The Killer's Wife (9 page)
Authors: Bill Floyd
So I let Randy hold me, and I squeezed him tight. I tried to realize the sensation of the tiny life growing inside, something that both of us had made together.
Outside, some blue jays were fighting and raising a ruckus in the birdbath. For some reason, I suddenly thought of the Renaults, the family whose murder had caused such a sensation last year. The crime had never been solved
. Where was the outrage?
I thought. Why hadn’t people demanded answers? Punishment, accountability?
. Where was the outrage?
I thought. Why hadn’t people demanded answers? Punishment, accountability?
Now came a clenching in my stomach, fierce and—although I was surely imagining it—almost sentient. I knew that neither Randy nor I could ever again be so lazy with our lives, our incomes, any of it; it was essential that we
never let our guard down, or pretend ignorance of the very real menace that went abroad in the world.
never let our guard down, or pretend ignorance of the very real menace that went abroad in the world.
I tousled Randy’s hair. He led me upstairs into the cool evening, away from the windows and the screeching outside.
C
hannel Eleven’s Jennifer McLean was polite and cool until about halfway through the interview, when she sabotaged me. Up until that exact moment, I actually felt like it was going pretty well.
hannel Eleven’s Jennifer McLean was polite and cool until about halfway through the interview, when she sabotaged me. Up until that exact moment, I actually felt like it was going pretty well.
The Rowes had spent much of the last two days prepping me, asking the sorts of questions they thought I’d be answering, fine-tuning my responses so I wouldn’t come across as either defensive or disingenuous. To them, my giving a public response to the allegations against me was essential before I could begin to rehabilitate my reputation.
They let me use the enclosed back porch of their farmhouse to conduct the taping; it was out in the rolling countryside east of Raleigh, a forty-minute drive from my place. There was no way I was going to let cameras inside my own home. They hadn’t started camping out there yet, still waiting, I supposed, to see if the story would garner more interest, drive ratings, get hits on their Web site … however they gauged those things. I didn’t want Hayden to have to deal with them. We scheduled my interview for Monday afternoon, while he was in school.
They let me use the enclosed back porch of their farmhouse to conduct the taping; it was out in the rolling countryside east of Raleigh, a forty-minute drive from my place. There was no way I was going to let cameras inside my own home. They hadn’t started camping out there yet, still waiting, I supposed, to see if the story would garner more interest, drive ratings, get hits on their Web site … however they gauged those things. I didn’t want Hayden to have to deal with them. We scheduled my interview for Monday afternoon, while he was in school.
Duane and Carolyn set everything up, and I was already feeling too indebted to them by half, afraid of how quickly I’d become dependent on them. I could actually talk to them about what was happening to me. I hadn’t known how badly I’d wanted to tell someone.
The reporter and her crew arrived around lunchtime and spent an hour setting up their equipment among Carolyn Rowe’s huge potted palms and flowering cacti, trying to work around the elaborate system of sprinklers and lights in the glass-walled porch/terrarium. Carolyn called it her “Florida room.” Any other time I’d have been impressed with the profligate evidence of Carolyn’s green thumb, but the camera crew asked if I wanted makeup, and when I arched my eyebrows in the Rowes’ direction Duane said, “Maybe a little around the cheeks. The lights make you look paler than you are.” His diplomatic way of telling me I looked ghostly.
I heard one of the crew asking Jennifer McLean if the Rowes were my PR reps or my lawyers. “They’re private
detectives,” McLean said quizzically. “I’m still trying to figure out their angle.”
detectives,” McLean said quizzically. “I’m still trying to figure out their angle.”
That made two of us.
Then they sat us down at the glass-topped patio table, one camera behind McLean and another behind me, so that both our reactions would be captured, and she started with a succinct recap. She could have prerecorded this portion, but I figured she wanted to measure my response. The Rowes had presupposed this introduction, so I was able to keep my face perfectly neutral as McLean said, “Randall Roberts Mosley, known in the press as the ‘Cross-Eye Killer’ for the way in which he mutilated his victims, terrorized a large swath of the West and Midwest during a spree that lasted well over a decade. Between the years of 1988 and 2000, he is believed to have killed at least twelve people, and perhaps more. Mosley was eventually captured at his home in El Ray, California, thanks partly to information provided to the authorities by his wife of four years. Mosley was convicted in 2001 and remains on California’s Death Row, awaiting execution.
