Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir Read online

  "Well," she grinned, "it certainly isn't your two-inch dick."

  I laughed and asked, "Then, what?" In response, I believe I received the first honesty I had ever had from her as she ticked off a list of my attractions, confirming my suspicions on a number of points. As a foundation, of course, she said she had found me sexually attractive. Nothing would have transpired further without that. But she also believed I had added much more. She considered me an important buffer on the Tedesco investigation. She also considered a relationship with a reporter similar to an arranged marriage between neighboring kingdoms in the Middle Ages. She admitted she hadn't fully researched all the things I might do for her in my position. But she did know I had helped her get her first murder case and believed I could do more if persuaded over time.

  "We are ignoring a lot of opportunities," she said. "I know you will understand that if you just give me a little more time to show you."

  "Never going to happen," I said, shaking my head.

  "Gary, I also can't remember what I've told you or what you've seen. I can't trust you. I'm worried that you will betray me on something, and I need more time to remember all the things that have happened. All I remember is that through it all, we just kept on fucking."

  I laughed at what had become one of her catchphrases the last few weeks. I said, "A good title for the movie, huh? Through It All They Just Kept on Fucking? But as far as your fears of me, I can tell you there is nothing I know that can hurt you. I'm certain of it."

  She just shrugged, then continued with her list.

  "I know I'm going to get a new trial on the Tedesco estate, and I need to neutralize you somehow. I don't believe you could lie in court. It's just not your nature. If you're called as a witness, I am probably in trouble. So I felt I had to make you want to stay with me, so they would never call you to testify."

  "I don't know what I can do about that. You need to find a legal argument for making me irrelevant."

  "There's something else, too. I'm just humiliated by all of this. I'm terrified you'll be telling jokes, laughing at me behind my back. That's also your nature. But I have to work in that courthouse. I can't tolerate it. Seeing you there would be a daily embarrassment."

  "I can promise you that I will never talk about you like that. When I see you in the hall, I'll wink and say, 'Hi.' If anyone asks, I'll just say it didn't work out. I've never been one to kiss and tell."

  She scowled at that one, obviously recalling my taped statement for Special Crimes. Then she paid me the kind of compliment that only Catherine Mehaffey could offer, given her Law-of-the-Jungle world view.

  "I have been trying to think what kind of animal you are," she said, as I furrowed my brows. "At first, I thought you were a gazelle or a zebra, something to eat. But ever since you went to Special Crimes I've seen you as something else. You are a leopard. You perch on the branch of a tree, and everybody thinks you're asleep. But all the time, you are peeking out the corner of an eye, ready to pounce when the time is right. That's why I have to keep watching you."

  "How about we split with a stalemate?" I asked, wondering if she would understand my comparison of our relationship to a game of chess in which we just simply call it even and walk away. She did but shook her head.

  "We're not even," she said. "We won't be even until you go to Special Crimes and take back that tape."

  "Catherine, what else can I do? How can we end this? How does it end?"

  "When you went to Special Crimes, you entered the arena of death. It can only end one of two ways. You take it back. It cannot end until one of us is dead. What you have done to me is worse than anything by George Tedesco."

  I didn't know what else to say. So I stood up and left her sitting on the couch. I walked out the front door, climbed into my two-hundred-dollar car, and drove home to the house of Strong.

  FORTY-FOUR

  January 9, 1980

  A court hearing on Wednesday was scheduled to finalize my divorce from Cindy. In the weeks since Uncle Al had shot her telephone just before Thanksgiving, they had reconciled and she had hired her own attorney. She had assured me that she had Al under control. After discussions with my attorney, Fred Dailey, I decided there was little else I could do but accept the situation with an eye toward monitoring it closely. We had worked out reasonable terms for a fifty-fifty split of all property plus monthly child support payments of $465 to her. She agreed I could have that broken-down beach house. And she said she thought our real estate agent had found someone interested in our house. A sale there would net me about ten thousand dollars—more than enough to buy a new car. Of course, all of these discussions had occurred by telephone without Catherine's knowledge. Cindy cooperated with this clandestine process because she also feared Catherine's unpredictable nature. Catherine had insisted that such discussions should always occur only between the lawyers. She called it the smartest strategy for divorce cases, to prevent anger from disrupting a reasonable settlement. I laughed at the idea of Catherine offering anger management advice.

  So, there I stood with Cindy before the judge that morning about nine-thirty, as he reviewed the documents outlining our settlement. He asked if there was anything else to mention.

  "I let her collect two hundred dollars in rent from the tenant in our garage apartment," I said while Cindy nodded and the judge looked up.

