Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (7 page)

just what kind of woman she was.
 
did she have to make everything so

difficult?
 
Sara knew that she was a successful attorney, but she

certainly sounded like a terrible mother.

Brad needed Saraþand not just because he was having such a bitter

struggle to protect his sons.
 
He suffered a wrenching loss in July.

Sara was at Providence on an overnight shift when Brad called.
 
He had

just learned that his father, Sanford Cunningham, had died of a heart

attack at his fishing cabin in Darrington, Washington.
 
"He was sobbing

so hard I could barely understand him," Sara remembered.
 
"He needed

me, and I managed to find someone to cover for me so I could go home

and be with him."

Sara knew how close Brad had been to his father, and she tried to help

him and his stepmother, Mary, too.
 
She went with Brad and the boys to

Yakima for Sanford Cunningham's funeral.
 
And afterward she said she

would buy a practically new twenty-five-foot Prowler trailer that Mary

and Brad's father owned.
 
Mary needed the money, and Sara paid her

eight thousand dollars, far more than the book value of the trailer.

They left the trailer in Yakima, but Brad drove his dad's Chevy pickup

truck back to Portland and kept it in the garage of the Madison

Tower.

He was grieving hard, but he went back to his job at the U.S. Bank,

usually walking to work, although he owned several vehicles and Sara

had a Toyota Cressida.
 
He was in top shape and enjoyed the exercise.

All that summer, Brad and his wife continued to butt heads over the

little boys.
 
There were trips to child psychologists, endless meetings

with their respective attorneys, and more dissension when it was time

to register Jess for school.
 
Brad had made arrangements for him to go

to Chapman School near the Madison Tower, but on August 13 his wife

apparently ignored his wishes completely and enrolled Jess in

Bridlemile Elementary near her recently rented home in the West Slope

area just outside of Portland.

When Brad found out, he was furious, "You can't do that, Cheryl," Sara

heard him shout at his estranged wife over the phone.
 
Her name was

CherylþCheryl Keeton.

Jim Karr, Cheryl Keeton's half brother, had been living with her and

her three sons at her rented home on the West Slope for about three

months.

He had gotten close to his nephews, Jess, Michael, and Phillip.
 
"I was

their nanny," " he later remembered.
 
"I was there to take care of them

while Cheryl was at work."

Jim was fully aware of how acrimonious Cheryl's divorce from Brad

Cunningham had become, how they fought over every step in the

process.

He knew that it made her feel better just to have him living in her

home.
 
Although they seldom talked about it, it seemed toSim that

Cheryl lived in a constant state of dread.
 
3rad wanted the boys.

Cheryl wanted the boys.
 
And sometimes it seemed that their fierce

arguments would never end.

On Sunday, September 21, 1986, Jim Karr spent most of the day at a

girlfriend's house in Gresham and they watched the Seattle Seahawks'

football game.
 
He usually felt guilty about leaving Cheryl alone too

long, but not on that weekend.
 
It was Brad's weekend to have the boys,

and Cheryl wasn't home, she had gone up to Longview, Washington, on

Saturday to visit their family and planned to stay overnight.
 
There

was no reason for Jim to be around the house.
 
He didn't expect Cheryl

to return until sometime Sunday evening.
 
It would, of course, be

before seven because that was when Brad was supposed to have the boys

back.

Jim called Cheryl about 7:30

P.M. to make sure that the boys had gotten home.
 
He knew she worried

if Brad didn't bring them back right on the dot of seven.
 
Cheryl was

crying and upset when she answered the phone.

"The boys aren't home yet," she said.
 
"Brad had car trouble."

"Should I come home?"
 
Jim asked.

"No," she said.
 
"Not right away.
 
It'll be okay."

With most divorcing couples, it would have been.
 
But Jim knew that

Brad threw a fit if Cheryl didn't have the boys ready when it was his

turn to take them, and Cheryl went nuts if they were even five minutes

late getting home.
 
But anybody could have car trouble, and evidently

Brad had called Cheryl to tell her that he would be late.

Cheryl seemed nervous, Jim thought.
 
True, she always seemed nervous

these days, the subtle and not-so-subtle psychological war that Brad

was waging against her kept her constantly on edge.
 
