Good Cop/Bad Cop. Rebecca Cofer - Dartt
gray dawn was finally breaking after the longest night of the year.
Beno walked up to the house beside a set of fresh tire tracks, which he noticed were cut through the lawn. His boots made a crunching noise in the snow, the only sound to break the winter silence. The tracks missed the driveway by ten or fifteen feet and he could see they had swung wide out of the garage. By now, the faint stream of light was growing, penetrating the dull gray sky. As Beno turned from the front of the house and started walking around to the back, looking for footprints, he felt a gust of cold wind hit his face and the brim of his hat moved up and down. All he could see were deer tracks etched in the snow.
Beno rang the front doorbell, then walked to the side door and yelled, “Anybody home?” After he found the front and side doors locked, he entered the garage through an open bay and noticed a power tool on top of a dark sedan. Searching the area, he discovered an unlocked door inside the garage and entered the mud room, connected by a narrow hallway to the kitchen. Smoke was in the air, a panel of red lights was flashing on the right-hand wall, and he heard the beeping sound of smoke detectors in the background. He yelled out, “State Police,” as he walked into the kitchen.
It didn’t feel hot inside. Beno thought a chimney damper might have been shut and had trapped the smoke in the house. He stuck his hand next to the fireplace where there were burned logs and ashes, but they were cold. He walked into what he assumed was the family room, passing a Christmas tree. Haphazard boxes lay open underneath, and about them was strewn red and green wrapping paper. He saw a man’s jacket hanging on the staircase banister. Family photographs were displayed on the fireplace mantel. He kept calling out, “State Police, anybody here?” as he moved from room to room. He saw a gas can lying on its side on the carpet in the living room . The room smelled of gasoline, but nothing seemed burned.
Trying to hold his breath, Beno opened the front door and then some kitchen windows to let the smoke out. He lifted the receiver on the kitchen wall phone to call for assistance, but the line was dead. He looked down; the wires had been ripped out
“Jesus, what have I got here?” he asked himself out loud. Beno’s ten years’ experience as a trooper had been routine up to then—giving out speeding tickets, making DWI arrests, handling traffic accidents. With a heavy feeling in his chest, he hurried outside to his car and radioed for help. It was 7:30 A.M.
While waiting for his backups, Beno went back inside to see if anyone was still in the house and needed help. He raced up the stairs to the interior balcony that looked down on the family room. He opened the bedroom door at the top of the landing, but couldn’t see anything in the dark, smokefilled room. He flipped on the light switch and the bulb blew out. Thick smoke hung over the balcony making it difficult to breathe. He continued to call out, “State Police, anybody home?” He continued to call out as he opened doors to closets and looked into a room and bath down a short hall off the balcony. His eyes stung and watered from the smoke. Again and again he tried to catch his breath, finally having to go downstairs for air. A few minutes later back on the second floor, he noticed light coming from the room at the end of the hall. Walking toward it, he saw a demolished telephone and another gasoline can lying to the side of the door.
By this time he heard other cars. Three other troopers had arrived at the scene: Scott Hendershott, who had just gotten off the graveyard shift, and Michael Simmons in one car and William Standinger in another. Beno went downstairs, gave them a fast rundown on the scene, and grabbed Simmons’ flashlight. He returned to the room at the top of the stairs with Hendershott and Simmons. Beno opened the door and pointed the beam into the dark room. Slowly he moved the light around to the right as he took a step inside. “What in the hell’s going on here,” he mumbled.
Blackened mattress coils were protruding from a double bed, and drawers and clothes were strewn around on the floor. He took another step inside, directing the beam to his left. On the floor between a dresser and the bed, he saw the lower part of a human body; the rest of the torso was either covered with something or had burned up. The sight of charred, white flesh of human legs made Beno gasp. A muscle in his throat started to quiver as he screamed to Simmons, standing in the doorway, “Jesus, we’ve got a body in here!”
Beno thought it was a woman’s body they’d discovered. Remembering the family photographs he’d seen on the mantel downstairs, a morbid scenario went through his mind. He pictured the husband leaving in a hurry after he murdered the wife and kids, whom they’d probably find in another room. Domestic violence around the holidays was all too common. There was no sign anyone had been outside the house, and he couldn’t see any indication of a break-in.
Going on ahead, Standinger started to open the door at the end of the hall but quickly closed it after seeing a red glow.
The state troopers taped off the south side of the Harrises’ house before the firefighters arrived. They marked a route through the front door into the foyer, right through a passage in the kitchen, and up the stairs. This was the most direct route for the firefighters to bring equipment and would not destroy evidence downstairs. The troopers helped lay the hoses out. The object was to have as few people as possible inside. It helped to have Simmons on duty. As chief of the Berkshire Volunteer Fire Department, Simmons knew how to work with other firefighters. This saved time and prevented misunderstandings.
In his car on the way to his office to clear up a mountain of paperwork that sat on his desk, Investigator Charlie Porter clicked into the station’s radio service as he headed toward Route 13. Soon he heard John Beno over one of the frequencies going out to check an EID. A little later, Porter heard Beno say something about a fire.
“This can’t be,” he mumbled. “I’ve got too much work to do.” By the time he passed the Cayuga Heights exit, he heard over the radio about the ripped telephone cords and the gasoline can in the living room. Porter was well experienced and a twenty-year police veteran who had transferred to Ithaca in 1988 after a six-year stint with the narcotic unit in Binghamton. Damn, he thought. There’s no way I’m not involved now. An empty gas can made it obvious this was not an accidental fire.
Porter got off at the next exit. Triphammer Road, and headed for Ellis Hollow. He drove through the Cornell campus, still worrying about the desk work he had planned to do that day.
When he arrived at the scene, he pulled up next to Scott Hendershott, who was standing at the end of the driveway.
“What the hell have we got here, Scott?” he barked at Hendershott.
The trooper shook his head. “We found one body and fire engines are on the way.” Porter could see the property was already taped off. He had to make sure the troopers kept as much as they could of the inside scene undisturbed. He could see his own smokey breath as he walked up the driveway and met John Beno outside the front door. It was ten degrees, but with the wind chill factor it felt below zero. Snow had drifted against the doors and windows, and it had started snowing again.
“Well, you better tell me what you found, John. This is one hell of a way to start the day,” Porter complained, still hoping they could tie up the thing quickly. It ran through his mind that this was probably a family affair—people did crazy things at Christmas.
Ron Flynn walked out of the Bangs Ambulance building on Albany Street. He and his brother, both Emergency Medical Technicians, had just gotten off duty. They were trying to decide where to go for breakfast when Flynn’s pager beeped. It was Dryden’s Volunteer Fire and Rescue Squad: “We got a possible 1070 out Ellis Hollow Road, the number is 1886. We’ve been alerted to respond immediately.”
“1070,” Flynn repeated.
The Dryden chief’s assistant didn’t waste any time getting in his car and heading out to the east side of town when he heard about a body. Then a message came over his pager that the Varna Fire Department was to respond to a possible structure fire at the same address. “Okay,” he mumbled, “I’ll have to wait to eat.” He was glad they’d stopped by the donut shop for