Fatal Vision (25 page)

Nurse Carlucci recalled that when the group had returned to the motel after dinner, MacDonald had called his wife.

"He told her he would be home the next evening. Told her he missed her and that he loved her. Then he asked about her pregnancy check. He wanted to know if it was positive or negative. She told him she was definitely pregnant."

Later in the evening, while MacDonald was taking a shower, one of the other guests at the party took a picture of Tina on the motel bed, wearing MacDonald's Green Beret.

"I was sick that night," she said. "I had a bad cold and didn't feel like doing much of anything. He tried to make love to me once and I told him I didn't feel like it. He didn't try to force himself on me. We took our clothes off and fondled each other but there was no intercourse. We were together until 6
a.m.
Sunday when he left for the parachute jump. He gave me some tetracycline and suggested I go on sick call Monday morning."

After seeing the photograph of Tina Carlucci, Jeffrey MacDonald was not quite so certain that he wanted to take a polygraph examination.

"Well, let me ask
you
a few questions here, men. Ah, you guys have been posing all the questions. What's the—what's the fallibility of this polygraph thing? You know, you guys with your circumstantial evidence here, you know—ah, what happens with normal emotion?"

"That's taken into consideration, of course. When people are challenged, there's a little more nervous tension than usual."

"Absolutely," Grebner said. "Murder is much more serious than stealing an M-16 or something."

"I'm just trying to, ah, prevent, ah, any more things like this, that's all. I can see what's going to happen if there is a little jig in the line. You and the provost marshal are going to jump and say ah-hah! We found our man."

"The provost marshal wo
n't be reading the charts, and neither will I. We will call a polygraph operator who is not involved in the case. Operators can be obtained—probably come out of Washington—and are very competent and is a disinterested party. He won't care how it comes out."

"What does the polygraph tell you?" MacDonald asked.

"It tells basically what a person believes to be true."

"How infallible is it?"

"Well, the instrument itself just measures physiological changes."

"I know that, I understand that—that's what I mean."

"The percentage figures they have had on it is that it's less than one percent they have ever made a mistake on," Grebner said. "I mean, these are verified cases. This is on thousands and thousands of cases. These are the statistics that I have. I would say human error is involved in about four-tenths of one percent."

"Sounds pretty good," MacDonald said. "Now what happens if this test—what is your strongest evidence? What if the polygraph backs up everything I've said, and you still have all this bullshit lying around. Then what happens?"

"I will be the first guy to shake you by the hand and say I'm sorry."

"And if it comes up wrong? If I'm one of the ones who has a little, ah, a little more sweating than usual, then I immediately go to Leavenworth without a trial."

"No. In the first place, polygraph can't be used against you."

"It can't?"

"No. It is an investigative tool, Captain. We believe it."

"You mean it is not admitted in court? Why not?"

"There are several reasons. But mainly because with a jury they wouldn't know how to evaluate this type of evidence as compared to other evidence. If you went to most juries and said, well, there was deception indicated during the polygraph examination, they would overweigh that evidence—and there's always that four-tenths of one percent."

"So if I take this polygraph test and it comes out okay, then I can, ah—you people will feel real nice towards me then? Right?"

"As I said, if it comes out no deception indicated, I'll say I'm sorry I bothered you."

"Sounds pretty good to me," MacDonald said.

"So, if you are willing to take it," Grebner said, "I will call and make the arrangements."

"Why not? When is this going to be done?"

"Well, I'd have to call them. Within the next day or two."

"You mean someone is going to fly down here to do this?"

"Probably tonight." Grebner left the office to call CID headquarters in Washington. William Ivory also departed, leaving MacDonald alone in the room with Robert Shaw.

"Christ," MacDonald said. "This will be in the newspaper within eight hours. I'll have my mother down here again, and my in-laws. I'll tell you what, this is a lot different from what I had in mind. I don't like this. You see, ah—Jesus, this scares me." Shaw did not reply.

"You mean to tell me that this thing is never wrong?" MacDonald said. "I find that hard to believe, just from any instrument. And I just, ah—I don't like the, ah—so much emphasis placed on what look to me like pretty superficial things. That's the only thing I'm scared of, to be perfectly honest with you. I mean, it seems to me that you guys have gone on some pretty mild stuff in calling me a family murderer. I'm not asking, you know—it's just—ah, my own feelings in the matter right now are that it looks a little dangerous to me, because that, ah—ah—Jesus, that looks—ah, like pretty minor stuff, and ah, in my own mind I can explain it very easily, you know, and not feel bad about it, if you know what I mean."

Still, Shaw did not respond.

"I mean," MacDonald continued, "if I was investigating, I would say, Jesus, so the table—so the table is top-heavy. What if her knee was against it when it went over. You know, it just—it doesn't seem to me to be, ah—that, ah—you can call a person in and, ah—take what's left from him on something like that. It just doesn't—doesn't hold any water. And there's not much left. I mean—Jesus Christ."

"Well," said Shaw, "as you know, there's been a lot of work. We've had every major CID office in the continental United States doing work for us. We've had most FBI offices doing work for us. Everything. Every aspect. And it's just not there, Captain MacDonald. Those people you saw just can't be found anywhere. People like them? Yes. There's been—I won't say arrests, but there have been thousands of detentions all over the country."

