Deadly Seduction (15 page)

Naturally, David played down the rumors and innuendo. He insisted that his girlfriend knew all about the lunches at Summit Drive and was even often with him.

Years later, Connie Grund concluded that David was hated by Susan because he wouldn’t sleep with her, although she did concede that the Grund family were concerned at what was happening between him and his stepmother at the time. The truth was that no one actually knew.

*   *   *

July 4, 1992, was a day that Susan Grund would be forced to recall over and over again.

That morning she got up and prepared to go out to the Miami County fairgrounds to help on the stage that had been set up for the 4-H Fair, planned for later the following Monday.

Just before she departed, she got a call from David Grund’s girlfriend, Suzanne Plunkett. She asked Susan if she would watch her baby, Ryan, for a bit while she got ready for a Fourth of July dinner she and David were planning to attend later that day.

Susan said she’d try and get by later in the morning and headed off for the fairgrounds.

A couple of hours later she stopped by at David and Suzanne’s house to say that she really did not have time to look after the baby as she needed to get home to change for the same event.

David was at the house as well, and he told his stepmother he was feeling lousy because he had spent the previous evening drinking at Shanty Malone’s, and he had been up all night vomiting and suffering from an appalling stomach ache. Susan wasn’t particularly sympathetic since that place was the root of all evil, as far as she was concerned.

David seemed very agitated that day, especially following the threats that had been made to him and Suzanne by her ex-husband Bobby Olinger. He then talked to Susan about the gun he had just bought.

Susan stood and looked on disapprovingly. David was already well aware that both she and his father were not happy about him owning the weapon.

“There’s nothing wrong with owning a gun,” insisted David. “There’s no reason for you or Dad to be upset about it.”

Then David invited Susan into the bedroom he shared with his live-in lover and let her handle his gun. Susan even had baby Ryan in her arms as David demonstrated the weapon’s capabilities.

David referred to how difficult it was to work the slide on the pistol and he put his arms around Susan to pull it back sharply. The jolt sent a strange shiver of excitement through her body.

Just then Suzanne entered the room with a look of concerned curiosity on her face. Susan quickly broke the ice.

“You wouldn’t shoot anyone would you, Suzanne?” asked Susan.

“Yes, I would,” replied Suzanne coldly.

“But they’d know it was you, Suzanne,” replied Susan.

Then Susan looked at David. “How do police trace guns, anyhow?”

“By the serial numbers on the side of the gun,” came David Grund’s slightly bemused reply.

Susan then asked David who the police would visit if they traced a gun. He told her in a matter-of-fact manner that it would be traced back to the registered owner.

The discussion about the gun lasted no more than fifteen minutes. Just before she left, Susan commented on the back door of the house which appeared to be held closed by a boot string. She also seemed unduly concerned about the couple’s six-month-old dog they kept in the backyard. Susan departed and David left his home at around 2:00
P.M.
to go with Suzanne Plunkett to her parents’ home for that July 4 cookout.

Susan headed for the house on Summit Drive where she took a shower and prepared for the same party that she and Jim were due at later.

At 5:00
P.M.
Susan and Jim Grund stopped by at the Plunketts’ residence in their dealership-loaned Pontiac van as the party was in full swing. With them were Jacob, Tanelle, and Susan’s nephew Paul, visiting once again from Oklahoma. The children swam in the Plunketts’ pool, everyone ate and chatted, and then the Grunds went home.

After arriving back at their house, Susan and Jim prepared for a more adult party they had been invited to later that evening at the home of Roger Timme, the construction expert who built and designed the house on Summit Drive.

But then Susan decided it would be inappropriate to leave all three youngsters on their own at the house, so Jim went to the party alone.

Susan claimed she got a message shortly after Jim Grund left about a missing curtain that was needed for the 4-H show the following Monday, so she took Tanelle with her and dashed off to sort it out.

A number of Jimmy’s friends had shown up at the party at Roger Timme’s expecting to meet the handsome gay choreographer who had stunned Susan by refusing to have sex with her the previous year. The story of her rejection had reached almost legendary proportions among the elite of Peru and they were all dying to meet the man who turned Susan down. Unfortunately, he did not show up either.

