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I walk past him and take a seat on the same couch where he told me to sit the other night.
Then I take out my phone and place it on the coffee table and check to make sure that the volume is turned up all the way before motioning for Jacobson to take a seat across from me, in the chair where Champi sat the other night.
“Are we ready?”
“For what?” he says.
“For this.”
I hit Play.
The next voice in the living room is Joe Champi’s, from the last moments of his life, frommyliving room. The audio ends with Champi trying to laugh, and going into a coughing fit instead.
One of the last things he says is this:“You asked me if I thought this shit was funny.”
More coughing, the sound getting worse as his voice gets weaker.
“You want to know the funniest part of all? They had him on trial for killing the wrong family.”
Finally Champi, his voice almost inaudible by now, says,“You don’t know how crazy his family is.”
On the tape you hear me pleading with Joe Champi to stay with me.
He dies then.
There is no response right away from Rob Jacobson to what he’s just heard.
Then he turns to Jimmy Cunniff before looking back at me, Rob Jacobson at a loss for words, at last. But not for long. In the next moment we’re somehow all the way back to where we started.
Only he’s talking to me about three different victims this time.
“Now you really do have to believe me,” Jacobson says. “I. Did. Not. Kill.Those.People.”
