Dodie thought about playing tennis but realized she didn’t have time and sighed. Tennis was Dodie’s big passion outside her home and family. She had started playing in a neighborhood doubles league while they lived in Marietta, and it became an absorbing part of her life. After her breast surgery, she returned to the court as soon as the doctor allowed, and she perfected the lob she used to outwit her opponents. She lost some strength in her arms after the surgeries, which made it harder to hit ground strokes with power, but she still loved playing.
Tennis brought out a competitive spirit in her unseen in other aspects of her life. If it was her time to play a match in league competition, she wanted to play even if another doubles team had a better record and was more likely to win. Dodie played in a women’s morning league in Cornell University’s indoor tennis facility and was in charge of maintaining the Ellis Hollow community courts in the summer. Cindy Desmond, who was in the Marietta league with Dodie, tried to reason with her that sometimes you had to be realistic even if it didn’t seem fair, but Dodie disagreed. Fair was fair. She was convinced that if she treated others fairly, they would do the same with her.
Tony wasn’t as serious about tennis as Dodie. To him it was an outdoor sport and more social than anything else, but with his recent push to get into better shape, he had agreed to play doubles during the winter on Sunday nights with Barbara and Kevin White at the new indoor courts in town.
Dodie grew up in a close family, grounded in old-fashioned values and the Catholic tradition. However, like Tony’s, hers was not an easy childhood. Her mother, who suffered a serious heart ailment from having rheumatic fever as a child, ran a strict household to keep confusion and disorder to a minimum. Not being physically strong and with three children close in age, and a husband away from home a lot starting a construction business, she had to be a firm manager. Money was not plentiful, so extras in treats, toys, and visits with friends were rare.
Giving her children all the missed opportunities of her youth was the benefit of being financially well-off. Not only did Dodie and Tony indulge Shelby and Marc, but they also liked to share their good fortune with friends and family. To them, success wasn’t spending a lot of money; it was having enough time to do what they wanted with the people they cared about.
Dodie’s flair for design emerged in childhood when she drew clothes for the paper dolls that she and her sister, Sharon, played. After taking a sewing class in high school, she often made her own clothes. An art teacher suggested she develop her drawing talent: perhaps she should look into the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Dodie didn’t know anything about the prestigious school, but with encouragement from her family and friends, she applied and was accepted.
As part of Dodie’s interview, the young woman was asked to sketch a Queen Anne chair that stood in the admissions office. She performed well under pressure (the drawing received high praise from the interviewer). This gave her the confidence needed to spread her wings in unknown territory. Going to New York—the fast, sophisticated big city—was a complete departure from life as Dodie had known it in Syracuse. And it was the first time she’d been away from home.
Dodie stuck it out at FIT for one semester, but she didn’t like the city. The fast pace, the dirt and grime of the streets and subways, and the unfriendly people turned her off. Classes were okay, but she felt uncomfortable around the students who were so different from those in Syracuse. She was hurt by the blunt remarks they and the teachers made about her work; the criticism seemed more cruel than helpful. Dodie had a soft shell when it came to others judging her work; it was as though they were attacking her personally, and she needed to be well-liked.
Moreover, Dodie was driven more by a desire to get married and have a family than to concentrate on a successful career. When she met Tony Harris, he was in his junior year at Brockport State and she was working in Syracuse’s major furniture store as an interior decorator. She fell in love with the gregarious, easygoing Tony, not knowing at the time how driven he was to succeed. They became engaged less than a year later. However Dodie’s happiness was interrupted by her mother’s death from a heart seizure a few days after the couple announced their engagement.
Her mother’s untimely death hit Dodie hard, and she often thought about it when her own life was threatened with cancer at thirty-one. By 1989, though, Dodie could feel more relaxed about her health. The cancer had been in remission for over five years by then, and the prognosis looked good. The news seemed a blessing from on high. It made her feel grateful for every day and filled her with a determination not to fritter time away on unimportant things.
After a last sip of coffee, Tony kissed his wife goodbye, said he loved her, and took the plate of cookies she had wrapped in foil for his office party.
Putting on a jacket, he walked from the mud room and into the garage. His breath formed smoke rings. Tony appreciated garages on mornings like that one. It was nice not having to scrape the windshields or brush off snow. Tony remembered many cold mornings in Syracuse, trying to start the older model cars he had then, parked on the street or driveway. Each day he had struggled to scrape the ice off the windows. His New Yorker sedan, although two years old, looked new because of Tony’s gentle care. The luxurious leather interior was wonderful plus the ease and comfort of driving such a car. By the time he backed out of the garage onto Ellis Hollow Road, the heater had taken off the chill. Tony began to think of the day ahead.
MICHAEL ANTHONY KINGE A/K/A TONY TURNER
That afternoon Joanna White got out of bed around two o’clock, her normal routine after working the night shift at Ithacare, a nursing home in downtown Ithaca. It felt chilly in the apartment in spite of the kerosene heater that her boyfriend, Tony Turner, had put in. Because they were so far behind on their gas and electric bills. The landlady, Mary Tilley, didn’t allow kerosene, but they figured what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
They had an arrangement with Tilley to help pay their monthly rent of $396; every time Tony cleaned her rental apartments, she deducted the rent they owed her from his pay check.
He had signed an agreement with New York State Electric and Gas Company that morning, stating he would make twenty-eight dollar monthly payments for three months to catch up on unpaid bills. Otherwise, the electricity in their apartment would be disconnected. But he didn’t have enough cash in the bank yet to mail a check with the agreement.
Tony’s last steady job, cleaning movie theaters at the Pyramid Mall had ended several months earlier after he refused to pick off chewing gum stuck to the back of theater seats. He had been working for his friend Ron Callee, a neighbor he hung out with when he lived in Locke, a rural hamlet north of Ithaca. Callee told him he couldn’t take his slipshod work any longer. Refusing to clean up the gum was the last straw.
As Joanna boiled water for coffee, Tony gave her their one-year-old son to hold and said he wanted her to give him a ride in a little while, so he could “go to work”. By work Tony meant going out to rob somebody. He always described those excursions as work. She never asked any questions.
Joanna had met Tony Turner, an assumed name he used after moving upstate, at a downtown bar in 1980. He was ready for a new start. Tony was on parole from Fishkill State Prison, having served one year of a three-year sentence for armed robbery (a fact in the beginning he kept from Joanna). Tony’s looks appealed to her: His five foot, eight inches tall lean, lanky expressible body, Afro-hair style, glowing ebony-skin was very different from the small town guys she knew. His deep-set black eyes seemed to look through her. He came from New York City and flaunted an arrogant, “I’ve seen and done it all” attitude. He was a mix of soft-spoken charm with an explosive fuse that went off abruptly. There was a magnetic wildness