Don't Look Behind You and Other True Cases (18 page)

She had done nothing to ingratiate herself with the jury; Renee Curtiss seemed offended that she had even had to answer her own attorney’s questions.

If Renee Curtiss’s
testimony in her own defense had left jurors and court-watchers sick to their stomachs, revulsed by a side of life they might never have imagined, what would happen now as Deputy Prosecutor Dawn Farina rose to cross-examine her?

Renee eyed Farina warily as she faced questions not designed to make her look even marginally innocent.

“When detectives Benson and Wood contacted you on March 24, 2008, they advised you of your Miranda warnings? Correct?” Farina began.

“That’s correct.”

Yes, Renee agreed that it was her signature on the bottom of the rights form, and her initials after each warning. Yes, Ben Benson had offered to take her to see her husband’s doctor. Yes, she had worked for Joe for over a year, and he had bought her many presents.

“He paid for your rent while you were in Alaska?”

“No. I told [the detectives] that I was generously compensated. If they wanted to consider that he was paying
me a wage, that’s fine. If they want to say he paid the rent, I was generously compensated.”

Dawn Farina brought out the fact that Renee had been the business manager at Henry’s Bail Bonds. She was no neophyte when it came to the justice system.

Renee’s demeanor was frosty and unemotional. Most of her answers to Farina’s cross-examination questions were, “I don’t recall.”

She could not remember meeting Joe’s children or talking with them on the phone after he vanished. She agreed that she might not have told the Pierce County detectives that she lived at two addresses at the time Joe was killed. It didn’t seem important.

“The only time that Nick Notaro came to the Puyallup house was the one time Joseph Tarricone was killed. Correct?”

“Correct.”

Yes, Nick had stayed at the Puyallup house, and Joe had been there several times, although he didn’t stay over.

“He came to the barbecue during the summer of 1978 and brought meat to grill for you and your family. Correct?”

“I don’t specifically remember meat—but he could have.”

“Do you recall him being there for the barbecue?”

“Yes.”

Farina switched to Renee’s invitation to her brother to come down and help her at the Canyon Road house. After repeated questions, Renee thought she might have mentioned that Joe was “harassing” her. “I mean that [Nick]
was well aware of Joe’s harassment. Due to conversations with my mom and me.”

“And you never called the police to report Joe’s harassment of you while you were living in Puyallup or in Washington State?”

“Correct.”

“Nick Notaro brought with him from Alaska the gun that was used to kill Joseph Tarricone?”

“I believe so,” Renee said 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 testified
here—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 that. She had asked him to come visit in Puyallup solely because their mother was putting too much pressure on her. She had never said what kind of pressure Geri Hesse was exerting—whether it was emotional or just full of annoying demands.

“No. No. No.” She was not present when Joe Tarricone was killed. Sarcastically, she asked the deputy prosecutor, “Do you really think I would not remember if someone was shot in my basement?”

As Dawn Farina zeroed in on the process involved in dissecting a six-foot-plus man into manageable pieces, the jurors listened carefully, some turning pale and others looking ill.

Gypsy Tarricone, who still calls Dawn Farina “the little spitfire,” for her fearlessness in bringing her father’s murder case to trial and for her incisive cross-examining of Renee, listened and watched avidly. She could see that Renee was no match for Dawn.

Renee clearly detested the prosecutor, answering her questions curtly.

Using Renee’s earlier statement to Ben Benson and Denny Wood, Farina read aloud what the defendant had said on March 24, 2008—now fourteen months in the past.

“You first said that you didn’t talk on the phone to Nick in Alaska before he came down here,” Farina said. “And that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, that was a lie.”

“And you said that you didn’t know that Nick’s wife, Vickie Notaro, was dead before he came down here. And that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, that was a lie.”

“You said you didn’t know where Joe Tarricone was when he disappeared, didn’t you? And that was a lie?”

“Yes, that was a lie.”

Renee’s eyes shot daggers at Dawn Farina.

“You told Dean Tarricone [Joe’s youngest son] that you had never spoken to the police about Joseph’s disappearance. Correct?”

“I don’t recall.”

“And, in fact, you did speak to the police?”

“I spoke with Detective Burger and Detective Reinicke [of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office] about Joe’s disappearance, correct.”

