Marjorie turns away and buries her face in Ted’s chest, sobbing.

  Chapter 33

  When Police Commander Ronald Freeman arrives, Officer Benson escorts him downstairs into Roy Kirk’s basement and gives him the rundown.

  “Lord have mercy,” Freeman says, looking at the carnage.

  Ann’s body has been cut in half above the waist, and her arms have been severed at the shoulder. The missing limbs are nowhere in sight, presumably already in trash bags. All that remains of Ann Hoover is her torso with the head still attached.

  Benson shines his flashlight deeper into the basement and shows his commander a spot on the far wall where bricks have been removed, exposing a dark tunnel just wide enough for a person to crawl through.

  “We believe he dug a hole through the wall,” Benson says, “then snuck into Miss Hoover’s residence on the other side, knocked her out, and dragged her back over here to try to dispose of the body.”

  “In all my years of police work,” says Freeman, who was a detective for two decades before becoming commander of investigations, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  The two walk back upstairs as the crime scene investigation team arrives.

  “Where does this go?” Freeman asks, pointing to the extension cord that runs from the basement, out the door, and down the sidewalk.

  “The suspect owns another house just down the street,” Benson says. “He lives there. Neighbors have told us he hooks together a bunch of extension cords so that he can get electricity from there to here.”

  Freeman says to Benson that he’s going to send a team of officers to search Roy’s primary residence.

  Next, he turns to the police van holding Roy Kirk.

  “You two,” he says, addressing the officers who arrived in the van, “take the suspect to the station and get him booked.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Freeman slaps his hand on the side of the van, making a hollow metallic ring.

  The suspect inside makes no sound in return.

  Chapter 34

  Police Commander Ron Freeman follows the extension cords down the street to Roy Kirk’s residence, where a crew of officers is already putting up police tape.

  “Have you been inside?” Freeman asks a lieutenant.

  “Yes, sir, and I think you’re going to want to see this.”

  Freeman stops as soon as he steps over the extension cord and sets foot inside the house. The smell is rank—the air stinks of roadkill.

  The front hallway is lined with small animal cages. Inside some of them, mice and hamsters scurry around piles of feces, clawing and biting at the tiny bars. In others, however, the animals are clearly dead, their bodies rotting and festering with maggots.

  Flies buzz in the air and crawl up and down the walls.

  “It gets worse,” the lieutenant tells him.

  Freeman peeks into the living room, which is as messy as Kirk’s other house, only instead of construction debris, this one is filled with magazines, newspapers, and more caged animals, some living and some dead.

  He catches a glimpse of pages torn from adult magazines—naked men and women in leather bondage.

  Freeman and the lieutenant walk upstairs, where another officer is standing sentry outside a door.

  “What the hell is in there?” Freeman asks.

  The lieutenant nods to the officer to open the door. When he does, Freeman is prepared for another horrific scene. Instead, he sees an ordinary bathroom, with a toilet, a sink, and a claw-footed bathtub with a shower curtain drawn around it. Nothing looks unusual—in fact, the room is quite a bit cleaner than the rest of the house.

  The officer steps forward, his moves careful and nervous, and slowly draws back the shower curtain.

  Coiled in the bathtub is the biggest snake Commander Freeman has ever seen. At least eight feet long and as thick as a two-liter soda bottle, the python slithers slowly toward the edge of the tub and pokes its massive head over the rim.

  “We think the suspect raised hamsters and mice to feed to his pet snake,” the officer says. “But for some reason, he stopped feeding all the animals and they started starving to death.”

  “So this thing’s probably pretty damn hungry,” the lieutenant says, gesturing to the python, which stares at them with cold black eyes. “You don’t think he was dismembering the victim to feed to this thing, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” says Freeman, whose stomach is tied in knots. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Once out in the hallway, he instructs the lieutenant to call animal control for help, then takes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes sweat beading on his brow.

  “This case,” he mutters. “I don’t think it could get any more bizarre.”

