06.Evil.Beside.Her.2008 (22 page)

Although she refused to play his games of bondage, one night he posed her in bra and panties in the shadows in front
of the bathroom mirror. She stared at her reflection, six months pregnant, her abdomen swollen to the size of a basketball, with James behind her.

“Stand here,” he ordered, positioning her in front of the mirror. “Just like that.”

As she watched in horror, he pressed the hot flesh of his hand over her mouth, until his eyes ignited with excitement. Her breath quickened and she tried not to reveal the terror that overwhelmed her as she watched his reflection in the mirror.

“I just knew he must be doing things again,” she said later. “All I could think of was that he was imagining I was some other woman, maybe someone he saw on the street, at the store, or someone he watched through a window.”

A few days later, Linda peeked into the living room and discovered James watching an erotic scene in a music video. Convinced she was right—that he had reverted to his old habits—Linda prodded James to tell her everything. “I have to know if I’m going to help you,” she argued. After hours of badgering, he finally admitted later that night that she had guessed right, that he was again watching through windows at unsuspecting women.

“If I tell you, you’ll leave me,” he said.

“No, I won’t,” she insisted. “I need to know.”

James looked at her warily. “I’ve been doing it on my way to work, or whenever I get a break,” he confessed.

“Show me the houses, James,” she said. “I want to see them.”

James and Linda circled quiet residential streets in the Grand Prix. The homes were in a blue-collar neighborhood near Devoe & Raynolds where many owners had burglar bars on the doors and windows. They drove past a small brick house set back from the street, and James pointed at it. “This is the place. There’s an Oriental woman living there. She lives with an older man,” he puzzled. “I don’t know if he’s her boyfriend or her husband.”

Linda could see that James enjoyed this confessing. It was as if he wanted her to share his secrets.

“I’m glad you know,” he said, gushing. “There shouldn’t ever be anything we don’t know about each other, if we’re a family.”

Disgust overwhelmed her. It was all she could do to keep from screaming at him.

Then he looked at her calmly. “You know, Linda,” he bragged, “if I wanted to get into those houses, I could.”

“They’d catch you,” Linda countered.

“Nobody would ever get me. I’m too good at it to ever slip up again.”

The following day, Linda again called the Houston police dispatch number. Again an operator listened to her story.

“I want you to know about this,” she said. “If something happens in these neighborhoods, if anything happens to that Oriental woman, you’ll know who did it.”

Again the dispatcher assured her they would vigilantly watch for any signs James Bergstrom was on the prowl. Again Linda waited and nothing happened.

There’d been friction between Linda and James and their landlords, the Wittstrucks, since they’d moved in, and in early December, James and Linda moved out and into a small apartment a block from the Pearland police station. James busied himself settling in, arranging everything just so in the apartment the way he had once compulsively straightened his room. “It was odd,” Adelaide would say later. “It was like the Partridge Family. The couch, the love seat, the towels all folded nicely. Everything perfect. Linda was normal. The baby was a normal thing to do. James loved it.”

Linda had little enthusiasm for the pretense, but concentrated on doing what she could to ready things for the baby. They were having money problems, and there was little left to pay for much beyond necessities. James’s salary at Devoe was eleven hundred dollars a month, compared to the nearly seventeen hundred dollars a month he had been making in the service. Her car was repossessed that fall, and when she
continued to press him to seek counseling, James used their lack of funds as his alibi for not seeking therapy.

“We can’t afford it,” he’d dismiss every time Linda mentioned it.

“There are clinics, places you can go where they only charge what you can afford,” she argued. But he wouldn’t.

Linda still planned to leave as soon as she could find a safe way out. More and more, she viewed the situation as hopeless. Then something happened that changed everything, locking her in. As life had done in the past, events made Linda’s decision for her. That December, Linda’s gynecologist suggested she have an ultrasound to determine precisely when the baby would be due. On her back, as the doctor and technician stood beside her running the wand across her abdomen, Linda watched the screen. There was her child, a moving mass of gray and shadow.

“From the size and development, I’d say the baby’s due in mid-February,” said the doctor, as the image floated toward them. “Oh look, it’s a little girl.”

A girl,
thought Linda, happily watching the floating image on the screen.
A baby girl.

James was waiting in the hallway and they drove home from the clinic together. He was bubbling, gushing about their baby girl, but Linda was worried. She kept reconsidering what James had done to his young relative. He’d molested a child, a little girl. “I suddenly realized there was no way of being sure he wouldn’t abuse his daughter,” she’d say later. “If I got a divorce, as I was still planning to do, how would I know that when he had visitation, he wasn’t molesting my baby?”

