Don't Look Behind You and Other True Cases (15 page)

“We’re investigating a murder with ties to Alaska,” Ben Benson said.

“Oh, yes,” Renee said, “You mean my brother’s wife—”

“No,” the Pierce County sergeant said flatly. “We’re investigating the murder of Joseph Tarricone.

“Okay, Renee,” he began, “we’ve explained that we have your brother Nick in custody for his murder. We need to talk to you. I think I’ll start with you explaining to us what your relationship with Joseph Tarricone was.”

At the first mention of Joe Tarricone’s name, Renee’s demeanor changed. “First, she gasped,” Benson recalled, “and then her chest and neck flushed scarlet. The redness rose up into her face and even her ears. She was shocked.

“Denny told me later that he expected her ears to burst into flames—she was that red. After thirty years, I don’t think she expected us to be wondering about any relationship she might have had with Joe, or that anyone would come asking about him so long after.”

Renee listened as Benson read her her Miranda rights, and she nodded that she understood them and signed on the bottom of the card. Recovering some of her composure, she agreed to have their conversation recorded after Ben Benson explained that he believed she might be guilty only of offering “criminal assistance” after Joe was murdered. And he did believe that. At the time.

“But that was twenty-nine years ago,” Benson said, “and the statute of limitations for that ran out a long time ago. You can’t be arrested for that in 2008.”

In truth, Benson and Denny Wood didn’t expect to arrest Renee Curtiss, at least not on this day. That was why they were interviewing her in the bail bonds office rather than taking her to the police station. Hearing that the statute of limitations had passed, she relaxed a little.

Even so, Ben Benson advised her once more of her rights so that the Miranda rule was on tape. Most Americans know the rights by heart—either from watching television or by reading a crime novel. And, of course, a certain number have actually had Miranda rights read to them.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Benson began. “Any statement that you do make can be used as evidence against you in a court of law. You have the right at this time to talk to an attorney of your choice, and to have your attorney present before and during questioning and the making of any statement. If you cannot afford an attorney, you are entitled to have one appointed for you—without cost to you—and to have the attorney present at any time during the questioning and the making of a statement. You may stop answering questions or ask for an attorney at any time during any questioning and the making of any statement. Renee, do you understand each of these rights?”

“Yes.”

“And is this your signature on the bottom of the rights form?”

“That’s correct.”

Renee Curtiss’s position with her husband’s bail bonds
firm had taught her a great deal about the judicial process; Benson had been impressed with her knowledge the first time he met her.

She began with a lie, saying that she had met Joe in Alaska when, in reality, she’d met him at the wholesale meat company in Seattle. Unfortunately for Renee, she had no idea how much of her background Ben Benson had uncovered.

Renee denied that she had ever lived with Joe; she said he had lived above his business in Anchorage where he had just a bed and a small space for his clothes and belongings; he had been on the road selling meat most of the time.

Her words came out haltingly, and she stuttered as she looked for answers. “My mother and I had a house—had a house on Jewel Lake.”

“Okay. And that’s where you were living when you met Joe?”

“You know, I don’t recall if it was then or prior to that. It might have been when I was renting an apartment off of C Street.”

“Now, you told us that you were a business partner with him?”

“He gave me part of his business, yes.”

“Now, did you start out working for him initially, or did he bring you in as a partner?”

“No, I think he brought me—I mean, I may have started [by] working for him. I don’t recall.”

“Did you buy into the company, somehow?”

“No.”

“He just made you a partner?”

“Yes … yeah.”

“And was that while you were romantically involved with him?”

“Correct.” Renee’s voice was taut and her answers very short.

“At that point in time, had he started asking you to marry him?”

“No.”

“So this was early in your relationship?”

“I—I, as I recall.”

Renee said she had worked with Joe for over a year, and then she had broken off her relationship with him.

“But you did become engaged to him?”

“I did.”

“And then what happened?”

“He wanted to move to Seattle and we did move, and he was still working up there in Alaska, and planning on coming down. And then something happened that he did—I broke that relationship off.”