  He regrets his words a second later when another officer comes running through the house, his boots loud against the hardwood floor.

  “Sir,” he says to the commander, “we just heard from dispatch. You need to call the station. Something’s happened.”

  Chapter 35

  Around the same time the commander was entering Roy Kirk’s residence and seeing the first of the dead animals, Officers Larry Piper and Ricky Muñoz were driving the police van through the streets of Pittsburgh with Roy Kirk handcuffed and locked in the back. There’s no window for the officers to see into the back; the only windows are on the rear door of the van, and they are protected by thick metal mesh.

  Despite Roy’s earlier agitation, they haven’t heard a sound from the back of the van since beginning their drive. The station is only twelve minutes from the house on Lawn Street where they picked up the murder suspect, and Piper and Muñoz spend the time discussing what they know about the case.

  “I guess the guy just lost it,” Piper comments. “All of this, over a housing dispute.”

  “Just when you think you’ve seen it all,” Muñoz says.

  As they pull to the outer door of the jail, another officer steps out to greet them.

  “Is this the murderer?” he asks.

  “Let’s be careful,” Piper says. “He went ballistic when they arrested him.”

  Cautiously, Piper swings the door open, and the three officers look inside.

  For a moment, it appears that Roy Kirk is lying down, asleep. But his head is not flat against the metal floor. His face, now a pale blue color, is suspended ten or twelve inches off the floor, held there by a leather belt coiled around his neck.

  Despite his hands being cuffed behind his back, Roy Kirk had somehow managed to take off his belt, feed it through a gap in the metal mesh, and make a noose to hang himself.

  “Call the paramedics!” Piper shouts, climbing into the van to loosen the noose.

  Yet even when Piper gets Roy’s head free, he does not gasp for air. Color does not return to his face. Muñoz tries to take his pulse, but blood no longer pumps through Roy’s arteries. His body temperature has already dropped, and his skin is cool to the touch.

  His empty eyes stare vacantly, with no sign of life behind them.

  Chapter 36

  Two months later, Police Commander Ron Freeman sits on the stand of the Allegheny County Courthouse, ready to testify during the coroner’s inquest into the deaths of Ann Hoover and Roy Kirk.

  If Roy had lived, Freeman would be testifying at his murder trial. Instead, the city is holding an inquest to clarify the facts of the two deaths and to ensure that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the police in his death.

  Instead of a prosecutor and a defense lawyer, there is only the city solicitor asking all the questions.

  The courtroom is filled. Rebecca Portman, Roy Kirk’s former fiancée, sits alone in the front row. Behind her Ann Hoover’s family—her parents, her brother, and her sister. Many neighbors who knew both Ann and Roy are present, including Marjorie Wilson and Ted Fontana, who first raised suspicions that something was wrong.

  Freeman has sat in numerous courtrooms over the years, testifying in murder trials or inquests, but he’s never seen a courtroom atmosphere quite like this. Often courtrooms feel divided in two—friends and family of the victim on one side, friends and family of the suspected murderer on the other. Tensions are always high between the two camps. They cast hateful glances at each other. Sometimes words are said.

  But not today.

  Everyone present is saddened by the senselessness that left two people dead.

  Everyone here is a victim.

  For the last hour, Freeman has been explaining what the police believe happened. Sometime the night before the scheduled court hearing, Roy Kirk dug a tunnel from his property to Ann Hoover’s and snuck inside. He struck her in the head with a hammer and dragged her, unconscious or at least unable to move, back over to his property, where he strangled her with an electrical cord. Afterward, he began dismembering her body and placing the pieces in garbage bags.

  “We believe that when the officers showed up that morning, they interrupted what Mr. Kirk was doing,” Freeman says. “Given another day, or even a few more hours, he might have been able to discard the body and cover up the evidence that he broke into her home.”

  In the audience, Marjorie weeps. Even though she’d been the one to raise the alarm, Ann had already been long dead by that point.

