Authors: Joyce Maynard
“You know what her problem was?” Lydia said. “She was too sensitive. She had these high ideals, and real life just couldn’t live up to them. Nobody else was as good as her. She was just too perfect. Too perfect for this messed-up world. The only one that never let her down was her dog.”
I
HOPE THEY’RE SATISFIED
now. The police. Those low-life boys who dragged my daughter’s name through the mud, and that pathetic girlfriend of theirs who called herself Suzanne’s friend, and then made it look like my daughter was a slut and a murderer. And the media. They’re the most guilty of all, in my opinion, for the way they sensationalized everything, and made it so Susie’s face was plastered all over the news every night as a suspected killer.
She was a strong person, but everyone has their breaking point, and finally Suzanne just reached hers. She had managed to deal with the pain of her husband’s drug addiction, and even physical abuse. Never even letting on to Earl and myself, she was so brave. She managed to go on with her life, after having Larry taken from her. She managed to keep her chin up, when they put handcuffs on her and took her off to jail. She even managed to deal with the suspicions and abandonment of his family. What destroyed her was seeing herself on the news every night, portrayed as a cold-blooded killer. The way those so-called journalists twisted the truth of her story, for their own sensationalistic purposes. They’re as guilty of her death as they would have been if they’d stood there and pushed her off the bridge themselves.
At night, when I can’t sleep, I sometimes get out of bed and come downstairs. Sit in the family room, where we spent so many happy hours with Suzanne. Take out the photograph albums. Sometimes I’ll put one of her videos on, and watch her doing one of her broadcasts, or singing that song of hers. “High Hopes.”
I try to stop myself, but then I picture her getting dressed that last morning. Putting on her makeup, doing her nails. You know she had fresh polish on her nails when they found her?
There she was, a couple of hours away from ending her own life, but still she wanted to look pretty. She never would cut herself any slack. Always had to be the best she could be.
She was wearing her favorite dress. The little pearl earrings Earl and I gave her for her twenty-first birthday. Her wedding ring, of course. That meant so much to her.
People wonder why she didn’t leave a note. But Earl and I, we understand. There was nothing left to say. Her actions spoke for themselves. Her heart had been broken. The trial hadn’t even begun, but already she’d been found guilty in the press.
I can’t help myself. I keep playing the scene over and over in my head, like a show I can’t turn off. It’s like back in 1963, when they kept showing that same footage of the Kennedy assassination, again and again and again. The way they kept making us watch the
Challenger
takeoff, kept showing it rising up in the sky, and then exploding. Only this time it’s my own girl that’s blown away before my very eyes.
I see her parking the car. I see her opening the car door, looking out to sea. And then climbing up onto the railing. She hesitates for a second. If only we’d been there to stop her. But we weren’t. Then she jumps.
W
E HAD TO ORDER
an autopsy on Suzanne Maretto’s body naturally. Routine procedure. You weren’t expecting anymore surprises at this point. Just trying to wrap things up. We had our perpetrator. She’d even obliged us by doing herself in, saving us the trouble.
I mean, so long as it was Suzanne Maretto we were going after, it wasn’t hard to get our detectives putting out a hundred and ten percent. You couldn’t wait to nail a cold bitch like that one.
But when the coroner’s report came back, you’d better believe that document had my detectives shook up. And not just because my captain comes from the North End—although it didn’t help that half our force is guys of Italian descent. That only helped us to reach our conclusion sooner. To keep the autopsy findings under wraps. Insert the coroner’s report into the paper shredder and forget we ever saw it.
It was just plain to all of us that the Maretto family had been hurt enough already. It had to end somewhere, and this seemed as good a place as any. Sometimes justice takes some strange forms that no judge or jury could bring about. This was one of those times.
Let me put it this way: If it had been my boy Suzanne Maretto screwed over like she screwed over the Marettos’, I could’ve done the same thing they did and never lost a night’s sleep over it. Try and find one member of the force that thinks differently. Which is why the first coroner’s report will never see the light of day.
