Death-love: in, the Case of of Isabella de La Ree (Part II)
1972—fall (October)
Part Two (in prose only)
The Case and Head of:
Isabella de La Ree
(St. Paul, Minnesota, Cayuga Street)
I hadn’t the heart to write this before now, that terrible happening at the cemetery had upset me so. The poor dear, Ms Sara Ann Blasphe lost her head, I wonder now if it was my imagination of all things (for I had never seen this in the newspapers thereafter of a head missing, off her torso, or Sara’s demise). I wonder if there is any truth to my story, the one I wrote about Oakland Cemetery. Perhaps I got a brain fever or something, and then wrote it, it was a terrible thing indeed, and cause for me to think. I suppose I shall never know…. And yet, when I think of the witch (Isabella), I am certain of it all…yes, I believe it all myself. I remember how she looked at me, useless I felt, a solemn duty to stand still and watch in disbelief, I was asleep maybe, mad asleep…. I shall prepare to go back to that cemetery, get my senses back—I told myself several months ago I’d do this, ‘I need to prove to myself,’ I said, prove once and for all ‘if it is true or not true.’ I cannot speak for her; I have not seen her since that night. But I have heard she bought a house near the Cemetery, on Cayuga Street, and is living with a man. It is two blocks away from the Cemetery, and I drove by the house a few times. She has a burgundy colored 1971 Buick. She parks it on different streets each night, as if to hide from somebody, you know, not let them know if you are home or not home; perhaps is seeing someone on the side I’d not put it past her. As I have learned, she is a mysterious woman indeed (and as you may have learned had you read the first part of this weird story, where more truth is behind every sentence).
But what came about was this: I wanted to know if Sara’s head was where it was placed by her, Isabella, and so I needed to have Isabella see me, or at least talk to me, and because of this so many things unraveled. And now if you will be kind enough to bear with me, I shall explain the best I can what took place…:
—It was in December of 1972, 13-months had passed, Isabella bought the house with her boyfriend, I did not know his name at the time, so I shall call him Greg, and they were like two cats and dogs, fighting all the time, I head them from the big side window in their living room, saw their silhouettes—shadows. I told myself, I needed to be ready to talk to Isabella when Greg left, he surely was too jealous for me to ask if she and I could be alone for a simple conversation. In addition, hoping she got over the decapitation, as I was trying to do myself, yet she seemed at the time, withdrawn from the gore of it all. Had I asked, he most likely would have wanted me to tell all, and he would have found out other things, things that would spoil their relationship even worse than what I saw. I seen no way I could comfort him in bringing a request to ask questions of Isabella.
(Xmas—Police Station questioning Room) It was just before Christmas when I saw him leave, and her car parked in front of her garage, the house was on an embankment, the car some twenty-feet below the house. I hope you can pardon my writing, but inside my head I was by no means feeling she was a friend, in that she had involved me in a killing previously. If anything, I felt it was sad news to see these two folks together, if not fighting, and what they could have in common entered my mind, surely not two peas in a pod, if so, God help us all. On the other hand, I was not sure whom I was deeply concerned for, perhaps myself.
Thus, I knocked on the backdoor, and she came at once, surprised to see me, I implored her to help me with my little task. She said quickly,
“You should leave, forget Sara, she is dead, you do not know the great troubles you, terrible troubles you bring with you, and may be greater than you can know.”
I saw in her eyes, a kind of wanting to bring me into her love nest.
“You realize you and I must keep this private from all?”
“Oh yes,” I said, “it is privileged information, but I beg your pardon, Isabella, I need you to come with me to the cemetery, I do suffer from this nightmare, and if you do I will never enlighten your lover.”
She then invited me in, and we sat at the table in the dinning room—unthinkingly—and we talked, and when we did, I noticed her lover Greg drove by in a drug like vehicle, and I said nothing because I wanted to know more about what took place that evening, and the night before. Greg parked a ways down the block, I could see his vehicle from the window, and he stepped out, and walked over to the side of the garage and looked at us, I pretended not to see him.
And she explained to me, it all did take place and in a week or so she’d call me, and we could go see the head, and told me how good I was not to have said a word on the subject to anyone, and endured my suffering as I did, and pray I did not have to suffer much more. And then I pardoned myself, and left—Greg hiding by a tree, big large tree next to the garage.
