The Dreams of Ada (11 page)

Baskin checked the records. There it was. The altercation at Marie Titsworth’s house: April 26, 1984.

Baskin told Dennis Smith of his recollection, and Gary Rogers. The same thought was in all of their minds: how much could you do with a broken arm?

The next morning, Detective Smith called Dr. Jack Howard, the physician who had set Titsworth’s arm. It had been a spiral fracture, between the elbow and the shoulder, the doctor told the detective after checking his records; such things are very painful; Titsworth would have had to sleep sitting up, his cast in a sling; there was no way he could have removed the cast and then put it back on again, the doctor said. No way he could have carried a body, as was described in the confessions. No way he could have committed a violent rape. No way.

Dennis Smith thanked the doctor, the tapes running wild in his head. This, too, was going to be a problem, unless they found the body.

Smith gathered eight mug shots together. He showed them to Karl Fontenot, asked him to pick out the picture that was Odell Titsworth; Fontenot couldn’t. Smith reduced the number of pictures to four, asked him to pick out Titsworth; Fontenot couldn’t. He reduced the photos to two. Which one was Titsworth? Fontenot didn’t know; he didn’t know what Odell Titsworth looked like.

What about markings? Smith asked Fontenot. Did Titsworth have anything on his arms?

No, Fontenot said.

Whereas Odell Titsworth’s arms, like most of his body, were covered in dark tattoos; and according to the taped confessions, he was wearing only a T-shirt that night; and, according to the doctor, he was wearing a cast that night.

Reluctantly, Smith, Baskin, Rogers, Bill Peterson had to agree: Odell Titsworth was telling the truth: he had not been involved, despite the stories on the tapes.

Titsworth, in his cell, also remembered that his arm had been broken at the time. He told this to the police. He’d been at his girlfriend’s home that night, nursing his painful arm; there were witnesses, who backed him up.

This information was not made public just then. Ward, Fontenot, and Titsworth were kept in jail; no charges had yet been filed against them.

If only he had been in on the questioning of Ward, Mike Baskin could not help thinking, he would have remembered right away that Titsworth had had a broken arm that night; the final taped statement might have turned out differently.

Not long after the tapes were made the detectives finally located the two women who allegedly had seen Tommy Ward return to a party at Blue River the night of the disappearance, crying, and allegedly had heard him confess to killing a woman, and allegedly had told of this to Jeff Miller. Both women denied to the detectives having been present at any such scene, or having told Jeff Miller about any such scene. The origins of the story, and how and why Jeff Miller came to tell it, remained uncertain. All that appeared certain was that the story was not true—and that it had led the police to Tommy Ward.

Miz Ward, Tommy’s mother, owned a bird. It was a cockatiel, a crested parrot, native to Australia. It had a yellow head, a multicolored, bluish body. She called it Pretty Boy. A few months before Denice Haraway disappeared, Tommy was playing with the bird at the house on Ashland Avenue, as he often did. He had opened the bird cage and was allowing Pretty Boy to fly around in the house, perching wherever it wanted, in the living room, the bedrooms. Flying into the kitchen, it landed on the electric range—on a burner that had accidentally been left on. The bird screeched; its claws were seared to the burner.

When Tommy saw what had happened to Pretty Boy, he cried. He placed Vaseline on its burned claws, wrapped them in gauze. He placed cloth at the bottom of its cage, so the bird would have someplace soft to rest. Every day for months he changed the dressings—new Vaseline, new gauze—until the bird recovered.

At the time of Tommy’s arrest, Miz Ward still had the bird. It would talk somewhat, saying “Kiss me, Pretty Boy, kiss me, Pretty Boy,” and would make small kissing sounds. It seemed as healthy as ever—except that instead of four claws on each foot, it now had two claws on one foot, one claw on the other. Also, it no longer flew freely around the house; it remained in its cage, even when the door was opened.

This was the Tommy that was in Miz Ward’s mind when she heard of his arrest. She had seen his temper in action, the times he had put his fist through the walls of the house. But it was only himself he would hurt. If there had ever been anyone he wanted to kill, Miz Ward thought, it was Lisa Lawson, that time she broke up with him. Instead he had gone out and wrecked his motorcycle. He would kill himself before he’d hurt anyone else.

