Cast Of Shadows

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WEISS TRIAL DATE SET FOR FALL

Vic Fabian, Brixton Courier

It has been 32 years since John Francis McCullough was found guilty in the stabbing death of Calhoun resident Molly Bowman, but Brixton officials insist they will be ready on November 14 when Richard Cantrell Weiss becomes the first individual in three decades to be tried for murder in the Main Street courthouse.

The facts of the case might not be fully apparent until the end of testimony in what is expected to be a four-week trial, but a glimpse of the case was revealed recently in the prosecutor’s indictment.

Weiss, a graduate of Brixton High School and a former greenskeeper at Brixton Country Club, has been charged with the murder of Phillip Canella, a private investigator who had been making inquiries around the village last October. Canella was looking into the alleged infidelity of a Chicago-area doctor at the behest of the physician’s wife. Neither police nor the district attorney would comment on the connection between Weiss and the doctor (whose name was redacted from the indictment), although sources say he could be called as a witness.

The prosecutor’s office refused to comment on persistent rumors that Miami Dolphins quarterback Jimmy Spears, a Brixton native and high school classmate of Weiss, might be called to testify, as well. Originally alleged on the sports network ESPN, the story has been repeated in the New York Post and The Miami Herald, with reporters in each case citing “anonymous sources.” Spears has admitted that Brixton officials have been in contact with him concerning the case, but declined further comment.

Police were alerted to Weiss’s possible involvement in Canella’s murder after one of Canella’s associates supplied them with evidence allegedly obtained from Weiss’s wife, Margaret. A subsequent interrogation of former Brixton resident Herman Tweedy led police to a wooded area near Beck City, where Canella’s decomposed body was discovered. Margaret Weiss is said to be cooperating with police and charges against her are still pending. Herman Tweedy recently pled guilty to obstruction of justice and being an accomplice after the fact.

Although he was a longtime resident who was well known around town, Weiss’s close friends have been reluctant to comment. In Millie’s Tap Room, a favorite haunt of the accused, a recent patron (who requested his name be withheld) said, “Am I surprised that Ricky’s on trial for murder? Sure I am. Am I shocked about it? No, not really.”

Chicago newspapers covered the arrest of Richard Weiss, but Philly had no family in the area to add local interest, so ongoing coverage consisted mostly of Metro section wire stories and an occasional update on the sports page. Citing “anonymous sources close to the investigation,” a suburban paper, the Daily Herald, named Davis as the Chicago doctor purged from the indictment. The other papers followed, with the Sun-Times also naming Joan Burton as “Dr. Moore’s associate,” hinting that she was the alleged mistress Phil Canella had been trying to expose. Davis’s attorney, Graham Mendelsohn, noting his client had lost his own daughter to murder, his wife to depression and suicide, and had himself been the victim of an assassin’s bullet, refused comment. The local press didn’t pursue the Moore angle aggressively, but that could change, Graham told Davis, if he were called to testify.

“It could change dramatically, depending on what you have to tell them,” Graham said.

“I understand,” Davis said.

“Is there anything you want to tell me, at this point?”

Davis said there was not.

On the day the assistant district attorney from Carlton County, Nebraska, traveled to Northwood to take statements from Drs. Moore and Burton, around the time she and two other attorneys from her staff were landing at O’Hare, Davis and Joan met in his office to chatter nervously about the appointment.

“What have we decided?” Joan asked, lying on a stiff brown couch that was hardly ever used. “We’re going to have to tell them, aren’t we?”

“Are we?”

“Goddamnit, Davis, they’ll be here in an hour.”

Davis rubbed his knuckles into his eyes and sighed. “What are they really going to ask us? They’re going to want to know how we came in contact with Ricky Weiss. I’ll tell them I’ve been trying for years to find the man who murdered my daughter. Weiss e-mailed me because he thought he had identified the sketch I’d posted on the Internet. You and I went to Brixton to check it out and we told him he was wrong. My wife hired that detective to follow us down there. I wasn’t even aware of it until the police told me, weeks after Jackie had died. That’s the extent of our connection to the case.”

“They’ll want to know where you got the sketch.”

“I drew it on a computer.”

Joan adopted an interrogator’s tone. “Really, Dr. Moore? Based on what?”

Davis had practiced this lie. “Based on the profile created by police during their investigation into AK’s death.”

As herself now: “They’ll want to know if we were having an affair.”

The truth again. “We weren’t.”

“And the photos you had taken of Justin?”

Davis nodded. “I handed over everything I had to police. I told them I was collecting data for a longitudinal study of a young patient.”

“Oh, Davis. Really. A secret study?”

“I didn’t want the parents to bias the results,” Davis said. “You didn’t know about it, either. I asked you to help me find AK’s killer and that was the end of your involvement. They’ll probably assume we were sleeping together. They won’t suspect our trip to Brixton had anything to do with Justin.”

“You’ll take a hit for this secret study crap. The Board of Oversight-”

“Yeah, and I’ll take the hit alone.”

“I don’t want to lie.”

“I’d never ask you to.”

He wanted to go to the couch. To hold her. He didn’t. Several times since his wife’s death, Davis had considered advancing his relationship with Joan to something beyond colleague and coconspirator, but each time he decided he couldn’t. It wasn’t that it was too soon – although he mourned Jackie, he hadn’t felt like a husband to her in years. It just never felt right. It hadn’t been right that night in Lincoln, and it hadn’t been right a dozen times since. Today, with a prosecutor headed to his office to ask them point-blank why they were making clandestine trips to Brixton, Nebraska, it still wasn’t right.

His love for her, all by itself, wasn’t enough to make it right.