Behind the Picket Fence
The Dillanes, who seemed to have stepped right out of a 1950s sitcom, were the envy of their neighbors and friends. Truman Dillane, the family patriarch, was a successful businessman with a six-figure income. His wife, Jewell, was one of those Supermoms who kept an immaculate house, made a delicious and nutritious home-cooked meal every morning and evening and was a nurturing and involved parent who regularly volunteered for PTA, church and scouting functions. The Dillanes' offspring, fourteen-year-old Lucas and ten-year-old Georgiana, were well-behaved, respectful children who did well at school, attended religious services every Sunday and always obeyed their parents.
Yes, by all appearances the Dillanes were the perfect American family living in an ideal American household behind their flawless white picket fence. Yet as the old adage goes, appearances can often be deceiving.
As products of our current child-centered society, it is hard for many young people to believe that once upon a time in our country, the man in the family laid down the laws to which his wife and children must conform. Truman Dillane was typical of those men born in the post-World War II generation; he was the breadwinner, his home was his castle and he always knew what was best for his family.
One Friday evening in September 1973, Truman returned from his job in Manhattan to his suburban New Jersey home. Although the cookie cutter house was structurally no different from any of the others in the development, he liked to think that the landscaped property and the hours he dedicated to maintaining the exterior in pristine condition set his home apart from the neighboring dwellings.
It was not just his house Truman took pride in. He was also proud of the fact that his wife had a good figure, her hair was always in place and her makeup was tastefully applied. Georgiana, he was pleased to notice, was shaping up to be a younger version of her mother. With so-called feminists running around burning their bras and calling for equality with men, he considered himself fortunate that both the females in his life knew their place and always acted like ladies.
It was his son that brought him the most satisfaction, however. With only minimal urging from his father, the boy got straight A's on his report cards, batted over .300 for his Little League team and was the youngest member of his troop to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. Truman had great plans for his son's future. Having already decided Lucas would apply to Harvard, Princeton and Yale, Truman only waited for word from their admissions departments before he would decide if his son should pursue a career in medicine or law.
Given Lucas's potential, he might become president someday, Truman thought with pride, feeling like a middle class Joseph P. Kennedy.
It never occurred to the father to ask his son what he wanted to do with his life, just as Truman would never ask his daughter if she wanted to go to college. In Truman's narrow world, it was taken for granted that daughters were to be groomed for marriage and motherhood, not careers.
On that aforementioned Friday evening in September 1973, as the man of the Dillane family got out of his late-model Cadillac DeVille, he had no premonition that his well-ordered universe was about to slowly unravel.
"Hi, Daddy," Georgiana called to her father when he walked through the front door.
"Hello. I see you're watching television. Did you finish your homework already?"
"I didn't have any. Mrs. Draper was out sick today, and we had a substitute."
Truman walked into the kitchen, kissed his wife on the cheek and inquired, "What's for dinner?"
"I made a meatloaf."
"Ground beef again? I make enough money that we should be eating steak."
"The kids don't like steak. They like ...."
Jewell stopped talking, remembering it was not proper for a wife to answer her husband back.
"I'll make steak tomorrow night."
"Good. And an apple pie. You know how much I like apple pie."
"I'll go to ShopRite tomorrow and buy some apples."
"They'll be fresher at a farm stand."
"Yes, dear. I'll go to Melton's farm and buy them there."
Just as his father was sitting down at the dining room table, Lucas walked through the front door, still wearing his Boy Scout uniform.
"You're just in time," Truman declared. "Now go wash your hands for dinner. Georgiana, turn off that television and help your mother in the kitchen."
Once all the Dillanes were seated around the table, the father led his family in prayer.
"How was school today, son?" Truman asked as his wife cut a slice of meatloaf for him and put it on his plate along with a helping of mashed potatoes and green beans.
"It was okay. My social studies teacher wants everyone to select a religion and write a report on it."
"What religion did you choose?" Jewell asked, wanting to join in the conversation.
"I was thinking about Buddhism. What do you think, Dad?"
"I would go with Anglicanism. It's always best to stick with a Christian faith."