  “Commander,” the city solicitor says to Freeman, “let’s talk now about the death of Mr. Kirk. How did this happen?”

  Freeman explains that during the investigation of Roy Kirk’s suicide, an officer attempted to re-create his actions. The officer put on the same pants and belt that Roy Kirk had worn, and had his hands shackled behind him in the exact same way.

  They discovered, Freeman explains, that even with his hands behind his back, the officer was able to slide the belt through the loops of the pants until he could get his hands on the prong that fastened it. Once the belt was unhooked, the officer was able to take it off. Then, standing upright, with his hands still cuffed behind him, the officer managed to loop one end of the belt through the metal mesh on the windows of the van door, and was able to squeeze his head through the loop at the other end and use it as a noose.

  “Mr. Kirk must have leaned down, causing the loop to tighten, and asphyxiated himself,” Freeman explains.

  The solicitor follows the explanation with a series of questions about police procedure when locking a prisoner in a police van. Freeman insists that the officers followed protocol.

  “The ride to the police station is only twelve minutes,” the solicitor says. “Is that enough time for him to do this? While bouncing around in a moving vehicle?”

  “We believe Roy Kirk was dead before the van even left for the station,” Freeman says, explaining that Roy Kirk had been in the police van for about twenty minutes before it left the scene to be driven to the station—a not unusual amount of time, he clarified, since officers were busy securing the crime scene and dealing with other matters.

  It was true that no one had checked on Kirk before they left, but nor was it protocol that they should have checked.

  “It’s easy to second-guess what we might have done differently, but our officers followed procedure,” Freeman says. “To commit suicide in such a way takes an incredible act of dexterity and determination. The bottom line is that Roy Kirk wanted to die, and nothing was going to stop him.”

  Chapter 37

  Your Honor,” the city solicitor says, “for my next witness, I call to the stand Rebecca Portman, Roy Kirk’s fiancée.”

  Rebecca Portman, a petite woman with a haunted, haggard expression on her face, walks to the stand and is sworn in by the bailiff.

  “I didn’t know Roy was engaged,” Ted whispers, leaning in close to Marjorie.

  “I think there’s a lot we didn’t know about Roy,” she whispers back.

  Rebecca looks out at the full courtroom, every eye on her. She wants to burst into tears. She can’t believe she is here.

  “Ms. Portman,” the solicitor says, “how well did you know Roy Kirk?”

  “I thought I knew him well,” she says. “But it turns out I didn’t know him at all.”

  The woman describes how she and Roy had been dating for almost two years. But after he bought the eight houses—and specifically the house on Lawn Street next to Ann Hoover—he’d become increasingly stressed-out.

  “He was depressed,” she says. “He wouldn’t talk about it, but I could tell. He became very distant. A different man from the one I thought I knew.”

  Rebecca says he stopped letting her come over to his house. He claimed he was receiving crank phone calls at the residence, and that someone had thrown firebombs at the building. One day she showed up unexpectedly at his house and found him with his head and leg in bandages. He claimed to have been shot; he limped and seemed to be in tremendous pain.

  “The medical examiner found no evidence of gunshot wounds,” the solicitor notes.

  “I’m the victim of his bizarre deceptions,” Rebecca says, “just like everyone else.”

  She says that she knew about the fines for his derelict property and about his feud with Ann Hoover.

  “I asked him to let me talk to her—Ann,” she continues. “I thought I could help alleviate the tension there. Find some way to compromise. But he wouldn’t let me see her. He said he had everything under control.”

  When Rebecca’s testimony is finished, the judge excuses her, then calls for a recess so he can meet one-on-one with the medical examiner who inspected the bodies. Thirty minutes later, court is called back to order.

  The judge takes a deep breath and says, “I think we know as much about the deaths of Ann Hoover and Roy Kirk as we’re going to. There’s no dispute that late the night of March twenty-fourth or early the morning of March twenty-fifth, Roy Kirk tunneled his way into the home of Ann Hoover, abducted her, and murdered her. A few hours later, Mr. Kirk committed suicide while in police custody.

