Ron was amazed at how easily Gene had manipulated Mary Ann into buying life insurance policies, cell phones, and a gun. She didn’t even seem shaken up. Initially, Ron thought that she was in on the scheme.
“I really thought she was putting on an act, but it turned out not to be an act,” he later said.
Ron soon realized that Mary Ann had no idea what she had gotten herself into. Gene had found the perfect person to help pull off his wild plan.
Later that afternoon, Bob DelCore, the unoffi head of NOVA’s fi campus police departments, called Margo to say that she was being placed on an open-ended, paid administrative leave, while campus offi investigated her use of deadly force— by shooting at Gene—the night before. He told her that no one was saying she’d done anything wrong, but they had to look into it. He sounded sympathetic and asked if it would be all right if a peer counselor from the Fairfax County Police Department came and talked to her about the incident.
Margo wasn’t concerned about the investigation because she knew the bureaucratic process had to run its course. She was con-fi that they would find the shooting justifi
She took the girls to their scheduled therapy appointment with Molly Ellsworth that evening, then spoke to the peer counselor around nine. She insisted that they talk in his car outside the townhouse because she didn’t want the girls to hear their conversation.
“How do you feel about having shot at someone?” he asked.
“I feel fi with what I did,” she said. “I feel I did the right thing.”
Margo didn’t read any of the newspaper articles that had come out that day, but she did watch the TV news that evening. The church incident was featured at the top of the hour on all the local news shows, so she was able to see only one of them.
Gene had been charged with abduction with intent to ex-tort money, burglary while armed, making bomb threats, using a fi while committing a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was being held without bond pending a psychological evaluation. Margo wondered why there was no attempted murder charge.
It was very strange to watch her own story unfolding on television for the world to see, but all she felt was numb, as if she were watching something that had happened to someone else.
She’d sent the kids upstairs, worried that they might be scared to see their father’s booking photo, which featured a man with tired eyes and unkempt hair and kept flashing across the screen. Thankfully, none of the news outlets had gotten a photo of her, only of her car parked outside the church, so she felt she still had some privacy and protection from the media. She had no idea how fl that feeling would be.
Margo went to bed around 11 pm, comforted to have Lindsey beside her again. Margo fell asleep all right, but then she started what would become a routine—waking up and lying awake for two and half hours, trying to connect the dots of Gene’s scheme, then drifting off for maybe an hour before having to get up for work.
On Tuesday morning, Margo got a call from Detective Sam Walker, asking if she could come down to the station to answer some questions. She certainly was not expecting to hear what he had to say in that tiny interview room.
“Do you know a woman named Mary Ann Khalifeh?” Sam asked.
“No,” Margo said, not remembering their meeting at the Polo Grill the month before.
“We don’t have all the information on this yet,” Sam said, “but it looks like your husband planned to kill you for some insurance money.”
Margo was not surprised to hear that Gene had planned to kill her, but she was puzzled by the alleged motivation.
What insurance money?
she wondered.
“It looks like Gene hired someone to help him kill you and the reverend. We don’t know if he was acting alone. I’m telling you this now so you can be careful, but don’t tell anyone. We don’t have all the information yet.”
Don’t tell anyone?
she thought.
Margo knew how much Gene hated her and wanted her dead, but she couldn’t believe that he would be so greedy, that he would endanger other people’s lives to get to her. She was also shocked to hear how much effort he had put into his plan.
Dianna was waiting for her outside, but Margo told her she wanted to wait until they got to Kathy’s offi to talk about her meeting with the detective.
Once they got to Kathy’s, Margo relayed Sam’s theory and words of caution.
“So why are you telling me about this?” Kathy asked.
“I have to tell somebody. You’re my attorney,” Margo said, meaning that Kathy was obligated to keep her secret under attorney-client privilege.
From there, they all headed over to the emergency custody hearing.
As they were walking into the courtroom, Kathy couldn’t help but make a sarcastic comment to Gene’s divorce attorney, Doug Bergere.
“Now do you believe her story?” she asked, referring to the kidnapping.
Doug simply nodded and looked down at the floor.
The judge granted Margo’s request for a “no contact” order, prohibiting Gene from calling the girls, but that didn’t stop him. He tried calling Allison collect a couple of days later, so Kathy no-tifi the jail and asked them to stop Gene from calling the house.
Later that day, the police found the Windstar rental van. It was parked on Briarmont Lane, at the end of a long driveway of an occupied house that was up for sale, about a fifty-yard walk through the woods from Gene’s house. Inside, they found a long-sleeved navy-blue work shirt, which, after undergoing forensic testing, proved to be spattered with pepper spray.
During the search, offi brought over a note pad, which Edwin had found in his offi after the police left. Two pages in Gene’s handwriting were each titled “Items To Check On.”