"Guess what that kid Del chose," Lucas said excitedly.
"Judaism?" his father replied.
"Catholicism?" his mother asked.
"Nope. You'll never guess. Not in a million years."
"Then tell us," Truman ordered.
"Satanism."
"That's a religion?" Jewell asked with surprise.
"It's trouble is what it is," her husband answered. "It's obvious to me that Del's parents ought to keep a close eye on their son. Now, let's change the subject. I want no further discussion of devil worship in my house."
* * *
As I've already said, Lucas was a straight-A student. Blessed with innate intelligence, he possessed a highly inquisitive mind as well. That was why when Del showed him the completed paper on Satanism, Lucas read it with curious fascination. It was a subject new to him. Sure, he had heard fairytales and horror stories about witches doing Satan's bidding, and he had listened to Father Everett preach against the devil every Sunday from the church pulpit. However, he had never considered that the Prince of Darkness might actually play a role in people's everyday lives.
Many of us living in the twenty-first century look back on a time when people believed groups of Satanists were holding blasphemous ceremonies under cover of darkness and liken it to the hysteria that swept through Puritan Salem. We see the occasional instances of dead animals being left on graves and inverted crucifixes marked on cemetery headstones as acts of teenagers dabbling in antisocial behavior and vandalism. We realize it is the work of miscreants raising hell in a figurative sense, not a literal one. In 1973, however, memories of Charles Manson's trial were still fresh in Americans' minds. The Exorcist was released in theaters for the first time, and it had only been five years since Roman Polanski titillated moviegoers with the idea of Lucifer's child being born to a human woman in Rosemary's Baby. True, not everyone believed in devil-worshipping cults, but there were those who did.
"Where did you get all this information?" Lucas asked when he finished reading the report.
"In the library," Del replied.
"I never knew it had such books."
"Of course, it does. You just have to know where to look for them."
That afternoon, the school's science club held its biweekly meeting in the chemistry lab after the last class of the day. Lucas, president of the club for the past two years, had never missed a meeting. This time, he ducked out of school when the last bell sounded and walked to the town library. Feeling a sense of guilt, given the purpose of his visit, he quickly walked past Bea Caledon, the stern-looking librarian.
In the days before computers and the Internet were ubiquitous parts of our lives, readers looked up books and periodicals in the card catalog. A nonfiction book was normally represented by three cards: a title card, author card, and subject card, all of which were filed alphabetically.
Lucas thumbed through the cards until he found one on the subject of Satanism. He felt his heart race with excitement as he wrote down 133.422, the Dewey decimal number of a book entitled Modern Satanism, on a piece of scratch paper. He felt the excitement mount as he headed toward the shelves that contained books on metaphysics, the occult and the paranormal.
Astrology. Witchcraft. Black Magic. Voodoo. I never knew there were so many books on these subjects, he thought as he searched the titles and numbers on the spines.
After locating the three-hundred-page Modern Satanism, Lucas looked at his watch, a Christmas gift from his grandparents. It was nearly five o'clock. He had no time to sit down at one of the tables and read. His father would be home at six, expecting dinner on the table and his children ready to sit down and eat. Although he dreaded putting such a book on the counter to check it out, he would have to take it home and read it in the privacy of his bedroom. His fears were unfounded, however. Mrs. Caledon perfunctorily stamped the card in the back pocket of the book, paying no attention to its title.
* * *
After dinner, Lucas headed toward the stairs, intent on going to his bedroom.
"Where are you off to?" his father inquired as he turned on the television.
"I'm going to study for my history test," the boy lied.
When he got to his room, he quietly shut the door and sat at his desk with the library book. He read, fascinated, until his father knocked on the door at ten o'clock.
"Lights out," Truman called.
Lucas quickly shut the book and shoved it inside his desk drawer in case his father should come into the room.
"Good night, son. And good luck on your history test tomorrow."
Truman's fading voice indicated that he was heading down the hall toward the master bedroom.
Lucas turned off the desk light, got beneath the covers of his bed and turned on his Boy Scout flashlight so that he could continue to read.
