Perfect Victim
Page 18
Thus 1983 elapsed, and this little celebration—which Cameron told her was a reward for being a good slave—marked not only K’s birthday and the dawning of 1984, but the beginning of an era of freedoms beyond any K had experienced even during her “year out” three years earlier. It began gradually, with K being given just a bit more license—nothing extraordinary and nothing to presage the upheaval 1984 would bring.
Beginning in January, K was granted a few small liberties, special at first, but soon routine. Her nocturnal releases from the box elongated; most nights she was out for several hours. She was allowed to fix something for herself to eat, and afterward she could stay in the back bathroom to read or write poetry or do crafts. And though K was still required to call Cameron “Sir,” she now called Jan by name.
The special relationship that had blossomed between Jan and K continued to grow, tentatively, in the quiet times when Cameron and the children were gone. The Bible was the root of their friendship, and their excuse, initially, for talking. Before their religious discussions, in all the seasons they’d passed under the same roof, they’d never engaged in real conversation.
Now Jan got K out of the box two or three times a day—not only for Biblical discussions but to help with housework or to chat over sandwiches and cookies.
The kinship that sprang up between them was evidently clandestine, a refuge in the midst of extreme circumstances, and their new camaraderie was nurtured by the many things they had in common. Both had dropped out of high school for quick marriages at a young age in Nevada. Both adored children, particularly Cathy and Dawn. Both were lonely, vulnerable, submissive women with terrible secrets and no friends with whom to share them.
And they were both deeply afraid of provoking the anger of Cameron Hooker.
K had been granted a long stretch of relative peace, with little physical or sexual abuse over the past several months. During this period, Hooker, instead, focused his attention on Jan. The incidents of hanging, bondage, and sado-masochism, which throughout their marriage had averaged about once or twice a month, started climbing in late 1983 and by 1984 had jumped to about six times a month.
Hooker had found it convenient to blame K’s mistreatment on Company orders; now he hung and whipped Jan, he said, out of concern for her soul. He told her that she was possessed, and punishment was the only way to get the devil out.
Thanks to frequent meals, K’s bony frame filled out from less than 100 pounds to a more respectable 110, 115, 120. She didn’t realize at the time that the Hookers were intentionally trying to fatten her up.
Looking better nourished, cleaned up, and with some decent clothes on, she was ready to face the world again. Hooker had decided that, after three years of nearly continuous confinement, K was ready to be out of the box full time.
Now she no longer slept in the box beneath the bed, but in a sleeping bag on the living room floor. She was reintroduced to the Hookers’ little girls and again entrusted with babysitting. Family members who stopped by found that “Kay” had returned from Southern California. And in no time Jan was steering her around the neighborhood saying, “Look who’s back!”
But these were simply preliminaries. The real reason K was out of the box was that Cameron, obviously confident of his control over her, had decided to let her get a job.
“I’m sticking my neck out,” he told her. “I don’t have the fifteen hundred dollars to pay the Company’s security fee, but I’ll let you go out and work. The money you earn will be saved, and when there’s enough I’ll buy a little house trailer you can live in.”
So in May of 1984, exactly seven years after Colleen Stan’s 1977 abduction, K’s increasing freedoms culminated in a job search. Jan drove her around to well over a dozen businesses so that she could fill out applications.
Motels seemed a good place to try. K opened the door of King’s Lodge and asked, “Are you hiring? Do you have any work for me?”
The motel owner and manager, a stout, dark-haired woman by the name of Doris Miron, appraised this clean and smiling young woman, asked her to fill out an application, and hired her on the spot. K seemed happy to get a job and eager to work; that impressed Mrs. Miron. She was to start her job as a motel maid the next morning.
With her new employment, K settled into a routine. In the early morning she gardened, hoeing and weeding, planting and watering, working up such a sweat that the neighbors couldn’t help but notice. She raised blisters long before any vegetables but never complained, for simply being outdoors again was an answer to countless prayers.
As dawn pushed into morning, K washed up and got ready for work. Sometimes Jan drove her, but more often K pedalled the three and a half miles into town on Jan’s bike.
At King’s Lodge, K worked so diligently that she earned the ire of some of her coworkers, who saw her as Mrs. Miron’s goody-goody “golden girl.” And Mrs. Miron was indeed impressed. She soon gave her a promotion: “Kay” was the first maid Mrs. Miron ever asked to work at the front desk. She felt she could trust her.
Sometimes, if Mrs. Miron came into the office, they’d talk, and Miron learned something of K’s situation at home.
At first K told Mrs. Miron that Jan was her sister; then she amended that, saying, “She’s actually just a very good friend, but we’re like sisters.” They stayed up late together, K told her, making “strawberry dolls”—toilet tissue holders with crocheted skirts and cute little faces. They were trying to sell them for fifteen dollars apiece, and Mrs. Miron bought three.
