The Killer's Wife (3 page)
Authors: Bill Floyd
Roger Adler, Georgia’s husband, had been listening quietly, breathing heavily as he walked a little more slowly, behind the rest of us. Now he said, “No offense, Randy, but I have to call you on that one. It didn’t used to be that we’d think of murder as an event to be appreciated for its cathartic value. These were young children.”
His wife started, “Oh, now, I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way—”
“No,” Randy said quickly, and slowed his pace a bit to let the older man catch up. “I take Roger’s point, and I apologize for couching it in those terms. I know that these were human beings we’re discussing. I know it’s real. I’m just postulating how we might be unwittingly feeding this guy’s ego.” He turned back to Forte. “The killer would get off on the developing story, he’d read every article and watch every newscast. All the while knowing he can never share, never indulge in that last thrill of renown, because if he’s caught he’s effectively dead and his fantasy life dies, too. But if he can control that desire for recognition, what a sublime payoff he must get from going through his everyday life … The work, church, family, dealing day to day with his wife and kids and neighbors and none of them knows. If he’s any good, none of them even suspects, except on a level so deep that they can’t ever admit it or they’d become instantly complicit … Think of the power that this sick bastard must feel. Everything taking place behind his eyes, this massive internal conflict being waged, a fight against these fantasies that in the end are so powerful he has to make them real, while to all the outside world he looks just like you and me. Shit, you’re a lawyer, you’re used to acting like you believe in things that demonstrably aren’t true. Imagine undertaking a task on that level, with stakes that high. An ugly scenario, my friend.”
Forte looked at me so he could pretend to be looking past my husband. He said, “Randy’s a compulsive gambler, isn’t he?”
“I look like I’d put up with that?” I asked, trying for
sassy but feeling cold and a little ashamed by Randy’s monologue. We’d almost reached the woods. All of us wore hiking boots that had been purchased at brand stores in malls, and that hadn’t seen any real hiking in all the years we’d owned them. I got mine while I was still in college, right before I met Randy. I thought they made my legs look longer. “I bitch him out just for betting on your racquetball games.”
sassy but feeling cold and a little ashamed by Randy’s monologue. We’d almost reached the woods. All of us wore hiking boots that had been purchased at brand stores in malls, and that hadn’t seen any real hiking in all the years we’d owned them. I got mine while I was still in college, right before I met Randy. I thought they made my legs look longer. “I bitch him out just for betting on your racquetball games.”
“But he always beats me.”
Randy wanted to say more, to further demonstrate how his mind was so expansive that he could imagine the worst in a cold and curious light. In his career role as a compliance officer, he was paid to call everyone’s attention to precise details; if the production procedures he assessed deviated to even a slight degree, it could result in lawsuits, federal intervention, and millions of dollars in fines against Jackson-Lilliard. So he loved to spin his little scenarios. But his shit talking today bothered me especially. I was, in fact, so annoyed with him that I could barely keep from yelling at him to shut up. What a scene that would’ve been. All the people in the search party alerted by raised voices and turning in our direction, only to witness a domestic squabble. I bit down on it and I guess Randy did, too, because he didn’t bring it up again.
We searched across the length of the field and on through the thinning stretch of trees, up the opposite hillside almost to the edge where they were clearing the ground for construction. We found nothing, no sign of the lost child; the most interesting items anyone came across were
an empty, rusted bullet casing and a young girl’s dress, infant-sized, much too small and too worn for a seven-year-old boy like Tyler Renault.
an empty, rusted bullet casing and a young girl’s dress, infant-sized, much too small and too worn for a seven-year-old boy like Tyler Renault.
H
is body was found a month later, twenty miles west of El Ray, dumped in a ravine off the side of the highway. His eyes had been gouged out, a pair of dice inserted in the empty sockets. The Renault husband was never charged; our neighbor Todd Cline, the police officer, told us that Mr. Renault had been cleared by DNA evidence found at the scene, which excluded him as being the murderer. But there was never anything in the paper about it, never any official update or word of progress. It would be years before anyone was charged in the case.
is body was found a month later, twenty miles west of El Ray, dumped in a ravine off the side of the highway. His eyes had been gouged out, a pair of dice inserted in the empty sockets. The Renault husband was never charged; our neighbor Todd Cline, the police officer, told us that Mr. Renault had been cleared by DNA evidence found at the scene, which excluded him as being the murderer. But there was never anything in the paper about it, never any official update or word of progress. It would be years before anyone was charged in the case.