Having finished the heavily illustrated book in one evening, the fourteen-year-old again stopped at the library on his way home from school the next day. Upon entering the building, he went right to the shelf where he had found the book he checked out the preceding day. This time he selected three books, one on Satanism and two on witchcraft. To hide the inappropriate reading material from his parents, he used the same style of book covers he had used to protect his schoolbooks. If either his father or mother entered his room unannounced, they would believe he was studying.
The following week, Jewell wanted to surprise her family by baking a chocolate layer cake. However, when Lucas finished his meatballs and spaghetti, he asked to be excused from the table.
"Don't you want any dessert?" his mother asked with disappointment.
"No, thank you."
"Where are you manners, son?" Truman chastised him. "Your mother took the time to make a homemade cake. The least you can do is eat a piece of it."
Lucas dutifully sat back down and forced himself to eat a large slice of cake.
"Slow down," his father instructed. "You don't have to shovel your food into your mouth."
Finally, having finished his dessert, the student hurried up to his bedroom, taking two steps at a time.
"What's gotten into that boy?" Truman asked his wife. "Every night he finishes his dinner and then locks himself in his bedroom."
"He says he's studying," Jewell replied.
"Well, I suppose we ought to be thankful he's doing his schoolwork and not running around with friends getting into trouble."
His wife nodded her head and smiled. They had nothing at all to worry about, she was certain. They were a normal, happy all-American family.
* * *
Jewell's rosy image of her ideal existence began to erode a month later when she received a phone call from Mona Zabriskie, her son's guidance counselor.
"Frankly, I'm worried about Lucas," Mona confided. "Every one of his teachers has expressed the concern that there might be something bothering him. He hasn't been handing in his homework, he doesn't contribute in class, he no longer participates in extracurricular activities and he's skipped gym twice. Is there something we should be aware of?"
"No," Jewell replied with confusion, taken completely by surprise.
"Has his behavior at home been any different?"
"Well ... he has been spending a lot of time in his bedroom at night, doing his schoolwork."
"Mrs. Dillane, I'm not sure what Lucas has been doing in his room, but I doubt it has anything to do with school. Perhaps he's met a girl he's interested in. He's at that age, after all."
"If he has, he certainly hasn't mentioned her to me."
"I was hoping either you or his father might talk to the boy. He's always been such a good student; we don't want to see him begin to slide now. We'd prefer to nip this thing—whatever it is—in the bud."
"Certainly. I'll discuss the situation with my husband when he gets home from work tonight."
After hanging up the phone, Jewell made herself a cup of coffee, sat down at her kitchen table and thought about what might be wrong with her son.
A girl seems like the logical explanation. Lucas has always been on the shy side. It must be hard for him to concentrate on English or algebra when he's trying to summon the courage to ask someone out on a date. Maybe I can handle this myself and not worry my husband.
After finishing her coffee, she went upstairs to her son's bedroom. Perhaps she would find a clue there as to what was bothering him. One by one she searched his dresser drawers but found nothing in them except clothes. His closet contained more clothes, board games, sports equipment and scouting items. She walked over to the desk and opened the drawer, expecting to find nothing but his baseball card collection, pads of paper, pens and pencils. Instead, she found three books, their thick paper book covers labeled British Literature, Chemistry and American History. There were several pieces of lined white paper folded in half and placed inside the books.
No wonder he hasn't turned in his homework. He's left it at home.
When Jewell pulled out one of the sheets of paper and examined it, her free hand went to her mouth in a gesture of shock.
What is this?
She opened the book and realized it had nothing to do with chemistry. Her heart sank. She could have handled the fact that her son had a crush on a classmate, but she had no idea what to do about his apparent interest in witchcraft and devil worship.
* * *
After that first chink, the wall rapidly began to come down. When Lucas arrived home from school, his mother confronted him with the library books.
"What were you doing in my room?" he countered angrily.
"You didn't answer my question. What are these books doing in this house?"
"I'm reading them. That's usually what people do with library books."
"You watch your tongue, young man. I'm your mother."
"That doesn't give you the right to spy on me and go through my things."
