Under the Knife: A Beautiful Woman, a Phony Doctor, and a Shocking Homicide (17 page)

After all Greg had done for Dean, after all of Dean’s professions of love, Greg was furious and hurt that Dean would play these passive-aggressive games with him. He grabbed a ladder from the yard and propped it up against a balcony. Climbing into the house, he headed straight
for Dean’s bedroom. That door was locked, too. Greg flipped. He lifted his leg waist-high and slammed it into the knob of the shut door. It flew open.

A drowsy Dean sat in stunned silence as Greg stood at the foot of the bed ranting. Still fuming, Greg walked out of the room and picked up the telephone. He called Patty at work and told her about the locks. “Did you know he was going to do this?” Greg asked.

“I did know about it, Greg, but I told Dean and Mark that they needed to tell you before you came all the way out here and couldn’t get in.”

“Well, actually, I could and I did get in,” Greg said.

“Are you there now?”

“Yes.”

“Now, technically, you are trespassing,” Patty said, leaving an unspoken threat hanging in the air.

“Okay, fine. I’m trespassing. Call the police. I’ll sit on the front porch and read a magazine and wait until they get here. I know where Dean hid all the drugs and I’ll be glad to show them,” Greg said.

Greg didn’t sit and wait, though. He had a serious need for empathy. He walked down the street to the home of a neighbor he knew well. The man’s partner was out of the country on an extended trip and, in all likelihood, would welcome some company. The visit was just what Greg needed. A couple of hours later, in a far calmer state, he returned to Dean’s house, but Dean was nowhere to be found. Greg made himself comfortable and awaited his return.

Greg was deeply hurt by Dean’s behavior and a bit perturbed at Mark and Patty’s willingness to participate in the conspiracy to lock him out of the house. He hoped that he and Dean could talk out the problem that evening.

But Dean did not come home alone. He arrived with Mark and Patty, who were markedly hostile. Greg had
noticed that the attitudes of those two toward him had deteriorated in recent weeks. It took the conversation that night to help him understand why. Dean had systematically poisoned their well of sympathy by vilifying Greg—Patty was even convinced that Greg was taking advantage of Dean’s financial difficulties to turn a profit for himself.

There was one more reason for Patty’s growing antipathy, one that would remain hidden from him for three more months.

But Greg assumed there was only one reason for Dean to make him look bad. Dean planned to break up with him and wanted to justify that action to himself and to his friends. As far as Greg knew, there was only one thing to hide—the drugs. He had no suspicion that Dean had a dead body in his possession. Looking back, he now believes that night must have been the night Dean moved the body from the carriage house to Mark’s garage.

Mark claimed he had no knowledge of Maria’s death, but in hindsight, he suspected that Dean had kept the body of Maria Cruz in his garage on Highland Street along with other possessions, stored in preparation for his move. There was a foul odor in May, but Mark thought his Great Dane had dragged in a dead squirrel. It sounded implausible, but with one glance into Mark’s garage—packed so tight, it was impossible to enter—the idea suddenly seemed credible.

Even after Dean’s conspiring, Greg did not abandon him. He’d made a promise to see Dean’s problems through to the end, and he intended to keep his commitment, continuing to play an active role in readying the home for sale.

On Saturday, May 24, Greg planned a garage sale of everything that had not been sold at the estate sale or on eBay. A number of articles of value remained, including a large Chinese vase. One neighbor brought
over a few things of his own to sell. He and his little dog Lulu spent the whole day with Greg, rather than leave him minding the makeshift store alone.

Greg expected Dean to help out with the sale, and again, Dean disappointed him. Not only did he stay in the house, he wouldn’t even get out of bed. Not once during that long day did Greg notice any unusual odors in the garage. Even Lulu, with her sharpened sense of smell, never expressed any interest in the garage’s contents.

At midnight that night, Patty called Greg, accusing him of stealing Dean’s grandmother’s parfait glasses. She claimed that Dean promised them to her. Greg couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The glasses had little value. “If I were going to steal something,” he told her, “I would have taken something of value, like his grandmother’s sterling flatware.”

