Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir

by Gary Taylor

  At the same time, however, she knew she had to keep him separated from our daughters until he could become a more model step-parent. Just as I had worked to keep the kids isolated from Catherine, Cindy was working to keep them away from Uncle Al. In her case, I understood, the challenge had been dramatically more difficult since the girls lived with her. Later on, I would hear chilling tales about how Shannon could never get to sleep because she feared if she did, her mom would bring in a babysitter and sneak out with Uncle Al. While Cindy worked hard to keep things together, she had to have known in the back of her head it was never going to work. Had Uncle Al been more of a psychopath, Cindy might have dumped him as quickly as I had decided with Catherine. But it took her longer with him to face it. And it was her final recognition of that reality the night they fled his condo that prompted her decision to end her own life.

  In the weeks before that night, they had even been attending couples therapy to help Uncle Al behave. And they had been planning a trip to the mountains that would require leaving the girls with a babysitter for ten days. Cindy had reluctantly agreed to the trip but also was growing exhausted with the hyper activity level of her prospective mate. He simply was beginning to wear her out. And his drinking didn't help. When she nagged him about it again, he lashed back and pushed her around. She called me for help and fled with the girls into the street.

  After I took them home and threw beer in her face, Cindy put the girls to bed and then climbed into the shower. The water felt so refreshing and her life outside so hopeless, she did not want to return. So, she decided she would take pills in the morning, after arranging for the girls by calling me. A feeling of resolution arrived with a rush and calmed her nerves. Yes, she decided, we'd all be better off without her and her selfish, rationalizing ways. She had awakened in the morning even more convinced it had to be done.

  I didn't know all these details at the time. All I knew was that she had fallen under the spell of something dangerous for all of us. And that's why I had come to the sheriff's office, where I watched a deputy process Cindy's paperwork as if it was another delivery of junk mail—just another part of his day.

  "We can't get anyone over there until later this afternoon," said the sergeant, handing a copy of the commitment order to me. "Can you go sit with her a while and make sure she's all right?"

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  July 31, 1980

  Although I hadn't used it in weeks, the extra key I kept for Cindy's house came in handy. She had given me a copy earlier in the year during one of our reconciliations and then never retrieved it when she and Uncle Al took their vows of fidelity.

  But the key alone did not get me through the door when I returned to the house in the early afternoon. Besides locking the door, Cindy had jammed a kitchen fork into the woodwork at the base, perhaps anticipating someone might try to interfere. But the fork sprung quickly when I kicked on the wood, and the door flew open without much of a fight.

  I strode quickly through the living room and back to the main bedroom, where I figured I would find her.

  "Cindy," I yelled, more than a little concern that Uncle Al had arrived before me and was waiting inside with his gun. But no one answered, and I reached the bedroom doorway without trouble. I saw Cindy lying on the bed and tried to wake her, but she was genuinely unconscious. I could barely hear her breathing, and I noted an open bottle of pills on the table beside the bed. I picked up the phone and called for an ambulance that arrived in a matter of minutes with a West University Place police car right on its tail. The paramedics confirmed her weak life signs and carried her outside where they said they would take her straight to Ben Taub. What a rendezvous point that place had been in the last year! It was where Cindy worked with Uncle Al, where I had gone after Catherine shot me, and where Catherine had gone from court after faking her suicide attempt. It might be embarrassing for Cindy to show up there on a death-watch, but the "Tub," as reporters lovingly called it, still ranked as one of the nation's most effective trauma centers. I wasn't going to tell them to take her anywhere else.

  "Sorry, Cin," I whispered as they slid her gurney through the doors. "But I think you need the Tub."

  I ignored the handful of neighbors who had gathered in the street and walked back inside the house, where two cops from this jurisdiction were looking around.

  "Look at this medicine cabinet," I heard one of them say. "She has a pharmacy in here."

  Intrigued, I wandered into the bathroom and took a peek for myself. I noticed a couple of shelves of pill bottles, many of them identifying Uncle Al as the prescribing physician. It looked like the doctor had used more than his natural charm to weave his spell. While the cop in the bathroom was dumping the bottles into an evidence bag, I heard the other cop shout, "What the hell is this?" back in the bedroom. I rounded the corner to see him holding Cindy's telephone in the air and pointing at the bullet hole left from Uncle Al's November temper tantrum.

  "That's a bullet wound," I said. "Her boyfriend shot at it last year."

  The cop raised his eyebrows and placed the phone back on the table. I showed him the paperwork I had brought from the sheriff's office and answered questions for his report. I showed him my key and told him I would need access to the house to help gather the rest of my daughters' clothes, and he accepted that explanation. Both cops offered apologies for the situation and wished me well. After they left, I looked around a bit to see if I could find anything else to help me understand. I thumbed through a date book that had become a diary for Cindy's activities of the last few months but found nothing more shocking than the sheer volume of different events. It was clear that Uncle Al was the kind of guy who had to be doing something all the time and likely suffered from adult attention deficit disorder or had cultivated an extensive speed habit. I'd heard those ER docs needed that stuff to stay awake for long periods of time, and, from Cindy's party and hobby schedule alone, it looked like he fit the profile.