At that moment, Truman walked through the door.
"What's going on?" he asked.
Jewell handed the library books to her husband.
"That's what our son has been reading in his room every night, not schoolbooks!"
"Why are you wasting your time on such trash?" Truman shouted. "What do you hope to accomplish? Do you plan on going to Harvard to become a witch doctor?"
"I'm just curious about the subject, that's all."
"Well, I hope these books have satisfied your curiosity because they'll be no more of them in my house. Your mother will take them back to the library tomorrow when she does her grocery shopping."
"No," Lucas cried, defying his parents for the first time in his life.
"No?" his father echoed angrily. "You don't tell me no!"
Having come this far, there was no turning back for Lucas.
"I'll tell you anything I want to say," the teenager answered back. "I'm tired of you trying to run my life. I'm not going to take it anymore."
As Georgiana sat in the family room playing with her Barbie doll, she tried to ignore the sound of shouting coming from the living room.
"Maybe we should call Father Everett," Jewell tearfully suggested after Lucas ran upstairs and slammed the bedroom door behind him.
Truman was loath to pass his responsibility as head of the household to another man, even to a man of God. He—and he alone—would deal with his son.
As the days turned into weeks, however, the Dillanes had little success in reining in their rebellious son. Even after his parents took away his library card, he still brought inappropriate books into the house; he simply used the allowance he had saved to buy them from the local bookstore.
Believing her son's feet were set firmly on the path of damnation, Jewell defied her husband and contacted Father Everett. The minister spoke with the boy on several occasions and suggested the Dillanes consider taking their son to see a doctor. Again, Truman was not willing to relinquish control.
"This is my family, damn it!" he cried to his wife. "Stop meddling and let me take care of things!"
"But you're not able to reach him anymore. I've spoken to Mrs. Zabriskie, the guidance counselor. She said that if Lucas doesn't change his ways soon, he'll fail his classes."
"I'll take care of it," Truman insisted. "End of discussion."
Pouting, Jewell went upstairs, wishing to get away from her overbearing husband.
Truman meanwhile picked up his newspaper and sat down in his chair, but he couldn't keep his mind on what he read.
What's gone wrong with the world? he wondered with frustration. My father never had to deal with the problems I do.
As is too often the case in life, things were about to go from bad to worse.
* * *
Mrs. Parnell, who lived next door to the Dillanes, was awakened late one night by the sound of pounding on her front door. Her husband, a long-haul truck driver, was en route to the West Coast, leaving her alone in the house. She hesitated, uncertain if she should answer the door. What if it was a member of a group of murderous hippies like the one led by Charles Manson? The urgent knocking continued. She cautiously got out of bed, put on her bathrobe and went downstairs.
"Who's there?" she shouted through the locked door.
"It's me, Mrs. Parnell. Truman Dillane."
"Truman?" she repeated, immediately turning the deadbolt lock and opening the door. "What are you doing here at this hour?"
She noticed her neighbor looked frantic as he clutched his daughter in his arms.
"Is Georgiana hurt? Do you want me to call an ambulance?"
"She's fine, but there's a fire in my living room."
"Come right in. Put Georgiana on the sofa, and I'll call the fire department."
"I can't find my wife or my son," the anxious father cried as he saw flames flickering through his living room window.
Suddenly, he heard the roar of a car engine. He turned and saw his Cadillac DeVille wildly back down his driveway. The vehicle made it as far as the road before it struck a tree, stalled and came to a stop. The driver stumbled out and headed toward the wooded area on the opposite side of the street. Truman would have gone in pursuit had not blaring sirens announced the approach of the fire and police departments.
The responding officer questioned Truman as the firemen battled the flames that threatened to consume his perfect cookie cutter home.
"You say your wife and son are missing?"
"Yes. I was in bed sleeping when something woke me up. I smelled smoke and went downstairs to investigate. I thought maybe my wife had left the stove on. There was a fire in the living room. I hurried back upstairs to wake my family and get them safely out of the house, but the only one I could find was my daughter."
"One or both of them must have been in that Cadillac. Did you see anyone get out of the car?"