It seemed to Doris Miron that money was a problem with the Hookers, and they were taking advantage of “Kay.” Once “Kay” told her: “I give all my checks to Jan and Cameron to pay for room and board, and they give me an allowance of twenty dollars.” That didn’t seem right to Mrs. Miron.
When the maids took breaks and bought colas out of the vending machine, Lenora Scott, another maid, also noticed that “Kay” never seemed to have much money. Lenora, twenty-two, didn’t like her at first, but one day the sky turned dark with clouds, and knowing that “Kay” had ridden her bike, she approached her after work.
“It looks like it’s going to rain,” she said. “Do you need a ride home? We can put your bike in the back.”
K couldn’t see any problem with that, so they loaded up the bike and Lenora drove her south of town, down the dirt road to the mobile home. No one was home, so K invited her new friend inside.
They chatted awhile. Lenora noticed a sleeping bag on the floor, where K said she slept. Motioning to a back pack, K said, “All my worldly possessions are in that pack.” She apparently didn’t consider that this would strike Lenora as odd, even though she’d said she’d lived here a long time.
Jan came home shortly and joined them in the living room. Lenora had met the plump, frizzy-haired Mrs. Hooker at the motel one day when she was picking up K after work. Now that they had a chance to visit they found, as is often the case in a small town, that they had friends and acquaintances in common.
It wasn’t long until Cameron came home. He came in, sat down on the couch, and stared at Lenora. He didn’t say a word, just stared.
Unsettled, Lenora said her good-byes and left.
Early in June, Cameron Hooker made a serious mistake. K asked permission to go to church. He said yes.
The Church of the Nazarene stands on a quiet corner just a few blocks from downtown Red Bluff. The church is a large, airy structure with high, beamed ceilings. Broad steps rise up to the front doors, and a sign out front announces the service schedule.
The first Sunday K rode to church on the bus with the children. The next Sunday Jan decided to go with her, so they all went together in the car. From then on, Jan and K attended regularly.
Had Cameron Hooker anticipated the effect these services would have, he surely would have insisted that his women stay home. But religion had served him well so far, and he saw no reason why it shouldn’t continue to do so. At least Jan and K weren’t fighting anymore.
At last he ascended the pulpit, the assembly hushed, and the service began.
It was a service not unlike thousands that take place every Sunday across the country. The congregation sang together, prayed together, and listened quietly as the pastor extolled virtues and castigated sins in his “message,” the spiritual focus of the morning. As Pastor Dabney rocked back and forth on his heels, his words resonating through the room, he surveyed his flock, noticing two new faces among the congregation.
There was nothing especially remarkable about “Kay Powers” and Janice Hooker, except that Mrs. Hooker was often noticeably moved by the pastor’s message. She wept. The pastor made it a policy not to pry, but it seemed clear this was a deeply troubled young woman.
Jan and K were now attending church regularly, so Pastor Dabney decided to pay them a call. They’d included their address when they signed the register, so, one morning, unannounced, the pastor drove out to the brown and yellow trailer off Pershing Road.
It was just a brief social call. Pleasant, but unremarkable . . . except that “Kay” seemed a little nervous. When Pastor Dabney appeared at the door, she dropped and broke a dish.
One evening, on the spur of the moment, Lenora Scott and her husband, Tom, decided to stop by and see if K might like to go out with them. They pulled up outside of the mobile home, and K hurried out to greet them.
“We’re going out,” they said. “You wanna come along?”
K asked them to wait, then rushed back inside the mobile home. Strange. It seemed she had gone in to ask permission.
When K came out she said she’d like to go with them, then invited them inside. They went in and spoke briefly with the Hookers. Lenora found Cameron only slightly less taciturn than the last time. He still just sat. Lenora thought he was weird.
They went to the Palomino Room, a popular after-hours place in the middle of Main Street. Each had a drink in the dimly lit bar, but they found it smoky and “full of drunks,” so they only stayed a short time before taking K back home.
It wasn’t much of a night out on the town, but even with friends in a bar, K divulged little about herself. “She was very meek,” Lenora observed, “and she had no opinions. The only thing she seemed to feel real strongly about was religion.” Not that K was preachy, but it seemed that religion was the only thing that meant very much to her.
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar.
So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.
Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to. be his wife. . . .
Genesis, 16:1–3
Holy Bible, The New King James Version
Cameron first brought up the story of Sarah1 and Hagar in 1983, when Jan was reading the Old Testament to him. Now he began to reemphasize it, claiming that their three-party household was based on Scripture.
He tried to persuade his wife that with K out of the box, he ought to be able to sleep openly with her. “It’s like Biblical times,” he told Jan. “And you’ll make it easier on yourself if you just accept K as my slave wife, because I’m going to sleep with her whether you like it or not.”
Jan wrestled with this. She wanted to do what was right, and she knew the Bible said she should follow her husband’s commands, but the idea of Cameron having two wives seemed blatantly sinful. With no one to turn to, she prayed for guidance.
But Cameron wouldn’t wait for Jan to be granted divine inspiration. He started telling K that she needed sex, and that God told him that he should fulfill that need. . . .
