Gone Forever

by Diane Fanning

  Finally, Susan asked where Sue’s body was located. Christine was vague, but said that Sue kept telling her it was twenty-five minutes or twenty-five miles from where Rick was located. When investigators found Sue’s body, it was 15.2 miles from 351 Arcadia Place—a twenty-five-minute drive.

  On January 3, Sergeant Palmer called Margot Cromack on her cell phone and left a message when he got no answer. At 5:50 P.M., surveillance reported that Rick arrived at the Cromack house. Five minutes later, Margot returned Palmer’s call.

  The background noises prompted Palmer to believe she was either outside or in a car. He asked her if she was alone. She assured him that she was. As he continued his conversation, Palmer sent Sergeant Wedding over to drive by the Cromack home. In a couple of minutes, Wedding was there. He spotted Margot on the porch near her front door. Standing close to her—leaning in and listening to the conversation—was Rick McFarland.

  Wedding relayed the information to Palmer. Interesting, Palmer thought.

  Rick continued to bug Susan Schooling about caring for his boys after school. “I have to get a job. I have to bring some income in now that she’s gone.”

  Susan said she would think about it, hoping he would drop it. But he didn’t. After giving it more thought, she knew she could not bear to spend every day in the house where Sue died. She could not tolerate being around the man who killed her. She loathed the idea of being paid by him. The thought sickened her. She told Rick that she could not do it because it conflicted with her class schedule.

  Rick, as usual, did not take no for an answer. And Susan’s distress escalated. Her father Mike intervened, writing a note to Rick that read, “I don’t think it would be a good idea under the circumstances. I think you should get someone else.” He dropped the note in the McFarland mailbox.

  Rick came out right away, read it quickly and chased after Mike Schooling. Rick followed Mike into the house and confronted Susan. “My mom is gone now. And I thought you’d take care of them. I am so pissed. Now what am I going to do?”

  Susan, Charlene and Mike cited the class scheduling problem again and again. Rick kept blaming them for his problems. Then he blurted out: “Now that I’ve been named the prime suspect, are you thinking I’m going to get a chain saw and chop you all up?”

  The Schoolings had no response for that outburst. But it sure gave them something to ponder.

  Sue’s family called a hiatus in the search efforts before Christmas. They wanted the staff and volunteers to have some normalcy in their holiday season. On January 5, the search geared up again. Searchers revisited Brackenridge Park and combed an area near the Sunken Gardens and Alpine Trail.

  Early in the evening of January 6, Sergeants Palmer and Wedding met with Margot Cromack at the Terrell Hills Police Department. They questioned her about her relationship to Rick. Palmer then asked her about providing information to McFarland and allowing him to listen in on the phone conversation she had with him.

  Margot denied ever allowing Rick to eavesdrop on a telephone call. She insisted she was not at home when she talked to Palmer three days earlier. Wedding and Palmer knew that was not true.

  Margot volunteered that the only reason she maintained contact with Rick was that she wanted to keep an eye on the three boys. That was all she cared about, she said.

  Palmer called Sue’s sister Ann. “I want you to be very careful around Margot Cromack.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “She has led me down rabbit trails.”

  “What are rabbit trails?”

  “Places that lead us nowhere,” he said. “She’s been sharing information inappropriately with Rick. I don’t think you can trust her.”

  “What am I supposed to do with this information?” Ann asked.

  “Tell your family members and Sue’s close friends.”

  Two years after the fact, Margot continued to insist the officers were mistaken.

  On January 7, law enforcement followed Rick and his son Timmy to The Spy Store. There Rick asked about bug detectors that could identify listening devices and telephones. He wanted to know if they worked on cell phones, too. He left without making a purchase.

  While Rick was running around with his youngest son, William and James were at the Miller home. Carrie noticed that William had adopted a caretaker role. In response to James, he often made parental remarks like “James, do not do that,” or “Very good, James.” His caring warmed her heart, but the reason he assumed this role was as chilling as a Dean Koontz plot.

