by Fred Rosen
“Well, there was, uh … underwear and shorts for about two weeks and, uh …”
“Any female clothes in there?”
“No, there was no female clothes in there.”
“None at all?” Breshears shot back. Singleton’s head was spinning like a top.
“No!” he shouted.
“Any of your daughter’s clothes?” Breshears kept on.
“Yeah, there was one white … white … white, uh, blouse that she left.”
“How did the panties and bras get in there?”
Singleton looked up at Breshears.
“In where?”
“In your dirty clothes.”
“Oh, that uh … that was a bunch that I was going to give … you see my ex-wife passed away down there and her clothes was still in the house and—”
Breshears cut in. “These bras were for a small person. They wouldn’t fit your deceased wife.” This time he did nothing to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
“Oh, then they’re my daughter’s. My daughter just throws her stuff over there.”
Breshears looked down at the sheet in front of him. Someone had already interviewed Singleton’s daughter. Then he looked up.
“But she hasn’t been there since the beginning of summer.”
“She’s over there every day.”
“She hasn’t been at the house in San Pablo since the beginning of the summer though. How would her clothes get mixed in with your dirty clothes?”
“Because …”
“I talked to your daughter, and she has her clothes down where she’s staying at,” said Breshears.
“I know that but,… well see, my daughter is a typical teenager, she leaves everything around.”
“But she doesn’t live over at that house, and across the street from where she lives there’s someone does her laundry. Surely she doesn’t wander around and leave her bras lying around? Take them off and leave them in with your dirty clothes?”
“Well, now … uh … there’s a whole bunch of her, uh … last year’s pants, trousers, and whatnot there in the garage. You can ask her.”
“I did. I just talked to her.”
“This hatchet that you have,” Reese cut in, “can you describe it to us?”
“Yes. Uh … it’s just a regular red small hatchet, about a fourteen-inch handle on it.”
“What color is it?”
“I believe it’s red.
“Wood handle?” Reese asked.
“Yeah, wood handle.”
“Got anything tied to it or anything?”
“Yeah it’s got a little …”
“Little piece of rope?”
“Little piece of rope, yeah.”
“What do you use that hatchet for?”
“Well, I don’t use it, part of the year only. See, like that other gear in that box there is for pulling some car out of the ditch, or else if I get that van stuck I can pull it a hundred foot.”
“I notice that the little rope in there had been cut,” said Breshears. “Any reason why it was cut?”
“Uh … there’s a reason why it was cut …”
“What was that?”
“I was moving furniture with it.”
“And you cut it? Apparently, looking at it, it’s been cut with a knife. Not too sharp of a knife at that.”
“Well let’s see what the devil did I …? Had to tie something with it and pull … but really hard to tackle, uh? Well, I moved furniture in that van quite a bit, and then use it to tie the furniture with.”
“You’re a seaman. You don’t cut the knots. You tie them. You wouldn’t cut them with a knife, would you?”
“Yeah. I cut it because … because you notice that, uh, most of that can be respliced right back in it.”
“It was cut in two places, though.”
“I don’t know.”
The sweat was pouring off Singleton now. Breshears saw it and moved in.
“Mr. Singleton, I’ve talked to this girl several times …”
“Yeah.”
“And she’s told us what happened. She was awake when you cut her arms off.”
“Well, I’ll tell you …”
“She remembers you.
“Now … no … that … I don’t have enough guts to cut anybody’s arm off and I don’t … I’ll swear on the Bible I did not cut that girl’s arms off.”
“And then you walked, rather you put her down, you kicked her into a pipe right down there in the dirt.”
“I did not, sir.”
“She was awake when you did this.”
“I did not, sir.”
“You took her out of the van …”
“Nah …”
“You laid her down after taking the rope off.…” “Nah … Nah …”
“And you chopped her arms off one at a time.”
“That’s an absolute lie. I did not.”
“Then why would she say it was somebody else when she knows it’s you? She drew your picture.”
“Well … there was that …”
“Nobody else in the van, just you and her.”
“No, no, that’s an absolute lie, too!”
“Why did you wash and clean the van the day you got back? You washed your jumpsuit, you washed the van, you washed the rug inside the van, but you didn’t wash the dirty clothes that you picked up.”
“The dirty clothes that I picked up, uh … were washed.… Trudy washed all the dirty clothes I picked up. That bunch of clothes that you’re looking at there in the garage there belongs to my daughter and my ex-wife, which I was going to … to … send to Goodwill up here.”
“Why did you clean the van when you got back? You took the rug out, washed it.…”
“Because the goddamn thing … like I say there was several drinks spilled on it … and, uh … here it was there was half a dozen drinks spilled on that thing and then normally down there the water is higher and I always routinely wash the van or the car when the water is up. See, there’s a water shortage and the water is high down there, and so it’s a normal, routine thing for me to do, to take and cut off that … Now that’s the first time that, uh … I’ve washed that carpet out though. I mean you can ask … it was wet as hell all over and … and … several … it …”
“Do you remember earlier today when I said that if someone else was in that van, any other people, that should be able to develop some kind of fingerprints and you said no because you washed the whole inside of that van out?” said Reese.