At 7:30
P.M.
, David Grund received a phone call at the Plunketts’ from his stepmother asking David if he and Suzanne were going to watch the fireworks that night at Maconaquah Park. David told Susan he was still feeling sick and was not going to bother, so he would most likely stay at the Plunketts’ for the rest of the evening.

At around 8:00
P.M.
Susan, Tanelle, and a school pal of hers came back to the house for a mini fireworks display before they planned to head off for the main event at 9:00
P.M.

When David got back home about 10:00
P.M.
that night he immediately noticed something was wrong. A drape had been knocked down. At first, he thought maybe the wind had done it, but then he walked into the bedroom and saw the TV flipped down on the floor. Then he moved around the bed and saw the gun had been stolen. He immediately called the Indiana State Police.

Trooper Earle McCullough was on the scene within a short time. He was puzzled. Nothing in the house but the gun had been touched by the burglar. It was clear the intruder wanted only one thing.

That break-in was the final straw for David and Suzanne. They moved out of the isolated house in the countryside to an apartment on Main Street, in Peru, within days. They suspected the burglary might be something to do with Suzanne’s ex-husband, even though they knew he was in jail at the time.

The theft of David’s gun obviously rested uneasily on Susan’s conscience. Her close friend and neighbor Pamela Ogelsby never forgot how Susan had an unnerving habit of suddenly bringing up the subject of the missing gun. Usually it was completely out of context with what they had been talking about previously.

One time, about two weeks after the theft, Pamela was talking to her friend about her own impending divorce and her sick parents when Susan butted in, “I hope nothing happens with that gun that was stolen.” It was never far from her mind.

*   *   *

On Sunday, July 11, 1992, Jim, Susan, and six other couples went on a flat-bottomed boat trip together down the Eel River.

There were problems from the outset because none of the others wanted to be in a boat with Susan, and in the end she was made to sit between Jim and his law partner Don Fern.

As the boats were floating downriver alongside each other, Susan threw what appeared to be a ball of mud at Dr. John Crawshaw, one of her husband’s best friends. Inside the mud was a rock and it nearly knocked the doctor unconscious. No one ever discovered what had made Susan so angry at Crawshaw or why she should have gone to such extraordinary lengths to hurt him.

Some members of Peru’s high society believe that Susan was angry at the doctor because he had refused to sleep with her a few weeks earlier following a drunken party.

It seemed that if Susan didn’t get what she wanted someone always had to pay.…

Nine

In July 1992, Susan’s son Jacob became so upset by an argument he overheard between his parents that a few days later he asked his mother outright if she was planning to divorce Jimmy Grund.

“Yes,” came the reply. But Susan did not elaborate and never made reference to it again.

On another night earlier that month, Jimmy and his wisecracking pal Gary Nichols got so drunk down at Shanty Malone’s that they demolished the front door of the house on Summit Drive when Jim found he had forgotten his keys.

Susan was furious at what happened. She thought that Jim’s behavior was hardly that of an upstanding citizen of the local community and, in any case, what if the neighbors heard what had happened? It would do her reputation around town no good whatsoever. She never once asked if either Jim or his friend had hurt himself in the process of smashing down the front door.

Susan harbored a lot of resentment over that incident. She just would not stop going on about it to Jim. In the end, he agreed to let her buy an $1800 front door made of the finest wood. It was a ridiculously expensive item, but Jim just wanted Susan to shut up about the incident and he knew her well enough to know he could buy himself out of her bad books with relative ease.

The house on Summit had become the ultimate evidence of money’s importance to Susan when she had stomped into Jim’s office years earlier and demanded that Jim buy the land and have the property built. When he demurred, she threw a tantrum, screaming and yelling until he finally agreed.

In more recent years he might have managed to keep a slightly tighter rein on Susan’s spending. Or at least he tried. Despite his remonstrations to curb her extravagances, Susan usually found a way around her husband’s prohibitions. She had not hesitated to forge his signature on a check when she needed more money for her fashion business and she would not hesitate to do that again, if necessary.

