Monster (36 page)

“He was pretty nice when you met him—flowers, dinner?” Heylin asked.

“Yeah,” she sighed, “aren’t all men.”

Later, Heylin told Richardson about Eerebout’s violent behavior. They both knew that meant they had two suspects. Two men who didn’t mind slapping women around.

That afternoon Sergeant Josey of the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office showed up in Empire with twenty-three nearly new shovels that he’d seized from Luther’s former employer. With a dozen or so other police officers watching, Richardson placed the shovels next to each other on the ground.

“It ain’t here,” he said after looking them over. His fellow officers rolled their eyes and guffawed about the shovel “lineup.” Josey shrugged and shook his head; the employer had purchased twenty-three shovels “and that’s what I brought... twenty-three shovels.”

It was Richardson’s turn to shake his head. “I’m tellin’ ya, I’d know the shovel if I saw it, and it ain’t here.” He asked Josey to go back and determine if the employer had been correct about the number.

The shovel “line-up” would go down in the history of Lakewood police lore, earning Richardson a lot of teasing long after the fact. But his fellow officers also had to concede that the next day, a chagrined Josey called from Fort Collins. He’d asked the employer for a bill of sale for the shovels and to both their surprise, it stated that twenty-four shovels had been purchased. “One is missing,” said the Fort Collins detective.

It was Friday, May 21. Richardson was again in Empire when he took the call from Josey but there wasn’t much time to lord it over his fellow officers. Yogi had arrived on the scene. Yogi was a small, rather common-looking bloodhound who worked for the Aurora Police Department south of Denver. He was fresh from his latest triumph.

Earlier in May, 5-year-old Alie Berrelez was abducted from her grandfather’s yard. A massive manhunt yielded nothing until Yogi was called in. The dog led his handler for nearly ten miles from the apartment where the girl lived to the mouth of a canyon where searchers found Alie’s body, stuffed in a duffel bag and thrown down a ravine by her killer. It was evident that the killer had transported her to that point in a car, yet Yogi, with one of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom, had been able to follow a trail that was several days old.

Now it was hoped that Yogi would pick up where the other dogs had left off on the trail of Thomas Luther. Yogi followed the same path the other dogs had and seemed to take a special interest in the area around the sanitation plant, especially a large sludge pit. There Richardson noticed a footprint in the mud at the edge of the pit, and a little further out saw that the crust that had formed above the liquid muck beneath was broken—as though something had been thrown through it. He knew then what he was going to have to do, dig out the sludge pits shovelful by slimy shovelful.

But it’d have to wait until after the weekend. In the meantime, Yogi reached the same dead end as had the other hounds near the restaurant.

On Monday, Scott Richardson got another call from Debrah Snider, who wanted to know why she hadn’t seen anything in the newspapers or television about the Cher Elder case. “Why? You think we ought to put it on the news?” Richardson asked, wondering what was really eating at her.

“Well, I just wondered, you know, two months after the fact, chances of finding this girl alive are real, real, real slim but, I thought, how are you going to find her if nobody even knows she’s missing?”

The detective sighed. He’d been asked the same thing by the family. Her mother, Rhonda, in particular worried about the pace of the investigation. Now that she was coming to accept that she would never see her daughter alive again, she fretted about Cher being buried in “some cold, lonely grave.” He’d spent hours trying to help her understand that slow didn’t mean stopped. It was not enough to arrest somebody, he’d tell her; “I want a conviction and to do that I need to be methodical.” Well, how about a press conference to develop new leads, Rhonda suggested.

Richardson didn’t like talking to the press. He worried about the release of information that only the killer would know, but once released also could be used by informants looking for a deal from the police or a district attorney. Media releases also sometimes did more harm than good by drumming up “leads” that led nowhere but used valuable time and manpower to track down. He’d already discussed the advisability of a press conference with Dennis Hall, the Jefferson County deputy district attorney assigned to the case.

Hall, handsome in a boy-next-door way with light blue eyes behind round, wire-rim glasses, didn’t look very tough. His quiet demeanor and appearance, however, belied his reputation for surgically dissecting defense cases while stringing together the smallest details into a complete picture for the prosecution. His ability to make complex stories simple for juries had made him the man to take on the most intricate cases.

