Wages of Sin (16 page)

Saturday, December 10, 1994, Martin and Busenburg drove to the tiny town of Jarrell, a flat, tornado-prone farming community north of Austin, not far from the Copperas Cove home of Chris Hatton’s grandparents.

Will introduced Stephanie to a dark-haired, bearded man with a slight resemblance to Will. “He’s my uncle,” said Busenburg. He was really Busenburg’s supposedly dead father. After they talked for a few minutes, Busenburg jumped up and said they had to go.

They left with Will’s “nephew,” who was really his stepbrother, who they were going to entertain over the weekend. Entertain him, they did.

Martin rubbed the seeds from the marijuana before filling her pipe and passing it over to Busenburg. His “nephew” watched. Busenburg was nervous about it. Martin wasn’t. She smoked weed about twice a week. He rarely smoked it, telling her that it interfered with his CIA work.

But after seeing Raymond Busenburg, Will needed something to relax him. His stomach queased into the tight knots of anxiety that sent him flying to the toilet and the Maalox.

The next day, he lay in Stephanie’s bed as she tenderly stroked his forehead. “I think you need to go to the doctor.”

Tears spilled from Will’s eyes. “I’m dying.”

“What?”

“I was in Somalia for Operation Desert Storm, and I got into some chemical warfare. About a year ago, I found out that it got into my system, and I’m dying.”

“Oh, Will! Why didn’t you tell me?”

He wept more and clutched at his stomach.

She started crying.

“I just couldn’t,” he answered.

“How long do you have?”

“Ten years. But I might be gone in five.”

“Oh, God,” she wailed. “I can’t believe this. We just met, and we’re so in love. And now you tell me you’re dying of a disease, and you have ten years to live. Oh, God.” She leaned her head down to his belly and wept.

The next night, Martin sneaked into her apartment at 3
A.M
. to surprise Busenburg with an early return from work. She expected him to be up waiting for her, as usual. He wasn’t. She tiptoed to her bedroom door and heard moaning from the room. She stopped and listened.

“Please stop,” Busenburg cried in his sleep. “No, no. Don’t hit me again.”

Stephanie slipped into the bedroom.

Busenburg tossed and twisted in the bed.

She walked closer.

“No!” he screamed, bolting upright.

“Will, Will. What’s wrong? It’s me, Stephanie.”

Sweating and red-faced, he stared at Martin.

She slid into bed beside him, easing him down. He shook in her arms.

“My dad tied me up and sexually abused me,” said Busenburg. His breath raced as he recited his dream. “Then he hit me over and over again. The tactics my dad learned as a Green Beret, he used on us kids. My dad was a coke addict.”

 

 

Will Busenburg and Stephanie Martin sat in a busy restaurant eating dinner when Busenburg’s pager went off. “It’s Fred,” he said, and got up to return the call.

When Busenburg sat back down in the booth, carefully placing his napkin in his lap, keeping his elbows off the table, and sitting erectly, he said, “Fred has a plan for how I can get out of the CIA permanently.”

Martin leaned in close to listen.

Busenburg spoke softly. “I’ll go on a mission, out of the country, fake my death, and be listed as dead in action.” He reached over to touch Stephanie’s hand. “But this is the bad part. To do it, we’ll have to kill someone else to put in my place, someone that looks like me.”

“When?” whispered Steph. “When will it happen?”

“It’ll go down in about a week.”

 

 

Martin suddenly understood why God had brought Will Busenburg into her life and why she dreamed of working in the health care field—to help find a cure for Busenburg’s disease. It was all part of Jesus’ divine plan, she thought.

“I want more information on your disease,” Martin said. “I want to talk to your doctor.”

“My doctor is private,” said Busenburg. “He’s with the Army.”

She begged him to call the doctor. Busenburg finally gave in, made a call in front of Martin, and asked for “the paperwork on the disease” to be sent to him.

“Can I talk to him?” pleaded Stephanie. “Can I talk to him?”

“Okay, okay, thank you, Doctor,” said Busenburg, and he slammed down the receiver. “He had to go,” he said to Martin.

