Which might have been why the town was so quick to turn against Rob after her death. In Toms River, you’re supposed to take better care of your possessions.
7
On Sunday morning, the Asbury Park Press quoted the county prosecutor as saying, “The investigation is continuing.”
Friends of Rob’s were quoted as saying such things as, “He’s a very organized person, very energetic, personable. He makes people feel very confident in him,” and, “Rob is a very giving person. Anything he takes up to do he gets totally involved in. It’s the same with his job, his tennis, his family. He always gives one hundred percent.” Another friend said, “He and Maria are very close.”
An aerobic-dance instructor said, “They took workouts together, exercises to music. They were definitely a happy couple.”
Another aerobic-dance instructor said, “People admired her because she seemed to have the ideal family and lifestyle. You know, like you’d see on TV.”
A housewife from the neighborhood said, “She really enjoyed life and being with her husband. She was a super-perfect type of wife. I don’t know why anyone would want to kill her.”
The press, however, was getting tired of talking to neighbors. Reporters had been camped outside the Marshalls’ house for forty-eight hours, watching the steady stream of relatives, neighbors and friends come and go. The county prosecutor and state police still said only that the investigation was continuing but there was no progress to report. The press wanted more. The press wanted access to the family, preferably to Rob himself. This was the message relayed by visitor after visitor throughout Sunday morning and afternoon.
Rob would have been happy to talk, but Ray DiOrio had been adamant about that. Do not talk to anyone, DiOrio had said the day before, during the breakfast meeting at a diner on Route 37. Say nothing, DiOrio had told him. Not one word to anyone about anything.
That had been the first rule. The second concerned Felice. DiOrio instructed Rob to have absolutely no contact of any kind with her. No meetings, no phone calls, no letters, no tapes. Pretend she didn’t exist. And Ray DiOrio was the sort of man whose admonitions one heeded. Especially when one’s wife had just been murdered and when the police were already acting (as they had at the Bass River barracks early Friday morning) distinctly unfriendly.
But it was hard for Rob, just when he was, for the first time, revealing his love for Felice to close friends and family, to cut himself off from her suddenly. For the past year, the two of them had averaged three or four encounters per week, had exchanged cassette tapes into which they’d murmured words of love (Rob had even rented a Toms River post office box to facilitate the tape exchanges) and had spoken on the phone at least daily and often several times a day.
Now, at the most stressful moment of his life, at the time when he needed her most, he could not have her. He was not even permitted to hear her voice. To make it worse, Rob had been told by Brookside friends that police had stopped Felice’s car on the Garden State Parkway Friday afternoon and had taken her in for questioning. He’d also heard that David had become so furious when he’d learned of the affair that he’d banished her from the house.
No matter. Ray DiOrio had said stay away. And keep your mouth shut. So Rob was determined to do both.
By midafternoon, however, he’d decided that it would not look good for the whole family to remain in seclusion. He did not want it to appear that they had anything to hide. He told Roby that it was his duty as the oldest son to go out to the front lawn and speak to the press. He instructed Roby to tell them what a wonderful person Maria had been and to inform them that he, Rob, was still too grief-stricken to appear.
Roby walked tentatively down the driveway and spoke in a somber and hesitant voice. Despite his lifeguard’s build and curly blond hair, there seemed something vulnerable and almost waiflike about him as he began to talk about his mother.
“She wanted everyone to like her,” Roby said, “and they all did. You really didn’t have to know my mom to love her, you just had to know of her. She’s one of a kind. How can I put it into words? We have friends in and out all day and it’s like, even though my mom is gone, she’s taking care of us through her friends, because they loved her, too. She was just a classy, beautiful lady.
“My father’s still trying to get over the shock. So my brothers and I have decided we’re going to be tough. For him. He needs it now. We’re going to do as much as we can and just take care of everything my mom would have.”
