Killer Women (11 page)

She waited at a corner discreetly. Watching and hoping. Then it happened. She saw Augusto leaving
the house. Again, she held back just to make sure he had not forgotten anything. She knew he had an early shift at the bar that day. He would not be back for hours.

Lydia walked casually towards the small terraced, red brick house. She passed it without a glance. There were three builders opposite. She did not want them to notice her at the front door. She did not want them to see her break in. She returned to the street corner in frustration. It was no use while the builders were there. And she could not exactly hang around on the street corner much longer without attracting attention.

So what? she thought. I’ll go through with it regardless. She walked back to the house and stopped at the front garden.

‘Hello, darling.’

The builder’s wolf whistle was a form of flattery to Lydia. She returned the compliment with a soft smile. But she knew it was no good. She had been seen. What could she do?

Then it came to her.

Lydia started to pick some of the beautiful array of late summer blooms in the front garden. She would make sure those builders thought she was tending to the garden. For twenty painstaking minutes, she pretended to clear the weeds and other bits and pieces from the flowerbeds. The builder’s
wolf whistles had long since subsided.

Inside the house, Bella Pineda was blissfully unaware that she had hired a new gardener. Across the street, the builders were getting thirsty. It was almost nine and they’d been on the job for more than two hours. Perhaps it was time for a good
old-fashioned
British tea break.

As the four burly men walked off up the road to a nearby cafe, Lydia saw the opportunity to fulfil her duty to Augusto. She knew what she was doing was right, was just. She felt safe behind that knowledge. It gave her the resolve she needed.

It would not be difficult to get into the house. While she had been pretending to do the gardening, Lydia had spotted a ground floor window with an insecure catch. Ever so quietly she slipped the catch on the bay window and silently pushed it up just far enough to allow her the space to climb in. It was a typical front reception room of a modestly sized Victorian terraced house. Toys were spread across the floor. A TV set on a badly made shelving unit in the corner. Beige carpet – perfect to hide a multitude of sins. Two very plain sofas. No one around. Lydia was pleased. This was perfect. The element of surprise was all important.

Slowly, deliberately, she crept through the room towards the door at the far end. Then she heard a wingeing, whining sound. It seemed like a hell of a
loud noise to Lydia in that silent and tense atmosphere. She stopped in her tracks. Sounded as if it was in that very room but there was no one around. She continued walking but there it was again. This time it was slightly quieter but just as disturbing to the soul.

Lydia looked down at her feet. She had kicked a teddy bear with her foot. It had grunted the first time she connected with it. Then it had rolled over and grunted again. This was the nearest she had ever been to his children – the children she wished she could have by him. For the first time that day, Lydia felt a twinge of fear. Somehow that teddy bear’s grunt had scared her. Maybe it was the first evidence of what was to come? Or perhaps it reminded her of the task she was about to face?

Lydia reached the door. She opened it ever so gently – just in case there was someone in the hallway. The door creaked painfully. She stopped for a second – afraid she would be heard. There was no one around.

Then she heard it – the unmistakable cry of a tiny baby coming from an upstairs room. She had heard the same sounds so many times before in the Cromwell Hospital where she worked. But this was different. This was his baby. The child he had by her – the woman who would not let go of Augusto.

‘There. There. There, Michael.’

Another unmistakable voice. Her lover’s wife. The woman who had wrecked Lydia’s happiness. She was invigorated by that voice. It inspired her to continue. The time was approaching.

But first, a suitable weapon. Lydia went to kitchen. It did not take long to find the drawer with the biggest knives in it. The sounds of the new-born baby upstairs and his attentive mother carried on throughout. They gave Lydia strength. They motivated her. They also covered the racket she was making.

Now she was on the stairs. Clenched in her right hand was a huge 12-inch-long carving knife. As she slowly climbed the steps, it glistened slightly in the mid-morning sun. Lydia stopped on the landing. The cries of the baby had subsided. The mother had obviously got him to sleep. She had better move fast before he awoke. She hoped her lover’s other son Donkelly was resting. It would make it all the more easy. She had to get Bella, before she left the bedroom.