The sex acts with K, which had lapsed during the past year and a half, recommenced. At one point, Hooker ordered his wife and his slave to entertain him with lesbian acts. And finally, with considerable effort, he succeeded in swaying Janice to his position: for the first time since 1977, he had both women in bed with him at the same time.
When Jan came down with a bad case of flu, K volunteered to take care of her. Mrs. Miron was disgruntled when K asked for time off to stay home with Jan—”Why can’t her husband take care of her?” she wondered—but she granted her favorite maid some time off nonetheless.
While Jan recovered, K brought her refreshments, took care of the girls, and did the household chores. And instead of giving a large tip she’d just received to Cameron, she bought Jan some flowers.
Jan was so touched that when she was up and around again, she went out and bought roses for K, enclosing a card that read: “Hagar, I love you.” She signed it: “Sarah.”
CHAPTER 23
As summer wore on, the three adults and two children living in the bucolic setting south of town presented the very picture of wholesomeness. The young and responsible father continued his regular working routine. The live-in babysitter rode her bike to and from work and exercised her green thumb in the flourishing garden. The two little girls, now nearly six and eight, played and laughed in the yard. But beneath this placid, sun-bathed surface, the twenty-six-year-old mother felt powerless and confused.
Anxiety was already eating away at the facade of normalcy that Janice had struggled for so long to maintain. She had blocked out as much as she could for as long as possible, apparently living her life in a daze, as if it were a bad dream. But now new conflicts rose to the surface.
She awoke to find that K had become her closest friend. Friendship demanded truthfulness, yet every offhand question or comment K made about slaves or the Company required some response, and no matter what Jan said, no matter how insignificant, it was a lie.
More than once, with K and alone, she sought out Pastor Dabney’s advice, asking about the roles of husbands and wives, and about Genesis, Chapter 16, the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. Without prying, he offered what guidance he could, but what he told Jan only heightened her dilemma. The compassionate pastor gave interpretations of the Holy Book distinctly different from those of her husband.
Cameron was using the Bible against her; Jan saw that now. But despite this new glimmer of understanding that Cameron was using fear to manipulate her, Jan was afraid to stand up to him. She believed that if she made him angry enough he would kill her. He had it in him, of this she was absolutely certain.
Hooker meanwhile seemed increasingly committed to the idea of capturing more slaves. The thought sickened her. She’d had enough of kidnapping and lies, of snatching innocent lives off the street, of living with the fear of being found out, of struggling to shield her daughters from what was going on just beyond the walls of the room where they slept.
But what could she do? She couldn’t tell anyone. She didn’t know whom to trust . . . and no one would believe her anyway. And she couldn’t go to the police because she was guilty, too. Her daughters would be taken from her. That was the most frightening thought: She would lose her girls.
She wanted to flee, to leave her past behind forever. But she had two young children to think of, nowhere to go, and no way to support herself. She’d never even lived alone, much less supported a family.
Now Cameron had a new plan which heightened Jan’s distress. He called it the “alternate night system,” but no matter what he called it, no matter how he tried to use the Bible to justify it, it seemed sinful and wrong. He announced to his wife and slave that under this new system, he would sleep with one of them for two nights, with the other for the next two nights, and with whichever he liked for the remaining three. He tried to pose this as a proposition, as if during “their nights” they had an option to do as th
ey pleased, but both women knew that if they didn’t do what Cameron wished, they would be punished. With Cameron, there were no alternatives.
Jan was at an impasse. The only person she knew in a similar predicament was K.
At one point Jan confided in her that she was thinking of leaving. K didn’t want Jan to leave her alone with Cameron—she was too afraid of him—but the idea of leaving with Jan terrified her even more. “We can’t go,” K protested. “They’ll find us and torture us!”
There it was again. The lie.
By the end of July, Jan had played and replayed all her options. “I can’t take it anymore,” she told Cameron. “I want you to kill me.”
She asked him to strangle her. He had experience at this. He’d choked Jan until she’d passed out at least half a dozen times in the past, though never at her request. Now he obliged her, placing his long fingers around her neck and squeezing hard.
It was not an unfamiliar sensation. She heard that odd crackling sound, like a TV had just been turned off, and she knew she was about to go out.
But then, with Jan still this side of unconsciousness, he relaxed his grip. He wouldn’t do it.
She was still alive. And all her questions and problems came screaming back.
The blistering month of August broke, and Jan’s anxiety boiled. She needed answers.
Her search for help moved her to approach other preachers in the area, but her questions were so oblique that she probably left them with the impression that she was struggling with problems of marital infidelity. She was advised to go home and try harder.
By chance, at the Church of the Nazarene, Jan met a couple whom she felt she could talk to—not telling the complete truth, of course, but for the first time in ten years, Jan opened up. They spoke of ethics, posing hypothetical questions to explore issues of right and wrong. Jan even asked the woman personal questions about how a husband ought to show love, for this was something Jan knew little about, Cameron being her only reference.