Kyle was stunned by this. He could tell Clara had been crying for a very long time.
The OG had plans to take Clara and her siblings on a Christmas vacation trip to the Virgin Islands. It was going to be a chance for them to get away and spend some time together as a family.
“Don’t go,” Kyle said.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t go.” It was as simple as that. Tell him you’re going and don’t show up at the airport.
“You have to protect me,” Clara pleaded, ignoring Kyle’s request for her not even to go. “Kyle, listen to me. . . . You have to protect me. He’s going to kill me.”
Clara feared that the OG was going to use the trip to execute her while they were in the Virgin Islands. She didn’t say how, when, or if she had told anyone else, but the OG had made it damn clear that Clara would not be returning from this trip.
“Look, calm down,” Kyle said. “Chill. Everything’s going to be fine. I’ll protect you. No need to worry. Please don’t worry.”
It took some time, but Kyle was able to calm Clara down and make her understand that there was not going to be a trip to the Virgin Islands and she did not have to worry. All she had to do for the next few days was watch her back around the house. Keep clear of the OG. Kyle said he was going to fix everything. She had to believe in him.
After they hung up, Kyle popped on his headphones and downloaded some music. He sat and thought about what needed to be done. He didn’t want to see Clara suffer the way she was; it was beyond the point of scaring the OG now.
What the fuck! Kyle said to himself, with that music banging in his head. Then the conversation Kyle had with his Vietnam buddy came back to him. That advice he had been given: “Go to the cops.” But also, playing more prominently in Kyle’s confused and delusional mind, was the remembrance of his friend explaining because Robert Schwartz was a biochemist, he had access to chemicals that not many people did. Therefore, he could likely kill Clara, and no one would ever know. Thus, it was time, Kyle decided, to confront this clown and explain to him that he would not be hurting his daughter—Clara Schwartz—any longer.
CHAPTER 43
WERE THERE REAL problems between Clara and her father? This was the question many would later ask. Was this all some narrative Clara had constructed to get people to feel sorry for her? Was it your general father-child disagreements taken completely out of context by Clara? Was the OG treating Clara with serious disdain?
Richard Gillespie had been one of Clara’s teachers from Loudoun Valley High School. He taught Advanced Placement U.S. history. Gillespie later talked about witnessing firsthand several issues Clara had with her father, although none seemed to be the gloom-and-doom scenario Clara had built them up to be later on.
“The gist of [it] . . . was that there seemed to be significant difficulties between Clara and her father,” Gillespie said later (in court). He observed this mostly while being an activity sponsor and working with Clara on certain events and after-school activities. Gillespie “expected,” he said, “cooperation from parents” of the children involved in the extracurricular activities he oversaw. He’d seen a commitment from Mr. Schwartz with Clara’s siblings, whom he had also taught, but not when it came to Clara. It was mainly transportation problems that spoke of a bigger, more serious gulf between Mr. Schwartz and Clara, Gillespie observed. On a consistent basis, Clara did not have a ride home from her after-school activities. Clara would often cancel plans to go on field trips “at the last moment,” Gillespie said. So he’d pull her aside next time he ran into her and ask why.
“I had a run-in with my dad and he won’t let me do it,” she’d say.
Clara wasn’t allowed to drive the family car while in high school because she had crashed it once, so the OG stopped her access to the vehicle. When she did go on field trips, it seemed that she never had anyone waiting there at the school to pick her up when the bus returned. It got so bad that Gillespie asked one of the other teachers what was going on with Clara.
“Well,” that teacher told him, “this is the way it’s been. We have been taking her home for some time now.”
By then, Gillespie had taught for twenty-seven years. One day, shortly after a blizzard in 2000, on his way home from dropping Clara off at the Stone House, Gillespie thought about how it had been only “a handful of times” throughout his entire career “when a parent, even a single parent ... seemed to abandon a child” in the way he viewed Robert Schwartz had.
One incident with Clara that disturbed Gillespie and made him take notice occurred not long after the Columbine incident. Clara wore a trench coat to school. It was well known then that both of the kids who murdered scores of their peers at Columbine—in one of the most high-profile and horrific school shootings in history—wore black trench coats while roaming the halls in search of victims. It seemed odd to Gillespie that Clara would choose to wear the same type of coat to school, as if either mocking the murders, paying homage to the two murderers, or maybe just looking for attention.
“She . . . also associated with a handful of goths,” Gillespie said. They had a lengthy conversation about Clara’s choice of wearing the trench coat and the kids she chose to hang around with. Gillespie was obviously worried about her.
“If you wonder why kids do this (Columbine),” Clara told Gillespie, “it’s for protection. It’s for protection against other kids who pick on them. You can’t get protection against teachers who pick on you. [But] you can get protection against other kids.”
Gillespie was concerned. It was a strange and alarming statement to make. Clara was effectively saying shooting up a school and killing innocent kids was an okay reaction to being picked on. He wanted to help. He asked Clara what else was ailing her.
“Do you know that I am often referred to—and have come to think of myself, actually!—as ‘the troll’? That’s why I need protection.”
