I (28 page)

When we reached the sheriff's office in downtown Las Cruces, the two suits told me they were from Clark County, Washington. That was where I killed Julie. The big honcho was Detective Rick Buckner. The name rang a bell.

He told me I was a suspect in an ongoing investigation and asked for a complete confession. I told him that I had nothing to confess. I lied like I always lie when I'm in trouble. I learned that as a kid, and I was good at it. They might have a lot of people from Clark County claiming they'd seen me with Julie, but they needed my confession. If they didn't show me proof of my guilt, I didn't intend to give up anything.

Buckner asked if I'd been arrested before. I thought,
Surely he knows about Corning and Shasta? And my shoplifting back home in Selah?
So I told him about the woman named Jean who nursed her baby in front of me and how all the charges were dropped. My honesty seemed to score some points. Then, very abruptly, he asked when I'd last seen Julie.

I told him how we met the first time and how we met up again on the fifth of March and had an argument over her two DWIs before she got out of the truck and left. I said I hadn't seen or heard from her since then.

For about five hours the two detectives told me over and over that I killed her. They let me use the bathroom to wash the dirt from my hands and arms. When I was finished, they told me that Julie's body had been dirty too and asked where the dirt on my arms came from. I told them the truth—it was from folding tarps that morning. They said they were sure I'd rolled her body in those same tarps and carried her down the hill off Highway 14. I told them they were wrong. I kept thinking,
When do I get arrested? When do I hear my Miranda rights?
The longer they dicked around with me, the more I realized that they were still short on evidence.

They finally showed their hand and promised to turn me loose if I passed a lie-detector test. When I said okay, they dropped that bluff and didn't mention it again.

They had me photoed and fingerprinted and took me to a doctor's office for blood and hair samples. As I watched the tube turn red, I realized that DNA evidence would nail my ass sooner or later. I'd left too much of Keith behind. All I could do was to try to stay free till the last possible hour.

They escorted me back to my truck, and Buckner invited me to dinner. He said, “We screwed up your day, and we'd like to make it up to you.”

I said, “No, thanks. I got my Slim Fast in the cab.”

He says, “You eat that stuff?”

I was thinking,
I'd rather eat Slim Fast by myself than a New York cut steak with a guy that's trying to get me executed
. I said, “Yeah. I eat it all the time. I'm on a diet. I like all the flavors. Especially the orange pineapple. The chocolate malt's pretty good, too. And the French vanilla.”

He gave me a funny look and said, “Come on, Keith. Lighten up. Clark County can spare you a steak.”

For Chrisakes, just let me out of here!
I said, “I'm sorry, but I have to decline your offer.”

At the Fairgrounds Buckner said, “One more time, Keith. Tell us why you killed her.”

I said, “I didn't kill anybody. You're wrong. Tell you what—after you let me go, I'll keep in touch and help you find out who did it. I loved Julie. I was gonna marry her. Why would I kill somebody I was gonna marry?”

“You tell us.”

“All her friends were dopeheads. Probably one of them did it. These drug deals go wrong all the time.”

When we reached my truck they grabbed my tarps as evidence. It took the two of them to pick up each tarp. They confiscated my logbooks.

I climbed in the cab, and Buckner reached through the window and handed me a copy of the affidavit he'd filed for the search warrant. “I'll give you one last chance, Keith,” he said. “Why'd you kill her?”

I said, “I didn't kill anybody,” and started the motor. Fuck him. I just wanted to haul ass. I figured I had two or three more days of freedom, and I had to make some final plans.

I drove to a truck stop in Las Cruces and read the affidavit over coffee. What a shocker! Every one of those crackheads in Clark County had fingered me to take the heat off themselves. I saw my life pass in front of me—my children, my family. I thought of how they would suffer when I was arrested. Dad would be pissed. My kids would be ashamed.

I considered running for British Columbia. I was still a Canadian citizen, and Canada didn't have the death penalty. But I knew I couldn't trust my dispatchers to find me a load that would take me that far north. They were working with the cops.

I thought about taking the Greyhound, but that would give the cops three or four days to intercept the bus and grab the only guy that was six-foot-six.

I looked through the window and saw a uniform in a sheriff's car monitoring the truck stop. I knew why he was there. I had the same feeling as when I murdered Taunja Bennett. I was marked as a murderer.