“So, did you steal that, too?”

Greg hung up the phone, exasperated. He’d gone to great pains to make sure that flatware got to Debra. The more he thought about it the angrier he got. He fired off a nasty email to Patty, a cruel, insensitive message he regretted seconds after he hit “send.”

Greg was still sitting at Dean’s desk when an email popped up in the mailbox. It was from Patty. She had forwarded Greg’s ranting, hate-filled email to Dean and Debra. “See, I told you Greg was nuts,” she wrote. Greg deleted the message from Dean’s computer, but there was nothing he could do about Debra. He knew he’d blown it. His relationship with her was destroyed.

BUT GREG WAS STILL THERE FOR DEAN, STICKING IT OUT TO THE
bitter end. He still planned on letting Dean stay at his apartment until he had to go off to jail, even though Greg knew their relationship was over. On May 27, the day before the house closing, Patty hinted that Dean had a different
plan—he was moving into Mark’s place. Greg confronted Mark about it.

“I have no idea,” Mark claimed. “You’ll have to ask Dean.”

But Greg didn’t bother—he no longer cared. Mark’s house was in the neighborhood. The move there would be less disruptive. Living at Mark’s house might be the best solution after all.

TUESDAY WHIRLED BY, AND THE ACTIVITY AT 212 ELWOOD
grew frenzied. Greg hauled trash and loaded his belongings into a rented Jeep. Inside the garage and out, he thought he smelled something rotting; but, like Mark before him, he assumed it was a squirrel, rat or raccoon lying dead in a remote corner. He didn’t give it much thought. He also paid little attention to Dean’s project in the garage—until he’d been at it for quite a while. Greg finally asked Dean what he was doing with all that cement, but he didn’t get a straight answer. Greg shrugged it off, unaware that he was witnessing the burial of Maria Cruz in a sloppy, cold concrete vault.

Greg’s original plan was to go home to Manhattan that evening. He wanted to return the Jeep first thing in the morning to avoid additional rental charges. Looking around at all that remained to do, he decided to stay longer—overnight if necessary. Besides, he’d been so busy taking care of chores for Dean, he hadn’t had a chance to pack up his own clothing.

Greg was occupied in the kitchen fixing dinner when Mark and Patty showed up. The pistachioes he’d snacked on all day were now just a bag of shells. Dean snatched it up off the counter by the wrong end and sent shells clattering across the floor. “Pick them up,” Dean yelled at Greg.

Patty and Mark chimed in, too, ganging up on him.
After spouting a few words of pent-up venom, Greg gathered up his clothes and stormed out of the house, never to return. His relationship with Dean was over.

Dean gathered the few things that hadn’t already been stuffed in boxes, packed them up and moved into the third floor of Mark’s home just a couple blocks away.

Greg did not hear from Dean again for three long days—three days in which he hung in anxiety. He felt his future hinging on Dean and whether Dean would pay back the money Greg invested in the house. Three days wondering if Dean was capable of doing the right thing.

AT LAST, DEAN CALLED GREG. AT THE SOUND OF DEAN’S
voice, Greg’s heart filled with joy and his mind with turmoil. He knew Dean had treated him badly. He knew their romantic relationship was over. But still Dean stirred him. They had a pleasant conversation and Greg invited him to come into the city, offering to treat him to dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant. Over their meal, the two talked about bringing their relationship to an amiable close. Dean apologized for not telling him that he planned to move in with Mark. It was just easier, he reasoned. “I didn’t want to tell because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Greg accepted his apology and Dean stayed the night at Greg’s. They parted the next day, expressing a mutual desire to remain friends. Although they talked on the phone several times in the coming months, they never again saw each other face-to-face that summer.

THEIR NEXT PHONE CONVERSATION STARTED OUT FINE, BUT
turned into an argument. “I’ve been thinking of going to Italy,” Dean announced. The terms of his bond permitted leaving the country as long as he returned for any court dates.