"Okay, two possibilities," MacDonald said. "One, they haven't been found yet. And two, they've already been questioned and have answered the questions satisfactorily. Now, isn't that possible? I mean, certainly—certainly in a lot of cases your best team wasn't on every person, if you know what I mean. I'm not implying or anything about individuals, but—"

"That's true."

"If you had every office in the country working, and every FBI, it is perfectly conceivable that these people have already been questioned and what's needed now is a break, a lucky thing. You know, a lady says, ah—geez, I used to know a girl, and she always said things like that when she came home looking funny when she was staying at that boarding
-
house. You know, something like that.

"You know what I mean? You luck into it. And maybe I'm just, you know, I'm hoping for, ah—for a miracle, but it just seems to me that, ah—"

"It isn't inconceivable," Shaw said.

"Yeah. I mean, I've—I've—you know, I've read things where, ah—you have questioned people many times, and it comes back at the end that they questioned him once and he gave satisfactory answers and that was it.

"I mean, you know—they had a place or a time or, ah, no motive whatever, and, ah—it's a big country, and a lot of people in it."

"That's right," Shaw said.

"As you know better than I do, trying to find someone—" "I hope this thing comes out like that," Shaw said. "I really do."

"So do I," MacDonald said.

Grebner returned to the office to say that the polygraph operator would be arriving that night and that the test would be administered either the next day or the day after that.

"Okay," MacDonald said. "Is that it?"

"Yup."

"Okay."

Jeffrey MacDonald left CID headquarters at 3:30
p.m
. Ten minutes later he called to say that he had changed his mind: he would not take a polygraph test after all.

Grebner decided to have the operator come anyway and to talk to MacDonald again in the morning. Then he notified the provost marshal that MacDonald had finally been questioned. Then Grebner left for the Officers' Club, where he often met his wife after work.

The day had not gone badly, Grebner reflected. Given the night to brood about the fact that the CID was convinced he was a murderer, MacDonald might yet confess. That, Grebner felt, would certainly be preferable to trying to court-martial a Green Beret doctor from Princeton on charges of triple homicide in a case based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

At least MacDonald had not refused to answer questions. Given his detailed account of the attack and his ensuing movements—and the many conflicts between it and the physical evidence—the case against him was much stronger now than it

would have been had he simply exercised his constitutional right not to talk.

The goal from this point forward, Grebner felt, was to keep him talking. To take advantage of the fact that he obviously considered himself so much smarter than anyone else. Much would depend on the next twenty-four hours, Grebner believed. The one thing he did not want was for MacDonald suddenly to demand an attorney and decline to answer any further questions.

Grebner stepped up to the Officers' Club bar and ordered his drink. Even before it was delivered, an acquaintance called out: "Congratulations!"

Puzzled, Grebner asked what the occasion was.

"Why, MacDonald, of course. They just broadcast the provost marshal's statement on the radio."

"What statement?" Grebner asked in alarm. They were still in the midst of interrogation. There was not to have been any statement.

"That you guys finally decided MacDonald did it after all."

Leaving his drink untouched, Grebner rushed back to his office. It was true. The provost marshal had felt that for public relations purposes it was necessary to inform the press that, "After six weeks of careful investigation, and examination of all evidence, we have been prompted to consider Dr. MacDonald a suspect." The statement had added that while formal charges had not yet been filed, MacDonald had been relieved of his duties and placed under restriction, pending further disposition of the case.

As a public relations gesture, the statement had the desired effect: it even made the CBS
Evening News
with Walter Cronkite.

Franz Joseph Grebner, however, knew immediately that he would never again have the chance to ask Jeffrey MacDonald any questions.

The Voice of Jeffrey MacDonald

I went back to my office that afternoon and I got there shortly before closing and the office was like very, very expectant, because everyone, of course, knew where I had been.

Everyone watched me when I came in. And I tried to hold my most professional air. My buttons were lined up and my belt was at the right, you know, position, lining up with my fly and the buttons above. And I walked directly into my office and closed the door.

Then, at about five o'clock, I decided that what I would do was, instead of going out that night to eat in a normal restaurant or something, I would just go over to the officers' mess, the single officers' mess.

And I did do that. I was by myself. I went to the officers' mess right in the middle of the Special Forces area and I got on a cafeteria line and got a tray of food which I wasn't hungry for. And I remember standing in line, and they had a loudspeaker, you know, a speaker system with music, and I'll never forget this.

I was standing in line getting food, and I had just gotten through the cash register area and was beginning to sit down, when they had a news bulletin that Captain Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret officer from Fort Bragg who six weeks earlier had claimed that his wife and children were brutally beaten and stabbed by four hippies, was himself today named chief suspect.

And I remember the truly—I don't mean to use cliches,

but I don't know how else to explain it—the room was spinning again.

I was—it was an incredibly strange feeling to be in this room with a tray of food, beginning to sit down, and like the room stopped and everyone was looking at me and pointing, and, sort of, most of them trying to be unobtrusive.