Telephone call, Isabella de la Ree
December 29, 1972—Call me up as soon as you get this phone call, it is urgent.
Isabella de la Ree
“I cannot help but feel awful excited by your visit last week, perhaps it will bring us together again, for somehow I felt a light inside of me, sad experience we both went through, and I attached myself out of pity for myself to Greg, poor man, he is ill with jealousies, and I need to escape from this madhouse, and perhaps you can help me. How silly I was to have not contacted you sooner, an awful thing I did was to bring you into this mess in the first place, but what is done is done. The problem now is, Greg saw you, and feels I have been cheating on him with you, and I did explain we had one date, or was it two, and that was that. And now he has gone to my work and tries to spy on me, often waits for me in the house to return, and has hit me again, and again for this matter, I fear for my life.
“To be honest I had almost forgotten you.—ill I was after the killing, but now Greg wants me to tell him everything, and you are of course involved more than you think. I do not want to bring you harm my dear, I hope, not to. But you are right we must meet, and maybe on more of a lovers premise than on searching out the dead, although I would not blame you if you said no. I have done my crying over Sara, and I think I have cleared the air, and if it will help, after we meet each other a few times we can go back to the cemetery, but much trouble is in the air right now, and anxiety fills my every bone, bear to the roots, the marrow.”
Later. —Greg came to the house, after Isabella had gone to meet Lee Van Ness, listened to the playback on the telephone somehow he had it rigged to tape the whole conversation, and he would say later on,
“It made my head whirl like atop, as if it was numb, in a dream or nightmare!”
He was pacing now, back and forth from the front door, then back through the living room, dinning room, kitchen to the back pantry, where the backdoor was, then back again looking out of the door window to the front screened in patio, and beyond out and down the front embankment, into to the street.
He must have suffered mentally, for he couldn’t rest, and then he got a phone call, it was Isabella, she told him she wanted to pick up her things, she was leaving him. And he said, calmly, “Ok, when?”
Isabella knew he was too tranquil, something was wrong, the calm before the storm, she figured—and left well enough alone—for the time being.
—Isabella thought on returning to the house within the following two weeks, stayed at Lee’s house, but knew she’d have to return sooner or later to get her close. Terrible though it may be, she told Lee, she had to return. Lee simply said,
“I’d leave the cloths alone, we can buy new ones, just picture his eyes and ears and brain, have they not frightened you in the past, it should haunt you to the point it is not worth the trouble!”
But no matter what, her mind was fixed on getting her cloths removed from the house, and feeling she could bear the shock if he came home suddenly, but she’d do it when he was out drinking with his buddies.
(I shall try to record the following interview by Greg verbatim.)
—Greg: “It was a rare time for me, it was a long two weeks until she would come to the house, I was in the basement waiting, two o’clock in the mornings I’d pace the basement, in the dark, the arch light by the garage gave me a view of the side embankment stairway, I knew I’d see her when she came walking up those small stone steps, and I knew she’d come for her cloths, I parked my vehicle on a side street, turned all the lights off. As you know, I am a tall man, strongly built, shoulders set back a bit, but broad, a yawning chest, and thick neck; so she’d be but a little fight for me.
“Anyhow, I waited, went into my wine closest, where I kept my wine and vodka, and had in a refrigerator in the basement a case of beer, I was half wasted this last week before she came to the house. I had borrowed an automatic 45 gun, from Doug down the block, a friend of a friend from work, named Mike, and bought the house from his mother. Of course you all know that now anyways. I was a truck driver like Mike, and Doug, Doug owning his own truck driver, I and Mike, working for a contractor. Awe, I see you are not interested in those details officers so I will get back into what happened.
“As I was about to say, I saw a figure by the garage, it must have been 11:00 PM or so. It was Isabella, she opened the back door, as I expected, and woke me up, my daydreaming, and the dream I had gone over what I’d do, when I met her; hour after hour after hour I had gone over this. I tried to balance my chest and neck well on my trunk, and headed towards the stairs— indicative of my thoughts and the power in my being on how to do what I expected me to do.
“As you all know (the police listening), Isabella is not a small woman, well-sized, broad also, and large eyes, deep dark eyes, a beauty by all men’s estimates.
“I was not clean-shaven, I suppose I showed a hard look when she saw me: her mouth wide opened— definite, fixed mouth, a good-sized one at that, and sucked in nose as she took in a large breath of air and stepped back a bit, dropped her cloths where she stood, but I am getting ahead of myself. Let me unravel the moment again.
