Dear God, I can’t even think, she thought. Police. Her panic was so great she dialed everything but the emergency 911 number. She called her next-door neighbor, Ray Brewer. He was a detective in the Fourth Precinct. There was no answer. That’s right, her mind raced. He works afternoons. She dialed up a local Mini Station. The number was right there next to the phone.
An officer later logged the call from “a hysterical female.”
“Listen to me,” she stammered. “I can’t talk long. The guy who killed the doctor just called me. He’s coming to get me! He’s just a few houses down.”
“Who?”
“Johnnie Fry! Please send a car. Please send one! But be careful, he’s right nearby.”
An unmarked car three miles away was alerted, the dispatcher suggesting the two plainclothesmen investigate a hysterical female near the foot of Heyden Street.
Then Dot called Bernard Brantley in Homicide. They spoke only briefly. What good is he? she thought. He’s all the way downtown. Then she tried neighbor Ray Brewer again, getting his wife out of bed.
“Well, Ray ought to be home any minute,” she said.
She dialed again, this time her sister who lived down the street. The answering machine came on. Later her sister would listen to the message on the tape:
“Oh Lord, please let her get on. Oh God, please let her answer. Oh God …”
Then Dot dropped the phone. She had to get out of the house. She ran in her slippers several houses down to her sister’s house. Her sister had been woken by the pleading through the answering machine intercom and was waiting for Dot at the door.
Ray Brewer, a thirty-year veteran police sergeant, was anticipating his easy chair and some late-night TV when he was met by his wife inside the door of his home. As she explained the call from their neighbor, he noticed a van pull up on the street out front. He saw the big guy with the baseball cap heading for Dot Wilson’s door, and the young girl trailing behind.
“Call for a backup,” he told his wife, then he walked outside.
Brewer put his hand on his gun and identified himself. Then, as he walked from his porch, he felt flanked. He had a man he suspected was John Fry on his right, and the van idling on his left, just across his front lawn. He was relieved when the guy in the cap motioned to the van and it sped off. Now he just wanted to stall.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, my aunt lives here.”
“I don’t believe it,” Brewer said. “You look like you’re up to trouble. Show me some ID.”
Brewer didn’t want him to get into that house. He assumed Dot Wilson was still there and figured if the man was Fry, he might try to take a hostage. Brewer was handed the license of a Julienne Scott. The girl just sat on the porch, resting her head in both her hands.
Where, Brewer cursed to himself, is that damn squad car? The guy in the cap remained cordial.
“My cousin lives across the street,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
“As long as you remain in my sight,” Brewer said.
Brewer stood next to the girl but kept his eyes on the guy, who walked across the street and banged on the door. He expected one of them to bolt anytime.
“I’ve got an uncle next door, let me go check there,” he said, moving further down the street.
The girl remained on the porch. He was beginning to think she was too tired to run.
At 12:45 A.M., a fourteen-year veteran named William Johnson and his partner, William Deck, reached the last block of Heyden just as John Fry was about to try another relative’s house.
“It’s him, right there,” Brewer whispered into the unmarked car.
“Who?” one officer said.
“Fry. John Fry.”
Deck jumped out, running in his sneakers like a crouched cat as the figure walked to another house. Fry was reaching for another door when Deck announced himself with the cold touch of a .38 Smith & Wesson on the back of John Fry’s slick head.
“Don’t move or I’ll blow your brains out.”
Fry tried the Julienne Scott ID again, but both cops saw the bald dome shining under a streetlight when they ordered him to take off the baseball cap.
As the unmarked car headed downtown to Police Headquarters, John leaned over in the backseat and whispered to the only living witness to his murder of W. Alan Canty.
“Honey, they’re gonna put the best they got on you, ’cause they know you’re the weak link. Now, you gonna be the weak link, or you gonna be the woman I think you are?”
“Don’t worry, babe,” Dawn said. “I’ll never say a word.”
