Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir (35 page)

"You are in
serious trouble, now, Mr. Taylor," she began. "I'll be filing a
suit against you and
The
Houston Post
for $2.5
million for holding me up to public ridicule. And another thing. I
have someone else ready to testify you have been running around
town distributing naked pictures of your wife. When her attorney
finds out about that, your divorce will get real nasty, won't
it?"

Tom and Strong started to laugh, and I was
barely holding it back.

"Catherine," I said, "you are
making an absolute fool of yourself. You are the one holding
yourself up to public ridicule. I don't have to do a thing. Now it
is time for you to leave so we can get back to work."

"No," she said, standing her
ground. So, I took a sheet of typing paper from my desk and started
to write on it. When I finished, I showed it to her: "Catherine
Mehaffey is barred from this Press Room by unanimous vote." I got
up with a tape dispenser, walked around her to the door, and taped
it to the outside. Before I could come back inside, however, her
hand snaked around the door and ripped it off. As I re-entered the
room, she backed into a corner and grabbed a ballpoint pen from my
desk, extending it like a knife.

"Catherine," I said, "you are going
to leave."

"No," she said. So I grabbed one of
her arms and started pulling her across the floor. Halfway there,
she snatched the back of a small desk chair with rollers and used
it to propel herself faster out of my hand. Then she dove onto the
floor while I stood there watching her.

"You saw him," she screamed at the
other reporters. "You saw him beating on me."

Tom looked at her without rising
from his chair and asked, "Catherine, can we call you an
ambulance?"

I started laughing at that remark
as she sat up on the floor and then climbed into the chair while
Tom continued to offer aid, asking, "Can I get you a doctor? Do you
need a doctor?"

"No, I'll just sit here," she said.
The rest of the press corps decided then would be a good time to
check the courts for news, and they scattered faster than normal
while she sat there looking at me and Tom. Without a pause, I
picked up the phone, dialed the sheriff's office, and said, "We
have someone in the press room who is not welcome, and she won't
leave. Can you arrest her for trespassing?"

Before I heard an answer, she jerked the phone
off my desk and slammed it onto the floor. Then she yanked the
connection from the wall.

"OK," I said. "I guess I will have
to file my complaint in person."

As I got up to walk across the floor,
Catherine sprang, grabbing my necktie and trying to slide the knot
against my throat. Recognizing the danger of this confrontation,
Tom rose to action and tried to step between us.

"Catherine, Catherine, calm down,"
he said. "Don't be this way."

When she turned to face him, Catherine relaxed
her grip, and I spun away heading out the door. A couple of minutes
later, I returned with two deputies to find Tom and Catherine
sitting there chatting.

"I want to tell you he beat me,"
she screamed, pointing at me.

"Is this a family disturbance?" one
of the deputies asked me. I shook my head and said, "No way. We are
not related, and she is disturbing our work."

The deputies looked at Tom for support, and he
nodded.

"Tell them what happened to me,"
she barked at Tom.

"Catherine fell over the chair
trying to attack Taylor," he said.

The deputies had heard enough. One
of them looked at her and said simply, "Miss, you will have to
leave."

"I think I'm going to vomit," said
Catherine. She grabbed her purse, stood up, and left the room with
the deputies in her wake.

"Thanks for sticking around," I
said to Tom, after Catherine had left the room.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world,"
he said with a grin. "I'm sure I'll be writing a story about you
pretty soon anyway and may need these observations for background.
I was having coffee with a couple of lawyers last week, and one of
them said he expects the next time he sees you, you will be wearing
a toe tag."

"Schaffer bet me a hundred dollars
I won't live to attend Ramsey's Christmas party this year. I took
the bet because I don't see any way he can collect on it if he
wins."

Tom chuckled and offered another
observation: "I just don't see any heroes in this
story."

I hadn't thought about that aspect
until then, but it sounded right. I just looked at him, grinned,
and said, "What about you? You're my hero. Why don't you follow me
around for a while and be my witness?"

"No, thanks."

Turning back to my desk, I hoped that maybe I
had finished my business with Catherine for this day.

Sure. And those monkeys from heaven finally
had reached the mountaintops, carrying bags of gold for everyone on
earth.

FORTY-NINE

January 14, 1980

"Your psycho girlfriend is over
here in the newsroom right now."

"Ahh, shit," I
mumbled after answering the phone and receiving that whispered
message from Ed Jahn, a colleague on the city desk at
The Post
building, about
fifteen minutes from downtown. I told him: "But she just left this
place."

Ed had called me about two hours
after deputies had evicted Catherine from the courthouse press
room. I speculated she must have collected her thoughts and
launched a Plan B in an attempt to trample me at work.

"Catherine certainly is having a
very busy day," I said. "She seems to be popping up everywhere.
What's she doing over there?"

I enlisted Ed to serve as my eyes at
headquarters.

"She's in Logan's office pacing
around and telling him all about something, probably you," Ed said.
"Oh, man, now she's waving her arms around and pointing in his
face."

Logan was our managing editor, and
he worked in one of those offices with glass walls that allowed him
to monitor the staff at all times. Of course, on this occasion,
they also allowed my scout to monitor Logan and provide a
play-by-play of Catherine's surprise visit.

"What's he doing?" I
asked.

"He's just sitting there watching
her without much of an expression at all. He looks like a virgin
who wandered into a porn movie and is seeing a real pussy for the
first time in his life. He knows what they are supposed to look
like, but he wants to make sure this is real."

