by Ann Rule
Mike was concerned enough that he talked to a gastroenterologist. He had been back from Peru for about five weeks and he wondered if he had contracted some tropical disease. They decided to wait to see if his symptoms would ease of their own accord, and Mike did feel better by the end of the week.
“I saw him on Thursday,” Celeste would recall. “We met up near my house for ten minutes and I could see that he was better—his vigor was back.”
But later on Thursday night, Mike’s symptoms returned, with a vengeance. He became extremely ill, extremely fast. The vomiting was “torrential,” twenty or thirty episodes over a few hours. And the diarrhea was worse than anything he had experienced in Peru. “It was truly a miserable illness—it went on all night. I got up in the morning to try to get ready for work. And I was on my hands and knees vomiting in the shower.”
Realizing that he would not be able to work that day—Friday, August 18—Mike called one of his partners to explain. Then he phoned his personal physician, Nick Szilagye, and talked to him. As a doctor himself, Mike knew he was severely dehydrated; after he described his symptoms, Szilagye recommended that he be admitted to the hospital that morning. Mike drove himself to the hospital, passing Celeste’s house on the way. She got in the car and talked to him for a very short time: “He was throwing up when he tried to talk.”
Mike spent a week in the hospital, his condition verging on critical. He spiked fevers frequently—101 to 102 degrees. To his fellow doctors’ concern, he developed sepsis, an overwhelming infection caused by bacteria that invade the bloodstream, carrying an original infection to other areas of the body. Sometimes it is not initially apparent which organs the sepsis is affecting.
One day while he was hospitalized, Mike tried to take a shower; he was suddenly gripped with “shaking rigors,” violent shivering. “I could not control it,” he said, “and my back and legs hurt; it was almost like tetany [violent muscle spasms and convulsions].”
Mike’s fever was 104.4 degrees. His blood pressure dropped alarmingly. His systolic pressure, the top number in blood pressure readings, was 65 to 70; the normal range is from 110 to 150. The diastolic reading when his heart was at rest was not detectable. He knew that he could die. “I was moved to the intermediate care unit and a central line was inserted into my subclavian vein, underneath the collarbone. It is used to give large amounts of fluids to critically ill patients.”
Mike’s blood was cultured for bacteria. Streptococcus viridans bacteria grew out of the cultures. A strep infection can cause fever and many of the other symptoms Mike suffered, but his doctors kept checking to be sure they had isolated every possibility. He endured numerous diagnostic tests: a flexible sigmoidoscopy, a colonoscopy, an upper GI endoscopy. His whole digestive system and his entire colon were checked. With the assaults on his lower colon from the diarrhea, a break in the lining could very well have let strep bacteria leak through. But, his physicians wondered, what might have started the gastrointestinal symptoms in the first place?
Celeste was afraid for Mike, so worried that she took a chance and visited him in the hospital. “But I didn’t go alone; I got Carolyn to go with me, and other people we knew. I never saw Debora there—but I guess she found out I had gone to see him.”
Gradually, Mike got better. He was released on August 25, and went home, actually hungry for the first time in a week. He even felt well enough to eat a spaghetti dinner that Debora brought him. But within three or four hours, he became “horrendously sick” again, with the same torrential vomiting and diarrhea. He was back in North Kansas City Hospital by eleven that night. Whether there was any reason behind the pattern or not, he noted that he had become desperately ill approximately every seven days—on a Friday, a Thursday, and then another Friday.
Whatever Mike had, diagnosing it was not easy. He was far too ill to be suffering from simple influenza. And cultures showed that the Strep viridans was no longer present. “That was curious to us all,” he said later. Any number of doctors at the hospital where he himself practiced had been called in for consultations. Here was a young man, just forty, who had been in the best of health and now could barely exist outside a hospital. He was losing a tremendous amount of weight, and he was wretchedly sick.
One of the specialists called in was Dr. Beth Henry, an expert in infectious diseases. Good diagnosticians weigh lab tests and the patient’s symptoms against what has been going on in his life, and Dr. Henry wondered what Mike had done in the month or so before his sudden illness that was different from his usual habits.
