To Love and to Kill (2 page)

 

—Thomas Merton,
The Seven Storey Mountain

CHAPTER 1

FOOTSTEPS. THE SOFT,
spongy slap of rubber work shoes against the scratched, unwaxed, filthy surface of a tile floor.

One after the other.

Waitresses take perhaps thousands of steps during a shift. Always coming and going, while certain obnoxious patrons bark orders, make crass comments and groundless, tasteless judgments, before getting up and leaving squat for a tip.

The South is full of roadside diners serving up high cholesterol and diabetes—all you have to do is walk in, sit down in a booth sporting ripped, waxy seats and grimy checkered tablecloths, and the journey into the greasy-spoon experience has begun.

Heather Strong had been a waitress at one of these places for nearly ten years, though she mainly worked the register as a cashier these days. She took to the job because it suited her character—outgoing, loud, always on the move—and put food on the table for her children. In February 2009, Heather, a beautiful, blue-eyed, brown-haired, twenty-six-year-old mother and soon-to-be divorcée, was working at the Petro Truck Stop out on Highway 318 in Reddick, Florida. The Iron Skillet restaurant inside the Petro was a busy joint. It was one of those just-off-the-freeway pit stops filled with tired, hungry, dirty, foul-mouthed, penny-pinching, smelly men coming in off the road, filing out of their musty Mack trucks, looking for cheap fast-food meals saturated in grease. Heather drew the eyes of most of these men because she was so stunningly gorgeous in a simple American-girl kind of way. She had the figure of a swimsuit model, sure; but that exterior beauty was juxtaposed against an inner abundance of innocence and purity, a warm heart. Still, for anyone who knew Heather, there was no mistaking the fact that this young woman could take care of herself if necessary.

There was also a hidden vulnerability there within Heather's forced smile: You could tell she had struggled in life somewhat. But with the right man by her side (whom she had found just the previous year, but had let go of after getting back with her husband), Heather could find that picket-fence happiness all young women in her shoes longed for.

“What's a hot little thang like you doing in a place like this?” was a common remark Heather endured more times than she could count. She hated it every time. Paid no mind to men who spoke to her disrespectfully like that. She had a job to do. Kids to feed. She was making ends meet. It didn't mean she had to take insults and sexually aggressive comments.

“Give me your check and let's get y'all cashed out?” Heather would snap back. “I ain't got all day.”

Heather seemed tired on this day. She'd been having a rough go of things lately, to say the least. Most of those problems stemmed from the relationship with her children's father, her husband, twenty-seven-year-old Joshua “Josh” Fulgham, a rather complicated and volatile man with a past she had recently separated from. Since the breakup, Heather had been living with another man, more out of convenience than love. But that leash Josh had around his wife had not been severed completely. Josh wanted his kids and was afraid Heather would one day take off with them; he promised a nasty custody battle coming down the road. He was also enraged at the fact that Heather was living with a man Josh saw as a danger to his children.

“You seen Heather around?” Heather's boss asked a coworker a day after Valentine's Day, February 15, 2009. It had been a normal day at the Petro: regulars, new customers, broken coffee machine, same dirty dishes coming from the kitchen, stains on the silverware. 'Bout the only thing different was that Heather had not come to work. It was so unlike her not to show up. If there was one thing about Heather Strong, work was first and foremost. She needed the money to support her kids—and that darn husband of hers, he rarely gave her anything to help out, yet always seemed to have the cash to buy “party goods” or go out and have a good time.

“She always called,” Heather's boss later explained.

“I haven't seen her,” Heather's coworker said.

“Huh,” Heather's boss responded. “If you do, tell her to call me.”

Heather generally worked the morning shift, although she did sometimes take on a double. On most days, she'd come in and set up the salad bar and then go about her ordinary duties.

She should have been in by now
, thought Heather's boss, looking at the clock in her small office, trying to shake a bad feeling that something was terribly wrong.

CHAPTER 2

HEATHER'S FIRST COUSIN,
Misty Strong, was at home in Columbus, Mississippi, where Heather grew up and had lived most of her life. Misty, equally as beautiful as Heather, could pass for Heather's identical twin—the two girls looked so much alike.

“Heather was like a sister to me,” Misty later said.

A few weeks had gone by and Misty had not heard from her cousin. This was odd. Heather and Misty kept in touch. However streetwise Heather had become over the years, especially while living in Florida, she was green in many ways of the world, Misty knew. It seemed that Heather had only one man most of her life and he had taken her to Florida: Joshua Fulgham. Josh and Heather met in Starkville, Mississippi. Heather was sixteen, waitressing after school at a local restaurant; Joshua, one year older, was a customer. Josh was that tough, rugged, overprotective and overly jealous type. He was well known in the Mississippi town where he grew up as a bruiser and tough, troubled kid. Josh was five feet eight inches tall and weighed about 175 pounds—one of those physiques people might say he was born with, a guy who could eat anything and never gain an ounce. Josh generally wore his hair shortly cropped, but had turned to an entirely shaved head later in life. For Heather, Josh fit the image of a badass she liked so much. Heather felt comfortable around Josh. She felt protected. The two of them hit it off right away on that day inside the restaurant.

