Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir (37 page)

"She called me about four yesterday
and asked me out. We had dinner, then went back to her place for
drinks."

"Did you fuck her?"

Once again he nodded and buried
that face in his hands.

"Once you fuck her, Mark, you have
to continue until she says you can stop."

His head shot back to attention
with that observation, and he appeared terrified until I laughed to
let him see I'd been joking.

"In your case, however, she might
grant immunity," I said. "No offense, but it sounds like you were
being used for a larger mission. Of course, I'm sure you gave her
pleasure."

"Really, she was pretty much of a
bum fuck."

"Huh?" I was taken a bit by
surprise that, in the midst of this turmoil, he would stop to give
her performance a critical review. But then, I knew as well as
anyone that boys must be boys, and I couldn't miss the chance to
gig him a bit about it. "Don't worry about that. I bet she was
distracted thinking about what was going on at my place. A bum
fuck, eh? That's pretty harsh."

"Don't tell her I said that,
man."

"Hell, I'm not telling anybody
about that one. People would think I am crazy for going through all
of this other bullshit with her, and she just turns out to be your
bum fuck. That's embarrassing for me. People have to think I at
least got some dynamite ass from her. So I won't let you destroy my
image."

I smiled, but he didn't return the
pleasantry. I could see he was suffering, so I got
serious.

"You know what you have to do, now,
don't you?" I asked. When he answered with a look of confusion, I
continued, "You need to call Don Stricklin at the DA's office and
tell him you were there. Did she have any other phone calls you
heard? Maybe you have some evidence and that would change you from
Mr. Alibi into Mr. Star Witness."

That comment seemed to worry him
more. He shook his head and said, "I just want this to go away.
That woman is poison. I never want to see her again."

"I don't see any way around calling
Stricklin," I said. "Or you may eventually end up as Mr.
Co-Conspirator doing five-to-ten in state prison. And, I think for
your job security, we need to include Johnny B in this
conversation."

Mark reluctantly agreed and said he
would contact Stricklin after meeting with our boss, who came into
the Boo-Boo Room with a curious look on his face. Mark's confession
failed to improve Johnny's disposition on this day. The look of
curiosity transitioned to shell shock and then I sensed a bit of
rage, as Johnny lifted a finger and indicated for us to sit there
while he stood and opened the closet door.

"I want everyone's attention," he
yelled across the newsroom, where a couple dozen reporters sat
working at their desks or chatting in the early hours of the news
day. The place grew quiet as a church while everyone turned to
Johnny, who would have looked strange, indeed, from that
perspective—hanging in the open doorway of the Boo-Boo Room about
to make some serious announcement. Good reporters all, they
obviously wanted to learn why.

"If any one of you has had any
personal dealings with Catherine Mehaffey—anything at all—I need
you in this room right now."

I traded glances with Mark, and we
both suppressed a giggle. I peeked around Johnny's back for a look
into the newsroom and noticed several faces looking dumbfounded at
his instruction. I couldn't remember anyone else out there who had
encountered her, but, then again, I knew she was full of
surprises.

"Last chance," he warned when no
one moved. "I only want to go through this once."

Satisfied that
Mark and I were her only
Post
connections, Johnny re-entered the room and issued
a quick set of instructions. He told us he didn't want the Mehaffey
cancer spreading any further into his newsroom. He ordered us to do
what we already had vowed: "Leave that woman
alone."

Throughout the day I heard twice
again from Mark, after he had called Stricklin with his piece of
the burglary story. One time, he said Catherine had called him for
another date, but he had refused, telling her he did not want to
get involved because the burglary had been too coincidental. The
second time, Mark said he'd been contacted by another woman, one of
Catherine's friends, asking him out on a blind date. He had
rejected her as well.

"You're a real popular guy with the
Mehaffey gang today, aren't you?" I joked as he scowled and mumbled
again, "Taylor, what did you get me into?"

I tried to console him by adding,
"I think you're OK. She won't want to alienate you as her alibi."
As far as I know, he never heard from her again.

Blended into this mélange of work, Mark, and
Johnny B, however, I spent part of the day fielding calls from
Strong, as well. He had been doing a bit of work on Catherine,
trying to convince her that the burglary had separated him and left
me isolated. They had met for lunch, and she had insisted on
frisking him before they talked. He demanded a return of his Beta
Max and other property in exchange for a promise to disavow my
existence. Although Catherine continued to deny involvement in the
burglary, Strong said, she also indicated she might know someone
who could help.

"I think we're making progress," he
told me in a phone call. "If we can catch her returning any of that
property, she goes straight to fucking jail."

FIFTY-TWO

January 17, 1980

It took only a day for Strong's
prediction to come true, or, at least part of it. Whenever he
called me at the office to update, his messages were cryptic but
optimistic. He finally told me to stay away from the house that
night. He said I should just call later to see what had happened.
He assured me he was continuing to share his maneuvers with
Stricklin at Special Crimes. I thought he was enjoying this role as
an undercover go-between a bit too much, but I had to play along
and trust him. The more I thought about that night after the
burglary and the danger to my daughter, the more I realized I had
to bring this standoff with Catherine to a conclusion, regardless
of the consequences for me.

Mark had invited me to drop by his lonely
condo for dinner that night and swap some stories over a few beers.
After grilling steaks, we recounted our impressions through the
unique bonding experience available only to men who have shared the
same psycho babe. He even had grown receptive to my constant
teasing of his use as an alibi.

"You know, Mark, you must be
careful not to violate the 11th commandment," I advised with all
the wisdom gleaned in my nearly thirty-three years.

"I'm not familiar with that one,"
he laughed, anticipating sarcasm.

