Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (39 page)

Frantically her mind raced, thinking of ways to escape.
 
She thought

she might be able to go out the window.
 
She might go to the police and

tell them about her father.
 
"I'd told him once that I was going to

turn him in for emotional abuse, and he laughed at me.
 
He said, Who's

going to believe you?
 
You're a little kid.
 
All I'd have to do is tell

them you're just a little liarþyou're just garbage.
 
They're not going

to believe you."

" Kit remembered that and figured there was no point in trying to

escape her father.
 
No one uould believe her.

Brad had allowed Kit to go to the rehearsal for the graduation

ceremonies from the eighth grade, and she longed to graduate with her

class.

She had been in Houston over six months by now, and she wanted to

finish the school year.
 
It would be some contact with normalcy, some

way to prove to herself that all those months had not been a complete

waste.

But Kit never went back after her father ruined her clothes with

garbage and forced her to throw away everything that mattered to her.

How could she go to school?
 
She had no clothes.

Kit never knew what she had done to set her father off, to turn him

into a raving, frothing stranger.
 
She didn't realize, of course, that

she had lived out the same scenario as her aunt Susan.
 
When Sanford

Cunningham was angry, Susan had hidden in her closet too, clutching her

dog close to her.
 
Even Brad, who seemed so all-powerful at the age of

thirty-four, had cowered in terror when he was a little boy, waiting

for his father to come home and mete out the beatings his mother

decreed.

Kit's mother couldn't help her.
 
Her father barely looked at her.

She wasn't sure how to find her other relatives, everyone was far away

in Washington State.
 
And then, finally, she learned she was going

home.

She could scarcely breathe for fear her father would change his mind.

But when he left Houston, Kit was, thank God, in the car.
 
"He drove

me to Yakima," she said.

After that, Brad never showed any interest in having Kit with him.

She saw her father a few times when she was fifteen or sixteen, and

never again thereafterþnot until she had a memorable confrontation with

him in 1995.

June 1983 may well have been the turning point of Brad's life.
 
Ever

since he was a little boy, he had hustled, always looking upward at the

next step on the ladder of success.
 
Financial success.
 
Personal

success.

And, yes, sexual success.
 
His older sister Ethel had referred to him

in a derogatory fashion as the "local black market kid," commenting

that he was always looking for a way to make a fast dollar.
 
His father

Sanford had been the same way and was undoubtedly a model for his only

son.

According to his youngest daughter, Susan, Sanford had won approval

from his father and uncles by being quick with his checkhook.
 
He had

always wanted a better house and a better truck than anyone in his

family.

Eventually Sanford had wanted a better wife, and Brad seemed to want a

better wife often.
 
He had been married to Cheryl longer than anyone so

far.
 
He stayed three and a half years with Loni Ann, six months with

Cynthia, seven months with Lauren.
 
Cheryl was determined to make her

marriage work, sure that everything was going to be better soon Sanford

Cunningham's "best house" was only a middle-class rambler on a busy

street in a workingman's suburb.
 
His son wanted much more.

Unlike his father, Brad had Indian blood in his veins, but it was a

heritage that he was ashamed of.
 
As he grew to be a man, he had

distanced himself from his roots a quickly as he could.
 
Even so, no

worldly possession and no woman had ever yet lived up to his perception

of what he felt he needed to enhance the persona he presented to the

world.

No woman until Cheryl.
 
She was beautiful and brilliant and perfect.

She loved Brad completely and single-mindedly, and she had bent to his

will early in their relationship.
 
She had given him two fine sons and

she was once again earning a very comfortable living.

Brad was not.
 
His rise as a real estate entrepreneur had been almost

meteoric, but when his soaring star faltered, it faltered badlsr.

In June 1983 it plunged straight down to earth.
 
He surely saw it

coming.

His abuse of Kit that spring in Houston may have indicated something

more than pure meanness, Brad was more likely a man walking on the

sharp edge of career disaster who defused his own anxiety by berating

the only person around who was no threat to him.
 
His behavior was

hardly admirable, but if it was a reaction to the crurmbling of his

dreams, it was easier to understand than cruelty for its own salie.