She leapt up the last few stairs. There was a spring in her step now. It would be so wonderful. Just him and me, just him and me, she thought.

She burst through the door in a frenzy. In front of her lay tiny ten-day-old Michael in a cot and his elder brother in another cot next to him. They were both asleep. Bella, however, was very much awake.

‘Get out of here. Get out.’

Bella showed no fear. Just hatred. Pure and unadulterated hatred. She saw the knife clearly enough but she would never be afraid of Lydia. Her only emotions towards her were seething anger and resentment. This was the woman who tried to steal her husband. This was the illicit lover who tried so hard to ruin her life. And she had the audacity to threaten her with a knife she didn’t have the guts to use?

The moment Lydia heard Bella speak it purely affirmed her determination to get him back from her. This was it. There was no going back.

Bella stepped towards her. She might as well have committed suicide there and then. The knife plunged into her left breast, tearing at the flesh, grating metal hard against bone.

The children slept on unaware of the life and death struggle between the two women in their father’s life. Lydia twisted the handle of the knife to cause maximum damage. Her rival crumpled to the floor as she pulled the blade out.

But Lydia wasn’t finished yet. For a moment, she stood above Bella’s contorted body and stared down at her. It was a satisfying stare. A look of contentment. But there was more to come.

The children slept on.

Lydia leant down and held the knife in front of
Bella’s face. She wanted to see that defiance turn to fear. She longed to watch those eyes fill with the dread of impending death. And they were. The
self-assurance
was gone. Brave Bella was no more. Just a quivering wreck with a gaze locked on the knife. Too scared to blink. Too weak to move.

Calmly, sweetly, Lydia stabbed her in the throat. As the prick of the blade jutted into the windpipe she felt the handle quiver slightly, slicing through the gristle. Then she pushed doubly hard and the knife pitched in through the throat and came out at the back of the neck. It was a fast, furious movement. There was no resistance from the victim. She was already going to another, safer world.

And still the children slept on.

And still Lydia was not finished.

She had to be sure. She had to know that he was now all hers. She craved for the security he could offer her. She had to make sure. She stabbed at Bella’s other breast. It felt like one of those sacks soldiers pierce with their bayonets. Lydia wanted to mutilate her, destroy the beauty of her rival. To make sure that if he ever saw her body then he would be so repulsed he would have to turn away. That was how she wanted Augusto to remember his wife. A mess of bloodied garbage.

She twisted and turned the handle each time just to ensure the maximum damage. Blood gushed out
of Bella’s breasts and throat in torrents. But no atrocity would deter Lydia. For her, it was quite beautiful. Natural justice.

And still the children slept on, unaware.

It was around the twentieth stab that Lydia stopped for a second to examine her handiwork. The body in front of her was clearly drained of life and much blood. But something inside drove her forward. She had to destroy the body in such a way he would never look at her again.

She lowered the dripping blade and pulled up her victim’s skirt. Once again, she started to plunge the knife in. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven. There was little or nothing recognisable left.

Then ten-day-old Michael stirred. At last one of the two other human beings in that room had been disturbed by the murder that had been committed just a couple of feet from them. He began to cry. It served one important purpose. It stopped Lydia from continuing her dance of death. The sound was unbearable. Shrill and piercing. Lydia looked down at the tiny infant. She could not stand the noise. It had made her regain her senses but she had wanted to remain in that insane frenzy. She would have carried on butchering that body if he had not cried.

But now she had to do something about it. There was only one answer – little Michael needed a bottle.
Lydia was a nurse after all. She knew how to cope in trying times.

Leaving the baby crying there in a room filled with bloody carnage, she calmly walked down the stairs to the kitchen. In the sink she soaped her bloodied hands and arms in much the same way she had done at the hospital a thousand times before. Some of it had turned into a maroon crust on her skin. She had to scrape hard to remove it. But the sight of blood had never bothered her.

