Megan Abbott - Bury Me Deep

With no definitive answers, I invented my own. I began with the basic foundation of fact and rumor, and navigated an imaginary path forged by the elements of the story that so captivated me, most especially the powder keg at the center of the case: the various attachments, triangles and jealousies between the three women and the one man, all of whom depended, in ways small and large, emotional and economic, on one another.

The characters that emerged bear many surface similarities to their real-life counterparts but are ultimately fictions. Like Marion Seeley, Winnie Ruth Judd was left in Phoenix by her doctor husband, William Judd, whose drug addiction led him to work for a mining company in Mexico. Dr. Seeley’s fate, however, diverges wildly from that of the real-life Dr. Judd’s, although it is inspired by his paternal loyalty to her. Like Louise Mercer, Anne LeRoi was a nurse at the same clinic where Winnie Ruth Judd worked and various details of her employment are the same. Jack Halloran was, like Joe Lanigan, married with children and was a successful businessman and pillar of the community, but the rest is pure fiction. Ginny Hoyt, other than the tuberculosis she shares with Sammy Samuelson, is an invention. Press reports delineating the contents of Miss Samuelson’s diary, however, include excerpts from the poem “The Teak Forest,” which appears at the beginning of Part Four, as well as various song lyrics and verses throughout the novel.

Because we have only Mrs. Judd’s accounts of the murders themselves and because her recollection of Anne LeRoi’s death has always been dim, this novel’s version of those events is heavily imagined. Many of the details leading up to the murders, however, draw extensively from Winnie Ruth Judd’s accounts, from interviews, testimony and her late-in-life conversations with author Jana Bommersbach. For instance, one of the precipitating factors in the women’s fight that Friday night was Anne LeRoi’s and Sammy Samuelson’s anger that Mrs. Judd had invited a new nurse at the clinic out for an evening with Jack Halloran, at Halloran’s suggestion. The accusations the women made (e.g., that the nurse had syphilis) are drawn from Mrs. Judd’s accounts, as is Ginny’s sudden rage.

Finally, the question of how the women’s bodies ended up in those famous trunks that so captivated public attention draws on Mrs. Judd’s account that Mr. Halloran told her Sammy Samuelson’s body had been “operated on.” According to at least one source, the doctor rumored to have carried out the dismemberment appeared at the prison in which Mrs. Judd was being held after her trial, “drunk as a skunk, waving his hat around and yelling he was the only man alive who knew the truth about the Winnie Ruth Judd case.” A few months later, in June 1932, the doctor died of a heart attack.

The story of Winnie Ruth Judd, Anne LeRoi and Sammy Samuelson is actually a hundred stories or more. Researching it, I came upon so many “side” tales, moments large and small, that lingered with me. Moments like this small, haunting story that appears in The Trunk Murderess :

Virginia Fetterer, the daughter of an Arizona legislator, recalled to the author a long-ago New Year’s Eve in the late 1930s when she came upon Happy Jack Halloran, Mrs. Judd’s betraying lover, at the Adams Hotel in downtown Phoenix.

It was a night of jubilation, with street bands, and “everyone wandered around drinking and dancing and visiting with friends in a town where everybody knew everybody.” Ms. Fetterer and her friends approached the Adams Grill, the hotel bar, and Halloran and his friends were coming out:

Somebody asked [Halloran] a question, like if he could take care of a problem. And he was bragging that, sure, he could fix it. Then he said—I can’t recall his exact words, but it was to the effect that if you knew the right people, you could fix anything in this town. He laughed and said that Winnie Ruth was out in the state hospital paying for what he’d done. He was bragging about it. Then, she said, a drunk Jack Halloran staggered away. 1 1 The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd by Jana Bommersbach, Scottsdale, Ariz.: Poisoned Pen Press, 2003.

A true “without whom” to Denise Roy for her peerless guidance, intelligence and insight, and for her warm generosity. I am also so grateful to Paul Cirone and Molly Friedrich for their support. Warmest thanks, too, to the wonderful Kelly Welsh at Simon & Schuster for all her hard work, as well as Kate Ankofski and Jonathan Evans—and to Sarah Hochman for deeply appreciated help in the homestretch. And with a special debt to the remarkable Dan Conaway, for wisdom and kindness above and beyond.

Immense gratitude to Philip and Patricia Abbott, the two people I admire most in the world, to Josh, Julie & Kevin, Ralph and Janet Nase, Kiki and Brody, the muse-like Alison Quinn, Darcy Lockman, Jeff, Ruth & Steve Nase, the Nichols and the Gaylord family (with an extra nod to Dave for his last-minute assistance).

Finally, a special thanks to Patrick Millikin, Sara Gran and Vicki Hendricks, for a very, very memorable night in Phoenix.

Queenpin

The Song Is You

Die a Little

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Megan Abbott

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Abbott, Megan E.

Bury me deep / Megan Abbott.

p. cm.

1. Physicians’ spouses—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Phoenix (Ariz.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3601.B37B87 2009

813'.6—dc22 2008030676

ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-0105-6

ISBN-10: 1-4391-0105-1

“T.B. Blues” by Jimmie Rodgers and Raymond E. Hall

Copyright © 1931 by Peer International Corporation.

Copyright renewed.

International copyright secured. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Photo on Backmatter courtesy of Herald-Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

Visit us on the Web:

http://www.SimonandSchuster.com

The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd by Jana Bommersbach, Scottsdale, Ariz.: Poisoned Pen Press, 2003.