  In the middle of that day, Stephanie, in a fit of anger, let the F bomb fly. After her mother had chastised her, William gave Carrie advice on how to correct her children when they got in trouble. He demonstrated how his father laid them across the bed and used one or both arms to spank them with a small board. “One time, I had to tell my teacher I could not sit down because my bottom hurt too much.”

  Later that day, Carrie walked into Wesley’s room where William was playing Nintendo. When he turned toward Carrie, his eyes were moist and heavy with threatened tears. “What’s wrong, William?” she asked.

  “I miss my mom.”

  “Where do you think she is?”

  “She’s out looking for a new husband.”

  “Oh, c’mon, William. Do you really think your mom would go off and leave you and James and Timmy to look for a new husband and not be here for Thanksgiving?”

  “Yes. She needed a little break from us. She’ll be back.”

  Carrie now knew what Rick had been telling the boys about their mother. It sickened and enraged her.

  When she left the room, Wesley said, “William, do you think your dad did something to her?”

  “No,” William said. “Some people do, but I don’t.”

  37

  The next day, the boys came over to Carrie’s house with a box of books. “We’re selling them,” William said. “Mom was the only one in the house who made money and now she’s gone and we need some.”

  Carrie looked through the box and spotted Love You Forever—a book about a mother’s love for her child. “William, don’t you want to keep this one?”

  “I’m too old for it,” William said.

  Instinctively, Carrie knew that this line had been scripted, too.

  A couple of hours later, Carrie needed to run errands and told the McFarland boys they needed to go home.

  “I don’t want to go home,” William said. “Can I go with you?”

  “I can’t take you anywhere without your dad’s permission.”

  A call to the McFarland home went unanswered. “Maybe the police took him,” James suggested.

  While the boys peddled their books, Rick had his own quick cash scheme going. He went up to Glass works on New Braunfels Avenue at the Sunset Ridge Center in Alamo Heights. He purchased a selection of art glass, went home with his purchases and listed them on eBay. If he was able to get a bid that exceeded the price he paid, he sold it. If not, he carted it up and returned it to the store. After several visits, the shopkeepers figured out that something strange was going on. But before they could assemble all the pieces of the puzzle, Rick’s shopping trips to their store ended.

  Fox Broadcasting sent a team to San Antonio to pursue the Susan McFarland disappearance for their newsmagazine show, The Pulse. They wanted to interview Harriet Wells from her home across the street from the McFarlands’. But the house that Ned’s parents built in 1938 was demolished by the new property owner and new construction was under way. The news team taped her on the lot where her house used to be.

  Along with Catherine Herridge, the cameramen crossed the street and invaded the Schooling home—interviewing Charlene at great length. That afternoon, a short while after the team left, Charlene was at her front door saying goodbye to a friend. She heard the distinct sound of a shave-and-a-haircut knock on the back door. She was certain it was Rick and ducked into her half-bath to avoid him.

  She waited and waited for him to give up and leav
e. He knocked and knocked. Finally, all was quiet. Charlene emerged thinking the coast was clear. That was what Rick wanted her to think. He was still by the door in a ball cap, a black t-shirt and black jeans—he had cracked the door open and his hand rested on the inside of the door.

  “Hey, Rick,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to talk with you. I’m really angry.”

  “Do you want to come in?”

  He stepped inside the kitchen door. Charlene walked to the dining room table and sat down, hoping he would follow her lead. Instead, he stood in the area between the kitchen and dining room, pacing. Back and forth. From side to side. He swiveled on the ball of his foot to make each turn.

  Charlene was shaking. She was scared. His pacing only magnified her anxiety. But she wanted Rick to think she was at ease and threw her legs up on the table as if in casual abandon—two friends talking, nothing more.

  Still Rick paced and ranted. “I just don’t understand you, Charlene. Do you just get off on talking to all those TV people who are in and out of here every day?”

