The Most Dangerous Animal of All (18 page)

“This guy plays a mean Hammond organ,” Beausoleil announced to his bandmates.

For the next hour, Van proved him right.

He felt a kinship with Beausoleil. Like so many others who admired LaVey, Beausoleil chose to walk on the dark side, hoping the darkness would hide the emptiness inside them.

“Drop by anytime,” Beausoleil told Van as he made his way to the door.

Over the next few months, my father stopped in every now and then to play with the band. At the time, he needed something, anything, to keep him away from home.

Edith was pregnant and making demands that he was unwilling to meet. She wasn’t like Annette and Judy had been. He couldn’t control her. She was more like Gertrude: domineering. She expected him to support the family with a regular paycheck and to be home when he wasn’t working. Before they married, she had insisted that he find suitable work so that he didn’t have to travel to Mexico so much. Van had joined the teamsters’ union and had gotten hired as a cabdriver, an easy position for an ex-convict to obtain. Being a cabdriver was demeaning to a man of his intelligence, and driving around picking up fares could only have exacerbated his resentment. He preferred to be in Mexico City, sitting at the bar in the Hotel Corinto, drinking and impressing patrons with his literary knowledge. Not catering to a woman whose swollen belly repulsed him.

But, as he had with Gertrude, Van complied, all the while seething inside.

As the summer wore on, more and more of America’s youth flooded into the city, drawn there by songs like Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” and exaggerated stories of the freedom to be found in communal living and mind-altering drugs. These young people, enamored of the notion of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, did not sense the undercurrent that was rippling through the California music scene—a darkness that was descending over the state, an evil that was being grown in music venues throughout the Haight.

When the terror came, they would be long gone.

Rotea Gilford was worried. He didn’t like what was happening to his city. Its charming appeal had gotten lost in the trash that littered the streets, in the overcrowded parks that had become sleeping quarters for teenagers not fortunate enough to crowd into an apartment. The glassy eyes that stared at him as he walked through the Haight did not bode well. The police force was not staffed or equipped to handle the influx of people, and he and his fellow officers in the robbery division worked longer and longer shifts to investigate the growing number of thefts, which corresponded to the rise in drug use.

Rotea had a real problem with what these young people were doing to themselves and to the city he loved. He was a family man, a father who spent time with his children and the kids in his neighborhood. He coached them in baseball, football, and basketball. He mentored them, showing them through his own successes that they could rise above their individual situations to make a difference in the world. What he saw in the Haight was disturbing—America’s children scorning the values of their parents—and the inspector did everything he could to steer them in the right direction.

Even as he arrested them.

By the fall, many of the summer inhabitants of the Haight had returned home to attend college and spread their message of peace in their own towns and cities. On October 6, Haight Street filled with the die-hards who had stayed behind to march behind an empty gray coffin in a ceremonial parade that signified the death of the hippie. Those who had come to San Francisco to experience peace and love had become disillusioned with their own hype.

Soon even they were gone, leaving behind a changed world.

26

Killing Cheri Jo Bates had done nothing to relieve Van’s obsession with Judy. If anything, his feelings of hatred toward her had escalated through his use of drugs and alcohol. And Edith’s pregnancy wasn’t helping matters. She soon gave birth to a boy named Oliver. My father ignored his new son. If the baby needed to be fed or changed, Edith took care of it. When Oliver started crying, Van left. Edith couldn’t understand why her husband wanted nothing to do with the child, but she was unaware that Van already had a son whom he had thrown away. My father knew better than to mistreat their child in front of this wife, so he stayed away as much as possible.

Again Van felt no attachment, no love, for the child he had created. This time, however, he didn’t really care if his wife gave the child attention. Edith wasn’t Judy.

Edith soon became used to his being gone at all hours of the night and for days at a time. He always told her he was working—either collecting fares or running down to Mexico to look for ancient documents. She believed him and did not suspect there was anything seriously wrong in her marriage.

Van was moody, yes, and he sometimes flew into rages, but she tried to understand.

