AHMM, Jan-Feb 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  And Mom had been a bit cool, saying that her lawyer friend was trying to do the right thing, that's all, but it was Patti's life now, and if that's what she wanted, and Mom talked like that as Patti washed and dried the dinner dishes, and that had been that.

  A week or so later, after playing gin rummy with Mom and having one Budweiser too many, she had let it all go to her, her fears and memories and what it had been like, living with Ted and then seeing the police there, saying Ted was under arrest for kidnapping, was a suspect in a number of homicides, and would she please come along and talk to them.

  All night long, it seemed, she had unburdened herself to Mom, even telling her that little secret of what she had called herself when she found out.

  Mom, she said, it was like I was the Devil's girlfriend. You know?

  The damn Devil's girlfriend.

  And Mom had reached over and touched her wrist.

  You poor girl, you poor, poor girl.

  Then a month later. Standing in a supermarket checkout line in Randolph, scanning a tabloid magazine, she saw, on the bright paper cover, a picture of Ted and a picture of her. Patti Barnes. Taken during one of Ted's court appearances, when she had walked down the courthouse steps. The screaming headline:

  i was the devil's girlfriend.

  Hands shaking, she picked up the tabloid, opened it up. Saw the words she had told her mother, all the words that night, printed in black type upon white paper. Her secret words, told to her mother.

  Right there.

  She had walked away from the checkout counter, leaving behind the groceries, and went back to the trailer. Mom wasn't there—she was working as a secretary at Denver First Savings’ downtown branch—so Patti had packed a bag and left.

  She never talked to her mother, ever again.

  The reporter is bright but not knowledgeable. Patti is sitting next to her on a bench right by the pond, across the street from Kut & Kurl. Her shift is now over and again, a part of her wonders why she agrees to talk to this young girl. What in God's name could this girl know that would make any sense, any sense at all?

  One of the first things Patti asks is, “How did you find me?"

  "A tip.” There's a shrug of her shoulders. “Somebody called in, said they recognized your face from a book written some years back. About Ted Bundy. The caller said Bundy's girlfriend was working in town, at the Kut & Kurl."

  Patti is sure her face is flushed. “This helpful tipster. Man or woman?"

  "Woman. But she didn't leave her name."

  Patti folds her arms. “Of course not."

  The young girl flips a page in her notebook. “Ted Bundy was one of the world's most famous mass murderers,” she starts, and Patti cuts her off right there.

  "Sorry, dear, you don't know what you're talking about."

  "Excuse me?"

  Patti says, “Ted wasn't a mass murderer."

  "He wasn't? I mean, the numbers show that—"

  "Ted wasn't a mass murderer,” she presses on. “A mass murderer is someone who kills a lot of people all at once. Like those high school boys who shot up their school in Colorado. Or the loser who goes into a fast food restaurant and starts shooting up the place. That's a mass murderer. Understand?"

  The pen scribbles some more.

  "Ted was a serial killer,” she says. “There's a difference. A mass murderer usually acts out in a rage. Something triggers him, something inside him just snaps. He lets loose with his rage, all at once. And mass murderers ... they usually end up dead. From cops or from suicide.

  "But Ted was different. Ted was someone who killed over time. He had a ... a craving. A fetish. Something that he wanted to do, month after month, year after year. A mass murderer will mostly kill whoever is there. But not Ted. Ted was a seducer. Ted was a hunter. He liked a particular kind of woman, and for the most part, that's the type of woman he went after. And mass murderers, usually they're stupid. But not Ted. He was smart. Quite smart."

  Scribble, scribble, scribble. And then the reporter looks up.

  "I'm ... I'm sorry to say this, but from what you said..."

  "Yes?” she asks.

  "It almost seems like you're proud of him."

  * * * *

  Pride. There's a thought.

  Had she ever been proud of her boyfriend, the serial killer?

  Once, and only once.