“As Channel Five News reported last week, Mosley’s ex-wife has been living in the Triangle for the past six years, working a respectable job and raising the killer’s son, who was only six months old at the time of his father’s arrest. Nina Mosley has had her name legally changed, and she’s severed all ties with her old life. Her identity was exposed by Charles Pritchett, the father of one of Mosley’s victims, Carrie Pritchett.”
Now she shifted her eyes away from the camera and
smiled at me. I’d watched her on TV for years, and I knew she’d come across as engaged and professional, with a serious demeanor, her sharp attention and soft cheeks in full flare for the camera. “During my interview with Mr. Pritchett, I asked him about why he would want your identity exposed after all these years, when you seem to have simply tried to move on with your life, like any of us would after such a devastating ordeal. What do you think his motivations are?”
smiled at me. I’d watched her on TV for years, and I knew she’d come across as engaged and professional, with a serious demeanor, her sharp attention and soft cheeks in full flare for the camera. “During my interview with Mr. Pritchett, I asked him about why he would want your identity exposed after all these years, when you seem to have simply tried to move on with your life, like any of us would after such a devastating ordeal. What do you think his motivations are?”
I breathed deeply. This was something I’d rehearsed, but I meant it, too, and my grave, earnest tone was genuine. “I can only imagine the grief that Mr. Pritchett and all the victims’ families endured. My heart goes out to them. I remember them in my prayers daily. Not an hour goes by that I don’t wish I could’ve done something to prevent what happened to their loved ones. But Randy fooled me the same way he fooled everyone during those years, from the people he worked with to the members of our church. No one suspected him.”
“Mr. Pritchett points to the fact that some of the falsified documents recovered from the home you shared with Mr. Mosley were made out in your name.” She smiled prettily to show me she meant no harm, she was simply meeting her obligation to present both sides. “I believe there was a collection of driver’s licenses from several states, and some passports with your photo but an alias in place of your real name. And your DNA was recovered from two different crime scenes.”
“That’s correct. But as the prosecutor explained to the
jury during the trial, people who live together carry each other’s DNA around all the time, in this case probably as hair strands on my husband’s clothing. He might’ve picked some up from a suit he was wearing, or from driving one of the cars we shared. Then he either purposefully or inadvertently left the strands at the crime scenes.”
jury during the trial, people who live together carry each other’s DNA around all the time, in this case probably as hair strands on my husband’s clothing. He might’ve picked some up from a suit he was wearing, or from driving one of the cars we shared. Then he either purposefully or inadvertently left the strands at the crime scenes.”
“And the fake IDs?”
I tried to appear contemplative for the camera. “I’ve thought about that a lot. I don’t know what was going on in Randy’s head, and neither did many of the psychiatrists who later interviewed him. There was never any complete agreement on whether he was a sociopath, or clinically deranged, or faking. In any case, serial killers are known to have complex fantasy lives that drive them to do what they do, and those fantasies often have little or nothing to do with reality. In Randy’s mind, he might’ve thought he could compel me to flee with him if he was found out, maybe by using our son as leverage. Whatever he imagined, it turned out to be incorrect. I contacted the authorities the minute I discovered that something was wrong. As soon as I was sure, I called it in.”
McLean was nodding. I felt like I was doing well, and when I cut my eyes over to where the Rowes were standing, they both gave me the thumbs-up.
Then the reporter asked, “Do you remember a man named Lane Dockery?”
For a moment, my mind went blank. I recalled the name, sure enough, but hadn’t imagined it coming up in this context. Duane Rowe was frowning. “You mean the crime writer?” I asked.
She nodded. “He showed some initial interest in doing a book on Randy’s case, didn’t he?”
“A couple of people did.” Lane Dockery and another hack named Ronald something-or-other. I did recall that Ronald didn’t sell nearly as many copies of his stuff as Dockery did of his. “I told them both I wasn’t interested in taking part in any of that. I turned down some money, actually.”
“Would it surprise you to learn that Mr. Dockery was known to have been looking into your case again recently, with an eye toward completing the work he’d started on during the time of the trial? And that, as of six weeks ago, he’s been officially listed as missing by his family?”
I knew I was making a face, and could almost feel the camera tightening in on me. “I had no idea,” I stammered, and while that was true enough I could see from McLean’s look that somehow I’d been scored on. “Why would he be writing about it all these years later?” I wondered aloud.
Carolyn was moving into my view, slashing her hand across her throat, telling me to quit talking.