“Yeah, I think I washed it out.… Yeah … absolutely … I washed the windows in that damn thing.”
“Would there be any reason for there being blood on that hatchet of yours?”
“No, I …”
Reese looked down at the tape recorder; the spindle was almost empty.
“Okay, this will be the end of this tape. 20:22 hours.”
The two cops had Singleton where they wanted him. He was now on the run, denying any involvement with Mary Vincent’s mutilation, concocting some cock-and-bull story about two other hitchhikers being responsible. And while Breshears and Reese knew they would have to check out his story on the outside chance he was telling the truth they were really hoping that, as they entered the last round of questioning, they could elicit a confession. Because, if they could do that, they could clear the case and get back to more mundane felonies, not to mention avoiding a lengthy and expensive trial.
Chapter Five
Murphy and Puell were the two cops who responded to Sal Benedetto’s sighting of the severed hand on the rocks of San Francisco Bay. When they arrived, they couldn’t believe their luck.
It had to be Mary Vincent’s hand, it just had to be. How many other severed hands’ cases did they have that needed to be cleared?
The hand was packed in ice in an Igloo cooler, and transported back to headquarters, where detectives took charge. They put in a call to Modesto to tell them of their find. Then, they brought it to the coroner’s offic
e, where Roland Prahl, chief deputy coroner for the Alameda County sheriff’s department, took over, and began his examination.
He noticed that the epidermal or outer layer of the skin was completely washed away. That would be consistent with the amount of time since the assault, which was approaching ten days. Despite the skin’s decomposition, there was a patch of reddish-brown nail polish that remained on the tip of the nail of the right thumb. Had Mary Vincent been wearing red nail polish?
The phone lines heated up between the San Francisco and Modesto police and the answer arrived soon enough: Mary had, indeed, painted her nails red prior to the mutilation. To facilitate comparison, doctors in Modesto sent fragments of bone taken from Mary during surgery to Oakland, where Prahl compared it to the bone of the hand.
The comparison was positive. X rays of the severed bones in Mary’s forearm also matched the severed bones in the hand’s wrist.
How large was San Francisco Bay? What were the odds that a hand thrown in one of its estuaries upriver would eventually tumble down into the bay, let alone wash up relatively intact on a rock? Prahl later told the press that matching the hand fished out of the drink to Mary beat “astronomical odds, far more than the proverbial needle in a haystack.” And that was true.
What had made the find possible was the natural gas that builds up in decomposing human tissue. The gas had kept the hand afloat, allowing it to sail along undisturbed like a piece of driftwood. Had that bloating not occurred and had it sunk to the bottom of the bay, scavenger fish would have dined on it and the evidence would literally have been eaten up.
But now, they had the hand, and they had a match.
“There is no question at all,” Prahl stated, that the two matched.
What was unclear was how long the limb had been in the water, or for that matter, how long her assailant had carried it around with him before he threw it in the drink. No matter.
When he came to trial, it would be used against him.
“This will be side 3. Time starting 20:22 hours. Okay, do you remember the last question?” Reese began.
“Why was there blood on the hatchet?” Singleton asked reasonably.
“Would there be any reason for any blood being on the hatchet?” Reese corrected him.
“No, not to my knowledge. There shouldn’t be any blood on it. Although … I … never even went hunting this year, so …”
“Do you remember earlier today that I told you that I don’t see any reason for this young lady to be lying if there was two other people in that van, she should have said there was two other people in that van?”
“Well, I don’t know why she’s lying either, but like all I know is I’m telling you the story just the way that it happened.”
“Well, you said yourself you didn’t remember because you thought you were passed out, or at least you didn’t remember,” Breshears pointed out.
“Now wait just a minute,” Singleton protested. “I don’t remember the girl getting out of the van.”
“Why do you think that this girl would lie about somebody else cutting her arms off when she was conscious the entire time it was happening?” asked Breshears.
“Sir, I—”
“Why do you think she would say you did it if somebody else chopped her arms off?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea, but I cannot … I could never raise a weapon to anybody.…”
“She said at one time you threatened to blow her head off with a shotgun when you’d been drinking. She says you get extremely violent when you’ve been drinking,” Reese said.
“How about last summer when you beat your daughter?” Breshears chimed in.
“I didn’t beat my daughter! I spanked my daughter’s bottom. She called me a liar!”
Which is what you are, Breshears thought. Instead, he said, “How about when she had to go to the hospital and have her face treated because you hit her with your fist?”
“I didn’t hit her with my fist,” Singleton protested in a hurt tone.
“It’s on record in the hospital,” Breshears stated matter-of-factly.
