Because You Loved Me (20 page)

The morning of August 6, 2003, was piping hot. One of those days where just a simple walk from your house to the car produced patches of sweat in various crevices of your body. The humidity level in town by sunrise was close to 95 percent; the temperature creeping up right behind.

The air conditioner in Jeanne’s house was on high. Billy and Nicole woke up somewhere around 11:00
A.M
. No one was home. Nicole was beside Billy on the couch. They did, Billy later implied, what kids their age generally did when left alone in a house.

Afterward, “This would really work,” Billy said as they sat and held each other on the couch. “It’s the perfect idea.”

“Life would be better. We’d be together.”

“Yeah,” said Billy. “Yeah! My mom would love to have you at our house.”

“It won’t be in two years, either—it would be sooner, much sooner,” Nicole said.

They had initiated a plan the previous day and slept on it. A decision had, apparently, been made.

As the morning proceeded, Billy thought about his life. He concluded that he and Nicole were far better off without Jeanne in the way of their relationship. It seemed pretty simple. A golden opportunity had presented itself; it was time to capitalize on it. Life was going to be “ten times better.”

“If only my mom wasn’t so protective,” said Nicole. “You have a car. We can just leave.”

“Yeah, right. And the cops will be knocking on my door in two days.”

They got up. Washed. Ate. And left the house.

Billy later explained how the plan materialized as he and Nicole started talking about it throughout the afternoon. In fact, the more they talked about it, the more it seemed like it would work.

“Nothing could go wrong.”

Billy described it in terms of a light at the end of a tunnel: “And you want to get to that light…but then there’s a door between you and that light that you don’t see.”

Near 4:40
P.M
., Billy suggested, “Let’s go to Leda Lanes and bowl.”

They had been driving around for a better part of the day in a state of agitated eloquence, weighing their options, one might assume, trying to dredge up enough courage to either take off or confront Jeanne.

“OK,” agreed Nicole. Bowling sounded fun. But it was also, she admitted, the perfect place to create an alibi—the only reason they ended up going.

Leda Lanes was a five-minute drive from Jeanne’s. During the trip, Billy said he and Nicole agonized over the predicament they found themselves in, with Billy having to head back to Connecticut the following morning. Essentially, his departure was the catalyst driving their decision making. Overwrought with emotion and confusion, they felt the separation was going to be devastating to both of them. Spending the past week together had made the bond between them stronger. Billy’s leaving was now impossible for either of them to accept.

Billy later described their demeanor that afternoon in a confused mesh of words: “This is a stupid thing,” he said, “that if something happened to her mom, then maybe, you know, we’d be able…Nicole would move closer. It wasn’t really a complete thought or, you know, whatever.”

“I just wish,” Billy told Nicole as they pulled into the Leda Lanes parking lot around 4:45
P.M
., “something would happen to your mom, and then you’d have no choice but to come to Connecticut and live with me.”

On paper, it sounded plausible, like the plan might just work.

Regarding their alibi, Nicole said, “When you play pool there, somebody has to sign to get balls. And it has the time on it. So that was…that was just to have it look like we were somewhere else.”

Earlier that afternoon, Nicole cried to Billy, “I want more than anything to live with you.” She said she wished her mom understood that what she and Billy had wasn’t some teenage romance built on lust, but a “true love” that was going to last “forever.” Why couldn’t Jeanne recognize that—and make things easier on everyone?

Billy couldn’t recall exactly who first mentioned killing Jeanne. But he said it was a running “joke” between them that “if, you know,” she died, they could be together without complication. At some point, Billy’s plan of “knocking some sense into Jeanne” turned into possibly killing her.

And Nicole went along with it willingly.

Billy and Nicole stayed at Leda Lanes for thirty minutes, according to the slip Billy filled out to rent pool balls. After they left Leda Lanes, Billy drove to Dunkin’ Donuts, just down the street. They sat in the parking lot there for a time, talking, planning, running through what was going to happen in the coming hours.

“I’ll go into the house,” explained Billy, “and approach your mom with a bat. I’ll make it look like a robbery.”

Among other things, Nicole said, “I don’t know, Billy.”

When they left Dunkin’ Donuts, Billy drove by Nicole’s house. Slowly traveling down Amherst, he looked toward the house. “Do you see your mother’s car?”

“Yep,” said Nicole.

Jeanne was home with the pizza waiting for everyone to show up for dinner.

When Billy and Nicole realized Jeanne was home, Billy made a U-turn on Amherst. Drove back by the house. Then took a right into the parking lot of 7-Eleven on the corner of Deerwood and Amherst. They were one city block from the house. Parking in a space close to, and facing, Deerwood gave Billy and Nicole a clear view of Jeanne’s comings and goings.

It was perfect.

“Let’s go into the store,” suggested Billy.

While they were preparing to go into the store, a police officer pulled into the parking lot. As he got out of his patrol car, Billy said, “Let’s go. Now!”

They walked into the store alongside the police officer, then wandered through the aisles and got in line.