  "You did what?" screamed a voice from the back of the courtroom. We all twirled around to see Catherine standing behind the last row of benches with fire in her eyes. "You gave that bitch two hundred dollars and you never gave me a dime."

  Fred leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Is she drunk?"

  Cindy left her lawyer's side, walked toward me, and said through clenched teeth: "Get her out of here."

  I looked at Fred and then at Cindy and I said, "If I had the power to get her out of here, believe me, I would send her a lot further than the hallway."

  Under normal circumstances, our judge might have asked Catherine to leave. In another testament to her reputation for disruption, however, he decided he wanted nothing more to do with any of us and declared a fifteen minute recess, vanishing instantly into his chambers with robes whipping around his back. Fred motioned for me to follow him into the hall, where Catherine also had gone after realizing she had suffered another of her uncontrolled outbursts. She paced along one side of the hall, obviously upset and trying to figure her next move. As soon as she saw us, she directed advice at Fred.

  "Why don't you take better care of him? He needs a real lawyer."

  I just looked at her and said, "Please leave." Then I motioned Fred past her, down the hall, and into the men's room.

  "I can't believe she won't come in here, too," said Fred. "This is bad. Can't you do anything to get rid of her?"

  "Why doesn't that fucking judge lock her up? What can I do? Isn't she in contempt of court or something?"

  "That's not going to happen. These family court judges never deal with people like her."

  "Divorce court? They've never heard idiots get mad and scream?"

  "Ahh, they ignore it. Criminal judges aren't cowed because they send people to jail all the time. Divorce judges hear a lot of anger, but they consider it the heat of the moment that will pass. Best thing is to see what we can do, now. We may have to reschedule this thing. But you have a good settlement on this case, and you shouldn't risk pissing Cindy off any more."

  "Fred," I said, "fuck! I'm lost here. If Catherine starts following me everywhere, I don't know what I can do. She is fucking crazy, you know."

  He shrugged his shoulders, reminding me he could do nothing himself and left the bathroom. I followed him and saw Catherine still hanging around in the hall. I walked over to her and asked, "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I'm leaving now," she said, and started fumbling around in her purse. She was crying and started mumbling. "I'm sorry, Gary. That was out of line. I'm just so upset. I don't know what I'm doing. I had to be here. I had to come and see, make
sure you get divorced. And then, I just lost it. Now I can't find my car keys."

  "Huh?"

  "I can't leave without my car keys."

  "I don't have them. How would I have them?"

  She continued to root around in her purse while I looked around the hallway. Over by the courtroom's double doors, Fred stood chatting with Cindy and her lawyer. All three of them glanced at me, waiting for Catherine to leave.

  "Can I borrow your car?" Catherine asked, still looking in her purse. "I know I have those keys somewhere."

  This did not make sense, I knew. How had she gotten over here? If she walked from her office, why did she need her keys to get back? What is she trying to pull?

  "You want to drive my car? The two-hundred-dollar Vega?"

  "Give me your keys, and I'll give them back tonight. Meet me at the Cellar Door for drinks after work. Please, just do this for me, and I will leave now. Is it parked in the press space by the criminal court building like always?"

  I paused and looked at her while trying to gather my thoughts. I could not think of anything she might do to that car that would hurt me. Kill a pedestrian? She'd be the driver. One of the rules of my life had been to never loan my car to anyone unless my life depended on it. I often had joked, "If Jesus wants my car to attend the second coming, he'll have to provide proof on the first one." I could not recall a time I ever had loaned any car of mine to anyone. But I looked over my shoulder at Cindy and the lawyers, where Fred stood drumming his fingers on the side of a wooden bench and Cindy scowled.

  "What the hell?" I said, reaching into my pocket, taking the car key from the latch that also held my door key, and handing it to Catherine. "I'm getting this back tonight at the Cellar Door?"

  She nodded and headed for the elevator as I walked back toward Cindy.

  "I had to loan her my car to get rid of her," I said.

  Cindy started laughing and said, "Mehaffey is driving your car? I'd like to see that."

  "I'm glad you get a kick out of that. I hope it comes back in one piece."

  "Oh," Cindy continued, "did she promise to take it to a garage and get it into one piece for you?"

  "So what are we doing?" I said, changing the subject but glad to see Cindy in a spunky mood. I grinned at the quick recollection of good times in our life together.

  "That judge is done for the day," said Fred. He looked at all of us and asked, "Do we still have a settlement?" When we nodded, he said, "I'll schedule a new date." Then he looked at me and asked, "Should we keep it a secret, off the docket? I can arrange that, I think, if everyone agrees."

  "I'm sorry about all this," I said, shaking my head. "I don't know what to do."