  It was in Colorado, and Ted was getting ready for trial, right after being convicted for kidnapping, for having picked up a young woman who had been strong enough to fight back after finding herself in the VW. There had been hearings and lots of publicity and protests and Ted had continued to deny that he had anything to do with the murders of the young women in Colorado or Washington or Utah. The police and the prosecutors had been so sure of what they had accomplished, and how smart they had been to have captured the nation's most notorious criminal.

  And one day, he escaped.

  Just like that.

  Gone. Made a hole in the ceiling of his cell, crawled through the courthouse building, and got out.

  And she had this little shiver of excitement that Ted was loose, was out there, on the run, free from whatever bonds were holding him back, and she was surprised at how unfearful she was. For Ted had never hurt her, had never threatened her, and had only promised love and affection and adventure. By then she was tired of all the official attention from the police and the courts and the reporters, most of them men, of course, and so yes, there was a sort of pride that Ted had outsmarted them all. It made the men a little less cocky, a little less confident, and she was pleased at how she felt.

  Pride. Sure, there had been pride.

  Until Ted ended up in Florida and bloodily slaughtered two college girls slumbering in their sorority house late one night.

  The reporter asks all the right questions, yet Patti feels like the young girl is going through the motions, like she's not sure what the big fuss is all about. After all, compared to what in hell was going on in the world today, Ted Bundy could now probably be considered a rank amateur. Have his own damn reality TV show or something.

  She says, “Why did it take so long?"

  "Why did what take so long?"

  "To catch him. I mean, it sounds like he got caught because he made a few mistakes. Why did it take so long for the police to catch him?"

  Patti shrugs. “It's a huge country. And if a serial killer works in small towns, how often do the cops there communicate with other cops? Even if the cases are similar?"

  The reporter scribbles away. Patti says, “Plus, he was just a bit sloppy. He killed a number of victims within a certain area. Imagine how many more he could have killed if he had just killed one woman, and then moved to another state, and so forth and so on. He could have killed scores more."

  The reporter looks up from her notebook and says, “Can I ask you a few personal questions?"

  Patti sighs. “I guess so."

  She says, “Do you have any children?"

  "No."

  "Ever been married?"

  "Nope."

  "And why is that?” the reporter asks.

  The answer is, of course, something she cannot reveal.

  After Ted's arrest in Florida for the murders of the sorority girls, Patti moved to Taos, New Mexico, because of an article she had read in an old National Geographic magazine while waiting in the dentist's office. The pictures of the Spanish homes and crisp mountain ranges and blue-washed sky had always stayed with her.

  Taos was a wonderful city, large enough to lose yourself in, small enough to feel comfy and not alone at all. The mountains reminded her enough of Colorado, and after a number of months, she found a job as a hairdresser. God, that had been a good time, an innocent time almost, far away from her mother and the thoughts of Ted, about to be executed by the State of Florida.

  By now she was in her mid twenties, feeling good about having left Colorado and all that crap back there, the stories about Ted, the questions from all the men in journa
lism, law enforcement, and law offices. She started exercising; there was nothing she loved better than getting up in the morning under the cool desert sky and jogging a mile or two before showering and going to work at Top Cuts. Yeah, that had been the name. Top Cuts.

  It was in Taos that she met Randy Phinney, a bronzed man about five years older than her, who worked construction. Thin black mustache and a sharp, barking laugh that attracted her for some reason. She had trimmed his hair a few times before he came right out and asked her out, and she blurted yes before really thinking about what was going on. He was the opposite of Ted: muscular, outdoorsy, and if he had read a book since leaving high school, he sure liked keeping it a secret.

  He took her to roadhouses outside of Taos, danced with her to twangy country music that comforted her. She tried horseback riding for the first time in her life—and God, the bruises along her inner thighs took weeks to heal—and weekend camping trips, tents, and sleeping bags tossed in the rear of his Jeep, camping out under the night sky, the stars so bright it almost hurt her eyes to stare at them.

