Paradise Lost (16 page)

For yearsArizona Reporter prizewinning staff member Maggie MacFerson has distinguished herself as one of the foremost investigative reporters in the nation. Now, after years of being on the reporting side of the news, she finds herself in the opposite camp.

The discovery late Friday night of Ms. MacFerson’s brutally slain younger sister and fellow heiress, Constance Marie Haskell, puts Maggie in the shoes of countless others who have suffered through the unimaginable horror of having a loved one murdered.

Ms. MacFerson’s reputation as a trusted investigative reporter allows her a unique position from which to write about the other victims of homicide—the relatives and friends of the dead—who have few choices to make and even less control in the aftermath of a violent death.

She has agreed to write a series of articles recounting her terrible journey, which began with the discovery of her murdered sister’s body two days ago in rural Cochise County. The first of those articles appears below.

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Editor

Years ago I stood in a rainy, windblown cemetery in south Phoenix talking to a grieving mother whose sixteen-year--old son’s bullet-riddled body had been found iii the garbage-strewn sands of the Salt River four days earlier. Her son, a gang member, had been gunned down by two wannabe members of a rival gang as part of an initiation requirement. I’ll never forget her words.

“Cops don’t want to tell me nothin’,” she said. “Just what they think Ineed to know. Don’t they understand? I’m that boy’smother. Ineed to know itall.”

That woman’s words came back to me today with a whole new impact as I tried to come to grips with the hor-ror that someone has murdered my forty-three-year-old sis-ter, Constance Marie Haskell.

I didn’t hear the news over the phone. The cops actually did that part right. Connie’s body was found Friday night in Cochise County, near a place called Apache Pass. Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady herself came to see me Satur-day to give me the terrible news. But somehow, in the pro-cess she neglected to tell me several things, including who it was who had found the body.

I suppose that oversight should be understandable since, in addition to being sheriff, Joanna Brady is also the mother of a twelve-year-old-daughter, and mothers—even mothers who aren’t sheriffs—are known to be protective, sometimes overly so.

Jennifer Ann Brady and an equally headstrong friend, Dora Matthews, slipped away from a Girl Scout camp-out on Friday night to have a smoke. It was while they were AWOL from their tent that they discovered my sister’s naked and bludgeoned body.

Most of the time juveniles who find bodies are interviewed and made much of in the media.

After all, in report-ing a crime they’re thought to be doing the “right thing.” Sheriff Brady told me none of this, but the information was easy enough for me to discover, along with a possible expla-nation for Ms. Brady’s apparent reticence.

After all, what law enforcement officer wants to reveal to outsiders that his or her offspring is hanging out with the child of a known criminal? Because that’s exactly what Dora Matthews is—the daughter of an alleged dealer in illegal drugs.

The fact that convicted drug dealer Sally Lorraine Matthews was reportedly running a meth lab out of her home in Old Bisbee may have been news to local law enforcement authorities who called for a Department of Public Safety Haz-Mat team to come clean up the mess last night, but it certainly wasn’t news to some of Sally’s paying customers, the drug consumers who hang out in city parks or wander dazedly up and down Bisbee’s fabled Brewery Gulch.

With my sister’s chilled body lying in the Cochise County Morgue, all I had to do was ask a few questions to find out what was really going on. I suspect that Sheriff Brady could have discovered that same information earlier than yesterday—if she’d bothered to ask, that is. But then, maybe she thought what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, either.

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Moving on to the Cochise County Morgue brings me to something else the sheriff failed to mention—the fact that Cochise County Medical Examiner Dr. George Winfield happens to he married to Sheriff Brady’s mother. I’m sure if I had asked her why she didn’t tell me that, her answer would have been the same—I didn’t need to know.

Which brings me back to that heartbroken mother stand-ing in that Phoenix cemetery. What all did police officers fail to tell her that she, too, didn’t need to know?

At this moment, the only thing I know for sure is that Connie, my baby sister, is dead. I can’t think about her the way she was as a sunny six-year-old, when I taught her how to ride a bike. I can’t think about how she almost drowned when I tried to teach her to swim in our backyard pool. I can’t think about how we sounded when our mother tried, unsuccessfully, to teach us to sing “Silent Night” in three-part harmony.