  I called the hospital and learned she had survived but was not yet available for visitors. So, I decided to get some help for that night with the girls. I knew I faced some life-changing decisions, and I planned to take no more time than necessary. I drove over to the girls' Montessori school about ten minutes away and talked with one of their teachers who was well-acquainted with the soap opera that had engulfed their lives. Without any judgmental remarks, she agreed to take them to her house that night while I sorted out the final details of life as I had known it. And, as I looked around her school, I quickly reached a crucial decision about my daughters. A sense of relief engulfed me as I could see the place had been an oasis of stability in their lives throughout the turmoil of the past year. And, why not? They had lived here eight hours each day, just like me going to my job. This school was their life. Whatever I did, I decided, one thing was clear. My daughters would not lose this place until they grew out of it.

  At the same time, I contrasted their school with the room I still rented from Strong. I laughed, trying to imagine the three of us shut in there on weekends, watching television. It was time to get out of there, and, I decided, this weekend would be a perfect time for the three of us to go apartment hunting. I'd have to cash in some of my share from the sale of our house for furniture, but it still sounded like fun.

  Thinking about the future reminded me of a need to call my lawyer and see what legal maneuvers we would have to perform after this latest development. I could feel Fred Dailey sitting with his own Wile E. Coyote face on the other end of the line while I told him about Cindy and the formerly closed divorce case he now would have to reopen.

  "OK," he said. "Let's think this through. She's in Ben Taub and probably going to be locked away for a while. She will recover while in therapy and come out of the hospital looking for her kids. My advice is to get an emergency temporary custody order tomorrow, if we can find a judge who will hear it. He'll tell you she's eventually going to blame it all on you, but he'll have to sign it because we probably can't even serve her wher
e she's going. So there'll be no one to object."

  "Then what?"

  "Then we should file for an immediate jury trial on permanent custody and hope we can pull that off before she's released. Your costs should be minimal. But if you wait for her release, it could get expensive, and there's a better chance you'll lose after she gets sorted out. Courts hate to take girls from their mothers."

  "Let's get the temporary order like you said. I don't know about moving so fast on the permanent order. I don't really want to cause her any more harm than I have to…"

  He cut me off and asked sarcastically, "Are you going to go ahead and send flowers to Mehaffey, too, since you're feeling like such a nice, generous guy today?"

  "I just can't let Cindy feel like I went behind her back and completely destroyed her life. Can't the temporary order be written to last until she gets the court to change it back?"

  "Don't bring Mehaffey to court again with you this time. I'll call you when I get something ready. And good luck with this latest situation. I knew I shouldn't have stuck that file in the storeroom."

  It had been a hectic day with my body in fight-or-flight mode again since the moment Cindy shocked me with her wake-up call. I was checking off the items on my mental to-do list rapidly but still had a couple of important things left. As evening arrived, I headed for the "Tub" to visit my ex-wife, and I found her in no good mood at all.

  "Maybe I'm not pleased with what you did," she said, still sounding too groggy for serious conversation. I ignored her whining and tried to redirect her mind to more uplifting subjects.

  "The girls are doing fine. All I'm going to tell them is that you've gotten sick, and they need to live with me. Don't worry about them. You know I can handle it."

  "Why did you send me here?"

  Her attitude both worried and disappointed me. I had hoped she would revive from her stupor grateful to be alive. Instead, she seemed agitated and abrupt, sounding like she might want to try again.

  "C'mon," I said. "You know why you came here. If you get hurt in Houston, you go to Ben Taub. We all go to Ben Taub."

  Darkness had fallen by the time I left her there, pouting and still goofy from whatever drugs remained in her system. But I managed to quickly put her out of my mind as I focused on the last item from my list—the one that would be the hardest. I had been working at The Houston Post for nearly ten years, and it had become my oasis of stability. It had seen me through two marriages and the birth of my children. It had been more than just a place I could work. It had been the anchor for the most important facet of life—my career. It had been in the back of my mind all day.

  Earlier, when Cindy's therapist had steered me to the sheriff, I had taken Johnny B aside and asked to take a couple of vacation days to handle this latest abruption. He bit his tongue, but I could tell from the roll of his eyes that he was getting fed up with my soap opera. At first I found his reaction an irritant but didn't have the time for an argument. As I thought about The Post and my changing future throughout the day, however, I began to sympathize with him. He had simply given me time off for both of the Mehaffey trials without a word. All this ruckus had not been fair to him, and now it looked like I had only scratched the surface. As a single dad, I would be hobbled for years to come, unable to work the kind of haphazard schedule required to do the newspaper job with the focus it deserved.

