Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (49 page)

others, and who has little genuine insight."

Sardo noted that Brad had a strong tendency to "project" onto someone

else undesirable traits he himself might have.
 
Either he had virtually

no awareness of his own personality, or he contrived to slough off

negative traits and attribute them to others.
 
Moreover, Brad

Cunningham, whose facade was that of an extremely strongþeven machoþ

male, scored much higher than normal in feminine traits.

Brad thought that he had aced the M.M.P.I, that he had snowed Sardo

completely and succeeded in convincing him that Cheryl was a

temperamental bitch who cared more for her career and her sex life than

she did for her sons.

Sardo had seen an entirely different woman.

Cheryl's M.M.P.I test scores supported the statements she had given in her

earlier interviews with Dr. Sardo.
 
Although she jousted very

successfully with males in a profession where females were still in the

minority, the test revealed that Cheryl identified with a "very

traditional female role."
 
She was far less guarded and defensive than

Brad in her answers.
 
She showed herself to be a person with a great

deal of energy, and also as someone who could be impulsive.
 
And most

interesting to Dr. Sardo, given the reason for the M.M.P.I tests,

Cheryl's answers disclosed who she was at her very center.
 
Despite her

very high-profile and assertive career, she was at heart a mother, a

wife, a nurturer.

Weighing what he knew about Brad and Cheryl, Dr. Sardo next visited

with their sons.
 
Jess was six, Michael four, and Phillip two.
 
And it

was clear that someone had taken very good care of them.
 
Remarkably

untouched by the custody squabbles that swarmed around them like angry

bees, they were active and playful little boys.
 
When Dr. Sardo asked

them who they lived with, Jess said, "Mom."
 
Michael said, "Momþand

Dad."

When he asked them which parent was more fun, Michael instantly said,

"Mom!"
 
Jess said, "Mostly Mom," and then quickly said, "Mostly Dad."

Sardo found the Cunningham children spontaneous, alert, curious, and

extremely intelligent.
 
The two older boys said they could play chess

and did so with both of their parents.
 
In fact, the boys seemed so

well adjusted that Sardo could only conclude that both Brad and Cheryl

must be concerned with their children's well-beingþjust as each of them

claimed.
 
Despite the struggle he had observed between Brad and Cheryl,

he could not find that either parent's behavior had been detrimental to

the boys, they certainly seemed to be unstressed and happy little

kids.

In the couple's joint sessions with Dr. Sardo, Cheryl kept hoping that

she and Brad could reach a reasonable custody agreement, but Brad would

not give an inch.
 
Time after time, Sardo watched Brad flare up and

stride toward the door, saying flatly, "I'll see you in court."
 
Why

did Brad have to make this process so much worse than it needed to

be?

he wondered.

Dr. Sardo's decision wasn't easy.
 
It never was, but this couple was

more difficult to evaluate than most.
 
In good conscience, he could not

say one parent was a monster and the other a saint.
 
He couldn't even

say that one parent would be harmful to the children.
 
It was just that

the odds were that Cheryl had been the more consistent parent, and he

recommended that the children would probably be better offwith their

mother.

As to reaching a rational and equitable division of the parents' time

with Jess, Michael, and Phillip, Sardo realized that was never going to

happen.
 
In the end, although both Cheryl and Brad had said they were

seeking a way to achieve joint custody of the boys, Sardo was unable to

effect any happy resolution at all.
 
He had to decide, then, which

parent would be deemed the parent.

Dr. Sardo determined that Cheryl had always been the major

caregiver.

She had been more reliable, and showed fewer inconsistencies in her

statements.
 
And she had been all alone with her children for long

periods while Brad had pursued his business interests.
 
Much of that

time, Brad had been more than a thousand miles away, and it was hard to

picture him as the key parent.
 
Moreover, Sardo suspected that Brad's

sense of competition over the boys was a major factor in this bitter

and ongoing dispute.
 
He was quite clearly a man who wanted to win any

battle he was engaged in.

He did not win this battle.
 
Cheryl was deemed the primary parent of

Jess, Michael, and Phillip Cunningham.
 
The question now was whether

Brad would let go.
 
He wanted his three boys.
 
He wanted to shut their

mother completely out of their lives if he could, and he was still

determined to accomplish that.