Hall also ran the county’s grand jury, which meant he was directly responsible for bringing indictments against the county’s worst offenders. Richardson, who had never worked with Hall but was well aware of his reputation, knew he was going to need such a prosecutor if and when an arrest could be made in the Elder case.

They’d even talked about the possibility of prosecuting Luther for the murder of Cher Elder even if her body could not be found. “I’m not sure that’s ever been done successfully,” Hall said. He said he’d research the possibility, but they agreed to wait at least a while longer
and
to hold off on any press conferences.

“We’ve talked about releasin’ somethin’ to the press but so far things are workin’ pretty well as is,” Richardson answered Snider’s question. He asked if she had seen Luther or knew where he was. It was a test. Actually, he could locate Luther just about any time he wanted because of the bird dog attached to his car.

The device had tracked Luther to Debrah’s place, then south to Denver’s Colfax Avenue, one of the city’s oldest main thoroughfares, now notorious for its adult bookstores, pornographic movies, and sidewalk prostitutes.

In fact, Luther frequented the area so much over a few days Richardson wondered if he was on the hunt again. The truth was, Luther had nowhere to go. He avoided Snider’s place, hinting, she said, that the police had it staked out, and he also stayed away from the Eerebouts. To sleep he tried to find isolated roads where he could pull over and rest in his car. But even then, Richardson allowed him no peace.

When the bird dog stopped sending its signal, indicating the car wasn’t moving, a patrol car would be sent out to roust Luther. It was all handled quite innocently. The officer would act as if he had come upon Luther while making his rounds and tap on the window; “You can’t sleep here.” The idea was to keep Luther moving, make him tired, and increase the feeling of isolation. Richardson wanted to know where he was at all times, just in case they found Cher’s body. That Sunday, they had tracked him back to the Fort Collins area.

Snider admitted that she’d seen him Sunday. He’d called her out of the blue, she said, and they’d spent the day together. When she asked him what he’d been doing, he gave her one excuse and a few minutes later another, as if he couldn’t remember what he’d told her before. “He’s not capable of tellin’ the truth.... The last I heard, he’s been helping J.D. fix his car, and then he’s going to follow him to Chicago.”

Richardson sensed that there was something upsetting Debrah, something to do with her Sunday outing with Luther. She apparently didn’t want to talk about it, but at least she hadn’t tried to lie about seeing him, and that was a good sign.

Richardson was aware that the bird dog had tracked Luther to the Eerebout house in Golden. The detective staking out the house had reported that Luther was currently sitting on the front porch with Babe and her sons.

Richardson got off the telephone and radioed the detective. A minute later, an unmarked police car pulled up in front of the Eerebout house next to Luther’s blue Geo Metro.

As Luther gaped, the detective who’d been watching got out of his car and walked around to the curbside of the Geo Metro. Getting down on his hands and knees, the detective reached under Luther’s car and pulled the bird dog from its hiding place.

If Luther was going to Chicago, the device would have been useless, and Richardson didn’t want him leaving town with it. Removing it as Luther watched was just another opportunity to push his paranoia buttons.

Debrah Snider had not been able to bring herself to tell Richardson everything about the last couple of times she had seen Luther. When he arrived at her house following his confrontation with the detective at the hospital, he was so angry he wouldn’t even speak to her. He had loaded a few last items in his car and reached into his pocket for his keys.

She had watched in tears. All her hopes, all the love letters, all of the moments of happiness she had found in Tom’s arms now seemed like a dream. “I know I may never see you again,” she said, “but I want you to know I still love you. Maybe if you can get this straightened out, you’ll give me a call?”

If she was expecting an answer, she was disappointed. He remained silent. He opened the car door and was about to get in when she cried, “Can I at least get a hug goodbye?” He had looked at her and the anger in his eyes softened. He took her into his arms and in her impending loneliness, her body responded desperately to his. He picked her up and carried her into her trailer where they made love.

