Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir (25 page)

The Medusa stare twisted into just the most
visible demonstration of body language that warned she was poised
for action. Before I could brace myself, she leaned across the
table, knocked her beer to the floor, and grabbed a pen from my
shirt pocket. She stood up with that in her hand and slammed it
onto the floor where she started stomping on it. I stood up and
moved to leave as Strong pushed back from the table and stood up,
too. Before I could reach the door, she caught me and grabbed my
necktie, pulling on the knot.

Jesus, I
thought,
am I going to have to fight
her?

Catherine would not let go of the tie as I
tried to move to the door, so I dragged her along beside me. She
was screaming orders, demanding that I could not go get my kids.
Strong and other patrons watched with their mouths agape. When I
stopped moving, she dropped the tie. I knew I had to avoid a
physical confrontation at all costs, but I also knew she would grab
hold again unless I resumed our debate.

"If you go over to get those girls,
Gary, we are through," she warned, as if that would represent her
most serious threat. I stood there and stared into her cold, hard
eyes.

"I am," I said. "And we
are."

Then I turned and walked out the
door as fast as I could. But I heard her footsteps behind me,
rushing in pursuit. I hustled toward the corner and turned to look
over my shoulder at the chaos unfolding on the sidewalk in front of
the Hoagie Shop. Catherine had taken an umbrella from its
attachment on her briefcase and was smashing it against the brick
wall beside the sandwich shop picture window. No one moved to stop
her. Strong had retreated to the curb, where he watched this
lover's spat with an agonizing look of disbelief. I just wanted to
get away, but I had to stop when I heard her footsteps again,
moving toward me with the shaft of that shattered umbrella in her
hand. I turned and involuntarily raised my arms to ward off the
blows I believed would flow from the shaft. By then, however,
Strong had come out of his trance and grabbed her from behind. She
was sobbing as he held her back.

"What do you want me to do, you
bastard?" she screamed and pointed to the curb. "Should I crawl
down in the gutter here and beg you?"

"I'm leaving, Catherine. I don't
care what you do."

I crossed the street, went to my
car, and drove away, truly shaken by her outburst. If I had been
watching that scene from across the street as a disinterested third
party, I would still have been laughing while phoning friends to
share the story. As a participant, however, it had sent a chill up
my spine that spread across my shoulders and settled in for the
night. Then I wondered if maybe I had been too hasty in counting
her behavior out of line. In my life I had never experienced
anything similar from a girlfriend or wife, but I knew things like
that occurred. I had covered trials that included testimony about
temper tantrums like I had just witnessed. Then I remembered, too,
that testimony about those outbursts usually had presaged further
testimony about murder or mayhem. I wondered how Strong was
handling her in the wake of my departure. I thought maybe she would
turn to him in the midst of her crisis and out of that comfort
might spring a new love affair for my deliverance. Of course, I
would move from Strong's house and let the lovers have their way,
if only they would ask. Or, maybe they wouldn't even have to ask.
But I quickly dismissed this delusion as wishful thinking. And I
knew Strong would be fine as long as he was willing to listen to a
filibuster of Senatorial proportions.

I also knew I was facing more
trouble than I had first imagined. Her secret agenda of reasons for
wanting me in her life had just added its most deadly element:
pride. I realized she was so threatened by the thought of rejection
that she could easily lose control.

What a worthless
and destructive emotion is jealousy
, I
thought.
It's the bad mother in any
relationship that always eats her young. It destroys judgment and
ruins lives
.

And I knew I had not seen the last
of its unpredictable wrath. From Uncle Al to Catherine Mehaffey,
Cindy and I had dug ourselves an ugly hole in what felt to me like
quicksand.

So, I picked up the girls from
their school and drove them silently to Cindy's new home, where we
parked outside to wait for her. I took the innocent
eighteen-month-old Shannon in my arms, squeezed her as tight as I
could, and began to bawl.

"I will get us out of this," I
mumbled between sobs while Little E watched from the back seat
without a clue about what she should do. They don't deserve this
mess, I thought as I wept and promised again, "I will get us out of
this, somehow."

THIRTY-FIVE

November 21, 1979

By eight-thirty I had given up on
Cindy. I had sat with the girls in my old car outside her new house
for at least an hour and a half after a dinner at McDonald's. I
couldn't get inside, of course, but it looked nice enough. It was a
one-story bungalow in Houston's semi-tony West University Place
neighborhood, an area that catered to young doctors on the rise in
the nearby Medical Center complex and professors at Rice
University. I grew worried and tried to figure out a plan. In those
days before cell phones, I had no way to reach her. I knew that
appointment with the shrink should have ended by seven and feared a
catastrophe. Concern about a suicide attempt topped my list of
possibilities, so I decided to take a drive.

The girls fell asleep as I cruised
the western side of the Loop highway that circles Houston like a
wheel around spokes. I don't know what I thought I might see. She
was driving our old, mustard-colored Dodge van, so maybe I hoped
that would stand out if she had been in a wreck. More likely, I
just wanted to think a bit. My drive carried me clockwise around
the city until I found myself approaching our old neighborhood in
the Houston Heights. I knew I had to do something, so I drove to
our house there on Redan and parked the car. I took the girls
across the street to the home of our former neighbors and asked if
I could use their telephone.

"Where the hell are you?" asked
Strong with more than a tinge of anxiety in his voice when I called
him at his house.

"Looking for Cindy," I said. "Is
something wrong?"

