Authors: Bill Floyd
The Killer's Wife (12 page)
Duane was adamant. “His type won’t go crazy, Nina. His type
thrives
on it. Didn’t you hear any of what his own family said about him? The guy was a prick before he ever became a victim. He wouldn’t know what to do without an enemy to focus on.”
thrives
on it. Didn’t you hear any of what his own family said about him? The guy was a prick before he ever became a victim. He wouldn’t know what to do without an enemy to focus on.”
I thought about correcting Duane, asking him to call me Leigh, but what was the point? I’d already been exposed in the papers; I’d been found out.
Free to be myself again,
I thought snidely.
Free to be myself again,
I thought snidely.
“You’re a decent person,” Carolyn said. “But he means to ruin your life.”
“I’m the only one who could do that.”
They looked at each other and sighed. Duane closed his laptop.
I apologized. I thanked them. I bought their lunch.
T
he date was August 14, 2000. It was a Saturday. Sometime between nine o’clock in the morning and one in the afternoon, under cover of the powerful thunderstorms that had been rolling across the valley since the night before, a sixteen-year-old girl named Daphne Snyder was killed in a public park less than five miles from our home. Daphne had been a week away from starting her senior year of high school. She was a nascent graphic artist, and had designed the cover of her class yearbook. She’d dated the same guy since she was a sophomore, and had plans to join
him at UCLA the following year. Her eyes in the newspapers were cobalt blue. The body wouldn’t be discovered until late afternoon, dumped in the public restroom at the park. It was one of those squat, utilitarian little concrete buildings, with forest green tiles on the roof and little woodburned signs for the Men’s and Women’s sides. Daphne was found by some younger teens who’d gone there to smoke.
he date was August 14, 2000. It was a Saturday. Sometime between nine o’clock in the morning and one in the afternoon, under cover of the powerful thunderstorms that had been rolling across the valley since the night before, a sixteen-year-old girl named Daphne Snyder was killed in a public park less than five miles from our home. Daphne had been a week away from starting her senior year of high school. She was a nascent graphic artist, and had designed the cover of her class yearbook. She’d dated the same guy since she was a sophomore, and had plans to join
him at UCLA the following year. Her eyes in the newspapers were cobalt blue. The body wouldn’t be discovered until late afternoon, dumped in the public restroom at the park. It was one of those squat, utilitarian little concrete buildings, with forest green tiles on the roof and little woodburned signs for the Men’s and Women’s sides. Daphne was found by some younger teens who’d gone there to smoke.
The park was just off a main artery, the same road Randy took to work and I took to run my errands each and every day. Multitudes of cars had passed the spot during that Saturday, so many possible witnesses, none of whom had seen a thing.
R
andy had been antsy and distracted pretty much the entire time since Hayden’s birth, six months earlier. Now, he was the one driving me crazy. Half the time my husband was spastic, drumming his fingers constantly on any surface and twisting his hair and nibbling at his nails; the other half he was uncommunicative and withdrawn. I could barely rouse him to monosyllables. I told myself that he was manifesting an adjustment reaction, overwhelmed by the reality of fatherhood and the new demands on his time and attention. Of course, the truth was that he’d shown little to no inclination to actually help out with feeding, rocking, changing, or cleaning our newborn son. Except for the first three weeks, when my mother was there to help out, I’d pretty much done it all.
andy had been antsy and distracted pretty much the entire time since Hayden’s birth, six months earlier. Now, he was the one driving me crazy. Half the time my husband was spastic, drumming his fingers constantly on any surface and twisting his hair and nibbling at his nails; the other half he was uncommunicative and withdrawn. I could barely rouse him to monosyllables. I told myself that he was manifesting an adjustment reaction, overwhelmed by the reality of fatherhood and the new demands on his time and attention. Of course, the truth was that he’d shown little to no inclination to actually help out with feeding, rocking, changing, or cleaning our newborn son. Except for the first three weeks, when my mother was there to help out, I’d pretty much done it all.
At this point, I knew for sure that it wasn’t hormones that had been distracting me during the pregnancy. I knew it wasn’t postpartum depression keeping me so vigilant around Hayden that I didn’t really trust Randy to take care of him, even if he’d shown a desire. I kept envisioning him holding the baby when I just happened to do or say something that frustrated him. I saw him turning and slamming Hayden’s soft little skull into the nearest sharp corner. It was absurd, but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head.
In reality, I had felt something inside me going hard and unyielding the very first time Randy cradled the baby in his arms, right there in the delivery room. Three weeks later, after my mother flew home, I realized that I was frightened to be alone with my own husband. He’d avoided us during much of the time Mom was there. She’d made comment after comment, a running inventory of disapproval:
Why doesn’t he hold the baby more often? Why does he act like he’s pissed off all the time? It’s like he can hardly stand to touch his own child.
