Hillside Stranglers (22 page)

Anxious, forlorn, wondering what he had done to deserve Angelo’s turning on him like this, hoping that one day the closeness they had known could be restored, Kenny hit the road in late May in his four-hundred-dollar car. His employers at Verdugo Hills Hospital wished him well when he turned in his letter of resignation. He had written that he had decided to join his family up north, asking that the letter be kept confidential. He had no reason to believe that they would keep the letter from the police, but it was worth a try. He was not as worried about the police as Angelo appeared to be. There had been nothing about the Hillside Stranglers in the papers for weeks. Soon the whole thing would be forgotten; other murderers would grab the headlines. But he and Angelo had certainly had their moment. As he drove on up past San Francisco, past the meadows and forests and white peaks of Oregon, he felt sad and lonely, weary of wandering, dispossessed, wondering what
his new life would bring. Angelo had been so insistent. What right had he to order Kenny out of the city? Now Kenny had only his clothes, his marijuana-leaf necklace, his college degrees and transcripts, his attaché case, his false beard, his bag of stolen jewelry, his psychology books. He was alone.

He drove straight through for two days, rolling northward, stopping at homey places where people praised the boysenberry pie. Bellingham would be some change. His experience of it at Christmas had made him wonder how much action a person could get from scenery. What could you do with pine trees and water? Meeting Kelli’s parents, her mother and stepfather and her father, had been nice, but they were simple people, they had no conception of the kind of success that he knew would someday be his. No wonder Kelli had been tolerant for so long of all the time he spent with Angelo; she must have known he was bored with her, was lowering himself to be with her. But she and Ryan were family now.

He made up a poem as he drove along, improvising out of Robert Frost as imperfectly recalled from high school:

Long ago the snow-bent birches.

There is much winter sadness

Along a frozen lake under moonlight

For there one’s memory tires of a squall of thought

Or a framework of white spines.

Death, he thought. The death of dreams. He continued:

Caught within the icy waters

We remembered what we once had.

What once was mine and never

Will be mine once more.

I have it pretty good,

Or so I’m told.

Lord, why then this winter

Weeping in my soul?

A frozen lake under moonlight.

That’s me, he murmured to himself, a lonely figure looking out over a frozen lake under moonlight. Not bad. If only the world would acknowledge his talent!

And so the banished acolyte, compelled into exile from the purlieu of Buono, entered a new state, the country of the pointed firs.

Dear Sir or Madam,

My objective is a position in a community oriented facility or business setting involving responsibility for coordinating or supporting education, counselling, behavior modification or related programs in furthering human development and modality application.

Sincerely yours,

Kenneth A. Bianchi, Ph.D.

Affixed to the lower right-hand corner, a photograph of Kenny, Kelli, and little Ryan, the family group. Kenny, teeth bared beneath gently drooping mustache, appeared healthy and
happy, vigorous, radiating that whole-earth outdoorsy optimism indigenous to the Pacific Northwest.

Kenny distributed this letter as he had the flyer for his counseling service, to advertise his merits in new surroundings. Its trendy, mindless phrasing did not land him a job doing whatever it was it proposed. Still his first few months in Bellingham showed signs of progress and stability. He and Kelli and Ryan settled into a small rented house on North Street, and Kenny got a job in charge of security for Fred Meyer’s hardware and variety store. There he acted as a plainclothes floorwalker and, sometimes, peered at customers through an aperture in the ceiling. There were, of course, wonderful opportunities for him to indulge in kleptomania, and he took equal pride in catching thieves and being one, but as word spread of his efficiency he landed a higher-paying position as a roving security officer for a company specializing in electronic alarm systems for private homes and businesses. He was given a company pickup truck for his patrols, and his business card proclaimed impressively:

Whatcom Security

Agency Inc.

The Total Security People

Captain Kenneth A. Bianchi

Operations Supervisor

Even better, his application for membership in the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Reserves was accepted, and he began attending classes in police procedure: arrest technique, search and seizure, traffic regulation, firearm use, and so on.

To all appearances, family life and the move from Los Angeles were tonic to Bianchi. He was establishing himself as a respectable and socially responsible member of the community; he had the position of authority for which he had always longed. Yet all was not well with the inner Kenny.

Bellingham bored him. A town of about forty thousand inhabitants north of Seattle, less than fifty miles from the Canadian
border, Bellingham lacked diversions appealing to someone of Kenny’s sensibilities. It was situated on the Washington coast. No setting could be more beautiful, looking out toward the pine-covered San Juan and Vancouver islands and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was a paradise for the woodsman and the fisherman and for anyone fond of fresh air and water and the reassurance of a coherent community, where violent acts were neither common nor tolerated.