  Charlene looked at him and looked at the chair at the table. At last, Rick got the message and slid down beside her.

  “Rick, do you think I enjoy seeing myself on TV without my hair done and no makeup on?”

  “So, why do you talk to them?”

  “They catch me every time I step outside my door.”

  “Why don’t you just tell them ‘No comment’?”

  “Because we need to find Susan, Rick.”

  “I thought you loved my boys. I thought you cared about them. Here I am trying to protect them from publicity and you are encouraging it.”

  “Rick, I do it because we need to find Susan. The boys need their mother,” Charlene pleaded.

  Rick just shrugged.

  Charlene wanted to scream at him—wanted to demand that he tell her what he did to Susan, where he left her body. But she kept her peace.

  “And another thing,” Rick continued, “I understand you’ve been telling neighbors that I asked you to lie for me.”

  “That’s a downright lie, Rick. I never said that to anyone.”

  “Well. Who was that who was here today that you were accommodating?”

  “Fox. It was for The Pulse.”

  “The Pulse? What’s that?

  “It’s a new show like Dateline or Twenty/Twenty.”

  “Charlene, I want you to call them and tell them not to air it,” Rick said as he stood and walked over to her telephone. He picked up the receiver and brought it over to her.

  “I’m not going to call them, Rick.”

  Rick pushed the phone at her.

  “No, Rick. Even if I did, it wouldn’t do any good. They’ve talked to the District Attorney and the police. These people are from New York. They are not going to do what I say.”

  “They’re from New York?” Rick asked with widened eyes and furrowed brow.

  “Yes, Rick.”

  “Then this is national?”

  “Yes.”

  Rick looked as if the possibility never crossed his mind. He excused himself and walked toward the back door.

  “You can use the front door, Rick.”

  “No, no. I want to go out the way I came in.”

  Charlene realized then that she did not know how he managed to get in her backyard, and walked to the door to find out. The pickets on a section of fence hung askew. Rick had pulled out the nails holding in the bottoms of the tall boards on the privacy fence and wiggled under them. Because of the angle, he could not go back through the fence the same way. He borrowed Charlene’s ladder, propped it against the fence, climbed to the top and jumped down to his porch.

  Now Charlene was worried about the return of the Fox team. Earlier, she had given them permission to come back at night and use their infrared cameras to shoot film of Rick inside his house from her windows.

  She called and told them plans had changed a bit because of Rick’s visit. “I told you that you could come and I’m not going to go back on that. But when you come, you have to park down the street, approach the house one by one and enter by the door on the side of the house opposite from the McFarlands’ home.”

  The Fox team made their cloak-and-dagger entrance and headed up to the second floor. They caught Rick watching television and eating a bowl of ice cream. But they wanted him to stand up. Catherine Herridge asked Charlene to call him, since he’d have to stand up to answer the phone.

  “Are you kidding?” Charlene asked. “After I told you about today, you want me to call him? You must be kidding.”

  Instead, the producer called the McFarland home. The cameraman shot the video as Rick moved across the room to pick up the phone. Mission accomplished.

  38

  Parents at Woodridge Elementary School were restless and on edge. Unfounded rumors and half-truths fed into the gaping maw of their fears. They were afraid that Rick would come on campus and hurt their children. They wanted him to be denied access to the school.

  Principal Linda Schlather addressed the PTO to inform them about the law and reassure them about the security of the school. Rick is a parent, she told them, and as such has, by law, the right to be at the school as long as he does not violate any school policies.

  “Safety is always our concern,” she said. “We know who he is and we will be vigilant.” She added that the desire of the faculty and the staff was that the McFarland boys have as normal a time as possible when they were in the school.

  On January 11, Sergeant Wedding reviewed a stack of accumulated phone messages. One call was from Jim Tutt, who described himself as the stepson of Gil Medellin, who lived out in rural southeast Bexar County on South W.W. White Road. Tutt said his stepfather had seen a Suburban matching the description of the one police had recovered, driving up and down by his house four or five times on the night before Thanksgiving.