My excuses to Mom became excuses to myself.
Why doesn’t he hold the baby more often? Why does he act like he’s pissed off all the time? It’s like he can hardly stand to touch his own child.
My excuses to Mom became excuses to myself.
Then, the first night after she’d left, I awoke from a lateafternoon nap to find Randy sitting across the bedroom, holding Hayden and looking at me with an expression that was almost menacing, a hungry sort of frown that sent the cold right through me. My eyelids were still heavy and he hadn’t yet realized that I was coming awake, and I saw him whispering to Hayden but couldn’t understand the words he was saying. I only saw that look on his face, a sense of utter propriety more greedy than proud, more martial than paternal. Hayden seemed far too small, and Randy’s forearms
were too large and steely, incapable of holding such a tender thing without crushing him. I feigned waking up, yawning and stretching. Randy quickly rearranged his face; I rearranged mine to match.
were too large and steely, incapable of holding such a tender thing without crushing him. I feigned waking up, yawning and stretching. Randy quickly rearranged his face; I rearranged mine to match.
O
n the morning of August 14, he left the house at dawn, without taking a shower. He never went anywhere without a shower. I could tell from the twisted sheets on his side that he’d barely slept. He said he was going to run some errands, but he was out the door before I could think to ask where he would be. I had a throbbing headache, and felt like I’d slept too deeply. My thinking was scrambled, and I didn’t really start questioning how suddenly he’d taken off until after I’d had a shower and a second cup of coffee. I fed Hayden and laid him down for a nap in his crib. I made sure the baby monitor was in my pocket when I went downstairs.
n the morning of August 14, he left the house at dawn, without taking a shower. He never went anywhere without a shower. I could tell from the twisted sheets on his side that he’d barely slept. He said he was going to run some errands, but he was out the door before I could think to ask where he would be. I had a throbbing headache, and felt like I’d slept too deeply. My thinking was scrambled, and I didn’t really start questioning how suddenly he’d taken off until after I’d had a shower and a second cup of coffee. I fed Hayden and laid him down for a nap in his crib. I made sure the baby monitor was in my pocket when I went downstairs.
Before placing the water glass from my bedside table in the dishwasher, I found myself examining it closely, holding it up to the light, turning it this way and that. Randy had brought it up for me the night before. I realized I was looking for residue and thought:
Residue of what? Would you know if you saw it? Do you really think your husband is trying to poison you? And if so, if you’re really entertaining such squalid fantasies, don’t you think it’s time to consult a mental health professional?
Residue of what? Would you know if you saw it? Do you really think your husband is trying to poison you? And if so, if you’re really entertaining such squalid fantasies, don’t you think it’s time to consult a mental health professional?
Randy returned in the early afternoon, not too long past lunchtime. I’d made a couple of grilled tuna sandwiches and was about to suggest that he grab one from the serving board when I noticed his appearance. He was wearing his dark blue hooded rain jacket, but his clothes were wet all the way underneath, clear water dripping onto the foyer floor. His boots squeaked as he walked right past me and headed up the stairs without so much as a word.
“You’re getting mud everywhere!” I yelled. I could hear the shrillness in my voice, but didn’t care. I’d become something of a shrew over the past five months; it was my only defense to his nervous indifference.
No response. I heard a door slam, then the shower running. I held my hands up in exasperation, remembered I was alone, and dropped them trembling back to my sides. I went to the foot of the stairs to inspect the mess, and damned if it wasn’t worse than I’d thought. Clumps of wet grass, stray slick blades, and clumps of filth were stamped all the way up to the second floor. “Randy, damn it!”
I went up the stairs in a raging fury, pausing only long enough to glance into Hayden’s nursery—he was awake but quiet, ogling the spaceship mobile that spun in the air over his crib—before following the muddy footprints into our bedroom. The bathroom door was shut, the shower going full blast. I knew I’d be in for it when I opened that door, because Randy’s insults were at their most lacerating when you intruded on his “personal space,” but it was obvious that I’d have to spend hours cleaning the carpets and I wasn’t really thinking clearly.
The bathroom was a wall of steam. His clothes were in a filthy pile on the floor, and as I stood there, him yelling at me from behind the shower curtain to get out—“I’ll be done in a minute!”—I took in the condition of his outfit. It wasn’t just mud that had soiled the clothes. That was blood, I recognized it, large discolored patches on his jeans and the shirt he’d been wearing. I picked up the shirt, fascinated, all my choice irate advice on his cleanliness dying in my throat. The shirt had been a sky blue button-down, light cotton, now streaked with mud and spatters of crimson, all of it mixing together from the dampness. I could smell it, that rank copper odor.
