Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (59 page)

seen after the crime.
 
Lily Saarnen had seen Brad and Michael emerge

from the elevator at the Madison Tower at 7:30-7:35

P.M. that Sunday.
 
Cheryl was murdered between 8:20 and 8:30

P.M. And at around 9:00

P.M. Rachel Houghton saw Brad and a small boy in the garage of the

Madison Tower.

For an hour and a half, Brad's whereabouts were unaccounted for.

Had he been taking care of Jess, Michael, and Phillip during that time

waiting impatiently for his heedless, drunken, estranged wife to come

for them?
 
Had he left the apartment on the eighteenth floor only

briefly þto peer down over the rail to watch for Cheryl, to put boots

into Sara's Cressida, to pick up the mail?
 
That would fill up the

vital time period.

Or had he planned every minute of that Sunday evening, and planned it

with vile intention?
 
Had he left Jess and Phillip alone in his

apartment and taken Michael with him as he set out to murder their

mother?

That would fill up the vital time period too.

Detectives would drive the route from Providence Hospital to the

Madison Tower to the West Slope and back to the Madison Tower with

stopwatches in hand to prove that Brad could have done that on the

night of the murder.
 
It was certainly possible.
 
Still there was

absolutely no physical evidence linking him to the crime.

l l In the days immediately following Cheryl's murder, Brad told

confidants that his biggest fear was that her mother would take his

children away from him.
 
He had been trying to spirit Jess, Michael,

and Phillip away from Portland, but the best he could do was keep

moving them from one house to the next over the ensuing three or four

weeks.
 
The first week, along with Sara, they were mostly at his sister

Margie's or Gini Burton's, and that weekend they stayed with another of

Sara's sisters, Shirley, who lived in McMinnville, Sara's hometown.

Michael had his fifth birthday on September 26, and he wanted to

celebrate at Chuck E Cheese's.
 
While the flowers were still fresh on

his mother's grave, Brad and Sara tried to give Michael a wonderful

birthday.

Then suddenly, after Brad's three sons had become such an integral part

of Sara's life, they disappeared.
 
It was just one more component in a

world that was growing steadily sadder and more frightening.
 
"I didn't

see the boys after that," Sara would recall.
 
"Not for weeks.
 
I asked

Brad where they were, and he told me that he had had them taken out of

state.
 
I didn't know where they were."

Brad had been unsuccessful in preventing his oldest son from appearing

before the Washington County grand jury, of course.
 
Still, when no

arrest followed his testimony, he must have felt vindicated.
 
The damn

police had come and pawed through his apartment and his storage locker,

but if they were looking for evidence that he had killed his wife, they

didn't find it.
 
How could they?
 
He said he hadn't murdered Cheryl,

and he didn't know who had.

Brad's career with U.S. Bank faltered after her murder.

His-superiors were understanding when he didn't come in to work the

first week.

His estranged wife's death was a shock to everyone.
 
But Brad never

really went back to work.
 
He showed up only sporadically.
 
He had been

considered a valuable employee for the almost five months he was with

U.S. Bank.
 
He was a man with an eye for property with potential.

But now he had made unsavory headlines in Portland, and that was not

the image that U.S. Bankþor any bank, for that matterþwould choose to

project.

Even so, Brad was given the benefit of the doubt.

However, his poor attendance at work was brought to the attention of

his boss, Larry Rosenkrantz.
 
Given Brad's apparent disinterest in his

job, it was only a matter of time before U.S. Bank had to demand some

response from him.
 
Did he intend to come back to work?
 
Brad met with

Rosenkrantz and poured out a story of a life that left little time for

his career.
 
"He indicated to me that he was being harassed by the

police, and that he was being hounded by his mother-in-law,"

Rosenkrantz recalled.

That might explain why Brad had checked out two bank cars from the car

pool in the ten days after Cheryl's murder.
 
One had to be retrieved

from an airport lot in Seattle.
 
Brad had apparently used them so that

no one could follow him.
 
He had had Sara's car, his truck, his

Suburban, his Cabriolet, and the pool cars so that he could vary his

transportation often.
 
He wasn't fired from the U.S. Bank job, but a

mutually agreed arrangement was made.
 
His contract was bought out, and

he received twenty-three thousand dollars.