“I don’t know,” McLean said. “We only discovered this information recently, when researching our facts for this interview. We called Mr. Pritchett to ask if Dockery had been in contact with him, and Mr. Pritchett claims that he had not. Mr. Pritchett suggested that perhaps some new information had come to light that sparked a renewed interest on Mr. Dockery’s part.”
I composed myself. “I wouldn’t have any idea what that might be.”
McLean shrugged more with her mouth than her shoulders. “Maybe Mr. Dockery had located you as well. His family said the investigation is ongoing, but they haven’t heard any news in several weeks.”
She was goading me, so I only nodded.
She wrapped it up by asking how all this attention was affecting my son. I said, “We’ve learned a thing or two about who our friends really are. But I’d prefer to leave him out of this, if we can.”
McLean agreed that we could. The cameramen cut off their equipment and started packing up. McLean reached across and patted my arm. She told me she had a young daughter of her own, and that she’d edit out the last question.
“D
ockery,” Duane said with the air of uttering a curse. The crew had all gone, and it was just the three of us sitting among the terra-cotta pottery and the hanging razor leaves. He looked at his wife. “We need to do some more research here,” he said, then turned to me. “So, he hadn’t been in touch with you?”
ockery,” Duane said with the air of uttering a curse. The crew had all gone, and it was just the three of us sitting among the terra-cotta pottery and the hanging razor leaves. He looked at his wife. “We need to do some more research here,” he said, then turned to me. “So, he hadn’t been in touch with you?”
“I haven’t even thought about him in years.” I wanted a cigarette so bad I was thinking of rolling up a palm leaf and lighting it. “I need to go. I have to be home when my son gets out of school.”
Carolyn was downcast. “Let me come over and buy you a drink this weekend,” she said. “I promise to be good company, and we won’t even talk about any of this crap. We’ll just let loose. I’ll even pay for a sitter.”
I had to admit, it sounded like a nice idea. I thought I was opening my mouth to tell her so, but instead I started telling her about the note Charles Pritchett left on my windshield. I told them about the dead girl in Tennessee. My voice kind of caved in when I said, “I’m really terrified, you guys. I’m really afraid for my son.”
I
could feel his heartbeat inside me.
could feel his heartbeat inside me.
Lying on our bed, a paperback in one hand, the other flat against the smooth bulge of my stomach, the tiny nascent life pattered away, sometimes alarmingly fast, but mostly as a steady background noise. A doubling of my own pulse, something I’d also become more attuned to over the past six months. It was one of those things I’d heard pregnant women talking about before, an absurdly beautiful plus to go along with all the minuses of swollen feet and backaches and general impatience. No one could ever
understand it if they hadn’t felt it for themselves. Even when I put Randy’s hand over my stomach, so he could sense the baby’s heart racing beneath my skin, he would recite the appropriate dewy-eyed platitudes, but I could tell that the physicality of it freaked him out. I almost thought it repulsed him in some strange way. His palm was always sweaty, and it never lingered any longer than I held it in place.
understand it if they hadn’t felt it for themselves. Even when I put Randy’s hand over my stomach, so he could sense the baby’s heart racing beneath my skin, he would recite the appropriate dewy-eyed platitudes, but I could tell that the physicality of it freaked him out. I almost thought it repulsed him in some strange way. His palm was always sweaty, and it never lingered any longer than I held it in place.
That feeling, that sense of connection with something both inner and Other, had washed away my initial reticence. My chest felt like it might spring wide open with joy sometimes, although these feelings were frequently followed immediately by a strange, sourceless panic that restricted my breathing and prompted palpitations.
Bad for the baby
, I’d think, resorting to the deep, measured breaths they trained us for in Lamaze.
Bad for the baby
, I’d think, resorting to the deep, measured breaths they trained us for in Lamaze.
This particular night I was distracted, because you can get used to anything, even the magic of renewal and Life capitalized, and because Randy was making more noise than usual as he prepared for bed. He had the bathroom door closed, but I could hear him in there, splashing water around in the sink (in a fashion that I knew would leave the linoleum dangerously slick in large puddles), gargling and rinsing twice, knocking over the soap dish, cursing, setting it loudly back in place.
My schedule had changed significantly since I quit working, and it was bothering both of us. I’d started staying up later, restlessly pacing the length of the house at all hours of the night, and then sleeping away half the morning.
I was shopping compulsively, mostly buying things for the baby, then rearranging them and reconsidering and often returning items to the store. Nothing satisfied. The nursery down the hall was overflowing with toys and babymonitoring gadgets. I’d repainted the walls in there twice during the last two months, vacillating between pale blue and sea green. The baby manuals I’d been consulting differed on which color scheme would most stimulate young, fresh minds.
