Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir (31 page)

Paranoia?
I wondered, as that scene flashed through my
mind.
Or have I become adept at reading her
mind?
Either way, I decided I had had
enough. I had come to visit that day with plans for the final
goodbye, anyway. I could see I had no peaceful, easy way out of
this relationship. No new loverboy suckers had emerged to distract
her and replace me. The time had come to break this off and take my
chances.

"Heard a noise, huh?" I said,
realizing she had been standing there expecting a response. "Maybe
a rat?"

"Definitely a rat," she said,
smiling. "A big fucker, too."

I got the message. I pulled on my pants and
walked toward the bedroom door, past the closet on the right and
around the chair that I had moved there after her party. I looked
over my shoulder to make sure the pistol remained on the bedside
table. Then I looked down into her eyes. She looked up and
smiled.

"We need to talk," I said, nudging
her backward toward the living room in the front of her house. She
backed in that direction and sat on the couch.

"How was your Christmas?" I
asked.

"OK," she said. "I had a good time
this year."

"Do you remember what we talked
about the day I brought your television back here, and we went to
the Holiday Inn?"

"About our problem?"

"Yes," I acknowledged and continued
with a speech I had rehearsed several times in my head that week.
"I told you there are times when two people just don't work as a
couple. The sex might be spectacular, and there might be pluses.
But for some reason, there is still a fundamental problem that
should prevent them from staying together. You love someone because
of some things and in spite of others. And you have to split
because of some things, in spite of others."

I paused, inviting a response and continued
when she just sat there staring at me.

"I've given us a good try, and I
have helped you get through the Christmas holidays," I said. "But
the more I think about it, I have to say we are in that category of
couples that will always be in danger from each other. I just make
you too angry. I don't know why. But the end result is that I am
bad for you. I am preventing you from making something of your
life. You are an attractive, intelligent woman. You are funny, like
a standup comedian. Quick-witted. You need to go out there and use
those skills to become a top criminal lawyer instead of getting mad
at me all the time and letting our relationship get in the
way."

Catherine sat quietly during my presentation,
one she obviously had been expecting. I had tried to fashion this
discussion in a way that would stress the advantages for her—to
give her a reason to accept not just a truce but a permanent
armistice without surrender.

"And what about you?" she
asked.

"That's another side to it. I have
so much bullshit on my plate right now, so many things to
straighten out. And I can't do that while we're fighting all the
time. There are things I have to do alone. I have a court hearing
Wednesday on my divorce, and I have to concentrate on that. I have
to make sure my job is secure. We just can't go on. It's time to
admit we are fighting a losing battle, and we need to give up the
good things so we aren't hurt by the bad."

I thought it made sense. And she
just sat quietly, without a response. So I asked, "Will you tell me
why it is so important to you that I stay in your life? Surely you
can find another lover. What is so special about me?"

"Well," she grinned, "it certainly
isn't your two-inch dick."

I laughed and asked, "Then, what?"
In response, I believe I received the first honesty I had ever had
from her as she ticked off a list of my attractions, confirming my
suspicions on a number of points. As a foundation, of course, she
said she had found me sexually attractive. Nothing would have
transpired further without that. But she also believed I had added
much more. She considered me an important buffer on the Tedesco
investigation. She also considered a relationship with a reporter
similar to an arranged marriage between neighboring kingdoms in the
Middle Ages. She admitted she hadn't fully researched all the
things I might do for her in my position. But she did know I had
helped her get her first murder case and believed I could do more
if persuaded over time.

"We are ignoring a lot of
opportunities," she said. "I know you will understand that if you
just give me a little more time to show you."

"Never going to happen," I said,
shaking my head.

"Gary, I also can't remember what
I've told you or what you've seen. I can't trust you. I'm worried
that you will betray me on something, and I need more time to
remember all the things that have happened. All I remember is that
through it all, we just kept on fucking."

I laughed at what
had become one of her catchphrases the last few weeks. I said, "A
good title for the movie, huh?
Through It
All They Just Kept on Fucking?
But as far
as your fears of me, I can tell you there is nothing I know that
can hurt you. I'm certain of it."

She just shrugged, then continued with her
list.

"I know I'm going to get a new
trial on the Tedesco estate, and I need to neutralize you somehow.
I don't believe you could lie in court. It's just not your nature.
If you're called as a witness, I am probably in trouble. So I felt
I had to make you want to stay with me, so they would never call
you to testify."

"I don't know what I can do about
that. You need to find a legal argument for making me
irrelevant."

"There's something else, too. I'm
just humiliated by all of this. I'm terrified you'll be telling
jokes, laughing at me behind my back. That's also your nature. But
I have to work in that courthouse. I can't tolerate it. Seeing you
there would be a daily embarrassment."

"I can promise you that I will
never talk about you like that. When I see you in the hall, I'll
wink and say, 'Hi.' If anyone asks, I'll just say it didn't work
out. I've never been one to kiss and tell."

She scowled at that one, obviously recalling
my taped statement for Special Crimes. Then she paid me the kind of
compliment that only Catherine Mehaffey could offer, given her
Law-of-the-Jungle world view.

"I have been trying to think what
kind of animal you are," she said, as I furrowed my brows. "At
first, I thought you were a gazelle or a zebra, something to eat.
But ever since you went to Special Crimes I've seen you as
something else. You are a leopard. You perch on the branch of a
tree, and everybody thinks you're asleep. But all the time, you are
peeking out the corner of an eye, ready to pounce when the time is
right. That's why I have to keep watching you."

