The Killer's Wife (17 page)
Authors: Bill Floyd
“Sustained. Mr. Turnbull, let’s stick to the charges at hand.” Judge Oliver, a huge looming figure in her robes, no partiality to be found anywhere in her, turned to the jury. “Disregard the prosecution’s suggestions where the deaths of Mr. Mosley’s foster parents are concerned.”
Turnbull frowned. He obviously wanted to continue, but instead he sat back down and pushed play on the recorder again. He had little to lose by allowing Randy to do the talking.
And talk he did. Randy described in detail the killings of Keith and Leslie Hughes, who’d been found in their San Bernardino home, stabbed to death and disfigured in early
January of the year 1999. “They were sleeping, and I had the Flexi-cuffs on Keith before Leslie even woke up. I’d say that one took, oh, about three hours. I bled them first. That was the one with the Christmas tree lights, right?”
January of the year 1999. “They were sleeping, and I had the Flexi-cuffs on Keith before Leslie even woke up. I’d say that one took, oh, about three hours. I bled them first. That was the one with the Christmas tree lights, right?”
One of his interviewers said that, yes, Randy had jammed small, colored lightbulbs into the couple’s skulls after removing their eyes. Turnbull’s deputy prosecutor, a trim, dark-haired woman in her forties named Gladys Meisenheimer, handed out photos of the crime scene while the tape ran, and the jury members glanced quickly at the glossy photos and then passed them down the line.
I remembered that a whole string of lights was missing when I packed up the decorations that year. Randy had been so excited about his upcoming business trip that we spent New Year’s Eve at home so he could get some rest. I looked at him again now and he saw that I remembered, too. He mouthed the words “I love you.”
The whole thing was a sham, and practically everyone in the courtroom knew it. Randy was as good as strapped down in the injection chamber, but this was his way of holding the spotlight for one more lingering moment. This way he could soak up the attention, the appalled faces of the jury, the uncontainable sounds of grief and pain that frequently sounded from family members in the audience. Despite everything I now knew about him, I had never comprehended the real depth of his sadism until then.
Turnbull stopped the tape after the description of the killing of the Hughes family. He approached the witness chair again and spoke to me with tenderness. “Nina, I know
there are people who have suggested that you were somehow involved in all of this, or at least that you must have covered up for your husband. So I have to ask, was there ever any indication in your mind that he could be involved in such heinous acts? Any clue that you were sharing your home with a madman?”
there are people who have suggested that you were somehow involved in all of this, or at least that you must have covered up for your husband. So I have to ask, was there ever any indication in your mind that he could be involved in such heinous acts? Any clue that you were sharing your home with a madman?”
I’d thought about how I would answer that question for quite some time. I started to speak but coughed instead. I cleared my throat and said, “None. At worst I thought maybe he was having an affair, but that was only because he could seem distant, and I told myself that all husbands get that way sooner or later. The only times he was away from me for extended periods were for work. He had his room in the basement, and then his shed out behind our second house, but I never went in there and I never saw anything that would’ve led me to suspect he was … doing the things he was actually doing.”
“So his facade never cracked?”
The defense objected and said Turnbull was leading me. The judge suggested that Turnbull rephrase his question.
Turnbull shrugged. “I’ll withdraw it altogether, if that will make the defense happy. One final question, Nina, and a simple yes or no will suffice. Before the last weekend you and your husband were together as man and wife, the weekend he came home with Daphne Snyder’s blood on his clothes, did you ever consider the idea that he could’ve been a serial murderer?”
And it had never been easier to lie.
C
arolyn woke me at ten. I couldn’t believe I’d slept at all; the last time I remembered looking at the clock it had been close to four in the morning.
arolyn woke me at ten. I couldn’t believe I’d slept at all; the last time I remembered looking at the clock it had been close to four in the morning.
“Is he dead?” was my first question.
Carolyn shook her head. “No, but Duane’s on the phone and he wants you to listen while he gives me the update. Jeanine Dockery picked him up at the airport and they’ve been at it for a few hours now.”
Still wearing yesterday’s clothes, I took a capful of Listerine and swished as I followed her downstairs. She’d
moved her camp from the den into the kitchen to be closer to the coffeepot. I winced at the sun coming through the blinds as she pushed the speaker button on the phone. “Baby? She’s here now.”
moved her camp from the den into the kitchen to be closer to the coffeepot. I winced at the sun coming through the blinds as she pushed the speaker button on the phone. “Baby? She’s here now.”
“Nina. How are you holding up?” Duane was trying to sound fresh and engaged, but I could hear the lag in his voice as I leaned over the sink and spat. He must’ve gotten even less sleep than I’d had.