I was shopping compulsively, mostly buying things for the baby, then rearranging them and reconsidering and often returning items to the store. Nothing satisfied. The nursery down the hall was overflowing with toys and babymonitoring gadgets. I’d repainted the walls in there twice during the last two months, vacillating between pale blue and sea green. The baby manuals I’d been consulting differed on which color scheme would most stimulate young, fresh minds.
Through the door, I could hear it as Randy ran the ultrasonic toothbrush around his cheeks, no doubt bent over the sink and slobbering tendrils of foam. I never understood why he couldn’t just keep his mouth closed while he brushed; I did. He was obviously trying to get a reaction out of me, his clattering ruckus some childish ploy to get attention, but I was seriously involved with Part Three of Ann Rule’s
The Stranger Beside Me
, and even though Randy had succeeded in breaking my concentration, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. Ah, marriage: the most ancient contest writ petty and immediate, nightly fought to a draw in bedrooms across the world. No advance, no retreat, no surrender.
The Stranger Beside Me
, and even though Randy had succeeded in breaking my concentration, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. Ah, marriage: the most ancient contest writ petty and immediate, nightly fought to a draw in bedrooms across the world. No advance, no retreat, no surrender.
Randy came in wiping his face with a towel. Without looking up from my book, I reminded him to cut off the bathroom light. He looked back, annoyed, like it was an accident, then hooked an arm into the bathroom and swiped at the switch.
“Not so hard,” I said. “You’ll break it.”
He didn’t respond, opting to simmer and grind his teeth as he climbed into bed. He made a show of adjusting the
covers, fluffing his pillow, lying on one side and then the other before finally reaching over and turning off the lamp on his bedside table. By that point I was completely distracted and I laid the book down across my stomach and waited until he was done. He sighed heavily, theatrically.
covers, fluffing his pillow, lying on one side and then the other before finally reaching over and turning off the lamp on his bedside table. By that point I was completely distracted and I laid the book down across my stomach and waited until he was done. He sighed heavily, theatrically.
“If you’ve got a problem,” I said, with a surplus of saccharine patience, “why not just say so?”
He flipped over and glared at me, then his expression softened and he shook his head. He tried on the woundedboy face, a mask with which I had some degree of familiarity—he wanted something. “I’m sorry, this schedule has got me pissy. Your hormones are seriously testing me. I have to get up for work in six hours, and you’re not even sleepy.”
“You’re the one who wanted me to quit my job.”
“I didn’t know it was going to keep you from sleeping.”
“Honey, if you think your schedule is off now, wait a few more months until you have to be waking up three times a night to feed the baby or rock him to sleep or change his diapers. And I told you before, I can go downstairs to read if it’s bothering you.”
“But I’d miss being close to you,” he said suggestively. Or snidely, I couldn’t tell them apart anymore. I didn’t crack a smile and he reverted to his default mode of dour martyrdom. He tapped his fingers on the paperback tented across the hump in my midsection. “You’ve been reading a lot of that type of mess lately, too. Should I be concerned?”
“I found a whole box of these in your old office.” In the first few months after my diagnosis, we’d used the weekends
to move all the things from what we used to call Randy’s “office” down the hall (although really it was only ever used as storage) into the guest room downstairs, and recast the office into a nursery. When I was cleaning out the office closet, I discovered a big cardboard box filled with these “true crime” books, mostly yellowed paperbacks, many of them used copies, with prices ranging from fifty cents to a couple of dollars stamped across the spines. Randy at first seemed embarrassed that I’d found them, then claimed to have bought them all from library clearance sales. I’d never known him to even visit a library, or if he had a card.
to move all the things from what we used to call Randy’s “office” down the hall (although really it was only ever used as storage) into the guest room downstairs, and recast the office into a nursery. When I was cleaning out the office closet, I discovered a big cardboard box filled with these “true crime” books, mostly yellowed paperbacks, many of them used copies, with prices ranging from fifty cents to a couple of dollars stamped across the spines. Randy at first seemed embarrassed that I’d found them, then claimed to have bought them all from library clearance sales. I’d never known him to even visit a library, or if he had a card.