Then, having scrubbed herself clean, she carefully simmered the infant’s milk before filling a bottle. It was extraordinary – almost as if she were the mother of that child rather than the murderer of his mother.

After pouring the contents into the bottle, she even tested the milk on the outside of her hand – just in case it was too hot. No. It was perfect.

Who said she was not a caring person?

‘There you go, little chap.’

It was just like being at the hospital for Lydia as she leant into that cot and lifted her lover’s infant out and put him on her lap. She had frequently
bottle-fed
newly born children when their mothers wanted some rest. On this occasion the mother would be at rest for ever.

And baby Michael took to the bottle as if it was being given to him by his very own mother. She could feel and hear the sucking noise of the teat
being strained by the hungry infant. It did not take long for him to settle once more. She placed him back in his cot gently and carefully, making sure he was on his tummy not his back – she did not want him to choke after that feed.

On the floor beside the two cots lay the bloodied remains of their mother. Puddles of red had appeared around the corpse where the blood had gushed out so ferociously only a few minutes earlier. Lydia glanced at the body casually. She felt no emotion. Only satisfaction that at last he would be hers. She could not stand in their way any more.

Even so, her duty was not quite yet complete.

Lydia walked over to the wardrobe and looked through the many brightly coloured dresses hanging in neat rows. Her eye was caught by one very pretty and expensive-looking flowery cotton garment. She took it out and felt the material. It was thin, almost papery in texture. Perfect for what she required.

She crumpled the dress up and dropped it next to the partly clothed remains of Bella Pineda. She stopped and glanced at the two children sleeping so peacefully in their cots. They would never know, she thought to herself. They would never know.

Lydia lit the match and dropped it on to the dress. Instantly it caught fire. A look of total satisfaction came over her face. Now she had done her duty finally and completely. They would start a new life
together. He would have no past to tempt him back. She had destroyed that for good. Or for worse …

The flames swept slowly through the room, as Lydia walked down the stairs and let herself out of the front door. No one in College Gardens that day even noticed her leaving. Not even the builders who had admired her so much just a few hours earlier.

Lydia quickened her pace to try and get away from that street before the alarm was raised. She need not have worried; the flames devoured those two little children and the corpse of their young mother before anyone even realised there was a fire.

Inside that dreadful room, the stench of death would remain for ever. Those children never stood a chance. They choked in their sleep, still blissfully unaware of what had occurred. Perhaps that was some small blessing at least.

Lydia Galladan, aged 26, would never have been caught if police had not at first suspected Augusto Pineda of that horrendous mass murder.

After days of interrogation, he told police of her existence. She confessed within minutes of their arrival on her doorstep. It had taken the murder of Bella and her two small children to make Lydia realise she would never win back the love of Augusto.

At the Old Bailey on 9 May 1983, Lydia Galladan
was found guilty of murdering Bella Pineda, aged 35. She was cleared of murdering the two children, but found guilty of their manslaughter.

Galladan told the court, ‘I am sincerely sorry for the harm I have caused and I deeply regret the shame I have brought my parents and my vocation.’

Judge David Tudor Price told her, ‘I believe the deaths of the children will hang very heavily on your conscience.’ But she showed little remorse for her murder of Bella Pineda.

Augusto Pineda, aged 35, returned to the Philippines shortly after the case to try and start his life all over again. ‘It started off as an innocent love affair. I know it was wrong but in my wildest dreams I never imagined it would end like this,’ he said after the case.

Bill Buss felt as if all the worries of the world were heaped on his broad shoulders. He had worked incredibly hard over the last three years to build up the farm into a going concern.

But there were always problems. Then more problems. And then even more problems. As sole owner of a fifty-acre farm, he had to absorb all those pressures single-handedly. When should the harvest
be picked? How many times a day did the cows need milking? How could he afford to maintain all that equipment? It was a never-ending task. But farming was his life. He was good at it, and he had no other choice.