"How about we split with a
stalemate?" I asked, wondering if she would understand my
comparison of our relationship to a game of chess in which we just
simply call it even and walk away. She did but shook her
head.

"We're not even," she said. "We
won't be even until you go to Special Crimes and take back that
tape."

"Catherine, what else can I do? How
can we end this? How does it end?"

"When you went to Special Crimes,
you entered the arena of death. It can only end one of two ways.
You take it back. It cannot end until one of us is dead. What you
have done to me is worse than anything by George
Tedesco."

I didn't know what else to say. So
I stood up and left her sitting on the couch. I walked out the
front door, climbed into my two-hundred-dollar car, and drove home
to the house of Strong.

FORTY-FOUR

January 9, 1980

A court hearing on Wednesday was
scheduled to finalize my divorce from Cindy. In the weeks since
Uncle Al had shot her telephone just before Thanksgiving, they had
reconciled and she had hired her own attorney. She had assured me
that she had Al under control. After discussions with my attorney,
Fred Dailey, I decided there was little else I could do but accept
the situation with an eye toward monitoring it closely. We had
worked out reasonable terms for a fifty-fifty split of all property
plus monthly child support payments of $465 to her. She agreed I
could have that broken-down beach house. And she said she thought
our real estate agent had found someone interested in our house. A
sale there would net me about ten thousand dollars—more than enough
to buy a new car. Of course, all of these discussions had occurred
by telephone without Catherine's knowledge. Cindy cooperated with
this clandestine process because she also feared Catherine's
unpredictable nature. Catherine had insisted that such discussions
should always occur only between the lawyers. She called it the
smartest strategy for divorce cases, to prevent anger from
disrupting a reasonable settlement. I laughed at the idea of
Catherine offering anger management advice.

So, there I stood with Cindy before the judge
that morning about nine-thirty, as he reviewed the documents
outlining our settlement. He asked if there was anything else to
mention.

"I let her collect two hundred
dollars in rent from the tenant in our garage apartment," I said
while Cindy nodded and the judge looked up.

"You did what?" screamed a voice
from the back of the courtroom. We all twirled around to see
Catherine standing behind the last row of benches with fire in her
eyes. "You gave that bitch two hundred dollars and you never gave
me a dime."

Fred leaned over and whispered in
my ear, "Is she drunk?"

Cindy left her lawyer's side,
walked toward me, and said through clenched teeth: "Get her out of
here."

I looked at Fred and then at Cindy
and I said, "If I had the power to get her out of here, believe me,
I would send her a lot further than the hallway."

Under normal circumstances, our judge might
have asked Catherine to leave. In another testament to her
reputation for disruption, however, he decided he wanted nothing
more to do with any of us and declared a fifteen minute recess,
vanishing instantly into his chambers with robes whipping around
his back. Fred motioned for me to follow him into the hall, where
Catherine also had gone after realizing she had suffered another of
her uncontrolled outbursts. She paced along one side of the hall,
obviously upset and trying to figure her next move. As soon as she
saw us, she directed advice at Fred.

"Why don't you take better care of
him? He needs a real lawyer."

I just looked at her and said,
"Please leave." Then I motioned Fred past her, down the hall, and
into the men's room.

"I can't believe she won't come in
here, too," said Fred. "This is bad. Can't you do anything to get
rid of her?"

"Why doesn't that fucking judge
lock her up? What can I do? Isn't she in contempt of court or
something?"

"That's not going to happen. These
family court judges never deal with people like her."

"Divorce court? They've never heard
idiots get mad and scream?"

"Ahh, they ignore it. Criminal
judges aren't cowed because they send people to jail all the time.
Divorce judges hear a lot of anger, but they consider it the heat
of the moment that will pass. Best thing is to see what we can do,
now. We may have to reschedule this thing. But you have a good
settlement on this case, and you shouldn't risk pissing Cindy off
any more."

"Fred," I said, "fuck! I'm lost
here. If Catherine starts following me everywhere, I don't know
what I can do. She is fucking crazy, you know."

He shrugged his shoulders,
reminding me he could do nothing himself and left the bathroom. I
followed him and saw Catherine still hanging around in the hall. I
walked over to her and asked, "What the hell are you doing
here?"

"I'm leaving now," she said, and
started fumbling around in her purse. She was crying and started
mumbling. "I'm sorry, Gary. That was out of line. I'm just so
upset. I don't know what I'm doing. I had to be here. I had to come
and see, make sure you get divorced. And then, I just lost it. Now
I can't find my car keys."

"Huh?"

"I can't leave without my car
keys."

"I don't have them. How would I
have them?"

She continued to root around in her
purse while I looked around the hallway. Over by the courtroom's
double doors, Fred stood chatting with Cindy and her lawyer. All
three of them glanced at me, waiting for Catherine to
leave.

"Can I borrow your car?" Catherine
asked, still looking in her purse. "I know I have those keys
somewhere."

This did not make sense, I knew. How had she
gotten over here? If she walked from her office, why did she need
her keys to get back? What is she trying to pull?

"You want to drive my car? The
two-hundred-dollar Vega?"

"Give me your keys, and I'll give
them back tonight. Meet me at the Cellar Door for drinks after
work. Please, just do this for me, and I will leave now. Is it
parked in the press space by the criminal court building like
always?"