No, all I can think about is the way Connie looked tonight, lying on a gurney in the awful fluorescent lighting of the Cochise County Morgue. I am appalled by remem-bering her once beautiful face beaten almost beyond recog-nition.

There’s much more that I need to know that I haven’t yet been told—the why, the where, and the how of her death. Why, where, and how are the Holy Grails that keep all journalists and cops seeking and working and on their toes. But this time, I’m experiencing that search in an entirely differ-ent manner from the way it has been before both in my life and in my career. I’m seeing it through the eyes of that grieving mother, cloaked in her pain, standing in that lonely, desolate cemetery.

I’m not much of an expert on the grief process. I’m not sure which comes first, anger or denial.

I can tell you that, right this moment, hours after learning about Connie’s death, I any consumed with anger. Maybe I’m taking that anger out on Sheriff Brady when I should be taking it out on Connie’s killer. The problem is, although I have my sus-picions, I don’t know who that person is yet. When I do, you’ll hear about it.

When my editor asked if I would be willing to chronicle my experiences and share this painful journey with you, my readers, I said yes immediately. Why? Because I understand that, no matter how hurtful it may be for all concerned, we will all learn things from it—things we allneed to know.

Maggie MacFerson

Astonished by what she had read, Joanna was in the process of reading through it a second time when she heard Butch’s voice. “Why, look who’s here. Why aren’t you up in the room? Did you lose your key?”

Joanna looked up to see Butch walking across the spacious lobby accompanied by a tall, willowy blonde. Butch left the woman behind and hurried around a massive brass-and-glass coffee table. Reaching Joanna’s side, he bent over and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“This is my wife, Joanna Brady,” he said, turning back to the woman, who had paused
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uncertainly on the far side of the table. “I didn’t make her change her name, and she didn’t make me change mine,” he added with a grin. “Joey, this is a good friend of mine, Lila Winters. She used to live here, but she’s moving to Texas now. She came for the wedding, of course. We’ve been reminiscing about old times.”

Caught unawares, Joanna took a moment to gather her wits, stand up, and offer her hand.

“Glad to meet you,” she said.

Blond, blue-eyed, and with palely luminescent skin, Lila Winters was beautiful in the same fragile, delicate way that expensive English porcelain is beautiful. She wore a blue denim pantsuit the top of which was decorated with a constellation of rhinestone outlined stars.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Lila said. “Including the fact that you’d been called out of town on some kind of official investigation.”

Simultaneously, Joanna Brady made several quick calculations. If Lila Winters was such a good friend of Butch’s, why hadn’t he ever mentioned her name before? And why hadn’t the name Lila Win-ters been on the guest list to Joanna and Butch’s own wedding back in April? There could be only one answer to those two damning questions. Butch and Lila had to have been far more than just “good friends.” And since Butch had evidently been away from his hotel room all night long, there could be little doubt that he had passed the time in the company of that selfsame

“good friend” while Joanna had been stuck driving up and down freeways, doing her job, and looking after her daughter.

“Yes,” she said levelly. “I’ve had my hands full. And I guess Butch has been pretty busy, too.”

Lila gave Joanna an appraising look, then she nodded at Butch. “Thanks for breakfast, Butch,”

she said. “And for everything eke, too,” she added. “See you at the wedding.”

With that, Lila Winters turned and walked slowly across the lobby. Meanwhile, Butch turned back to Joanna.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

She gazed at him in stony silence and didn’t answer for several long seconds. “What do youthink it was about?” she demanded finally. “I come in after being out working all night—after trying to call you time and again—and find you haven’t slept in our room. And them I meet you with someone I don’t know, someone who obviously knows youvery well.

‘Thanks forbreakfast, Butch,’ ” Joanna mimicked sarcastically. “ ‘Thanks foreverything. ’ ”

“Joanna . . .” Butch began.

Flinging the newspaper down on the table, Joanna stalked away, leaving Butch standing alone in the lobby. At the hotel entrance she handed her parking receipt over to the parking attendant. “I need my car right away,” she said.

Butch picked up the newspaper from the table and hurried after her. “Joanna, what’s going on?

Where are you going?”

“Out,” she snapped. “It’s getting a little stuffy in there. I need some air.”

