Small Sacrifices (36 page)

When Steve Downs flew to Eugene to visit Christie and

Danny, their meetings were supervised and held at the Children's Services Division. This eased Fred Hugi's mind. Of all the people in Diane's life, Hugi considered Steve the most volatile. He had vacillated between love and hate for his ex-wife for over a decade; he was an unknown factor. Diane wanted her children and

Hugi feared Steve Downs might relent and help her get them back.

Eight weeks after the shootings on Old Mohawk, Diane still walked, free, but the only person who seemed to believe totally in

her innocence was her brother Paul. Lew kept questioning her, and her dad wanted proof that somebody else had fired the gun. Doug Welch and Kurt Wuest were totally prejudiced. They wouldn't believe she was innocent if they'd been there and seen the whole thing. Diane detested Welch and she was rapidly growing disenchanted with Kurt Wuest.

On July 15 she called Sheriff Burks. She wanted to talk to him--not his detectives. Burks agreed to see Diane late that same

afternoon. Accompanied by her brother Paul, who carried a tape recorder, Diane arrived at Burks's office at 4:45.

She had grievances. Dave Burks let her talk; her voice was almost a monologue on the county's tapes. Every so often, the sheriff would throw in a question, but it wasn't easy to find a break in her chain of sentences. Diane explained to Burks that his investigators were looking in the wrong direction. "I don't want to cause trouble for you guys. All I want is to get some facts laid out. I'm afraid I have an advantage over you in that I know I'm telling the truth ... It looked like I did it, I'm sure, but I didn't do it."

Diane explained that the killer was still out there, and she was concerned that he might murder someone else. For three and a half hours, Diane reprised the case for Burks, stressing that Christie was being brainwashed by detectives who cared nothing for her. Her own detective work had revealed a subtle conspiracy-intended to sacrifice Diane Downs. Naturally, there were some things she still didn't remember about May 19. Other things were clear.

"I knew that every second counted . . . The only thing that kept me going was Danny's crying. Danny just kept crying. He didn't stop once. Just real soft and quiet. Just constant crying, and if it hadn't been for Danny, I really think I'd of flipped out and run because of the sight of Christie in the back seat. All the blood and the sounds and the smell . . . it's terrifying." Burks had heard about Diane Downs's compulsion to talk,

he'd read transcripts of interviews, even heard tapes--but he wasn't prepared for this "verbal vomit" as Doug Welch characterized it. The woman never seemed to breathe; she just kept

talking, explaining, dismissing, criticizing, condemning, rationalizing. The day waned to dusk, past dusk, and then full dark

outside before Diane had said all she had to say.

Diane suggested to Sheriff Burks that it was the Oregon State Children's Services Division that he should be investigating. She 244 ANN RULE

had evidence that CSD was deliberately brainwashing children, making them emotionally handicapped so that the state could bring in another $260.00 a month.

Did she really believe that? Burks stared at her dumbfounded. Diane had intended that her marathon interview with Sheriff Burks would change the thrust of the investigation, but she had failed.

If there were such a thing as a rule book for murder suspects, the first chapter would strongly advise against dialogue with authorities. Even a neophyte defense attorney knows that. Diane

was talking too much. To too many people. She had accused police of putting her under a microscope, of tunnel vision. And yet it was Diane who kept pulling attention back to herself. Diane Downs was figuratively jumping up and down, waving her arms, and crying, "Here I am! Look at me! Look at me!" Diane complained about Burks to the papers.

Usually taciturn, Burks had had enough. "I'm not going to carry this media exhibition on with Mrs. Downs. If the press wants to write that and answer to every beck and call of Mrs. Downs, and go to her press conferences, then they can do that

... I don't think it's appropriate to try a case in the media." Diane rushed to the Springfield News and told them Burks had likened the press games to charades. This term initially infuriated Diane, but she grew to like the sound of it. "If they want to call what I'm doing a charade, well I'd call this investigation a charade," she cried.

Charades is a game played without speaking. In this of all games, Diane could never hope to excel.