A look of confusion clouded Truman's face.
"There was a driver, but I couldn't tell who it was."
It was a mystery that over the next several hours was to be solved, only to give birth to a nightmare that would horrify the residents of the quiet New Jersey suburban community.
As the fire was being brought under control, one of the firemen went to the back yard to assess the damage to the rear of the house. There he found Jewell's body lying on the ground near the trashcans. She had been stabbed twelve times with Lucas's Boy Scout knife. Once the victim was discovered, the police officer at the scene called for backup.
While detectives questioned Truman, the police followed a blood trail from the Cadillac into the woods. Lucas, it was soon discovered, had tried to flee the scene but did not make it very far. His body was found lying in a pile of dried autumn leaves. Both his wrists had been slashed, and he eventually died of exsanguination.
Although Truman was asked to accompany the detectives to the police station, there was never any suspicion cast upon him. He was open and honest with investigators, telling them about his son's interest in Satanism and witchcraft. He further admitted that the fire in his living room was the result of his wife attempting to burn all the son's books in the fireplace.
The grieving father's explanation was easy enough to confirm. Mrs. Zabriskie and the boy's teachers supported his story that a complete change had come over Lucas since he had read a classmate's paper on Satanism. Furthermore, Father Everett told of being called to house by the deceased woman to counsel her son. Finally, once it was deemed safe to enter the Dillane house, investigators found a hastily scribbled suicide note on Lucas's desk in which he confessed to killing his mother.
As far as everyone was concerned, it was an open-and-shut case of matricide followed by suicide.
* * *
Shawn McMurtry walked into The Quill and Dagger early one morning, taking a seat at the coffee bar.
"What brings you here this early?" asked Rebecca Coffin, the owner of the bookstore, who was minding the counter until her employee came to work at seven.
"Penny and the kids went to Cape Cod for the day, and they left around five, hoping to avoid the traffic."
Rebecca poured a cup of coffee for Shawn and handed him a cranberry nut muffin.
"Got any new books in?" the policeman asked as he put cream and sugar into his cup.
"A few. In fact, there's one you might like."
The shopkeeper walked into the main body of the store, selected a thick book off the shelf of new arrivals, and handed it to Shawn.
"America's Most Bizarre Crimes," the policeman read. "Looks interesting."
"Keep it."
"No, let me pay you for it."
"It's a gift. After all, not only are you a good friend, but you're also my best customer."
As Rebecca moved to the other end of the counter to wait on Tom Wilding, the local attorney, Shawn opened the book and examined the table of contents. It was like a Who's Who of murderers: Lizzie Borden, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer and many other killers well known to the America public. Scattered among these superstar slayers were names not even the well-read policeman was familiar with.
The table of contents was spread out over five pages. At the bottom of the fourth page, one name stood out from the rest.
Dillane? Where do I know that name from? he wondered.
Shawn turned to page 452 that contained the description of the 1973 murder and suicide that occurred in New Jersey. He scanned the article, looking for something that might stir his memory.
There it is! Truman Dillane, the killer's father.
After the death of his wife and son, Truman and Georgiana moved to Puritan Falls, hoping to escape the painful memories that haunted them in New Jersey. Shawn remembered the man clearly since he was the one to break the news to Truman that his daughter had been found dead of a drug overdose at the age of seventeen.
"My God!" the policeman exclaimed softly. "How much tragedy can one man take in his life?"
"Did you say something, Shawn?" Rebecca asked as she refilled his cup with hot coffee.
"Remember Truman Dillane, the guy who lived over on New Plimoth Street?"
"He's the one who lost his daughter, isn't he?"
"Take a look at this," Shawn said, handing her the book.
"This can't be the same man. It says here the family lived in New Jersey."
"The murder and suicide happened in 1973. If memory serves me, Dillane and his daughter moved here in '74."
"Whatever became of him? Is he still alive?"
"I think so. I believe he's living over at Laurel Springs. Poor guy. With his luck, he's probably suffering from Alzheimer's."
"Given his tragic past," Rebecca declared, "I'd say it would be a blessing for him to lose his memory."