“Okay. Can you tell me what that was?”

Renee said that Joe had slept with one of her female relatives. When she learned that, she dumped him.

“Did Joe have any kind of relationship with your mother?” Benson asked.

“I don’t—no.”

“They were just friends?”

“Yes. She liked him.”

“Was he paying for things up there in Alaska? I know he bought you a car. Was he paying for your rent?”

“You know,” Renee said carefully, “I was generously compensated for working for him, so if you want to say he paid the rent—he was always buying stuff, always buying jewelry or buying my mother something or my daughter something. I mean, he was
always
buying something. I mean he was a hard worker.”

After she broke it off with Joe Tarricone, Renee said, Kurt Winkler, the German chef whom she was dating at the same time she dated Joe, had proposed and they became engaged. She had continued to have a working relationship with Joe, although she knew he wasn’t happy about Kurt.

Although Renee’s answers often began with “I don’t recall,” she did remember that Kurt and Joe had known about each other, but she couldn’t say if they ever had harsh words about it.

And then, in the midseventies, Renee said, she, her mother, and her daughter had moved to Kirkland, a suburb of Seattle.

“So when you moved down here to Kirkland,” Benson asked, “did that end your working relationship with Joe?”

“It did.”

“What did you do for a job when you lived in Kirkland?”

“I was working for a company called Elite Models.” She acknowledged that it was an escort service.

“Was your mom working?”

“She might’ve been working in a nursing home.”

Renee said she had broken her engagement to Kurt Winkler because he wouldn’t leave Alaska either. After a
year in their north end apartment, the women had moved to the Canyon Road house in Puyallup.

“Okay. Did Joseph Tarricone come and visit at that house?”

“Joe didn’t know where to find me at first, but eventually he located me,” Renee said. “He was there several times … several times. The majority of the time uninvited. I can’t recall how many times.”

Renee’s face and chest were now brick red. She said her mother might have invited Joe over some of the time.

“He was, he was kind of obsessed. I mean he’d do almost anything to be around me.”

Ben Benson asked Renee about the barbecue at her house in the summer of 1978. “Do you recall what month the barbecue would’ve taken place?”

“Summer … July or August. I mean it was warm. It could’ve been in August because there’s probably three or four of us who have birthdays in August.”

“Okay. But Joseph was there for that barbecue?”

“I remember him being there.”

“Was Nick there?”

“I do not believe Nick was there.”

“How about Cassie?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“Did Joe bring steaks and meat to the barbecue?”

“I’m sure he would have.”

“Do you remember having an argument with him at the barbecue?”

Benson was leading Renee into territory that could be dangerous for her, and she parried his questions thoughtfully.
“Yeah,” she finally answered. “It would’ve been something like [me saying], you know, ‘I’m not interested in you. I do not wanna be romantically involved with you.’ I don’t recall anything more specifically, and I don’t recall, you know, certainly there was nobody—there was no fisticuffs or anything like that. Would’ve been, you know, it was almost the same every time I saw him, you know, he wanted, would claim, ‘Oh, can’t we just be friends?’ and then he didn’t want just friendship. He wanted, you know, to—to somehow buy my love and affection.”

Renee denied now that Nick had
ever
been to the Canyon Road house—until Benson reminded her she had told them early in their conversation that he
had
been there at least once.

“That I recall.” She quickly recovered. “Yes.”

“Let’s talk about that more,” Benson said easily. “In relation to when the barbecue happened to when Nick came down, do you remember how close that was?”

“I mean, I’m not sure that Nick wasn’t there [at the barbecue], but I don’t recall him being there. It could’ve been within days—it could’ve been within weeks—”

“But you’re certain—you told us earlier that what happened to Joe didn’t happen on the night of the barbecue?”

“Um-hum.”

“Why are you certain?”

“’Cause I don’t recall Nick being there.”

She remembered that her brother had come to Canyon Road right after his appendix surgery. “I talked to him on the phone when he was in the hospital.”