  More importantly, I could not let that job distract me from the more important work of fatherhood. The girls needed a full-time parent—something they had not had in at least a year. I would no longer make them compete with anything else. I was sure Johnny B and Logan could have found some kind of place for me at The Post with a schedule that could accommodate my new lifestyle, once I had things organized. I knew I would miss the newspaper life more than I had missed anything else that had ever been taken away. And I also knew I would need the income stream that life had provided.

  As I drove away from The Post's big white stone building, where my resignation sat in Johnny B's mailbox, I snuffed back a nostalgic tear. But I still had a smile on my face. For the first time since the age of twelve I would face the morning unemployed. Most crucial parts of my life suddenly had changed in the span of a single day. But I knew the most important thing remained in place.

  I checked my reflection in the rear view and then whispered with confidence: I'll figure something out.

  SIXTY-NINE

  September 15, 1980

  I should have known that the eleven-month anniversary of my first date with Catherine could not pass without a reunion of sorts. By then I had reordered my life around my daughters, and things were working well. I used some of my savings to set us up in a little two-bedroom apartment near Houston's Astrodome complex, across the street from a grade school and a church. I also found quickly that my journalism talents were much in demand as a freelance reporter. Until then, I always had considered the word "freelancer" a synonym for "unemployed" and scoffed at the concept of living that way. But Houston at that time had become an international news center, and I was learning that most national news outlets needed freelance help covering the place. Given my local news reporting experience and my newfound availability, I started getting calls for assignments I could handle on my own schedule. With only a little marketing, I began to believe I might be able to succeed at self-employment for a while.

  But mostly I focused on making the girls the center of my life. Little E started her advanced kindergarten program that required a bus trip for several miles each morning and afternoon. The bus stopped right outside our small apartment building, and the church across the street offered an after-school program where she could go in case I was out when it came home. Despite the expense, I kept Shannon in the Montessori pre-school on the belief that she needed the most stability I could provide. Lots of things were in flux around her, but I wanted to make sure her oasis of stability remained in place.

  I swore off women, at least for a while, or, perhaps, as best I could. When Barbara heard about Cindy's suicide attempt she called one night from a bar and offered to help any way she could. I was flattered. But I told her I thought the time had come for my daughters to be the only girls in my life, at least for a little while.

  Cindy spent a month in a Houston mental hospital, then emerged reluctantly accepting the court order I had obtained while she was there. Although that order did not grant her any visitation, I agreed to split each week with her as long as Little E could reach her bus stop in the mornings. Cindy appeared to have successfully eliminated Uncle Al from her life, and she returned to her job as the child welfare worker for Ben Taub, almost as if nothing had happened. But she had experienced an epiphany of some sort in the form of a religious conversion and had become involved in a Roman Catholic group. The religious experience appeared to have a calming effect, and she seemed to be taking life one day at a time while sorting out her personal plans for the future. She certainly showed no signs of challenging my new role as the primary custodian and, in some ways, appeared relieved she no longer had the responsibility.

  To accumulate pocket change as well as for therapeutic reasons, I also took a menial job waiting tables weekdays over lunch at one of Houston's mid-range seafood restaurants called Pier 21. Waiting tables gave me something constructive to do for a couple of hours in the middle of each day while adding a nostalgic feel to this new period in my life. I felt as if I were back in college, reviewing my options for the future, and having a little fun. I knew I wouldn't be there very long, either, and it was nice to scrape the tips off the table for a wad of instant money in my pocket every day.

  Pier 21 stood walking distance from the offices for the Houston Oilers pro football franchise, and we often saw sports luminaries stop for lunch. I waited on future NFL Hall of Famer Earl Campbell one day and laughed when he sent his fish back to the kitchen. I didn't get a tip from this multi-millionaire running back, but I didn't ask him for an autograph, either. I just treated him like he was any other guy sitting
down with his wife and kid for a lunch. Maybe that insulted him. More entertaining, however, were the times when members of the Oilers cheerleading squad, the Derrick Dolls, sat in my section. They laughed a lot, tipped well, and flirted even better. So, I always made sure their fried shrimp and pasta salads received special treatment from the kitchen.

  Several of the dolls were there when I looked up to see Catherine stroll into the dining room with the Last Cowboy on one arm and one of the local district criminal court judges on the other. It was obvious someone had tipped her that my waiter skills were on display at Pier 21, and she demanded a table in my section to see for herself. Ever the professional at whatever I'm doing, I took their orders politely and refilled their tea glasses repeatedly. Watching her watching me made me curious about what had happened to her since the trial. I knew she had been released on bond pending appeal, an option for anyone sentenced to a term of fifteen years or less. Of course, I also knew she wasn't able to practice law while appealing a felony conviction like attempted murder. And, I was glad to see that she apparently hadn't taken any shots at Skelton—yet. Maybe the conviction had placed her on best behavior. So, once again, I simply could not resist when she asked if she could return after the lunch rush to have a drink at the end of my shift.