An Act Of Murder (7 page)

“When I picked her up, I asked her if she knew they were reporting Steve's death as a murder and she said she did,” Maureen said. “I asked her what she was going to do and she said nothing because it wasn't true and she was just going to the viewing.”

As they walked into the funeral parlor, they noticed that the funeral director had set up two rooms—the first room contained flowers, as well as a photo display of Steve's life, and the second contained more flowers and Steve's casket. Even though Steve was cremated, the Hrickos decided to put a casket there for Sarah's benefit.

Kimberly went into the first room and moved from one bouquet to the next, checking the cards to see who had sent the flowers. Next she went through the second room, where the casket was, and again began looking at cards in the flower bouquets.

“She started at one bouquet and went to two or three bouquets, then walked right by the casket and kept looking at flowers on the other side of the room. And she still hadn't shed a tear,” Maureen said. “And I asked her if she wanted to kneel down and say a prayer and she said, ‘Oh, okay.' So we went over and sat down and I started crying and she started crying a little bit and I'm thinking, ‘Finally we get some emotion out of her.'”

Soon friends and family began arriving. At one point during the evening people got up and talked about Steve.

“It was pretty emotional and Mike and I and Mike's parents were sitting in the front row of the first room and Kim and her mother were in the front row of the other room—there are sliding doors that open, so it was really one big room,” Maureen said. “And there was this awkward moment when everyone was waiting for Mike to speak. He was the last person who was supposed to speak. But he couldn't do it because he was too emotional.”

What happened next really caught Maureen and others off guard. Kim got up and went to the podium, instead of Mike, and began telling people that if Steve were alive, he'd be surprised that half of them came to pay their last respects and how much she appreciated everybody being there.

“It was almost like she was at a party,” Maureen recalled. “She was sort of pretending to cry. I'm thinking she has some guts to get up at the funeral of her own husband and maintain her composure and say something. I'm thinking, ‘Is this appropriate at the viewing?'”

After Kimberly finished, there was another pregnant pause while the visitors were waiting for someone else to get up and speak about Steve.

Mike was so upset he couldn't do it. He sat in his chair with his elbows on his legs and his head hanging between his knees. Maureen told him he had to get up and talk, but he just kept saying he couldn't.

“But he had to—he was Steve's best friend forever,” Maureen said. “So I got up and I talked instead. The thing I do remember I said, and I am so ashamed about it now, is, I said, that Mike and I would always be there for Kim and Sarah—no matter what happened.”

When the viewing was over and everyone began leaving the funeral home, they were met outside by a barrage of reporters and television cameras, including a crew from the tabloid television show
Hard Copy
.

As they made their way out of the funeral home, Maureen shielded Kim with her umbrella and her coat to prevent the reporters from filming her. When Kim got back to Steve's parents' house, around 10:00
P.M.
she called Norma in Washington to say hello. Norma asked if Jenny was with her and Kim responded, “The Jenny who won't support me. The Jenny who won't talk to me.”

Norma asked Kim what she meant.

“Jenny called me the day after she came to see me and said, ‘I cannot support you through this right now. I'm sorry, but there are too many questions,'” Kim said.

“What questions?” Norma asked.

“I don't know,” Kim replied.

“You don't know,” Norma said.

“No,” Kim said.

Norma told Kim she had talked with Steve's mother, Mary Esther Hricko, in State College the previous day. She said Mrs. Hricko told her that Kim had gone back to Maryland and would be back for the viewing. Steve's mom also said the family had been getting some weird telephone calls.

Kim explained that the media had picked up on the story because of the murder-mystery dinner-theater angle. She said the local papers, as well as the
Washington Post,
had reported on Steve's death. As for why she went back to Maryland, Kim said one of her friends took her back to Harbourtowne so she could get a handle on the “realness” of Steve's death.

Not wanting to press Kim on her trip back to Maryland, Norma asked her what the newspapers were saying about how Steve died. Kim said one media report mentioned that accelerants had been used, but Kim told Norma that one fire marshal said that wasn't true.

Kim said she called the state police because she hadn't heard anything about how the investigation was progressing and also because she thought some trooper might be leaking information. According to Kim, a trooper told her one officer was talking to the media because he was trying to make a name for himself and was trying to look important. Kim also told Norma the initial coroner's report said Steve died of smoke inhalation and thermal burns, but the autopsy report wouldn't be back for a couple of days. She said she was going to meet with the state police at the beginning of the next week to discuss it.

Soon their conversation turned to Jenny again. Kim said Jenny was just being selfish and thought everything revolved around her (Jenny). For the second time Norma asked Kim why Jenny would have questions about Steve's death.

“I don't know. I don't know,” Kim said.

After a long pause Kim continued.

“About a thousand years ago Jenny and I joked about how we would have to kill Steve, but we were just joking. And I told her I could never do that,” Kim said.

“Even if I found you with a smoking gun standing over your husband's body, I would be at the prison gate on the last day yelling, ‘I know what it looks like, but Norma didn't do it,'” Kim said, referring to the fact that Jenny believed she had something to do with Steve's death and refused to support her.

Kim then went on voluntarily to tell Norma what happened the night Steve died—or at least her version of the events.

“She started by saying that she and Steve went back to their room and took two beers back with them after the show,” Norma said. “She said the movie
Tommy Boy
was on and Steve got into his pajamas. She then backtracked and said he had a whole bottle of champagne and a couple beers through dinner.”

Kim told Norma that she had brought a “shitload” of Xanax with her. According to Kim, Steve's doctor had doubled his depression medication and he had also been taking her Xanax.