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Joey, it’s not what you think, really. I can explain everything.”

“I’m not interested in yourexplanations,” she said. “Now go away and leave me alone!”

By then the parking attendant had returned, bringing the Crown Victoria to a stop under the portico and opening the door. As Joanna got in, she handed the attendant his tip. “Will you be needing directions this morning?” he asked.

Not trusting herself to speak, Joanna shook her head mutely. Then she drove off without a backward glance, leaving Butch standing alone on the curb. She made it only as far as the first stop-light before she burst into tears. Sobbing so hard she could hardly see, she finally turned into a nearby parking lot, one belonging to the Peoria Public Library. Looking around, she was grateful to see that late on a Sunday morning the lot was completely deserted.

She had put the car in neutral and set the parking brake when her cell phone began to crow. She picked it up and looked at it. The readout said UNAVAILABLE, which meant her caller might pos-sibly be Butch calling from the hotel. It could also be someone else who needed to reach the sheriff of Cochise County. Sniffing to stifle her tears, she punched SEND, then sat there holding the phone in her hand but saying nothing.

“Joey?” Butch’s voice sounded frantic. She winced when she heard him utter his pet name for her. “Joey,” he repeated. “Are you there? Can you hear me? Where did you go?”

Still she said nothing. She couldn’t.

“Joey,” he pleaded. “Please talk to me. I can explain what hap-pened.”

Suddenly she could speak, but in that odd strangled way that was just above a whisper. It seemed as though the strength of her voice was somehow inversely proportional to whatever she felt. The stronger her emotions, the smaller her voice.

“I already told you,” she croaked. “I don’t want any of your damned explanations.”

She heard Butch’s sigh of relief, and that hurt her, too. The very sound of his voice—the voice she had come to love—made her whole body ache. “You are there, then,” he said. “You’ve got to come back to the hotel, Joey. You’ve got to give me a chance to tell you what went on.”

“I know what went on,” she snapped back at him. “And I’m not coming back.” With that, she punched the END button. Butch called back almost immediately. Eventually the ringing—that awful roosterlike crowing—stopped, only to begin again a moment later. He called five more times in as many minutes, but she didn’t answer. Each time the phone rang, and each time she didn’t answer it, Joanna Brady gathered a little more of her anger around her. Finally she switched the ringer to SILENT and flung the phone out of reach on the far side of the car.

Out of sight,out of mind, she thought. But that gave her pause, too. Wasn’t that exactly what had happened with Butch? Evidently, the moment Joanna had been out of sight,she had been out of his mind as well, enough so that Lila Winters had been able to walk in and make her move.

Just then a group of skateboarders and in-line skaters—bronzed, bare-chested teenagers oblivious to the scorching, one-hundred--fifteen-degree sun—appeared at the far end of the parking lot. Not willing to let even strangers see her in such a state, Joanna put the Crown
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Victoria back in gear and drove away. For a while, she drove aimlessly through Peoria, Glendale, and North Phoenix. She could think of only one person who might be able to help her, only one who would understand her sense of betrayal and offer comfort—her best friend, pastor, and confidante, Marianne Maculyea. The problem was, Marianne was more than two hundred miles away, back home in Bisbee.

So distracted that she hardly noticed her surroundings, Joanna was brought up short by a blaring horn. To her dismay she discov-ered she’d gone through an amber light and had almost been broadsided by someone jumping the green. With her heart pound-ing in her throat, she turned right at the next intersection, a side street which led to the back entrance of one of Phoenix’s major shopping malls, Metrocenter.

Realizing it wasn’t safe for her to continue driving, she parked in the broiling parking lot. Her cell phone had slipped off the end of the seat. She had to walk around the car and open the passenger door in order to retrieve it. When she picked it up, the readout said she had missed fifteen calls, all of which were from UNAVAILABLE.All from Butch, no doubt, she told herself.

Slamming the car door shut, she made her way into the mall. Finding a bench near a noisy fountain, she glanced down at her watch. One o’clock was time enough for Jeff and Marianne to have finished up with both the church service and the coffee hour and to have returned home to the parsonage. Gripping the phone tightly, Joanna punched Marianne’s number into the keypad.