Dead Boyfriends Read online

  Prior to questioning Davies, I advised her I was an investigator with the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. I advised her of her MIRANDA RIGHTS which she stated she understood. Davies agreed to talk with me.

  I advised Davies that Eli Jefferson had been found dead at her residence from apparent trauma and she told me that there were two separate incidents that happened Saturday two weeks ago that could have caused those injuries. She told me that Jefferson had accidentally cut himself with a broken beer bottle in the kitchen and that is why there was blood in the house.

  Davies then explained that on Saturday two weeks ago someone had broken into her home and started a fight with Jefferson. She indicated that she had been sleeping when the fight began. She woke up and saw the assailant hitting Jefferson. She said the assailant saw her and quickly left the house. She indicated that the assailant was a man with blond hair. I asked Davies who that might be and she told me that she felt it could have been a former boyfriend. I asked her for the name of the boyfriend but Davies claimed she could not remember.

  Davies also informed me that she had been living downstairs for approximately two weeks and was unaware of Jefferson’s activities during that time. A little later, Davies told me that she had brought food and several bottles of vodka downstairs with her. She told me that she did not want to go upstairs because she was frightened. I asked Davies who she was frightened of, but she said she could not remember.

  I told her that I believed she was withholding information about the death of Jefferson and his fight with the former boyfriend. Davies denied any involvement in Jefferson’s death and I concluded the interview.

  According to the report, Merodie Davies was later examined by the hospital staff and physical evidence was taken—I took this to mean blood and hair samples. Sergeant Rios wrote that it was during these procedures that Merodie indicated to him that she had something to add to her previous statement.

  I again advised her of her MIRANDA RIGHTS, which she stated she understood, and again she waived them . . . Davies was more coherent and spoke clearly during the entire interview.

  Davies told me she had been drinking for two weeks but that she stopped drinking last night. She told me that she got up this morning and felt a little hungover and hungry. She walked upstairs and observed Jefferson lying in the living room. She said his body was bloated and cold to the touch.

  I asked when she last saw Jefferson and Davies said that she recalled speaking to him the night before last while she was downstairs in the basement. She said he yelled at her and she yelled at him, but that she did not actually see him. She said Jefferson never came downstairs. Later, she said that Jefferson came downstairs once a few days ago and that he brought her a drink and they slept on the couch together. Still later, she claimed it might not have been a few days ago, that it could have been longer. She said she might have lost track of time.

  When I asked her what could have caused Jefferson’s injuries, Davies told me that she had thrown a beer bottle at him that shattered and cut him. She told me that she was angry at Jefferson over some remark he had made but she said she could not remember what he said. She denied ever intentionally inflicting any injuries on Jefferson with the broken glass, however. She also claimed that Jefferson had stopped the bleeding with a washcloth and refused to seek medical attention, claiming it was only a scratch.

  When I asked how Jefferson hurt his head, she indicated that a man broke into her house and fought with Jefferson. I asked her if she witnessed the fight and she indicated that she had. I asked Davies if she could identify the man and she said no. I asked if the man had blond hair and she said yes, then corrected herself and said she couldn’t remember . . .

  I told her that a Softball bat had been found at the scene. Davies indicated that it was hers, that she played for Dimmer’s Bar softball team until late July when the season ended. I told her that blood was found on the bat. I told her that we suspect that someone hit Jefferson with the bat. Davies denied hitting Jefferson with the bat. She said she only hit him with the bottle. I asked Davies if the man Jefferson fought with hit him with the bat. After a long pause, Davies said she did not see the man hit Jefferson with the bat.

  I told her that many of her statements were inconsistent and Davies said she was trying as hard as she could. I asked her if she would take a polygraph test and she agreed. See additional report for polygraph results.

  “They gave her a polygraph?”

  “Oh, it gets better,” G. K. assured me.

  We had pulled off of 10 and were heading west on Main Street past the huge shopping center that Coon Rapids had built on Anoka’s doorstep when I read the results.

  Office of

  ANOKA COUNTY SHERIFF

  CONFIDENTIAL

  DO NOT RELEASE WITH OUT A RELEASE

  OF INFORMATION FORM OR COURT ORDER

  PURPOSE OF EXAMINATION: To determine if Davies, Merodie Anne was being truthful when she denied killing Eli Jefferson.

  A computerized polygraph exam was administered to Davies, Merodie Anne on 8/14 at 2100 hrs. at the C.I.D. Offices. Following the approved and recommended procedures, the polygraph questions were carefully reviewed with the subject prior to the examination. The questions consisted of control, neutral, symptomatic, and relevant questions. The following relevant questions were asked:

  Question #1: Are you the one who caused those fatal injuries to Eli Jefferson?

  Answer: No.

  Question #2: Did you inflict those injuries which caused the death of Eli Jefferson?

  Answer: No.

  Results: In reference to the relevant questions, DECEPTION WAS INDICATED. The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Computer Scoring Algorithm indicates that the probability of deception on the targeted issues is greater than 99%.