I
came awake to a tapping on my windshield.
came awake to a tapping on my windshield.
How embarrassing. Doug McPherson was standing there in a Penn State sweatshirt and shorts, ready for his morning jog. Shorts—even though there was frost on the car windows, and my first sensation, apart from how humiliating it was to have been found dozing in my front seat, was that I was freezing.
I tried to roll down the window but of course the car wasn’t even running, so I opened the door and greeted Doug. His initial look of concern had already shifted into
one that gave me the benefit of the doubt. “We were planning to bring Hayden by your place as soon as I finished with my run,” he said. “But I guess you wanted to pick him up early. Everything okay?”
one that gave me the benefit of the doubt. “We were planning to bring Hayden by your place as soon as I finished with my run,” he said. “But I guess you wanted to pick him up early. Everything okay?”
He thought I was sleeping off a bender of some sort. I recognized a fellow career enabler, and experienced an involuntary wash of warm, guilty gratitude.
I nodded. “Everything’s fine. I was thinking we’d run some errands before the mall gets busy.” I glanced down at my watch; it was six-thirty, barely even daylight. My eyes felt gritty and I probably had sleep lines across my face. I laughed at myself, for (mostly) Doug’s benefit. “I just got up and put it in gear. Guess I should’ve had my coffee first.”
Doug smiled benignly and glanced up toward the house. Gabby was standing in the front doorway, Caleb by her side, holding on to her robe and absently scratching his ear. Hayden was peeking out from behind them, blinking into the stark new day. I called out, “Good morning, guys. Figured I’d go ahead and get him so we could beat the Saturday crowds.”
“What crowds?” Hayden said.
My mind still refused to kick in. Last night came back to me and I quickly surveyed the street. No signs of trouble, nothing different from when I nodded off. “It’s a surprise,” I improvised, knowing I’d pay for it later. “The sooner you get moving, the sooner you’ll find out.”
Doug did his stretches, standing by my bumper and holding one leg up behind him, hopping in place a little bit
and then switching to the other leg. The boys disappeared into the house and he said, “Go on up. Gabby’ll fill you in on the all-nighter.” He pointed at the car. “Looks like someone left you a note. Probably you were in such a rush you didn’t see it before.” Still making my excuses for me. I caught his last bemused glance as he bopped off down the street.
and then switching to the other leg. The boys disappeared into the house and he said, “Go on up. Gabby’ll fill you in on the all-nighter.” He pointed at the car. “Looks like someone left you a note. Probably you were in such a rush you didn’t see it before.” Still making my excuses for me. I caught his last bemused glance as he bopped off down the street.
A small white envelope was wedged between my windshield glass and the wiper. I hadn’t even noticed it. The morning air suddenly felt even colder. I snatched the envelope and shoved it into my jeans, afraid to touch it for too long.
Gabby’s kitchen was painted a bright canary yellow, far too pastel, too Easter eggy. I couldn’t imagine anything less than delirium resulting from extended exposure to such a degree of forced sunshine. That said, it smelled wonderful, and I gratefully accepted a cup of coffee while Gabby unfolded bacon strips onto a paper towel and popped them in the microwave. “They stayed up all night watching movies, as far as I could tell,” she yawned. “The TV was still on this morning when we came down. Not to worry, we’ve got all the mature stuff blocked out.”
I wasn’t worried. MTV was probably the worst thing that came across their plasma screen. Gabby and Doug were stolid members of the Cary metaclass: conservative; grossly and happily misinformed on most any subject you could name; also kind, generous, and almost completely oblivious to their own snooty tendencies. Endearing, in a word, although not in a way that would distinguish them from anyone else
you’d meet around here. I’d steadfastly encouraged Hayden’s friendship with Caleb since they met on the school bus last fall. I wanted him comfortable in these environs, whatever their specific decor; I wanted this kind of secure, banal future for him.
you’d meet around here. I’d steadfastly encouraged Hayden’s friendship with Caleb since they met on the school bus last fall. I wanted him comfortable in these environs, whatever their specific decor; I wanted this kind of secure, banal future for him.