Standing in line, when Nicole turned around, she noticed the police officer in back of them.

She nudged Billy.

After paying for a magazine, Billy and Nicole walked back to Billy’s car and sat.

“Somebody knows something, Billy,” Nicole suggested. She was convinced their plot had been unearthed and the police officer was following them, waiting for their first move.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Just drive.”

Billy pulled out of the parking lot and, on Amherst, headed in the direction of Jeanne’s. The police officer got right behind him.

Looking in his rearview mirror, Billy said, “Oh s- - -.”

“What?”

“Don’t look back. Don’t f- - -ing turn around. That cop is following me.”

“Damn it. S- - -.”

“He’s following us, damn it. He knows something. He’s onto us.”

“Pull into Bruster’s,” Nicole said restlessly. Bruster’s was a mile or so from Jeanne’s, on Amherst. “See if he follows us into the parking lot.”

Billy took a right and drove up the slight hump leading into Bruster’s.

The police officer drove by and continued down Amherst.

“That was close,” said Billy.

“I know. Maybe we should forget it.”

Billy looked back up the road toward 7-Eleven.

Near 6:00
P.M
., Billy and Nicole pulled into the parking lot of 7-Eleven for a second time.

“You go into the store and wander around looking at things,” he explained to Nicole. “I’ll be back in two minutes.”

Two minutes and I’m out of there,
Billy thought as he explained to Nicole what to do while he was inside Jeanne’s.

“OK, Billy. But I don’t know? I don’t know if I want this?”

Nicole was ambivalent. She viewed the incident with the police officer as a sign to forget about it all. Now it bothered her that they were going through with it.

But as Billy walked out of the 7-Eleven parking lot and across Deerwood Drive, Nicole did nothing to stop him. Within seconds, Billy was in the parking lot of the bank directly behind Jeanne’s house—and that’s where, he said, he started to question what he was about to do.

“I walked in that house, to be honest, planning to do it.”

But it was his “conscience,” Billy said, that got the best of him as he “broke down” on his way across Jeanne’s backyard lawn.

“I never once thought it was going to happen.”

Still, with Nicole sitting in his car at 7-Eleven, Billy continued along his path toward Jeanne’s. He didn’t turn around. Stop. Or, having second thoughts, abandon the plan altogether. A confrontation with Jeanne was in the works. He was fully prepared to see it through. Furthermore, if Nicole wanted to put the brakes on the plan, she was going to have several chances over the next ten minutes.

During the final moments of her life, Jeanne Dominico sat at her small dining-room table in the kitchen. She had purchased a cheese pizza directly across the street from 7-Eleven at Ciao’s for Chris and the kids. It was on the counter next to her, staying warm under a towel. Strictly following the Atkins diet, Jeanne planned to have a separate meal.

As the door flung open and Billy walked in, Jeanne looked up. Staring at her, Billy later said, he saw the plan he and Nicole previously had discussed play back in his mind as though it were a scene from a movie he had just watched.

Two minutes…go in there and get it done.

Billy closed the door behind him.

Two minutes.

Jeanne went back to what she was doing.

Go in. Get it done.

Yet, as Billy walked closer to Jeanne and saw her just sitting there, he realized it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“Hi, Jeanne.”

He didn’t know what else to say.

Jeanne was surprised (and alarmed) to see him without Nicole.

“Billy?”

Without saying anything more, Billy walked past Jeanne and into Drew’s room. The plan: grab the baseball bat behind the door to Drew’s room (where Billy knew it was) and smash Jeanne in the head, without uttering a word.

One quick swing and out the door
.

Billy picked up the aluminum baseball bat and ambled back to where Jeanne was now standing by the kitchen stove. Jeanne turned and looked at him as he stood by her side holding the bat.

It’s not supposed to be this hard.

“I hate the Yankees,” Billy said ruefully, as if forced.

“Can you believe the Braves lost?” Jeanne said, moving toward the kitchen table, again sitting down. Jeanne had always been a big baseball fan. She had even inquired about coaching one of Drew’s Little League teams and was actively involved on all levels of the league. Many of the men involved in the league later said they were surprisingly shocked by her knowledge of the game and admired her greatly for it.

“No, I cannot believe it.”

Billy placed the bat beside the entertainment center in the living room, just beyond the kitchen. The bat, essentially, turned into a conversation piece between them, and kept the focus on sports for the next several minutes.

I don’t have the guts for this
, Billy thought, looking at the bat as he walked toward Jeanne. Standing next to her,
I thought I knew myself
.

“Kobe won’t get a fair trial, huh?” Billy suggested when Jeanne brought up the rape allegations against NBA star Kobe Bryant.

“No way. All that media attention.”

“He will go to jail.”

While talking, Billy and Jeanne made their way into the living room and sat on the couch. Billy picked up the bat and pretended to swing it like one of his childhood Boston Red Sox heroes.

