The Stranger Beside Me (38 page)

256 THE STRANGER BESIDE ME

Under the Student Forum Advice Column:

Dear Freddie-I'd like to open a light fixture company in town. How should I go about it?

Bundy

Dear Ted-Wait until the reward gets bigger.... then call me. And, beneath a picture of an old car, the question in the Snap Quiz of the Month:

What celebrity drove this car to Aspen?

A. Marlon Brando

B. Jack Nicholson

C. Linda Ronstadt

D. John Denver

E. Theodore Bundy Answer: Theodore Bundy.

It was all hilarious-and frustrating for law enforcement. There would be no trial in January now. Ted had tried the unthinkable, and won. 29

Back in Seattle, I read the newspaper accounts of Ted's second escape incredulously; I had detected no hints at all that he planned to bolt and run when we'd talked earlier on December 30th. But, of course, I would probably have been the last person he would telegraph his thoughts to. I was too close to the police. And yet, he'd wanted to say goodbye. I studied a map of the United States. If I were Ted, where would / go?

To a big city, certainly, and then where? Would he bury himself in a sea of faces in a metropolis, or would he try to cross national borders?

He had asked for my address in Los Angeles. I felt a vague stirring of unease. Los Angeles was a big city indeed, and only 120 miles from the Mexican

border.

The FBI came to the same conclusion. Ray Mathis, in charge of public information for the Seattle office of the FBI, and an old friend-a man I had once introduced Ted to at a Christmas party-called and asked for my address in Los Angeles. He wanted to know when I would be flying down to

California.

I had planned to leave on January 4th, but my car had been struck from behind by a drunk driver. It had almost totaled the first new car I'd ever had and had left me with a severe whiplash. I put ofi my flight until January 6th.

Ray gave me the names of two agents in charge of the Fugitive Unit in the Los Angeles FBI office. "Call them the minute you get off the plane. They'll be in touch with you, watching you. We don't know where he is-but he may try to contact you there." *•

All of it was Areal. Only a few years before, I had been-if there is such a creature-a typical housewife, a Brownie leader. Now, I was off to Hollywood to write a movie, with the FBI waiting for me. I felt as if I belonged in an episode of "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman."

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THE STRANGER BESIDE ME

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The two FBI agents met me as I arrived at my new apartment in West Hollywood. They checked the double locks on the door and found them sound, satisfied themselves that my third floor apartment was not accessible from the ground; any intruder would have to shinny up reed-thin bamboo trees.

"Do you think he'll call you?"

"I don't know," I said. "He has my address and my phone number."

"If he does, don't let him come here. Arrange to meet him some place public, a restaurant. Then call us. We'll be in disguise at another table."

I had to smile. The ghost of J. Edgar Hoover still prevailed: I had always found that FBI agents looked exactly like FBI agents, and I commented on my impression. They were chagrinned and assured me that they were "masters of disguise." If I doubted their expertise at disguise, I did appreciate their concern, however.

I have often been grateful that Ted did not run in my direction. I was saved a scene I could only imagine. All writers have a sense of the dramatic, but I couldn't quite see Ann Rule from the little town of Des Moines, Washington in the midst of an arrest of one of the country's Ten-MostWanted criminals-that "criminal" an old friend. Joyce Johnson, who was to be a faithful-if sometimes needling-correspondent during my sojourn in Hollywood wrote, Dear Ann,

Just to let you know that Fm protecting your interests here in the police department. I told Captain Leitch that you are hiding Ted in your apartment, and is he mad!

1 He says you'll never get another story, but he really likes the new guy who's writing crime stories, and lets him see

! all the files. If you and Ted go to Mexico, send me a postcard.

Love, Joyce

The weeks ahead were uncomfortable, but not frightening. I had no fear of Ted Bundy. Even if he was what he was said to be-a mass murderer-I still felt he would never harm me, but neither could I help him in his escape. That was something I just couldn't do.