He’d been in the den, collecting his things, and now he came into the kitchen carrying his sleeping bag and his little overnight suitcase, the one I had packed for him with a toothbrush and a change of clothes. It was apparent that he wasn’t going to utilize either, but then again he wasn’t supposed to be coming home this early. His hair was mussed, a general state of dishevelment that damn near broke my heart in a very tender way. He and Caleb seemed to have developed some kind of unintelligible code, and now they started vocalizing staggered bleeping and buzzing noises at each other, then nodding and cracking up as if they’d perfectly understood.
“I told you, boys, none of that nonsense while you’re in the house,” Gabby said absently. It was probably as harsh a tone as she ever used on her son, which I found reassuring. She massaged her temples and said, “I had a couple of extra glasses of wine, overdid the Friday night thing. When am I going to accept that I just can’t indulge like I’m still twentyfive?”
“I stayed up too late, too,” I said. “Listen, thanks again for having him over.” I set my coffee cup on the counter and bent down, hands on my knees, to look at my son. “What do you tell Mrs. McPherson?”
“Thanks, Mrs. McPherson.”
She reached out and tousled his hair, and I had to resist an impulse to slap her hand away. It was overly possessive, I realized, but I had a proprietary thing about him. No one else would have known it, unless they were watching and saw me tense up … Well, no one except perhaps for Hayden. He noticed way more than I cared for him to, and way more often than I liked.
We went out into the chilly morning and I let the car run for a moment, to warm it up. I asked Hayden about his night.
“It was cool,” he said, fully awake now, wired and raring to go. “We played Caleb’s PlayStation and his dad stayed up with us until like eleven o’clock.”
“You shouldn’t stay up so late.”
“What’s the surprise? What crowds do you want to beat?”
And since I didn’t really have any surprises planned, I created something on the fly. After we got cleaned up and had breakfast and I dawdled nervously around the house, we headed off to Southpoint Mall for a matinee. Hayden, along with every other kid in the greater Triangle area—as soon became apparent—had been bugging Mom all week to take him or her to the latest Pixar/Disney movie. It was yet another one of those digitized, talking-animal deals. Gaggles of parents and kids shuffled about the theater lobby, everyone talking too loudly, some of the children just staring wide-eyed. A soft sort of spectacle that annoyed the
teenaged ushers but comforted the families with its established, shared mannerisms. I saw a few acquaintances from work and we traded niceties briefly, politely, with express interest. If you had asked me five minutes later, I couldn’t have told you a word that any of them had said, or what I’d said to them in response.
teenaged ushers but comforted the families with its established, shared mannerisms. I saw a few acquaintances from work and we traded niceties briefly, politely, with express interest. If you had asked me five minutes later, I couldn’t have told you a word that any of them had said, or what I’d said to them in response.
The film’s plot was worn, the same movie I’d been taking Hayden to see since he’d turned five, it seemed like; even some of the same celebrities were doing the voiceovers. It was kind of nice to turn off my mind and sink into the theater seating. Hayden barely squirmed at all after the first few minutes.
Before it was halfway finished, though, the seating started to feel vertiginous and the little lights in the floor runners of the aisles reminded me of landing strips rushing underneath a plane’s wheels. I lost interest in the film, and instead considered the envelope that someone had placed under my wiper blade. I had looked at it when I first got Hayden home. Its contents provoked such a visceral reaction, such an empty coldness in my stomach, that I’d immediately crumpled them and put them into a drawer.
It consisted of two pieces of paper. The first was a headline cut out of a newspaper. NO LEADS IN SLAYING, POLICE SAY. The byline was Memphis, Tennessee. The date was two months ago.
But the coldness didn’t abate, so I went online while Hayden was taking a bath. The Memphis daily paper from that time included an article about a young woman who’d
been found dead in her apartment, no clues that the newspaper mentioned, no witnesses who reported any suspicious vehicles in the complex’s parking lot. A distraught boyfriend had been cleared as a suspect. The police were asking for the public’s input. A mention that there’d been some mutilation of the body.
been found dead in her apartment, no clues that the newspaper mentioned, no witnesses who reported any suspicious vehicles in the complex’s parking lot. A distraught boyfriend had been cleared as a suspect. The police were asking for the public’s input. A mention that there’d been some mutilation of the body.