As far as the press is concerned, Suzanne Maretto died of drowning, a suicide. That’s all they know and all they ever need to know.
Fact is, there wasn’t a drop of water in Suzanne Maretto’s lungs when they pulled her out of the bay. That woman was already dead when her body went off the bridge. You tell me: When was the last time you heard of someone that did themself in, with their resume in their coat pocket, and a bunch of eight-by-ten glossies and a couple videos of themself back on the front seat of their car?
T
HEY LET
R
USSELL WORK
out a plea bargain, thirty-year sentence, with twelve off for good behavior, on account of how he squealed, and him not being the one that pulled the trigger. Me, they put the handcuffs back on and take me to juvenile detention. In the car going over, cop says, “Don’t think just because you’re sixteen you’re going to get away with this. Guy that’s man enough to screw, he’s old enough to fry.” That’s the first time they tell me what the punishment is for first-degree murder. Life without parole.
I think I’m going to be sick. I’m scared I’m going to start bawling. Up until then, all I could think of was Mrs. Maretto, and how I just got to see her, but after that it started to hit me. It’s not just that I can’t ever screw Mrs. Maretto again. I’m never going to get to do it with anyone. Don’t ask me why, but I start wishing my mom was here. Not that she’s the type that ever made it right before. And she sure couldn’t now.
The whole place is fenced in like a fucking chicken coop, barbed wire on top and everything. First thing they do is take your shoes and your belt. Then they bring you in this room where they make you take off the rest of your clothes and shower. I was glad there wasn’t any other guys in there. Russell used to tell me what happens in here. You got to keep your eye out every second or someone might come along and stick it in your butt.
They buzz-cut my hair. Give me these work boots that weigh like twenty pounds apiece. Then they hand me this package all wrapped up in brown paper. Inside’s a towel, a bar of soap, roll of toilet paper, a couple of disposable razors. Guy takes me down a long hall, past all these guys in cells. Thirty different transistor radios all going at once, you can’t hear yourself think.
Someone says, “That’s him. Fucked a married woman and blew away her old man.” Someone else says, “Asshole.”
Guy calls out to me, when I pass his cell, “Was she good?”
Laying on my cot, nights, when I can’t sleep, I try to remember. Not all the time, or I’d use it up too quick. I save it for when I’m feeling real bad, and then it’s like a treat I give myself. OK, I say. Now you’re pulling up to her house. Now she’s opening the door. Now she’s unzipping her dress. Now you’re loosening your belt and taking off your jeans. Here comes her tits. She’s doing her cheer. Give me an
E
. Give me an
L
. Now she’s laying down on the bed. You’ve got your tongue in her mouth now. Now you’re inside her. Now you’re in heaven.
Only it’s like a movie you watch, where you don’t get cable or something, and the reception’s so bad you can’t hardly make out what they’re saying. It’s fuzzy. Getting fuzzier all the time.
Sometimes I feel like I’m some fucking prisoner of war that don’t want to lose touch and go crazy. I’m trying to hold on, you know? So I give myself these little tests where I got to remember something. “Was the tattoo on her left tit or her right?” I’ll ask myself. “What did she smell like? Was her hair blond, down below?”
I think I used to know. But it’s slipping away from me. How do you like that?
Y
OU WANT TO HEAR
something funny? With everything that’s happened now, every TV station in the tri-state area is trying to get their hands on film footage. Any footage: Suzanne walking through the door to the courthouse, Jimmy picking his nose, you name it. And here I am, manager of a two-bit local cable station, with a three-hour-long video special, narrated by none other than Suzanne Maretto herself, and featuring all four of them sitting on a couch and talking heart to heart in the very condo where she evidently took Jimmy Emmet into her bed, the very condo where her husband took his last breath.
I got Russell Hines saying, “Look, if you got a reputation for trouble and everybody out there’s thinking you’re raising hell all the time, anyway, you might as well raise it.” I got Lydia talking about how much it means to her to have a female role model she can emulate. I’ve got footage of Jimmy Emmet, looking straight into the camera, and saying, “People got the wrong idea when they think guys only care about sex, and emotions don’t matter. The person I’m in a relationship with at the moment, it’s not just about getting laid, it’s about love. I’d do anything for this person. And I mean anything.”