Everywhere Brad looked that fall, he found another facet of his life

shattering.
 
His sons had no mother.
 
He had no job.
 
His suit was

jammed up in the Texas courts, and he told Sara he lived in terror that

he would lose his sons.
 
He knew that Cheryl's law firm was helping

Betty and Mary Troseth, Bob McNannay, and John Burke in their efforts

to gain custody of his children.
 
Everyone but Sara seemed to be

against him.

Finally, Brad came to the decision that the only way he could keep his

sons was to hide them.
 
He could not even tell Sara where they were.

He had possession of his sons, and he intended to keep them.
 
The

problem was that he needed help.
 
He wasn't so naive that he didn't

know the police were still following him, aware of most of his

movements.
 
He couldn't simply drive his sons away himself, he

believed, without someone knowing where they were.

His father would have helped himþhe always hadþbut Sanford Cunningham

had died two months before Cheryl.
 
Brad detested his mother, and he

had nothing good to say about his sisters Susan and Ethel.
 
He refused

to go to them for help with his sons.
 
(Later, his sisters said that

they would have gladly sheltered the little boys.) Brad was still close

to his uncle Jimmy, but he lived in Burien, WashingtonþBrad's old

hometownþand anyone looking for his boys would check there first.

Brad had other relatives in Washington State.
 
Although he hadn't seen

his aunt Trudy Dreesen for decades, he thought of her now.
 
Trudy was

one of his grandfather Paul Cunningham's daughters by his second wife,

a half sister to Sanford and Jimmy, but a decade younger.
 
She was

married to Dr. Herman Dreesen, a chiropractor in Lynnwood,

Washington.

Trudy Dreesen, the onetime Seattle Se"Fair Queen, was still a beautiful

woman in her fifties.
 
She was also tenderhearted, and when she

received Brad's call for help, she rushed to do what she could.
 
She

was appalled at the tragedy that had struck him and his children.
 
And

when .

he explained that it wouldn't even be safe for her to keep his sons

with her in her Lynnwood home, she perceived the depth of his

anxiety.

She could see that Brad was shaken by what had happened and was

terrified that he would lose his boys too.

"I have friends who will help," she said quickly.

Trudy Dreesen talked with Florence Chamberlain, who lived in Port

Angeles.
 
Although Trudy had met Florence only twice, her son was

dating the Chamberlains' daughter, and Trudy knew that the Chamberlains

were good people who lived in a three-story, six-bedroom home.
 
After

Trudy explained that Brad was a widower who needed someplace for his

little boysþbut only for a few weeks until he could find a permanent

spot for themþFlorence agreed to take Jess and Phillip in.
 
Brad had

told his aunt that his six-year-old and his two-year-old should be

together, but he wanted Michael, just five, to be in another safe

house.
 
He didn't tell her why and she didn't ask.

Trudy and Herm Dreesen brought Jess and Phillip to the Chamberlains'

home.
 
Florence showed them through the house and gave them their

choice of the empty bedrooms.
 
Jess selected the room with only one

bed.
 
It was clear that he and his little brother needed to be

together.

Florence saw that Trudy was very upset, truly fearful that someone was

trying to snatch or somehow harm Brad's sons.

Trudy asked her friend Jean Count, who lived in Bothell, if she would

take Michael.
 
Jean agreed readily, touched by the pathetic story Trudy

told and how upset she was.
 
Brad and Trudy brought Michael to her

home.

During the two or three weeks that Michael stayed with Jean Count, Brad

came only once when he picked Michael up to take him to visit with Jess

and Phillip.

In Port Angeles, Florence Chamberlain never met or spoke to Brad in

person.
 
When he brought Michael to see his two brothers, it was Trudy

who took them outside to meet Brad and Michael.
 
The three little

Cunninghams romped on the lawn for about half an hour.
 
Brad never

called Florence to check on Jess and Phillip.

Florence Chamberlain and Jean Count were women in their middle years.

They were very kind to the little boys in their care, even if they were

slightly puzzled about why they had to be separated from their

father.

The children had arrived without even a change of underwear or socks,

but Trudy gave her friends more than enough money to ensure that they

had whatever they needed.

"I spent twenty-five dollars on underwear for them," Florence

Chamberlain would recall.
 
"That was all."