  I closed the file and set it on my lap. I wanted to stick it to the Anoka cops, but I didn’t want to help a killer go free for the privilege. G. K. seemed to have read my mind.

  “No way Merodie could have understood the questions she was being asked,” she said.

  “You think?”

  G. K. pulled off Main Street onto Fourth Avenue and into the parking ramp that served both the Anoka County Courthouse and the correctional facility.

  “Talk to her yourself,” she said. “You decide.”

  “They’ve revoked your probation on the disorderly conduct conviction from last May,” G. K. Bonalay said. “They’re going to make you serve the entire thirty days.”

  “They can’t do that,” Merodie Davies insisted. Her sharp words produced a disconcerting echo off the gray cinder-block walls of the eight-by-eight interview room.

  “Yes, they can.”

  “Who’s going to clean my house?”

  “Your house?’

  “My house is a mess. The blood. Who’s going to clean up the blood?”

  “Don’t worry about your house.”

  “People are going to see it. After the funeral. After the funeral when, when . . .” Merodie dropped her chin against her chest. Her entire body began to tremble, and she gripped the small table so tightly that I was sure she would have overturned it if it hadn’t been bolted to the floor. She grunted and groaned and cried out in unbridled anguish; she painted the walls with her suffering. Eli Jefferson might have been dead for two weeks, but the pain of it was fresh in Merodie’s heart. G. K. patted her shoulder and said, “There, there.” She looked at me like she wanted me to do something about it. I looked at the door and wished I could wait outside.

  It took a while for Merodie to come back to us. She chanted, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as she wiped her tears with the sleeve of her olive-green jump suit.

  “I know you’re upset,” G. K. told her, “but you must stop worrying about Eli and start worrying about yourself.”

  “I can’t,” Merodie said. “He was everything to me. He was my last chance.”

  “Last chance for what?”

  Merodie didn’t answer. She sn
iffed and dried her eyes and took several deep breaths, all while studying G. K. as if she were a curiosity, a new exhibit at the Minnesota Zoo. Then she turned her attention on me.

  “Do I know you?” It was the second time she had asked the question.

  “I was at your home the other day, the day you were arrested.”

  She nodded as if it were all coming back to her. I doubted that it was. Yet, while her mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around me, it was becoming abundantly clear to her that she was in jail, specifically the Anoka County Correctional Facility, and that she was in deep trouble.

  “They think I killed him, don’t they?” Merodie said.

  “Killed who?” G. K. was testing her. Merodie had been fading in and out all through our conversation. At one moment she was aware enough to answer G. K.’s questions clearly; at the next she was unsure who G. K. was.

  “Eli,” Merodie answered. “Eli Jefferson. They think I killed him. That wonderful man.”

  Merodie began pacing across the tiny room—four steps, turn, four steps, turn. When I first met her outside her home she had reminded me of the female lead in a zombie movie, The Night of the Living Dead—the original, not the remake—incoherent, oblivious even to where she was. Now, even though her eyes were red and blotchy and her face still had the same tint as the olive green jumpsuit that she wore, she moved like a woman alive with hope. More than that. Clean and sober, she was pretty, and I noticed for the first time that she was also young—no older than thirty-five—and that her features seemed delicate, as if she could be bruised by a hard wind.

  It’s amazing what a few hot meals and a good night’s sleep can do, my inner voice concluded.

  “Who is Eli Jefferson?” G. K. asked.

  “My fiancé.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “No. Uh-uh. From now on, if someone asks you if you killed Eli Jefferson, you answer . . .”

  “No.” Merodie’s shout bounced off the walls.

  “Exactly.”

  “I mean it,” Merodie insisted. “I didn’t do it.”

  “What did you do?”

  Merodie hesitated before answering in a low, childlike voice. “I hit him with a bottle.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I hit him with a bottle.”

  “What kind of bottle?”

  “What kind? I don’t know. A bottle, you know, a beer bottle.”

  “How?”

  “What do you mean, how?”

  “Tell me what happened,” G. K. said.

  “I threw a bottle at him and I hit him.”

  “Where?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “No, I mean where did the bottle hit him?”

  “In the kitch—. In the head. Not the head. He lifted his arm up in front of his head and the bottle hit him there and it broke to pieces. Pieces of glass from the bottle, they went everywhere.”

  “What happened next?” G. K. asked.

  “He started bleeding here.” Merodie touched the inside of her upper arm near the armpit.

  “Badly?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I told him to get a bandage for it. For the cut.”

  “Did he?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Why did you throw the bottle at him?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Try.”

  “I can’t.” Merodie shook her head. “I can’t be expected to remember every little thing.”

  “Listen.” G. K. gave her the stock lawyer-client line, trying mightily to be patient. “I’m your lawyer. I’m not here to judge. I’m here to help. You can tell me everything. In fact, if you want me to defend you, you’d better tell me everything.”

  “But you said to shut up, already. You said not to say anything.”

  “To them,” G. K. shouted, finally losing it, waving her hand vaguely at the gray metal door as her words reverberated through the room.

