06.Evil.Beside.Her.2008 (19 page)

In mid-June 1989, James Bergstrom pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of second-degree criminal trespass and went before a judge, promising to seek counseling when he arrived home in Houston. He was sentenced to one year’s probation. Things were moving quickly now. The
Ohio
’s executive officer, following the recommendation of naval doctors, offered Bergstrom a deal: stay in and the navy would investigate and possibly seek a court-martial, or take an early out and get an honorable discharge. Bergstrom took the early out.

As his discharge date approached, Linda agreed to meet with him to discuss plans for the trip back to Houston. He always talked hopefully about their future together, and she said little to contradict him. Since that day in the park, she no longer believed she would be able to walk out of James Bergstrom’s life. Instead, she reasoned, her best hope was to move with him back to Houston so the navy would pay their expenses. She would then stay with him just long enough to contact an attorney and get her affairs in order before filing for divorce. At home, with her family beside her, Linda knew she would feel more secure, less vulnerable to her husband’s violent threats.

In the meantime, she stayed on in the Richardses’ attic alone and continued to work sporadically at the day-care center. Jane and the rest of the staff were supportive, never questioning when she felt too ill to come in. They all noticed
the change in Linda, the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hands shook whenever she talked about James. Her confidante, Grandma, understood more. She knew that Linda was losing weight and that she had difficulty keeping anything on her stomach.

Continually she whispered to Linda when they were changing diapers in the nursery, “Have you had a pregnancy test?”

“I can’t be pregnant,” she always protested, although she hadn’t had a period in months. “That’s impossible. James and I haven’t been together since before his arrest—and I had a pregnancy test after he was arrested. It was negative.”

“Linda, have another test,” the older woman advised. “Call it intuition, but I think you should have it checked.”

Finally, on June 16, the date James was being discharged, Linda drove to the navy hospital. Since she’d soon be losing her medical benefits, she reasoned it was only prudent to get a complete checkup. When the doctor came in she pleaded with him to do a pregnancy test. “I need to know, today,” she told him. “I know you guys can do it. Please, help me.”

For an hour she sat in the hallway outside the hospital lab awaiting the test results. Sometimes, when the waiting was too much, she paced, trying to remain calm. She was supposed to meet James behind the commissary at three to make final plans for their trip home, but still the findings weren’t in. She looked down at her watch and then prayed. “God, not now,” she whispered.

Half an hour later, the door to the lab was still shut. This is ridiculous, Linda thought.
I know I’m not pregnant.
She was approaching the receptionist, planning to tell her she was leaving, when the lab door swung open and a nurse motioned for her to step inside.

“Mrs. Bergstrom, you’re pregnant,” the woman said eagerly.

An anxiety that now always stayed close to the surface overcame Linda and she sat down in a nearby chair, feeling like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“You’re pregnant,” the nurse said again. “Isn’t that wonderful news? You’ve been trying for so long.”

Linda looked up at the nurse, wondering if she could possibly be one of the only people in Central Kitsap County who didn’t know about James and that this would not be welcome news. “Thanks,” she said, smiling weakly. “That’s great. Just great.”

On the drive to the commissary, Linda considered the haphazard twists fate had dealt her. If she’d been enacting this tragedy onstage, this is the point when the gods would have looked down from Mount Olympus and laughed heartily at her plight. The unfairness of it all astonished her. To have wanted a child and been denied for so long, only to discover she was pregnant now, was a cruel joke.
I find out my husband is a rapist,
she thought.
Then I discover I’m carrying his child. And the only way I can get home is if I stay with him long enough for the navy to move us.

When she arrived at the commissary, James was there, and as usual, he was angry.

“What the hell took so long?” he demanded.

“I told you I had a doctor’s appointment,” she said. “I had another pregnancy test.”

“And I told you to be here at three, and I meant three,” he shouted. “Did it have to take so long?”

“Well, it did,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”

At first James looked shocked, but he quickly recovered. To her surprise, smiling and clearly exhilarated, James Bergstrom swept her up in his arms. It was the first time he’d touched her since the arrest, and her body stiffened with revulsion, but he appeared oblivious to it.

“We finally did it,” he shouted, giddily. “We finally have what we’ve always wanted. We’re going to be a real family.”

In mid-July, James and Linda packed their cars for the drive back to Houston. The moving van was scheduled to pick up the rest of their things from the Richardses’ house
and Chris’s apartment later that week. Before they left, many of Linda’s friends tried to talk her into aborting the baby, but she decided she just couldn’t do that. “I wanted a baby,” she’d say later. “I desperately wanted a baby. I was not going to abort the baby.”

What puzzled Linda was the way James acted, as if he expected them to stay together. He babbled on constantly about the new life they’d have in Houston and about how good it would be to see his old friends. James was happy, crowing about the early out and their arrival home. All she could think about was how long it would take to file for divorce.

Linda couldn’t help but see the paradox. For many years she loved James, so much she once cried when he went out to sea. But he never understood how she felt, instead continually accusing her of being unfaithful and not caring for him. Now that she found his very touch odious, he appeared unable to recognize her loathing. James Bergstrom, she realized, couldn’t understand either love or hate.

The week of James and Linda’s departure, Bill Haberstock heard through the navy grapevine that the Bergstroms were headed back to Houston. Momentarily he wondered what would happen next. “I kind of figured James would go back to Texas and start a new life,” the COB would say later. “I was hoping he’d turn it around.”

When Undersheriff Chuck Wheeler heard Bergstrom was leaving Washington State, he had no such illusions about what lay ahead. One day in the office he made a prediction to the county prosecutor. “You and I both know what’s going to happen. He’s going to go back to wherever he goes and he’s going to do it again,” said Wheeler, shaking his head in frustration. “There’s no doubt in my mind. He will do it again.”

Ashley Bergstrom was a beautiful, perfect baby girl and Linda fell instantly in love with her. She wanted nothing more than to protect her daughter from the pain she herself had endured as a child.
Courtesy of Linda Bergstrom

Appearing the dedicated father, James holds Ashley at a family baptism with Linda standing far left.
Courtesy of Linda Bergstrom

Much of James’s and Linda’s families gathered to help Ashley celebrate her first birthday. It should have been a joyous occasion, but by then an undercurrent of fear and violence haunted Linda’s life.
Courtesy of Linda Bergstrom

James sitting with a crucifix over his head. At one point James counseled with a priest, but nothing the holy man said lessened James’s fixation on violence.
Courtesy of Linda Bergstrom

Ashley dressed as a cat for her first Halloween. James insisted on taking her door to door. It was important to him to appear a devoted husband and father, as it allowed him to hide the monster he’d become.
Courtesy of Linda Bergstrom

James holding Ashley on his lap in their apartment, staring at the camera.
Courtesy of Linda Bergstrom