by John Bloom
“Start with the first time you met Mrs. Montgomery,” said Murphy.
For the next half hour Murphy and Abbott sat listening to Allan’s version of the affair. Allan was remarkably composed and unemotional, considering what he was saying.
“Did Candy ever mention getting a divorce?” asked Murphy. “Either you or she.”
“She mentioned that she had not been in love with Pat, her husband, for some time. She said she was just staying with him until the kids were grown, then she intended to get a divorce. She said she still had her life to live and was looking forward to what life would be like when the kids were grown.”
“What about your wife? Did she ever find out that you were having an affair?”
“As far as Betty ever indicating that she suspected Candy and I having an affair, she never let on. I’m not sure if she would have mentioned it even if she had. The past wasn’t her concern. Only the present and future was what mattered to her.”
“Why are you telling us this now when you failed to tell us last night?”
“Because after I got home last night, I thought about the questions you asked me about my having an affair. And after I got to thinking about it, I asked my daughter Alisa if Candy had taken her to Bible School that morning. Alisa said that she had, but that she had left and came back about lunch time. Alisa gave the time as leaving about 9 A.M. and returning about 12 noon. I felt that that was way too long for her to have been gone from church.”
“Do you have witnesses as to where you were that morning, Mr. Gore?”
“Yes, sir. I arrived at my office about 8:30 A.M. and stayed there until I left for the airport. My witnesses there are John Alexander and Kevin Reynolds.”
“And are you telling us that you never considered a divorce yourself?”
“I wasn’t really in love with Candace. It was just a little fling for fun as far as I was concerned. She wanted it to be the same, but she fell in love anyway.”
“Did either you or Mrs. Montgomery have any reason to want to kill your wife?”
“I had no reason to want to kill my wife, nor did I think Candy did. She had a great deal of love and concern for Betty and our children.”
“Will you take a polygraph examination in order to verify all you’ve told me?” asked Murphy.
“Yes, I will take a polygraph.”
“Did you kill your wife?”
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea who did or who would want to?”
“No.”
“Mr. Gore, at this time we’re going to have to read you your legal rights as prescribed by law. You have the right to remain silent. You have …”
For a moment Allan froze. As Murphy continued his wooden recitation of the well-known Miranda warning, Allan wondered whether he had done the right thing. He had thought about it before, but now he was certain: he was a suspect in a murder case.
As he left the station, Allan told the police that he was on his way to Kansas for Betty’s funeral and would be away several days. When he got back to the house, Allan was disoriented. He mumbled a few words to Bob Pomeroy about having to “clear up” some things with the police. He needed to talk to someone. He needed to figure this out. Any other time, he would have called Candy Montgomery.
Doctors Irving Stone and Vincent DiMaio, the two top experts at the Dallas Institute of Forensic Sciences, sat in an office together that same morning, going over photographs of a corpse with a magnifying glass. The corpse was that of Betty Gore, but they were concerned only with her hands. They paused at the second finger of her left hand, having found what they were looking for: half the fingernail was missing, apparently sheared off by the ax.
“Vince, I don’t think that’s the same finger,” said Stone. “I think the nail found at the scene was much smaller.”
Stone left the office for a few minutes and went looking for the tiny plastic evidence bag holding a sheared-off fingernail. It was the same fingernail that young Officer Stanley had found on the living room floor of the Gore house, then left lying on the kitchen cabinet next to a microwave oven. One of the neighbors had eventually found it, long after the police were gone, and it had changed hands several times before finding its way to the lab in Dallas.
Now, on Tuesday morning, Stone removed it from the plastic bag and placed it next to the photograph of Betty Gore’s lifeless left hand.
“It’s not the same,” said DiMaio.
Stone picked up the phone and called Stephen Deffibaugh, the sheriff’s investigator assigned to the case.
“I think we have the murderer’s nail,” he said.
What he didn’t say was that it might not be valid evidence in a court of law. Too many people had touched it. It had not been properly preserved. Any decent defense attorney could prevent a jury from ever getting a chance to see it.
The case was beginning to “open up,” in the words of Joe Murphy. The tiny Wylie Police Department was crowded and abuzz with the movements of city, county, and state policemen, as well as an extra office worker, added to deal with the continuing flood of phone calls from anonymous tipsters, mental patients, and assorted weirdos. But Abbott and Murphy had no time for the press or the phone anymore. After their interview with Allan, they had shifted their investigation entirely. Instead of looking for the killer, they assumed they had the killer. Or was it killers? Was it Allan Gore or Candy Montgomery or both? Unfortunately, they had only one witness—the five-year-old girl who had seen a woman in blue jeans come out of the Gore house and drive away in a station wagon. Abbott decided to pay her another visit. She repeated the story for him, and by comparing the girl’s memory with that of her grandmother, Abbott was able to come up with an approximate time of 11 A.M. for Candy’s leaving the house. He then reviewed the statement Candy had given on Sunday; she had given her time of departure as around 10:20. It was something, but it wasn’t hard and fast. Neither the girl nor the grandmother seemed that sure of themselves.
