The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 - Jeffrey Toobin [36]
“He just got up, hugged me really tight, and left,” Molly says. “He didn’t say much of anything.”
That evening, when he got back to the Maruca residence, Rob proudly showed the rifle to Will, saying that it was on loan from his stepfather. He invited Will to take it target-shooting the next day. The two boys often went to a homemade target range they had set up in the woods nearby, where Rob had honed his skill. But they rarely got their hands on an AK-47, and now they snapped a picture of the weapon with a cellphone and e-mailed it to a few friends. Around 11 p.m., Rob smoked a few Camels, tossing the empty butts in a bucket by his bed, and went to sleep, stone-cold sober.
Rob may have intended to use the rifle for target practice. But in the morning, he got a rude awakening. Molly had discovered the theft, and she was pissed. She called the Marucas and left a message: “Tell Rob to call his mother right away.” When Will gave Rob the message, he recoiled. “Oh, man—she found out I took the gun,” he told Will, who admonished him for swiping it. Rob promised to return it. But rather than face his mother, he sat down and wrote another suicide note.
“I’ve been a piece of shit my entire life,” he wrote. “It seems this is my only option. I know everyone will remember me as some sort of monster, but please understand that I just don’t want to be a burden on the ones that I care for my entire life. I just want to take a few pieces of shit with me.”
Rob left the note next to his bed and drove over to see his friend Dallas. When he arrived, he slumped down on the big leather couch, flicked on the Xbox and began to play in wordless concentration. But before long, he tossed the controller on the couch and started talking, then crying.
Tears ran down his face. Everything was wrong—everything. The Marucas were going to kick him out and he’d be homeless. He’d fucked up with Kaci, the one girl he could see marrying. She hated him, and maybe rightly so. He was looking at jail time—over Christmas—for drinking beer in the Jeep, and he didn’t even have the money to pay the fine, let alone a lawyer.
When his mother found out about the gun, she was likely to take back the Jeep, and then how the hell was he going to get around? Where was he going to sleep? What were they going to do to him in prison? Through tearstained eyes, he looked up at his old friend. “I’m fucked, dude.”
“Dude, I love you. I’m here for you.”
“I know,” Rob said, getting up off the couch. “Can I borrow your phone?”
He called Will and said he was sorry for everything. Will could tell by his voice that he was on edge. “You haven’t done anything yet, Rob,” Will told him. “Just chill out, OK?” Putting his hand over the phone, he called out to his mom, who was getting ready for work.
“I think Rob’s going to kill himself,” Will said. “Can you talk to him?”
His mother got on the phone. Whatever it is, she said, it’s no big deal.
“I just want to thank you for all the stuff you’ve done for me,” Rob told her. “I’m sorry.”
Rob hung up and called his mother. When Molly didn’t answer, he left a message. He sent a text message to Kaci, telling her that he loved her and was sorry for everything and that he was going to go have a “standoff.” Then he sent the exact same message to his new girlfriend.
Rob told Dallas he was going to take off. Standing at the door, the two friends hugged. Dallas felt like Rob wasn’t really there, “like he wasn’t in his body.” After Rob left, Dallas grew worried. He switched on the TV. “I was thinking if Rob was going to do something, like get in a shootout, it would be on the news.”
Molly, meanwhile, was looking for Rob. She thought he was going to “sell the gun to one of his druggie ex-con friends, probably as barter for some tattoo work.” She was going to seriously kick his ass. She called Dallas to see if he was there. “If you see Rob, don’t let him out of your sight—just tackle him,” she said.