Carolyn Jessop; Laura Palmer (29 page)

But Arthur got into trouble with his father because he watched
Scooby-Doo
on TV when he stayed with us. I was always tense when Merril came to see us because I feared one of my kids would talk about watching cartoons on TV. I warned them not to but was always nervous until Merril and Barbara left.

Merril and Barbara were coming more frequently. I had them over a barrel. The motel was running well. Jeremy and I had worked really hard and made it a financial success. Barbara absolutely hated our success—no one was supposed to be happy outside their orbit, and I had made a life independent of them.

My newfound freedom energized and stabilized me. I felt happy in a way I had never been since I married Merril. I was alone with my children, or four of them at least, and we were making it. I was exhausted, but I was not under Merril and Barbara’s domination and control.

Both of them did things to make my job even harder. Barbara stopped paying the motel’s phone bills. Then she stopped paying utilities and the gas got turned off. Jeremy and I scrounged up the money to pay the bills. This angered Merril. Why hadn’t we asked Barbara to deal with this?

I was not going to tell Merril the real reason. Jeremy and I kept coming up with end runs around whatever obstacle they would put in our path. We were running a business and running it well. Merril tried to turn Jeremy against me. But that backfired. Jeremy saw through his tactics and refused to be intimidated by him.

Both of us knew the enemy was Merril Jessop.

Turning Point

J
eremy and I were an outrageous success in running the motel. We started there in April 1998, and by the end of that summer there was a net profit of $60,000 that enabled Merril to pay off past-due bills. The motel was shining, the tourists were happy, and it was clear that the momentum we’d generated for the business was going strong.

It was a joy for me to wake up happy every day. I knew my children were safe and I was in control of my day-to-day destiny. Now that Jeremy and I had the motel up and running, we were going to focus on our Web site business. That would be impossible for Merril or Barbara to sabotage. It would truly be our own.

As summer ended, Jeremy left for a two-week break and my sisters came to stay with me. We were going to clean the motel from top to bottom in preparation for the slower fall and winter season.

I was cleaning the north buildings when a man walked over to me. I didn’t like the looks of Jason the moment I saw him. There was something creepy about him. He told me he needed a place to stay on a long-term basis. I said we hadn’t anything available.

Jason told me his girlfriend had kicked him out and he was desperate. He was tall and muscular and willing to work in exchange for any kind of lodging. I sent him away.

He was back the next day and asked to speak to the owner. His eyes were shifty and his manner abrasive. I told him the owner was out of town. But Jason kept hanging around, driving back and forth past the motel. It seemed like he was sizing things up. I didn’t trust him.

When he saw Merril’s truck outside three days later and saw Merril talking to me, he put two and two together and decided Merril must be the owner. He asked to speak with him.

Jason had a real sob story. He told Merril he’d been sleeping on a bench in town but got so dehydrated that he ended up in the hospital. He was willing to do anything if Merril would give him a chance. Merril found a broken lawn mower and asked Jason to fix it.

He did—and then went on to mow the lawn around the motel. Merril was pleased, hired him, and told me to give Jason a room. I protested. I told Merril I didn’t like his looks and didn’t want to be alone with him at the motel. That was a mistake—and it was the kind I usually didn’t make with Merril because it was like throwing blood in the water for sharks.

Merril now had something that made me uncomfortable. He reveled in it. He told Jason to call him each day and discuss with him the jobs he was going to do.

I was pregnant with my seventh child and wretchedly sick again with morning sickness. I knew Merril cared little about me, but seemingly he cared nothing about his unborn child.

A local police officer showed up at the motel the day Jason was hired and asked to speak to Merril. His voice sounded urgent. He had seen Jason at the motel and told me he needed to speak to Merril about him. They talked for a few hours.

When it was over, I asked Merril what it was about. Merril acted nonchalant. “Oh, he’s concerned that Jason is working here because Jason is a criminal and is bad news.” My suspicions about Jason were confirmed. He was dangerous.

But it made no difference. The next morning, Merril was walking around the property with Jason discussing the various projects he wanted him to tackle.

Jason began to act like a stalker. He was always looking for me. He wanted to have supper with me and my sisters. I refused and brought a plate of food outside for him. There was always a reason, in his mind, that he had to get into our house. I rebuffed him.