She knew Tommy had some trouble inside him, ever since his father died. He had started having his dreams around then—bad dreams. He would have one every few weeks, every few months. Miz Ward would hear him screaming in the middle of the night. She would rush into his room to see what was wrong, and he would be sitting up in bed, crying. He’d had a terrible dream, he would tell her, a real bad dream. But when she would ask what the dream was about, he wouldn’t tell her. He would say it was too horrible to talk about. Instead, he would get some paper and a pencil, and he would draw pictures—pictures of animals, strange, weird animals that she had never seen. Then he wouldn’t be afraid anymore—not till his next dream. But dreams were different from killing.

She remembered the time the Haraway girl disappeared. She and her daughter Kay had gone to Lawton that weekend to visit Melva, who had invited them to a Tupperware party on Saturday night. They had gone not so much for Tupperware as for the visit; Melva’s Army husband had been reassigned to California, and then would be shipping off to Germany. He and Melva and their three kids would be leaving Oklahoma soon; Miz Ward did not know when she would see them again. So they had driven down there, she and Kay, and had come back Sunday night and found everyone talking about the clerk who had disappeared from McAnally’s. Miz Ward had a job back then, the first job of her life outside the house, working nights at Love’s Country Store on Main near Oak. She remembered that on Tuesday night, the day the drawings of the two suspects appeared in the Ada
News
, someone had come into the store and showed her the paper and told her that the picture looked like Tommy; she’d told whoever it was who brought the paper that she didn’t think it looked like Tommy.

Now Tommy was in jail. She still didn’t think the picture looked like him. Also, the caption said the man had been wearing a white T-shirt. Tommy didn’t wear white T-shirts, only black ones or Navy blue; the only white T-shirt he owned had a picture of Lisa on the front, and his own name, Tommy, on the back. He didn’t wear the shirt with the picture of Lisa anymore, she knew.

The other picture didn’t look like Karl, either, Miz Ward thought. The caption with the picture said sandy hair, and Karl’s hair was black.

She knew Karl Fontenot. When Tommy was working nights over at Davis’s garage a couple of years back, fixing motors, Karl started hanging around there to pass the evenings. He was the kind of person who often would hang around people, looking for friends, until they shooed him away. But Tommy didn’t shoo him away, he let him hang about, became his friend. On nights when Tommy wasn’t around, Karl would walk over to Love’s where Miz Ward was the clerk, and would sit in one of the plastic booths, fold his arms on the table, and lay his head on his arms and go to sleep. He would sleep that way all night. Miz Ward would leave him be. Sometimes, if there was an extra sandwich that had been made up and not bought, she would give it to Karl; he never had money to buy one.

Still seeking the body, the police announced that a citizen search would be held in the area west of town on Sunday, November 4. About eighty-five people turned out: members of the National Guard, the Amateur Radio Club, the Rifle and Pistol Club, other private citizens. Under the direction of the detectives and the OSBI, they lined up shoulder to shoulder along a fence line. They walked slowly through the tall, dry grass, up hills and down ravines, looking. When they reached the fence line opposite, they moved over a few yards, stood shoulder to shoulder again, and walked back, peering at the earth.

The district attorney, Bill Peterson, stood watching. He knew the gory content of the confessions; but to bring murder charges without a body would be highly unusual. Trying a murder case without a body was not something he would relish. As he watched the searchers, one thought ran through his mind, over and over, like a prayer: “Find me a bone! I want a bone!” He didn’t need an entire body; one of Denice Haraway’s bones would be enough. Any human bone would help.

The search went on from nine in the morning till five in the afternoon. Police climbed down into wells in the area. Volunteers searched dump sites. Several more bones were found, were sent off to the medical examiner’s office to be studied. None of them were human bones.

In the Pontotoc County Jail there were cells made of bars, which fronted on a small common area in which inmates released from their cells could sit at tables and play checkers or read magazines. Tommy Ward was not in one of these. He was kept in a solitary cell, with cement walls on all sides. The only opening was a small, barred window in the steel door. There was no television in the jail, and he was allowed no magazines, no books except a Bible. There was nothing he could do but sit or lie on his bunk, and think, or cry, or pray.