When I returned to my apartment complex each night, I parked my rental car in the dark underground garage, traversed its length, and emerged among the lush flowering shrubbery that threatened to overgrow the swimming pool. Shadows were everywhere, and the last stretch of sidewalk before I came to my building in the rear of the complex was pitch dark; the lights had burned out. I sprinted for the door, pushed the elevator button, made sure no one was inside the self-operated lift, and ran from there to the door of my

apartment.

Actually, I was more leery of some of the peculiar occupants of my building than I was of bumping into Ted. He was a known quality to me; they were not. My only fear as far as Ted was concerned was that I didn't want to have to

face turning him in.

I needn't have worried. On the night I arrived at the Los Angeles airport on January 6th, Ted was pulling out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, my girlhood home, in a stolen car, headed for Tallahassee, Florida. By the time Marty Davidson and I began work on our script in earnest, Ted was comfortably ensconced in the Oak in Tallahassee, calling himself Chris Hagen. If he thought of me at all, it was only in passing. I was part of the other world, the world left behind forever. Living in his shabby room, Ted was as happy and contented as he'd been in years. Just to open his eyes in the morning and see the old wood door, paint peeling and scarred, instead of a solid steel door, was glorious. At first, simply freedom itself was enough. He was around people, part of a college group, a group he had always found healthy and exciting.

He had meant to be completely and utterly law abiding, to get by without a car, without even a bicycle. He had meant to get a job-construction work preferably, but maybe even as a janitor. He wasn't in as good physical shape as he'd been most of his life; the months in jail had caused his taut muscle tone to waste aws^, despite the pacing he'd done in his cell, despite the push-ups and sit-ups he'd made himself do faithfully. And then, rjs was drastically underweight; he'd had to starve himself so he could get through the hole in the ceiling. It would take awhile to build up again.

He had gone through the records of graduates of Florida State University and decided that a graduate student named Kenneth Misner, a track star, would be the first man he'd be.

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He researched Misner's family, his home town. He had an I.D. card made up in Misner's name, but he didn't want to use it yet; he needed a driver's license, other I.D. After he had all the verification that he needed to prove he was Kenneth Misner, then he would develop two or three more sets of I.D.-American first, and then Canadian. But he mustn't hurry if, there was time now, all the time in the world. His days were simple; he arose at six and bought a small breakfast at the cafeteria on campus, skipped lunch, and had a hamburger for supper. In the evening, he walked to the store and bought a quart of beer, took it back to his room and drank it slowly. God! Freedom was so sweet; there was such pleasure in the simplest things.

He thought a lot about jail as he sipped the beer, smiling to himself as he went over the escape again and again. It had worked far better than he himself could have imagined. They had never understood what he was capable of. They'd been so grim and self-righteous about those damnable leg irons, irons they'd chained to the floor of their police cars. Hell, he'd had keys for those leg irons all along, made for him by a cellmate. He could have unlocked them at any time, but what good would it have done? Why should he jump out of a moving police car in the winter mountains when he could go through the ceiling any time he chose and get a fourteen-tosixteen-hour headstart on the bastards?

He knew he should be working harder at finding a job, but he'd never been much of a job hunter. The days melted into each other, and it was all so good.

He knew he was acquisitive-that "things" meant a lot to him. He'd had his apartment in Salt Lake City exactly as he wanted it, and the damned cops had taken it all away from him. Now he wanted some things to brighten up his world again. He'd passed the bicycle several times on his way to the store. It was a Raleigh; he'd always been partial to Raleighs. They had a good, strong frame, but whoever owned this one apparently didn't give a damn about it. The tires were flat, and the rims had rusted. He took it, fixed the tires, polished up the rims. Riding it felt great. He'd ride it to the store to buy milk, and nobody ever looked twice at him.

There were other things he took, things he needed, things anybody needed if they were going to live like human beings: towels, cologne, a television set, racquet-ball racquets, and balls. Now he could play on the courts at F.S.U.