On July 17, just a couple of days before Jimmy, Susan, and the kids planned to depart for a summer vacation to Alaska, a very significant meeting took place at Jimmy Grund’s law offices on Main Street, Peru.

In front of Jimmy’s legal secretary Diana Hough, Susan signed up her share of a new joint will drawn up by Jimmy Grund. Their previous will had been drawn up on October 31, 1986. Diana Hough never forgot how surprised she was that Susan insisted on all sorts of changes, nearly all of which would either benefit her or her children in the event of Jimmy’s death. But the most memorable clause concerned her best-known obsession—the quality cars she insisted were provided to her by Fred Allen from the dealership business he co-owned with her husband.

The will clearly mentioned, “an agreement that my wife, Susan A. Grund, be provided a demonstration vehicle for transportation on a like basis as she has been provided throughout my lifetime. I request that should Fred J. and Jane A. Allen exercise this option (to buy the business outright after Grund’s death), they will agree to provide her with a vehicle similar to those provided in years past throughout her lifetime or until such time as she remarries, whichever event should occur first.”

Susan had thought of everything in the event of her husband’s death.

Shortly after this, Jim Grund secretly visited another lawyer colleague in Peru and warned him that on his return from vacation in Alaska he would want to begin divorce proceedings against Susan. He planned to file a petition the week after his return. Grund told his friend he wanted Susan out of his life forever. He was tired of working incredibly long hours to keep her in jewels and designer clothes, only to discover that she was trying to hop into bed with just about every rich and powerful man in the county. Whether he suspected Susan of being in a relationship with David has never been thoroughly established.

*   *   *

Jim Grund told Susan of his divorce plans when they were both on vacation with Tanelle and Jacob in Alaska. He also told her that she wouldn’t get custody of the kids, the house, or any of his money. Clearly, Jim had found out something so devastating about their marriage that he wanted it to end immediately. There was also the matter of those tape recorded telephone conversations from a year earlier. The contents of them had deeply disturbed Jim, but he had chosen not to act upon them at the time.

The trip to Alaska was partly a reconnaissance trip for Jim to seek out new fishing grounds so he could return with his pals for one of his regular trips. But he also felt it was time, despite the divorce plans, that he and Susan and the children actually enjoyed a break together away from Peru and all the wagging tongues and vicious gossip.

Susan was not very keen on going to Alaska. She presumed it would be dirty, uncomfortable, and extremely boring. Susan also may well have been particularly annoyed about the trip because it delayed her plans, which had got under way the moment she apparently stole that gun from her stepson. No doubt Jimmy’s divorce announcement was the final straw.

The truth was finally dawning on Susan that her luxurious life as the wife of a successful lawyer was drawing to a close and she had no immediate wealthy candidates with which to replace him.

In the early hours of Saturday, August 1, 1992, Susan, Jim, and the kids arrived from their Alaska trip exhausted after a delayed return flight. That afternoon, they were due at an office picnic at Jim’s father’s lakeside cabin at Culver on Maxinkuckee Lake, but they were so tired they turned up late. Jim’s partner Don Fern ended up organizing most of the party together with the numerous secretaries from the law firm the two men co-owned on Main Street, Peru.

Don Fern noticed that Jimmy Grund seemed tired but elated by his vacation with Susan and the two children. He kept making a point of saying sorry for not being able to get round earlier to help with the cookout. In contrast, Susan seemed muted and only managed a thin-lipped smile each time she was asked if she had enjoyed a pleasant vacation in Alaska.

Don Fern hardly got a chance to talk to his buddy Jim Grund as he and Susan were amongst the first to leave the gathering. They apologized profusely about their early departure, but they were exhausted after that long trip back from Alaska.

*   *   *

Early on Monday, August 3, 1992, at 8:00
A.M.
sharp, Jim Grund left his house on Summit and turned up at his office. Before departing, he told Susan he had a lot of appointments that day and would not be back home until quite late.