Linda fought back the panic until James left for work, then she pulled out the yellow pages and flipped to the listings for the myriad of Houston’s attorneys. She ran her finger down until she found one who specialized in family law. When the secretary put her through, Linda gulped out everything she could about her situation.

“I can’t take a chance he might abuse my daughter,” she
told the attorney. “Is there any way I can keep him from having unsupervised visitation?”

“Not unless you can prove he’s a danger,” the attorney answered. “You’ll need something concrete to convince a court to keep him away from his baby. They don’t do that without solid evidence.”

Linda hung up the phone but quickly redialed, this time the number of the Kitsap County detective she’d spoken with before.

“Can you send me something, anything to show what he did?” she said. “I’m pregnant and I’m going to have a little girl. He molested a little girl. I need proof to keep him away from my daughter.”

“Mrs. Bergstrom, I can’t do that,” he said. “Your husband was never charged with the rape. All we’ve got is a second-degree trespass. No judge will accept that as a reason to take away his parental rights.”

Linda was convinced there had to be some way.

“Then I went to the Bergstroms,” she said later. “I told Adelaide and Maria that I was pregnant with a little girl and that I needed their help. I said, ‘Please help me keep my baby safe.’ I needed them to tell the court what James had done. I had no other evidence. I pleaded with them, ‘You can’t let this keep going on.’”

James family refused to help her.

“James would have killed us if we’d helped Linda take that baby away from him,” Adelaide would say later, dismissing Linda’s pleas as unreasonable. “We couldn’t do that to our own brother.”

Linda didn’t know what to do. She was afraid to stay with James and she was afraid to leave him. She felt certain he would hunt her down, maybe kill her and the baby. If not, he’d undoubtedly have unsupervised visitation, and she wouldn’t be there to protect her child. Tension built and after one particularly angry argument, she blurted out at James, “You’re just a rapist, a damn rapist. And I’m going to tell
everyone. I’ve already told the Houston police. They’re going to look out for you and you’re going to end up in prison.”

To her surprise, James assessed her coldly. He smirked at her and laughed softly.

“Tell the world, Linda,” he mocked. “Go ahead and tell the world. I’m not worried about it. No one…no one is going to believe you.”

At first, Allen Gibson, Caesar, and James Bergstrom’s other co-workers had been surprised to see him return to Devoe & Raynolds so soon, months before his four-year enlistment was up. “We thought it was a little odd,” mused Gibson. “But hell, James said he had some unused vacation time coming and they gave him an early out. He had an honorable discharge. Why wouldn’t we believe him?”

The only one James told a different, vaguely-close-to-the-truth account to was John, whom he worked with on the second floor in the batch-making department, mixing the paste into paint. John was someone James looked up to, a muscular man with a black belt in karate. So one day when John asked again why James would have left to come back to less money at Devoe when he was set to make E-6 and rake in even more navy money, James admitted things hadn’t gone all that well in the service.

“There was this woman in our apartment complex, a navy wife, who made some untrue allegations about me,” he told his co-worker. “She said I’d been watching her. She didn’t have a case and they threw it out, but the navy offered me an early discharge and I took it.”

John believed James’s account, never considering that there could be more to it. “James just wasn’t the type to do anything to anybody,” John said later. “I figured some woman probably lied.” Yet John, Gibson, and others noticed that the James Bergstrom who returned from Seattle was not the
buffoonish and bashful young man they remembered. “He wasn’t the same old James when he got back,” explained Gibson. “He seemed more serious about things. I thought maybe he’d finally grown up.”

The new James talked about Linda and the coming baby as if they were his most compelling concern. James told everyone how he looked forward to being a father. His appearance had even changed; he had assumed a pin-straight military bearing, and he appeared more self-assured, proud, even boastful. James crowed about his navy training in self-defense and the high-powered arsenal of weapons he’d been trained on. It was obvious that he’d begun thinking of himself differently, not as the butt of lunchroom jests but as a trained and potentially deadly force.

Off and on during the workday with John, who, at five feet eleven inches and 190 pounds, towered over him, James practiced karate kicks and punches. “He’d ask me to show him some moves,” said John. “I never thought about why he was suddenly interested in learning karate.”

Linda knew something was up when she came home from grocery shopping one afternoon and saw James through the living room window, practicing stances and kicks. His foot cut sharply through the air, then jerked downward as he pummeled his fists at an imaginary enemy. She’d already noticed him watching martial arts movies on cable in the afternoons before work. He’d even taped
Bloodsport
, a bloody 1988 movie starring the muscle-bound Jean-Claude Van Damme as Frank Dux, an American major competing in a world-class, to-the-death competition, so he could watch it over and over.

When Linda walked in the house that particular afternoon, James followed her into the kitchen, where she unpacked the groceries. “You know I could kill you and the baby,” he said, softly and calmly. “Before anyone even knew, I’d be gone. I could go to Greece and live with my mother’s family. I’d just never come back.”