 

 

The night was chilly and filled with the white Christmas lights of downtown Austin and the multicolored chaser lights of central Austin. Stephanie Martin and Will Busenburg cruised the Capital City to look at them all. Reindeer, wreaths, and Santas crossed light poles and wires from one house to the next, from one block to the next.

The couple, giggling, decided to drive over to Austin’s east side and see if “they” put up lights, too. “They” meant the minorities living on Austin’s east side.

Busenburg eased his truck along Twelfth Street, his mind wrapped in the fantasy lights and the belief that Martin was being stalked by an African-American man.

He thought about the words of comfort he’d spoken to her. “Don’t worry,” he had told her, fuming. “You’re with me now. And I can take care of anybody that comes near you. I’ll kill anybody that tries to hurt you.” His words tightened like a ribbon around him as a black man suddenly crossed the street and passed through the dead aim of Busenburg’s headlights. “If that black guy was coming after you, I would kill him right now.”

Martin slipped her hand along her boyfriend’s thigh.

 

 

Music reverberated in the Yellow Rose as Stephanie Martin danced onstage. Suddenly she felt a pull on the back of her thigh. She seductively reached down, as if it were part of her act. Pain shot through her leg. Martin had pulled a hamstring while stripping.

Like the EMS worker he had been, Busenburg carried her to his truck and drove her the five minutes to his apartment. He lifted her up the steps and tenderly laid her down, then ran a hot bath full of bubbles and herbs. He placed her in the tub and massaged his hands along her leg.

The next night, Busenburg and Martin drove through the city when his pager went off. “It’s Fred,” he said, “telling me to be ready to fly out on the mission.” It was the mission to fake Busenburg’s death. But within hours, Busenburg walked into Martin’s apartment. “The helicopter didn’t show,” he sighed. “It’s delayed until the first of January.”

 

 

The Martin family packed for San Angelo to see the grandparents for Christmas. Stephanie was supposed to go with them, but she told her parents she had to finish Christmas shopping. She said she’d drive out by herself in a couple of days. Will Busenburg said he didn’t want her to drive by herself; he would take her.

In San Angelo for Christmas, the Martins met for the first time their daughter’s love of her life. Stephanie and Will arrived in the evening, just as the family had finished dinner and were keeping Stephanie’s and Will’s suppers warm.

Will Busenburg shook Sandra Martin’s hand and, while still holding her hand, looked straight into her eyes, locking their gazes. It was almost as if he were thinking: if I look right in your eyes, I can really know you. Sandra Martin liked him immediately.

Will and Stephanie sat down to dinner.

“I think Stephanie is right,” said Sandra Martin to her husband as she and Robert sat in another room. “I think Will seems to be a very nice person.”

Will walked into the living room and sat down next to Stephanie’s sister-in-law. With the plinking sound of the Christmas twinkle lights in the background, he told her about his Special Forces work, that he was the heir to the company he worked for, and that he would inherit the company when he turned thirty.

“Boy, sounds like he’s set for life,” she later told her mother-in-law. The younger Mrs. Martin was very impressed.

Stephanie, too, talked about his Special Forces work.

But with her, he said, “Stephanie, let’s don’t talk about that.” And with all, he refused details.

If they were around Stephanie’s mother, Will said, “Stephanie, we don’t want to bore your mother with that. We don’t need to talk about it.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s boring,” Mrs. Martin replied. “It sounds very interesting to me.”

He and Stephanie slipped away and into bed. As they made love, she placed her fingers in his mouth so that his cries of coming didn’t reverberate throughout her grandmother’s home.

Awesome, he later told Stephanie. Incredible. Beautiful.

On Christmas Eve morning, Will Busenburg’s pager went off. “It’s Fred,” he whispered. “I have to leave for the mission, tonight.”

Martin grabbed her Christmas present to him and pushed it toward him. “To protect you,” she said. It was a gold cross.

Telling the rest of the Martin family that he had to leave on business, Busenburg got into his pickup truck and left.

 

 

A few days after Christmas, Stephanie Martin rode back from San Angelo with her parents. When they dropped her off at her apartment, Will wasn’t there, although he had been staying at Stephanie’s to take care of her cat. Although Busenburg wasn’t there, a roomful of Christmas presents was.