I went into the shop and looked for a quick poison. They had some strong stuff for flushing radiators, but I wanted to die, not just burn out my throat. I got a package of twelve-hour Contac and sixteen Extra Strength Tylenols. I already had Sudafed and a bottle of Anacin in the truck—maybe forty pills altogether. I bought a bottle of mineral water to wash them down.

As I walked back in my truck, I noticed that the deputy was still there. I was afraid he'd revive me and pump my stomach. I had to do this right, and not act suspicious.

I crawled into the sleeper, pulled off my boots and closed the curtain. I started to write a suicide note but changed my mind. What would I say? That I was a poor misunderstood kid who never had a chance?
At forty?
I thought,
Who gives a shit anyway?

I shook the pills on the bed and stared at them for a long time. I thought of the good times I'd had in my life. But the bad stuff kept getting in the way.

I knew I had to swallow the pills fast or I might chicken out and end up dying by electrocution or hanging or rotting away in a prison cell for the rest of my life. I gulped the pills and laid back on my pillow. After a few minutes my head began to swell and my eyes felt like they were popping out of my skull. Then I dropped off.

 

When I woke up it was still nighttime. I pulled on one boot and opened the window. I stuck my hand out and felt a cool rain. If I could feel rain, I wasn't dead.

I made it across the parking lot and stumbled into the men's room. I looked like something that crawled out of a septic tank. After I took a leak, I went back to the truck. As I started to climb in, a fist reached through the sleeper curtain and punched me in the face!

I'd gotten into the wrong truck. It was a Prime Trucking semi, parked for the night. A shaggy-looking driver dragged me toward the office by the arm.

I nearly fell on my face when we got inside. I couldn't think straight. A couple of deputies came and asked me to identify myself. I wasn't even sure of my name. After a while I explained that I took a couple of sleeping pills and that the next thing I remembered I was getting punched. In my confusion I'd climbed into the wrong truck.

The deputy asked to see my logbook. I told him that I'd spent six hours talking to detectives on a bum rap and they'd taken all my stuff. I said I was fed up with answering questions.

The Prime driver was a good guy and declined to press charges. The deputy took my keys and told me to sober up. He said I could collect them in the morning at the truck-stop security office. The subject of suicide never came up.

 

It must've been 3:00 or 4:00
A.M
. when I swallowed the rest of my pills and passed out again. This time I slept till noon. The parking lot was nearly empty. The Prime driver had gone. There was a smelly whitish mess on my comforter and I realized that I must've been upchucking the whole night. My dad was right. I couldn't do anything right.

After a few cups of coffee I checked in with my boss. He said the cops had released their hold on me. I reamed him good for setting me up at the Fairgrounds. I told him the cops had taken the tarps and it was his own fault—don't bother billing me for the loss. He gave me a half-ass apology and told me to head for Phoenix for another load.

 

As I drove west, I thought how hard it is to kill a human being. I snapped that Shasta woman's neck three times and she was still alive to lie about me. I had to use all my muscle to finish off some of the others. Now I couldn't even kill myself.

I swore I wouldn't botch it again. What went wrong? My stomach must've got too much too soon and threw it all up.
Tonight I'll cut back a little on the dose. Just enough to go bye-bye.

 

At the last truck stop in New Mexico, I ordered a steak and asked my waitress if she liked necklaces. She showed me a cheap little thing around her neck. I gave her my new sixty-five-dollar gold necklace as a tip.

She said, “Why are you doing this? You don't even know me.”

I said, “Where I'm going I won't need this.”

The other waitresses clustered around. I said, “I'm on my way to jail. I'm facing eight life sentences. Or maybe the gas chamber.” When I drove away, they were watching my truck.

At a truck stop at Exit 378 in Arizona I bought three bottles of nonprescription sleeping pills. I climbed into my coffin and swallowed them all. I was upset and forgot my own advice not to take too many or I'd throw them up.

 

The next morning I woke up groggy and angry at myself for still being alive. I didn't find out till later that you need prescription stuff like Seconal and Amytal to do the job. I always hated drugs. I didn't know the subject.

In the distance I saw Chiricahua Peak, ten thousand feet high. I could climb up to the snow line and let hypothermia do the rest. Death by freezing was like going to sleep.

But first I wrote a letter to my brother:

I walked up to a mailbox at the next truck stop and stopped dead in my tracks. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. If I mailed that letter there would be no turning back. My gut told me to rip it up.

I dropped the letter in the slot.