As Roby stood in front of the house, eyes red-rimmed from tears and exhaustion, explaining how the boys were going to try to help their father deal with the pain of his loss, Gene Leahy and Sal Coccaro were sitting on the rear deck, gazing out over the pool.
All day, friends had been calling Sal aside and speaking to him in low and worried tones, passing on some of the rumors which already were sweeping the town.
“What do you think?” Gene said.
Sal sighed and shook his head. He looked ten years older than he had when he’d arrived at the house Friday morning. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to think. But I can tell you what a lot of other people think. A lot of other people think he’s involved.”
“Nice town,” Gene said.
“What do you mean?”
“Where your friends and neighbors are so quick to think the worst of you.”
“Hey, go easy,” Sal said. “People got reasons.”
“Such as?”
Sal scratched his bald head. “Look, I can talk to you, right? I mean, I don’t really know you very well, but you seem like a good guy to me. A straight shooter. Not full of bullshit.”
Gene nodded and grinned. “So far, so good. You want to quit while you’re ahead?”
“The thing is,” Sal said, not grinning, “I’m hearing so much stuff I just need somebody to talk to. You know, somebody who can maybe help me put it in perspective.”
“Well, I’ll try,” Gene said, “but I’d better tell you up front that there are a few things I’m having trouble with perspective on myself.”
“Just sit here a minute,” Sal said. “I’m going to go get us a couple of beers. You like beer?”
“Beer’s fine,” Gene said.
When he returned, Sal leaned forward and began to talk almost immediately. “One thing I’m hearing,” he said, “is that Rob was familiar with that site. That Oyster Creek. I’m hearing he’d been there a couple of times with Felice. They used it as a place to make out when they didn’t have time to get to a motel. I hear the troopers chased them out of there a couple of times. Rob had his pants down, or her pants down, or something. Trooper said you can’t do that sort of thing along the parkway. Said next time he’d arrest the both of them.”
Gene nodded.
“So, you’re a lawyer,” Sal said. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s better if you can get to a motel,” Gene said, “but you don’t have to be a lawyer to think that.”
“No, I mean, is it bad? Is it suspicious? That he was already familiar with the site? That he’d been there with Felice, for Christ’s sake?”
“Frankly, if you’re talking strictly in terms of whether or not it tends to cast more or less suspicion on him, I might think less, in that if it was a site he was already familiar with, it’s not quite so strange that he’d pull in there to check a flat tire.”
“All right,” Sal said. “You want something that’s strange? How about this? How about his whole fucking story? You think anybody’s gonna watch some turkey rake in ten thousand bucks at a blackjack table at Harrah’s and they want to take it off him, so what they do is they let him get into his car and they follow him forty miles up the parkway in the middle of the night, hoping that maybe, just maybe his tire would go flat and that he’d be dumb enough to pull into the Black fucking Forest to change it?”
Gene nodded. “The story has problems,” he said. “I’ve already told Rob that they’ll be apparent to a prosecutor. So, what else?”
br />
“The tire,” Sal said. “At least six people have already told me they know for a fact—don’t even ask how everybody knows everything for a fact when the cops haven’t said word one to anybody, that’s just the way Toms River works—they know for a fact that the tire wasn’t ‘mushy’ or ‘wishy-washy’ or any of the other words Rob’s been using. The tire was slashed with a knife. There’s some kind of big, raggedy tear halfway across it. The condition of that tire, you couldn’t drive from here to the pool.”
“Not good,” Gene said.
“You bet your ass, not good. And the other thing, which even my kids have figured out for Chrissakes, is that that picnic area is only a couple of miles beyond the toll plaza, and only about four miles before you hit the Roy Rogers, which is open twenty-four hours a day.
“You got a mushy, wishy-washy tire, what’re you going to do at half past midnight? You’re going to stop at the goddamned toll plaza, which is lit up like Giants Stadium for a night game, and you’re going to say to one of the guys, ‘Hey, my tire’s a little soft, I’m going to pull over to the side here and change it.’ Christ, you’re probably going to have three state cops fighting over who gets to hold your hubcap for you while you do it, and they’ll be serving Maria fucking demitasse. That’s what you’re going to do.