Linda tried to ignore him, but she felt as if she’d been on the receiving end of his forceful thrusts, the breath knocked from her lungs.

While they continued to live together, even slept together, the hostility between Linda and James was an open wound, festering and painful. For the most part, she felt trapped and hopeless. Her frustration erupted in small ways, little acts of defiance, like the afternoon she plastered a bright yellow and black Midas Muffler sticker on the Grand Prix’s back window.

When James saw it, he demanded, “What’s this for?”

“I just wanted you to stand out more,” she said mischievously. “So the police won’t have any trouble finding you.”

Glaring at her, he ripped the sticker off.

Christmas rolled around and James didn’t force Linda to accompany him to his parents’ house for the holiday. Instead he agreed when she said she preferred remaining home. His only edict was that she was not to leave the house, even to spend the holiday with her own family.

So Linda sat alone in the apartment on Christmas day 1989. She thought of her baby, whom she’d already named Ashley Nicole. And in the early afternoon, she called her mother’s home. With her brothers and sisters and their families celebrating in the background, Linda wished her mother a merry Christmas. When Santos begged her to come home for the day, Linda refused, lying that she was on her way to the Bergstroms’ to observe the holiday with her husband’s family.

It was a new year, 1990, and for Linda nothing had changed. In a futile attempt to get someone to pay attention to James, months earlier she had secretly stopped paying the twenty-five dollars per month he was required to send Kitsap County during his one-year probation. Possibly because of it, an “action memo” arrived from the Kitsap County District Court Probation Services, dated January 4.

Jean Elliott, the probation officer, noted: “The defendant has been absent from Washington State for six months. He has submitted monthly status reports but is still not in treatment. Permission to leave the state was predicated on his willingness to enter and complete counseling. While stating that only finances prevent him from complying, another statement he made suggests he is not being candid. He told me that he would seek pastoral counseling from his neighborhood church on his arrival in Texas. That he would attend such counseling until he could arrange for secular assistance. A review is requested.”

Unaware Linda may have played a part in bringing the letter on, James wrote back that he would seek counseling through the church and report back within sixty days.

As she had for months, at home Linda watched his every move. She timed his absences, documented his comings and goings to work. She even noted when he left the apartment to meet Sam, his high school buddy, at the YMCA, where the two of them refereed boys’ basketball. While at first James appeared delighted with all the extra attention, as time passed, his patience quickly wore thin. The constant surveillance tugged at him like an animal pulling against the leash.

Linda didn’t yet know it, but despite his promises to her, James had already slipped from his precarious grasp on normalcy. As in Washington, he circled malls and shopping centers, looking for women. Once, from a grocery store parking lot, he drove behind a young woman in a gray car miles onto the freeway before giving up and going home. Other times he parked his car in neighborhoods and then jogged blocks away, skulking behind houses. “I tried to figure out which were the bedroom windows,” said James later. “And what would be the best way to get inside.”

On January 31, 1990, Linda and James went to her gynecologist for another ultrasound. This time Ashley was only
weeks away from her due date, and both had a clear glimpse of her.

“Yup, you’ve got a little girl there,” said the doctor.

“Well, you should be happy,” James said to Linda. “You always wanted a little girl.”

But Linda didn’t feel like celebrating. She grew more and more frightened for the child’s safety as her due date approached. “I kept thinking about what had happened to me as a child and what James had done to that little girl,” she’d say later. “Somewhere this had to stop, and I was going to be sure it stopped with Ashley.”

At home, Linda continued to scout for evidence, anything that would stand up in court. She searched James’s clothes, looking for tears, grass stains, any sign that he’d been peeping. When she learned Adelaide had revealed James’s history to a therapist, Linda prodded at both Adelaide and James for the name of the clinic she’d attended. Adelaide refused, and it wasn’t long before James realized why she wanted it.

“Even if you find out, it won’t help you get Ashley away from me.” He glowered. “That doctor won’t help you.”

“That’s not why I wanted it,” Linda replied. “I’m just curious.”

“Listen, Linda, give it up,” he mocked. “No one in my family is going to help you take Ashley away from me.”

Though they had both begun calling her by name, it wasn’t until February 16, 1990, that Ashley Nicole Bergstrom made her entrance. James arrived home from work at his regular time, 12:30
A.M.
, and Linda was ready to leave for the hospital. She’d had labor pains since seven that evening. After James showered, they left for the hospital. At 8:32 that morning Ashley was born, soft and warm with a dark fluff of hair and two squinty hazel eyes surrounded by wrinkles. The doctor handed Ashley to her, and Linda wiped the gooey afterbirth from her new daughter’s perfect little body. James, who’d sat beside Linda during the birth, leaned
forward and kissed Ashley’s cheek. Making contact for the first time, Ashley grabbed her father’s finger and clenched it in her miniature fist.