“All you gotta do is sit cool for three days, man. They’re gonna bring everything they got to bear on you.”
“They gonna beat me up?”
John laughed.
“No, they ain’t gonna beat you up. You may wish they beat you up after they get through with you, wish they kicked the dogshit out of you to make you feel better ‘bout yourself. That’s how good the motherfuckers are at twisting you all around.”
86
Sometimes [the interrogator] will confront the subject with evidence of his guilt, while in another case he will keep him guessing. He may repeatedly remind one subject as to the symptoms of the subject’s nervousness, while with the next suspect he will be overcome with emotion and will join the suspect in shedding tears over the disgrace he has brought on his family.
—ALAN CANTY, Sr.,
“The Psychological Training of Police Officers”
Bernard Brantley decided to give Dawn Spens a few thoughts to sleep on before she was shown her cell in the eighth-floor lockup. He’d already targeted her as the weak link in the case.
It was nearly 2 A.M., and Brantley was putting the final touches on a search warrant for Frank McMasters’s house. A police plane would be waiting for squad detectives Saturday afternoon. Brantley never looked up as she was escorted into the squad room not even two hours after her arrest.
“Do you know what type of people you’re dealing with?” he asked her. “You know the people that Dr. Canty went to college with just aren’t going to stand by and let something like this happen.”
She said nothing. Then he looked up.
“You know, I really don’t want to talk to you,” he said. “I’m tired and I want to go home and sleep. But I want you to think about some things. We’ve got John for murder one. That’s a given. We’re sure you helped him. We’re not sure how much. Maybe you didn’t help him at all. Maybe you just consoled him. But you know all about this case.”
Brantley’s tired monotone sounded like that of a weary bureaucrat instructing his next applicant to fill out a government form.
“Now,” he continued, “the bottom line is, do you want to go to prison for the rest of your life, or do you want to help the police? Think about it. We’ve got everybody you can think of that knows anything about this case. We’ve got Tammy. We got Gary. Dawn, we really don’t need you.
“So if you want to take the chance on going across the street and being charged with murder one, do it. I’m too tired. Even if you wanted to talk, I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to sit here right now and type a statement.”
The twisting had begun. Dawn Marie Spens hardly slept.
When Marlyss Landeros reported to the squad room early Saturday morning, she thought the girl in the shaggy perm sitting across from her desk was just one more incidental witness. She offered her a donut.
“Hi,” the cop said. “You want some coffee?”
The cop flashed a warm smile, trying to meet her eyes. The girl in blue jeans and a halter top looked up coldly. The cop felt the girl look right through her. Later someone told her that was Dawn Spens. She didn’t look at all like her picture.
“That girl has got the personality of a straight razor,” she said.
Frank McMasters and Cheryl Krizanovic heard about John and Dawn’s arrest on the radio as they drove around in the hours before sunrise, trying to find Cheryl�
�s brother’s house.
“We better go in to Homicide,” Frank said.
He wanted to run their fabricated story and get the worst of it over with. But the worst was just beginning.
By early afternoon, he had no idea what had happened to Cheryl or what she was telling police. He was sitting in the squad room with Marlyss Landeros and a detective named Madelyn Williams.
Williams, a ten-year veteran detective, possessed the kind of gutty guffaw that enlivened laugh tracks. Frank still couldn’t believe her greeting when he introduced himself as Dale McMasters that morning.
“Hello, Dale, I mean Frank,” she chuckled. “You do like to be called Frank, don’t you?”
“How did you know that?”
“We know all about you, Frank. We have the whole book. Two years’ probation for receiving and concealing stolen goods. Still on probation, aren’t you?”
She was smiling. Christ, he thought. Five more months. He’d been convicted in Emmet County. He’d unknowingly bought stolen construction materials and would eventually win the case on appeal.
But that couldn’t do him a damn bit of good now as he sat with both Williams and Marlyss Landeros. He’d already gone into as much as he wanted to about John and Dawn’s visit. Then, Williams stood up. She was laughing.