The obvious answer was the trip to Peru, where he might well have been exposed to disease, impure water, and insects. Mike had swum in the Amazon River and eaten exotic food that might have been prepared under less than sanitary conditions. Oddly, not one of the forty other people on the trip had been ill since their return. Their travelers’ diarrhea had been unpleasant but had not lasted more than forty-eight hours. Mike had suffered the same symptoms as they—while they were all in Peru. Furthermore, he had been home in Kansas City for more than a month, feeling perfectly well. What was it, then, that made him so sick now?
Dr. Henry ultimately settled on two possible diagnoses for Mike’s fever, intractable vomiting, and diarrhea: typhoid fever or a disease called tropical sprue (also known as gluten-sensitive enteropathy). But she was still puzzled because his symptoms didn’t fit neatly within the parameters of either.
Neither typhoid nor sprue is necessarily fatal, although each could be if the patient remained dehydrated, with his electrolytes out of balance. The indwelling line in Mike’s subclavian vein was working to rehydrate him with larger amounts of fluid than he could manage to keep down because of his persistent nausea. He received a twenty-one-day course of antibiotics that would take care of typhoid fever—if, indeed, that was what he had. And he was put on a gluten-free diet.
Meanwhile, Debora was also having a difficult time during the latter part of August. Not only was her husband ill with some mysterious malady, but her mother had phoned from El Paso, the Joneses’ home base between trips around the country, to tell her daughter that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her doctors had recommended a mastectomy. As a specialist in oncology, Debora was able to evaluate her mother’s condition, and she assured Joan that her chances were good for long-term survival.
“I talked to Deb on the phone many times,” Joan recalled. “And she talked to my doctor several times. Everything seemed normal in Kansas.” Debora had told her parents that Mike was sick, but they evidently didn’t know how sick; they hadn’t seen him, and they weren’t very concerned anyway. “We knew Farrar was sick,” Joan said, “but were not surprised because he will eat anything no matter how gross, if he thinks it is ‘native.’ He is also a terrible ‘boob’ when he is ill, although he has absolutely no empathy for a patient’s pain.”
It was clear that Debora’s parents—at least her mother—had no love for Mike. Joan had attributed to Mike the very uncaring response to patients that he had seen in Debora. But Debora knew that Mike was terribly ill; she had seen him go downhill rapidly. Perhaps, wanting to spare her mother worry, she avoided burdening her with the gravity of his condition. After all, Joan Jones was about to undergo surgery herself.
Debora’s mother later said she was completely unaware that Mike was really sick that summer. She felt that he was putting on a show for sympathy, being a “boob” as usual.
By the end of August, Mike was skin and bones. Celeste was so frightened for him that she went to the hospital alone to visit, and seeing him frightened her more. She was a nurse and she had seen other patients near death. There was no longer any secret that they were having an affair. She loved him and she wanted him well. Whatever it took, she would do.
Debora told him he needed to be in his own home; he was too weak to take care of himself outside the hospital. Mike stayed at North Kansas City Hospital for five days this time. He was released on August 30. And, too debilitated to talk about separ
ation or divorce, he went home.
Back in the Canterbury Court house, Debora was solicitous and kind to him. She carried his meals to him so that he wouldn’t have to come to the table.
On September 4, Labor Day, Mike had been home for five or six days from his second hospitalization in two weeks. He felt better—but weak—and he was sitting in their downstairs recreation room watching the Kansas City Chiefs game on the big-screen television set. Debora brought him a plate of ham and beans and cornbread, and he ate while he watched the game, appreciative of her thoughtfulness.
But later that evening, Mike felt the unmistakable, all too familiar symptoms—vomiting, diarrhea, and a terrible burning stomach pain. He had to be rushed back to the hospital. And this time he began to wonder if he was going to die from whatever it was he had. He couldn’t work; he couldn’t, apparently, survive outside the hospital.