Deffibaugh had a gift for Abbott that day, too: the photographs taken at the crime scene. The most important one was the bloody thumbprint they had found on the freezer. Deffibaugh had taken only one shot of it, since he was running out of film, but fortunately it had come out clear and vivid. Unfortunately, they had no fingerprints of Candy Montgomery. They hadn’t taken any on Sunday because she had never been a strong suspect in anyone’s imaginings. Now they needed her prints, and they knew they couldn’t get those without arousing her suspicions.
Deffibaugh had another lead, too, but it only confused matters more. At the memorial service Monday afternoon, DPS intelligence officers had taken photographs of everyone attending, as well as their cars and license plates. When they ran the license plate numbers through the computer, something curious turned up: David and Elaine Williams had gotten into a blue Chevrolet that was registered to Pat Montgomery. They had already started looking into this organization called Marriage Encounter and wondered what it was. Some kind of wife-swapping club maybe? This would tend to prove it.
At the end of the day Abbott, Deffibaugh, and Murphy all stopped to consider the facts. They had no hard evidence, but they hoped the photograph of the bloody thumbprint would give them some. They believed most of what Allan Gore had told them, but they figured he was still hiding something, too. They could continue to gather physical evidence—the strands of hair found in the bathtub could be matched against Candy’s hair, for example—or they could simply form a theory of the case, call Candy in, and hope she confessed.
Late that night, they’d made their decision.
“Call her in,” said Murphy. “I think I can break her.”
When Candy took the call from Chief Abbott on Wednesday morning, she felt almost normal again. On Tuesday, the local housewives’ cooperative had delivered a five-month supply of groceries, so Candy had called Sherry to come over and talk while they stored the cartons and packed things away in the freez
er. Sherry was just as anxious to chit-chat, her parents having just left to go back to Alabama after a long weekend. They had taken their grandchildren with them, which meant that Sherry could stay the whole morning. The two friends were able to relax and talk for the first time since Betty’s death. By the time Sherry left, Candy was starting to feel better.
Then, while she was having her second cup of coffee Wednesday morning, Chief Abbott called. He sounded relaxed, matter-of-fact. He had just a couple more questions, and he hoped it wouldn’t be an imposition for her to come back in that morning. Candy readily agreed.
Within a few minutes Candy had taken Jenny and Ian over to Sherry’s house and left for the station, telling Sherry she would only be gone for a short time.
She was ushered into Abbott’s office and then left alone. Murphy and Abbott were surprised she got there so quickly and didn’t want to talk to her until Fred Cummings arrived. Cummings was a Texas Ranger who specialized in fingerprint work; he would take the prints and match them against the photo Deffibaugh had taken of the freezer door. Also present was Jim Cochran, a DPS investigator who worked under Murphy and who had been present at the first Candy Montgomery interview. He was chosen as much for his manner as his police skill. He was tall, slender, grey-haired and fatherly, a striking contrast to the muscular, intimidating Murphy.
Cummings finally arrived and set up his fingerprint unit.
“We need to take your fingerprints,” explained Abbott, “so we can screen out the prints of family and friends who were in the house that day. It’s just routine.”
After the fingerprints were taken, Cochran, Murphy, and Abbott all crowded into Abbott’s office to conduct the actual interview.
“First we need you to go back over your itinerary on the day Betty Gore was killed,” said Abbott, “because when we talked to you on Sunday we didn’t have all the information that we have now.”
Candy repeated the events of June 13, including everything she had told them on Sunday but, in response to their questions, adding more details. She told them about playing with Betty’s dogs in the backyard, and going into the bathroom to “pick” her hair, and leaving her business card on Betty’s table, and going to the Target store in Plano, but then realizing her watch had stopped and hurrying back to the church. She described each of the four phone calls from Allan Gore. Then, because of some chance remark she made, Cochran got onto the subject of Marriage Encounter.
“Just what is Marriage Encounter?” he asked.
When she gave a brief definition, he pressed her for more information. What was it for? How did the organization work? She tried to explain it as best she could. Murphy abruptly changed the subject.
“Do you know whether Betty Gore was having an affair?” he asked.
“No. Not as far as I know.”
“Do you know whether Allan Gore was having an affair?”
“No.”
Candy assumed they were referring to the time of Betty’s death, and she considered her answer truthful.
The interrogators, still very cordial and neighborly, shifted the subject to Candy’s marriage. They wanted to know how long she had been married, how she felt about Pat, whether they quarreled often or had any serious problems. She indicated her marriage was fine.
“Have either of you had any outside affairs?” asked Murphy.
“Pat wouldn’t do that.”
“But you would?”
Candy paused only slightly. “I did.”
“With who?”
“I had an affair with Allan Gore.”
Candy felt scared, really scared, for the first time. They had known the answer to that question before they asked it.
While they were talking, Cummings came into the room with a fingerprint and laid it on Abbott’s desk. Abbott compared it to something else he had on his desk as the interrogation continued.
“Now Mrs. Montgomery,” said Cochran, “I think you can see that there aren’t any bright lights here, and this isn’t a dark room, and we aren’t using any scare tactics like they do in the movies. But we need to ask you to be honest with us about your affair with Allan Gore.”
