Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir Read online

  I found her engaging and charming—in a brutally dark sort of way. I had trouble believing many of her comments were on the level. As she joked about the Tedesco matter, I kept thinking, She must be kidding! She's testing my limits. I developed a quick fascination for her sick brand of humor and realized it only reflected my own. I wondered, It's so bad I enjoy this, something must be wrong with me. Then I reminded myself, That's right. Something is wrong with me. I better just face the fact that maybe we were meant for each other. Ironically, I didn't really find her all that physically gorgeous as some others had said and under other circumstances might have passed on a fling. By then, however, the game had begun. Besides, I was horny.

  She confronted the Tedesco issues head on, voluntarily denying any involvement in his murder without even being asked. She portrayed herself as an isolated victim of a male-dominated, bullying legal system—presenting an image guaranteed to attract a crusading reporter dedicated to afflicting the comfortable while comforting the afflicted. Her theory had some merit. Back then, lady lawyers were still fairly rare and female criminal practitioners almost nonexistent. Yet there she worked, banging around the courthouse like one of the guys, seeking court appointments, and getting her hands dirty in the very bowels of the machine. I knew she had been working the lower level county court circuit, paying her dues in the trenches, and I respected that. She made a passionate case for being a turf-war target of the district attorney's office, as a woman doing battle in an arena reserved for men.

  I also found her professional attitude appealing. Regardless of what anyone might say about her, she convinced me immediately she was serious about becoming a top criminal lawyer. In the back of her mind, she already had begun to formulate a plan for us, and my mental alarm signal began to ring as she hinted about it then.

  "I think we've both stumbled across each other at the lowest points in our lives," she said, looking over her shoulder to check again for Tedesco detectives. "We should help each other out."

  For someone who should have been guarding her comments, Catherine gushed revelations. She blamed her Irish temper for most of her problems and vowed to keep it under control. She said one of her grandfathers had come to America after killing a cop. She bragged about her role as the defender of her brothers, claiming as a child to have beaten up a boy who had bullied one of them. She told me about her marriage to a Navy man and life in Japan. I noticed a theme. In Catherine's relationships, she had always seen herself as both the provider and protector.

  When Billy Joel's Only the Good Die Young began to play, she raised the volume and told me that song could be her anthem. I listened to some of the words in that ballad about the liberation of a secluded Catholic girl. He sang: "You heard I run with a dangerous crowd, we're not too pretty and not too proud. We might be laughing a bit too loud, but that never hurt no one. Because only the good die young." And, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints." I noted my age of thirty-two and wondered if I still had time to die young.

  As if it were something very important, she declared red as her favorite color, citing her blouse and the car we drove. She said she had wanted to wear red to the probate trial but her lawyer stopped her. Just as I sarcastically wondered why, she returned to Tedesco and unleashed a torrent of complaints about him and the Special Crimes division of the district attorney's office, investigating the case with a focus on her. She mimicked one of her lawyer friends who had called the family's crime stoppers hotline claiming to be a Greek sea captain with inside information on the murder and demanding a reward. She laughed about the scene at his townhome when she scaled a fence to get at his pre-Columbian art from South America—artwork she believed belonged rightfully to her. Tedesco had been involved in all sorts of criminal activity, she said, from smuggling art to running drugs. He had hundreds of enemies who wanted him dead. So, why did the cops focus on her? she asked.

  "And who are these special guys from special crimes?" she asked rhetorically. "I guess that's the gang that goes after lawyers. They broke up my relationship with Officer Joe, snatched him up from the middle of the street where he was directing traffic, and told him to forget about me. They'll be talking to you, too, when they find out about this."

  I laughed at that. I told her what I knew about the unit. I covered their activities and talked to the prosecutors there on a daily basis. I had no fear of Special Crimes. It had been formed a few years before as part of a trend sweeping the legal law enforcement landscape. It worked closely with the police to help them investigate complicated cases that ranged from public corruption to embezzlement. Only the top prosecutors could join the squad, and they controlled their own team of police detectives assigned specifically to Special Crimes.

  "Hey," I said, "you should feel honored to be a target."

  She growled a little and then laughed.

  "This is a nice ride," she said, checking the rear window one more time. "I'm really starting to relax. But promise me one thing. Believe me when I tell you I had nothing to do with the murder of George Tedesco. Give me a chance."

  "Catherine," I said, as we drove over the causeway above Galveston Bay and onto the island, "everybody starts with a clean slate from me."

