Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (80 page)

you're not very smart.
 
You need meþyou'll never find someone as smart

as I am."

She believed him.
 
But she still wouldn't marry him.

Brad talked to Dana about all his other wives.
 
He hadn't married any

of them for love, he said, and he wanted her only because he loved

her.

He went through the familiar litany: Loni Ann had been pregnant and

they were both very young when they married.
 
Cynthia had been much

older than he was and, he told Dana, "my second marriage was purely

business."

He confided that he might have stayed with Lauren, "but Cheryl wouldn't

let me alone.
 
She was completely obsessed with me, and I simply

couldn't get away from her."
 
As for Sara, he said she "wanted to marry

me to save money on her taxes."

Remembering Brad's explanations for his many failed marriages, Dana

said, "At the time, that made sense to me.
 
That made total sense to

me.

Especially when Brad cried and told me over and over, But I've never

loved anyone the way I love you."
 
They moved often in Houston.
 
Each

house was lovely, so Dana didn't really mind.
 
Brad told her about the

civil suit that was looming back in Oregonþsomething to do with his

fourth wife's death.
 
"You know, angel," he said, "the police and the

D.A. up there totally botched their investigation into Cheryl's

murder.

They're trying to get me for it because they have to have someone.

The D.A. will lose his job if he doesn't get somebody."

Dana would remember 1990 and 1991 as "scary."
 
Part of her felt sorry

for Brad when she heard him sob aloud about how much he loved her, how

much he needed her.
 
And yet part of her wanted to break free of him.

"He hovered over me," she said.
 
"He was working for that law firm

þVinson and Elkinsþthat was handling his lawsuit.
 
He brought me to his

office every day so he could watch me, so he knew where I was."

She wasn't bored exactly.
 
"No, not really," she said.
 
"I'd sit in the

corner and read magazines while he'd work a little bit in the morning,

and then we'd go out to lunch.
 
There were hearings or trials on his

lawsuit and he took me to court with him.
 
We went to the park or to

the underground section or shopping.
 
We had fun.
 
It wasn't so bad.

But he always watched me."

It seemed to Dana that Brad was omniscient.
 
He knew everything she

did, everyone she talked to on the phone, and even what they had talked

about.
 
It was almost as if he could read her mind.
 
"I'd call my mom

or she'd call me, and I'd tell her that I just didn't know what to

do.

That night, Brad would ask me if I was confused' about anything, and

when I said, No," he'd grin and say, Oh, reallyþthat's not what I

heard.

I heard you didn't know what to do about your life."

" Finally Dana realized that Brad had hooked up a tape recorder to the

phones in the house.
 
He was checking on all her calls, listening to

every conversation she had while he was away from home.
 
"He was

becoming more obsessiveþmore possessive," Dana said.

Brad had been insistent that he didn't want his "angel" to take a job

in Houston.
 
He wanted her available to him, with him all day, and on

his arm looking like a million dollars when he dined out with partners

of Vinson and Elkins.
 
Dana was very impressed when they went out to

dinner with his high-powered attorneys.
 
"There I wasþnobody, really

þsitting there with those wealthy lawyers.
 
I really enjoyed going out

to dinner with them, and I was happy that Brad wanted me along.
 
It was

Brad, of course, who had brainwashed Dana into believing that she was

essentially "nobody," a woman blessed with great physical beauty but

with limited intelligence.

Dana had grown used to dining in fine restaurants.
 
She was seduced by

Brad's grand lifestyle.
 
She loved that part, but he still urged her to

go to strip joints with him in Houstonþjust as he had tried to get her

to go to girlie spots in Seattleþand she still refused.
 
One night in

1991

Brad took her to a sumptuously decorated restaurant called the Men's

Club.
 
Dana had never been to a club that was so impressive, she

believed it to be a place where Houston's high society went.
 
"I

thought it was a fivestar' restaurant," she remembered.
 
"Everyone was

eating filet mignon and lobster.
 
All the women wore sequined gowns."

Dana was eating her meal when she had a shocking revelation.