At 26 years of age, Bill Buss’s one remaining ambition was to find the perfect girl and start the family he so desperately wanted … and needed. What was the point of flogging your guts out on the land if there was nothing to come home to? The eighteen-hour days were gruelling but even they would all seem worthwhile if he could start a family. Then the never-ending list of problems would not seem as bad. A homesteading woman, and perhaps even some healthy bouncing babies. That was the answer for Bill Buss.

Meanwhile, he had to continue grafting away. And the most important task on his agenda that evening was to organise the midnight milking of the cows.

For this was Eland, Wisconsin. And in middle America they take their farming very seriously. Bill was under great pressure to have a full quota of milk ready for the early morning pick-up by the dairy company tanker. It was a vital part of his income from the farm. It did not matter whether it was twelve midnight or twelve midday, the job had to be done and Bill was the only one there to do it. It was
his responsibility to have that milk ready for a dawn pick-up. It was also his income that would suffer if the dairy company did not get every drop he could supply.

But the worst part of it was the waiting. He could not milk the cows any earlier because they would not yield the maximum quantities. That meant Bill had to literally force himself to stay awake for the midnight session. Sometimes, he would be so tired after a full day’s work that he would go to bed at around nine, set his alarm for 11.45 and try to get a few hours’ shut-eye before heading for the cow sheds.

But on this particular evening, he struggled to stay awake in front of the television. Flicking channels continually as a way to eliminate the boredom, he sat there with a glazed expression. Bill was not a great TV fan. He found it difficult to concentrate on the banal ingredients that make up much of American television. But it kept him awake and that was the most important thing.

As midnight approached, Bill made himself a hot coffee. It was mid-September in Eland and the nights already had a certain bite to them. The dew came early in those parts and that always brought a slight chill to the air. In any case, a hot drink might help snap Bill out of his sleepiness.

On the stroke of twelve, Bill wandered into the
vast cow shed to connect the FILL IN to each of the dozens of cows that stood there, resigned to their regular fate. Bill never really gave it much thought – did these animals mind having their udders emptied in such a mechanical fashion? They certainly never seemed too upset but then no one had really bothered to ask them their opinion. And they wouldn’t have got much of an answer if they had.

Within thirty minutes, Bill’s familiar task was complete. He unhooked the FILL IN and shuffled back to the farmhouse for that desperately needed four or five hours’ sleep. He had to be up by 5.30 at the latest. A farmer’s work was never complete.

‘Bill. Bill. Open up.’

Bill thought he heard something. But then again he might have been dreaming. He stirred ever so slightly but then fell back into that richly deserved slumber.

It seemed like he had only been asleep a few minutes anyway. He needed every second of sleep he could get.

But then why did a dream wake him up? Maybe there was someone outside? He grappled for his watch on the bedside table. It was 12.45. He had only got into bed ten minutes earlier.

But now everything was once again silent. It was that eerie silence that fills the air with its presence. Perhaps it was something particular to the open
countryside. There were no roads nearby, no gentle buzz of a car engine or the siren of an emergency vehicle. Bill’s farm might have been close to town, but there were wide open spaces for miles around.

Bill fell back to sleep. He had obviously been dreaming. What about he was not sure. But his exhaustion was such that it would take a hell of a lot more to stop him sleeping.

‘Bill. Bill. Open up. I must talk to you.’

Now the high-pitched voice was accompanied by a steady banging on the door. The way Bill heard it, it sounded almost muffled but then that often happens when you are asleep.

‘Bill. I know you’re in there.’

Bill had no choice. If he was going to get any sleep at all, he had to answer the door. He knew who it was and it annoyed him. He just wanted to stay snuggled up in bed. He certainly did not want to lose another few precious minutes answering the door to her.

He wrapped his dressing gown around his aching body and shuffled to the front door.

‘All right. All right. I’m coming.’