The Martins were pleased.

When Busenburg arrived at her apartment, Stephanie opened the presents and found a TV, a diamond-and-sapphire necklace, and a dildo. She clanked out her pots and pans. In her one-bedroom apartment, Stephanie Martin cooked up a Christmas dinner for Will Busenburg—turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls, and cheesecake.

“I’ve never had a Christmas dinner with someone who loved me like you do,” he said. But as Busenburg stroked Martin, he had bad news to break. “I’m bankrupt.” His real estate deals had gone sour. Already he’d told her his accountant had stolen his money. “I’m scared you’re going to leave me.”

“No,” she assured him, kissing him. “I don’t care about the money. I love you.”

“I still have some assets I can sell.”

Stephanie Martin wanted to show off her Christmas presents. Just before New Year’s, she and Will walked into the Martins’ home in Round Rock. Robert Martin knew that the necklace he stared at was high-dollar diamond.

“How did you get through school with a premed degree in such a short time?” Robert Martin asked as they sat in the den.

“Well, I went to school full time through the summers. I took full loads, as many hours as I could get.” Busenburg detailed the hours he had taken. “I’ve always been very good in math and science. And I took full loads of courses, and I was able to graduate then in three years.”

Busenburg’s words flowed easily, like spiked eggnog on a cold night.

“I’m planning on going on and completing my medical degree, but I just needed to take a break. Plus, I wanted to come down here and get a firsthand look at the business,” he said softly, so softly that Robert often had to ask Will to repeat what he was saying. “I never took summers off or anything. But sometimes I had to be gone for a week or so when my Army duties would necessitate that I be gone.”

Robert Martin quickly added in his mind—Will’s age, twenty-five, and the time it would have taken Busenburg to complete these accomplishments. To Martin’s astonishment, it added up. Busenburg could have done it.

“The ranch my sister lives on is actually owned by me,” Busenburg calmly continued. “She and her husband just keep it up for me.”

He turned to Robert Martin and talked about how much he loved to hunt, how he loved to shoot skeet. “Stephanie,” said Will to Robert, “she doesn’t know how to shoot a gun, does she?”

“No,” replied Robert. “She’s never shot a gun. She doesn’t like guns, I guess. I’ve never let her shoot any because she doesn’t want to.”

“Do you have an extra shotgun that I could train her on, that I could take her skeet shooting?” Busenburg asked, still casual.

“Yeah, I guess, if you’re gonna do that. That’d be good for her to learn at least how to use one, if she ever stays by herself and I give her something.”

Busenburg took the shotgun.

“He must be a really smart guy,” Robert Martin said to Sandra after Will walked out the door with Stephanie, and the shotgun.

The Martins met Busenburg, perhaps, two more times. “I’m moving money from one account to another. I have some money in a Swiss bank account that I’m going to be transferring,” he said in front of Sandra Martin.

He also told her that he was having money problems, that Chris Hatton wasn’t paying his share of the rent, so he was having to pay it all.

 

 

On New Year’s Eve, Martin and Busenburg moved some of his things out of the Aubry Hills Apartments and over to Fran Wallen’s.

Roxy Ricks and Colby Ford planned to go out that night, but they were stuck waiting at their apartment for Martin and Busenburg, as usual.

“Can we come over and borrow some money?” phoned Stephanie.

Roxy and Colby, and several other couples, had been waiting for Martin and Busenburg for two hours. They needed to get down to Sixth Street and find a parking place before the New Year’s countdown.

Finally Martin and Busenburg showed.

“Stephanie, you’re really late,” said Ricks, exasperated. It was 10:30
P.M
. “And besides that, I thought Will was a millionaire. Why does he need to borrow money?”

“Something’s wrong with my ATM card,” he responded.

“Then write a check,” said Roxy.

“Something’s wrong with . . .”

This is bullshit,
thought Roxy. Busenburg didn’t even need to finish his lie. “Okay, Stephanie, whatever,” she said, and handed Martin some money. “He is weird,” she said. “I think he’s lying, and he gives me the creeps. If you’re going to continue to hang out with him, then don’t come over here. You’re not welcome over here with Will. He is not welcome here.”