“Love those Sox,” said Billy, staring down the barrel of the bat, eyeing it like a rifle sight, gripping it tightly.

“Put that
down,
Billy,” said Jeanne, “it’s making me nervous.”

She seemed uncomfortable, recalled Billy. She didn’t want him to swing the bat in the house. He might misjudge and hit the entertainment center, or break something.

“I used to play baseball, Jeanne,” Billy said, recalling later that he started to shake after he sat down next to Jeanne on the couch. “You know that?”

I don’t have the guts for this. I thought I knew myself.

“Well, you have the body for it,” said Jeanne. “You’re built like a ballplayer. That’s for sure.”

Indeed, Billy was perfectly built for the game: slim, gawky, wiry, fast.

After Billy made an inconsequential comment about baseball, he picked up Nicole’s cordless phone, which was on a separate line in the house, and called his cell phone. Nicole was still sitting in his car at the 7-Eleven.

“What’s going on?” Nicole asked.

“She’s getting nervous,” Billy whispered, talking about Jeanne, who had since walked into another part of the house and couldn’t hear him. Nicole later said Billy was quiet, standoffish. She could sense how nervous he was.

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” asked Nicole.

“I have to go, Nicole.”

“Why are you taking so long?”

“Bye, Nicole.”

Jeanne knew who he was talking to.

“Is that Nicole, Billy?” she asked, walking into the section of the house where Billy was now standing. “You tell her to get her ass home.”

Hanging up, Billy carried on about baseball, trying to keep Jeanne preoccupied and focused on him rather than Nicole. As he spoke, Jeanne coaxed the conversation quickly back to Nicole, demanding to know why she wasn’t with him.

“What’s going on here, Billy?” Jeanne asked.

As Billy answered, Nicole’s cordless telephone rang.

“Hello?” Billy said, knowing darn well it was Nicole wondering what was going on. Two minutes in the house had turned into ten. Their last conversation was a bit odd.

Nicole sounded worried, full of anxiety. “There’s a cop at the bank,” she said as Billy walked away from Jeanne and into another section of the house.

Billy remained calm.

“Is he taking money out of the ATM?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Don’t worry about it. Everything will be OK. I’ll be out soon.”

“Billy—”

“Bye, Nicole.”

“He was talking pretty slowly this time,” Nicole remembered later. “It was like two different people. He seemed very on edge.”

Jeanne got upset at that point and, according to Billy, started screaming at him as she walked back into the kitchen from the living room.

“Why isn’t Nicole with you? Where is she?”

“She’s across the street,” Billy said.

“Why? You tell her to get home. She needs to eat with us.”

At that moment, Billy thought:
A mother shouldn’t be yelling at her daughter like this…. She’s just sitting somewhere. She’s not bothering anyone.

That one comment from Jeanne initiated an argument between them. As Billy later told it, everything fell apart for him at that moment. Voices: Jeanne and Nicole. Ringing in his ears. Nicole and Jeanne. Anxiety. Worry. Dread. The unknown. Not being with Nicole after that day. Everything he and Nicole had talked about over the past four days (heck, the past fifteen months): living together, getting married, running away, hoping something would happen to Jeanne. Here it was: time to either walk away or make a move toward his future with Nicole.

The weather had been extremely humid all week long. Billy suffered from severe asthma. He had purposely left his inhaler at Jeanne’s as part of “the plan” in other words, his main purpose for going into the house to begin with.

“She’s picking something up at the store,” Billy yelled at Jeanne. “I came here to get my inhaler.”

Jeanne was fuming by then, said Billy. During the conversation, she walked back into the kitchen to get what Billy said was a roast beef and cheese sandwich, which was part of her diet.

“She was walking back and forth,” he recalled, from the living room to the kitchen, “complaining” about having to be on the diet.

Even that bothered him.

Billy felt Jeanne’s anger was directed at the fact that he was standing there and Nicole wasn’t. Like it was some sort of campaign they had conspired to once again try to convince Jeanne that Nicole could live the good life with him, his siblings and mother back in Willimantic. He believed Jeanne thought Nicole had sent him there to speak on their behalf.

“What the hell is going on?” Jeanne wanted to know. She winced.

They continued “arguing about Nicole,” he said, but he had a hard time recalling the exact words Jeanne spoke after that. The conversation had turned too heated—a mixed bag of words, Billy said, he had a hard time comprehending.

As they yelled back and forth, Billy said, there was a “point of no return” for him.

“I get to a point in an argument and it escalates,” he later explained to police. “It gets to a point in my head, it will never get better. Anything I say, it won’t make it any worse.”

Billy insisted all he could see was Jeanne’s “mouth moving.” He wasn’t listening to the words, couldn’t understand any of them. Jeanne made no sense. It was, he told a friend later, as if the entire ordeal was playing out for him in slow motion. Nothing but a blur of words erupting from Jeanne’s mouth—all, he felt, aimed at him. It was an argument, he admitted, that he had “probably provoked…just to build up the guts” to finish what he had set out to do in the first place.