  Then one night she went to his rented house, out in a lonely part of Taos, and he was drunk. She had seen Randy with a few beers in him before, but nothing like this. That night she felt something when she came into the cluttered living room—like the heavy air one feels just before a thunderstorm breaks out.

  Randy stood there, weaving, like his feet couldn't quite lay flat on the flooring. His eyes were sharp and there was a rolled-up newspaper in his hand.

  She stood there, knowing what was going to happen next. Knew that eventually, something like this was going to happen.

  "What's up?” she asked.

  "This,” he said, thrusting the rolled-up newspaper at her. She took it in her hand, unrolled it. There was the picture of Ted at his trial in Florida, looking snappy with a grin and a bowtie. Next, horrifyingly black and white, the “real death” photo the tabloid promised, showing Ted with his head shaved, skin gray, after his electrocution. And there, even worse, was her own photo. Mystery girlfriend still missing. She looked at the story. Written by a man.

  She looked up at Randy. “I was going to tell you, it's just that—"

  He strode right up to her, face inches away, and she smelled the stale scent of beer. “Bitch,” he said. “You, you were with that killer. That bastard ... What was it like, huh? What was it like?"

  She turned to get out of there, when Randy grabbed her arm. She yelped. He spun her around and said, “Damn it, what was it like? What was it like to be with a killer? Huh?"

  "Randy, you're hurting me,” she said. “Let me go, I'll—"

  So it happened.

  Like destiny or some damn thing.

  He slapped her once, then again, and part of her said, Was this what it was like, for the other women? To know that some man has now grabbed hold of you, some man with murder in his heart, and that there would be no happy ending, no last-minute rescue, just the terror and fear and pain, ratcheting up, higher and higher...

  Another slap. Randy was cursing now, and with both of his strong hands, he dragged her by her arms into the bedroom, where the night progressed, through the slaps, the taunting voice, again and again.

  "What was it like?"

  "Was he good?"

  "Am I any better? Huh?"

  "Did he teach you anything? Huh?"

  Through that long, dark night, she finally learned it all.

  The reporter closes her notebook, steps up, and almost as an afterthought, she takes Patti's photograph with a small digital camera, Patti sitting alone on the park bench, her hands folded primly across her lap. She sits there as the sun slowly sets, the air becomes cooler, and only when a full bladder demands some attention, does she finally get up and walk away.

  After that night with Randy Phinney in Taos, she spent a half day in the shower, and then drove out without a word, without a forwarding address, without much of anything, damn it. She drove west until she ran out of land and ended up at the Pacific Ocean, in a small town just north of San Diego. Another hair salon, another apartment, and the whole cycle started up again, after months of peace and pleasure, when a certain man came into her life and dated her and kissed her and said he loved her, right up to the point when he found out. The the same questions:

  "What was it like?"

  "How was he?"

  "What did you learn from Ted?"

  It takes only two days for the Sentinel article to come out, and the first time she walks into the Kut & Kurl, she almost weeps with relief from what the other women there do to her. One by one, they come over to squeeze her hand and touch her face and whisper good wishes to her.

  Then, like she expects, the men show up.

  They're quiet at first, shy, sitting in the chairs by the door, looking like ten-year-old boys standing against the wall in the gymnasium at their very first school dance. They stare at their shoes or out the windows, but one by one, they request her for their haircuts. She knows what's going on behind those shy expressions. They are curious. They want to know. They want to know what it's like and how it happened, and being with someone who talked to Ted and lived with Ted and loved with Ted, well, it's the next best thing to being there, right?

  She trims their hair and beards and mustaches, quickly and efficiently, all the while knowing that it's happening again.

  Oh yes, again and again.

  From small town to bigger town to city. Her story gets out and the men come by and eventually one man captures her interest, one man who wants to know everything, and she finds herself succumbing, again and again.

