Every Move You Make (6 page)

“He’s not coming back,” Evans said one day. “He told me to tell you that.”

In the beginning, the relationship between them wasn’t sexual, Lisa said later. Evans would stop by her apartment just to talk, “like friends,” and, at Cuomo’s request, “keep her company.”

As the months passed, he began giving her money, as if paying off a debt. When he stopped by her apartment with the cash, he would tell her that he’d heard from Damien, saying things like, “He’s hiding out down south. Write him off. Forget about him. He’s not coming back.”

In 1996, after Evans finished a two-year bid for burglary in Sing Sing, he began a more concerted effort to win Lisa’s affection.

“Gary and I became very close,” Lisa said later, “when he got out of prison. He would often stay with me.”

As she and Evans described it later, they began having what Lisa termed “marathon sex” around this same time—and Lisa, then a thirty-two-year-old single mother, said she couldn’t get enough of it as she began to fall in love with Evans.

During the week of October 15, Sully and Ed Moore took one more stab at interviewing Caroline Parker. They needed Caroline to sit down and write out a formal statement. Tim’s photo had been all over the television news lately and missing person posters had been hung around the Capital Region. His siblings were pleading for his return. Caroline and Sean, devastated, had given interviews to local reporters, hoping, naturally, it would help.

Ed Moore, Sully and other members of the Bureau felt different, though. They knew if Evans was involved with Tim, it wasn’t going to be good news. Keep the faith and hope for the best, but understand it may not turn out so pleasant at the end of the day.

When Moore and Sully first arrived at Caroline’s apartment, they explained how Tim had been involved in the trafficking of stolen property. They needed Caroline to fess up to what she knew about Tim’s criminal behavior. It had been weeks now. No more bullshit. It was time to talk truth.

Caroline was taken aback by their candor. “I know of no criminal activity that Tim was involved in and do not believe he would do anything illegal like that,” she said with stern assertion.

After a bit more prodding, however, she finally admitted that she and Tim’s relationship hadn’t been as trouble-free as she might have first let on. Tim had left in 1996 for a period of time, she explained. They fought. They had financial problems. But Tim, she insisted, was a family man all the way. “I believe our lifestyle does not reflect Tim having a lot of money from illegal activity….”

Moore and Sully looked at each other:
You are so full of shit.

About a week prior to his disappearance, Caroline recalled, Tim had taken a day off from work. Moore and Sully knew—but didn’t share it with her—that on that particular day Tim was south of Albany with Evans selling stolen merchandise to an antique shop that the two of them had been doing business with for years. The owner of the shop had picked Tim and Evans out of a photo lineup. The Bureau had three checks in the neighborhood of $10,000 written out from the shop owner to Tim Rysedorph.

Caroline continued to talk about Tim’s mood around the house during the last few weeks, relating how he was an incredibly private person, especially when it came to whom he was speaking to over the telephone.

“Do you recall any strange calls the past few weeks?” Sully asked.

“I cannot remember any unusual calls except for one. About two months ago, I answered a telephone call from a person I thought was my uncle Gary
Ashton
. ‘Hello, is Tim there?’ the caller asked when I answered. I said, ‘Hi, Gar, what’s the matter?’ The caller replied, ‘Just let me talk to Tim.’ He sounded mad.”

Caroline said she realized later it wasn’t her uncle Gary, but it was Gary Evans. Everyone in their old Troy neighborhood, where Michael Falco, Evans, Damien Cuomo and Tim had all grown up, she said, believed Evans had murdered Falco.

The last time, Caroline said, she saw or heard from Evans had been when Sean was born. Evans brought over a card and gave them an air conditioner because he was concerned that the temperature in the apartment was too hot for Caroline and the newborn. As the years passed, Caroline said she would mention Evans’s name around Tim, but he would always get upset.

“Don’t
ever
mention that name again,” Tim would snap angrily at Caroline at the mere mention of Evans. There was obviously some tension and resentment between the two men, but Caroline continued to maintain she had no idea why.

“Anything else you can recall about your husband and Gary Evans,” Moore prodded, “would be of great help to us.” He knew she had more information.

