DePaulo - The dead girl in the bathtub

The Dead Girl in the Bathtub

By Lisa DePaulo

A Philadelphia Magazine Exclusive

Copyright 2013 Lisa DePaulo

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved

Published simultaneously in the September 2013 issue of Philadelphia magazine

ISBN: 978-0-9635666-0-7

Philadelphia Magazine

1818 Market Street, Suite 3600

Philadelphia, PA 19103

www.phillymag.com

Special thanks from the author: To Tom McGrath, the editor of Philadelphia, for making my story the magazines inaugural adventure in the e-book world; to my brilliant editor Michael Callahan, even though I gave him an ulcer; to Tim Haas, who spearheaded the e-book project with his usual over-competence; to genius art director Michael Wilson; and last but most, to Malcolm Burnley, the best fact-checker on the planet.

Contents

1. Please Dont Tell Me Shes Dead

Julia Law in the park behind Independence Hall in November 2011.

THERES A GIRL IN YOUR BATHTUB.

Its 10 a.m., the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, when he gets the call. Hes at the Shore. Chuck is always at the Shore, particularly the first weekend of Chucks season, as his friends call summer. This isnt unusual. Nor is it unusual for this particular 58-year-old man, Chuck Peruto Jr., a hugely successful criminal defense attorney and son of one of the most esteemed lawyers in Philadelphia history, to be waking up to the ring of his cell phone at 10, having spent much of the previous night at the legendary beach bar that is the Princeton in Avalon.

Last night, though, he was preoccupied, texting back and forth with his 26-year-old girlfriend, Julia Law (What the hell are you doing without bubble bath in your house? she wrote around 10 p.m., followed quickly by I love my Chuckie Pie), who was at his stunning Rittenhouse Square apartment back in the city. That night, he says, he went home with someone elsespecifically, Trent Cole, the linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles. They crashed together at a mutual friends house. (Later, Chuck would remember the look on the detectives face: Trent Cole is your alibi witness? ) But thats Chuck. Fun, lovable, wild and crazy Chuck, as much a Philadelphia institution as the Liberty Bell, and much more entertaining. Or was.

Theres a girl in your bathtub.

Thats the first thing Chuck says Jaime Santisteban told him after he groggily answered the phone. Jaime (pronounced Hi-me) is Chucks Peruvian majordomo, who had been dispatched to the lawyers abode to pick up a shirt hed forgotten and deliver it to the Shore. There would be a great many eyebrow-raising moments in the days and weeks to come, this being one of them. To pick up a shirt?

English is Jaimes second language, but he knew enough, apparently, to say: Theres a girl in your bathtub.

Shes allowed to be there, Chuck recalls replying. Thats my girlfriend.

But Jaime presses, tries to tell Chuck that the girl isnt moving. Chuck remembers thinking: Please dont let him tell me shes dead.

Get her out of there! Pull her out! Wake her up! Chuck orders through the phone. And then Jaime tells him he thinks she may be muerta . Now Chuck is shaking, crying, hes throwing on his sweats from the floor and running to his car, hes not believing this can be happening. What color hair does she have? he says he asked Jaime. An odd question, to say the least, but as he tells it now, I wanted to believe it was anyone but her.

He tells Jaime to call 911. Then he calls 911. The call somehow goes to dispatch in Sea Isle City, not Avalon, which, he says, will later give the cops pause. (I have no idea why, Chuck says.)

He gets into his white Mercedes, not even stopping to brush his teeth, and drives a hundred miles an hour to get back to the city. From his car, more phone calls. His 33-year-old son Chas, his only child and the father of Chucks two grandchildren, has also gotten a call from Jaime. To Chas, Jaime seemed unhinged; it was hard to understand what he was saying. Chas says he instructed Jaime to take a photo with his cell phone. The photo comes through. A gruesome picture. Now there is no doubt. On the phone with his father, Chas tries to let him believe theres still hope, so he doesnt kill himself on the road. His father is sobbing.

Chuck calls Rich DeSipio. Rich is the top lawyer in Chucks office and will figure prominently in the days to come, the person who will serve as Chucks spokesperson to the mediaa disastrous choice by any measure. For now, DeSipio, in the checkout line at Wegmans with his elderly mother when he first heard the news from Chas, tries to calm Chuck down. Says hes on his way to the Delancey Place apartment. Hell be there, he tells Chuck. Rich DeSipio will always be there.

Its almost 11 a.m. when Chuck pulls into the driveway off Delancey. The place is already teeming with cops, news trucks. A reporter sticks a microphone in his face, and he recoils. He will later recount that some cops greeted him with hugs. Everyone knows Chuck, including cops he will sometimes eviscerate on the witness stand, then take out for a drink.

They wont let Chuck inside. He goes to his office around the cornertwicebefore eventually the cops take him down to Homicide, where, for seven hours, he answers questions. Its a joint he knows well from representing alleged criminals all these years. His brother-in-law, also a lawyer, accompanies him, but Chuck insists it was in the role of brother-in-law, not lawyer. I wasnt going to lawyer up, says Chuck, a peculiar thing for a $500-an-hour defense attorney to say, and he knows that. He admits that none of the things he did in the days and weeks to come were things hed allow one of his clients to do. His father, the venerable Chuck Peruto Sr., now 86, who heard the news on television, calls him on his cell phone while hes being questioned by homicide detectives, and Hes freaking out, remembers Chuck. Hes like, What are you giving a statement for? Chuck also fields a call from Genna Squadroni, his 25-year-old recent ex-girlfriend of three years, who is also freaking out, though in her case apparently not due to a girl being found dead in Chucks bathtub, but to the fact that Chuck had been dating that girl at all, a paralegal shed hired at the law offices of A. Charles Peruto Jr. As Chuck is being peppered with questions from the cops, Genna leaves a string of expletive-filled rants on his cell phone. Welcome to Chucks world.

The homicide detectives, the coroner, the forensic experts, spend a good 10 and a half hours at the scene. And while Chuck says they later privately told him they knew this was an accidental death, it was a 26-year-old woman found dead, naked, facedown in a watery grave. They had to do what they had to do.

Chuck returns home around 8 p.m. The homicide detectives still arent finished, still wont let him inside, so he sits on his stoop for a while, then takes a long walk, ends up at Little Petes. (He ordered eggs.) Once they finally let him in his house, he answers more questions, points out some things that they missed. He says there were two empty half-gallon orange-flavored vodka bottles in his recycling bin that they hadnt noticed and didnt take. He tells them his theory: From the photograph he saw, there were towels in the water. On the rack above the tub, a few decorative towels were hanging, larger ones folded on top. It wasand remainshis supposition that Julia tried to grab onto the towels to get out, then fell back into the tub.

Eventually, the homicide detectives clear out. Chuck is alone in his gorgeous place, which has suddenly become a very creepy place. Its a mess (and Chuck is meticulous), covered with the residue of charcoal fingerprint duston his leather chairs and crystal lamps, even his antique gumball machine. His bed has been stripped of the sheets where he and his love spent their last euphoric night together, two days earlier.