She was always

afraid that on some visitation Brad wasn't going to bring the boys back

þthat he was just going to disappear and take her sons with him.
 
But

lately she seemed convinced that, if things looked bad for Brad in the

custody fight, she herself wasn't going to survive.
 
Literally not

surzn e Whether her fears had any basis or not, Jim had caught them the

way you catch an infectious disease.
 
Cheryl was so smart and so

intuitive, and yet she had become almost stoic when she told Jim that

she might die soonþand that it would be his job to find out the

truth.

That was nothing like Cheryl's usual behavior.
 
She had always been so

strong, so resilient.
 
One thing about his half sister, she had never,

ever been passive.
 
tSo even though Cheryl had told him he didn't have

to come home early that Sunday night, Jim was uneasy and he headed for

the West Slope house within an hour after he spoke to her on the

phone.

When he drove up to the house at 9:15, he saw that all the lights were

blazing, but Cheryl's van wasn't there.

That scared him.

Once inside the house, Jim noticed that the vacuum cleaner was sitting

in the middle of the living-room floor.
 
It looked as if Cheryl had

rushed away in the middle of housecleaning.
 
With a hollow feeling in

his stomach, Jim walked quickly through the empty rooms.
 
It was very

quiet and his heart was beating too loudly.
 
There was a note on the

kitchen counter.
 
It was from Cheryl, written on a sheet of paper she

had torn from the notebook in which she recorded the content of all of

Brad's phone calls.

"I have gone to pick up the boys from Brad at the Mobile station next

to the I.G.A.
 
If I'm
 
not back, please come and find me.... COME RIGHT

AWAY!"

Cheryl would have written that note between 7:30 and 8:00, Jim thought,

and she should have been back with Jess, Michael, and Phillip within

fifteen minutes.
 
Now it was almost 9:30.
 
Jim called their mother,

Betty, in Longview, an hour's drive north of Portland.
 
Betty picked up

the phone before the first ring had even ended.
 
When Jim told her that

Cheryl had obviously left the house in a hurry, and then read the note,

Betty started to sob.
 
That scared Jim even more.
 
That wasn't like his

mother.

"She's dead," Betty cried.
 
"She called me.
 
I told her not to meet

Brad alone.
 
I know she's dead."

Jim tried to comfort his mother.
 
He said there had to be a reasonable

explanation why Cheryl wasn't back yet.
 
He told her he was heading

down to the Mobile station, and he promised to call her as soon as he

got back.
 
But Jim knew that the station had been closed down two days

earlier, the windows soaped over, the pumps empty.
 
It would be very

lonely and dark at night.
 
It was an odd place for Brad to bring the

boys for Cheryl to pick up.
 
If he was having car trouble, there would

be nobody at the Mobile station to work on it.

Still, Jim kept hoping that he would find his sister there, loading up

her precious sons, just beginning to start for home.
 
It was a short

drive, but his mind went over a dozen possible reasons why Cheryl would

be there, safe.

She was not there.

The Mobile station was dark and deserted, just as he had expected.

The place was abandoned.
 
It was out of business.
 
Even the I.G.A

supermarket next door was closed for the night.
 
Jim scanned the

parking lot there for Cheryl's Toyota van, but he didn't see it.
 
There

were only a few cars, probably those of employees who were emptying the

cash registers and preparing night bank deposits inside the store.

Jim returned to Cheryl's house and when he stepped out of his car, a

figure emerged from the shadows.
 
It was Jerry Finch, who was there to

find out what he could about the woman whose body was now on the way to

the Medical Examiner's office.
 
He asked Jim Karr to identify himself,

and when he learned that Jim was Cheryl Keeton's brother, he drew a

deep breath.
 
He had to tell Karr the monstrous truth.
 
It was a truth

that somehowSim already knew.

His sister was dead.

Jim wasn't even very surprised.
 
That was why his mother had sobbed

when he called her.
 
Every single one of them in the family had tried

to save Cheryl, as if they could somehow build a wall of love and

solidarity around her so strong that nothing and no one could harm

her.

And yet, all the time, they had known it was like trying to stop Mount

St. Helens from erupting.
 
Something had to blow, something

inevitable, and all the love and concern in the world never could have

stopped it.

"He did it," Jim Karr shouted to Jerry Finch.
 
"That bastard did it!"