“That would be wonderful for you. You’ve never been to Italy,” Greg said. “You ought to go and enjoy a vacation
before you go to jail. But before you do, pay me the money you owe me first.”

Dean blasted Greg for always thinking of himself, then promptly hung up.

ON JUNE
26, 2003,
DEAN RETURNED TO COURT TO PLEAD GUILTY
to the three felony counts related to his arrest for practicing medicine without a license. His sentencing date was set for September 5.

MEANWHILE, DEBRA HAD BEGUN HANDLING A LOT OF DEAN’S
financial affairs. As soon as the sale of the house was final, she sent Greg a check for $10,000, an amount that covered only a portion of his expenditures on Dean’s behalf. He was still owed another $85,000 for the cash he shelled out on Dean’s mortgage payments, legal costs, living expenses and home repairs. Dean made excuses for not paying Greg, claiming that he wanted to, but couldn’t at that moment.

Debra questioned every penny that Greg requested. Despite her previous promises, she now expressed certainty that Greg was not entitled to reimbursement for all the expenses he claimed. She took particular umbrage at Greg’s request for repayment of money he shelled out in supporting Dean for nine months, demanding an itemized list. She insisted that every expense be backed with a receipt. Greg had not expected that documentation would be required and so did not keep an organized file. It took him weeks to get it together, and when he turned it over to Debra, he expected to be paid. Instead, Debra sent the packet of material off to an attorney.

THE NEXT MONTH, DEAN CALLED GREG, WHINING ABOUT
Patty “I can’t get her out of my life. What can I do?”

At first, Greg did not comprehend the depth of Dean’s
problem. He made a few suggestions, which Dean dismissed out of hand.

“What’s the real problem, Dean?”

He spelled it out in crude terms: Dean had had sex with Patty on more than one occasion. Patty had done so much for him, he explained, and that was how she’d wanted Dean to pay her back.

You mean that’s how you were able to take advantage of her for so long
, Greg thought. Suddenly, it all made sense. Much of what Patty had done and said took on a different cast. Patty was hostile to Greg because she was jealous; she’d wanted Dean as her boyfriend. She saw herself as an exception—the one woman who could captivate and capture the handsome gay guy—and she wanted to keep him for her own.

Greg now understood: Patty hadn’t told him about Dean’s affair with Stephen Schwartz out of friendship. She did it because she wanted to drive Greg out of Dean’s life. She didn’t stay up all night getting documents ready for Dean’s attorney out of the unbridled goodness of her heart. She did it to weave a web of need around Dean, and to draw him away from Greg.

Greg couldn’t be angry at Patty—now, he only felt sorry for her. She had put herself in a position to be used and tossed aside, and that was just what was happening to her now. As he ended the conversation, Greg could barely keep the disgust out of his voice.

DEAN CALLED GREG AGAIN IN MID-SUMMER TO TELL HIM
about a vision he’d had. “I was driving down a road and had to stop because a mother deer and her two baby deer were crossing the road,” he said. “While I waited, I had a vision of my mother standing in the road. She had a sad expression on her face. I realized then how disappointed she would be if she knew you and Debra were fighting
about money.” Dean paused, expecting a sympathetic response. Greg had always been a soft touch whenever Dean evoked his mother.

Greg, however, was not swayed by Dean’s bald attempt at manipulation.
This is just more of Dean’s crap
, Greg thought.
And I’m sick of listening to it
. This time, it was Greg who hung up the phone.

BY LATE AUGUST, GREG WAS FED UP. HE CALLED DEBRA AND
explained his current economic hardship and his need for repayment. She said, “I would not have done what you did with Dean. You got yourself into this mess; you can get yourself out of it.”

In anger, Greg called Dean. “If you’re gonna fuck me over on this, I’m gonna fuck you over back.”

“No, you’re not,” Dean said. “You’re not that type.”

Ashamed, Greg knew Dean was right.

“What are you going to do, Greg?” Dean taunted. Greg still did not respond, and Dean laughed at him. He considered threatening to report Dean for still seeing clients, but before he could, Dean hung up.