“And if for some reason, like maybe you had a couple extra rum and Cokes while you were supposedly winning all that money at the casino, and you don’t want the assistance of the state police, you drive your mushy, wishy-washy tire another four miles to the fucking Roy Rogers. There, you can take your wife inside and buy her a plate of week-old french fries while some minimum-wage gas pumper changes it for you. And then you can tip him ten bucks out of all those thousands you got in your pocket and you feel like a big shot again.
“Gene—you know as well as I do, probably better, that Rob Marshall never changed a tire in his life. This is a guy who insists on fresh ice cubes every time somebody offers him another drink. He wouldn’t know which end of the jack was up. You get your hands dirty changing a tire and Rob don’t like dirty hands. Especially at half past midnight in the woods.
“And Maria, for Chrissakes, that woman was more scared of the dark than a two-year-old. She used to jump out of her skin every time she walked into a movie theater. She’s sure as hell not going to sit there like little Mrs. Goodwife while Rob pretends his Eldorado is an ATV and he takes her into the forest like Little Red Riding Hood to visit Grandmother.”
“He says she was asleep,” Gene said.
“Yeah. I know. He says a lot of things. Which is why Ray DiOrio told him to keep his mouth shut. But I’m not telling you what he says. I’m telling you what everybody else is saying about him already and they haven’t even had the mass yet for Maria.”
“It’s not good,” Gene repeated.
“Don’t misunderstand, Gene, I love Rob like a brother and—”
“You’re one up on me, then.”
“Huh?”
“I only love him like a brother-in-law. Besides which, I used to work in the attorney general’s office in Delaware. And I can guarantee you this much—Ray DiOrio or no Ray DiOrio, these Ocean County guys are going to cut him a new asshole before they’re done.”
The next day, Monday, was the day on which the memorial mass was said for Maria at St. Joseph’s Church. It was not a funeral because, within hours of the murder, Rob had ordered her body cremated and cremation had occurred before anyone from the state police or prosecutor’s office had thought to prevent it.
Rob was up early again, this time making sure that Jack Rogers and Sal Coccaro had arranged everything with the caterer for the big reception he planned to have back at the house after the service. Rob said he wanted the house filled with people—Maria’s friends—because “that was the way she would want it.”
Upstairs, at 10 A.M., Roby walked down the hall to wake up Chris. One of their mother’s friends was downstairs, waiting to take the three boys out to buy new suits for the service. Maria had always been especially proud of how well her sons had dressed for church.
Chris was lying on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling, wondering how he would ever get through the day. “I can’t do it,” he said to Roby.
“Chris, come on. Mrs. Fallon is waiting.”
“I can’t do it. I just can’t. I can’t even get out of bed. I just can’t make myself. I want to stay here forever.”
“Goddamn it, Chris, pull yourself together.”
Chris suddenly sat upright. “Why the hell should I?” he shouted.
“Why the hell should any of us?” He leaned forward, put his head in his hands and started to cry.
“What are you going to say next? You want your mommy?”
“Yes. Yes! What’s wrong with that?! I do want my mommy. And you want her, too. And so does John. But none of us will ever have her again. Has that really sunk in yet, Roby? This isn’t just a bad dream. We’re not going to wake up from this. This is the way it’s going to be for the rest of our lives.”
“Yeah, that’s right, Chris. This is the way it’s going to be. So maybe it’s time you started growing up so you can deal with it.”
“Oh, give me a break. I’m not some reporter. You don’t have to feed me that let’s-be-tough-for-Dad bullshit.”
For a moment Roby felt himself getting angry. But it passed as he looked at his brother’s anguished face. “Hey, Chris,” he said in a new and softer tone of voice.
“What?”
“You know Mom would want us looking good today. Let’s go buy a couple of suits.”
