Kiss of the She-Devil by M. William Phelps Read Free Book Online

Michigan in July. The Fourth [of July]. He wanted me to talk to Gail.” Donna didn’t explain why George had requested Donna fly up to Michigan, meet him and Gail at a hotel, and have a little powwow: the mistress, the wife, and the husband. It seemed odd if the affair was over. (Donna didn’t mention it here, but this meeting involved a baby and a terminal illness.) “I told George to get Gail some counseling. He told me she would talk to a priest if she needed to speak with someone.”
    “When was the last time you were with George?” Whitefield asked, meaning sexually.
    “August seventeenth,” Donna said. How could she forget? “It was my birthday. He broke it off with me that night.” She never mentioned if they had started up the relationship again or why; but it was clear that the affair was reignited after that Fourth of July meeting with Gail—if only for that one birthday night celebration in August.
    Whitefield knew there would come a time when the sheriff ’s department conducted a formal, longer, much more detailed interview with Donna, likely in person. Talking to Donna, nearing the end of their conversation, Whitefield realized she had not once asked why the sheriff ’s department in Michigan was asking her such pointed questions in the middle of the night. It was as if Donna knew something she wasn’t sharing.
    “Thanks,” Whitefield said. He didn’t want to broach the subject now.
    Then Donna spoke up, suddenly, as if she’d had a second thought: “What is this about, anyway?”
    “George’s wife has been killed.”
    “Oh, no . . . not Gail,” Donna said. “How are George and the kids doing?”
    Whitefield didn’t know how to answer.
    “Well,” Donna said, “thank you for calling.”

10
    T HE MORNING OF October 5, 1999, now almost twelve hours after police had found Martha Gail Fulton barely breathing in the parking lot of the Orion Township Library, investigators were certain of a few things: One, George Fulton had several reasons to want his wife taken out; and two, George, whom investigators knew to be a smart man, West Point–educated and a military officer at one time, had left out the crucial fact that he had a mistress in Florida during their first conversations with him. It wasn’t until Andrew Fulton, George and Gail’s son, dropped that bombshell that investigators knew about Donna. George had been interviewed at the substation briefly, but he had failed to talk about his relationship with Donna Trapani. Investigators saw this as a sign of George hiding something.
    “Surveillance,” said one of the sergeants in charge, James A’Hearn. “Let’s follow him.” From the moment he met George Fulton, A’Hearn did not like him.
    It was a good idea to watch George’s house.
     
     
    In the meantime Chris Wundrach, who was taking over a pivotal role in the case along with other members of the sheriff ’s department, got in touch with a coworker of Gail’s who seemed to shed some light on a few personal issues. Cops liked to hear several witnesses—who did not know each other and had never met—reveal the same basic facts. There was credibility in numbers and independent, similar facts being corroborated.
    It was 8:30 A.M. , and Wundrach was sitting in the substation across from a woman who had heard about what had happened the previous night and wanted to share a conversation she’d had recently with Gail. Word of her murder had traveled through town like a chain e-mail. Gail’s coworkers began to think about her unstable and tenuous situation at home with George.
    “Gail told me about an affair her husband was having with a woman in Florida,” the woman reported to Wundrach. Gail’s coworker made it clear that she was personally appalled by this. Gail was the most loving, caring, kindhearted person this woman had ever met. Everything Gail did, she had done for her family—or for others. Gail was a churchgoing wife who respected the sacrament of marriage and