Don’t Look Behind You

cautiously.
    “And that was the same gun that was used to kill Vickie Notaro. Correct?”
    “I believe so.”
    “And today you testified that you learned of your brother killing Vickie Notaro
after
he killed Joseph Tarricone, after he had already arrived here? Was that your testimony today?”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “Isn’t it true that you told the detectives not once—but twice—that you learned over the telephone that your brother killed Vickie Notaro
before
he came to Seattle?”
    “I remember telling them that once, and then a couple of questions later, I corrected myself.”
    “You told them twice. You’re saying you told them once?”
    Dawn Farina was getting to Renee Curtiss, who hastened to insist that she had
not
known Vickie was dead before Nick came down, but her answers were becoming more and more jumbled.
    “How did you react when Nick told you about that?”
    “The same way I would assume most people would. I mean, a little bit of horror—”
    That was what she had said to Benson and Wood, too. “A little bit of horror.” Still, the defendant’s face mirrored no horror at all. No emotion.
    Now Renee’s memory was failing her. She could not recall driving Nick to buy the chain saw. She wasn’t sure if Joe’s body had been left in the basement for a few days. She admitted that Joe could not have fit into the small freezer there. She just couldn’t recall.
    “You helped dismember Joseph Tarricone’s body, didn’t you?” Dawn Farina pressed.
    “I was there. I was present. Absolutely.”
    “Do you recall taking a turn with the chain saw?”
    “No—I remember [the detectives] telling me that. I did tell them I used it on him.”
    “Joseph Tarricone’s arms were cut off. Correct?”
    “Correct.”
    “Joseph Tarricone’s legs were cut off. Correct?”
    “Correct.”
    “Joseph Tarricone’s head was cut off. Correct?”
    “Correct.”
    Renee agreed that the victim’s body parts were put into large garbage bags and carried to the backyard. She could no longer remember whether they were carried out the basement door or through the house. It was all so vague to her, but the deputy prosecutor was relentless. As distasteful as a retelling of the details was, it had to be done.
    Renee was showing the first emotion in the trial; she was growing increasingly annoyed with the blond prosecutor.
    “During the conversation you had with Jerry Burger of the Des Moines Police Department—who testifiedhere—you told him that the last time you saw Joseph Tarricone was when he came to your house with two tickets to Rome, Italy. Correct?”
    “I believe what he [Burger] said, yes.”
    “And that was a lie. Correct?”
    “Yes, it was a lie.”
    “You told Detective Burger that Joseph wanted you to go to Italy with him. Correct?”
    “I have no reason to disbelieve him [Burger].”
    Dawn Farina had carefully compared all of the statements that Renee and other witnesses had made to the Pierce County detectives, and now her cross-examination was a juggernaut as she elicited answers from the defendant, answers that could not possibly match her earlier statements. Farina peppered Renee with questions that ended with, “Correct?” and, “And that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
    More than a dozen times, Renee answered, “Yes, that was a lie.” More than three dozen times, she responded, “I don’t know, I can’t recall—I cannot recall specifically.”
    Often, she testified, “I have no reason to disbelieve him—or her,” when faced with what others said she had told them.
    Over three decades, she had lied to police detectives, her relatives, the men in her life, virtually
everyone
with whom she interacted. How could anyone—even someone as clever as Renee Curtiss—remember which things she had told to which people? She was desperate to convince the jurors that she had not planned Joe Tarricone’s murder, enlisted her suggestible brother, or even been present when Joe was shot twice in the head.
    Now each of Farina’s questions brought forth another coil of untruths that trapped Renee in a cage of her own creation.
    Renee admitted her statement to the Pierce County detectives, but she acknowledged only that she
was
present in the old yellow house on Canyon Road while Joe Tarricone’s body was being sawed into pieces. She denied vociferously that she had asked her brother to help her get rid of the victim, who was “stalking” her. She insisted that she had never even suggested