“She said he made some kind of advances toward her and she was repulsed and left,” Norma recalled. “She said she drove around for what seemed like hours. She said she thought of going to her brother's house or her friends' house on the Eastern Shore, but realized she was a lot farther away then she originally thought,” Norma said. “Then she thought about going home, but couldn't find Route 50. She said she was out in this Podunk town, where everything closed at eleven or eleven-thirty
P.M.
, so she decided to go back to the resort.”

Although the first part of Kim's story didn't quite jibe with what she told police, the rest of it pretty much adhered to the story she had told investigators.

When Kim was finished with her account of the hours before Steve's body was found, Norma asked her how the fire started.

“Kim said she didn't know,” Norma said. “She said they showed her the box of cigars and asked if she recognized them. She said they had been sitting on her kitchen table for about a month, but she didn't know Steve packed them, because they packed their own things separately.”

Again Kim told Norma she had packed a “shitload” of Xanax, as well as Flexeril, but she said when she got back the contents of their room, all the pills were gone. Kim told Norma what must have happened was that Steve decided to have a cigar, but he must have passed out because of all the alcohol and medication he consumed and then caught on fire. Kim speculated that there must have been a lot of toxic fumes in the room from all the flame-retardant materials, but she said he probably didn't breathe them in if he was already dead.

“She said this in a way that sounded like she was thinking out loud to herself,” Norma said.

A few minutes later, the phone call ended.

The next day, Friday, Steve's burial service was held at the funeral home—it couldn't be held in church because Steve had been cremated.

When the family arrived at the cemetery,
Hard Copy
was waiting.

Kim's brother, Matt, tried to keep the
Hard Copy
crew from trailing the family into the graveyard. In fact, he almost came to blows with the reporters.

Undeterred, the
Hard Copy
team followed the Hrickos to the graveyard and tried to take pictures of Kim at Steve's grave site. Once again the family tried to shield Kimberly with their umbrellas, and after the burial they escorted her back into the waiting limousine. When the funeral director drove away, family and friends blocked in the
Hard Copy
car so the crew couldn't chase Kim's car.

The funeral director took the back roads and drove Kim to Mike's parents' house.

“Kim didn't go to the reception at the Hrickos' house, she came to ours instead to try to get away from
Hard Copy,
” Maureen said.

During the burial Mike's mother stayed at home to get things ready for the reception her family was hosting. Before the guests began to arrive, Kim went into the Millers' kitchen, pulled the plastic wrap off the lunchmeat tray, and started gobbling the lunchmeat down like she had never eaten.

“I looked at her and I said, ‘Hey, Kim, are you hungry?' and she said, ‘I'm starving,' and then she realized that I was looking at her like she had two heads and she immediately said, ‘I don't know, I guess it's because I'm nervous'; then she started making excuses while she was still gobbling down lunchmeat right after she buried her husband.”

About an hour after the Millers' reception began, Maureen took Kim back to the Hrickos' house. Before she left, she told Kim to call her the next day.

The next morning Maureen got a frantic telephone call from Kim.

“She was hysterical,” Maureen said.

Kim told Maureen the Hrickos were being mean to her and she needed to get out of their house.

“I'm sure they were horrible to her because they didn't hide their emotions,” Maureen said. “And at this point I'm sure they thought Kim had done something. But I don't know when they found out that Kim might have had something to do with it, because nobody would tell me anything. Later, I found out the police thought I helped her kill him and that's why no one would tell me what was going on.”

During the early stages of the investigation, the police suspected Maureen because she was a pharmaceutical representative. They thought Maureen helped Kim obtain the succinylcholine. They couldn't understand how Kim could have done everything by herself.

“Because I was taking care of her and because I was filtering all the messages from everybody else, the police thought that I was being way too protective of her. They thought I helped her,” Maureen said. “So I said [to Kim], ‘Why don't you come to the Penn State basketball game with me and Mike and Mike's family.'”

But Kim said no way. “I would rather have bamboo shoots shoved up under my fingernails than go to a basketball game,” she told Maureen.

Maureen was a bit confused. She figured if Kim was that desperate to get out of the house, what difference did it make where she went? So Maureen told Kim she'd get her a ticket for the game, but Kim said she'd rather get a massage instead.

“I said call me and I'll check on you later when we get back from the basketball game, but she was pretty much expecting me to cancel my plans with Mike and the family to take care of her again,” Maureen said.

Kim called Maureen back about an hour later and asked if she could meet her at the massage studio after the basketball game, which started at noon. After the game Mike dropped Maureen off at the massage salon to meet Kim, then left planning to come back in an hour to pick Maureen up. After the massage, as they walked out to meet Mike, Kim told Maureen she had broken a nail and needed to get it fixed.

“Will you go with me to the mall to get my nail fixed?” Kim asked Maureen.

“I'm looking at Mike and thinking, ‘Oh, my God'—so I say, ‘Okay, I have to go to the mall anyway, it's Jenny's birthday and I have to get her a gift. I'll take you to the mall.' So we went in Kim's car and I made arrangements with Mike to pick me up later at the Hrickos' house,” Maureen said.

When they got to the mall, Maureen brought Kim to the nail salon; then she went to the Lane Bryant store to get Jenny's gift. When Maureen finished shopping, she went back to the nail salon to get Kim.

“When I got back to the nail salon, there she is talking like Chatty Cathy, like there's no big deal, like she didn't bury her husband the day before. And she's carrying on like it's social hour. And not only did she have her nail fixed, she was having her nails done—all of them,” Maureen said. “I'm trying to make excuses for her, like she's going over the deep end and she doesn't know what she's doing, and I have to wait for her to get all her nails done while my husband is waiting for me at home. And I've spent like maybe twenty-four hours with him since his best friend died.”