To Bianchi none of these virtues meant anything, and the very cohesiveness of Bellingham, its smallness, and its human scale were irritants. He could not be anonymous here. In such a place every citizen had an identity, an imposition painful to a chameleon, to a man who, himself being nothing, liked to pretend to everything. The people here were disconcertingly direct and sincere. The dramatic, primary blues and greens of the landscape and waterscape oppressed him, conjuring certainties, implying definitions. The blurry grays and browns of smog suited him better, the days of night; and at night in Bellingham the too-bright stars seemed to watch him like lidless eyes. There were no freeways here, no instant-access routes to anonymity where, sealed in his car with the music turned up, he could melt into the columns of millions on his way to another scam. Worst of all, in Bellingham there was no Angelo Buono.

Kenny longed for Angelo like a lover scorned. And as the days of the year began to shorten, bringing long northern nights and the steady rains of the Washington autumn and winter, Angelo came to haunt Kenny’s thoughts more and more. He found himself thinking of Angelo day and night, images of strength and anger, Angelo grabbing onto some girl with his big hands, Angelo grinning, Angelo erect, Angelo taking what he wanted in front and behind, Angelo fingering a gun or deftly manipulating a roll of twine, Angelo a magnet to girls, Angelo looking on him, his own cousin, with scorn. Kenny’s job, driving around checking on security systems, patrolling vacation houses left vacant until the next season, providing the illusion of safety to householders who were happily unaware that they had entrusted their lives and possessions to a murderer and a thief, offered few diversions. He had to content himself with
stealing canned goods, telephones, gardening tools, books, light bulbs, storing everything in his basement, which soon resembled a fallout shelter. When Kelli would ask where he was getting all this stuff, Kenny would praise the generosity of the people of Bellingham, how neighborly they were, how everyone seemed to want to help out a newcomer. But he was lonely, his thoughts more and more drifting southward to Angelo as the winter darkness and dampness encroached, covering his thoughts like a shroud.

He did enjoy the authority of being Captain Kenneth A. Bianchi, Operations Supervisor, but the job left him much on his own, inviting him inward. At home he found that Kelli had lost her sexual appeal for him. At first he had made the excuse, to himself and to her, that it was difficult for him to see a nursing mother as a sexual partner, and Kelli had said she understood. Now he told himself that there was something inherently unappealing sexually about a woman who had given birth to his own child; and he and Kelli, when they were home alone together, were usually silent and distant from one another, Kenny browsing constantly in his psychology books. Lately, inspired by a pamphlet he had come across from the Bellingham Hypnosis Center, he had become interested in the subject of hypnosis because of the power it offered over others, and he was reading a book entitled
Handbook of Hypnotic Techniques
,
by Garland H. Fross, a dentist.

His self-absorption and the absence of sex with Kelli led to masturbation, something his activities in Los Angeles had left little time for. A small rabbit-fur rug became his favorite masturbatory aid, because it reminded him softly of the great days with Angelo. He could rub the rug against himself even as Angelo had stroked his rabbits and dream of the spare bedroom or the orgy at the box factory or a girl being gagged in the brown vinyl chair. Once, after he had played with himself on the living-room couch and jerked himself off into the rabbit’s fur, Kelli, cleaning house, found the rug stuffed under the couch, deduced what he had been doing, and confronted him with the gooed fur. She was not angry, but she wanted to talk to him about it as a sign of their problems. Kenny denied everything.

“I’m sorry. I meant to tell you. I spilled some of that turkey gravy there. Just grabbing a snack. Wasn’t that silly of me? I guess I was too lazy to clean it off. I’ve been working so hard. Sorry.”

But the secret acts pleased him, and he continued with them. They belonged to him, and they were a way of recapturing memories more vivid than anything in his present life. A vision of Angelo with Sabra Hannan would always do the trick. Angelo’s rough voice talking about Sabra’s tits and telling her to shove the dildo up her ass was surefire. Beating Sabra. Angelo reaming Becky. Jane King resisting. Those little girls so hairless and helpless. The women and girls were merely characters to him; what mattered to him was that they pleased him. His memories served as a mental bank of videotapes that could be played at will for his morose delights.

These thoughts and acts came to sadden him, moving him to self-pity. He felt neither remorse nor anything like a post-masturbatory depression but a melancholy sense of the emptiness of his present life. Me then. And me now. It seemed that nothing could or would replace the days and nights with Angelo. To what new thrills was this new, regular family life of his leading? Where were the energies of the city, the slut-crowded boulevards, the evenings of promise? Was he now condemned to a lifetime of memories? Would he always be looking backward like some old man recalling the bold adventures of youth? As his spirits sank, his listlessness increased, and with it anger welled up in him, anger not at himself but at his circumstances and most of all at Angelo. Angelo still ruled his life. Somehow he must get rid of Angelo and at the same time prove to him that he, Kenny, was worthy of respect, had been the perfect partner all along and was also capable of autonomy. He must show himself his own man, deserving of recognition in his own right. Angelo must no longer think of him as a mere sidekick. But the more he tried to banish Angelo, the more he summoned him. Or did Angelo in some mysterious way will himself present to torture Kenny in reveries of painful pleasure across the hundreds of miles separating them? Kenny’s obsession with Angelo intensified. He tried some new
scams, telling girls he had met at Fred Meyer’s store that he was going to open a photography studio, but his heart was not in it. He managed a couple of clandestine dates, achieving intercourse for a change, sending girls flowers and poems for Christmas, but memories of Colorado Street became all the more insistent.