“What did you find out?”
“Well, Jeanine already had her brother’s notes sorted into what she believes, and I tend to agree, is roughly chronological order. He has a system all his own, so it’s difficult to tell. What we do know is that Mr. Dockery was indeed working on a book about Randy’s case. Apparently it’s stuck with him all these years, and he kept a file of clippings on Randy’s appeals and denials. He seems to feel that time has just about run out, and that once Randy is executed it’ll open up some legal hurdles that have impeded his writing the story. His first impulse was to search you out, because, and I’m quoting from some of his earliest notes here: ‘Without the ex-wife’s side of the story, it’s just another sordid PP, and the market for that is sat.’”
“‘PP’ is ‘police procedural’ and ‘sat’ is short for saturated,” came another voice over the line, this one gruff and terse, like a lifelong smoker who’d endured one too many lectures on her habits.
“That’s Jeanine,” Duane said.
“Thank you for your help,” I said.
“Find my brother.”
Duane promised her we’d do our best. “So Dockery was convinced that having Nina’s angle was the only way to tell the story. But he didn’t have much luck finding you.”
“That’s because he didn’t have us,” Carolyn said smartly, and immediately slapped a hand over her mouth. I knew what she was thinking: if they hadn’t been good enough to track me down, my son might not have been abducted. She put her other hand on my arm and I said, “Forget it.”
“So instead he went to see Randy. Apparently they had at least one face-to-face meeting, which we found on Dockery’s schedule and which I’ve confirmed with the authorities in California. Randy declined my request for an interview, by the way. Nina, he says he’ll talk to you.”
“Do you think he knows who took Hayden?”
“He still denies any involvement. I don’t know. He could be behind the whole thing, and he’s holding out to play it for kicks, wanting to torture you. He could really not know, but he’s going to try and leverage our interest into talking to you so he can indulge in whatever satisfaction he’ll get from hearing the emotion in your voice. Given his general profile, I’d say it’s a safe bet he’d get something out of that. The one thing I’m fairly certain of is that he won’t help us find Hayden.” Duane didn’t sound thoroughly convinced by any of his own theories, more like he was obliged to keep all options on the table even though he knew better.
“If there’s any chance it will help, I’ll talk to him.” Carolyn didn’t look comfortable with the prospect but I didn’t care. If Randy wanted some personal time to fuck with my head, it was a small price to pay for any clue that might help
me to get my son back. And I might have some choice words for him.
me to get my son back. And I might have some choice words for him.
“Carolyn, you’ve got the contact number for the prison. Call them when we’re done, if you still want to. But first hear me out, because I think we might have another lead worth following up. In the notes from his interview with Randy, Dockery says Randy advised him to search out a person named Carson Beckman. You guys remember him?”
Carolyn tapped on her computer, searching, knowing she’d heard the name before. But I didn’t need any reminding. “The only survivor of Randy’s attacks,” I said.
“Actually there were two. After Randy’s arrest, when his face was all over the TV, a woman named Patricia Lineberger positively identified Randy as a man who’d assaulted her fifteen years earlier. This was before he was known to have killed anyone, and the Fed profiler who later interviewed Randy thought it was his fledgling attempt. He tried to force her into his car when she was walking home from a bar near where he was living with his foster parents. She escaped, and it scared her badly enough that she filed a report. But Carson was a different matter. Randy killed the other three members of his family, in his next-to-last assault, a little less than a year before Nina turned him in. Carson was fourteen at the time, and he survived by hiding in a guest room.”
“I remember his testimony. It was one of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen,” I said, feeling the sweat pop out on my arms. “The defense team had him on the stand one of the only days I was in court. Poor kid.”
“My impression is that things didn’t improve very much for him later on,” Duane said. “Randy had suggested Dockery find Carson because, and let me quote from the notes here: ‘RRM felt they shared a common bond of ruined childhood. Spoke like CB was important to him.’ Dockery suggests that the two of them, victim and perpetrator, may even have been in contact after Randy was sentenced.”
Everything inside of me went still. “‘CB’? Wasn’t that the signature on the letters to Randy that the warden at San Quentin was concerned about?”
Carolyn was staring at me, her mouth open. “‘CB Taylor.’”
“Where’s Carson Beckman now?” I asked.
“We’re not sure. After the murders, his uncle on his father’s side became his legal guardian. Dockery has an appointment to see them listed on his calendar, and according to Jeanine the date was only a few weeks before his disappearance.”
“Two weeks to the day,” Jeanine confirmed from the background.
