Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (51 page)

brand-new vehicles.
 
Nobody who's bankrupt could have so much."

Brad was still living at the Madison Tower like a man who had money to

burn.
 
Before his job with Citizens' ended in mid-April, a professional

"headhunter" had placed him in his top position with U.S. Bank.
 
The

bank had purchased his personal vehicle, a Volkswagen Cabriolet, and

given it back to him to use.
 
His new job paid close to one hundred

thousand dollars a year and came with perks too numerous to list.
 
He

was basically in charge of all the commercial property loans in the

Spectrum division of U.S. Bank.
 
He hadn't exaggerated to Sara when he

told her about his position.
 
He was at the top of the heap.
 
There was

the possibility of a multimillion-dollar award in his pending suit.

But he didn't have it yet, and the Houston law firm handling the case

would undoubtedly take a large chunk of any payoff.
 
Cheryl was

concerned that Brad was spending a tremendous amount of money to

maintain his upscale lifestyle, more money than even he made.

Eric Lindenauer could see that Cheryl was on the offensive, she was

through looking the other way and she would never make an excuse for

Brad again.
 
He, of all people, had seen Cheryl in action in the

courtroom and her offensive was tough.
 
She confided that Brad had paid

virtually nothing toward their household expenses for years.
 
Even when

he had worked for Citizens' Savings as an upper-echelon executive,

Cheryl had paid all the bills.
 
"Maybe he'd buy pizza once in a while,"

she said bitterly.

Eric considered Brad "a major jerkþhe was not a nice person."
 
He felt

sorry for Cheryl and he was amazed that a man like Brad could ever have

attracted a woman like her in the first place.
 
She was one of the most

brilliant lawyers he had ever encountered.
 
"Cheryl was fearless in

courtþone of the fastest people on her feet I've ever seen, Eric

commented.
 
"Brad Cunningham was the only one to intimidate her....

She was the easiest person to like.
 
Besides Brad, she had no other

enemies."

Brad had quite clearly become an enemy.
 
But that went both ways.

Cheryl's intimate knowledge of Brad's machinations made her a threat to

him.
 
If he was only a blowhard, full of sound and fury and veiled

threats, Brad couldn't do physical harm to Cheryl.
 
He had her on the

ropes, but she was fighting back now, and she could be a formidable

opponent.

In August, when the time neared for Jess and Michael to be enrolled in

school, the long, deceptively cool summer began to heat up.
 
Brad's

phone calls had a new, more menacing undertone.
 
And Cheryl continued

to write down every word, every phrase.
 
She often showed her notes to

her brother Jim.
 
". . . Called my mother a lying slut on the phone

when he called back."

"Won't give me keys to get tires myself.
 
If not resolved, he will

dispose of tires."
 
Jim occasionally drove the van.
 
He used her keys

that she kept on a round leather key ringþcar keys and house keys.
 
She

had separate office keys.

Cheryl's life was a paradox that summer.
 
One part of her lived in the

world of the devoted mother and successful young attorney.
 
There were

men who found her attractive, men who called and wanted to date her.

Occasionallyþvery occasionallyþshe went out, but she always seemed to

be listening, always waiting for something to happen.
 
She was never

completely with anyone, because another role she had assumed was that

of quarry.
 
There was no mystery about whom she feared.
 
It was Brad.

She had come to a place where she constantly watched her back.

Eric knew that there was nothing heþor anyoneþcould do legally to

protect Cheryl from Brad.
 
It is one of the necessary incongruities of

the law that one cannot call the police and report a crime about to

happen.
 
If that were possible, police dispatchers could never find

enough officers to respond.
 
Most of the frightening threats made in

angerþor in drunkennessþare never carried out.
 
True, restraining

orders can be obtained, but they are only paper.
 
Enraged stalkers are

rarely put off by the words on a legal document.

Brad obviously didn't love Cheryl anymore, but he had a new woman and

Eric certainly didn't think he might physically assault Cheryl.
 
He

never had before, no matter how angry he was with her.
 
The police

would probably have dismissed such a notion, too.
 
These were two

professional people with too much to lose for them to engage in

physical encounters.

Eric tried to keep that thought in mind.
 
