Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir (39 page)

I turned and looked down the short, dark
hallway between the rooms. A slight grin slid across my face as I
realized our moment had arrived. Something or someone awaited me
back in her bedroom.

"You want me to walk back there and
look in your closet?" I asked, considering if I really wanted to
honor her request. I flashed on an image again of Little E hiding
on the floorboard of my two-hundred-dollar car and remembered the
promise I'd made to finish this business with Catherine that
night.

"OK," I said. "I'm going to do
that—exactly what you ask. I'm going to go back there and look in
your closet. Then I'm going to leave and go home."

FIFTY-FIVE

January 18, 1980

A chill ran up my spine. It's one
of the oldest clichés around. I had used it myself a number of
times before that morning. I'd heard many others toss it around
casually over the years and still hear it said quite often with a
laugh. But the truth was, I never really had felt a chill run up my
spine until then—as I stood in that closet at the rear of her
apartment and stared at nothing through the shadowy light from the
lamp in Catherine's living room some fifty feet away. Up my spine?
It did not stop there. It covered my shoulders like a shawl, spread
down my arms, and under my fingernails. In the other direction it
ran down the back of my legs and into the crack of my butt. I
closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I barely had had time to realize the closet
sat empty before that living room light went out and threw
everything into an eerie twilight, the inside illuminated only by
stray beams sifting through the windows from lampposts in the
street beyond the house. I stood just inside the closet holding the
knob on the light wooden door that opened outward toward the
hallway as I searched the empty shelf above the rod for a sign of
anything she might have had for me. I froze there for a second
until I heard her soft footsteps padding slowly down the hall. When
she cocked the revolver, however, that chill covered me like
majesty on the queen, and, before the sound stopped echoing like
thunder around the dark apartment, I had pivoted, stepped inside
the closet, and pulled the door behind me, hoping it would form
some kind of a shield as I faced the bedroom beyond the
door.

I peeked through the crack between
the door and jam, a space that offered a thin, narrow view of her
silent movement into the bedroom. I watched her holding the pistol
pointing down with both hands as she turned away from the closet
and took a position on the opposite side of the room facing me from
beside the head of her bed.

Moron
was the first thought that leaped into my head.
Then, I thought—
No, not strong enough.
Imbecile? Idiot? One of those, whichever is dumbest. That's what I
am, unless there is something even dumber!

Trapped inside her closet like that, my mind
began scrambling for options as my eyes raced around the small
space searching for anything I might use to escape. But nothing was
there. So, I watched carefully through the crack, hoping I might
find something to give me an edge.

"I am going to
kill you now," Catherine began, after lifting the pistol to
shoulder level and pointing it at the hollow wooden closet door
that stood between us. I knew the bullets could rip the wood before
hitting me if she had started shooting right away. Instead, of
course, she wanted to talk a little first. Recalling the
Exorcist Tape
, I
thought:
I guess this is the place where
she wants me to beg for her mercy.

"You know there is nothing more
after this life, so it won't help to pray," she continued in a tone
of voice I had never heard from her before. She seemed completely
detached, devoid of feeling, speaking like a robot on autopilot.
Her eyes looked blank in the dim light and I couldn't even be sure
they focused on me. As she spoke, strange thoughts crossed my
mind.

Maybe
, I thought,
I should just step out and take it. Maybe I've had enough of
this life. There would be insurance for Cindy and the
girls.

I remembered suddenly we had passed
the midnight hour into January 18. It was my youngest daughter's
second birthday. What a present this would be! Would they be better
off without me? Would I be better off without this life? Did I
really want to continue this fight?

As if on cue, Catherine offered a
suggestion in the midst of her lecture: "Don't worry about your
wife and kids, I won't do anything to them. But, you—you have done
things to me that nobody has."

Suddenly, I wanted to cry. During
the last three months I had seen several different Catherines. At
times she had been witty and charming. Other times I'd seen her
uncontrollable anger. I had seen her trying to con me or play on my
sympathy. As I watched through the crack in the closet, I realized
I was seeing yet another Catherine, the most dangerous of all. This
Catherine with the cold, lifeless eyes was the killer. I wondered
if this Catherine was the last one Tedesco had seen as well—before
his brains were bashed on the floor of his garage.

Maybe this is what I deserve, I
wondered. Then I recalled something Catherine had said once while
philosophizing on the question of just deserts. She had said,
"Here's how you tell if they got what they deserve. You look at
what they have. And that is exactly what they deserve."

As all these
thoughts and emotions raced around my brain, I also realized that
Catherine actually was giving me a unique opportunity most people
never have. She was forcing me to decide the meaning of life under
intense pressure that would help me focus finally on an
answer.
Do you really want to live?
she was asking. And suddenly I realized my answer
was,
Yes
. There
would be no more hesitation, no further thoughts of surrender. No
tears. A searing new heat started melting the icy chill that had
paralyzed my mind. It was the heat of anger. My temperature was
rising. And I realized I could harness this anger for
deliverance.

We don't allow
people like Catherine to run our lives and paralyze us with
fear
, I thought to myself, as my mind began
to clear.
We face them and make them break
us, if they can, or we break them instead.

Rejuvenated by my new resolve and
driven by a seething but disciplined rage, I searched the closet
again, this time with more attention to detail. My eyes moved
slowly from right to left, from the crack between the hinges of the
door to the little opening beyond the knob. And suddenly I spied my
salvation. I had a plan. It might not work. But at least I wouldn't
go down begging her for mercy.