“She referenced back to the notion of ‘needed’ protection,” Gillespie added. “Protection in a sense of, I guess, social protection. That seemed quite relevant.”
From as much as he could observe in talking with her and witnessing her habits at school, Gillespie’s final point about Clara’s life at home was that he believed Clara was “demeaned by [Mr. Schwartz],” which “put her in a very difficult situation ... that showed in many ways.”
As a teacher, it was Gillespie’s responsibility to report child abuse of any kind to the proper authorities, he explained. If he believed Clara was being abused at home, it would be his duty to report it. He’d seen Clara abuse herself over the years, such as through cutting, but he had never witnessed any bruises or any other indicators leading him to believe she was being beaten.
They talked about the “Clara situation,” Gillespie said, meaning him and other teachers. She had so much potential as a student. She was wasting it with her behavior and attitude. In the end, he said, “The difficulty with that is . . . we were all aware of that situation. We are obligated to report abuse, physical abuse. I saw none they could support. Yet, there’s a reasonably complete record of problems, as the school saw them, with Clara. . . . And yet I think we were more concerned with Clara’s emotional well-being and did not have evidence of anything to report. . . .”
Later, when Gillespie went to the police with his concerns about the relationship between Clara and her father, an investigation was launched. One of those investigators looked into it, asking Clara’s siblings a series of questions about Clara and Dr. Schwartz. If anyone would have known about the possibility of her father abusing Clara, it would be those closest to both her and Dr. Schwartz. But the investigator found no evidence of any verbal abuse or any other type of abuse against Clara by her father. They had problems, as any family might. But Dr. Schwartz’s issues were academic-related concerns. He didn’t like the way Clara was valuing her schoolwork. He thought she could do better. And so once again, it was Clara’s word—backed up by no evidence whatsoever that Dr. Schwartz w
as anything other than an overbearing parent who expected big things from his child.
“The only thing I can recall of any note,” one of the investigators reported later, “was that the father did not provide transportation after a history club meeting on several occasions.” When asked how he would describe the relationship between Clara and her father, as the investigation bore it out, the detective added, “It was pretty typical.”
CHAPTER 44
AN ENVELOPE ARRIVED at Mike’s house on Friday, December 7, 2001. Katie saw that it was not addressed to Mike, herself, or anyone else in Mike’s home, but she knew the name on the overnight package: Kyle. Looking at the handwriting—apparently, there was no return address or name—Katie could tell that it was from Clara. So she put the envelope on Mike’s dresser and forgot about it. Must be one of Clara and Kyle’s little games they’re playing with each other. Katie was kind of tired of the Clara/Kyle thing, anyway. She had been ignoring it for the most part over the past few weeks.
“You got a letter here,” Mike told Kyle over the phone after calling him at Brandy’s later that day.
“Come and get me,” Kyle said. It seemed to Mike that Kyle was expecting the letter. Or, rather, he was not at all surprised by it.
Mike and Katie picked Kyle up at Brandy’s.
Kyle opened the letter and took out a check for $60.
“Nice!”
There was also a piece of paper inside the envelope. Kyle unfolded it and silently read it: WHATS NEEDED AND EXPECTED, Clara had written, misspelling “what’s.” She signed the note Lord Chaos.
“I needed the money to open up a bank account,” Kyle said later, hoping to explain what turned out to be a complete inconsistency regarding this letter, why it was sent, and what the money was for. Kyle wanted to clear this up, he told me, adding, “Clara knew I needed some money.” Kyle claimed there was no “deal” between them, as in a murder-for-hire plot. The amount alone might back up his statement. Sixty dollars seemed more than ridiculous if you were in the market to hire someone to kill your father. Kyle said Clara was just being Clara and helping him with some cash so he could open up a bank account, buy a phone card, and, most important, show credit card companies that he had a bank account so he could apply for some credit.
“Every time I went over to Mike’s, I stayed up all night online,” Kyle said. “I didn’t have a computer where I lived. I was addicted to porn. I am a sex fiend. All of the porn sites I was surfing required a credit card number, even if you wanted access to the free stuff. So I needed a credit card.”
Okay ...
As for the note, Kyle insisted again, it was Clara’s way of reaching out to him and, one more time, letting him know that there was this language developing between them that only they understood. He didn’t even recall, years later, what the note said. He believed it was unimportant.
“What’s needed and expected” sounds an awful lot like a request.
As for the timing of the money and the note, well, Kyle couldn’t explain it.
“I know what it seems like,” he said.
And the fact that the letter was sent overnight, express mail.
“Again, I know how it looks . . . but I cannot explain it.” Kyle said he and Clara never discussed her sending him money to carry out “a job.”
“In the days leading up to December eighth . . . Kyle told Clara he needed money . . . for various things,” one law enforcement official later said. “He needed to open a bank account. He needed to charge his phone card. But he also ... needed money to buy some gloves and something called a ‘do-rag,’ a head covering.”
According to this same law enforcement official, “He told her he needed to make sure he had that do-rag so he didn’t leave any hair at the scene when he killed her father.”
Kyle doesn’t understand where this came from, he said.