  "Keep it off the docket," said Cindy. "Let's get this out of the way. Gary will figure something out with her. He always does."

  Sure, I thought. And monkeys will descend from heaven with bags of money for everyone on earth.

  FORTY-FIVE

  January 9, 1980

  Promptly at five-thirty I walked into the Cellar Door, a restaurant and bar located then in one of the Shell Oil company buildings a few blocks from the courthouse. It had been one of our regular haunts during the past few weeks, and the waitresses knew us by name. I found Catherine at a table with two male attorneys waiting for me. The weeping, helpless waif of the morning had transformed into the life of the party and she cackled, "Hello," as I entered the dimly lit barroom. I had every intention of just taking my key and getting out of there, but her two companions insisted I sit and have a drink with them.

  "I hear today was your big day," said one of them, laughing.

  "I guess so," I said. "Divorce court. You know the routine."

  "Well congratulations," he said, turning to a waitress who spotted me and mouthed "scotch and water?" I nodded and she went to get it while the lawyer yelled, "Put that one on me. It's not every day you get divorced."

  "So we all want to hear about it," said Catherine, lifting her glass to her lips.

  "Do you have my key?"

  "Oh," she said, "sure. You know what? I found my keys right in my purse. I don't know what I was thinking. Let me find yours now."

  She started rooting around in her purse again as our waitress brought my drink.

  "Here's to your freedom, eh?" said the lawyer, lifting his glass in a toast to me. I really wasn't in the mood for this phony celebration, but I tried to be civil.

  "Well, I can't be too free without my car key," I said, glancing at Catherine as she continued searching her purse. The lawyer looked confused so I added, "Catherine borrowed my car. Now she can't find my key."

  "I don't believe this," Catherine muttered. "I really can't find your key. I'm not kidding. Where is it?"

  "Ahhh, shit," I muttered. "I don't believe this."

  "Don't panic," Catherine said. "We'll find it. Just give me a chance."

  I made small talk with one of the lawyers about his latest case, and we shared some gossip on a judge. He bought another round of drinks and then another. Meanwhile, Catherine still couldn't locate my key. By seven I decided I had to leave anyway. I stood up and said my goodbyes.

  "How can you leave without your key?" Catherine asked.

  "I can get a spare," I said. "I know where one is."

  "And where is that?"

  "Over at Cindy's."

  That triggered the Medusa stare.

  "I can drive you over there if it isn't very far," said the lawyer who had bought the drinks.

  "The fuck you will," she said. Looking at me, she ordered, "You sit here and wait for me. I'll go over there and get it."

  Our faux-celebratory mood wilted as suddenly as if someone had opened the tent flap at an Arctic campsite and welcomed a blast of frigid air. The two other lawyers stood moot and watched the confrontation unfold.

  "You don't know where she lives," I challenged.

  "Wanna bet?" Catherine said, rising as if to leave. I was still standing, and I moved to block her path.

  "Catherine," I said, "if you leave this bar, I am going to call Cindy and tell her to call the cops."

  The lawyer who had bought the drinks looked at his watch and said, "You know, I think I need to head on home." Then both of them stood and walked away leaving Catherine and me to stare at each other.

  "C'mon, Gary," she finally said. "It's my fault I lost them. What am I going to do? Get her down and beat her up?"

  "I'm going to make that call anyway," I said, moving away from the table. Catherine responded by reaching out and grabbing my necktie. She pulled me back to the table. I realized I was in another position where I might have to use physical force to just get away. I looked around the bar where patrons at other tables had turned to watch the show.

  "Don't do this," I told her.

  "You…will…not….call…her," Catherine ordered in a growling staccato.

  "You…will…not…go…there," I replied, aping her tone.

  She looked around the bar, finally aware that others were watching her provoke this confrontation. She released my tie.

  "OK, OK," she said. "Don't worry about your precious Cindy. You know what? I bet that key is up in my office. Why don't we walk over there and look around."

  It already had gotten dark outside. I was sure there would be no one inside her building, unless the cleaning service had not finished its rounds. But it looked like she had me cornered again. Cindy was my only other option, and I was determined to keep her and others out of this final round of battle with Catherine as much as possible. Besides, I would have to take a cab to retrieve my extra key from Cindy. I thought about just calling Strong and asking him to go fetch it. But then, I decided it all sounded like a lot of trouble just to avoid another private meeting with Catherine. I was beaten and worn out. I had just about reached a point where I wanted to say, "Bring it on, bitch! Do whatever you want, and let's see if you can get away with it!" I was ready to call her bluff and see if she really could back up all those threats about the arena of death.

&n
bsp;