I knew I needed patience to strike at the
right time. Outlining the steps in my mind, I returned to stare out
the crack, keep quiet, and watch her for any sign of
opportunity.

"You should just come out now," she
said, her voice droning listlessly as she held the pistol aloft in
the policeman's position pointed at the closet. "I know how to use
this. Officer Joe taught me."

Then, it appeared she had run out of things to
say. As if searching for some other words to coax me out or force
herself forward, her arms wavered a bit, and I watched her eyes.
Their focus dropped to the floor. Confident she had relaxed, I
sprung into action.

Kicking open the door, I reached in
a single motion for the wooden chair I had parked beside that
closet so long ago. I grabbed the chair by the back and swung it
around pointing the legs directly at Catherine while advancing
straight toward her.

"Motherfucker!" I screamed my
battle cry as adrenalin bubbled to a boil.

With the chair blocking my view, I
couldn't see her startled reaction, but I could sense a frenzy of
movement from her direction as I advanced with the chair, like a
lion tamer in the circus. Suddenly, the seat of the chair
splintered as a .32-calibre slug came sailing through a hole in the
bottom and smacked into the left side of my head, just above the
ear, grazing my skull and ricocheting to the side. I remained
oblivious, drugged by the action. I felt nothing and continued my
advance, focused only on the blueprint I had plotted moments
before.

Following that plan, I flung the chair in her
direction hoping to knock her back against the wall and create a
distraction for me to pivot empty-handed and rush headlong down the
hall toward the front door. Fight or flight? I guess my ultimate
plan had become a combination of the two basic options. But I
noticed the adrenalin was working on either one.

Looking back, I also recall my
impression of entering what professional athletes often call "the
zone." That's an ill-defined, adrenalin-induced state of mind in
which physical senses heighten to their ultimate powers. Baseball
Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn has described it as a place where the
baseball appears to move slower than it really does. I have
experienced the zone myself sometimes in amateur sports. Playing
basketball in high school, for example, I enjoyed some times when
every other player seemed to be moving in slow motion. Playing
shortstop on a softball team when in the zone, the ground balls
seemed to take extraordinarily slow, looping bounces that made
fielding them a snap. If I could live permanently in the zone, I
certainly would. But you only enter the zone at special times when
your adrenalin is pumping perfectly to control your reactions—and,
in particular, it now seemed, when someone is trying to murder you.
That night in Catherine's apartment I felt the zone take hold as I
grabbed the chair. Running down Catherine's hallway pushed my
adrenalin to full throttle. The sequence of events transpired in a
matter of minutes. But in my mind, it seemed like hours. Everything
in that apartment stood in a time warp except for me.

As I entered the living room, I
focused on the deadbolt above the doorknob and noted the next
obstacle in my path. Catherine, of course, had taken the time to
lock the door.

You will only have
one chance to unlock it
, that little voice
in my head instructed as I sped across the room.
Stop and do it right. Then get the hell out of
here
.

Fortunately the dead bolt had an
inside handle of its own so I didn't need a key. I knew I could not
use any precious time to look over my shoulder for her. So I
stopped at the door. I reached down and twisted the dead bolt
handle to unlock it. I opened the inside door and pushed the handle
of the outer glass storm door standing between me and her front
porch. It opened, and I started to run again, toward the yard and
the street beyond.

But I suddenly felt myself propelled faster
than I knew I could run. I was moving out above her concrete front
porch, flying headlong into the yard, almost parallel with the
ground. I also felt a pounding sensation, as if someone had popped
me in the back with a bath towel. But I knew I was moving much too
fast for that. I landed face down in the grass about ten feet
beyond the front door and clutched the turf with the fingers on the
end of my outstretched arms.

That bitch shot
me!
My thoughts screamed inside my head. I
was finally growing angry.
She really shot
me!

FIFTY-SIX

January 18, 1980

Although I knew she had shot me in
the back, I also was aware that I felt no pain. It had to have been
the adrenalin. Somehow, I had escaped the house, and I pondered my
next move. I lay spread-eagled on the turf and looked around the
street. I had thought maybe Strong would be coming with his
shotgun, but the only car I could see was mine, parked in front of
Catherine's duplex. I noticed porch lights coming to life at a
couple of houses across the street, but I lay as still as possible.
I glanced over my shoulder and caught a view of Catherine in the
corner of an eye—standing on the porch and admiring her
pistol-work. She probably would have enjoyed firing a few more
rounds into my prone body, but she couldn't do that with me down in
her front yard where neighbors might see.

Since I felt no pain, I wondered if
the shot had hit my spine and paralyzed me. I wiggled my toes and
felt them move. Then I grabbed some grass with both hands and
noticed my hands could squeeze the blades with no problem.
Satisfied with my continued mobility, I didn't hesitate launching
the second phase of my plan. I jumped up and ran to my right along
the south side of Kipling, toward Dunlavy—a little busier street
that crossed Kipling about four houses to the east. I thought I
heard another gun shot in the background, but I was so focused on
my escape I could not be sure.

"Murder," I yelped, without much
imagination but determined to make an impression on anyone who
might be listening. "Help."

Then I thought, Shit, is she going to chase me
down the street?

I moved into the
shadow of a line of trees just in case and ran hard, finally
feeling like I might survive this showdown after all. I must have
put on a pretty good show because Catherine later described the
scene from her view to a writer for
The
Dallas Times-Herald
newspaper, saying: "I
never saw a man run so fast or jump so high. He was jumpin' like a
rabbit."