“Okay,” she said.
Candy’s version of the affair was not much different from Allan’s. She mentioned the volleyball game, readily identified herself as the aggressor in the relationship, and told them about the Como and the picnic lunches. They wanted to know how long the affair lasted, and Candy insisted that it had been over for at least eight months.
“Did your husband know about it?”
“Not at first, but he found out.” She then described the weekend when Pat had found Allan’s letter.
“Was Pat angry?”
“He was mad, and he felt hurt, but he didn’t dwell on it for very long.”
“What about you? Were you mad at Allan for ending the affair?”
“I didn’t want the relationship to end, but I knew that it had to.”
“We’re going to have to talk to Allan again,” said Cochran, “because there seem to be some inconsistencies in his story.”
Candy assumed that meant Allan hadn’t told them about the affair.
“You murdered Betty Gore, didn’t you?”
Startled, Candy looked up and saw the burning eyes of Joe Murphy.
“No, I didn’t.”
Murphy thought the tone of her voice was too calm and collected. This woman was a housewife. Why didn’t she go into hysterics?
“Yes, you did,” he said brutally. “You’re nothing but a murderer. Betty Gore was your friend and you just chopped and chopped and chopped on her. You’re nothing but a little cold-blooded murderer, and you sit there and lie to us about it, and you make me so sick that I can’t even stay in this room anymore.”
Murphy grabbed the doorknob, swung open the door, and bolted from the room. He slammed it behind him. Candy trembled slightly but said nothing.
“All right, Candy,” said Cochran, reassuringly, “I can see that something’s on your chest. You can talk to me. I understand.”
Candy did feel better once Murphy was out of the room.
“I didn’t murder her,” she said. “I didn’t do it.”
“Well, I think you did,” said Cochran, not too accusingly. “And I think a jury might think you did.”
He held up the fingerprint that Cummings had put on Abbott’s desk. “If I show them this print, and I tell them this is your print, and I show them the footprints we found in Betty Gore’s house …”
“They’re gonna think I did it, too,” interrupted Candy. “But I didn’t do it.”
“Would you be willing to take a polygraph examination if we set one up for you tomorrow?”
“Yes. If that will prove I didn’t murder her.”
“Would you care if I looked over your car?”
“No.”
“Come on, then, let’s walk out there.”
As they walked out to where Candy had parked, she felt a lessening of pressure.
“You’re trying to pin something on me that’s not right,” she said. “You’re trying to manipulate me to admit something I didn’t do.”
Cochran peered through the window of her car and noticed a pair of rubber-soled sandals on the floor.
“Would you mind if I kept those shoes for a while?”
“No,” she said as she got into the car.
“And I’d appreciate it if we could have the ones you’re wearing, too.”
Candy felt humiliated as she removed her blue tennis shoes and handed those to Cochran.
“This is not fair, what you’re doing,” she said.
“If you pass a polygraph examination tomorrow,” said Cochran, “then I’ll apologize to you for all this.”
Candy drove the ten miles to Sherry’s house in a trance. As soon as Sherry opened the door, Candy all but collapsed into her arms.
“They think I did it,” she sobbed. “They think I murdered Betty.”
16 Friends of the Accused
Don Crowder was peeved when he found out one of the couples from church wanted to talk to him about the Betty Gore murder case. Everybody overreacting to a little routine police investigation. Don was planning to spend the day at the Dallas law office he shared with his friend Jim Mattox, the Congressman. It was a nondescript building on the edge of Little Mexico, just a stone’s throw from the behemoth high rises of downtown Dallas where the big corporate law firms made their homes; but it suited Don just fine. Some days he didn’t even come into town, because he was finding plenty to do in the little towns out in the country, but when he did drive to Dallas he liked the fact that his office was apart from the rest of the legal community, almost invisible among the furniture stores, Mexican restaurants, and low-slung office buildings of Cedar Springs Avenue. It was a slow day, so Don had the luxury of a long lunch. He had just returned when Rob Udashen, a young lawyer, hurried into his office.
“Do you know a Candy Montgomery?” asked Rob.
“Sure, real well.”
“Would she have anything to do with the Betty Gore murder?”
“Sheeit no. Why?”
“Because her husband called and insisted that he see one of us today. The police have interrogated her, and he seems worried that they really are suspicious of her.”
“Pat Montgomery is just panicky because they ask everybody questions like that.”
“Well, he says the cops have printed her and accused her outright and now they’re trying to get her to take a polygraph.”
“No shit? Okay, tell ’em to come by the Allen office. I’ll meet ’em out there.” Don was still vaguely put out; he had a divorce case and a personal-injury lawsuit he needed to work on, and there was no way this could be that serious, no matter what the police said.
Don headed north in his black El Dorado, holding the speedometer steady at sixty-five as he sped up the expressway toward the open country beyond the Dallas suburbs. He parked on the main street of Allen, directly in front of a tiny storefront of rustic wood. “Crowder & Mattox” was inscribed in gold on the window.