  TWENTY-FIVE

  October 15, 1979

  Catherine needed less than thirty minutes to start scribbling furiously across that clean slate I had just handed her. That's how long it took to drive to the crummy joint where my tenant worked tending bar, walk inside, get a beer, and begin a discussion about paying the rent. I had long before given up any hopes of ever getting those rent payments by mail. Every time Cindy or I had called, he'd said he just dropped it in the box. After a week with no arrival he'd complain it was lost and send it again. Finally, I realized the only way to collect would be to just show up and confront him.

  "Wow," said Catherine as we walked into that dive, which was little more than an old house trailer with a hand painted sign that read Pirates Cove, a couple of tables, and a makeshift bar. "If your tenant works in this place, your beach house must be one of the bargain estates down here. We need to hang out here for a couple of hours. I bet I can find some clients in the Pirates Cove."

  "Yeah, the beach house is quite a shithole," I told her. "It's so bad, Cindy just told me to take it. She didn't want to fuck with it any more."

  My tenant feigned a welcoming smile, set a couple of beers on the counter, and assured me there had been no need for my trip all the way to Galveston.

  "I could have just put a money order in the mail."

  "No problem," I said. "I enjoyed the drive. Say hello to my friend, Catherine."

  She took a sip of Miller Lite and watched him begin to wiggle.

  "So," I said. "That must mean you have the money ready, eh?"

  "Well, I have it. But I really need to keep half and pay you later. I have a little cash flow problem right now…"

  "You know, I came all the way down here and I'd rather not make the trip again. Is there some way you can pay it now? It was overdue on the 10th."

  "I know. But if you'd just waited and given me another week you could get it all. I'm really going to need some of this…"

  "All right, give me a couple hundred, and we'll figure the rest of it later."

  When he laid two one-hundred-dollar bills on the bar and turned to walk away, Catherine couldn't stand it any longer. She slammed her bottle down on the counter and yelled at him.

  "Hey," she screamed. "What are you doing? You have the money, you owe the money, you need to pay him now."

  As he turned slowly around to face us again, she turned to me and said, "He has the money, he gives you the money. Don't let him walk on you like that."

  "Who the fuck did you say this is?" he asked, hitching a thumb in her direction. "What happened to your wife?"

  I just stared at him and then looked at her, thinking how they had just teamed up to chop off one of my balls. I deemed her correct in principle, but I had to question the tactic. I k
new I had surrendered to him too easily, but I just didn't want to fight about it. I also knew I had no business pretending to be a landlord. Before I could say anything more, however, Catherine accepted his challenge.

  "Who am I?" she snarled. "I am his attorney. And if you don't slap the rest of the money on the bar in the next ten seconds your ass will be in court tomorrow answering an eviction petition."

  I started shaking my head, while he stroked his chin. Finally, he asked, "Is she handling your divorce, too?"

  This would not be the last time I would get to watch her transform a complete stranger into a seething, enraged enemy. She employed more than the words. She had a true talent for confrontation and a need to antagonize repeatedly. She had wanted much more than for him to pay his rent. She wanted to threaten him and see how much he would take. Her words carried an edge and her green eyes flashed menace as she stared him into backing away. Then, he reached into his back pocket and withdrew two more large bills.

  "Forget it," I told him before he could put them on the counter. I figured I had to seize the upper hand, or I'd lose my other ball before we'd even had sex. "It's all right. You can pay it later. Ignore her."

  Then I received what I would come to recognize as her special, flashing Medusa stare—a look that insinuated I might not really be a man. It was so ugly I figured our date was over. I just grinned and took a swig of my beer while he walked away. She said nothing else and took a long drink from her bottle, too. I thought she was going to speak again when we got up to leave, and I started to pay for those beers. But he derailed another confrontation by saying, "Don't worry about that. They're on me."

  As soon as we walked outside toward her car, Catherine turned to me, and I expected her to order us back to Houston immediately or bitch me out some more for letting him stiff me on the rent. Instead, however, I saw yet another side. As simple as flipping a page, her fury had dissolved to atonement.

  "I am so sorry," she moaned, sounding totally sincere. "I was out of line in there. I just don't know what happens to me, why I act like that. I just hate to see anybody taking advantage like that. You are obviously just a really nice guy, and he turned that inside out."

  "Don't worry about it," I said, grabbing her arms and pulling her to my chest. "You were right. I shouldn't have let him wiggle out of the rent. But it was still my problem and not yours. It's no big deal. I'll get it eventually."

  "I know, I know. I just can't understand it. I'm really sorry. I wouldn't blame you if you throw me in the gutter now and run back to your wife."

  She batted her eyes and grinned.