“First of all, I do not like wearing stuff on my head—hats and shit on my head. I get terrible cases of hat hair! I don’t even like using the term ‘do-rag.’ It sounds so fucking ghetto—it’s not even funny. Gloves? I never wear them.”
Kyle disputed it all. He never bought a do-rag or gloves. He believed—and still believes—Clara inserted all of this into the record later on to make it seem as though Kyle took it upon himself to gear up for a fight with the OG.
No receipts were ever recovered proving he bought these items.
“When I read what Clara later told police, I thought I was reading a cheesy script to a B-rated crime movie or something,” Kyle said. “Her motives are so transparent. It looks that way on paper. She comes across as ... ‘Oh, my God . . . he took what I said as this [and went after] my father. He’s crazy. He overreacted to what I had been telling him.’”
Clara had sent the letter overnight. She needed it to be there before December 8, which was the planned day for Kyle to confront the OG and finally put all of Clara’s cards on the table. This, Kyle said, had been an agreement between them—for him to “confront” the OG. Furthermore, it was always believed that the night Kyle had spent on the grounds of the Stone House estate, sleeping in his tent, was for the sole purpose of Kyle getting the lay of the land and scoping out the OG, meeting him and sizing up the man.
“I went to the house to confront him about the allegations Clara had made,” Kyle said. “That was it.”
CHAPTER 45
KYLE, MIKE, AND Katie were on their way to the bank so Kyle could open that account and deposit the check Clara had sent him. Bank records and video surveillance prove that all three were there on December 7, 2001.
They spent an hour inside the bank. After Kyle opened his account, Mike drove to a friend’s house, where they all had pizza and decorated a Christmas tree. It was fun and festive—though Kyle seemed amped more than usual, on edge and wired. He had something on his mind, for sure.
“You guys want to hang out tomorrow?” Katie and Mike’s friend asked as the end of the night approached.
“Sure,” Katie said.
Mike and Kyle agreed.
Then Mike, Katie, and Kyle went back to Mike’s parents’ house. Katie and Mike slept, while Kyle spent most of the night online surfing porn sites, before falling asleep at some point just before the sun came up.
The next morning, while they were all still asleep, that same friend called.
“I thought we were going to hook up and go to Springfield Mall?”
“Yeah,” Katie said. She sounded groggy and out of it. “What time is it?”
“Noon!” her friend responded.
“We’ll meet you there.”
Kyle got up. He packed his trusty backpack and flung it over his shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get going.” He tucked his sword into its sheath on his side, like a warrior ready for battle. Kyle had another smaller knife with him, which he kept in a holster attached to his hip.
“You bringing that thing?” Mike asked, referring to the ninja sword.
“Yeah, I want to get it sharpened at Chesapeake Knife and Tool. It’s in the mall.”
When they pulled up to the mall, Kyle told Mike he was going to speak with security and ask them if it was okay to bring the sword into the mall to get it sharpened. “I’ll meet you guys in the food court after I’m done.”
Katie said that was fine. Her friend was supposed to meet them there, anyway.
Kyle found the security guard kiosk and asked about the sword.
The security guard on duty told him no problem. They appreciated the fact that he let them know.
Kyle took the sword to Chesapeake Knife & Tool.
As Katie, Mike, and their friend sat in the food court some time later, Katie explained, “[Kyle] . . . came storming past us . . . looking very angry, and still carrying his sword.”
“What’s up?” Mike asked.
“They wouldn’t sharpen it. Assholes!”
“Why not?”
“They said it was too big.”
“Shit, sorry, Kyle.” Katie and the others
wondered why Kyle was so upset. He could get the sword sharpened some other time. What was the big deal?
They walked around the mall for a while; and by late that afternoon, Saturday, December 8, Kyle said he wanted to leave.
“Where you wanna go?” Mike and Katie wondered.
“Mount Gilead,” Kyle said.
This was an area near the Schwartz house positioned on a mountaintop of about six hundred feet above sea level. It’s a section of land on the western slope of Catoctin Mountain, between Leesburg and a place that once housed Coes Mill. Kyle liked it up there. It was quiet. He’d camped there a few times since getting to know Clara and felt a kinship with the land. Clara’s house was about a five-minute drive from the Mount Gilead area where Kyle had camped. He could walk to the Stone House in about fifteen or twenty minutes.
“Why there?” Mike asked.
“I met someone that night over Thanksgiving, when I camped in the woods.”
“You met someone?” Mike asked, confused why Kyle had not mentioned this before.
“Yeah. Let’s go. Let’s get the fuck out of this mall.”
Their friend had left already. Mike, Katie, and Kyle got into Mike’s Honda Civic and drove out of the parking lot.
“What are you going to do out there?” Katie asked.
“A job,” Kyle said.
As Mike drove, he thought about what Kyle meant by a “job.” He knew Clara and Kyle had been heavily into the Underworld game; they had been talking about it daily now for weeks. To Mike, “job” meant assassination. Though he also mentioned that it was part of the Underworld fantasy—a game.
“Who is this person you’re going to meet?” Katie asked Kyle.
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