Alone on his bunk, his mind went back to the day he took the polygraph, to the questioning that had followed. A Thursday, he thought it had been, but he was no longer sure; time stood still in the jail. The days blended together, with absolutely nothing to do; the mind played tricks. He was not good with names, words, spelling. He’d been in slow-learner classes all through school. This was evident a few days later, when he put down on paper, at the request of a lawyer, his version of what had transpired during the questioning. He wrote his account with a ballpoint pen on lined notebook paper, on both sides of the page. The most notable misspelling was that of the first name of his friend, Karl Fontenot. He spelled it repeatedly as “Carol.”

This is part of what he wrote:

Mr. Smith shuck my hand when I came in the door and had me to wate. I waited for about 2 hours wile they was back in the back room talking. Then they came and got me and a OBI agent ask me if I had anything to drink or taken any drugs in the last 24 hours. I told him I drank a cuple of beers last night. Then he said, did you take any dope. I said, I don’t do dope. Then he gave me the number test. Then he told what number it was then showed me the test. So then he ask me the questions about the girl missing and I answered him no on all of them. Then he ask me some more questions about the girl missing and I answered no on them. Then he told me to go back in and have a seat that he would be in, in a minnit. So I went back in the room and then about 5 minits later he came back in. Then he checked the test. Then he said, what do you think. I said, I know I passed. And now they can see I didnt do it. Then I started to get up to leve. Then he said fraid not you flunked the test. I about fell out of my seet. Then he said do you want to talk about it. I said, thers nothing to talk about cause I didn’t do it. Then he said the looks of these test you know something. I said I know I didnt do it. Then he went to the door and got Mr. Smith and the OBI agent. Then the OBI agent said, what do you know about it. I said I dont know nothing I didnt do it. Then he said, you do to know something about it or you wouldnt have flunked the test. Then he said, you did it, or you played a part in it. I said no I dont know nothing about it. Then he said, you do know something. Then I said, after people comming up to me I had a dream. And Mr. Smith questioning me. Then he said when did I have this dream. I told him after Mr Smith questioning me that was the night I had a dream. Then OBI he ask me what did I dream about. I told him.

I had a dream that I was at a keg party then poof I was sitting in a pickup with two guys and a girl. Then this one guy started kissing this girl, and she told him to leve her alone. Then I told him to leve her alone then he said if you dont like it you can go home. Then I looked out the window and we was at the power plant then I looked back at him and one of the guys was gone. Then I told him to take me home. Then he said you are home. Then I looked out the window and I was home. Then poof I was at the sink trying to get something black off my arm and I couldn’t get it off then I woke up….

Then the OBI agent said, your dream dont make since. I said, what dream dose make since. Then Mr. Smith said, it was Odell Tittsworth and Carol Fottno in your dream wasn’t it. I said no I dont know who it was. Then he had me to take another test. Then he had me to go back in. Then about 5 minits later he came back in and checked the test. Then he had me to singg [sign] them….

Then he said, do you want to tell the truth. I said, the truth is I didnt have nothing to do with it. Then he said, OK. Then he went to the door and got Mr. Smith and the OBI agent. Then the OBI agent said, you and Carol and Odell went out to the store and kiddnaped that girl and took her out to the power plant and killed her. I said, no I didnt have nothing to do with that girls dissiperence. Then Mr. Smith said were did ya’ll go to discuess it at. I said, we didn’t discuss it no were cause I didnt do it. They they cept on at me about Carol and Odell being in my dream. So then I thought I would play there little game so they could see themselves it was a bunch of bull thats were I made my mestack. So then I told them that Carol and Odell was in my dream and we left the keg party then poof we was at ET [Evangelist Temple] and smoked a joint. Then the OBI agent said, yall went out to the store and kiddnaped her. I said, no. Then he said, you did to and what did Carol do. I said, nothing. Then he said who went in you and Odell. I said no. Then he said, you did to. Then he said what did Carol do wile you and Odell was in the store. I lied and said he jumped in the back of the pickup. Then I said, no that it wasnt in my dream.