Afterward, Luther was talkative again. But now that he had made love, he was back to being the Tom she didn’t like, the bragger and the liar. He was suddenly eager to describe the clever way he’d had J.D. drop him off, exactly where he didn’t say, and then arranged to be picked up the next day. And just in case the police had managed to follow, he said, he walked ten miles out of his way before going to the grave. “I spent the whole night piling rocks on it, two feet deep.”

Luther boasted that if Richardson came for him, he’d give him the slip and head for the mountains where he could run circles around the police; “They’d never catch me.” The cops were so stupid, he said, they had seized all of his shoes, except the ones he had worn to the grave. As proof, he showed her a pair of black, high-topped tennis shoes.

When he left that day, Snider had supposed that he was at long last on his way to Chicago. So she was surprised when he called Sunday morning. He was at a truck stop near Fort Collins and wanted to see her but was afraid he was being followed. He asked her to meet him at Horsetooth Reservoir just west of the city.

Horsetooth was a large man-made lake set in the barren foothills overlooking Fort Collins. It had been named for a rock formation that resembled a horse’s front teeth. The reservoir was a favorite hangout for the town’s youth and students from Colorado State University.

Luther and Debrah didn’t talk about Cher Elder, just the sorts of everyday things a couple on a picnic might—the weather, the beauty of the scenery, his upcoming trip to Chicago. When the conversation petered out, they wandered off separately to contemplate the day and enjoy the clear blue skies.

Debrah was sitting on rock staring at the cold, dark waters of the reservoir when a shadow fell on her from behind, sending a chill up her spine. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Luther had come up silently and now stood only a few feet away. With horror, a thought suddenly struck her.
He wants to kill me—that’s why he wanted to meet me here. He knows that I know things that put him in danger.
The look on his face frightened her, yet at the same time, she found that she didn’t care what happened next. If she couldn’t be with him, she’d just as soon be dead. She turned back toward the water and waited.

Nothing happened. “Do you want to go to Mom’s place?” she asked quietly, thinking perhaps there were too many people walking along the paths for him to carry out his plan. She also sensed that he was torn by love for her, and she wanted to put it to the test. Her mother’s summer cabin was located in a remote spot in the mountains. It was a private place with few potential witnesses where he could bury her and she’d never be found. Like Cher Elder.

Debrah glanced back at Luther, who looked like a boy who’d been caught thinking bad thoughts. “Sure,” he said, giving her a small, strained smile. “You bet.”

They hardly spoke on the drive up to her mother’s cabin. Debrah looked out the window, trying to fathom how it was that she was on her way to quite possibly be killed by the man she loved.

All of her life she had asked God for a sign that she was deserving of love and for a dragon-slayer who would protect her. For two years she had believed her prayers had been answered with Tom. Damn
Cher
Elder, she thought,
couldn’t
she see how dangerous Tom was?

They reached her mother’s cabin and went inside. Luther was edgy, walking around, looking out windows. Snider wondered how long it would take for him to make up his mind. The tension in the cabin seemed to be reaching some sort of boiling point when there was a knock at the door. She and Tom both jumped.

It was a neighbor who was driving by when he saw a car that he didn’t recognize and had stopped to check. Luther seemed almost more relieved by the sudden interruption than Debrah and was his friendly “good Tom” persona. When the neighbor left, so had the feeling of impending danger. “It’s time to go,” he said, giving her a kiss. He was anxious to start for Chicago, where there’d be no more Richardson.

“He’s got nothin’ on me.”

“First of all, I only want to say I love ya and miss you. I got a second alone and I figured I better make good on my promise to write a little.” Debrah devoured the letter from Tom eagerly. Postmarked June 8, 1993, it mostly dealt with the day-to-day business of making a living as a carpenter’s helper, a job Skip had set him up with. “So until next time love ya lots and hope you can smile for me. I’ll try to figure out a way to send you a hug.”

A week later, there was another letter. He said he might be back to Colorado sooner than he had planned. “How would that be? It would be great for me Deb. I don’t know if I’m going to be patient enough to learn all I need to.”