"That's the one that instructs:
'Thou shalt not take thyself too seriously.' In five years you will
look back on all this and be really disappointed if you failed to
have fun with the experiences."

"Heh, heh, and the
wind cries Mooohaaaafeee," he chuckled, doing a weak imitation of
Jimi Hendrix on
The Wind Cries
Mary
.

"Hey," I said, "we should each get
a T-shirt that identifies each of us as a 'Mehaffey Surivivor.'
From what I hear around the courthouse, there might even be a
market for those."

"That's assuming we do survive. But
promise me again you won't let her know we were talking like this,"
he said in a tone that still sounded about half serious.

"Lips are sealed," I vowed with a
laugh. "And I've even already forgotten you called her a bum
fuck."

When he responded with a laugh
instead of a grimace, I slapped him on the arm and said, "That's
the spirit."

As I drove from his condo I
couldn't help but grin at our locker room bravado. I knew even then
that she had given both of us a new perspective on the sexual
revolution. Looking back, I realize that cultural watershed was
entering a new phase in 1980, as the first period of unlimited
experimentation and sexual muscle-flexing was drawing to a close
for the Boomers. Experiences like those with Catherine had reshaped
the outlook of many more than me and Mark. I recognized for the
first time that no one can predict the individual demons to be
unleashed when two strangers have sex. I wouldn't stop answering
the call, of course, whenever opportunity knocked. At the same
time, however, I knew I would always recognize the reality of the
unexpected emotional element more than ever before and strive to
understand my partners a little better than I had in the past. I
believed Catherine's demons were extreme, but it took that to make
me understand there is more to getting laid than just getting laid.
I wondered if maybe I had failed to give due credit to the prudes
who always warned us to go slow. Maybe they actually had a good
reason to incorporate such precautions into their moral code. I
believed Mark had experienced a similar awakening. Maybe in the
future he would foreswear sex until at least the second date. I
wasn't prepared to go that far. But I certainly would be watching
my potential partners a lot more closely than I had in the
past.

"Buzz on back, I've got a surprise
for you," said Strong, when I called him from a bar on the way back
from Mark's. I thought perhaps he had somehow resolved all of our
problems. But I was unprepared for his "surprise" when I walked
through the door into a darkened entryway and spotted him sitting
in a rocking chair in the living room talking to someone on the
couch a few feet away. He looked at me, stopped talking, and
grinned as Catherine peeked around the side of the couch with a
scowl on her face. She said nothing.

"C'mon in," said Strong. "I think
we may have a deal working that will allow all of us to live in
peace."

"Sounds like some serious talk is
under way," I said, taking a seat on the edge of the couch opposite
from Catherine, who eyed me warily.

"Yeah," said Strong. "We've made
our peace. If my shit comes back, I've agreed to tell you to move
out and tell everybody else that I think you are crazy. And I'm
going to Special Crimes and get her copies of all the tapes we
made."

I just looked at him and then at her. She
still said nothing, so I just shrugged my shoulders.

"Catherine," said Strong,
continuing in the tone of a labor negotiator, "what can Gary do to
end this, so that you don't have to kill each other?"

"He has to apologize, go to Special
Crimes, and tell them he is crazy," she said, repeating what had
been her list of demands for the last two months.

"Hey," I said, looking to the
ceiling. "Do you hear that?"

"I don't hear anything," said
Catherine.

"Exactly," I said. "And that's the
sound of me ignoring you."

"I guess there's nothing else to
discuss," she said, looking to Strong for guidance. When he said
nothing, she asked to use the phone to call a cab. Strong explained
that she had ridden to his house with him after a meeting a
Rudyard's Pub, where she had left her car. He started insisting on
taking her back there. As he talked, I had second thoughts about
the abrupt way I had handled her. Unaware of exactly what Strong
had been trying to do by injecting me into these negotiations, I
suddenly felt I should reopen them.

"If Strong is getting his shit
back, I want mine," I said. "I know it's paltry, but what about
it?"

Catherine turned and, for the first time,
showed an interest in a reasonable discussion with me. She motioned
for Strong to leave the room.

"Do you really want it back?" she
asked, once Strong had moved to a bedroom around the corner. "It's
not far away. I can make a call and get it if you'll go with me to
do that."

As soon as she said that, I
suspected she wanted to get me somewhere alone and kill me, or at
least to try. I also saw her invitation as my chance to force that
showdown in a place where I would be the only one involved. I
didn't hesitate. I just looked at her and said, "Sure."

"Let me make a call," she said,
picking up the phone again. She pecked out a number and spoke into
the receiver, saying, "I need my stuff. Take it to the U-Tote-Em
near my house, and then call me there." Then, she looked at me and
said, "Take me to my place. Some Mexicans will bring it to
us."

Still unsure about this decision, I told her I
wanted to change clothes first and then moved to my bedroom where
Strong was waiting.

"Great," he whispered. "If you can
go with her, go ahead and go. Get a transfer of stolen property.
I'll call Stricklin and tell him what's going on. And I'll come
over there with my shotgun and wait outside in case something goes
wrong."

If I hadn't spent the last four
months listening to Catherine's preposterous, melodramatic
outbursts, I probably would have laughed in Strong's face and asked
him what 1930s gangster flick had produced that dialogue. But
constant exposure to Catherine's film noir world had numbed our
senses to the façade of tough talk. More importantly, it didn't
matter how silly all of this sounded. After she showed her
potential with that burglary, I knew what had to be done. I had to
give her a final chance to do to me whatever she might be capable
of doing. And Strong was right about something. A trap was being
set for someone. I just hoped I could become the trapper as well as
the bait.