The Prison Inside Me (7 page)

She began hitting her computer keyboard. “Trout Lake police are investigating the possibility that the death of George Nichols, previously reported in the
Herald
as a suicide, was actually a homicide. Officers were seen at the Nicholses’ residence late Thursday with a general search warrant issued by Judge Alex Halloran. With that warrant, police took possessions from the residence but as yet have not revealed what materials were taken or what evidence was found. Police are still awaiting the full report from the county medical examiner as to the nature of the gunshot that killed Nichols…”

Szysmanski was sitting in Harry Dawes’s office, looking at a printed copy of the medical examiner’s internal computer report and a few sheets printed from the early laboratory computer report of materials taken from the residence. Two other detectives were present, invited by Dawes.

“This is bad news,” Dawes began. “The entry wound angle, the position of the body leaning toward the side of the wound, the distance of the weapon from the entry wound—it all stinks. The files full of pictures of naked little boys, all sort of faded from age; no faces, only torsos. These pics were taken years ago and saved. The prints of both Nichols and his wife are on those file folders and even on some of the pics; no prints other than Nichols’s on the phone when the lady says, at least according to your notes, Siz, that she used that phone to call nine one one. Even you,” he said half-jokingly to Szysmanski, “can figure this out.”

Szysmanski cut in, “And I’ll bet when we get the full exam of his computers and cell phone, we’ll find more recent photos of naked little boys. Those paper pics are from days before the Internet. I’ll bet his computer is loaded with porno and pedophile websites. We’ll get leads on all his pedophile friends who have been in touch with him all these years, too. Harry,” he asked the chief, “where do we go from here?”

“I’m not sure that just having dirty pictures is as bad as it seems to us,” Dawes answered. “Obviously, his wife knew about this. What we need is a deposition, a sworn statement that he has committed a felony, sodomy with a minor, inappropriate touching just as we have in his previous when he was nineteen, or even something to do with the morals of a minor. Anything other than just some dirty pictures. Siz, we have the files of his camp finances, with the lists of names of campers and their parents. Take Saul and Jan, get the folders with the camp records from the lab, and call some of those kids who were in the camp ten to fifteen years ago who are now adults. See if anyone will confirm illegal touching, anything, and get them to come in and make a sworn statement.

“I’ll call the DA to see if she is interested in pursuing this further. After all, the guy is dead. We can’t try him. And if his wife did kill him, it may be a ‘so what.’ She is not a serial killer, not liable to repeat, although we may be able to get a plea with her to resolve this thing. If it is someone other than she, we’re going to have a tough time proving how that someone got hold of the weapon usually kept by his bed and gained access to the house, and finding a motive after all these years, just like that whacko phone call to Siz from that guy on that farm just out of town.”

“Harry,” Siz interrupted, “if it is Mrs. Nichols, what was her motive, and why now after all these years? From her prints on the old files of photos, she knew what was going on many years ago, before computers came into use. As you said, it all stinks.”

Siz and the two detectives went down to the police lab and asked for the files of the camp operation. When they got back to Siz’s desk, the files produced hundreds of names of campers from the past thirty years. They looked for names before the year 2000, calculating that all of these would be at least twenty years old. They looked for names they recognized from other incidents they had investigated, or names of people they knew socially. After a half hour, they had compiled a list of thirty-six names, each one taking twelve they knew and returning to their desks to start calling.

All the calls to those who could be reached—most in town but some outside, even in distant states—were similar to the responses that Heather Thompson had received. Call after call was answered with the man involved saying he had either read about Nichols’s suicide in the press or seen it on the TV news. All were shocked at his demise. No one could suggest a reason for which he might have taken his own life. He was a wonderful, caring teacher and a great tutor. He had made a significant contribution to each one’s life. He was much beloved. Yes, each one knew of others who had attended the camp. But all the names suggested were already in Nichols’s files. No one was aware of any incident of verbal or physical abuse that would have left anyone with feelings of animosity toward Nichols. Some had been in touch with him via e-mail or personal visits during the recent past. All rejected the idea that anyone had reason to want him dead. He was a great man and teacher who deserved better than the end to which he had come.

Szysmanski and Saul were discussing whether they should seek more names from the list and continue calling when Jan jumped up from her desk and all but came running over.

“I got one, a live one, and he’s coming in!” Jan was all but shouting. “His name is Arnold Evans; he lives in Overton, just outside Trout Lake. He wants to talk to someone about the abuse he took during the summers at Recovery Camp. I asked him what kind of abuse, but he didn’t want to discuss it over the phone as he didn’t know if I was really a detective or some nut trying to sue Nichols for something. He said he would come in after work tonight. He works here in town. I got his number at work from his mother, whom he continues to live with. The record shows that he attended the camp from 1981 to 1983. He says he is thirty-eight years old now and works as a computer tech for a supermarket. As he put it, ‘It’s about time someone killed the son of a bitch, after what he did to all of us.’ He wouldn’t tell me what that ‘did’ meant. I told him that if he came in, he would be asked to make a sworn statement under oath. ‘No problem,’ he said, ‘anything to screw this guy the way he screwed us.’ I hope he’s not just talking about some punishment he took for bad behavior. Could it be that we have another waste of time? I told him to ask for you, Siz.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Szysmanski answered. “At least we have one whose talk is different than all the others.”