  Around 7:30 at night, the neighbor who faced the McFarlands’ backyard was home alone with her 6-year-old daughter. Her husband was out at a gymnastics class with their two older children. The phone rang. When she answered her ears were filled with the nastiest and vilest sexual suggestions she ever heard. Her first thought was of Rick, but she was not certain. The next day at Carrie Miller’s house, she listened to a previously recorded message from Rick on their voicemail. Then she knew—the obscene caller was Rick. The purity he had sworn to Promise Keepers was now dust in the wind.

  Kirsten Slaughter told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “It’s horrible going through this moment-by-moment, every day. It is the focus of our lives, and sometimes it’s overwhelming. My daughter can’t sleep. I was incapacitated during Christmas. I still have a shred of hope that Sue is alive. But probably not.”

  Ann Carr complained to the reporter that her family had to go through Rick’s attorney to communicate with Sue’s three boys. “We believe they are in a very stressed situation, and it’s been made difficult for us to see them. That’s been hard on all of us.”

  In that same January 12 article, Terrell Hills Police Chief Larry Semander was quoted as well. “We have no way of knowing specifically what happened to her, but it would appear that she didn’t leave of her own accord.”

  Meanwhile, Rick avoided Sue’s family, held police and press at arm’s length and made no effort to solve the mystery of his wife’s disappearance.

  Rick dropped William and James off at the corner near the Miller home and drove off with Timmy in his car on the afternoon of January 12. The two boys stayed at that house for hours. At 5, the Millers needed to take Wesley to his basketball game and sent the boys home. In minutes, they were back. The door was locked, they said, and they could not get in.

  Carrie tried to reach Rick by his cell phone. When that didn’t work, she sent the boys up to Karen Hardeman’s house. There they played on the trampoline until dark, then moved inside and sat down at the PlayStation. Karen continued the quest for Rick. When she reached him, Rick said, “William knows the cod
e to get in.”

  “They are hungry, Rick.”

  “There’s dinner in the refrigerator. Or it’s probably still sitting out on the porch where the church left it.”

  “I’ll keep them here until they can be supervised at home,” Karen said.

  “I’ll be home by eight,” Rick promised.

  Karen fed the boys along with her children. They watched TV, played some video games. Eight o’clock came and went. At 8:40, Karen called Rick again. He told her he was at the grocery store in the check-out line and would be home in a few minutes.

  It was a school night and not only did Karen want William and James to get settled in for the night, she had two children of her own to worry about. She and her husband loaded up the car with the two McFarland boys and their son and daughter and drove the short distance to 351 Arcadia.

  Karen’s family waited outside in the car while she went inside with the boys. The house was pitch black but when she flipped on a light switch, she was appalled at what she saw—boxes and papers were everywhere, dirty dishes piled on every surface. It looked as if the cops had torn it apart while searching, and all these weeks later, Rick had put nothing away.

  On top of that, the cat was locked in the bathroom wailing for freedom and food. After taking care of his cat and bringing in the casserole from the front porch, William said, “We’ll be fine. You can go now.”

  “I’m not leaving you here alone. You two go upstairs and take a bath.”

  “We took baths yesterday,” William objected.

  Karen insisted they needed another one tonight. James went upstairs, but William stayed on the first floor trying to get Karen out of the house.

  Finally, between 9:30 and 10, Rick rambled home with Timmy. He thanked Karen for her help, but left the impression that he thought it had been unnecessary in the extreme.

  Karen told a friend the story of her experience that night. Soon, it was all over the neighborhood. Someone—and every person in the neighborhood who was asked pointed the finger at someone else—knew it was time to take action. That person called CPS to report the neglect of the boys. The caller didn’t think the urgency of the situation was being appreciated by the person at the other end until she said that she thought there was a danger of a hostage situation and that the father was supposed to be on medication, but was not taking it. The caller could almost hear the red flags hoisting to the top of the pole.