He flung the shower curtain open and snatched a towel off the rack. I stepped backward holding his shirt; when I realized I still had it in my hands, I dropped it quickly to the floor. Steam flooded out past me as I stood in the bathroom doorway. Randy was toweling himself furiously, and I saw that the towel itself was turning red now. He was bleeding from a long gash in his right cheek, and another along his left arm. He pressed the towel over his cheek and said in a low voice, “Get out. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute, if you’ll allow me five fucking seconds to get fucking dry first.”
I backed out and he pushed the door shut behind me. I went numbly down the hall and stood over Hayden’s crib, cooing to him mindlessly, blocking out every racing thought in my head. I told myself I was so scared because I was concerned about Randy’s welfare. I told myself I was worried that he’d been seriously hurt.
“I
got into a shoving match with some asshole at Home Depot,” he said, standing in the hallway. I didn’t know how much time had elapsed. He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, pressing a wad of tissues over his wounded arm. I closed the nursery door behind me and pointed downstairs. Randy went ahead, and asked me to bring some bandages from the hall closet.
got into a shoving match with some asshole at Home Depot,” he said, standing in the hallway. I didn’t know how much time had elapsed. He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, pressing a wad of tissues over his wounded arm. I closed the nursery door behind me and pointed downstairs. Randy went ahead, and asked me to bring some bandages from the hall closet.
While I wrapped his arm in pads and gauze, he told me about how the jack-offs down at HD had let their inventory slide and so they only had a couple of bags of mulch left (apparently he’d gone out early in the pouring rain without a shower to get … mulch), and how this other asshole (“He looked like one of those Volvo-driving cock-smokers, you know the type.”) had challenged Randy’s right to the remaining supply. They’d exchanged words and things had escalated. “We got into it right there in the Lawn and Garden Center,” Randy said, wincing when I patted his cheek with a swab soaked in rubbing alcohol. “It’s probably a good thing the salesmen said they were calling the cops, or I’d have really let him have it. As it was, I think I might’ve broken his nose.”
I opened a couple of Band-Aids. “This might actually need stitches.” The wound in his cheek was so deep it wouldn’t stop bleeding, and it made me woozy to look at it. I swallowed and held out the bandages. “Put them on yourself. If you can’t handle your anger any better than that, maybe you need to—”
“What?” His voice had gone cold now as he plucked the bandages lightly from my fingers. “I need to what?”
“I think you need to see somebody, get some counseling maybe.”
He grunted and went and stood in front of the mirror in the front hallway, sloppily pasting the bandages over the gash. “You are so predictable,” he began, each word thick with resentment. “I get into a fight that some other asshole started, a fight where I was only defending myself, and you automatically assume the whole thing was my fault. I’m not going to let any jerk-offs push me around in the store, and I’m not going to let you talk down to me at home.”
I tried to keep my words steady. “Randy, we have a child now. What if the police show up? What if the people at Home Depot got your license plate and they follow you here? What if they charge you with assault?”
“But I didn’t start it!”
“The police don’t always care about that. What if you got taken in and then it got back to the HR people at work? And what if they decided that when the next round of layoffs came around and they were looking to trim the fat, that they could use any old excuse anyone had given them? Don’t you think they’d come after you first? Without me bringing in any income, and with the house and the baby, we can’t afford for you to be out of work or in any legal difficulty right now. That’s all I’m saying.” It fleetingly occurred to me how stupid this argument was, given that I knew his story about the altercation at HD was bullshit.
But if I didn’t keep talking, I might start thinking.
He glared at me and then took a deep breath. “You are un-fucking-believable. I’m going outside.”
He slammed the back door. I went and stood in the kitchen, watching out the window as he stalked out to his shed. The rain had abated somewhat but he still got wet all over again as he stood there, fumbling with his keys. Finally he got them out and opened the padlock while the silver drops fell past him. He looked back at the house and although I couldn’t see his eyes under his pasted bangs, I felt him marking me. He disappeared into the shed.
After a few minutes, I went back upstairs to the nursery. It seemed like I stayed there for hours, caressing Hayden’s cheek, smoothing his down-fine hair, seeing his father’s eyes looking up at me.