I figured Logan
had never experienced anything like Mehaffey, even in his long
career with newspapers. I still had to laugh as I imagined him
sitting there listening to a tirade similar to what had just
occurred in the press room. I wondered if she had gotten to the
part about the naked pictures of my wife. I still didn't know what
she had meant with that allegation, beyond just throwing out
anything that might embarrass me even if it were imaginary. So, I
had just let that slide. But I realized her visit to my boss had
just dismantled any effort to separate my private life with her
from my professional life at
The
Post
. And I had a good idea what might be
coming next. Two of my three separate lives were about to
merge.

"It looks like she's leaving now,"
said Ed. "Logan's still just watching her, and it doesn't seem like
he said much. She's going through his door. Now she's stopped and
answering a question. Now she's turned and left, and he looks
pretty confused."

"Thanks for the warning, Ed. I owe
you."

About fifteen minutes later, Logan
called me at the courthouse and issued a succinct command: "Gary, I
need you to just stop whatever you might be doing and come into the
office. I don't want you to even take time to put anything away.
Just get up, get in your car, and come over here."

It marked the only time in my career that
Logan had ever called me on the job. I routinely worked under the
direction of his city editor, Johnny B. It was highly unusual to
receive a call directly from the managing editor, but, given my
experiences of the past few weeks, I was not surprised. I reached
his office from downtown in about twenty minutes. Then it was my
turn to sit there with everybody watching through the
glass.

"What's up?" I asked politely,
feigning ignorance as I took a seat in a chair across the desk from
my boss.

"I'll get right to the point," he
said. "I had an interesting visit a little while ago from a Miss
Catherine Mehaffey, and she had some disturbing things to say about
you."

I just furrowed my brows in a way to encourage
him onward.

"She believes you are working
secretly for the district attorney's office as an investigator in a
case against her."

"That's not true," I said, eager to
make a definitive denial as quickly and forcefully as
possible—without laughing. "She has some gripes with me of a
personal nature. None of it involves my job here. You are the only
one paying me a salary."

"She says you've made tape
recordings of conversations with her and shared them with
outsiders."

"I recorded her telephone
conversations threatening me, but I never played them for anyone
else. A friend of mine did play part of a conversation he taped
with her because he wanted the other reporters in the press room to
let him lock the door."

Logan grunted and stroked his chin while
locking eyes with me.

"OK," he said, "Here's what I have
to do. Mary Flood is on her way over to the courthouse to relieve
you there—"

"Aw, c'mon," I raised my voice
interrupting him. "Don't let Mehaffey get away with this. Can
anybody just come in here with any sort of story and ruin me? I
like that job."

Mary Flood was a younger reporter destined to
attend law school and build a national reputation for legal
reporting in the next twenty years—a period in which I often would
boast that she owed her start on that career path to me and
Catherine Mehaffey. While I argued my case, Logan just sat
patiently and allowed me to vent. Then he laid down the
law.

"Nope, it is already done," he
said. "I talked to Johnny, and he said you've been over on the
courthouse beat a couple of years anyway. It's time to rotate on
some of these beats. He has a desk ready for you back in the
office. Now, I don't even want you going back there to get anything
you might have left. Make a list of anything you need, and Mary
will bring it in."

"Don't punish me for this," I
pleaded.

He looked stunned and said, "Punish
you? I'm not punishing you. I'm concerned for your safety. I just
want to put as much distance as possible between you and that
woman. It's obvious she's interfering with your work at that
location, and it's my responsibility to make sure everyone at this
paper has a chance to succeed in their job. You'll have plenty of
good stories to work on general assignment. Now, go see Johnny, and
he'll show you to your desk."

"OK," I sighed and got up to
leave.

"Gary," he said, "I don't meddle in
reporters' personal lives, and you certainly don't have to tell me
this if you feel uncomfortable. But, after talking with her, I'm
really curious about something. What did you do to her?"

There it was: Always the man's
fault. In his mind it had to be me who did something to her. Or, I
thought, maybe he was kidding. The question made me laugh as I
imagined him sitting through her tirade wondering if aliens had
invaded from Mars. Realizing any accurate explanation would be much
too complicated, I searched my mind for a shorter version and
finally just said, "Oh, I forgot to put her picture in my
wallet."

Logan stared a moment trying to figure that
out until he saw me grinning and then laughed himself.

"OK, OK, I think I understand," he
said. "But you should know something she told me right before she
left. I asked her what she wanted me to do about any of this, and
she just got this strange, faraway look in her eyes and said, 'I
just want him to disappear.'"

We stood there a moment considering that until
I shrugged my shoulders and moved to the door.

"So, go on, get your new desk, and
welcome back to the newsroom," Logan said as I left. Then he added,
"And, Gary, under no circumstance do I ever want you to initiate
contact with that woman again."

So I walked out, went to my new desk, picked
up the phone, and immediately dialed Catherine at her
office.

"Hope you're happy now," I said
when she answered.

"You went to my bosses at Special
Crimes so I thought I should go to your boss to teach you a lesson.
Where are you now?"

"I'm at my new desk in the
newsroom. They took me off the courthouse beat."

"Wait a minute. You mean you
haven't been fired?"

Instantly I
realized I had an edge, as she revealed her primary mission had
been to get me fired. She had failed. And, as I thought about it, I
realized Logan had been right in my reassignment. Digesting a
universal truth about stalkers, I concluded I was lucky to still
have a job.
Wouldn't it be easiest for any
employer to just eliminate the whole problem by cutting the
worker?
I thought. In this case, however,
Logan and my paper had backed me. Suddenly, I felt grateful and
decided to twist the knife with her.