The majority of the stock concerned one serial killing spree or another, many of which I’d heard of but others that were completely new to me. The covers were typically lurid: blood spattered across family portraits or booking photos of the monstrous perpetrators. Nearly all of them contained ten to fifteen pages of photographs inserted halfway through the text: schoolbook portraits of men who later went on to vivisect living human beings in stark basements; crime scene photos of bodies lying in ditches or bedrooms, reliably pixilated or altered just enough to retain their prurient appeal without offending the squeamish. The blurbs on the back covers were more often from members of the law enforcement community than from critics. The Ann Rule book was about Ted Bundy, but there were also unofficial case histories of the Green River Killer, John Wayne Gacy, and Richard Ramirez. Lane Dockery had written two of the books, one
on Jeffrey Dahmer and another on an illegal immigrant who hopped trains near the Arizona border and was suspected to have killed scores of women in little towns out in the middle of nowhere. I faintly recalled the media furor that book had caused on its publication, with some critics labeling it as racist. As far as I could tell, most of the freaks were your average American males, and all I’d known of them before reading these trashy books was what I’d absorbed in an osmotic, pop-culture-echo sort of way.
on Jeffrey Dahmer and another on an illegal immigrant who hopped trains near the Arizona border and was suspected to have killed scores of women in little towns out in the middle of nowhere. I faintly recalled the media furor that book had caused on its publication, with some critics labeling it as racist. As far as I could tell, most of the freaks were your average American males, and all I’d known of them before reading these trashy books was what I’d absorbed in an osmotic, pop-culture-echo sort of way.
But for some reason, I was now totally devouring these things. I’d read six of them cover to cover since a couple of months into the pregnancy. I was an emotional wreck, something Randy and I both attributed to the hormones; so easy to write it all off, my mind always full of worse-case scenarios for the world my son would inhabit. (And we knew at that point that it would be a son; the sonogram had confirmed it and while Randy made no secret of his happiness, I had to admit I was a little disappointed at the time.) Some vague unease was compelling me to face the worst in humanity so I would know what ugliness was possible, and be able to watch out, stay vigilant, to keep him safe. A murmuring ceaseless buzz at the back of my head drove me to it, some strange half-remembered, half-suppressed dreams of the Renault family, their newspaper photo portraits come to life and pursuing me down the hallways of sleep, trying to tell me something but I shut my ears and
ran
.
ran
.
Randy glanced at the cover of the book and shrugged. He offered the same excuse he’d given me when I first found the box: “I went through a phase.”
“I can see why,” I said, with some unforced enthusiasm. “These things are like junk food. Total page-turners. I can’t even remember hearing about most of this stuff.”
He turned back over. “Well, be careful. Like junk food, they’ll make your teeth rotten. You should at least take a break, read some chick-lit.”
“You’d prefer me all clingy and overwrought?”
He conceded that point with a muffled chuckle. “I just don’t want you giving yourself nightmares. You’ve been sleeping pretty restlessly, when you finally do nod off. The other night you got me up at four-freaking-thirty. You were yelling something I couldn’t understand. I woke you but I’ll bet you don’t even remember it, do you?”
I shivered. I hated the idea that I was awake but not aware, because he was right; I had no recollection of it. He could be fabricating it completely, but why would he? To make a point about my reading habits? Maybe, but I felt that twisting in my stomach that told me maybe he wasn’t lying, maybe I had been awake and talking to him but I didn’t remember it at all. The lack of control involved was frightening to a nauseating degree, like a blackout drunk, or being under anesthesia.
I looked at the book and then folded the corner of the page I was reading. I closed it and placed it on the bedside table.
Randy’s good night kiss was perfunctory. With the lights out, I lay there in the dark, feeling that heartbeat inside me. I thought of Ted Bundy, sitting at the phone bank beside the young Ms. Rule. Did he consider killing her? Did
he think for a moment that his secret pursuits would launch her into a successful career? How these psychotics haunted people, skewing every life they contacted, even those not directly affected by their appetites. The last one of Randy’s books I’d read was called
Black Dahlia Avenger
, and had actually been written by a man who came to believe his father was a serial killer. Imagine: your own father. I shivered in bed and wondered, for seemingly the millionth time:
How do they keep it a secret?
How could they manufacture a facile life so opaque and cosmetically sound that even those closest to them didn’t know?
he think for a moment that his secret pursuits would launch her into a successful career? How these psychotics haunted people, skewing every life they contacted, even those not directly affected by their appetites. The last one of Randy’s books I’d read was called
Black Dahlia Avenger
, and had actually been written by a man who came to believe his father was a serial killer. Imagine: your own father. I shivered in bed and wondered, for seemingly the millionth time:
How do they keep it a secret?
How could they manufacture a facile life so opaque and cosmetically sound that even those closest to them didn’t know?
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