"My God! My kids are the only people that loved me

no matter what. I know you used to love me, but it's

when it's convenient for you, and they always loved

me--no matter what. .. God, I miss them. Why did

all this have to happen? Who could hate me this

much? . .. God, I just want somebody to hug me and

tell me everything's going to be OK--even though

it isn't . . ."

I;-;-.

--Diane Downs, phone call to Lew, July, 1983

Diane was in one of her spinning phases, hell-bent for destruction. Jim Jagger couldn't stop her from jousting with the police. She still talked to Lew on the phone frequently--long, long meandering conversations. He was definitely living with Nora. In fact, when Diane called Lew, Nora sometimes answered the phone. And she was just as sweet as pie, just took a message or handed the phone over to Lew.

Weird! Diane thought.

Diane told Lew exactly nothing that would help the State's case against her. She cried a good deal and begged for sympathy. Lew found it hard to respond.

"The whole world's gone crazy. I don't know what's going on," Diane said.

"Naw," Lew grunted. "The whole world ain't gone crazy. The whole world is just the same as it always was and always will be."

"How come I'm so alone?" she moaned. "All I want is my 246 ANN RULE

life to be normal. I don't want anybody to know me. I just want my kids. I want somebody to ... say I love you."

There was such bleak irony in what Diane said. Her kids had loved her, and Christie and Danny probably still did.

With Carl Peterson, Christie was finally able to mention her mother aloud, although her speech impediment exacerbated noticeably when she did so. Carefully, he unfolded a newspaper,

showing her the portrait of her family published back in May. Christie studied it silently.

She knew that Diane's birthday was coming up soon. She had always gotten a card for her mother and made a present. She worried about whether she should do that now. Christie was still unwilling or unable to remember the bad things, but she was not testing Evelyn Slaven as much to see if Evelyn would still be there in the middle of the night, or in the morning when she woke up.

Evelyn was always there.

If Diane could stay away from the detectives, she stood a good chance of avoiding indictment. If no charges were brought, sooner or later the children would be returned to her. The mixture as before. Cheryl was gone, of course, but Diane knew she could have other babies.

Although Fred Hugi was still figuratively walking just behind Diane--always--she never thought about him, much less counted him a danger. She saw Kurt Wuest and Doug Welch as her prime adversaries. But not for long; the extra month the county had given them on the case was almost gone. In less than two weeks, they had to file away their Downs follow-ups and go back into uniform.

It was galling. They would do what they could on their own time, but they knew it wouldn't be enough.

Diane continued to spend a great deal of her time on the telephone: calling Lew, calling the TV stations, calling the print media. And most unwise of all, she couldn't resist calling Kurt Wuest. Diane was ambivalent about Kurt. He'd always attracted her; he looked a good deal like Danny's father, Russ. Diane phoned Kurt almost every day. She complained about the sheriff, and Tracy, and Welch. She was flirtatious, suggesting that she had things to say to him--if he would come to see her alone. Diane dangled tantalizing carrots of information under Wuest's nose. Little teasers about the case.

On July 19, the two-month anniversary of the shooting, Diane asked Wuest to come over to her parents home. "I would like for you to come over--and your buddy. You guys run around like Mormons--there's always two of you."

"What do you have planned?" ,r;

"I want to talk to you guys ... I told you everything about the case--except for one thing, and that was the true conversation that I had with this joker . . . Please be very discreet or I will get killed and I'd just as soon stay alive."

Wuest was ecstatic--until Diane called to cancel the meet. She was frightened. She told Wuest that she had suddenly remembered that the person with the gun had known her! Steve was

"making waves." Her own life didn't matter much to her, but she was afraid for Christie and Danny. Diane thought perhaps she might come down to the sheriff's office the next day. Wuest reminded her that he would have to read her the Miranda rights again. She was still technically a suspect. That was OK with her. But Diane didn't show up. She called to say she needed time to gather her courage to share her new information.

"Besides," she added. "Is it really important that he knew me?"

"There's a big difference between a ... person that has some association with you, or just some bum walking out of the woods," Wuest replied through clenched teeth.