“That girl is … now wait just a minute. You can ask the people where she stayed at. They found out and they know all about that. I told them the truth.”
“They told me also.”
“Now my daughter’s strong as an ox. She was … and I didn’t know my daughter was that strong, now … Like I’d been working about nineteen hours and I had about three or four drinks. I come home and she stands there and calls me a fat liar. I tell her, I says, ‘Dammit, if you call me a liar again, I’m going to spank your bottom.’”
“Were you in the military?”
“Yes, I was.”
“In Korea?” Reese asked, knowing the answer because he’d already pulled Singleton’s war record.
“Yes.”
“In combat?” Reese pressed.
“Yes.”
“And you were worried about a girl you say was holding a stick on you in the van? Come on.”
“Well, there’s a lot of difference.…” Singleton hedged.
“She readily admits she held a stick on you,” said Breshears.
“I beg your pardon?”
“She readily admits she held a stick on you,” the cop repeated.
“She hit me with the goddamn thing,” Singleton suddenly remembered.
“Remember earlier today I asked you if you’d read anything or if you knew anything about this story? You know about the young lady out here with her arms chopped off and being sexually assaulted, and you told me, ‘No,’ that you hadn’t been reading the newspaper? You hadn’t?” Reese asked.
“I told you that I had not followed the story at all.”
“Okay.”
“No … uh … I think I saw it on TV … but to tell you the damn truth about it … I never even … never even give it a thought.…”
“Your daughter says that during the time you stayed in Sparks, after coming over from here, you were acting strange and drinking rather heavily, emotionally upset. Seems like you’re concerned about something.”
“Yeah, I am concerned that my goddamn knee is swelled up again on me, and the doctor tells me I might have cancer in my throat, and I’ll tell you the damn truth about it, my ex-wife went down with cancer and I don’t want to face cancer.”
“Did you also take an overdose of pills?” Breshears asked.
“No, I didn’t take an overdose.”
“Did you end up in the hospital where they treated you for an overdose with pills and liquor combination?”
After a pause, Singleton answered with a quiet “Yes.” He was ashamed that he had tried to kill himself.
“Did you take all those pills? Seconal pills?”
“No, hell no!”
“Why did your roommate have to come through the window to get in your room?”
“Well, I locked the bedroom door. Those doors, the dog opens them. We got that dog there and all he does is jump up and open the doors. That’s the reason I locked the door.”
Reese asked, “Can you explain to me then why this girl, who has nothing to lose at all whatsoever by telling us that there was somebody else in that van, can recall everything? And you tell us the same story, except you say there were two other people in that van?”
“I can’t explain nothing to you. All I know is that there was a lot of … everyone being blasted … sniffing in that van, and also, there was a lot of booze in that van.”
“Mr. Singleton,” Breshears asked respectfully, “what did she do to anger you?”
“She didn’t do … actually, she didn’t … truthfully … I told you that … I told her just to take it easy.…”
“Did she take it easy?”
“Yeah, in a way, but by that time she’s got the goddamn knife and won’t let me have the car keys. Okay, then she starts, uh … playing one against the other and then she asked them did they … oh, I forgot what she said about …”
“Mr. S
ingleton we know what happened,” Breshears said gently. “You readily admit that you picked her up, and we know the outcome of it and perhaps I can understand why.”
“Well now …”
“There’s got to be a reason,” Reese said, as much to himself as to Singleton.
“There’s a reason,” Breshears answered. “What is the reason, Mr. Singleton?”
“Why?” Reese wondered.
“There has to be a reason,” Breshears insisted.
Singleton looked frantically from one man to the other. “I’m telling you the God’s truth,” Singleton said, imploringly. “You gotta believe me—I don’t know anything more. Now I brought those guys back to San Francisco and I was shook up myself. I was worried about my life at the time.”
“Why were you worried about your life?” Breshears asked. “You didn’t know what happened to her?”
“I swear to God I didn’t even know the girl met with foul play.”
“Then why were you worried about your life?”
“Christ, there’s a gun and a knife in there, I got three strangers in the car.…”
“What did you think about this story when you read it in the paper and saw it on television?” Reese asked.
“I’ll tell you the goddamn truth, I … I … didn’t even give it a second thought, really.”
“Mr. Singleton, what did she do to upset you or to get you angry or get you in a fit of rage?” Breshears persisted.
“She didn’t get me in a fit of rage,” he answered defensively.
“Mr. Singleton, isn’t it really that she knew too much about you and you got scared?”
“No, sir, definitely not.”
“Then why did you tie her hands up behind her back?”
“I did not tie her up … that girl was …”
“Mr. Singleton, we served a search warrant on your house in San Pablo. We’ve got the material out of that fireplace.”
“What material is that?” Singleton asked innocently.
“The majority of the burned ashes and the cloth material.”
“All you got is a bunch of rags there.”
“That will be tested and we’re gonna know for sure. We’ll know positively.”
“All right, but all there are is a bunch of rags there.”