  “What we may never fully understand,” the judge continues, “is what happened inside the mind of Roy Kirk. What made this likable, seemingly ordinary young man go to such horrifying measures? We know he was under a lot of pressure. We know he was in a feud with Ann Hoover. We know he faced significant financial penalties. But, as far as I can tell, his own actions got him into that mess. And his own lack of action kept him in the mess.

  “By all accounts, Roy Kirk was a friendly, likable gentleman. But murdering your neighbor over a property dispute is not what a normal, emotionally stable person does. Tunneling into a house shows premeditation. This wasn’t a momentary crime of passion—he planned it ahead of time. Did Roy Kirk have a psychological break from reality brought on by stress? Did he snap? Or was he always a psychopath, hiding his true self from everyone? We may never know who the real Roy Kirk was.

  “I think that is what’s most disturbing about this case,” the judge continues. “It makes you wonder how well you can ever truly know someone.”

  Epilogue

  June 1, 2002

  Marjorie Wilson and Ted Fontana walk down the sidewalk. It’s a warm morning, and they’re on their way to the grand opening of a new neighborhood park. Marjorie carries a bouquet of flowers. The two longtime friends say very little—despite the pleasant occasion, their mood is somber.

  In some ways, today is a day of celebration. In others, it’s a day of sadness.

  The new park they’re headed to is going to be named after their friend, Ann Hoover. Today would also have been Ann’s fiftieth birthday.

  But their hearts are heavy, because of course Ann did not live to see either her birthday or the park dedicated in her honor.

  When they arrive at the park, they join the large crowd already gathered, enjoying hamburgers and cake. Church leaders and local politicians are scheduled to speak, and the North Hills High School marching band is assembled and ready to play a tribute to Ann, an alumna of their school.

  The five-acre park itself is beautiful, with a pathway made of paving bricks leading through well-groomed lawns to a wooden gazebo standing as the centerpiece. The property was donated by Ann’s friend, Jennifer Cavanaugh, and the township pitched in fifteen thousand dollars for the work. Another fifty thousand came from state grants, and another thirty thousand from the sale of commemorative bricks that line the gazebo floor. Even with all that, volunteers put in nearly two thousand hours of work, planting flowers, installing benches, and pruning shrubbery.

  Ann’s death had brought out the best in the neighborhood, bringing the community together to support the park project. Even people who had never met Ann came out to volunteer, getting their hands dirty in the kind of community-building effort she would have loved.

  The end result is even better than anyone could have foreseen. The park is the perfect community-center space that Ann always hoped would be possible for the neighborhood. There are already plans to use the park for a summer community picnic, ice cream socials, and an Easter egg hunt next spring.

  Marjorie and Ted watch as various speakers stand before a podium and discuss the project.

  Jennifer Cavanaugh stands up to talk about how when she was a little girl, Ann used to babysit her, and that before she died, Ann gave piano lessons to her young daughter, just like she’d given Jennifer when she was a child.

  “Ann wanted what was best for everyone,” says Jennifer. “And she loved this community. We want this park to be more of a celebration of her life than a memorial of her death.”

  The park includes a commemorative stone marker—almost like a gravestone—that reads:

  ANN ALISON HOOVER MEMORIAL PARK

  DEDICATED 1 JUNE 2002

  Marjorie lays the bouquet of flowers she brought on the gravel at the base of the marker.

  Throughout the commemoration, no one mentions how Ann Hoover died. But Marjorie assumes everyone, like her, is thinking about it.

  After the ceremony, she and Ted walk back home via Lawn Street. They stop in front of the row house that Ann and Roy once shared. After the murder, the city impounded Roy’s half of the row house, fixed it up, and sold it to new owners at a bargain price. Ann’s family sold her property to a young couple hoping to make a good life in the neighborhood.