ones, Jeff and Miranda: let it go, do you hear me? Let me go, for your own sake. I do not want to be the source of your unhappiness, not for one day more. If you need to forget me, if that is the price of your happiness, then do it. Do it today, do it right now. We all have to say goodbye eventually. Let that be the last thing I teach you: how to say goodbye.