Suddenly, beautiful young women, scantily clad, emerged from behind

curtains and strutted down a stage in the center of the room.
 
The

Men's Club was not an exclusive restaurant at all, Brad had finally

succeeded in getting her into a topless dancing club.
 
It was much

nicer than any of the Seattle area clubs, but Dana saw well-dressed men

slipping bills into the garter belts and G-strings the girls wore.
 
She

turned and looked at Brad accusingly.

He gave her a big smile.
 
"You're more beautiful than any of those

girls up there," he said.

It took a while before Dana realized that Brad must be working on

another of his plans.
 
He bought her sequined G-strings and spike heels

and filmy little costumes.
 
He had always liked to see her dressed

that way.
 
Now he suggested that she could be a star a, the Men's

Club.

All she had to do was wear the things he bought her to wear in the

privacy of their bedroom.

Dana was shocked.
 
If Brad loved her so much, how could he ask her to

get up on stage and dance for other men?

"You're a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year girl, angel," he murmured.

"You make everyone else look plain.
 
You could do it, baby."

"But, Bradþ" she protested.

"You know what your problem is, angel?
 
You're suffering from

Malloyism."
 
Your parents raised you up in a repressed, small-town

way.

They have little, closed-down minds, they do everything the same way

their parents and their grandparents did.
 
They never opened up their

eyes to possibilities.
 
And you're just like them.
 
You're not living

in reality, angel."

Besides, Brad patiently explained, he needed her to work, to take a job

that would help them get by until his lawsuit was settled.

"But you always said you didn't want me to work," she argued.

"Not just any job," he said.
 
"You have it all, Dana.
 
You have

class.

Your body is your fortune."

She couldn't do what he askedþnot at first.
 
Although she admired the

statuesque beauties who danced at Houston's most popular club for

males, Dana couldn't picture herself out there wearing only a

G-string.

Parading in front of strangers nearly nude was not the way she had been

raised.
 
She knew Brad would scoff at her for her "Malloyism"

mentality, but she couldn't do what he wanted.
 
"If we need the money

that bad, Brad," she finally said, "I'll be a cocktail waitress.
 
Those

girls get really good tips too."

Brad grinned.
 
"Get dressed, angel.
 
We're going out."

Dana began as a cocktail waitress at the Men's Club, but it wasn't long

before Brad convinced her she was wasting her most valuable assets.

When he opened the packages he brought home and produced beautifulþif

tinyþcostumes, when he told her that the Men's Club wasn't some sleazy

honky-tonk place but rather a showcase for the greatest beauties in

Houston, Dana began to believe him.
 
Finally she agreed to dance, and

just as he predicted, she was a real moneymaker.
 
"It was different in

Houston," Dana would remember.
 
"When you were one of the popular

dancers at the club, you were almost a celebrity.
 
People would come up

to me in the mall and ask for my autograph.
 
It didn't seem cheap."

Dana was "Angel" nowþand she was much in demand.
 
With her natural

beauty, her professional knowledge as a makeup expert, and her

exquisite long-legged, full-breasted figure, she was as lovely as any

movie star and more graceful.
 
All of her years of tap, ballet, and

beauty pageants made her a natural on the polished stage of the Men's

Club.

Brad had promised his "Angel" she would have his full support, his

protection.
 
And every night, after the boys were tucked in, they went

to the Men's Club.
 
Dana didn't like leaving the boys alone, but Jess

was ten and extremely capable, and Brad assured her he could handle any

emergency that might come up.
 
He had the number of the club and Brad's

beeper number.
 
But it was ironic, Dana thought.
 
She had been hired as

a nannyþsomeone to look after Jess, Michael, and Phillip.
 
Now they were

home alone almost all night while she danced at the Men's Club and Brad

watched, gloating that the woman up there desired by every man in the

room was his woman.

"Each private dance was for four minutes, and we got twenty dollars for

that," Dana said.
 
"If a man wanted you to come to his table, he would

slip a five-dollar bill into your G-string .
 
.."
 
She usually danced

for eight hours every night and was making three hundred dollars an

hour or more, but Brad didn't allow her to keep any of the money for