* * *
After Shawn went off duty, he went to Burger Barn's drive-thru on the way home. Penny and the kids wouldn't be home until late at night, and he didn't feel like cooking for himself. Sitting at his kitchen table, he took a bite from his double cheeseburger and opened the book Rebecca had given him, turning to page 452. As he read through the details of the crime, his "little gray cells" began to nag him. Possessed of a strong intuition, Shawn questioned the so-called open-and-shut case.
For one thing, what was the timeline? Assuming Lucas murdered his mother in the afternoon or early evening, why hadn't Truman noticed his wife was missing when he came home from work? If the boy murdered Jewell later in the evening, why hadn't her husband heard the commotion? And what about the fire? Presumably the mother got out of bed and found her son reading his forbidden books in his room. She then took the books from him, carried them down to the living room, started a fire in the fireplace and tossed them in. Surely Lucas would have objected and tried to stop her. Yet all the while, the husband slept peacefully in his bed.
It just doesn't add up, Shawn concluded.
What bothered him even more than the questions about Jewell Dillane's murder were those he had about the son's suicide. Since he had written a suicide note and then slit his wrists, it's a natural assumption he was serious about wanting to die. Why then, bleeding profusely, had he gotten behind the wheel of his father's Cadillac and tried to flee?
Shawn went into the den and turned on his computer. Maybe he would find additional information on the Internet. After reading more detailed accounts of the crime and the cursory police investigation, he had more questions than answers.
Why didn't the police question Georgiana? Investigators talked to Lucas's teachers, his guidance counselor and even the family pastor, but no one interviewed the sister, a person who was in the house at the time of the murder.
When Penny and the kids finally came home, tired and sun-burned, Shawn forgot about the Dillanes and listened to the highlights of their trip to Cape Cod.
* * *
The following day, Shawn ate lunch with Detectives Stan Yablonski and Phil Langston. After discussing the key plays of the previous night's Red Sox game, Shawn brought up the subject that was foremost on his mind.
"Remember Truman Dillane, the man whose daughter died of a drug overdose back in 1980?" he asked.
"Yeah," Stan said, reaching for another slice of pizza. "What about him?"
"His wife was murdered back in the '70s."
"Uh oh," Phil said with a laugh, "Shawn's been watching the Investigation Discovery Channel again."
"No, I read about it in a book that Rebecca gave me."
"Did they find the killer?" Stan asked.
"Yes, but ...," Shawn replied in a tone of voice that indicated to the two detectives that their friend did not agree with the official findings.
After he described the crime and the subsequent police investigation, Shawn enumerated the questions he had concerning the case.
"Sounds to me like the New Jersey police took the path of least resistance," Phil declared.
"You've got some valid questions," Stan said. "Of course, we have no jurisdiction in this case, but I'd be interested in knowing what Dillane has to say."
"You would?" Shawn asked with surprise.
"Yeah. He's living at Laurel Grove, isn't he? What do you say you and I pay him a visit, Shawn?"
There was no need for McMurtry to answer. Both detectives knew the patrolman loved to play at sleuthing.
* * *
After the nurse assured Shawn that the elderly resident of the Laurel Springs Home for the Aged was well enough to receive visitors, he and Stan drove to Copperwell to talk to the octogenarian.
"Hello, Mr. Dillane," Shawn greeted him in the nursing home's solarium. "I don't know if you remember me or not. I'm Officer McMurtry with the Puritan Falls P.D, and this is my associate, Detective Stan Yablonski. Can we have a word with you?"
There was a hint of fear on Truman's face. Shawn did the talking while Stan watched the elderly man's body language.
"It has come to our attention that your wife was murdered back in 1973."
"Yes, she was. But I don't see what her death has to do with you. She was killed in New Jersey."
"We're not here on official business. We read about the case, and we'd like you to clarify some things for us."
"I repeat: what has this to do with the Puritan Falls police?"
Stan, who was used to questioning reluctant suspects and witnesses, stepped in.