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In the evenings, he mostly stayed in his room, watching television, finishing off the beer. He tried to be in bed by 10:00 P.M. Stealing those things he needed seemed O.K. It was like going to the supermarket and slipping a can of sardines into his pocket to have for supper. He had to steal if he wanted to have anything; the $60 left after he'd paid his deposit was melting away, no matter how spartan he tried to keep his meals.

Friends were one thing he really couldn't afford. There was an unemployed rock band living down the hall, and he chatted with them occasionally, but he couldn't get really close to anyone in the Oak. As far as a girlfriend, that was impossible. He had no past; he might only get attached to someone and then have to disappear. How could he approach a woman when he-Chris Hagen-Ken Misner-who-knowswho-else-had only been

"born" a week before?

With each day that passed, he berated himself because he wasn't actively looking for work. If he didn't have a job, there'd be no paychecks, and how was he going to explain that to the landlord of the Oak on February 8th when the $320 came due?

Still, he couldn't seem to make himself move on the job. It was too great just to be able to play ball, ride his bike, go to the library, watch TV, feel part of the human race again.

His room was becoming better furnished all the time; it was so easy to pick things up. And then it was so easy to slip women-shoppers' wallets out of their purses left in shopping carts. Credit cards. Credit cards would buy anything; he just 'had to remember to keep changing them before they were reported as stolen.

The world owed Ted Bundy. It had taken everything he had away from him, and now he was just making up for those stolen years, those years of humiliation and deprivation.

He was trained to take short cuts. Maybe that's why he couldn't bring himself to take buses when it was so easy to steal a car. He never kept them long. Later, he wouldn't even be able to count tiow many cars he'd stolen during the six weeks he spent as a free man in Florida. There was one he'd picked up in the Mormon Church parking lot. He had only driven it a few blocks before he realized the thing didn't have any brakes. He'd kill himself if he tried to drive that one. He dumped it in another churchyard.

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And thief that he was, he had ethics. There was one little Volkswagen that he picked up, and realized at once that it must belong to some young girl. It was old and had a couple hundred thousand miles on it, but she'd had it souped up and polished and reupholstered. It was clearly somebody's pride and joy and he couldn't steal it. He made it a point never to steal from someone who couldn't afford it. If the car was new, and loaded with fancy extras, that told him that the owner could afford to lose it. But the little Volkswagen, he couldn't steal that one; he parked it a few blocks from where he'd taken it.

And so the days passed in Tallahassee-warm, almost dreamy days, and chilly nights when he was safe in his room, watching television, planning for the future, a future he could not quite manage to get running smoothly.

With the Florida metamorphosis, his appearance changed once again. Where he had been gaunt and skinny, the milk, beer, and junk food now began to add pounds; his face took on a rounded look. There was a hint of jowls around his chin. His body, trapped for so long in the confines of a cell, built up muscle from the bikeriding and racquet ball. He kept his hair short, and combed flat to discourage waves and curls. He'd always had the pronounced dark mole on the left side of his neck-one reason he'd worn turtlenecks almost exclusively-but none of the wanted posters mentioned it; perhaps no one had noticed it. Now, he penciled in a fake mole on his left cheek, started a real moustache. Other than that, he made no effort to disguise himself. He knew that he had been blessed with features that seemed to change imperceptibly through no will of his own, always attractive, but somehow anonymous. He would capitalize on it.

The one thing that ate at him was that he had no one to talk to, no one at all, beyond an occasional "How ya doin?" exchanged with the band guys down the hall, a few meaningless words with a pretty girl who also lived at the Oak. Before, although he had never been in a position to and never really wanted to bare his soul, there had always been someone to talk to, even if it meant the rhetoric of the courtroom, jokes with his jailers. And there had been letters to write. Now, there was no one. He had to savor what he had accomplished inside his own head, and the loneliness took much of the joy out of it. Theodore Robert Bundy had achieved a measure of fame back in the West; in Florida, he was no-

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body. There were no reporters fighting for interviews, no news cameras trained on him. He had heen "on stage"-admittedly in a negative way-but he had been someone to reckon with.