Cheryl's sister Susan

agreed.

She would recall saying, "I'm not afraid of Brad, Cheryl.
 
He's not

going to hurt youþhe's not that dumb."

On August 13

Cheryl enrolled Jess in Bridlemile Grade School on the West Slope.
 
Eric

went along with her because she was afraid Brad might show up and make

trouble.
 
He didn't, and she was relieved.

Brad and Cheryl divided their three sons' time as precisely as if King

Solomon himself had shaved the days of the week with a fine-edged

sword.

He had the little boys Tuesday and Wednesday and every other weekend

from precisely 7

P.M. on Friday to precisely 7

P.M. on Sunday.
 
Neither one would permit the other to be even five

minutes late in returning the boys from a visitation.
 
Cheryl

complained to confidants that Brad brought the boys back in faded old

clothes, although they left her house in new garments.
 
Phillip's new

carseat disappeared and was replaced by an old one.

The most basic chores of everyday living had become a struggle.

Cheryl had a brief respite when she took the boys on vacation with

her.

Her fear dissipated with every mile away from Portland.
 
She spent

Labor Day with her half sisters Debi Bowen and Kim RobertsþFloyd

Keeton's daughters by his second wife, Gabriellaþand their families in

Vacaville, California.
 
But she had to leave early to get back, she had

to be sure that Jess had a good start at his new school.

September 2 was Jess's first day at Bridlemile School.
 
Eric had

arranged to pick up Cheryl very early in the morning so they could drop

Michael at his preschool, and also avoid Brad if he came to the

house.

Cheryl and Eric had just arrived at Bridlemile School with Jess when

Brad suddenly appeared, carrying Phillip.
 
Moments later, they were

engaged in a clash of wills that appalled the principal, Peter

Hamilton.

Never before and never again would he see parents so out of control.

"These people hated each other," he would recall.

The cause of their argument was not that unusual.
 
Hamilton had seen

any number of divorced parents who disagreed over where their children

would go to school.
 
It was the ferocious intensity of the fight

between Cheryl and Brad that alarmed Hamilton.
 
While scores of

parents, first graders, and kindergartners stared, stunned, Brad was

calling his wife a "slut" and a "cunt" and he looked at her with venom

and naked hatred in his eyes.
 
Here in a sunny hallway that smelled of

wax and crayons and fresh first-day-of-school clothes, Cheryl and Brad

seemed about to come to blows.
 
Hurriedly, Hamilton ushered them into

his office where they could talk without everyone in the building

hearing them.

Brad was enraged because he wanted Jess to go to Chapman School in

downtown Portland, where he lived.
 
Further, he was furious that his

name did not even appear on the application for enrollment to

Bridlemile.

Cheryl had left the square marked "Father" blank.
 
For twenty minutes,

Brad and Cheryl railed at each other.
 
Even with Hamilton's attempts at

mediation, nothing was settledþexcept they all agreed that Brad's name

should be added to the Bridlemile registration card.
 
There was no

agreement on where Jess would go to school.

The excited little boy's first day of school had been ruined.
 
And

Hamilton was so shaken by the confrontation that he jotted down what

had happened on a five-by-seven card.
 
He really didn't have to, he

could never forget the hatred that had suffused his office with an

almost palpable cloud.
 
He wondered how those two parents could ever

have gotten close enough to each other to conceive the poor little boy

who shrank against the wall as they fought over him.

Brad told Sara about the scene at Bridlemile.
 
He reported that Cheryl

had yelled and screamed at him, that she had hit him, and that, in

general, she had behaved like a trampy fishwife.
 
"My impression from

Brad was that Cheryl had caused the scene," Sara recalled.
 
"Brad said

he was holding little Phillip in his arms and Cheryl screamed and

caused a really big commotion.
 
He said she almost hit Phillip while he

was in Brad's arms.
 
He was very angry and upset."

After all the screaming and fighting, Jess was finally allowed to

attend first grade at Bridlemile.
 
He went to Bridlemile from September

2,1986, until Friday, September 19.
 
He had seventeen days of an almost

normal childhood.
 
After that, everything would change.

Seeing her son in tears because his first day at school had been

ruined, something in Cheryl had rebelled.
 
She would give her little