Still in the hospital on September 9, Mike got a phone call from Lissa. She was very upset and crying, and from what she said, he knew that Debora was drinking again—so much that Tim and Lissa were frightened. Gathering all his strength, he asked Lissa to put Tim on the phone. “I told him to hide all the alcohol in the house, and to make sure that his mother was okay,” Mike said. “I asked him to see that the girls got up to bed.”
Tim promised to do as his father asked. And Mike lay back on his pillow, worrying about how he could make sure his children were safe. His sister Karen knew that Debora was drinking too much, but he had not told his parents. His mother had enough to worry about: both of her parents were terminally ill. He knew he would have to act, but he was just too sick to start making calls. He would have to count on Tim to take care of things at home. Tim loved his mother and his little sisters. He would have to be the man of the house on this night. In the morning, if things were no better, Mike would call Karen and his parents and ask them to take care of his children until he could get home.
Sweat beaded on Mike’s forehead from the effort of talking to Tim and Lissa. He had lost thirty pounds, a fifth of his normal weight. What would become of his children if he didn’t get better? He couldn’t bear to think of that.
At home, Tim followed his father’s orders, gathering up large bottles of gin and vodka and hiding them outside the house. His mother had passed out again, and his little sisters were frightened and tearful. He put them to bed and tried to reassure them, but he knew he couldn’t very well hide all the alcohol; his father had hundreds of bottles of wine. And his mother knew where they were. She didn’t like wine very much, but she might drink it when she couldn’t find anything else.
10
Celeste Walker had lived for a half dozen years with a man incapable of much more than mere survival, a man who went to work without enthusiasm and came home without joy. When she fell in love with Mike and began her first affair, she was incredibly vulnerable and naive. She saw a happy ending though common sense should have told her that there is no such thing as an affair that hurts no one.
John Walker marked his forty-fifth birthday in August 1995. One of his presents was a new bicycle. He showed as much enthusiasm as he could muster, but the truth was that his depression had become constant. His inner pain was almost palpable, obvious to everyone he worked and lived with. Celeste had tried for years to draw him out of his black funks, but nothing worked.
Now, Mike was ill and, she felt, in danger. He had told her how much he loved her, how much he needed her. “He said I was the love of his life,” Celeste remembered. He was just out of the hospital for the second time and she was afraid he was going to die. When she saw him she barely recognized him: he was so thin and his eyes were so hollow looking. He did need her—and John quite obviously didn’t. He had been telling her for years that he didn’t need her, that he planned to leave her just as soon as the boys were well on their way in life.
That August, Celeste decided to tell John that she wanted a divorce and that they should separate. It was not a new idea; one or the other of them had brought it up often in the last few years. Celeste believed—or had convinced herself—that her being with John would not make him less depressed. In fact, he might be happier if they made the break now rather than delaying the inevitable.
John seemed to take her decision fairly well. He even consulted a divorce attorney, although Celeste would not know that until later, when she saw the lawyer’s bill. She filed for divorce in late August, citing incompatibility.
John rented a house not far from the family home and began to move into it on Labor Day. Coincidentally, the house was owned by Mike Montgomery, one of Mike Farrar’s partners. Dr. Montgomery was visiting Mike in the hospital when Celeste dropped by. She mentioned that she was getting a divorce and that her husband was looking for a nice small house to rent. Montgomery suggested his house, and John had looked at it and rented it on the spot.
A number of John’s friends offered to help him move, but he insisted that he could manage by himself. He had made four trips with clothes to the new place, but most of his belongings were still at the house where Celeste and the boys would continue living.
“It was really tough for him,” Celeste recalled. “He was crying as he went back and forth, back and forth. I offered to help. And then I said, ‘Don’t do this.’”
They had been married for sixteen years. There was no hurry for John to move out; Celeste begged him to take his time, to accept her help and the help of his friends. “He came back home on Labor Day,” she recalled. And, perhaps to get through the memory, she used a term from psychiatric nursing. “He collapsed—he decompensated right in front of me. And I said, ‘Don’t do this, John . . . I know someone who can do the moving for you. You can have it done. Quit right now. Go on your fishing trip next week with your guys—and we’ll do it while you’re gone.’”