"Yes, I understand. I understand and I apologize--but like I told you yesterday--if you were just a little girl with three kids-cut down to two kids--I don't think that you'd be running to the cops and telling them that--[not] if somebody said, 'Don't say anything 'cause you're going to be killed!' "

She sounded like that little girl, her voice all crumpled in with fear. She said Jim Jagger had suggested that a counselor or a; hypnotist might help her remember more. She told Kurt that maybe she was so scared she didn't want to remember . . . to go back to the blood and the pain.

"Give me a few days ... I swear to God I'll get back with you because if I can tell you guys something that's going to help clean this up, I'm damn sure going to do it--because I'm sick of this whole thing too, and as scary as it is for me to have to relive this whole thing, I'm willing to do it just to finish it." Hell, they didn't have a few days, Wuest thought. He reminded Diane of that.

Diane insisted she was petrified even to try to remember.

What eventually came to be known as the "hardball interview" began. Diane wanted to discuss the "good" suspects in the case.

"Steve Downs--my ex-husband. I divorced him two years ago, and he hated me for that."

"OK. Let's go on to Number Two," Welch suggested. They already knew that Steve had been in Arizona on the night of May 19.

"Stan Post is Steve's best friend ... If one can commit a crime and get away with it, the other one will do it. They are like a stepladder and they keep pulling each other up, and Stan hated me while I was pregnant [with Danny]--"

Welch cut in, ending the flood of words. "OK. Let's talk about Nora."

"Her main motive is the fact that Lew loves me ... We have been together for a year and it was an affair. I was his mistress and I'm not ashamed of that--it's just the way life is sometimes

... He left Nora several times . . . I'm here, and therefore Lew would have to either move up here or bring me back there . . . but her motive ... if she destroyed my kids, she would destroy Lew's desire for me because Lew is a person that doesn't like complications--he doesn't like hassles."

Diane's accusations were all a disappointing rehash of her earlier diatribes. Welch reminded her that she'd said she remembered now that the shooter had called her by name, and that he'd mentioned her tattoo.

Yes, she recalled that. He--they--had said they would come back and kill her if she told. She'd been afraid to tell.

"So this person knew you, referred to you by name, referred to your tattoo," Welch began. "Do you think it's logical to assume that this individual was sent up here from Arizona?"

"I would think so because there's nobody--only a couple of people up here--that know about my tattoo ... I'd only been here for six weeks ... I hadn't been here long enough to get any enemies ... so if they referred to my tattoo, that means they must have come from Arizona--or were sent from Arizona."

"The kicker--the kicker," Welch mused.

"I know, I know," Diane cut in eagerly.

"How--"

"How would they know that I was going to be on that road? I don't know ... If 1 was set up, how would somebody know that I would be on that obsolete road? I don't have the foggiest . . .

'250 ANN RULE

Burks asked me the other day was I followed? I don't know--but who looks to see if they're followed?"

Kurt Wuest came up with another "kicker."

"Wait a second. If you were followed, how could they . . . get somebody in front to wave you down?"

"I don't know ... I don't understand it in the least."

"The whole thing's bizarre," Wuest agreed.

"All I know is that I can tell you what he said . . . anything that I can remember to tell you. OK? If it doesn't fit in, well-damn it--you syphon it out then."

"We'll work it out," Welch said.

Diane rushed on. The yellow car was important--but she

didn't know why. "I could see the trees and I could see the bends in the road, and I see again my kids getting shot, and it was something that my mind would just fight with and the yellow car was there ... it's so weird. At the time that the person threatened me ... I wasn't supposed to say anything because I would be killed ... it didn't seem that it was somebody that knew me, and I don't know why because that's insane too . . . You're concerned about your kids living or dying and one of them did die, and you've got so many things on your mind, your sense of hope, you're so flipped-out about everything that you've seen, everything that you've felt, and maybe your mind just doesn't let you feel that it's your fault--even though it was somebody that hated me that much that did that, and so you block out the fact that it was somebody that knew you."