“I’ve seen some awfully good liars in my life, but you are one of the worst,” she said. “You can’t even sit still for two seconds in that chair.”
“What?”
“You know you’re telling a bullshit lie. We know you’re telling a bullshit lie. And it shows on your face. Face it. You’re a lousy liar, Frank.”
Landeros wasn’t laughing. She touched his hand, searched his eyes, and said softly:
“Frank, it’s the arm. You’ve got a vein in your arm that twitches when you lie.”
He looked down at his forearm.
Williams left, then Landeros began laying evidence out on her desk: Photos of blood on Casper. Blood-type reports from the lab. Statements about John Fry’s boasting.
Jesus Christ, Frank thought, he shot his mouth off to everybody in the neighborhood. Frank knew he was in big trouble.
“Want something to drink?” Landeros asked.
“What the hell is this?” Frank stammered. “Good cop, bad cop?”
“You know, Frank,” she continued, “I’ve got police officers sitting up there right now at your house.”
“No.”
Frank watched as she dialed. He knew the number of the Petoskey state police post by heart. He heard her ask for Sergeant Gerry Tibaldi.
“Yes, Sergeant,” she said into the phone. “I think the inspector would OK a bulldozer. I can’t see a problem with that.”
My house, Frank thought. It’s all I own.
“Sergeant, would you talk to this young man?”
Frank grasped for the receiver.
“Lookit, McMasters, this is Sergeant Gerald Tibaldi of the homicide section,” he said. “I’ve got a goddamn search warrant and it’s signed by a judge. I’m gonna execute this search warrant on your house. If I don’t find anything in the house, I’m comin’ back with a bulldozer for your property.”
“No,” Frank said. “The keys. The neighbor has the keys. You can get anything you want. Just leave my house alone.”
“Frank, I’m comin’ with dogs. I’m comin’ with bulldozers and cranes. But I’m gonna find that body.”
Frank was ready to deal. He wanted immunity from prosecution. He watched Landeros call the prosecutor’s office. Then he gave Marlyss Landeros a six-page statement. He told her about the satchel and the car burning, but he danced around John’s utterances as to the reasons for the killing. Besides, he thought, which version am I supposed to tell?
“Did anyone help John cut the body up?” Landeros asked last.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Later, before he signed the statement, he wanted to amend that response.
“Also,” he said, “the last answer about ‘Did I know if anyone helped John cut the body up’ I answered, ‘I don’t know.’ But as I recall now, John told me he sent Dawn out of the house and nobody was in the house until it was all over with.”
Later Landeros took Frank into another room to see Cheryl. She had stuck by her story. Her loyalty to John Fry still ran deep. She had never been able to shake it, despite what he’d done to her life.
“Cheryl,” Frank said. “I’ve told them the truth. You should too.”
“Why?”
“Lookit, Cheryl. John Fry has already caused you to lose one child. What do you wanna do, lose another one because of him?”
Cheryl was all twisted up inside. Only a week ago she’d felt secure in a new life. Every time she tried to free herself, her old boyfriend found a new grip. Somehow she had to cut herself loose. She looked at Frank, then the detective.
“No, Frank,” she said. “He ain’t worth that much.”
Later Cheryl found herself in Frank’s car, heading to her brother’s house. She had forty dollars Frank gave her before the homicide detectives took him away in the police airplane. She hadn’t slept in three days and her nerves were spent.
“You know,” she said to her brother, “if there was ever a time in my life when I needed drugs, it would be now.”
She knew more tests were coming. There would be a trial. She knew she’d have to take the stand.
“But you know what?” she continued. “I don’t want it. I don’t want any drugs at all.”
She’d feel that way for a long, long time.
Gilbert Hill had come in on Saturday to introduce himself to Lucky Fry. He made little progress. Rumor had it that Fry had returned to Detroit to kill someone who had talked to police. Hill couldn’t resist one more question.