When Jeremy returned from his break, I left for the weekend. He let Jason go into the laundry room to do his wash. This created problems because it gave him access to our house. Things started disappearing right and left, like towels. I had fought hard to keep the motel well-stocked with towels and when large numbers started to disappear I was suspicious. I called Merril and told him my suspicions.

Merril said I should not blame an innocent person. He said we were short on towels because of my laziness and accused me of using Jason as a cover-up. I slammed the phone down.

Jason started making incessant demands on my time. He would come into the motel nearly every ten minutes with a question or a complaint about the job he was working on. He’d always have an excuse for why he couldn’t start or finish a project until Merril got back.

Again, I turned to Merril and asked him to deal with Jason. He made light of the problem but said he’d talk to Jason.

Nothing changed, except that Jason’s advances became bolder. Once when he came into the lobby on some pretext he grabbed my hand as I was handing him an item.

“I don’t know what to do with my girlfriend,” he said. “She’s jealous because I spend all my time with you.”

“Well, why don’t you spend more time with her?” I asked. The minute the words were out of my mouth I knew I’d regret them.

“I don’t like being around her because she isn’t nice like you,” he said.

The next weekend it got so bad I called Merril. Jason was harassing me at every turn. If I was scrubbing the bathroom, I’d look up and see him standing behind me. He’d follow me to the laundry room and watch me move clothes from the washer to the dryer. I told Merril that I was as sick as I’d ever been during a pregnancy and that I had all I could do to get through the day. Jason was making a bad situation intolerable.

Merril told me the only reason Jason was following me around was that I was encouraging him. If he was abusing me, it was because I asked for it. He accused me of using my pregnancy to try and get his sympathy.

I was infuriated. Merril had let a criminal into our midst and put our lives and business in jeopardy. Again I knew what I had always known: Merril would never protect me. I would have to defend myself and my children.

I told Jason he could talk to me only once a day, at 6
P.M
. We would make arrangements then for any supplies he needed for his various jobs. I locked myself into the lobby and locked all the doors to the house. He would stand outside and ring the bell relentlessly. I disconnected the bell.

When Jeremy came back from a weekend away I told him what was happening and asked him to keep a log of Jason’s behavior for a few hours. I told him to write down every time he banged on the window or knocked on the door. When the phone rang and it was Jason, I nodded to Jeremy and he wrote it down.

Within three hours, Jeremy logged thirty interruptions.

The next time Merril came to Caliente, Jeremy told Merril that Jason was out of control and that the situation was unsafe. He showed Merril the log he’d made of Jason’s actions. Merril scanned the report. When he looked up he said, “Well, you have to realize that Jason has burned his brains out on drugs and is a little bit daffy.”

I could not believe what I was hearing. I hadn’t thought Merril still had the capacity to shock me, but I was wrong. Not only did he know of Jason’s criminal past, he knew that he was dangerous because he’d fried his brain on drugs.

Jason had been on the premises for about six weeks when his foul-looking friend showed up. Even though it was cold he was wearing only ripped brown shorts, a chain around his neck, and earrings in his nose and earlobes. The stench that emanated from him filled the lobby.

He asked for Jason and then sized me up with a frightening glint in his eye. The two of them went off. The next time I saw Jason he stank with that same nauseating odor.

I told Merril I couldn’t stay at the motel with Jason and a man who acted like his drug dealer. Merril ridiculed me. “Carolyn, I finally get a man who can get a little bit done and you’re insisting I get rid of him!”

Word was out around town that Jason was living at the motel. He had a reputation as a lowlife and we heard that people were starting to stay away. No one felt he was safe to be around, least of all James.

James lived in a trailer on the property. The previous managers had hired him for security. Now in his seventies, James claimed he had been a member of the Mafia in his younger days and had stories about killing people and burying them in the desert.

James did twenty years in prison because of a plea bargain. He kept rattlesnakes as pets and stuck to himself.

I liked James and I liked the fact that if I hit a button on the front desk he’d be in the lobby in minutes. James knew how to handle a gun. No one wanted to mess with him.

James never complained. But after several weeks, he came to me because Jason was harassing him. He warned me to stay away from him because the police had told James that Jason had raped several women in the area. None of the rapes had ever been prosecuted because the women were too terrified to press charges.

No one in my life had ever worried about me until James did. “I have talked to Merril several times about this and have told him you should not be out here alone with Jason on the property.” I nodded in agreement. He was exactly right.