When Evans came into the police station, Szysmanski was introduced to him as the chief detective on the Nichols suicide. He was taken into a private room, introduced to the two other detectives who were there, and shown the instrument on which all that was being said would be recorded. Szysmanski informed him that a clerk would then type the entire interview from the recording. One of the detectives present would bring a copy to Evans for his signature, which would be witnessed by the detective’s signature as well. Evans indicated that he understood all this and that his statement could be used in some legal proceeding, even in court. He agreed to all this, including that if he were called upon to testify at a trial, he would be more than willing to do so.

Evans confirmed that Nichols had touched him inappropriately on several occasions. These incidents occurred at Recovery Camp in Nichols’s private office, where Evans had gone for special tutoring. He said that Nichols was a great teacher and had helped him immensely, especially with his mathematics, giving him the basis for the work he was doing now. Nichols also took a picture of him exposed. He never saw the picture. He had no idea what Nichols did with it. No, he said, the touching didn’t start until after he was tutored a few times. The photographing really came much later, almost at the end of his attendance at camp, when he was able to get his schoolwork done without help. He was photographed only once.

Evans said, “I really was at a loss before I got to Mr. Nichols. It was when I was in third and fourth grade, I think, when I was nine or ten. He was great and brought mathematics to life for me. I was always in trouble at school. Suddenly, everything was beautiful. And all he wanted to do was touch me and hold me and have me touch him. You know, my mother was divorced before I could remember. I really never had a father. And he was great to me, lots of kindness, with special things to eat that I liked while he was tutoring me. He even gave me some money here and there to reward me for working so hard to learn my lessons. I was at camp for two summers, two weeks each time, and then weekends twice a month. My mother loved the result, as I succeeded in school and stopped making trouble for her. I really loved the guy; he helped me do better at school. So he touched me a little bit and asked me to touch him—I used to touch myself anyway; what difference could it make? And the rewards were needed. I loved the guy. Now I know that I did a bad thing and that he did bad things to me, but who could I tell about it? Who would believe a poor kid like me against this great guy who was revered by the entire community? I got to Recovery through this nice lady social worker the school sent me to when I was making trouble. She told my mother to send me to the camp.

“Look, my mom is not well. She lives alone except for me; I’m her only child. She divorced my drunken father when I was only three, and then he disappeared—may be dead for all I know. Mother worked her fingers to the bone to keep us in food and shelter, and then I could help with the money that Mr. Nichols gave me, too. I never told her why he did that. She wouldn’t have believed it anyway, and it would have made her very upset. So I kept it to myself. I don’t want you to let her know; you must promise me that. My problems are my own, and I don’t want her to have them at this stage of her life. I have a good job; I can take care of her. She does some babysitting and taking care of old folks, but she is really sick with emphysema from too much smoking, so she can’t work much anymore. Leave her alone, or else I’m out of here. I’m home with my mother every night. I don’t have any girlfriends, and I don’t want them. I know there is something wrong with me, but I’m not gay or anything like that. I don’t want to have anything to do with sex. I read up on the kinds of things that Mr. Nichols did to me. You’re going to tell me to get some psychiatric help. I don’t need it. I’m fine; I like the way I am. So I have this problem—everyone has problems. I dream a lot. It’s not nice, but I don’t have any complications with other people; they leave me alone, and I leave them alone. And no, I don’t want to get married. I sure as hell don’t want any children to have to go through what I’ve been through. I loved him so—how could the bastard have done this to me?”

They asked him if he knew of any other of his friends at school or at Recovery Camp who had been bothered by Nichols or anyone else.

“What others do or have had done to them is none of my business. If I knew, I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I don’t know, so I can’t help you there. It’s not something kids talk about, like hitting a home run. Look, he’s dead; he can’t hurt anyone anymore. If my mother finds out about this, it will kill her, how she insisted I keep going to the camp. I don’t mind helping you guys out, but you’ve got to leave me out of this for my mother’s sake.”

Almost three hours had passed since Evans had arrived at the station. Szysmanski closed the interview, reassuring Evans that the case would probably close with his statement, that he shouldn’t worry about his mother being informed, and that the police were more than grateful for his courage in discussing what had to be extremely difficult for him to help clear up “why Mr. Nichols committed suicide.” He hinted that if Evans ever wanted to seek some help for his “problem,” the police department had a listing of many excellent specialists to whom Evans could go in complete confidence and secrecy.