Her lawyers put a restraining order on the video. Which is a shame. Not just because it would sure give our ratings a boost. But the fact is, she did a good job with this little project of hers.
We’re not talking Mike Wallace here, I mean, but I probably would’ve put it on the air.
I was actually thinking, before all this happened, that it was about time I gave her a try reading the news. Well you better believe she’s on the news now. She’s a regular goddam celebrity. So I guess you might say her dream came true.
F
ASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS
, ladies and gentlemen. Joe and Angela Maretto have joined us—and let me say, this cannot have been easy for them—their son, Larry, a young man any one of us might have been proud to know—we are speaking here of the all-American success story, good-looking, popular, up-and-coming young restaurateur—am I right, Joe, that your son was at one time an altar boy? as I was myself—and played golf with his father-in-law, who, incidentally, couldn’t make it, but Carol, his wife, is joining us, and may I say, Mrs. Stone, we recognize that not every individual in your position would have the courage to sit here on this podium, facing the very people who accuse her daughter of cold-blooded murder—the daughter to whom I refer being—if you will look at your monitors at this point, audience—Suzanne Maretto, fledgling television newsperson and would-be anchor—and within sight of attaining the great American dream, if you will—a young woman with everything going for her, good churchgoing family—your husband runs a car dealership if I am not mistaken, Carol?—honors student and as you can see, the very sort of individual any one of us might be happy to see our son bring home as his fiancée— which is exactly what Larry Maretto did, on a day that, as his mother Angela puts it—and may I say, my heartfelt condolences to you, Mrs. Maretto, it cannot be easy reliving your family’s nightmare on national television—that she wishes with all her heart had never happened, and one which might have been averted if Lydia Mertz—Lydia, thank you for being with us, I recognize you must have had to leave school to come here today, and I believe this is your mother—Valerie tells me she never misses our program—as I understand it, rights to your story are currently under consideration by a major television studio for an upcoming movie of the week—and let me say, in the event that your participation on this program becomes a part of the movie, I’d like to see Kevin Costner playing myself—but all levity aside, let me remind you, two young men are currently serving prison sentences—a young woman is dead of apparent suicide, her husband brutally murdered—life can never be the same for you, Mrs. Maretto, am I correct?—and we gather you all together today out of that uniquely human impulse to know not simply what happened, but why? Carol Stone, your daughter is also dead—and this must be unbearably painful to you, as well as you, Faye—and I say that, having just last week taped a program—many of you may have seen this one—concerning the trauma of being a surviving sibling—as is Janice Maretto—currently on leave from her tour with the Ice Capades—sister of the deceased young husband of Suzanne, also tragically deceased, by her own hand—what could be more senseless than suicide—leading us to ask the question, Why?
Did Suzanne Maretto die of a broken heart, or was it guilt over conspiring with her sixteen-year-old lover that propelled her to take her life, just as she was on the brink of realizing the very goal—namely a promising future in television—which she had pursued with so much commitment and dedication. Finally we have Mr. and Mrs. Hines—Mr. Hines, you were willing to set aside your responsibilities as a clam digger to be with us today, and Mrs. Hines, I know this isn’t easy—I want to thank you also for coming here today to share with us the heartbreak of parents whose son, Russell, is presently incarcerated for thirty years to life for the murder of Larry Maretto. And I ask you, isn’t it ironic, ladies and gentlemen, that of all the individuals we find on this podium today, the one whose absence is most felt is the one who perhaps would have felt most at home here, the individual to whom I refer being, of course, Suzanne Maretto herself, who—her mother tells me—always regarded myself as one of her role models and may I say I am always honored and humbled to think of young people today holding me in the same kind of esteem in which I held my heroes, as a youth. On a personal note may I say that all of us in this industry hold an awesome power to guide the lives of young people, and we can only pray we inspire them in positive directions. We’ll be right back after these messages. Don’t go away.