From the start, Misty Strong later observed, Josh and Heather had issues. He was rough with her. He liked to manhandle Heather a lot when he wanted his way. The cops were often involved. After meeting, dating and then living together as teens, Heather having a child, with another on the way, Mississippi didn't seem to entice them as it once had. So Josh and Heather made the decision to move to Florida. It was 2004. Josh had potential job prospects in Florida—or so he said. He had family down there. The move felt like a step up. Heather wasn't thrilled at going, moving away from her family in Mississippi, but she thought what the hell, why not give it a try. They could always move back if things didn't work out.

Misty knew with Heather moving away, there was little she could do. Once Heather was gone, in fact, Misty had lost touch with her for a time, and Misty believed it was Josh holding her down, keeping Heather from contacting her family. One more way for Josh to govern over Heather and keep her tied down.

“He was just too controlling,” Misty explained. “He didn't want her around any family or anybody that cared about her.”

Heather didn't even have her own cell phone or computer back then, during their early days in Florida. She had been totally cut off from everyone back home.

Just the way Josh liked it.

Then, in early 2008, after nearly four years of living with Josh, raising two kids and going through hell and back, Heather showed up in Columbus one day.

“I've finally left him,” she told Misty.

“Thank God.”

Misty and Heather's grandmother was sick at the time. She was actually dying. So they bonded over that family crisis. The two women picked up their “sister” relationship from back in the day and stayed in touch daily. Misty kept telling her cousin it was all going to be okay. There was no need to worry about anything. She'd help with the kids. She'd help Heather start over. The key to it was for Heather to stay the hell away from Josh, who was still in Florida. If Heather could do that, she had a chance. Everyone in her family believed this.

There was one day when Misty went to see their grandmother, who was on her last days. When Misty returned, Heather was gone.

And so were her bags.

“Josh had ... brought her back to Florida,” Misty later recalled. No one knew it, but he snuck into town, convinced Heather she needed him and drove her back.

Heather had gone willingly, apparently. She wanted to work things out for the kids' sake. That was Heather—always yearning to find that pristine image of the American family unit on the other side of a dark rainbow. What mother, after all, doesn't want her children's father to be a part of their lives? Maybe Josh was changing. He was angry and sometimes violent; but when he was good, he was a nice guy. They got along and loved each other.

Or was Heather locked in that same fantasy that many abused women see in their dreams?

Things didn't work out for Heather. Josh
didn't
change. So Heather moved out and found someone else to live with in Florida, thinking it would be better for the kids if she stayed in the state this time. The place she found had a computer. Heather now had a cell phone. She and Misty were in contact just about every day, sometimes several times a day.

“Myspace, cell phone, e-mail,” Misty said.

But then, suddenly, it stopped.
Boom!
One day Heather wasn't communicating anymore. Misty and Heather had been talking for months. Heather was saying that Josh had a girlfriend now. He was letting go. Heather had someone new, too. There had been some issues between Heather and Josh's new girlfriend, and Josh sometimes seemed to want to reconcile with Heather, but Heather was saying things were beginning to settle down. They finally had figured out that maybe they just weren't meant to be together. Josh seemed to accept this.

Now Misty was concerned, however. It was late in the day on February 25, 2009, and she had not heard from Heather in well over a week. Misty knew damn well that something was up. It was so unlike Heather not to call or e-mail for this long a period.

So Misty called Heather's brother, Jacob, and asked if he had heard from her.

“No,” Jacob said.

“Any idea where she is?”

Jacob responded, “I got a call from [Heather's friend]. She was concerned.”

“Concerned? How so?”

“Well, Heather had all her belongings over there at her friend's. Now all of her stuff is gone and she is missing.”

“Missing?”
Misty answered. She felt her stomach turn. Her body now felt numb. Then that life-will-never-be-the-same-after-today feeling came on all at once. Misty felt it.

“Missing”—the word that no one wants to hear. It sounded so final.

So dangerous.

So deadly.

CHAPTER 3

MISTY KNEW HER
cousin well enough. If Heather had gone off on her own, she would have called Misty, sent her a text or e-mail. She would have said where she was going. Even if Heather wanted to skip away under the radar, she would have told Misty.

But maybe not? Perhaps Heather was embarrassed, or she just wanted some downtime, alone?

Misty thought about another possible scenario. Heather had probably gone back to Josh. She didn't want to admit it. She was ashamed. All this breaking up and getting back together. It went back a decade between them. Heather was locked in that revolving-door cycle with the father of her kids. She and Josh, despite fighting and threatening each other, having each other arrested, seemed to always find their way back into the same bed.

Misty thought:
I better call her work.

Maybe someone there knew something.

Within a few minutes, Misty got Heather's boss on the phone.

“Have you seen her?”

“No.”

“How long?”

“Over a week ... and I'm deeply concerned.”