“Well, I remember Tim telling me that if anything ever happened to him, or if he ever became missing, ‘like Mike Falco,’ that I was
not
to say anything to the police about Gary Evans…. He is dangerous.”

Moore and Sully wondered why she hadn’t offered the information weeks ago.

Continuing, she said, “Tim said that if anything ever happened to him, I should change our last name and move away.”

Considering what had happened the past few weeks, Caroline perhaps realized for the first time that Evans had likely had a hand in her husband’s disappearance. She said she now believed it
was
Evans, using the alias “Lou,” who had called her the weekend Tim disappeared. Tim was scared of Evans, she added, and had probably gone with him reluctantly because Evans had threatened Tim with Sean’s safety.

It was one of the last conversations she’d had with Tim that really scared her, she admitted. The night before Tim disappeared, a Thursday, she said they had a fight and talked about getting a divorce. “‘I love you…but if you want a divorce,’” she said Tim wrote in a note to her that night, “‘I will give you money for the divorce.’”

Later in the note, after he apologized for being “moody” lately and even “mean” at times, as if he had a premonition of what was to come, Tim wrote of his concern for Caroline and Sean’s safety, should he ever not return home. He speculated that Evans would harm her and Sean and was worried about not being around to protect them.

CHAPTER 10

Lisa Morris lived a life of solitude in a modest apartment that was, by sheer luck, only about two miles from Jim Horton’s home in Latham. Stopping by Lisa’s apartment and badgering her, Horton knew, was going to be the conduit to making contact with Evans.

The first few times Horton popped in, Lisa was passive, unfriendly, and perhaps a little scared. During a Bureau briefing one morning after Lisa’s name had been discovered, Horton told his investigators he had recognized her name as someone Evans had mentioned to him from time to time.

“Gary told me more than once that, in his words, Lisa was simply ‘someone he stopped by to fuck’ every once in a while. I had no reason not to believe him. Gary had a lot of those women in his life.”

The first thing Horton noticed when he knocked on Lisa’s door on October 15 was how homely her apartment, from the outside, looked. It wasn’t run-down, but, as Horton peered through the window, he could tell she hadn’t kept it up perhaps the way she could have. A cop is always studying people and places: body language, vocal characteristics, clothes, how someone walks, eye movement, the appearance of a home, car. Lisa spoke with a smoker’s raspy voice. She wore plain clothes and little makeup. She hadn’t really held down a full-time job, but would work occasionally as a process server, delivering subpoenas to people in civil cases.

It was obvious to Horton by just looking at her that first time that she liked to drink—a lot. She had bags under both eyes and loose, pale skin. She appeared lethargic, as if it had taken all of her energy just to answer the door.

“Paperboy,” Horton said as Lisa opened the door. He was holding a day-old newspaper he’d picked up on her front steps.

Without Horton saying anything more, the initial look Lisa held told him she knew exactly who he was and why he was there. Although Horton never openly wore a shield or flipped it out like television cops, he had a look about him that screamed law enforcement. It was something most cops couldn’t hide. They looked the part. What was more, he kept his handcuffs hanging not from his waist, but from the emergency brake lever in his cruiser, and hardly ever carried his weapon.

“I never wore those stupid tie tags—like a miniature silver or gold set of handcuffs, announcing that I was a cop,” Horton said later. “But it was written all over my face…and, of course, the blue suit. I certainly wasn’t a vacuum cleaner salesman.”

As Lisa invited Horton in and began to talk, he realized the connection she’d had with Evans ran deep and, most important,
recent
. There was no doubt she had seen Evans within the past few weeks.

“He’s talked about you,” Lisa said, adding, “I’ve heard your name before.”

“I need to know some things, Lisa.”

Within a few minutes, Horton learned that he and Lisa had more in common than just Gary Evans: their daughters attended the same school. Twelve-year-old
Christina Morris
, had gone to the same school as Horton’s daughter, Alison. They weren’t friends, but they knew each other.

Even more remarkable was who Christina’s father was.

“Damien Cuomo,” Lisa offered. Cuomo was one of Evans’s “business partners.” He had been missing since 1989. Horton had no idea Lisa even knew Cuomo.