Chris lay back down, as if his own outburst had used up his quota of energy for the day. “Nope,” he said. “I can’t do it, Roby. The first time I tried something on I’d remember why I was doing it and you’d have to scrape me up off the floor. Besides, Mom’s not here anymore. So there’s no sense trying to make her happy. All she is is ashes, Roby, and that’s all she’s ever going to be. There isn’t any Mom anymore, so why give a damn how we look?”
Now it was Roby who started to cry. As he did, he leaned over Chris and hugged him tight.
What people remembered most about the memorial service was the reception back at the house afterward, how much like a party it seemed. Not that it was a party that the boys enjoyed much, but Rob himself seemed almost ebullient. He bustled from room to room, freshening drinks, urging food upon the guests, shaking hands heartily and saying repeatedly, “Don’t you think Maria would have loved this? Don’t you think this is just the way she’d want it done?”
So inappropriate was his apparent enthusiasm for the event that later many would say it was that behavior that first caused them to suspect that the rumors of his involvement in the murder might have some basis in fact.
Certainly, by Monday afternoon, the rumors were everywhere. Rather odd, actually: to attend a memorial service for such a well-known and well-liked member of the community, who had been murdered in such shocking fashion, and to hear murmuring throughout the church (and louder murmuring back at the house) that the police considered her husband a suspect.
And then to have him standing right there, beaming at you and waiting to be congratulated on the lavishness of the food and drink (the way Maria would have wanted it—she loved to travel first class).
There was at least one guest at the reception who was not content to murmur. This was Madge Kenyon, wife of the lawyer Tom Kenyon. Both Roby and Chris, who were in separate parts of the house at the time, heard the sound of voices suddenly raised. Or at least one voice. Madge Kenyon was shouting.
Even though she was standing right in front of Rob, she was shouting and waving a finger in his face. “You’d better not have had anything to do with this!”
There was more, but that was the sentence both Roby and Chris remembered. Roby was shocked, then angered. What right did Madge Kenyon or anyone else have to walk up to his father within an hour of the memorial service and start yelling crap like that at him?
&nbs
p; Chris, however, just stood there staring at the scene. So somebody else feels the way I do, he said to himself. He didn’t know why she would, just as he didn’t know why he did, and he didn’t think he should ask her. But in a strange way Mrs. Kenyon’s outburst made him feel a little better about himself. At least, if he was crazy or sick or just plain bad for having had thoughts like he’d had, he wasn’t the only one who’d had them.
Roby stood by the pool looking at all the people milling about (there were at least 150, maybe 200 at the reception) and thinking, Pretty soon they’ll all be gone and I’ll be alone.
And by evening they were gone, and so was Chris, driven back to Lehigh by Uncle Gene. Rob stepped onto the deck and motioned for Roby to join him. He was holding a glass that might have contained rum and Coke to start with but seemed now to be mostly melted ice. From the look on his face, Roby could tell he wanted to have one of his “man-to-man” talks.
“Roby,” he said, “I think I’d better tell you something. Man to man.”
“What is it, Dad?”
“The atmosphere, ah, the ah, climate, so to speak, is turning pretty negative around town. A lot of people seem to think I’m—that I’m involved.”
“Yeah, I heard Mrs. Kenyon. But that’s crazy, Dad. That’s really crazy. And it pisses me off.”
“Yes, but you know the people in this town. A bunch of phonies. Shallow, materialistic phonies. All they care about is the size of your bank account. Now that there are rumors that we were having financial difficulties they’re eager to walk all over me.”
“Yeah, but thinking you—that you had something to do with—you know, with Mom—Mom’s death…What kind of bullshit is that?”
“That’s just what it is, son. It’s bullshit. And I know you know it. Just never forget it, whatever you may hear in the days ahead.”
“What am I going to hear in the days ahead?”
“I don’t know. More of the same, I guess. More crazy, ugly stories by people who have to titillate themselves by trying to pile scandal on top of tragedy.”