"If you don't feel like talking to us, Mr. Dillane, we can contact the New Jersey State Police and ask them our questions. Of course, that might cause them to reopen the case."
"I'll answer any questions you have," Truman agreed. "I just find it hard to believe that you would want to dredge up such agonizing memories for me just to satisfy your idle curiosity."
"I assure you," Stan said, "we wouldn't bother you if we didn't have real concerns about your son's guilt."
"My boy was ... disturbed."
"Satanism, wasn't it?" the detective asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yes. My wife was beside herself with worry. She even called in the family minister for help. Unfortunately, Lucas was too far gone at that point."
The old man turned toward the window so that his visitors would not see the tears in his eyes.
"We don't want to prolong this painful interview any more than necessary," Shawn began. "I just have a few questions."
"Go head and ask them then."
Stan nodded to the patrolman. As far as he was concerned, McMurtry could run the show.
"I'd like you to walk me through the events of that night beginning when you arrived home from work," Shawn said. "Did you see your wife alive?"
"Of course. We all had dinner at the usual time."
"And the two of you went to bed together?"
Truman didn't answer immediately. It seemed to the detective that he was weighing his answer.
"I went up first since I had to get up early the next morning and go to work. My wife often stayed downstairs and read or clipped her coupons."
"And your son went to bed as well?"
"He went up right after dinner, ostensibly to do his homework."
"Did your wife ever go up to bed that night?"
"I don't know. I fell asleep once my head hit the pillow."
"At some point Mrs. Dillane must have confronted your son, gotten his books, started the fire in the fireplace and threw them in."
"That's right."
"You said your son was disturbed. Would he have objected to his mother taking the books away?"
"I would think the answer to that is obvious. He was mad enough to kill her."
"They must have argued before he stabbed her. Didn't that wake you up?"
"I'm a sound sleeper."
"Sound enough to sleep through your wife's murder?"
"What are you getting at, McMurtry?"
"Your wife must have screamed for help. Yet you didn't wake up. What about your daughter? Was she a sound sleeper, too?"
"I have nothing further to say," Truman stubbornly declared.
Shawn, much to Stan's surprise, was not about to back down.
"Why didn't the police question her?"
"Georgiana was at the neighbor's. I carried her there after I discovered the fire in the living room."
"She was in the house at the time of the murder. If she had been awake at any point during the altercation between your wife and your son, she would be a material witness."
"I told you I don't want to talk to you anymore."
"Why did your son take your car? What was he trying to run from?"
"Stop it!"
"I have only one more question for you, and then Detective Yablonski and I will leave you in peace. Did you kill your wife and son, Mr. Dillane?"
Shawn had expected the elderly man to vehemently deny the accusation or to call for one of the staff to escort the policemen off the premises. Stan, on the other hand, was a seasoned detective and recognized the signs of defeat when he saw them.
"What does it matter now?" Truman moaned to himself. "I'll be dead soon enough. I might as well tell the truth. Yes, I killed them."
Stan bit his lip to hide his smile when he saw the expression on Shawn's face. It was as though every true crime television show he had watched and every detective novel he had read paled in comparison to his incredible feat in getting Truman Dillane to confess.
"Do you have any more questions?" Yablonski asked McMurtry.
"Just one. Why?"
"I was the father, the man of the house. I was the one who ought to have been in control. It was all slipping away. Not only was my son openly defying me, but my wife would no longer listen to me either. She called Father Everett behind my back after I expressly told her not to, and she tried to contact a psychologist as well. Do you two have any children?"
Stan and Shawn both nodded affirmatively.
"Then you realize the tremendous responsibility we bear as fathers."
Neither Stan nor Shawn considered murder a parental responsibility.
"Why don't you tell us what really happened?" Yablonski prompted.
"After my wife and I went up to bed, I couldn't sleep. I went to my son's room to check on him. He was under the blankets reading his devil worship books with a flashlight. Something snapped. I yanked off the covers and hit him. I didn't mean to use as much force as I did, but I struck him hard enough to daze him. The sound of my shouting woke my wife and daughter. I locked Georgiana in her bedroom, telling her to go back to sleep. Meanwhile, my wife picked up the phone to call for help."