  His name is Peter Wickland, about forty years old, old enough to know about Ted and his bloody years of work, but young enough so that he doesn't know all of the story. He's stocky but well built, dressed in clean jeans and buttoned dress shirt. He has a close-trimmed beard and nice, thick brown hair. She finds herself enjoying the feel of his hair through her fingers as she works it. He's a freelance investment counselor, working out of his home at the beach, and after his fourth visit to the Kut & Kurl—about four months after the Sentinel article appeared—he asks her out.

  And she says yes.

  The first date is just lunch at a restaurant in town, nothing fancy, just a quiet meal and some laughs and then a walk along the park by the river. As they leave the park, Peter says, “I've got two things to say to you."

  "Sure,” she says.

  "The first is, I'd like to see you again."

  She smiles. It has gone well. “That'd be nice. What's the second thing?"

  He smiles back at her. “I don't care about the newspaper article, about what happened to you. If you want to tell me, fine. But I won't ask you."

  She leans forward, kisses him on the cheek, and forgives him on the spot for lying to her.

  For among other things, that's what she has gained over the years, that no matter how many times the men who have come into her life say they're not curious at all about Ted Bundy, they really do always want to know. Honest to God, that's all these men cared about was her time with the nation's most famous serial killer. Men, men, men, it seems all they care about is the blood and the gore and the terror that those women, her poor sisters, went through, and what, if anything, she can tell them to let them in on what had really happened.

  And to a man, they were always disappointed.

  For a while, it seems like Peter might be the exception, might finally be the one who is different, but like all the others, it comes down to those few months she spent with Ted in Colorado.

  After five dates and some kissing and squeezing, she has invited him over to her place for dinner, and she notes the little grimace as he comes into the living room and notices the plastic slipcover on the couch.

  She says, “I just like to keep things clean, that's all."

  "Oh, it's okay hon,” he says, sitting down. “Just reminds me a bit of my grandma's place. No offense."

  "None taken."

  She sits next to him and
he starts talking about the upcoming weekend and what movie they might see, while she caresses his shoulder, and he smiles and leans over and the kiss and the room gets warmer, and he breaks away and says, “Is it safe?"

  "Safe? Safe for what?"

  That funny little smile. “Safe to go on. I've felt ... a bit of tension, that there was a line I couldn't cross. Patti, I want to kiss you and kiss you and keep on going, and you just seem ... reluctant."

  She says nothing.

  "Is it ... is it because of Bundy? Is that it?"

  So, another promise broken.

  "Yes, yes it is,” she says.

  "Dear heart,” he says, grasping her hand. “You've got to let it go ... let the past go. Don't let that evil bastard rule your life."

  Surprisingly enough, tears come to her eyes. “It's hard. It's so very hard."

  His voice is reassuring but the words strike home. “You can trust me,” he says. “Tell me everything that happened back there. Everything. I trust you. Honestly, I can help you. I know I can."

  She looks at that smiling face, the beard that she had trimmed, the hair she had cut back and caressed, and she kisses him and says, “You really want to help?"

  "Yes, yes I do."

  "You want to know what it was like? What I did back then?"

  "Of course. But only to help."

  Sure, she thinks. Only to help.

  "I bet you want to know what I learned, don't you."

  A squeeze of her hand is the only answer he offers.

  Another kiss, and she leans back and smiles and starts unbuttoning her blouse. “You stay right here, tiger. And I'll be back after getting ready."

  "Ready for what?"

  Another button unbuttoned, and then another. “Just you wait."

  His smile is brighter. “You've got it, Patti."

  She leaves the room, her legs trembling.

  And on those long nights, staying in hotel rooms, she has wondered how it has all come to this. The long travels, the attempts to set up a peaceful and quiet existence, and then the need begins, the quiet urge that grows stronger and stronger. The hunger. The yearning. That burning feeling.

  A feeling that can't be ignored, until she goes to the phone book and finds a certain phone number, in each community she has lived in, and makes a quiet and unbidden phone call.