CHAPTER NINE

T
he first year of their operation was a success beyond their most optimistic plans. After the first weekend dry run, many parents of George’s younger students called to ask George to allow their sons and daughters to attend for a weekend. George explained to the parents of daughters that he didn’t have facilities for both boys and girls. He had opted to remain with only boys for the overnight. He would be happy to have the girls as day campers, tutoring boys and girls in one group for three or four hours, with lots of breaks for other activities, such as boating, story time, the luncheon meal, and any other diversions of the day. However, someone would have to retrieve them in the late afternoon when those activities were finished. The regular fee would be adjusted, but it would be much higher than his regular hourly rate that he charged when tutoring at their homes. Parents would have to bring children to the camp and pick them up at the end of the day.

Many parents of boys asked if they, too, could be only day campers. George answered that this was not possible. He could only handle a small number, perhaps six students at a time, and he reserved all the day camper slots for girls. Some weekends, so many boys appeared for overnight stays that he had no room for girls as day campers.

Via the brochure, George advertised the start of the preparation course for the mathematics college entry exam. Only twenty seats existed in the one classroom. He felt he needed a total of six hours per week to get students ready in the eight weeks for which the course was scheduled. So many students applied that he created two groups of a total of thirty-six students, half on Mondays and Wednesdays and the other half on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Parking was yet another problem, even though many carpooled, as very limited space existed in the front of the house. Most had to park on either side of the unlit road in front of the lodge. He had to leave Friday open in case he and Susan decided to extend their weekend camp for children to two nights.

For the overnight children in the dormitory, to avoid having to hire a counselor or sleep in the dormitory themselves, George hired someone to install a camera and sound system with monitors located in their bedroom and living room. In case of need, or if the boys became too rambunctious, their voice commands could be heard in the dormitory to quiet things down, even calling boys by name to effect immediate correction. Voice systems ran both ways, although Susan and George’s in the house operated on switches that they controlled. This voice system was also used to awaken the boys in the morning, reminding them to get cleaned up and dressed. Since so few overnight boys were involved, Susan could easily prepare the meals. Lunches were always light. Dinner was the same meal that the Nicholses would eat, the quantities extended to allow for the added boys. They all did cleanup together in a spirit of great fun. Overnighters had evening tutoring after dinner, homework, study time, and an adventure story read by Susan before bedtime.

The money continued to roll in; their debts were being paid on time, and their maxed-out credit cards relieved. They hired some of the high school boys and girls attending George’s college prep course to work in maintenance, do laundry, clean up the dormitory and its adjoining group bathroom, cut the grass, wash the remaining dishes, and do whatever was needed to keep the facility in first-class shape to project a well-run organization for children. One senior girl even began helping in the kitchen and soon took over the preparation of the Saturday evening meals Susan had planned. All these teenage workers were given compensatory scholarships for the college prep course, involving very little cash flow.

Creditors began to extend even more credit, as Recovery Camp was now able to pay bills on time. Susan could now go out to buy the furniture they needed for their home in the lodge, to make it livable, even to create a nursery in one of the bedrooms. She and George worked one Sunday afternoon after the campers went home to paint it a nice neutral yellow, rather than blue or pink, since the gender of their first progeny, still perhaps a long way off, was indeterminable.

Their endeavors produced a great deal of income over their budgeted plans. One late afternoon, over their usual martinis, Susan suggested something to George that she had been thinking about for a long time, even before the camp became the success it was.

“George,” she said, in a very tentative voice, “you know, I see a lot of needy kids in my job at Child Protective Services. Some of them are facing a very tough life—working mothers who have little time for them, no father in the house, no money for anything that isn’t involved in daily survival. We even have to provide health care for these kids, who truly live in misery that you can’t imagine. Certainly, motivation to do better at anything they attempt is completely lacking, unless it comes from some other kids on the street, and that invariably is not in the child’s best interest. Here we have all these wealthy clients, really our customers, who, if we look at it closely enough, don’t really need us.

“George,” she continued, now more firmly, “I’d like to give one of these boys a full scholarship to spend a weekend in the camp. It would be great for him to get some special tutoring and to blossom under your encouragement, especially in math. And it would be great for the others to see firsthand how someone less fortunate has to struggle to achieve what they consider their birthright. We could do this as an ‘add-on,’ one extra boy whose additional cost to us would be minimal, as we already have the entire infrastructure to support him all paid for. What do you think?”

“Susan,” George smiled, “why do I feel that you already have a boy picked out?”