“Tell me,” he asked him, “why did you bother to stop in Detroit, anyway?”
“I had some business to take care of, mon.”
“I see,” Hill said. “I’m glad we found you before you got to your business.”
Fry laughed.
Dawn Spens had been shuttled from one room to another throughout the day. Three times she’d declined to make a statement. Sometime during the day a squad member told her, “You know John is likely going to make a statement against you.”
In the late afternoon, Hill decided to invite her into his office for a chat. The inspector’s popularity was high anytime he was near his desk. Phone calls from the media and his daughters came with regularity. The telephone could be unnerving for any visitor. One minute he could be serious, the next laughing with some unknown entity on the other end of the line.
Between the calls, he asked Dawn Spens if she wanted to make a statement. She declined. Then he brought in Roy Spens. Her sister Patty was waiting in the hallway outside.
“If you’re going to make a statement, Dawn, you better hurry up and do it,” Hill said after her father left.
A few minutes later he brought Sergeant Brantley, Sergeant Williams, and Marlyss Landeros into the little office and closed the door.
“Marlyss, Dawn is going to make a statement,” Hill said.
Dawn hesitated. Then Bernard Brantley stood up. He muttered angrily, then stormed out of the office and slammed the door.
“Don’t piss Bernard off now,” Hill said. “Dawn, you do not want to piss him off. He’s the only one in your corner.”
By 6 P.M., Marlyss Landeros was nearly finished typing the eleven-page statement from Dawn Spens.
Dawn had given a thumbnail sketch of her relationship with Al Canty. She said she only knew him as Dr. Alan Miller. She said she found out his real name in the newspaper after the murder. She said she never knew he was married. She said she thought he worked at Harper-Grace Hospitals.
She said that the day of the murder she was expecting him to bring some “extra” money, but no more than four hundred dollars. She admitted she’d told other people that there had once been a five-thousand-dollar payoff, but she said she had lied. She skirted a questio
n about plans for California. She said she was throwing up when John and Al argued. She said she saw one swing of the bat and heard another hit home. While she was out turning tricks, she said, Al’s body disappeared from the house.
At one point Dawn’s voice started to crack. Landeros kept her fingers on the typewriter. The cop had put The Gift away for the night. She’d already made her mind up about Dawn Spens after she offered her the donut.
“She swept a lot away from her,” Landeros said later. “She’s Little Miss Innocent Two Shoes. And she sure can bat those big eyes of hers when she has to.”
But Dawn also broomed John Fry right into a murder charge, if only the squad had a body.
Detective Tony Brantley cursed the thought. A cold beer. He’d left a cold beer, his easy chair, and a deadlocked Detroit Tigers ball game in the seventh inning for this. And the mosquitoes. The last time he’d seen them this big was twenty years ago. Vietnam. These northern woods might as well be Nam, he thought. It was hot and humid enough.
Bernard Brantley had never mentioned that Tony would be flying 250 miles in a twin-engine Beechcraft and ending up in the goddamn woods. He felt like a banker at a lumberjack ball. He’d shown up for duty in a suit, a tie, and a brand-new pair of street shoes.
The bugs found his style impressive. They seemed attracted to all the sweat. The forty-year-old stocky detective envied the three state troopers from the Petoskey post, who’d dressed more appropriately for the search.
“You know this land is owned by the University of Michigan,” said one state evidence technician. “They raise mosquitoes out here for tests.”
Brantley could hear the little bloodsuckers buzzing.
“This guy McMasters better not be blowing smoke up our asses,” he complained. “Maybe we ought to just forget about his goddamn immunity and lock his ass up.”
Brantley, Sergeant Tibaldi, a Detroit evidence technician, and the state troopers had been following Frank for nearly two hours as he zigzagged the area off the logging trail. Frank was in a short-sleeve shirt and his big arms were covered with red welts from the bites.
“Lookit,” he said. “It’s here, I’m telling you. Give me a polygraph. Hypnotize me. But it’s here.”
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