Tears fell down the old man's eyes as he relived that awful night.
"I had to stop her. I was the head of the family, not her. I was not about to relinquish my authority to anyone. I dragged her into Lucas's bedroom, intending to talk some sense into the both of them. She waited a few minutes and then bolted. I saw my son's Boy Scout knife on the desk. I grabbed it and went after her. I caught up with her in the back yard."
"And stabbed her twelve times?" Shawn asked.
Truman nodded and continued, "When I went back into the house, I was faced with a difficult decision. I would lose both my children if I were arrested. Lucas was unmanageable, but there was still hope for Georgiana. Without me, she would have no one. For her sake, I had to sacrifice my son. I went upstairs, cut Lucas's wrists, wrote the suicide note and left it on his desk. Then I grabbed the books, took them down to the living room and set them ablaze. How could I know sparks would set fire to the decorative rug in front of the hearth?
"I went upstairs to my daughter's room and told her that Lucas had murdered her mother and then killed himself. I warned her that unless she swore she had been sleeping the whole time, she might be questioned by the police. Georgiana was a good girl. She never said a word to anyone about what she may have heard that night. I wasn't a total failure as a father. I must have done something right!"
Shawn shook his head at the old man's inability to see the evil he had done.
"Your daughter died at the age of seventeen from a drug overdose. Didn't you ever wonder if her death may have stemmed from your actions on that night?"
Truman preferred not to answer that question.
"What now?" he asked. "Are you going to call the New Jersey police and have them come get me?"
Shawn turned to Stan. Neither one had seriously expected the old man to confess to a double murder.
"We'll think about it," Yablonski said and rose to leave. "And while we're making up our minds, why don't you think about your wife and kids and what you did to them?"
"If it makes you feel any better, Detective, I've thought of little else for the past forty-two years."
Shawn and Stan left the solarium and headed toward the lobby. They stopped at the reception desk to sign out.
"Did you have a nice visit with Mr. Dillane?" asked the nurse, who had no clue as to the reason the policemen were there.
"Yes, we did," Shawn replied.
"Good. I feel sorry for him. No friends, no family. He just sits alone in the solarium day after day."
"It's like my father always used to say," Stan told her, "it's hell getting old. If you're lucky enough not to have a shopping cart full of physical ailments, you have to pray you don't get Alzheimer's."
"Oh, I don't believe Mr. Dillane has to worry about either. Although he's eight-five, he's as healthy as an ox. Furthermore, his brain is as sharp as a tack."
"That's good to hear," the detective replied to her cliché analogies, and then he and McMurtry headed for the door.
As they were pulling out of Laurel Springs' parking lot, Shawn turned to his friend and asked, "What are we going to do?"
"He's an old man, and despite the sixth amendment right to a speedy trial, it could be a while before the case goes to court."
"You heard the nurse. He's in good health. He might live another ten years."
"He might," Stan said with a smile. "And if there's any justice in this world, he'll live even longer and keep his faculties right up to the very end."
"I don't follow."
"You're a loving husband and father, Shawn. You put your wife and kids above everything else in your life. How would you like to live for more than fifty years knowing you had murdered two of your family and were probably morally responsible for the death of the third?"
"I couldn't live with myself."
"Precisely. Dillane's prison is his own mind. I'll bet he sees the other residents around him losing their memories and actually envies them."
As the two policemen crossed the border of Copperwell into Puritan Falls, Shawn reached into his pocket, took out his cell phone and called Penny.
"Having a family," Shawn said, after telling his wife he loved her and ending the call, "is a joy and a blessing, not a responsibility."
"To you and me it is, but obviously it wasn't to Truman Dillane."
This story was inspired by an article I read on the 1988 murder of Betty Ann Sullivan by her son, Tommy, who had developed a fascination with Satanism. After stabbing his mother, the New Jersey teenager set fire to a stack of books in the family living room and then fled to a neighbor's yard where he slashed his wrists and throat with the same Boy Scout knife.
It's not the dark secrets behind the picket fence that worry me; it's the creature on top!