“Did you talk to him after he was out of the hospital?”

“Yes … I told him I could use some help and, you know, if he needed to come and rest, relax, and recuperate, it would probably be a good thing.”

Renee’s version of how Nick happened to come down to Puyallup changed with every answer. She did recall telling him that her mother was putting a lot of pressure on her, and Joe Tarricone was practically stalking her and pressuring her, too. He hadn’t hurt her physically, but he’d pushed her, and threatened her.

“And what was the nature of those threats?” Benson asked.

“Everything from ‘I’m not gonna stop—I’m gonna continue to make your life miserable.’ He scared my mom at one point. He told her if I wasn’t with him, I shouldn’t be with anyone.”

“Did you relay this information to Nick?”

“I don’t recall.” She didn’t think she had
specifically
asked him to come down to help her with the Joe situation. “Maybe Nick could talk to him—I mean, I’m putting words in my head that I don’t recall.”

Yes, she knew that Nick had killed Vickie after he’d gotten out of the hospital—learned about it, she thought, a day or so before he came down to Washington. It could have been in her phone call to him. She couldn’t recall. She’d been shocked that Vickie left her poor brother in the hospital with a “burst appendix” and never checked to see how he was.

“How did you react when he told you about that [killing Vickie]?”

“The same way most people would. A little bit of horror. I talked to him and he felt tremendous remorse. I think he turned himself in.” (This was not true.)

“Was there anything to make him believe Vickie was having an affair with Joseph?”

“Wow, I don’t know. Never heard that one before.”

As Benson, Wood, and Renee Curtiss worked to bring 1978 into the present, they finally came to the night Joseph Tarricone died. Renee said she was at work when her mother told her to come home at once. It wasn’t a request; it was an order. Geri Hesse had sounded
very
serious.

“Tell me what happened when you got home,” Benson directed.

“I remember I was taken downstairs and shown a locked room; the door was unlocked and Joe was inside … dead.”

“Who took you down there and showed you that?”

“Both of them. Mom and Nick.”

Nick had blamed his now-deceased mother for Joe Tarricone’s murder, and now Renee was putting the onus on both of them. She said that Joe was lying on his side, and that she’d been surprised that there was no blood. “I’m sure there had to have been blood, but I don’t recall any blood.”

She couldn’t remember where her daughter, Diana, was. Renee knew that the ten-year-old wasn’t in the basement with them. The three adults had locked the door where Joe was, and gone upstairs to discuss what to do.

“Tell me about that conversation with your mom and Nick about what happened.”

“I don’t remember. We just talked about how to get rid of the body. We talked about burying him in the backyard at the house.”

Renee said that Nick had dug either two side-by-side holes or one very large one. She couldn’t recall which.

“It took a long time.”

“Prior to that, did you and Nick go somewhere together?”

“Either to a sporting goods section or a hardware store—someplace—to buy a saw.”

“Do you remember what kind of saw it was?”

“Not a brand—but it was a chain saw.”

“A gas-powered chain saw?”

“I can’t—I don’t, I assume so. I don’t think they make electric chain saws, do they?”

Renee thought she and Nick had gone into the store together. She believed she had probably paid for it.

“And then what did you do after you bought the chain saw?”

“I used it on Joe.”

Until this moment, neither Benson nor Wood had felt that Renee was anything more than an accessory after the fact; now they began to suspect that she had conspired with her brother to have him come down to Washington State to kill Joe Tarricone.

“You used it on Joe. Did anybody else use it on Joe?”

“Nick—I’m not saying that we, you know, we would, you know … Sometimes, you’d hold, you would hold him while Nick used the saw.”

“So it was a joint operation? Was your mom helping as well or was it just you and Nick?”

Even for seasoned detectives—detectives who knew that Joe’s body had been dissected cleanly with a power saw—the conversation was grotesque. They fought to hide their own feelings. With the spirit and image of Jimi Hendrix on the walls surrounding them, they listened to Renee as she brought back the scene in the basement of a now-destroyed house.