“You told Dean, during that phone conversation, quote: ‘Yeah. It was—it was before that. The last time I saw him, he wanted to go to Europe. And then when all that came about, I thought—well, maybe—heck, maybe that’s where he went. Maybe he went to Europe.’ You said that to Dean Tarricone, didn’t you?”

“If that’s in the transcript, yes.”

“And that was a lie?”

“Yes, it was.”

“You also told Dean Tarricone, during that phone conversation, quote: ‘But, you know, or I kind of figured, well, finally, maybe he met somebody else, and you know, kind of attached his affections there.’ End quote.”

“Yes, that was a lie.” This time, Renee hadn’t even waited for Dawn Farina’s question. She had plunged ahead and identified yet another lie.

On redirect, Gary Clower tried to defuse some of the damage Dawn Farina’s cross had done. He pointed out that Renee had occasionally been confused on the tape of her interview with Ben Benson and Denny Wood.

“You were asked whether you made statements to the detectives regarding asking Nick for help with Joe; do you recall those questions from counsel [Farina]?”

“I remember the questions.”

“Do you remember being asked the question by the detectives: ‘How did you think he was going to help with the situation with Joe?’ and you answering, ‘I don’t necessarily recall thinking he was going to help. Maybe he could talk to him. Maybe I’m putting words in my head that I don’t recall, and I don’t want to do that’?”

“The detectives had asked the question so many times, their questions were becoming my memories,” Renee testified.

Could the jury give this bemused version of Renee’s first interview more weight than her just-ended testimony about cutting up her former lover’s body?

It seemed unlikely.

* * *

“Call Nicholas Notaro.”

The tall, shambling man who had admitted to killing both his wife and his sister’s former lover took the witness stand.

Had Nick Notaro testified first, as originally scheduled, and as the defense planned, Renee could have backed up his version. But, as it was, he came to testify
after
she did, and he was totally clueless about what she had said.

Nick took the witness stand fully intending to support Renee’s version of how Joe Tarricone perished in 1978. But few of his answers matched hers. He wasn’t anywhere near as cunning as Renee was, and he didn’t make a good witness for the defense. He admitted killing his wife on Friday, September 22 after he got out of the Fairbanks hospital. He then testified that he flew to Seattle on the following Monday—September 25—intending to kill Joe. But he hastened to explain that it had all been
his
idea.

Nick said he had neither
seen
nor talked to Renee during the first four days he was at the Canyon Road house and believed that she was working in Hawaii. He said his long-dead mother—Geri Hesse—told him that. He had brought along the gun that he’d used in Vickie’s homicide, but he said that was only because he wanted Renee to get rid of it for him.

Of course, it had come in handy since he had already decided—all on his own—to murder Joe Tarricone.

Nick said he didn’t like Joe—never had—because he was too old for his sister, and that Joe was always “trying to get her in bed.”

Renee had just testified that her mother liked Joe, but Nick testified that Geri didn’t like him. Nick testified that Joe had shown up on Friday, September 29.

Over and over again, the witness took full responsibility for Joe Tarricone’s murder.

“Do you remember when he arrived?” Gary Clower asked.

“It was early evening—or early afternoon. He came to the house and Mom said, ‘Joe’s here.’ We were sitting at the table, and I went into the bedroom and got the gun and stuck it in my waistband.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I was going to kill him. Because he was messing with Renee.”

Nick’s recollection was that Joe had arrived in his refrigerated yellow pickup truck.

“Is it accurate to describe,” Clower asked, “that you asked him to go in the basement to help with a problem with the washing machine?”

“That’s correct.”

“So describe what happened then,” Clower urged as Nick seemed to lose track of his thoughts.

“When we went over to the washer, Joe leaned over the washer, and I took the gun out and shot him.”

“How many times?”

“Twice.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, Mom was a little shocked and she said, you know, ‘What’d you do? You didn’t have to kill him.’ And I said, ‘I took care of a problem.’”

With Renee’s defense attorney prodding him, Nick Notaro went into a long description of how he had driven Joe’s truck to a strip mall and bought a “come-along” so he could lift Joe’s heavy body up more easily. He needed to put him in the freezer.