Near the end of 1968, Van’s frustration must have reached a boiling point. He was tired of being married, tired of his screaming child, tired of wondering where Judy was and what she was doing.

As Edith began decorating for Christmas, Van began making Christmas plans of his own.

On December 20, sixteen-year-old Betty Lou Jensen, an honor student at Hogan High School, in Vallejo, California, about an hour outside San Francisco, excitedly prepared for her first date with David Arthur Faraday. The two had met just the week before, and it had been love at first sight for both of them.

Seventeen-year-old David had lived in Vallejo for three and a half years and was a senior at Vallejo High, where he was on the wrestling team and participated in school government. He was also active in the Presbyterian church his family faithfully attended.

Betty Lou told her parents that she wanted to go with David to the Christmas concert at Hogan High. Her parents agreed to meet him before their date.

That evening, Betty Lou excitedly reached into her closet and tried on a variety of dresses, searching for just the right one to impress her new beau. She finally decided on a purple dress with a white collar and cuffs and strappy black shoes and then carefully arranged her dark hair on top of her head.

David was just as excited. He asked his mother, Jean, if he could borrow some money, and she gave him a dollar and some change. Before he left, at 7:30 p.m., to pick up his date, David put a bottle of breath drops in the pocket of his brown corduroy pants.

He kissed his mother good-bye.

David arrived at Betty Lou’s around eight. Her parents seemed pleased with the polite, good-looking young man who wanted to date their daughter. “Make sure you bring her home by eleven,” Betty Lou’s mother said.

“I will,” David promised.

They did not go to the concert. There was no concert being held that night at the school. Instead they visited Betty Lou’s best friend, Sharon, stayed at her house until 9:00 p.m., and then drove southeast along Lake Herman Road toward Benicia.

Lake Herman Road was well known by local teenagers as a great place to make out. The entrance to the Benicia water-pumping station was perfect—isolated and surrounded by rolling hills. A locked gate prevented kids from entering the pumping station, but a small area to the side of the road, at the entrance, invited them to park there. Teenagers could see lights from approaching cars from a distance and would usually wait until they passed to resume their inexperienced groping.

David and Betty Lou weren’t paying attention to the passing cars. It was dark, foggy, and cold outside—about forty degrees—a perfect night to snuggle, to experience the excitement of a first kiss. Betty Lou sat in the front seat of David’s 1960 brown Rambler station wagon, her pretty head resting on his shoulder while they talked. Absorbed in each other, they didn’t pay attention when a vehicle pulled over and parked parallel to their car.

Perhaps my father had been watching Betty Lou. Her mother would later report to police that the gate to their home had been found open on several occasions when it should have been closed. The young girl resembled Judy—the way she had looked when Van had forced her to dye her hair black to avoid recognition while they were on the run. Betty Lou, cuddled up next to David, had no way of knowing that my father perceived that as a betrayal.

Van had carefully prepared for this night. Realizing that he would not be able to sight his gun if his prey took off running, he had taped a small penlight to the barrel of his .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol.

David and Betty Lou were oblivious to the man standing just feet away, until bullets started ripping through the car—through the back passenger window, through the roof, and then suddenly their attacker was on the driver’s side, aiming his gun through the window. He shot David, whose exit had been slowed by Betty Lou’s escape, just behind his left ear at point-blank range. David’s body slammed sideways and he fell out of the passenger side of the car.

In his left hand, he clenched the class ring he had planned to give Betty Lou that night.

Betty Lou ran for her life but could not escape the five bullets that ripped into her back. She had managed to run about twenty-eight feet when the last bullet felled her.

She died there, on the side of a dark road, at the hands of a man who had once loved a girl who looked like her.

Van stood over her for a moment, staring at her face, then turned and walked back to his car.

His mission accomplished, my father drove away.

Around 11:15 p.m., Stella Borges, who lived on a nearby ranch, passed the pumping station and saw someone lying on the ground near the road. She slowed down and spotted another person on the ground, near a station wagon. She sped away toward Benicia, flagging two police officers a few minutes later.