“I’ve been calling the uncle’s number off and on for the last half hour but I haven’t got an answer yet. I left a message. But I’m way ahead of you, and I called Matthews right before I called you guys.”
I was shaking my head. “Why would someone who’d been hurt by Randy … ? Why would they even want to talk to him in the first place?”
“We don’t know,” Duane said. “Look, there’s no use in my going to California if Randy isn’t willing to speak with me. But Beckman’s uncle lives not too far outside Chicago,
and Ms. Dockery has offered to drive me there this afternoon.”
and Ms. Dockery has offered to drive me there this afternoon.”
The cigarette voice came on again. “I tried to get in touch with them weeks ago, but they wouldn’t talk to me. I have the feeling that once they hear what’s happened with your boy, they might be more inclined.”
Carolyn told them to quit wasting time talking to us and get on the road.
T
he afternoon was excruciating. The police didn’t want me leaving the house, in case Hayden’s abductor attempted to contact me. Matthews called after we both had spoken to Duane and he cautioned us against premature conclusions. “Even if this Carson Beckman kid is involved somehow, apparently no one knows where he is. We were able to track him to an apartment where he was living up until this past November, but the property manager says he got evicted and we’ve got no current address. The most recent photo I’ve been able to find is from nearly eight years ago. He’s gone from an adolescent to an adult in that time, so he won’t look the same. Duane says he’s going to try and fax me a more recent photo if he can get one from the uncle.”
he afternoon was excruciating. The police didn’t want me leaving the house, in case Hayden’s abductor attempted to contact me. Matthews called after we both had spoken to Duane and he cautioned us against premature conclusions. “Even if this Carson Beckman kid is involved somehow, apparently no one knows where he is. We were able to track him to an apartment where he was living up until this past November, but the property manager says he got evicted and we’ve got no current address. The most recent photo I’ve been able to find is from nearly eight years ago. He’s gone from an adolescent to an adult in that time, so he won’t look the same. Duane says he’s going to try and fax me a more recent photo if he can get one from the uncle.”
Other than that, it was quiet. No phone calls, and no incoming e-mails to my computer or Carolyn’s. I paced and tried to eat. I only managed to get down half a sandwich. I kept seeing Hayden’s eyes as he passed beneath the camera
in the classroom hallway; so big and terrified, so helpless, pleading. And now he’d been missing for nearly twenty-four hours. In the company of a man who’d slashed Rachel Dutton’s throat. A man who’d adopted my husband’s habit of ocular perversion.
in the classroom hallway; so big and terrified, so helpless, pleading. And now he’d been missing for nearly twenty-four hours. In the company of a man who’d slashed Rachel Dutton’s throat. A man who’d adopted my husband’s habit of ocular perversion.
Carolyn tried to distract me. At first she talked trivialities, but heard the delusory tone of my responses, and moved on to possible scenarios. Carson could be the guy; Carson could be a sorry kid still wrecked from what had happened to his family; Carson could be dead himself. I stared out the window while she talked. A cop car was parked across the street, and every so often they’d come knock on the front door and ask how we were doing. I was torn between wanting to invite them in out of the cold and hating them for not finding Hayden. It was their job, and instead of being out there beating the bushes they were just sitting, waiting; it was driving me crazy.
I kept hoping that maybe this time they would actually do some good, getting Hayden’s picture out there, informing people, talking to possible witnesses. Or maybe someone would recognize the vehicle, spot Hayden’s abductor driving along, and call it in. Maybe by some miracle my child would be rescued by a lucky traffic cop and we would be getting the call any minute now.
S
omeone did see the vehicle. The police found it abandoned less than four blocks from Hayden’s school, in a parking garage near an office park. A review of surveillance cameras in the vicinity caught it passing by less than twenty
minutes after yesterday’s assault. The driver’s face wasn’t visible in any frame they’d so far been able to isolate. Matthews called us with the news only a moment before it came across as a bulletin running beneath the soap operas on Channel 41.
omeone did see the vehicle. The police found it abandoned less than four blocks from Hayden’s school, in a parking garage near an office park. A review of surveillance cameras in the vicinity caught it passing by less than twenty
minutes after yesterday’s assault. The driver’s face wasn’t visible in any frame they’d so far been able to isolate. Matthews called us with the news only a moment before it came across as a bulletin running beneath the soap operas on Channel 41.
“We assume he had another vehicle waiting. We’re interviewing people in the area but so far there’s nothing positive to report.” Matthews sounded tired and dejected. “Have you talked to your ex-husband yet?”
“I’m calling San Quentin the minute I get off the phone with you.”
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