23

July 28–August 5, 1987: Karin Aparo’s Story

She loved Dennis, and she loved Alex. Alex was going away, and so she was going to lose him. But she would still have Dennis, and she wanted him. She wanted and expected everything to be as it had been before. “We would have the rest of the summer together, and that was what I wanted,” she said.

And, she says, she loved her mother, and “we were getting along good. She approved of my relationship with Alex. We weren’t having any trouble.”

After Dennis’s suicidal threat in the car, she worried more and more about him. On Thursday night, July 30, she was packing for the trip to Binghamton. It was a trip she was looking forward to. It was to be her last time that summer with Alex Markov, and she intended to make the most of it.

Dennis appeared outside her window. He was distraught. She moved about the room, taking her things from drawers and putting them into suitcases, talking to him all the while. She and Joyce would be leaving in the morning, she said, driving to Greenwich for an anniversary party at a nursing home that evening. From Greenwich they would travel to Binghamton for Alex’s concert, and they intended to be back home in Glastonbury on Tuesday morning.

“I don’t want to go,” she told him, “but I have to. Mom’s making me go, and I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t go,” he said.

“I have to. Mom says I have to. But you don’t have to worry. This is the last time I’ll have to be with Alex. Then that’s over, and we’ll have the rest of the summer for us.”

Outside the window Dennis was crying uncontrollably, begging her not to go, pleading with her to stay home and be with him.

“I lied to him,” Karin says. “I did want to go. I was looking forward to the concert and the reception afterwards and being with Alex. But Dennis was so jealous, and I didn’t want him to think I wanted to be with Alex. I was afraid of what he might do.”

She sent Dennis away, assuring him passionately that she loved him and would be with him always once she returned.

On Friday, July 31, she and Joyce drove to Greenwich and that evening went to the nursing home party. She called Dennis from one of the offices during that party, without Joyce’s knowledge. The reason she called him, she says, was that she was worried about her two cats, Godfrey and Winston. “Mom had said I wasn’t to worry about the cats because they could take care of themselves. But the weather was very hot, and I was afraid they would run out of water. So I called Dennis and asked him to please go into the house and feed Godfrey and Winston; otherwise they might not make it through the weekend. He had his own key. He had made a copy before of mine. He said okay, he would take care of them.”

The only other thing they talked about, she says, was when she was coming home. “I told him we’d be home on Tuesday, which was August 4.”

On Saturday, August 1, she, Joyce and Albert and Alex Markov drove to Binghamton. They stayed in a hotel for three days. “Alex had a rehearsal and then a concert and then a reception party afterwards. I had a very good time. Alex was the soloist, and the reception was held in a big hall, and everybody, got all dressed up. It was wonderful.”

Early in the morning of Tuesday, August 4, they left Binghamton for Rowayton, Karin and Alex in one car, Joyce and Albert Markov in another. They reached the Markov house about four in the morning and went to bed. “My feelings toward my mother were very good then,” she says. “We had a good weekend together.”

About nine-thirty that morning Joyce woke her, told her she was leaving for Saybrook, where she had a business appointment, and then would be driving home. Karin, she said, should stay on in Rowayton for another day. Joyce would drive down in the Volkswagen Jetta that Athena was leasing for her and pick her up on Wednesday (Karin’s car had gone to the scrap heap).

About three o’clock that afternoon Karin called Dennis to tell him they were back, but not in Glastonbury. They had reached the Markovs’ very early in the morning, she told him, and she was going to stay on until Wednesday. There was no need for him to go back to the Aparos’ condo to see to the cats, she said, because Joyce would be home and would take care of them herself.

“Why are you staying?” Dennis demanded. “You’re supposed to be back here. You told me you were coming back today.”

“There isn’t anything I can do about it,” she said. “Mom is making me stay over.” That wasn’t true, but she says, “I didn’t want Dennis to be mad.”

As they were talking, Dennis mentioned that he had left a note for her when he had been in the condo over the weekend. “I hope,” he said, “she doesn’t find it.”

“Where did you leave it?” Karin asked.

“Between the sheets of your bed.”

She told him not to worry. Joyce wouldn’t find it because she never looked there.

Later that afternoon Joyce called Rowayton to tell Karin that she was home and that she was making out a list of things for Karin to do. The whole house was filthy, she said, and she wanted Karin to clean it when she got home on Wednesday. The best thing would be if Alex would drive her up to Glastonbury in the morning; otherwise Joyce would drive down late in the afternoon and get her.

Soon after that call from Joyce, Karin phoned Dennis again. She told him Joyce was home, was complaining that the house was dirty and demanding that Karin clean it. Joyce intended to pick her up on Wednesday afternoon. Dennis was very unhappy about the delay in her return. He complained that she should already have been home. He sounded upset.

At midevening Karin called Joyce, who told her that Shannon had called, they had spoken for about a half hour, and Shannon wanted to see Karin when she got back to Glastonbury. Joyce said that was all right with her, but before they got together, Karin had to do the laundry. “Then my mom said she was very tired and she was going to bed early.”

About nine that evening Dennis called. “He said he didn’t understand why I wasn’t there. He said, ‘If she’s making you stay there, she’s coming between us. I think I should kill her. When you come back, you’ll never have to go to Rowayton again.’”

According to Karin, all these calls were made from and received in the Markovs’ living room, and Alex was in and out all the time.

After the last call from Dennis she stayed up for a while, then, very tired, went to bed.

About eleven the next morning the phone rang. It was for her. The caller was Michael Zaccaro. He told her that Joyce’s car had been found abandoned in Massachusetts.