“Why are the men from Colorado City so abusive to their wives?” James said, his face red, his speech quickened. “You’re in danger and your husband knows it. The police have told him and so have I.”

This tough guy we called “Rattlesnake Man” touched my heart. He was strange in some of his ways, but he was far kinder and more concerned about me than Merril Jessop had ever been.

Jason was not satisfied with just his one room. He soon commandeered the one next to it. I told him that was unacceptable because the motel was sold out for the upcoming weekend. He was furious with me and told James’ son Jimmy that he was going to dump acid in our well water. I told Jimmy to change every lock on every door that led to the shed where our well was.

So Jason called the police, making wild accusations about Merril. When the police called Merril for his side of the story he finally stopped making excuses about Jason’s behavior and came to the motel a few days later to fire him. Merril would not stand for attacks on himself.

The police came for the confrontation with Jason, which was stormy. He accused me of being abusive, hurtling accusations one after another. But no one was buying it. Dale, the police officer, finally insisted Jason leave the property.

Then he turned to Merril and told him he needed to take me somewhere else. It wasn’t safe because Jason was directing all of his anger at me. James, who’d been in on the meeting, turned to Merril and said, “You have to get Carolyn out of here tonight. He might kill her if you leave her here.”

Merril made light of James’ concerns. My world was so surreal that an ex-con who’d done twenty years for murder was more protective of me than my own husband.

James went ballistic at Merril’s cavalier attitude. “Damn you, Merril. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. The man is dangerous. I’ll fucking kill him before I let him hurt your pregnant wife.”

Dale turned to James and said that while his feelings were noble, he was looking at life in prison if he killed him.

James was too angry to be intimidated. “Merril, you need to wake the hell up. Don’t put me in this position.”

“I don’t see any concern in this situation,” Merril said in the strange and stilted way he had of speaking.

James would not quit. “If you don’t take her home tonight, will you stay with her?”

Merril said he would.

“Do you have a gun?” James asked.

“Of course not.”

“If you don’t have a gun, you better take a hammer to bed with you. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here. Jason is the kind of person who’s likely to put gasoline in a bottle with a rag, light it, and throw it through the window.”

Merril assured James there was nothing to worry about.

James and the police left. A few moments later, Merril did, too. He took a key to a room he planned to stay in with Barbara that was out of Jason’s reach.

I was almost too terrified to move, but I had to do something. I couldn’t stay in my room because Jason knew exactly where that was. My sister, little Rosie, was sleeping in the office, and I decided to stay with her. She was asleep when I got there. I knew she’d be frightened if I woke her up and told her what was going on, so I didn’t. I had sent my children back to Colorado City three weeks after Jason started working at the motel because I felt he was dangerous. I think that was another reason Merril wanted Jason at the motel: he knew that if I felt threatened, I’d leave my children at home and not bring them to Caliente.

I locked all the doors but left the bathroom door open so I could see the lights on the shed. They were on sensors and turned on in response to movement. For the next two hours, I lay in bed, watching the lights flip on and off. Someone was out there.

At 1
A.M
. the motel phone rang. A voice I didn’t recognize asked to be transferred to Jason’s room. I said we didn’t put calls through that late. I was paralyzed by fear. I was sure the caller was checking to see if I was still awake.

I was so exhausted that I finally dropped off to sleep. But at 2
A.M
. I was jolted awake by a scraping sound on top of the roof. I could hear what sounded like footsteps and something being dragged across the motel roof. Then came more footsteps. It wasn’t just one person. I tried to wake Rosie, but then the footsteps stopped.

I called James. In less than a minute he and his son Jimmy were in front of the motel with flashlights and guns. They called me to say they didn’t see anyone. James was firm on the phone. “But just because we didn’t find anything doesn’t mean that everything is all right. Stay awake. If he’s going to do something, it will probably be around now.”

I thanked him and sat stiff in my bed. The phone rang again. It was James. “Carolyn, I have a bad feeling. We are coming down and staying. What you heard on the roof might have just been the first step of something. If we keep a presence there for a few hours, it will be too close to morning for Jason to do anything.”

James and Jimmy spent the next few hours right next to the motel lobby. At regular intervals they circled around the house with their flashlights and guns drawn. They might have saved my life. I know they saved my sanity.