Along with the article was a photo of the victim, a twenty-year-old named Julie Craven. I studied her features for as long as I could stand it: a chubby face framed by a page-boy haircut five years out of style, full lips, and a decent smile. Her defining grace, a pair of sharp green almond eyes, almost painfully beautiful to look at. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining them removed, and some cheap trinket in their place. But the article didn’t specify.
Attached to the headline, by a paper clip, was a separate piece of paper about the size of a fortune you’d get in a cookie at a Chinese restaurant. Written on it in block letters: BEEN BUSY?
He’d come and put the envelope there while I’d slept. He had been inches away from me. Did he look in my face, did he say anything?
If I flexed my fingers, I could still feel his grip on my hand as I tried to pull away. All that pent-up emotion he’d unleashed on me, the precise details of his recitation and delivery probably being recalled at this very moment with considerably more relish in his mind than in my own. Or was it disappointing, as those kinds of moments so often are? Was it not the performance he’d practiced? Did he not get the justified righteous rush he’d dreamed of all
these years, visualizing the confrontation as he fell off to sleep?
these years, visualizing the confrontation as he fell off to sleep?
It hit me then, sitting in a darkened theater surrounded by a crowd of oblivious viewers, all those children unaware as yet of what a boundless variety of dangers awaited them in their budding new lives, that Charles Pritchett must have been searching for me for
years
, seeking out the object of his contempt. It hit me that I’d been found.
years
, seeking out the object of his contempt. It hit me that I’d been found.
I
first read about Cary in
National Geographic,
nearly six years ago. It was their featured “USA Town of the Week,” or something like that. I was still living with my mother at the time, during the brief period after the trial when I still hadn’t gotten any kind of bearings, and Mom wanted to keep us there, with her, for the foreseeable future. But it was obvious from the stares of people on the street and the way friends I’d grown up with spoke to me—alternately tentative or intrusive—that I wouldn’t be able to stay in Tapersville. The small Oregon logging town where I was from, and where my mother still lived, was too small, too familiar—and not in a fond way. The people there wanted to believe in their own charity, a sense of stoic non-judgmentalism, but of course in my case such restraints were washed away by the sheer prurient appeal of it all. Compared to the endless fog and rain, the grudging and ancient forest on the surrounding hills, and the logging trucks
shuddering down the bypass with hissing tires through all hours of the day and night, mine was the best story in years. Small-town folks thrived on scandal and tragedy, no less than those in the El Ray suburbs from whence I’d fled in the aftermath of the trial.
first read about Cary in
National Geographic,
nearly six years ago. It was their featured “USA Town of the Week,” or something like that. I was still living with my mother at the time, during the brief period after the trial when I still hadn’t gotten any kind of bearings, and Mom wanted to keep us there, with her, for the foreseeable future. But it was obvious from the stares of people on the street and the way friends I’d grown up with spoke to me—alternately tentative or intrusive—that I wouldn’t be able to stay in Tapersville. The small Oregon logging town where I was from, and where my mother still lived, was too small, too familiar—and not in a fond way. The people there wanted to believe in their own charity, a sense of stoic non-judgmentalism, but of course in my case such restraints were washed away by the sheer prurient appeal of it all. Compared to the endless fog and rain, the grudging and ancient forest on the surrounding hills, and the logging trucks
shuddering down the bypass with hissing tires through all hours of the day and night, mine was the best story in years. Small-town folks thrived on scandal and tragedy, no less than those in the El Ray suburbs from whence I’d fled in the aftermath of the trial.
The specs in the Cary article were promising: an influx of relocated white-collar workers from the Northeast, drawn by companies like SAS and IBM, which had their headquarters in the nearby Research Triangle Park; affordable housing, decent schools, a low crime rate; three universities within a half hour of one another. The natives seemed grudgingly accepting, since the newcomers also brought a lot of money with them. I had immediately recognized it as a good place to be faceless, and to fade into the background, without necessarily dooming Hayden to the same fate.