The first page listed directions to the Pittsburgh airport as well as phone numbers for American Airlines and US Air, with a specifi number and time for a flight from Pittsburgh to San Diego, followed by the notation “Call 911.” It also listed phone numbers for two hotels in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where Gene and Mary Ann had left the Plymouth Voyager van on Sunday morning. Pittsburgh was the closest airport to Martinsburg.
The second page, under the initials “MAB,” appeared to be a list of places he planned to leave various items tied to Margo, including “literature in car/purse,” “keys in car/purse,” and “keys on key ring.”
Edwin’s secretary had also found some male homosexual pornographic materials in his offi safe, which was kept unlocked. These too were turned over to police.
News reporters started calling and showing up at Margo’s townhouse that Tuesday. Letta had been handling the calls, but when she and Carly left in the late afternoon to pick up Jackie from the airport, Margo had to answer the doorbell herself. It was a young woman from the
Washington Post
.
The woman apologized for having to ask for a quote, but asked nonetheless.
Margo gave her the only comment she would make to the media until after Gene’s trial: “Time will put everything in its proper perspective.”
Margo and Letta went to Prince of Peace that night for a service to reclaim the church after the violence that had tainted its sacred space. Margo had learned of the service when she’d tried to reach Edwin by phone in the afternoon. A message on the church answering machine announced the service and said that Edwin was doing fi but made no mention of Margo.
“That’s when I really started to feel left out,” she said later.
When they fi arrived, no one would look at Margo or sit in the same pew. There seemed to be an unspoken barrier of blame or some emotion that she did not understand. Only one woman came over and squeezed her hand before the associate pastor began speaking.
“How are you doing?” the woman asked.
“Right now I’m feeling very alone,” Margo said.
The associate pastor spoke for half an hour about the terrible experience that Edwin had suffered, then he asked church members to give comments of thanks.
Several people stood up and thanked God for saving Edwin before another woman pointed out that Margo had suffered and deserved their praise, too.
“I just want to give thanks that Margo brought her gun into this church, because if she hadn’t done that, I can only imagine what could have happened,” she said.
After that, others started looking Margo in the eye and including her in their remarks. The barrier had been broken.
“I was relieved that somebody was realizing that it was a horrible evening for me, my children, my sister, my family,” Margo said later.
At the end of the service, Margo and Edwin stood in the middle of the center aisle, where church members lined up to give each of them a hug and offer their support.
This would be the last service Margo would attend at Prince of Peace. Being there was just too emotionally diffi not to mention that she’d been outed by the media. Instead, she attended services at Diane Lytle’s Presbyterian church, which was more accepting of her sexuality and where she was surrounded by strangers.
“I wanted anonymity for a while,” she said.
Margo felt a sense of satisfaction that she’d struggled against Gene and done what she’d needed to survive. She was alive, he was in jail, and she and her children were safe once again. The storm, she felt, had passed.
She didn’t realize that this was actually the calm before another type of storm moved in.
Chapter Eleven
The Investigation
Gene’s Plot Unfolds
On the morning of Wednesday, June 26, Margo went to the store to buy every newspaper with a headline about her and Gene so that she could see what was being reported and also so that her daughters could read an objective account later if they so chose.
There were three— one in the
Potomac News
, one in the
Prince William Journal
, and one in the
Washington Post
.
“Ex-FBI Agent in Custody,” read the
Journal
headline. Margo felt her stomach drop when she got to the sixth paragraph, which said, “A copy of the divorce papers obtained Monday by
The Journal
include allegations by Mr. Bennett that his wife had more than one lesbian sexual relationship. Among the affairs Mr. Bennett alleged was one with a prominent author.”
The story quoted from the interrogatory response in which Gene alleged that Margo had met Patsy for romantic candlelit dinners and that he’d seen them kissing and hugging.
Oh, God, here it comes
, she thought.
Although the article didn’t name Patsy, Margo predicted that a media frenzy was about to begin.
She was right. The next article was even worse.
“ExAgent Alleges Wife Had Affair with Author,” read the
Potomac News
headline.
Seeing Patsy named as her lover in the third paragraph sent Margo’s anxiety skyrocketing.
Oh, my God, oh, my God
, she thought.
This is going to be in every newspaper and on every news channel. How am I going to protect my kids? What’s this going to mean at work?
Things didn’t get any better from there. The
Post
story, which had the headline “Psychiatric Evaluation Ordered for Abduction Suspect,” named Patsy as well. It also gave Margo her first clue to what Gene’s defense was going to be, quoting one of his attorneys, Jeffrey Gans, saying that his client was disoriented, said he was hearing voices, and believed he had “an alter ego named Ed that was bad.” Gans told the
Post
that Gene “did not know what day it was” and also “could not account for his whereabouts during his time of the confrontation” at the church.