“I heard her foot steps above my head, thus I knew she was going to the living room, where the TV was, there on the side was one of the two bedrooms, our bedroom to be exact. Then she turned around, and walked through the living room and onto the dining room and onto the kitchen. During this time, oh Isabella de La Ree, I know her time had come to its end: poor girl I said to myself, but couldn’t help myself from the anger I had built up in that long, very long two weeks in the basement, afraid to even go to the bathroom upstairs, and so I had to pee in the drain where the washing machine drained its water.
“I finished my thinking, and a silent bow, moved from room to room, following her footsteps, then I quickly took long strides up the thirteen stairs to the doorway that lead into the kitchen, and I stormed out of the doorway, she was just opening up the door. I asked her what it was, why didn’t she wanted to stay, and she at once began by saying,
“Nothing, just let me be, leave me alone…” and I grabbed her with a grip, very hard grip, kicked the door shut, and some crying I couldn’t understand came out of her mouth.
“I told her I had listened to her phone call, and knew she was seeing someone else, but didn’t know the name, nor could make it out if it was on the phone message machine. I know you have been staying with him, I said but I really didn’t know for sure. You need not look surprised Officer, jealousy is not so perplexed, it sticks in your memory for facts afterwards, although usually it diminishes after the fact, its grip on you mind diminishes I mean, but she did not return, so there was no after the fact this time, and my jealousy grew and grew I suppose you could say. And if I could not have her no one could. The doctors say it is perhaps not wanting someone else to have her, a control issue, but it really was I think, none of those, I think it was, or partly anyways, if I let her go, she will tell everyone how cruel I treated her, and now she’d surely bring in the cops for her arms had burses on them already. (The police watched him as he talked; he seemed so cold and detached from his girlfriend, and really what he did.)
“In addition, it was to me about rage, just pure rage, perhaps a little power, because I did not want it to end, the relationship that is. The doctor I saw yesterday said I was a sociopath, not sure what that exactly is, sounds the same as psychopath (and perhaps he hit it on the nose, thought one of the police questioning him, having some kind of personality disorder marked by aggressive, violent, antisocial thoughts, and actions, behavior and a lack of remorse or empathy, an offensive term for some, but he felt if the shoe fits, what can you say.)
“I hit her, and hit her hard, she took it with a graceful bow to her knees, I drug her down stairs, and had sex, rapped her that is, with her on the floor, then I shot her—if you wish, killed her (the officer’s face fell as if it was for his telling of the story so decorously).
“As I said I shot her, but I could not resist the temptation to have more sex with her and so I did as she was dying. Mystifying it was, as if it was some kind of new taste, an original apple you might say, and during it all she remained still, I looked at her strangely, thinking she was still alive, but she wasn’t and I remembering saying: ‘Oh you witty woman, wake up and stop pretending!’ but she didn’t wake up. And I had to get rid of her body. That is when I thought of cutting her up, and bagging her, and leaving her on a roadway island, you know those that have a two way street, and the in-between land mass, that is a island, anyhow, I took the bags, her head in one, limbs in another, torso in another, and buried them under the snow, and I figured by spring you folks would find her, and now you did, it being the first of spring. Alas! I regret it not. And I knew by spring my little joke, would be over, that is why I went back to work, told everyone she left me for this other guy, and perhaps he’d get the murder charges, but of course he didn’t did he.”
“Forgive me,” said one of the police, “but I must leave,” he wished to ask a few more questions, but couldn’t.
“Don’t stay on my account,” said Greg, he smiled and his eyes glistened, and added, “May I read my confession now to see if you folks got it correct?”
(A woman was typing it out on a typewriter in the corner of the room, three police men sitting around a small table, Greg handcuffed hand to hand, leg to leg, with a chain in-between.
“By all means,” said one of the two officers left in the room, “read it over and make sure it is correct.”
“Then…” commented Greg “will you bring me my lunch? And then you can ask me more questions if you wish.”
He bent his head laying it onto his forearms, and tried to settle in the chair to rest. When the police came back with the lunch, he was pacing the room, wobbling like a duck with his chains on his feet, his eyes and face red with a blaze.
Labels: Dennis L. Siluk, Poeta Laureado