I was seeing a psychiatrist at the time. Mom would drive me an hour both ways and wait in the car while I talked to Dr. Cannell about my problems. Dr. Cannell was probably a decent caregiver, well enough equipped to deal with substance abuse or depression or infidelities. But in our sessions, she usually only succeeded in making me angry, and I couldn’t handle any more anger at that particular time in my life. When I told her I was moving, she said, “You’re seeking a geographic solution to an interior problem.”
“You’re damn right,” I told her.
“It won’t help you until you’ve dealt with your own feelings of guilt.”
“It’s not my own feelings I’m thinking about.”
And that was true enough. After Randy’s trial was adjourned and the verdict ended his hopes of ever again torturing anyone outside of the California penal system, the same judge who’d granted my expedited divorce and name change also signed over a forfeiture of all marital holdings to me. It would be a while before I needed to work again. But I didn’t have any more time to linger in one place.
W
hen I moved here, I’d found out all the stuff the article didn’t mention. That the new immigrants weren’t only from the Northeast, but a great many also came from places like India and South Korea and Kenya. They spoke with wonderful accents, and most of them seemed to hold PhDs and work at multiple vocations. Job interviews were easy enough to come by; offers were another matter. The natives and newcomers alike were often rude and caustic, and the town itself little more than a dronescape of beige and off-white homes (they even had a municipal code that disallowed any garish exteriors within the city limits) repeated in development after development, peppered with disappearing woodlands. The kind of place where drivers couldn’t be bothered to use their turn signals, even though the switch was positioned right there by the steering wheel. In other words, a place not altogether very different from El Ray.
hen I moved here, I’d found out all the stuff the article didn’t mention. That the new immigrants weren’t only from the Northeast, but a great many also came from places like India and South Korea and Kenya. They spoke with wonderful accents, and most of them seemed to hold PhDs and work at multiple vocations. Job interviews were easy enough to come by; offers were another matter. The natives and newcomers alike were often rude and caustic, and the town itself little more than a dronescape of beige and off-white homes (they even had a municipal code that disallowed any garish exteriors within the city limits) repeated in development after development, peppered with disappearing woodlands. The kind of place where drivers couldn’t be bothered to use their turn signals, even though the switch was positioned right there by the steering wheel. In other words, a place not altogether very different from El Ray.
I had done a decent job of disappearing, though, or at least I’d thought so until Charles Pritchett showed up. The company I worked for, Data Managers Enterprises, Inc., contracted data processing for several national companies:
batch jobs collating trial product rollout results, phone lists, surveys, that sort of thing. I’d started in a cubicle and moved up to unit supervisor within two years. Now I had eight people working under me. While it wasn’t anywhere near as engaging as my former career as a business analyst, it was just stimulating enough not to be tedious, just undemanding enough that I could always take personal time off to deal with any issues Hayden might be having. And I was as far away from El Ray and Randy and the past as I could get and still be in the United States.
batch jobs collating trial product rollout results, phone lists, surveys, that sort of thing. I’d started in a cubicle and moved up to unit supervisor within two years. Now I had eight people working under me. While it wasn’t anywhere near as engaging as my former career as a business analyst, it was just stimulating enough not to be tedious, just undemanding enough that I could always take personal time off to deal with any issues Hayden might be having. And I was as far away from El Ray and Randy and the past as I could get and still be in the United States.
But it wasn’t far enough. I was almost ready to leave the office on Monday afternoon when Security called from the lobby to say I had a visitor. I asked who it was and the guard said some name I didn’t recognize, followed by, “She says she’s from the
News and Observer
.”
News and Observer
.”
“Tell her I’ve left for the day.” I hung up and grabbed my coat. Most of my people had gone home already. Hayden was hanging out at the McPhersons’ with Caleb. I had some reports left to run, but they didn’t seem too pressing after the phone call. A reporter could only have been here for one reason: Pritchett had made good on his threats, and he was spreading the word about me. Which meant Hayden wouldn’t be far from finding out … oh, God.
