Before He Wakes (26 page)

That was why he had remained cool earlier, while the officers had been getting their equipment ready, and Barbara had told him in an offhand way that her first husband also had died in a gun accident. She hadn’t mentioned it earlier, she said, because she didn’t think it was important.

Buchanan tried to make her think that he didn’t already know about Larry Ford’s death and was unconcerned about it.

“I’m not looking at anything involving your first husband,” he said. “I’m just trying to straighten out the one we’ve got right now.”

As he was leaving, Barbara asked the status of the case.

Buchanan felt no need to be forthright with her. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “it’s closed.”

“Closed as accidental?”

“As far as I’m concerned.”

Barbara asked if she could get a copy of his report.

Sorry, he told her, but that wasn’t allowed.

“How will the insurance company know it was accidental?” she asked.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Buchanan said. “I’m sure the insurance company will contact me.”

Buchanan was exultant as he left Barbara’s house. He thought that she might have just convicted herself of murder. He couldn’t wait to get back to the office and make certain that the tape had what he thought was on it. He called Eric Evenson as soon as he got into his office to let him know that Barbara had gone for it, videotape and all. He was getting ready to watch the tape right now.

Evenson dropped what he was doing, went to tell his boss what had happened, and the two hurried to the detective bureau. Buchanan was already watching the tape when they got there. Nobody said anything as Barbara went through her act on the bed.

“Play it again,” Stephens said when she had finished, and Buchanan rewound the tape and pressed the play button.

Once more the group watched closely, saying nothing.

Evenson broke the silence.

“Cold,” he said.

None of them could believe that Barbara had reenacted it. How, only four days after a fatal shooting, could she climb back into the bed where her husband had died by her own hand, accidentally or not, and relive it so unemotionally? The simple fact that she climbed onto the bed was damning. But her replay of the events spoke volumes.

Barbara’s uncertainty about where her hand had been and how she had been holding the gun were telling factors. Despite what he had earlier told a reporter, Buchanan knew that the pistol that had killed Russ did not have a “light trigger.” The sheriff’s department’s weapons expert had put blanks in the pistol and beat it around trying to get it to fire accidentally and it wouldn’t do it. It would fire only when deliberate pressure was put on the trigger. And a finger had to be inside the trigger guard to do that. Not even a sleepy person would be likely to do that without realizing what was happening.

But one other fact was even more telling. In every position in which Barbara had held her hand, the pistol had been aimed so that the bullet would have passed upward through Russ’s head. It was impossible for him to have suffered the wound he had from the description Barbara had given of the shooting.

Stephens and Evenson agreed that this was powerful evidence. But alone it was hardly enough. They all knew that even more incriminating evidence might await them in Randolph County.

20

On Tuesday morning, February 9, eight days after Russ’s death, Eric Evenson joined Rick Buchanan and Detective Valerie McCabe for the sixty-five-mile drive to Randolph County. They went first to the county sheriff’s department in Asheboro, where they met with Captain Richard Hughes and Lieutenant Tommy Julian, who pledged full cooperation with any investigation into the death of Larry Ford.

The meeting was a courtesy call, a mere formality. Neither Evenson nor Buchanan had any intention of asking for help from Randolph County officers in their investigation. Randolph County had had its chance, as far as Evenson and Buchanan were concerned, and they had blown it.

Evenson, Stephens and Buchanan knew that they would be investigating not one killing but two. One of those investigations would be centered in Randolph County. The distances and the manpower required for the second investigation would tax the resources of Durham County’s detective division. The three already had agreed that they would have to call upon the greater resources of the State Bureau of Investigation, particularly for looking into Larry Ford’s death.

While they were in Asheboro, Evenson and the two detectives also made a courtesy call on District Attorney Garland Yates. He had been elected after Larry Ford’s death and unlike Sheriff Robert Mason, who was still in office, he was untainted by the botched investigation of the case. Stephens already had talked with Yates about the possibilities of using evidence from the Randolph County case in any trial that might result from Russ’s death. Stephens had wanted to make sure that there was cooperation and coordination between the two district attorney’s offices and that rancor and recrimination did not develop.

Before leaving Asheboro, Evenson and the two detectives had gotten copies of the paltry records from the Larry Ford case, plus other legal documents from the courthouse: Larry and Barbara’s separation agreement, the permit for the gun that Barbara had bought. They did not leave town with the gun itself. Nobody at the sheriff’s department had any idea what had become of it.

The next stop was the Archdale Police Department, where Chief Larry Allen greeted them cordially but warily, ushering them into his meticulously neat office. He had found the report he had written about Larry’s death, along with the Polaroid snapshots he had made at the scene. He was happy to make these available.

Buchanan, however, was not impressed. In the report he later would write about this meeting, he noted of Allen: “He was evasive and kept stating that after his initial response he had no further contact with the case. He also kept reminding us he was only there for two hours. The only thing he could really recall was that there was no cleaning equipment present in the bedroom. He appeared to be a well-organized person for one who conducted such a sloppy initial investigation. Most of the time during the interview he remained defensive.”

At five-thirty, with darkness settling, the three Durham County officials pulled into the driveway at the mobile home of Doris and Henry Ford in the rolling, open countryside near Colfax, where they had moved after Larry’s death. Both Doris and Henry were now retired. Both had finished their longtime goal of hiking the entire distance of the Appalachian Trail, a trek they knew that Larry would have enjoyed making with them. Their other children all were married and gone, but they all still got together for special occasions, and when they did the small mobile home overflowed with happiness and the joyous voices of grandchildren. Always, though, there was an empty spot that Larry and his children should have filled.