Celeste wanted to make things as easy for John as possible. But even as she tried to explain that he didn’t have to do the physical work of moving out, he kept saying, “I can’t do this. . . . I can’t do this,” and sobbing uncontrollably. “What I assumed he meant was that he couldn’t move his things,” Celeste said. “Later, I realized he meant he couldn’t go on. He couldn’t separate. He couldn’t have a life without me.”
John went to bed at four o’clock that afternoon. He woke at seven, watched television with Brett, ate a little bit of the dinner Celeste cooked, and then went back to bed. That wasn’t unusual for him. For months, he had gone to work, watched TV, and gone to bed early. Lately, he had been in the habit of getting up early to ride his bike before he went to work, but on the morning of September 5, he didn’t do that.
“I never saw him that morning,” Celeste said quietly. “I jumped up and went upstairs to wake the boys, and when I came downstairs, John had left for work. He never said goodbye. He never said good morning to the boys. Nothing.”
Celeste went about her usual weekday chores. She fed the boys, took care of her house, and then drove Brett to soccer practice. She and Dan did errands until it was time to pick Brett up.
She expected to see John at home after he finished work as usual. Their separation was in an embryonic stage; technically they still lived together, and John had no pots and pans or groceries yet. But by 6:30, he wasn’t home, and he wasn’t at work at Shawnee Mission Hospital, although Celeste learned his staff there had had a meeting that kept him a little later than usual. He wasn’t at the golf course, and he wasn’t at any of the friends’ homes she called.
Out of ideas, Celeste called Janie, one of her best friends. “Maybe he’s over at his new place,” she said. “Maybe he’s just reading the paper over there—having some quiet time alone. I think he has a phone there, but I don’t know the number. I’ll go over and check.”
There was a long pause and then Janie said, “My dad killed himself. Don’t you go over there alone. I have a terrible feeling.”
Janie lived near the house John had rented. When Celeste got there, she was already standing in the driveway. They knocked and got no resp
onse. They tried the door; it was locked. They worked their way around the house, trying doors and windows, but they were all locked.
“John had taken me for a tour of the house a few days before,” Celeste said, “so I knew about this letter-drop thing into the garage. I opened that and I could see a light in there. There were no windows in the garage so it was completely dark, except for this light. I kept staring at it—and my brain just wasn’t computing. It wouldn’t let me identify what I was seeing. It didn’t make sense to me. Finally, I could see what I was seeing.”
Celeste’s subconscious mind had tried to keep her from recognizing what she was looking at. Her eyes saw the faded blue, pink, and tan checks of John’s shirt, but her mind would not process that information. Finally, she realized that the little light she saw was the dome light of her husband’s car. His head was thrown back and the light was shining down on his face.
He wasn’t moving at all.
Frantic, Celeste and Janie raced around to the back, where the garage door lifted up, but it was locked tight. Celeste called 911 on her cell phone, screaming for help. Neither woman would remember exactly how they got into the garage, but somehow they did. “Janie practically wrecked the door,” Celeste said, “but she got it up so we could get in.”
Janie managed to drag John from his car onto the garage floor; there, three women fought to save his life: Celeste, Janie, and a doctor who lived next door. The doctor, who was hugely pregnant, got down on the floor and tried to breathe air into his lungs, but her own lungs were so compromised by her pregnancy that she couldn’t even manage to lift his chest. Celeste pushed her out of the way and placed her own mouth over her husband’s. She willed him to live, and took heart when she saw that his chest did rise and fall.
“The reason we all fought so hard was because we thought there was time—he was still so warm,” Celeste would remember. They hadn’t stopped to think that it was 105 degrees outside. It wasn’t life that kept John warm, it was the weather. “He had been dead a long time,” Celeste recalled sadly. “He had left work at four o’clock and it was seven-thirty when we found him.”