In the parking lot, a woman came running after me, calling my name as I approached my Camry. A man with a camera hung around his neck followed at the woman’s heels, pausing frequently to snap photos. I got into the car and locked the doors before they could reach me, and the woman stopped a few steps away. The guy took some more
pictures. The woman started talking and I could hear her through the closed windows, she was saying how they were going with the story regardless, and I might want to give my side, for the record. I turned the radio up and pulled out fast, nearly clipping her with my side-view mirror.
pictures. The woman started talking and I could hear her through the closed windows, she was saying how they were going with the story regardless, and I might want to give my side, for the record. I turned the radio up and pulled out fast, nearly clipping her with my side-view mirror.
R
andy’s name was all over the national media when the story first broke. Yes, he was
that
Randall Roberts Mosley. The papers always use the full name for assholes like him, a respect you never see granted to the victims. No, assassins and psychos are worth knowing by their full titles, but not the dead. Randy killed at least twelve people over the span of a decade. If you watched A&E, there was a whole episode of
American Justice
devoted to him. I’d never seen it, but I caught the blurb in
TV Guide
or on the digital cable summaries from time to time. I didn’t care to imagine how I came off in the hour-long summary of the unreckonable devastation that had spread from my husband’s hand; I certainly wasn’t a press darling during the initial furor. It might’ve had something to do with the dismissive way I’d treated the two big-name writers who wanted to get “my side of the story.” Lane Dockery and Ronald Person had both called me several times; their agents and editors had called me, too; they all wanted me to go on the record. I had no regrets, though. It wasn’t only myself I was protecting.
andy’s name was all over the national media when the story first broke. Yes, he was
that
Randall Roberts Mosley. The papers always use the full name for assholes like him, a respect you never see granted to the victims. No, assassins and psychos are worth knowing by their full titles, but not the dead. Randy killed at least twelve people over the span of a decade. If you watched A&E, there was a whole episode of
American Justice
devoted to him. I’d never seen it, but I caught the blurb in
TV Guide
or on the digital cable summaries from time to time. I didn’t care to imagine how I came off in the hour-long summary of the unreckonable devastation that had spread from my husband’s hand; I certainly wasn’t a press darling during the initial furor. It might’ve had something to do with the dismissive way I’d treated the two big-name writers who wanted to get “my side of the story.” Lane Dockery and Ronald Person had both called me several times; their agents and editors had called me, too; they all wanted me to go on the record. I had no regrets, though. It wasn’t only myself I was protecting.
When I learned that Randy had killed again in prison, suffocating another convict during what the media suggested (without ever coming right out and stating it) was a sexual assault, it was on the scrolling ticker that endlessly unfurls
underneath the talking heads on one of the twenty-four-hour news channels. I’d noted it merely as a blip at first, and when my brain registered what I’d read my whole body went electric. I rushed to my PC and read the story on CNN’s Web site and I remember clearly my first and last real thought on the subject:
It should have been him. Damn it, it should have been him that died.
At that point it had already been four years since his conviction, and his appeals were predicted to hold up his execution for another five years. California was notoriously slow to execute the people it condemned to death. And now another inmate had attempted to take time into his own hands, saving the taxpayers any further cost. Instead, Randy had unintentionally avenged some other victims, the ones who’d died at his assailant’s hands. I’d started shaking before I could get my computer shut down. I had gone and locked myself in the bathroom and had a quiet sort of breakdown, screaming into a wadded towel so I wouldn’t wake my son.
underneath the talking heads on one of the twenty-four-hour news channels. I’d noted it merely as a blip at first, and when my brain registered what I’d read my whole body went electric. I rushed to my PC and read the story on CNN’s Web site and I remember clearly my first and last real thought on the subject:
It should have been him. Damn it, it should have been him that died.
At that point it had already been four years since his conviction, and his appeals were predicted to hold up his execution for another five years. California was notoriously slow to execute the people it condemned to death. And now another inmate had attempted to take time into his own hands, saving the taxpayers any further cost. Instead, Randy had unintentionally avenged some other victims, the ones who’d died at his assailant’s hands. I’d started shaking before I could get my computer shut down. I had gone and locked myself in the bathroom and had a quiet sort of breakdown, screaming into a wadded towel so I wouldn’t wake my son.
That was when I decided to tell Hayden the Biggest Lie of All. It would be the crown on the pile of little lies I’d been telling him already. I’d been ducking the real story since he’d been old enough to ask the question.
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