Despite their conviction that Barbara had killed their son, they had been determined to keep the lines of communication open with her. They continued to send gifts for birthdays and Christmas and cards for other occasions. Doris had continued writing long letters, and sporadically Barbara had responded. Once Bryan had replied, and Doris had written “very special to us” on the envelope and tucked it away with other family treasures. The Fords had tried to arrange visits with the boys and although Barbara had agreed to meetings on several occasions, she always had backed out at the last minute, offering excuses. Now nearly ten years had passed since they had seen their grandchildren, and they despaired that they might never see them again. They had not even heard from Barbara in a year and a half.

The arrival of Evenson, Buchanan and McCabe gave Doris and Henry an opportunity they thought they would never have: a chance to tell their suspicions about their son’s death to law enforcement officers who seemed to want to do something about it. For more than two hours, the three listened as Doris and Henry told their story. Doris brought out family photos and the letters that Barbara and Bryan had written.

Evenson and Buchanan told them what they could about Russ’s death and their investigation into it. They assured them that the SBI would conduct as thorough an investigation into Larry’s death as possible ten years after the fact.

The Fords could hardly believe what they were hearing. At least three times they had requested that the SBI be called into their son’s case. Now, through the graces of another county, and at the cost of another family’s son, it finally was going to happen.

After the three law enforcement officials had left, a peace settled over Doris and Henry that they had not known in a decade. They knew that God was answering their prayers, and they were certain that soon they would have answers to all the questions that had been torturing them for so long.

Evenson was impressed by the Fords. They were warm, decent and forbearing people, he thought. They had been betrayed once by the law, and he was determined to see that it would not happen again.

On the way back to Durham that night, Buchanan thought about three calls he had received before the group left for Randolph County that morning.

The first had come from a contact Buchanan had developed at the County Health Department, a neighbor of Russ and Barbara’s. She said that the funeral home had requested a dozen copies of Russ’s death certificate. That usually was an indication of a lot of insurance policies.

But only twenty minutes later, another contact, this one in the clerk of court’s office, had called to report that Barbara had filed for probate on Russ’s estate.

She had come to the courthouse Friday afternoon, just four days after Russ’s death, less than an hour after she had reenacted the shooting for Buchanan. While he had been watching the videotape in the detective division, Barbara, her mother and her brother Alton had been just upstairs submitting Russ’s will, naming herself executor of the estate. On the preliminary inventory, Barbara had listed only $98,000 in life insurance. Was she trying to hide the true amount? If not, it seemed a paltry payment for murder.

If greed for insurance money was not behind Russ’s death, might the motive lie in the third call Buchanan had received that morning?

An informant who wished to remain anonymous had called to say that Russ had been having an affair with a black woman, a teacher at the junior high school, where he once had been director of athletics. Barbara, the caller said, supposedly had found out about it.

Jealousy, Buchanan knew, was often reason enough for a homicide, but most of those killings came in heated moments. Rarely were they coldly calculated and executed, as the murder of Russ now appeared to be.

As he considered the possibilities, Buchanan figured he could count on one thing at least. He likely would endure many long and frustrating hours and a lot of hard work before he knew why Russ Stager had died.

21

In the seemingly interminable days following Russ’s funeral, Doris remained in a grief-benumbed daze, a depression so deep and dark that she thought she might never emerge from it. She later would recall that she nearly lost her sanity. She didn’t want to see anybody, talk to anybody, go anywhere, do anything. “I could feel myself going down, down, down,” she said.

Her energy wouldn’t allow her to sit still, however, and so she walked, a tiny, solitary figure stalking back and forth on the road in front of her house, bearing a burden greater than she could carry. At times she walked on past the point where the pavement ended and the houses stopped, following the dirt road downhill to a wooden bridge that crossed a creek deep in the woods, and there she yelled out her anger at God.

Why had He betrayed her? Why had He let Barbara kill her only son?

“Fortunately, God was patient with me and didn’t take offense,” she said later.

When she reached the point where she could bear no more, she yielded to her faith.

“I said, ‘All right, God, take over. I can’t handle it by myself.’ ”

He allowed her to understand, she later said, that He had let His only son be killed so that anyone who accepted Him could spend eternity in Heaven. He had given people free will to accept Christ, to choose right or wrong. Barbara had used her free will to murder Russ, Doris had become convinced, and she knew that Barbara would have to face judgment before God for that, but she also became determined to see that Barbara faced justice on earth as well.

Rick Buchanan did not want Barbara to know that she was being investigated, and he had advised the Stagers to keep quiet about it. He also wanted them to keep lines of communication open with Barbara so that he could know what she was doing and thinking. Doris began taking notes on every conversation and meeting that she had with Barbara so that she could be as accurate as possible in what she told Buchanan.

She first reported to him that Barbara had called her two days after the funeral, the same day that Barbara had reenacted the shooting. Barbara said that she had been to the Veterans’ Administration and needed to know if Russ had been in the regular army.

“I don’t think he was,” Doris told her.

Barbara said she had been told at the VA that she could not draw any military benefits unless Russ had been in the regular army.

“Let me check with Al,” Doris said, turning to her husband to ask him. “No, Al says he was only in the reserves and the National Guard. He has never been in the regular army.”