"You better get your ass over here
fast. Cindy called a little while ago looking for you. Catherine
took the call, and it went crazy. She told Cindy she has the kids
over here and that she is now your lawyer. Catherine told her you
can't talk with her again and all conversation must go through her.
Cindy's on her way over here now. I don't know what Catherine plans
to do, but I'm sure there's going to be trouble."

"I'm on my way."

I left the girls with our old
neighbors and pulled up at Strong's just after Cindy had parked her
van in the driveway. I climbed out of my car just as Catherine
stormed out of the house toward the van with Strong in her wake. I
raced to cut her off and stood in her way.

"What are you doing now?" I asked
her.

"Let me handle this," she ordered.
"Where are those girls? You really need to have those
girls."

"You're not handling anything," I
replied. She stopped and stared at me. I said, "You need to go back
inside. I'll send her away."

She seemed to consider my demand a few moments
and then backed toward the house, avoiding a physical
confrontation. I recalled the umbrella-smashing of just a few hours
earlier and concluded she must have cooled down since then. Taking
advantage of this opportunity, I turned and went to Cindy in the
van.

"Where the hell have you been?" I
asked. "We waited in that car outside your house
forever."

She sat in the
driver's seat, sipping on a soda from a Jack-in-the-Box and looking
no more concerned than if she'd just arrived a little late for
someone's birthday party. Comparing my recollection moments before
of Catherine at the Hoagie Shop with her retreat in Strong's yard,
I contrasted Cindy's dazed appearance with that of the afternoon in
the courthouse when she seemed on the verge of suicide. I wondered
if I had stumbled into the
Twilight
Zone
.

Am I the only one here who missed the guy
passing out tranquilizers? I thought.

"I had to take a drive after my
appointment and clear my head," she said between sips. "Where are
the girls?"

I looked over my shoulder and saw the shadows
of Catherine and Strong watching from inside his door.

"They are at Liz's," I said. "What
did Catherine tell you?"

"Catherine? She said she's your
attorney now and the girls were here."

"Don't believe anything she
says."

"I don't. Did you see my new
house?"

"Yes. You better go pick up the
girls. We can talk later."

"Will I see you this
weekend?"

"I'll call you when I can get
away."

She finished her soda, tossed the cup onto the
floor of the van, and backed out of the driveway. I turned toward
the house and almost got trampled by Strong running for his car. He
jumped behind the wheel and peeled out, gone for the night. I
trudged up the sidewalk and passed Catherine standing silently in
the doorway.

"This isn't going to work with us,"
I told her, as she followed me inside closing the door behind her.
I wanted to offer a compromise, breaking up on terms that would not
resemble outright rejection. "A lot of things are good between us,
but, in the end, all I can see is a bunch of trouble. We're like
gasoline and a match."

I could see she was furious and just biting
her tongue, collecting her thoughts as she devised a strategy for
her next move. I wondered if I would get anger, guilt, pity, or
something new. She decided on something new: logic.

"It's a shame about us," she said.
"If we lived on a deserted island, just the two of us, we'd have a
great life. No Special Crimes, no Cindy, no Strong, no outside
distractions. Just us all alone. We'd get along fine. So, why can't
we make that happen here?"

Yeah, I thought, I
bet you'd like to have me alone on a deserted island. I flashed
back to her comments on her philosophy of life from our night at
the beach: Everyone is either predator or prey?
We could have an eternity of hunting on that
island
, I thought.
I'd never get any rest
.

"There will always be distractions,
other people," I told her instead. "We have to realize together
that we just don't work as a couple. We're only going to hurt each
other. I'll help you find a new place to live, and we'll get on
with our lives. We'll see each other at the courthouse, say, 'Hi,'
and move on down the hall."

"Bullshit!" She obviously wasn't
buying it. "You'll not say, 'Hi' and then walk on by like I am some
piece of shit you threw in the gutter. I have to work there. I
can't be humiliated by some reporter."

I just stared at her and tried to
sort through my options. I knew I would have to find a new place
for her to live and oversee a continuation of her move,
transferring property from Strong's and gathering what was left at
Mike's. I realized it might require some sort of physical
confrontation but knew it would have to be done. I decided to avoid
any emotional outbursts and let her rant. She needed no
encouragement.

"You have ruined my life," she
screamed. "I gave up all my friends for you. I gave up the place
where I live. I bought you expensive lunches at Charlie's. I spent
money on you. I did anything I could to win your love and asked:
'What else can I do? Can I get down in the gutter? Fall on the
floor? Kiss your feet?'"

Where does she
come up with this stuff?
I wondered. Then I
listened as the serious threats began.

"Well, you won't get off this easy.
You've had everything you wanted, and now it's my turn. You are
going to give me some of that house. I think ten thousand dollars
is about right. I want ten thousand dollars when you sell that
house. And I want you to continue finding me defense appointments.
And I want you to pay my rent where I move. On top of that, I still
haven't had my period."

"I'm going to bed," I said. "I'm
worn out."

I ignored her and walked into the
bedroom as if she wasn't there. I stripped off my clothes and
crawled under the sheets. I didn't care if she joined me or not.
But my action unleashed her savage fury. She raced to a closet and
pulled out a suitcase. She opened it, screaming something about
getting out of "this house of Strong." Before she could pack
anything, however, Catherine apparently had second thoughts and
decided instead to destroy the luggage. She smashed it against the
walls and the door jam, snarling and shouting in an uncontrollable
rage. I began to wonder if this was the last thing seen by George
Tedesco, and that thought kept me alert. She gave that suitcase a
thorough beating. Recalling it as the brand advertised so tough a
gorilla could not destroy it, I thought: Their competitors might
like to look at it now.