Misty now went back to being seriously worried. That's how these things go. The emotional seesaw effect: Your gut tells you the worst has happened. Your heart tells you to hang on—there's a simple explanation for it all. You go back and forth.

“Go ahead and call the sheriff's department,” Heather's boss suggested. It was time someone got law enforcement involved.

“Yeah . . . ,” Misty agreed.

Officer Beth Billings from the Marion County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) responded on February 24, 2009, calling Misty in Mississippi. Billings explained she had gotten a report of a missing person and was following up.

“Since February fifteenth,” Misty explained to Billings, after the sheriff's deputy asked when the last time she had heard from Heather actually was. “It's unusual not to hear from her. We were keeping in touch daily.”

They spoke about Josh next. Misty said Josh had been arrested in January 2009 for threatening Heather and her then-boyfriend. But they'd reconciled, Misty believed. What neither of them knew then was that Heather had apparently dropped the charges against Josh.

“They actually just got married [in December 2008], but had separated,” Misty explained, trying to give Billings a bit of background regarding how complicated the relationship had been.

Billings said the MCSO would look into Heather's whereabouts. Yet, she warned Misty that this would not be an easy mystery to solve. Missing person cases involving adults are tough to investigate. Nine times out of ten times, the adult chooses to go missing. She takes off, doesn't tell anyone, moves to another town and starts over. Running is often an easier choice than dealing with the stressors life can sometimes bring. There have been cases of wives returning home from work, husbands doing the same, only to find their spouses gone. Vanished. Nothing afoul. Nothing even missing. But the spouse wanted to start another life, in another town, with another partner, and did not have the guts to say it.

Although Misty and Heather's boss felt different here, Heather was her own person. She had dreams. Goals. No one knew her completely. She kept things to herself.

 

 

MCSO SHERIFF'S DEPUTY
Beth Billings drove to Lane Road in Reddick, just opposite Orange Lake, where Heather had been shacking up, the sheriff's deputy had been told, with a guy named James
¹
Acome, whom Billings described in her report as Heather's “live-in boyfriend.”

James had met Heather some years prior, when Heather and Josh first moved into town. They were all friends at one time. James and a junior high school friend of his, Emilia Yera, had actually been part of a group of friends that hung out with Josh and Heather. James had dated Emilia for “a number of years,” he later said, “on and off.” Emilia was young and attractive: thick, curly, shiny dark black hair, bolstering her Latino heritage against perfectly clear olive skin. Emilia was at one time considering a modeling career. Responsibility caught up to her and she abandoned that plan after she and James had a child together.

The four of them—James, Emilia, Heather and Josh—were tight for a while. They drank. Partied. Watched TV. Went to the movies. Then it was over. Each sort of went his or her separate way, but they still saw each other once in a great while.

James was at the house he lived in with Heather when Deputy Billings arrived. After being prompted, he explained that back on February 15, Heather came home from work in a frantic state. It was near 3:30
P.M.
Her shift that day wasn't supposed to end until eleven. She was working a double.

“What was wrong with Miss Strong, Mr. Acome?” Billings asked, sizing up James Acome and the inside of the home he and Heather rented. This area of Florida was populated with locals. There were no snowbirds around these parts, the men and women from the North who flew down for the winter. Mostly, the area was run-down trailers, houses in need of makeovers and repairs, swampland, locals looking for work, which was never going to be available, and young kids hanging out, moving from one part of life to the next. People drank around here. They fished in the lake. Hunted frogs and gators. Sat on their porches bullshitting about their neighbors.

“Don't really know for sure,” James explained. He had a wiry look to him. Blazing blue eyes, dark brown—nearly black—hair (tightly cropped), James was about five feet ten inches, but thin at 150 pounds. He sweated a lot. He'd had his share of trouble with the law. “She came home and said that she had received an ‘emergency telephone call' from Josh while she was at work.” James explained to Billings who Joshua Fulgham was and his relationship with Heather.

Deputy Billings felt James knew a bit more about the call, but he was holding back for some reason.

“She didn't say why? Or what Mr. Fulgham wanted?”

“Well . . . she did. She said Josh called to tell her he was taking possession of their two kids because of me.”

“You, sir?”

“Yeah. Josh told Heather he was pissed off that I'd had a relationship with a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“Okay, well, what did Heather do?”

“I'm not sure. I left right after she came home. I had to go somewhere. I assumed she'd be here when I got home. We only have one vehicle. There was no way for her to leave.” James said that when he got home, he searched the house and noticed some of Heather's belongings, along with the kids', were gone.

“Just a few of the kids' things, and nothing else looked suspicious,” James added.

“That's all?”

“No. A few days went by. I didn't hear anything. Then Josh called.”

“What did Mr. Fulgham say?” Billings asked.

“He told me to pack my shit and get out of the house. That him and Heather were back together. He was moving back in. He told me not to try and contact Heather
ever
again.”

“Did you leave?”

“I waited a day and moved out. I have not returned since today. The electric bill was in my name, so I needed to come back and get that disconnected.”

“Anything else?” Billings wanted to know.

That was all James Acome said he could offer.