  "But I will tell you one thing I believe," she continued. "There are two kinds of people in this world. Predators and prey. You need to decide which one you will be. You either kill or get eaten."

  "I'm a reporter. I just sit on the sidelines and watch. Your world sounds too much like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom for me."

  "Nobody stays on the sidelines. Sooner or later you'll have to decide. And the sooner you do, the quicker you can get on with your life."

  Then she grinned and took another tack. She put her hand on my crotch and asked, "Wild Kingdom? Isn't that the show where the animals are always thinking with this?"

  Her anger had waned, and we had a pleasant seaside meal at a little restaurant near Galveston's West Beach, where my rent house was located. She was laughing again, and the sexual tension increased over a bottle of wine. Beyond the physical aspects that attracted us, I became aware of something else in the air. I felt that indefinable element each of us probably feels only a time or two in our lives if we are fortunate. Maybe it's pheromones. We were clicking. Conversation was simple, laughter automatic. We might disagree about the most effective way to collect the rent, but nothing would keep our bodies apart.

  I suggested a walk in the dark on the beach, and she agreed. Thanks to the state's open beaches law I could just drive onto the beach and park her car. We hadn't walked a hundred yards from the Cougar before we started groping each other in a frenzy of lust. Completely uninhibited, she fell to the sand and unzipped her jeans while I opened my trousers. Our positioning was restricted with our pants lowered just to our knees, but neither of us could wait. We were on the verge of consummating this first date when, suddenly, we were bathed in lights from a car that had stopped beside the Cougar. I raised my head to look.

  "Ahh, shit," I muttered, as I saw a lone figure with a flashlight making his way across the sand in our direction. From the look on Catherine's face, I realized she feared an ambush by the Tedesco family, and I had to wonder myself. Then I heard the intruder's voice.

  "Are you two all right? I'm with the beach patrol."

  "The cops are here," I whispered and did not know whether to feel relief or added worry. We had to have been breaking some kind of law. I hoped they had a simple system for ticketing copulators on the beach. I stood up and buttoned my trousers as the uniformed intruder moved close enough that we could see.

  "Have some I.D.?" he asked.

  I pulled my wallet from my back pants-pocket and withdrew my press card, a trick I often used to intimidate when asked for I.D. As I presented it, I mumbled, "I'm a reporter."

  He read the card, shined a flashlight in my face, and grinned. Then, he said, "If you're down here to cover the sand castle contest, you're about six months too early."

  "Funny," I said. "That is funny."

  Catherine stepped into the light with her jeans back in place and handed him her business card.

  "I'm an attorney," she said. "Were we doing something wrong?"

  He grunted while reading her card. Then he said, "Miss Mehaffey? Hmmm, a reporter and a lawyer out for a walk on the beach. Nice night for that. But you might want to be careful. There are some dangerous people around here."

  Catherine looked at me, feigning horror, and said, "You didn't tell me about the dangerous people down here."

  "Dangerous people?" I asked, wondering if he knew he actually might be looking at the most dangerous person he'd ever seen right then and there. But I kept that thought to myself.

  "I just don't want anybody getting hurt out here on my beach," he said, handing back our cards.

  "We were just getting ready to go back to Houston," I said. "It's been a long night, you know. I have a beach house down here and I had to collect the rent, then we got something to eat…"

  By then, he had turned around and headed back to his patrol vehicle. Catherine started chuckling and mimicked in a whisper, "I'm a reporter, I'm a reporter. I have a beach house, we got something to eat. When is the sand castle contest? And, did you know? I AM A REPORTER!"

  "I hope that didn't spoil the evening," I said as we walked back to her car.

  "We're just getting started," she said. "Don't forget, we still have some laundry to do."

  Then, she added a comment that gave me pause: "Besides, I left my diaphragm at home."

  TWENTY-SIX

  October 16, 1979

  "Look at this. Now that's what I'd call a handsome couple."

  Catherine was giggling as she said it while we stood side-by-side in her bathroom, looking in the mirror the next morning. By my calculation we had logged about two hours of sleep after returning to her house, running some laundry, and having sex in her bedroom for most of the night. Between humps, we had swapped stories about mutual acquaintances at the courthouse, and she was proving to be a gossip's goldmine. Gossip for a beat reporter often leads to stories, and she seemed to have the dirt on every judge and lawyer over there. Listening to her, I felt like I had crawled under the chassis of the courthouse machine for a real close look at its filthiest section.

  Joking about her diaphragm and the challenge of birth control, she had teased at one point asking, "What would happen if we conceived a child, Gary? What would Special Crimes say about that?"

  "Wouldn't be allowed. Couldn't have that."

  "Why not?"