Captain Dan Pitta and Officer William Warner hurried to the scene and immediately determined that the female was dead. They followed the trail of her blood back to the car, where they discovered David, still alive but fading fast.

Pitta called for paramedics while Warner drew a chalk outline around David’s body.

David died at 12:05 a.m. at Vallejo General Hospital.

A gray wool blanket was placed over Betty Lou’s lifeless body.

Investigators would find ten spent shell casings, later determined to be Winchester Western Super-X copper-coated long-rifle ammunition.

They also discovered footprints, but the indentions were so light that they could not determine what type of shoe had left the print.

Solano County sheriff deputies were baffled. There had been no robbery—Betty Lou’s purse with all its contents intact was in the backseat, along with her stylish white fur coat. There had been no sexual assault, which investigators often suspect when the victim is a pretty girl. David had been shot only once; Betty Lou had been shot five times, her wounds in a tight circle on her back. Whoever had shot her had been an expert marksman. The murders did not make sense.

There were no real clues aside from reports by a few witnesses who had been driving down Lake Herman Road and reported seeing a white Impala parked near the station wagon. No one had witnessed the crime.

Again, the case would remain unsolved.

27

Back in Louisiana, I had no way of knowing that I now had a little brother named Oliver.

I knew I was adopted, though. Leona had read me a book about being adopted when I was three years old, but I didn’t really understand what it meant then. She had told me that out of all the boys in the world, she had chosen me to be her son because I was special.

What she meant didn’t sink in until one afternoon when I was playing with my friends Jeff and Tommy.

“Your real mama didn’t love you,” Jeff informed me, having overheard his parents say that I was adopted. In the South, gossiping about neighbors is a pleasant way to spend a humid afternoon.

“Yeah, your mama gave you away,” Tommy added.

“That’s not true,” I cried.

“Is too,” they replied in unison.

“Is not,” I shot back, before running away from them as fast as I could. When I got home, I ran into my room, thinking about what they had said, wondering if it was true.

At dinner, Leona could tell something was wrong as I picked at my food with my head down.

“What’s the matter, honey?” she said.

“Jeff and Todd told me that my real mommy didn’t love me, so she gave me away. Mama, why did my real mommy give me away?”

Loyd softly kicked Leona under the table, warning her to handle this with care.

Leona chose her words carefully, realizing the impact they could have. “Oh, honey, that’s just not true. Your mommy loved you so, so much that she gave you to us because she knew she couldn’t be a good mommy for you and take care of you the way we can. God wanted you here for me and your daddy to be your family, so you would have a wonderful home and a mommy and daddy to take care of you the way your mommy wished she could.”

Loyd and Leona held their breath as they waited for my reaction.

I sat there for a moment, thinking about what she had said, and then I smiled a big, happy smile. “I’m glad God told my mommy to give me to you and Daddy. I know she loved me, too.”

I never questioned why my mother hadn’t wanted me again. But after that, I always felt as though my aunts and uncles stared at me more than necessary, as if they were trying to figure out who I was and why my mother had given me away. They never said anything and always treated me well, but my red hair and freckles made them wonder. Did that red hair come from my real mother or from my real father? It seemed I would never know the answer to that question, but I felt so loved in the Stewart home that it hardly seemed to matter.

Even after Loyd and Leona’s biological child, Christy, was born, there was never any differentiation between us. My parents loved all of us equally and went out of their way to make sure that Cindy and I knew we were as important as Christy.

But all the love in the world wasn’t enough to stop me from experiencing anxiety that I couldn’t comprehend. It began one Saturday when I was six. Loyd and Leona had taken us to visit our Courville cousins in Krotz Springs. My cousin Ken and I spent the day climbing trees and placing pennies on the railroad tracks on top of the ring levee that surrounded the town. When Ken invited me to spend the night, I hurried to ask my parents. Loyd and Leona agreed that I could and promised they would return to collect me the next day after church. After kissing my mom and dad good-bye, I watched my parents drive away.