“Well,” Susan smiled broadly, “I guess I do. He’s only nine, in third grade, a great kid, very well cared for whenever his mother is around, no father, really polite, and doing well, more or less, in school. I am seeing him because he has gotten into trouble for shoplifting with the kids on the street. His mother is destroyed. She has great hopes for him, and she would be very supportive of anything anyone does to encourage in him another kind of life. Let’s do it!”

And so it was done. Tommy’s mother agreed with boundless gratitude for the opportunity to try one weekend. Tommy’s grandfather could bring him to Recover Camp on Saturday morning and pick him up again on Sunday afternoon, since she didn’t have a car. She would make sure that he came with the proper clothing to participate in camp activities and with books for the tutoring. Tommy, too, was elated to be going away for an overnight adventure, even though it would mean, as he was told, that he would have to do several hours of schoolwork.

Tommy’s first weekend was very successful. He fitted in just fine with the other boys. He adopted their habits at mealtime, at bedtime, and at morning wakeup, including toothbrushing and other personal hygiene expectations. Somehow, he had a knack for the arithmetic work he was asked to do. He found he could compete in this aspect of schoolwork with the other boys and girls in the group. He adored George, who was encouraging and full of praise for the least little thing he did well. George would give him a big pat on the back when he solved a long problem and a big bear hug when he completed a task without any mistakes or calls for help.

Tommy wasn’t the only one George treated like this. Other boys were also praised, patted on the head, and embraced when they succeeded at some tutoring task. However, all these boys had fathers who delivered them to camp, kissed them good-bye, and then picked them up with a big embrace on Sunday afternoon. This parental relationship wasn’t lost on Tommy, something he had never known from a missing father, whom he had never seen and about whom he only heard derogatory things from his mother. His grandfather, his mother’s father, was always cool to him, doing what he did only when his mother asked him.

When he was in bed one night, supposedly asleep, Tommy overheard a fight between his mother and his grandfather, in loud voices. “It could have been worse if you had married the good-for-nothing. At least we can be thankful for that. Now look how you’ve ruined your life with that kid!” Tommy’s only thought on hearing this was that all the other kids—well, almost all—had two grandfathers. He wished he could have two also so that one of them would take him out for ice cream and to a ball game—and maybe love him as all grandparents loved their grandchildren.

George and Susan’s lovemaking became perfunctory. Susan attributed this to the constant demands of the work they were doing to make their Recovery Camp a success. Both were extremely tired at the end of the day, longing for the few hours they could save for the sleep they coveted.

However, Susan noted an anomaly. Often, George would indicate that a boy needed extra tutoring to “recover”—it was, after all, Recovery Camp—work he couldn’t achieve in the regular group tutoring class during the day. When the others would get into bed for the Saturday night adventure story read by Susan, he would take a boy, not always the same boy, into his private office that the architect had designed between the dormitory and their living quarters. The other boys would be sleeping by the time George finished tutoring. He would take the boy to his cot in the dormitory, making sure not to wake the others, carefully tuck him in, and often, depending on the boy, kiss him good night. Even Susan would have gone off to bed and that welcome sleep she needed. Some nights, George would come to bed after one of these late-night tutoring sessions in a feverishly aroused state, awakening her with his embraces followed by uninhibited lovemaking from which both fell into completely exhausted and deep sleep. Despite her fatigue, Susan loved this infrequent attention and the fire that burned within her, awakened by George’s ardor.
This is what I really wanted in my married life,
she thought.
He is so wonderful, so masterful, so loving; he makes me feel I’m a woman again.

They began their summer camp plans, starting with one-week sessions, Monday through Sunday morning so that they could have Sunday off after breakfast when campers were retrieved by their parents. Some parents signed up for a second week, but the Nicholses established a two-week maximum for any boy during the summer to allow room for the great demand that George’s successful reputation had created. During these summer sessions, no room existed for girls, nor was there time for the home tutoring that George did other times during the year. They ran the camp for six weeks to allow them a few weeks off at the end of August for vacation, travel, and maintenance to keep the lodge in showcase condition.

Susan’s work at CPS included recommending certain boys in need as partial scholarship students for some sessions of the summer camp. CPS could pay a certain amount of the rather high tuition that Recovery Camp charged. George and Susan’s budgeting allowed for one scholarship camper in each session, although most sessions were fully subscribed by full-tuition families.

After the first year of the success of the summer camp, they agreed to extend the weekend camp program from Friday night through Sunday morning. One night worked without problems the first year, so why not extend it to two nights and charge a bit more, increasing their income?

Their revenue increased, and their debts were melting away. They bought a new and bigger car and some artwork to decorate their part of the lodge, hired an exterior gardening service to beautify the entrance to the camp, and generally upgraded the appearance of the lodge inside and out. Despite their long hours, with the around-the-clock work George was doing including teaching, tutoring, college prep courses, and weekend camp, they were happy with each other, relishing sharing their lives. Despite the many demands on them, they were happy in what they had accomplished.