  “Sorry.” At first Merodie looked down at her gnarly fingers, a penitent schoolgirl, age thirty-five going on eight, then she perked up. “What about him?” she asked, pointing at me.

  “He’s on our side,” G. K. assured her.

  “Are you, mister?”

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “You can call me McKenzie.”

  “McKenzie? Do I know you?”

  “We’re close personal friends. Can I ask you a few questions?”

  G. K. nodded.

  “Do you play softball?”

  “I do,” Merodie said. She smiled broadly as if the memory of it brought her joy. “I play for Dimmer’s. Second base, sometimes short.”

  “Can you hit?’

  Merodie grinned at me. “I get my cuts.”

  “What kind of bat do you use?”

  “Lady Thumper.”

  “Thirty-two ounces?”

  “No, that’s too heavy. Twenty-eight.”

  “Ever hit Eli with it?”

  “With the Thumper? No. Why would I use . . .?” She stopped speaking. For the first time she looked me in the eye. “No,” she said. “I never did.”

  “Okay.”

  She smiled, and for a moment she actually looked innocent. It didn’t last.

  “Who is Priscilla St. Ana?” I asked.

  Merodie erupted the way a volcano might—ferociously. She didn’t call me anything I hadn’t heard before, but she fitted the obscenities, profanities, and vulgarities together in such interesting combinations and with such a thrill in her voice that I felt she was creating a new art form. During her diatribe two points were made: Priscilla was the best friend Merodie ever had, and I should not dare to involve her in this mess if I knew what was good for me.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” G. K. said. She pulled Merodie back into her chair and patted her hand. “We won’t bother her.”

  “You better not,” Merodie said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Don’t worry, Merodie.”

  “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “You’ll have to stay in here for thirty days, but you’ll be safe.”

  And sober, my inner voice said.

  “Everything will work out,” G. K. said. “Only no more statements, okay, Merodie?”

  Merodie nodded.

  “I want you to promise not to talk to anyone except me and McKenzie here. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  G. K. leaned back in the plastic chair and studied her client from across the small wooden table. Merodie refused to meet her gaze, looking at everything but G. K.’s face.

  Merodie was hiding something, I decided. Something about Priscilla St. Ana. Maybe about everything. I wanted to learn what it was, but not now. Let her get straight first, I told myself. A few days of sobriety have been known to work miracles.

  “What about Eli?” Merodie asked, breaking the silence.

  “If the county had enough to charge you, they would have done so by now,” G. K. said. “Personally, I don’t think they have much of a case, at least not for murder. I know the county attorney, though, and he’s a sneaky little prick and he’s up for reelection, so . . .”

  “No, I mean the funeral. Who’s going to take care of Eli?”

  G. K. said she didn’t know but would check on it for her.

  “Can I be there for the funeral? I have to be there.”

  “I don’t think they’ll let you out.”

  Merodie hung her head again, and for a moment I thought she would begin weeping. Instead, she said, “He was such a good-looking man.”

  “I’m sure he was,” said G. K.

  “We were going to be married. Did I tell you that?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Now he’s gone. Like everyone else I’ve ever loved. Gone, gone, gone.”

  “Did you kill him?” G. K. was testing her one last time.

  “I don’
t think so,” Merodie replied.

  G. K. slapped the table hard with the flat of her hand. The loud, unexpected noise not only startled the woman, it caused me to jump as well.

  “Just say no,” G. K. shouted. The walls repeated her words.

  Merodie rose slowly to her feet and looked straight at G. K. Her voice was firm. “No, I didn’t kill him.” In a smaller voice she asked, “Why do these things always happen to me?”

  G. K. fluffed her hair off the back of her neck with both hands, cooling it. We were both perspiring freely in the heat as we moved around the corner from the front door of the Anoka County Correctional Facility and made our way to the parking ramp. The weathergeeks said we could expect lows in the eighties and highs approaching a hundred degrees for the rest of the week without even a hint of rain. During winter, we actually long for this.

  “About Priscilla St. Ana,” G. K. said.

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll also talk to Merodie’s and Eli’s families, friends, neighbors, coworkers; examine their paper, you know, insurance, wills; try to get a handle on their relationship—everything a proper semiprofessional private investigator would do. Can you get me into her house?”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning?”

  “I’ll make some calls.”

  We left the sidewalk and moved into the parking ramp. The shade didn’t provide any comfort at all. G. K. had parked nose forward on the second level. We had just reached the Cruiser when another vehicle pulled up, blocking our way. It was a civilian car, a ‘93 Chevy Impala that looked like it had been left out in a hailstorm. Twice. City of Anoka Police Officer Boyd Baumbach, dressed in full uniform, was at the wheel.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I saw you on the sidewalk,” Baumbach said. “You filing a complaint or somethin’?”

  “You’re blocking the way.”

  He pointed his chin at G. K. “Who’s she?”

  “Why? You looking for another woman to beat up?”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  G. K. stepped around me. “Are you the police officer who assaulted my client?” she asked.