Now, under normal circumstances, Bill might have rushed to the door to find out what all the commotion was about. Perhaps there had been an accident nearby? Or maybe some of the farm animals had escaped?

But he knew who it was at the door that night. And he was fed up to the back teeth with her. Why couldn’t she just leave him in peace. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were the middle of the afternoon but this was just too late.

Lori Esker had no such qualms. She wanted to see Bill and she did not care what time it was. Her love for him was so strong that she felt he should have been happy to see her at any time of the day or night.

Lori just could not get Bill out of her mind. She found herself eating, sleeping and fantasising about him every moment of her day at university in River Falls, Wisconsin.

She could not hold herself back any longer. She had to see him. She thought nothing of getting in her car and driving the 125 miles from college to Bill’s farm. It was a small sacrifice for love.

However, Bill was not inclined to feel the same way about Lori. She might well have been an attractive, curvaceous blonde 20-year-old. She might even have been the 1989 Dairy Queen in Marathon County. And she was certainly a girl whom many men would die for the chance to love.

But none of that meant anything to Bill. Sure, he had had a love affair with Lori after he and yet another dairy princess, Lisa Cihaski, had split up. In fact, Bill had found Lori extremely attractive at first, but he was a cautious sort of guy and she was, well,
just a bit too much for him to handle. But he did not regret his passion for Lori. They had a great time together while it lasted. And Bill certainly had Lori to thank for something very dear to him – his
on-off
-on-again romance with Lisa.

You see, all Lori’s sexiness had taught Bill that Lisa was the right girl for him. Basically, he could now see what a fantastic girl Lisa was – compared with Lori. It was what you might call the classic rebound.

But Lori had not taken her rebuff that lightly. She interpreted all that passion with Bill as a sure sign that they were meant for each other. Sex meant love to Lori. She had given her all to Bill and then he had turned around and rejected her. In the tightly knit farming communities of rural Wisconsin that was easier said than done.

Now she had come around to Bill’s home to lay claim to what she rightly saw as hers. He was not going to get off that lightly.

As Bill unbolted the front door, he knew exactly what to expect. After all, in the three weeks since he had ended his affair with Lori she had been virtually haunting him. This was obviously going to be the price he would have to pay if he was to revive his love for Lisa.

But Lori refused to even acknowledge the existence of Lisa. As far as she was concerned, Bill
was her property. She had given herself to him in every sense of the word.

‘Oh, Bill. I’m sorry if I woke you.’

Lori was not sorry at all and Bill knew it. What he did not realise was the extent to which he was becoming the sole object of her fantasies.

Before leaving college that night for the long drive to Bill’s home, Lori had found herself swamped with desire for Bill. She had been planning to leave directly from the campus classroom to drive to Eland but as she sat in the lecture hall her mind wandered to the last time she had made love to Bill. She remembered every detail of their passion.

When class ended, Lori decided she had to make a quick diversion to her digs at the other end of the campus: it would only hold her journey up by a few minutes, she thought. She could feel her breath getting uneven with the expectation that she would soon be with Bill once more.

As she burst into her college room, she was relieved to see that her room-mate was not around. Lori ripped open the wardrobe. She wanted to find something very special to wear for Bill.

For a few moments she panicked. Where was it? Maybe she had left it at home? She had to find it. She wanted to use it to convince Bill there was still a great physical need between them.

At last, she saw it hanging there. Just finding it
had aroused her. She laid the silk all-in-one teddy on her bed and pulled out a small suitcase to pack a few other overnight belongings. The teddy was really a skin-tight negligee – the same shape as a swimming costume but with an even more extreme, plunging neckline. Around where a woman’s breasts would snugly fit were edged see-through lace. Lori was about to put the teddy into the bag when she stopped momentarily. She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to picture the scene later that night. The scene she hoped would seal her love for Bill.