R
andy didn’t return until it was nearly dark. We sat silently in the den, both of us mechanically eating a frozen pizza I’d made. I told him I wanted to watch the ten o’clock news to find out if the weather would clear; if so, I was thinking of taking Hayden out to the park in the morning, to get some fresh air. Randy started in right off, arguing that he wanted to watch a baseball game. He’d never shown any interest in the sport before. I thought he was being obstinate, punishing me for my inquisitiveness or judgmentalism or whatever overbearing trait he thought I’d exhibited earlier while I was cleaning his wounds. Knowing I couldn’t handle another argument, I just took my plate and went upstairs and turned on the TV in our bedroom.
andy didn’t return until it was nearly dark. We sat silently in the den, both of us mechanically eating a frozen pizza I’d made. I told him I wanted to watch the ten o’clock news to find out if the weather would clear; if so, I was thinking of taking Hayden out to the park in the morning, to get some fresh air. Randy started in right off, arguing that he wanted to watch a baseball game. He’d never shown any interest in the sport before. I thought he was being obstinate, punishing me for my inquisitiveness or judgmentalism or whatever overbearing trait he thought I’d exhibited earlier while I was cleaning his wounds. Knowing I couldn’t handle another argument, I just took my plate and went upstairs and turned on the TV in our bedroom.
The lead story on all the local news channels was the brutal slaying of an area high school student, Daphne Snyder. The police weren’t releasing many details as yet, but I recognized the park in the footage—it was where I’d been thinking of taking Hayden in the morning. The cameras panned past the swing sets and the jungle gym and the benches by the softball fields. Reporters stood and pointed behind them at that ugly gray block building where the girl’s body had been found. I’d utilized that very restroom before, and I saw it now in my mind, the grungy tiles and the skylights so filthy that you felt like you were underwater as you held yourself up off the seat. What a lonely place to die. I stared as the TV displayed a photo from Daphne’s yearbook, taken at her junior prom last spring, while the anchor read off more details of her short life. She’d been a pretty girl, her brown hair coiffed and shellacked for the big night but you could tell it would look just as fine wound up in a natural ponytail. An outdoor type of face with a kind, sad smile, like she knew something was looming on her horizon. Or maybe her date had just been drunk and acting stupid. I would never know.
An uncle spoke with reporters from the front porch of the family’s home, saying that the girl’s parents were in no condition to take questions, although they appreciated everyone’s thoughts and prayers. An edge of hostility flashed in the man’s voice when someone asked him what should be done to the guy who did it, if he were caught. The uncle declined to go into details, “Because I’m a Christian, but God will have His judgment on this monster.” His
voice cracked and the channel I was watching switched over to an impromptu news conference at the police station. The officer conducting the Q&A session deflected an inquiry into whether the killing might be related to any others. “We have a similar MO to some recent crimes, but really that’s all I can tell you right now.”
voice cracked and the channel I was watching switched over to an impromptu news conference at the police station. The officer conducting the Q&A session deflected an inquiry into whether the killing might be related to any others. “We have a similar MO to some recent crimes, but really that’s all I can tell you right now.”
When I looked away from the TV, Randy was standing in our bedroom doorway, arms folded, watching. I jumped a little and he turned to me with an understanding smile. His look held more actual emotion than it had in a long, long time. He spoke with patience and kindness. “So, did they say if it’s going to rain? Because I was thinking I could take Hayden out, if you want. I’ve been kind of slack, and I think maybe you could use some time on your own.”
“No, that’s all right. You should go see the doctor—”
But he kept right on talking, like I hadn’t spoken up at all. Maybe he was so used to that that he didn’t even notice it when I did. “Yeah, I’ll take him first thing in the morning, and you can sleep in. We’ll be back in the afternoon, and you and I can talk then. Right now, let’s get some sleep.”
H
e might’ve slept. At first, I know I didn’t. Once Randy’s breathing seemed to become regular, I got up and went to Hayden’s room, thinking only of getting him out to the car and then driving as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, before I called the police. But when I got my son scooped up into my arms, Randy was right there in the hall, blocking my way. He said, “I can’t sleep, so I’m going downstairs to watch some DVDs. You want to come?”
e might’ve slept. At first, I know I didn’t. Once Randy’s breathing seemed to become regular, I got up and went to Hayden’s room, thinking only of getting him out to the car and then driving as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, before I called the police. But when I got my son scooped up into my arms, Randy was right there in the hall, blocking my way. He said, “I can’t sleep, so I’m going downstairs to watch some DVDs. You want to come?”
I shook my head. I went back to the bedroom with Hayden in my arms and sat there in bed trembling. When Randy came up with a glass of water for me, he stood and watched until I drank it all down. I didn’t know what else to do. I kept looking at those big arms, the ropy veins on the backs of his hands … I drank, and before long, I was asleep. The last thing I felt was how weak my own arms had become, and how I couldn’t hold on at all when Randy pried Hayden gently from my grasp.
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