“She’s a strong little thing,” James laughed. “You know, she looks just like Adelaide.”

The nurses took Ashley away, and Linda began crying.

“I’ve known women who get the baby blues and cry a month or two after they give birth,” one nurse teased. “But it’s not usually minutes after.”

“I’m just so grateful to have her,” Linda said. “I wanted her so much.”

Of course, Linda was a mass of confusion. There was the happiness of the birth, but it was underlaid with the anguish of past months. Now there was even more uncertainty. Ashley was a real presence, a person who needed her protection. Not to mention all those other women she worried about, the ones who invaded her sleep. In her nightmares the women, like the one James had confessed to raping in Washington, were asleep in their beds, unaware that evil, in the shape of James Bergstrom, sat perched outside their windows. Try as she would, Linda’s screams were never loud enough to warn them, as James smiled at her and disappeared inside.

For months she’d carried the weight of James’s crimes on her shoulders. She’d worried continually about what he would do when she was in the hospital, not there to watch him. He’d been acting nervous and jumpy, and she knew the constant monitoring ate away at him.

As soon as Ashley was taken away and Linda wheeled into the recovery room, as she suspected he would, James announced he was leaving.

“Why don’t you hang out and make sure Ashley’s all right?” she asked.

James frowned. “I’m beat and I’m going home,” he insisted.

He didn’t call that entire day. He never came to the hospital. The woman in the next bed was surrounded by family
and friends, flowers and balloons. Linda was alone. The only ones who came to visit her were Gino and Santos, who brought flowers.

Afraid of what he might be up to, Linda tried off and on throughout the day to call James. The phone rang endlessly without an answer. When she finally reached him at ten-thirty that night, she demanded to know where he had been.

“Right here. I unplugged the phone. I was sleepy,” he said.

“Sure. I bet,” Linda said, wondering if he thought she was stupid enough to believe him. “I’m being released tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you stay another day?” he asked. “You must be tired.”

“No, I’m coming home.” Linda didn’t mention that she had begged her doctor to release her quickly so she could be home to monitor her husband. “Bring a car seat and get me and the baby early.”

James arrived just after ten the following morning with a car seat he’d picked up at Wal-Mart that morning. When the bill was signed and everything in order, the nurse brought the baby. Linda held her gently, but James sauntered ahead, not even pausing to look at or touch Ashley. “I’ve got a basketball game to referee,” James announced. “We’ve got to get home now.”

“Why don’t you take the day off?” Linda asked.

“I can’t,” he insisted. “I need to ref.”

In the car, James muttered, “I’m going to be late.”

“James, you had all day yesterday to get the car seat. It’s not my fault,” Linda snapped. “You were probably up to your old tricks.”

James swung the back of his hand at her, leaving a hot red slash where he’d slapped her.

“Shut up, you goddamn bitch,” he shouted, as Ashley cried. “Quit accusing me of things I haven’t done. I’m tired of your shit.”

They arrived at the apartment, and James ran inside while Linda balanced the baby and her duffel bag. “I’ve got to go,” he shouted. “I’m going to be late.”

“Well, if you’re that determined, just go,” Linda said, after she’d entered the apartment and carried Ashley into their bedroom. There she stopped short. On the bed was a pair of green warm-ups she’d just bought James, streaked with grass stains and ripped at the knee, as if they’d caught on something.

She laid the baby on the bed and turned toward him. “Now I know what you’ve been doing,” she said. “Why you didn’t have time to even visit your new baby in the hospital.”

“I caught them on the bed and they tore,” he insisted.

“Yeah, right,” she answered.

Enraged, James thundered at her. As two-day-old Ashley shrieked, he pummeled Linda. He stripped her of her blouse and bra, ripped off her slacks, and beat her. He only stopped when the phone rang. It was Irene Bergstrom calling to check on her new granddaughter. She cried when she heard Linda screaming and realized what was happening on her granddaughter’s first day home. His mother’s tears multiplied James’s rage, and he threw the phone down and came at Linda.

“Now you’ve got my mother upset,” he shouted, slamming Linda against the wall and slapping her across the face.

“You bitch, always accusing me of something,” he bellowed. “I’m sick and tired of your damn accusations,” he shrieked, before he turned and ran out.

Years later, James would admit that Linda had guessed right, that he had spent the previous night huddled in the bushes at a house in a rural section of south Houston. He couldn’t see anything, but he tore his pants when he climbed over the fence to leave.

Irene Bergstrom stopped in to see her new granddaughter later that day. Linda was dazed, her back bruised from James’s blows.