She recalled how shy Bill always was as she thought about those first few inevitably awkward moments whenever they began kissing. She always had to lead the way to the bedroom, undo his trousers, fondle him and then show him where she wanted to be stroked and caressed. He would always want to immediately push his hand between her legs. She had to teach him that there was more, much more, to a woman’s desires. Bill would also often lose interest if Lori decided to dart into the bathroom to quickly change into something sexy for bed. By the time she reappeared, he would often have drifted off to sleep

That made Lori decide to take some defensive action. I’ll put it on now, she thought to herself. So, she peeled off her tight-fitting jeans and blouse and bra and slipped on that slinky, sexy-feeling negligee.
Lori could already begin to feel a certain warmth running through her body.

As she pulled it up over her milky white thighs, she momentarily closed her eyes and thought of what she hoped was to come later that evening. She was standing in the middle of the room pulling the straps of the teddy up and over her shoulders. It was a really snug fit. That smooth, silky material felt warm against her cold nipples. She could feel them becoming erect. She began to wonder if she could hold herself back for the next few hours.

For a few moments she stood there in the room and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Her left hand moved up to touch the blue silk where her nipple was pressing against the material. She could feel a tingle running through her body down to between her thighs.

She sat down once more on the edge of the bed and let her right hand travel slowly down across her flat stomach to the tops of her legs. She was trying desperately to resist the urge to push her hand down between those thighs. Her legs opened just enough for a noticeable gap to appear. Her fingers were pressing and stroking the flesh just inside the tops of those thighs. She was only half an inch away from the mound she so desperately felt the urge to stimulate.

But she thought better of it. I have to save myself
for Bill. It will be much better that way. It was a real dilemma for someone as sexually keyed-up as Lori, but she wanted it to be something really special with Bill that night. She was going to do everything imaginable to win him back. If she satisfied herself now, it might detract from that eventual,
all-consuming
pleasure.

Hurriedly, Lori pulled on a figure-hugging skirt and loosely fitting blouse. Making sure it was open just enough to reveal a glimpse of the see-through edging of the teddy where it covered her breasts.

Then, as a final touch, she put on her highest, newest, white stiletto heels. The seduction uniform was complete. Back at Bill’s farmhouse at that ungodly hour, Lori neither knew nor cared about her ex-lover’s exhaustion from a hard day at work. She just wanted a guarantee that her unashamed seduction techniques would lead to the long-term love she was convinced she deserved.

Bill blinked through his sleepy, weary eyes at Lori. He really did not need this one bit.

‘Lori, why don’t you just go home. It’s so late and I’m exhausted. Please. Let’s talk in the morning.’

But Lori could not hear him. She was stripping his body with her eyes. His hair may have been ruffled. He might have looked unkempt with a full day’s stubble, but she loved him all the more for it. She pushed into the house and shut the door firmly
behind her.

‘I want you, Bill. I cannot stand it. I have to have you. I want every part of you. Make love to me now. Here. You have to.’

Now, many men might have succumbed there and then to Lori’s advances. But not Bill. He had made a commitment to Lisa. He had even asked her to marry him. In any case, he was dog tired from his exhausting work schedule. Sex was the last thing on his mind at that moment.

‘Go home, Lori. Just leave me alone. It’s over.’

Once again, Lori was not listening. She wanted what she wanted and nothing was going to get in her way. Bill did not know what to do. Lori had called around late at night before but she had always eventually accepted his pleas and turned around and left him. But this time she seemed like a woman possessed. Her eyes were fiery and alive with lust and obsession all rolled into one.

Usually, by this stage in the proceedings, Lori would have just walked out of the house. But on this occasion she was not budging. For a moment, Bill looked at her. He had to confess she looked gorgeous. The high white stilettos had somehow given her more poise. By adding those extra inches to her height, it seemed to accentuate her curves. The tightness of that pencil thin skirt where it covered her shapely bottom and the fullness of her firm
breasts pressing hard against the silk blouse. He remembered how much Lori loved the feel of silk against her bare skin.