Brad had kept up his public t,cade, going each day to his fine office

in his shiny Mercedes.
 
If Kit's perception of her father's financial

picture, her memory of his boasting about hidden assets and

freewheeling charges on credit cards he would never have to pay, was

accurate, Brad did not go down without a plan.
 
Perhaps he did have

money no one knew about and perhaps he did not disclose all his assets

to the bankruptcy court.
 
He had always lived an opulent lifestyle, a

few steps beyond what he could really afford.
 
He was probably grasping

eventhing he could on his way down.
 
But with the Parkwood Plaza

project irrevocably gone, he was a man starting over.

Meanwhile, Cheryl was working hard at Garvey, Schubert, where she had

made many friends.
 
Her early promise as a litigator had blossomed.

She was good.
 
She was more than good, she was partnership material.

One of the partners in the firm recalled the first time he realized

that Cheryl was a woman to be reckoned with.
 
"We were at a partners'

meeting in Seattle and Cheryl was conducting a deposition.
 
We stood

outside the conference room and heard her chewing out two senior

members of the bar.

We all thought, wow, she's feisty, .
 
. . we've really got a great

litigator.
 
She was creative, very bright, tenaciousþand the clients

loved her."

Brock Adams was a partner in Garvey, Schubert until his election to the

U.S. Senate.
 
The law firm that began in Seattle in 1979 had had any

number of top litigators but Cheryl Keeton would be remembered as "one

of the best in the history of our law firm" and "top notch!"
 
She was a

woman for all seasons.
 
Her future seemed to be limitless.

Cheryl had kept the home fires burning for Brad.
 
She was still living

on Bainbridge Island and she depended on her sister Susan, her cousin

Katannah King, or Sally Nelson,* a baby-sitter, to take care of Jess

and Michael while she was at work.
 
Sally worked for Cheryl for only

four months.
 
She said later that she was nervous because Brad had so

many guns, and because she saw that he was irrationally jealous of

Cheryl.
 
He hinted that she was probably cheating on him with other men

while he was in Texas.
 
But Cheryl would have needed superhuman energy

to find the time andlor the enthusiasm to carry on an affair.
 
She left

the house early in the morning to catch the ferry to Seattle, worked a

long day, and headed home often after dark.
 
What free time she had,

she spent with Jess and Michael and, if he was in town, with Brad.

Besides, Cheryl was carrying another child.
 
She was pregnant for the

third time in four years and expected to give birth around Thanksgiving

1983.
 
With the workload she was handling at her law firm, and with all

the responsibility of caring for Jess and Michael while Brad was gone,

she was exhausted most of the time.
 
It was, of course, not the most

propitious time for her to be pregnant, but she was happy about it

nonetheless.

As she always had, Cheryl continued to believe that things were going

to get better in her marriage.
 
It was terrible for Brad to lose his

Houston project, but she believed at least that meant he would be home

and they would be living together as a family again.
 
When Brad was

away, it was easy for Cheryl to think like that.
 
But when he was home,

all the warm good things she had planned just seemed to slip away.

She tried.
 
She tried very hard.
 
She and Brad socialized with Sharon

McCulloch and her husband, and sometimes Brad could be charming.

Even Sharon had changed her mind about him.
 
She liked him a lot better

now than in the days when she first cared for newborn Jess.
 
If Cheryl

and Brad needed a baby-sitter, the McCullochs allowed their teenage

daughter to take the ferry to Bainbridgeþwith the understanding that

Brad would be picking her up.

When Brad wanted to be, he was the best person in the world to be

around.
 
But when he turned on someone, he was another person, the most

formidable of opponents.
 
He was so intelligent, and he had an uncanny

knack at spotting a person's most vulnerable area.
 
Then he would go

for the jugular.
 
Sharon soon saw that she had been right about Brad in

the first place.
 
"This is a man who was so smooth.
 
It's hard to

understand.

I trusted him.
 
And then everything fell apart.
 
He was so cunning and

so persuasive.
 
It was just chilling.
 
It was diabolical.
 
It was