Horton sat back for a moment, took a breath. It was all beginning to make sense.

“Let me get this straight: Damien Cuomo is your daughter’s
father
?”

“Yes,” Lisa said, surprised as to why Horton seemed so shocked.

More evidence to Horton that Cuomo, Falco and Tim Rysedorph were dead—and that Evans had killed them.

“It just all made sense to me at that moment,” Horton recalled later. “What had been a hunch for years turned into a fact for me.”

The apartment complex where Lisa lived was located on a patch of land in back of a strip mall on Route 155 in Latham. A second-story unit, her apartment had two bedrooms, a small living room, eat-in kitchen, and a sliding door that walked out to a small deck. It wasn’t a penthouse, but the school district for Christina was considered one of the best in the state and the apartment was affordable.

Evans liked the location because he could park his truck in the parking lot of T.J. Maxx, a retail clothing store located in the strip mall adjacent to Lisa’s door, when he wanted to pay her a visit. The apartment complex was directly to the northeast of the loading dock area of T.J. Maxx. Evans would park his vehicle in the front parking lot of the strip mall and blend it into the store’s parking lot of vehicles. It was just one more way for Evans to keep his whereabouts secret.

Every aspect of his life had been thought out with meticulous consideration. Even a seemingly innocent stop at a girlfriend’s house for “a piece of ass,” as Evans would jokingly put it, had to be planned with concerted effort to the finest detail—and Evans was a master at alluding authorities and tricking people into thinking he was somewhere other than where he was supposed to be. Being a criminal was his job, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Everything he did consisted of him snooping around, looking over his shoulder, covering his tracks. He had to, he later admitted to Horton, have a system in place for every part of his life, or he couldn’t function. One of his biggest fears about visiting Lisa was being bottled up at her apartment if push ever came to shove. If his truck were out in front of her apartment, he would have felt caged in. On foot, he believed, he could get away from any situation.

Scattered around Lisa’s apartment were ceramic elephants, statues, figurines and knickknacks of all types. In the ashtrays were butts from marijuana cigarettes. When Horton took it all in, he had no choice but to think that every antique in the apartment had been stolen by Evans and given to Lisa as a gift.

“I need to talk to Gary,” Horton said as Lisa continued to speak of menial, everyday things.

“I’m not sure where he is.”

“Listen, Lisa. I don’t know what Gary’s told you about me, but we go back a few years. I really need to find him.”

Horton brought the list from the prison with him, hoping to prove to Lisa that he wasn’t just making things up to further his agenda. He had no idea what kind of picture Evans had painted for Lisa of their relationship.

“You see,” Horton said, pointing to the list where his name had been written by Evans, “he doesn’t write that I’m a cop; he writes ‘friend’ next to my name, just like yours.”

Lisa appeared to ease up a bit, as though she had become unwillingly convinced she could trust Horton.

“I used to date Damien Cuomo,” Lisa said.

Horton explained how he knew the name and why it shocked him so much to hear that Lisa’s daughter had been fathered by Cuomo.

“Do you think Gary had anything to do with his disappearance—no one has seen Damien for almost ten years now?”

“No! He’s a piece of shit for leaving me high and dry with Christina. Fucking deadbeat dad is all he is.”

“You know that Gary and Damien are—” Horton didn’t even get a chance to finish what he was saying.

“Yes…I know they’re thieves,” Lisa said. “So what.”

Even though Horton thought there was a good chance Damien Cuomo was dead, he felt he needed to ask Lisa where she thought he was.

“I know exactly where he is,” Lisa said. She seemed mad, raising her voice and looking away. “He’s down in the Carolinas living it up!” She was convinced of it.

Over the course of the next ten minutes, Lisa confessed that she had been dating Evans on and off for about the past eight years, but had never visited him while he was in jail. It wasn’t something Evans wanted, she claimed. She talked about him as though he were some sort of Prince Charming who had saved her and Christina from the mess Damien Cuomo had left them in.

“I know Damien is on the run. He could have given himself up, done his time, and he could be sitting here right now with his daughter. But he left us instead! He never calls at Christmas, her birthday. Nothing. Thank God Gary came into our lives.”