/ Cheryl had married BradþasSohnny Cash and June Carter sang in their

country songþ"in a fever."
 
She had stayed with him years longer than

most women would have, almost blindly determined to make their marriage

last.
 
At first, his life before he came into hers hadn't mattered.

And later, she was quite probably afraid to go poking around into

Brad's business, too wary to search for the secrets she was sure

existed.
 
But now, as she met Brad on the battlefield of divorce, she

set about turning over the rocks of her estranged husband's past.

Until the summer of 1986, Cheryl had known only one of Brad's previous

three wivesþher onetime sorority sister and former friend Lauren

Swanson.
 
After what she and Brad had done to Lauren, Cheryl could

hardly expect to go to her now and ask for help.
 
Brad had made Lauren

sound like the next thing to an ax murderess.
 
Belatedly Cheryl

understood that she had been duped into believing what Brad wanted her

to believe.

He had lied about Lauren, just as he was lying about her now.
 
No,

Lauren had just been another of Brad's wife-victims.
 
And Cheryl

wondered how many more there might be.
 
How many women hael Brad

victimized in the past?
 
More important, how many would talk about

it?

Cheryl had never really had a reasonþor an excuseþto contact Loni Ann

Cunningham before.
 
Both Kit and Brent had visited in Cheryl's various

homes, but Brad had allowed Cheryl precious little say about their

care.

They were not her children, they were his.
 
Cheryl hadn't known about

Kit's terror during her months with her father in Houston.
 
Had she

known, she would have tried to rescue the little girlþbut Kit's ordeal

in Houston was only one more of Brad's secrets.

During this bitter summer of 1986, Cheryl knew that Brent was in

Portland and living with Brad in the Madison Tower.
 
Cheryl feared for

him.
 
The was a nice young man, not even sixteen vet.
 
He didn't have

Brad's aggressive, superconfident personalityþnothing like it.
 
He

could be so easily crushed by the sheer force of his father.

Loni Ann Cunningham wasn't easy to locate, Cheryl discovered that

Brad's first wife had done her best to hide from him for more than two

decades.
 
Her address was not listed in public records.
 
It took weeks

for Cheryl to find Loni Ann in Brooklyn, New York, where she was

working as a kinesiology therapist.
 
Cheryl called to warn her that

Brad's apartment was not the best place for Brent to be living.

Although Loni Ann was worried, there was little she could do.
 
Brent

had gone to school in Brooklyn until his freshman year in high

school.

With his red hair and blue eyes, he had stuck out like a sore thumb,

the only fair-haired student in a school where every other student had

brown eyes and black hair.
 
"They walk around me as if I spoke a

foreign language," he told his mother, and he begged to go back to the

Northwest to live.

Loni Ann had hoped that Brent was faring well with his father.
 
He was

a son, and Brad had always treated his sons better than his

daughters.

Although Loni Ann was still afraid, she did give Cheryl some details I

about her own life with Brad.
 
She recounted the bitter custody

hearings for Brent and Kit.
 
Cheryl was even able to get a

half-promise from Loni Ann that she might give a deposition to help in

her own custody struggle.

Slowly, very slowly, after all her years with Brad, Cheryl began to

uncover the real truth about the man she had married, and to learn the

almost unbelievable story of the years before he came into her life.

Brad had never allowed her to know his mother or his sisters.
 
True, he

had taken Cheryl to some of the Cunningham family reunions, but his

mother, Rosemary, had never been thereþshe had long since been

banished.

Brad had never wanted to talk about his mother and instantly quashed

any mention of her.
 
And he preferred that Cheryl maintain a very low

profile at the family celebrations, and not mention her career.
 
So she

had said scarcely anything, just engaged in woman-talk about babies and

recipes.

The men had seemed to dictate the way the reunions would go.
 
The women

brought the food and stayed in their place.

Cheryl knew almost nothing about Brad's sisters, Ethel and Susan.

He had said they weren't worth knowing.
 
He had cared about his father,

and he had suffered the presence of his father's wife Mary because

Sanford wanted her with him.
 
The rest of his family hadn't really

existed for Brad.
 
It was the same with his Indian roots.
 
Brad didn't

want to talk about them and he never wanted Cheryl to ask questions