Kelli got fed up. She told him that he was a zombie around her. A husband who changed diapers was nice but not enough. He did not seem to care even to take her to a movie. She wanted a man who could enjoy life. She suggested after Christmas that he move out. He begged to stay on. He wept, saying that his son was the most important thing in his life. He would get himself together, he said, urging her just to be patient.

Kelli’s latest declaration of independence helped convince Kenny to act. He had somehow to prove that he was not a man to be trifled with. Gradually a plan formed in his mind. He would shake up this sleepy, complacent little town. He would bring a little of Los Angeles to Bellingham, a touch of California to Washington State. He would make a comeback.

With renewed energy, Kenny set his scam in motion. Captain Bianchi would use his position to achieve his secret goal, just as Angelo had used his badge and then his sheltered, secret house. How had Kenny failed to think of this before? Captain Bianchi had all kinds of houses at his disposal, empty vacation places just as safe and secluded or more so than Angelo’s house had ever been. And he would out-Angelo Angelo. He would kill alone. He would make Angelo look like an amateur. Everything about the plan filled Kenny with eager anticipation. He moved swiftly to implement it, quickened by this new sense of purpose.

On Tuesday, January 9, Bianchi telephoned Karen Mandic, a girl he had met when working at Fred Meyer’s hardware. Her roommate, Diane Wilder, answered, saying that Karen was out; Kenny left a message for Karen to call him. When Karen returned his call, he told her that he had a housesitting job for her if she wanted to make a hundred dollars. A new security system was being installed at the Catlow house on Bayside
Drive, and the house would be without an alarm Thursday night. The Catlows would be away. If she would stay in the house, it would help him out. He suggested that Karen bring Diane along to keep her company. And one other thing. It would be better not to say anything about this to anyone other than Karen. The Catlows might not like the idea. She knew how people were. Karen said that she and Diane would meet him at the house at nine Thursday evening.

On Wednesday evening, Bianchi telephoned the Sheriff’s Reserves office. He could not make the class on first aid Thursday evening, he said. Unfortunately he had to teach a class himself for his company.

The next twenty-four hours Bianchi spent in a dream. He made several trips over to the Catlow house to check everything out and made sure that their daughter, who was in town, was not going to drop by Thursday evening unexpectedly. He decided that the basement would be the best place for action and left a length of strong cord there. He did not think through the details of his scheme, so as not to spoil it. Improvisation had always played a part in Los Angeles, and not knowing everything that might happen added to his excitement.

It was cold and wet in Bellingham that night when Karen and Diane arrived at the Catlow house. Kenny was waiting for them outside in his Whatcom Security pickup. He suggested that Karen accompany him inside first to turn on the lights and check things out. They would only be a minute, he told Diane, and he was scarcely longer than that.

Inside, he urged Karen down the basement stairs—to check on the fuses, he said—and in the basement he grabbed the cord and wrapped it quickly around her throat from behind and strangled her with quick, fierce, and deadly force. She did not even have a chance to cry out. So great was his fury that the rope cut right through her flesh. He would worry about sex later. He hurried up the stairs to get Diane and wasted no time with her either. Once she stepped inside the door, he shoved her down the stairs and strangled her immediately.

It was done. Kenny was winded. He looked at the clothed
bodies and pondered what to do next. He did not feel particularly aroused. More for form than from passion he opened his pants and masturbated over the clothed bodies as a last rite.

Where to dump them? He remembered a cul-de-sac near a school less than a mile away. He dragged the bodies one by one up the stairs and put them into Karen’s hatchback Mercury. Then he drove the Mercury to the cul-de-sac, left it with the bodies heaped together in it, walked back through the rain to the Catlows’, and drove his pickup home, disposing of the ligature on the way. It occurred to him that Angelo would have been useful during the dumping stage—as with Cindy Hudspeth’s Datsun, Karen Mandic’s car could have been driven to a more remote spot—but that seemed a minor inconvenience. Kristina Weckler and Lauren Wagner had been dumped almost as close to Angelo’s house.

Climbing into bed, Kenny was careful not to disturb Kelli. He slept well that night, feeling disburdened, secure in the certainty that he had gained the headlines again and that he had done it on his own. He hoped the news would reach Los Angeles.