Don't Tell a Soul

by M. William Phelps

  It was a lie, of course. KC had four. When she later found out, Suzanne never understood why KC had to lie about this simple fact. Apparently, to KC, one of her kids did not matter enough to include him.

  KC stayed the night. They went to the reunion and it was a disappointment. Reunions can be one of those ideas that sound better in theory. However, when everyone gets together, they realize how different they all are now and how nobody really knew each other. It can become a disappointment; nostalgia loses.

  Suzanne spoke to KC a few more times as the first week of March 2010 approached and then she did not hear from her again.

  That is, until June 3, 2010.

  * * *

  Suzanne wasn’t home. KC left a voice mail. She was manic, all wound up. She said something along the lines of: “My life is falling apart, Suz. Things are really, really bad. I really need a friend. My life is, like, in the worst place it’s ever been. I need someone to talk to.”

  Suzanne picked up the phone and dialed her old schoolmate to see if she could be of any help.

  No answer. Just KC’s voice mail. Suzanne left a message.

  KC called Suzanne a few days later, on June 7. Again she sounded upset, agitated and unable to deal with her life.

  “They took my [Timmy], Suz,” KC explained.

  “They what . . . Who?”

  KC explained the state had taken the child out of her home and placed him with his father. “Something happened with my other son back in March,” KC added, meaning the incident with Brian that had sparked the entire investigation into Kim Cargill’s life and her later incarceration.

  This was the first time since Suzanne had reconnected with KC that she had heard about any of the custody issues going on in KC’s life. KC had never mentioned anything before this two-hour-plus phone call. By the end of the conversation the two women exchanged work numbers and KC begged her old friend to be there for her when she needed. The next few weeks were going to be rough, KC warned. Things were spiraling out of her control and she needed somebody—like Suzanne—whom she could count on. KC couldn’t trust anybody in her life any longer, she said. Everyone had done an about-face on her. She had nobody left.

  Over the next several days KC called and e-mailed Suzanne several times a day. Most of it was the same hysterical, frenzied rant Suzanne had heard and felt very bad about—all of which had been, Suzanne would find out months later, manipulative lies. KC knew the state had stepped in, checked out her home, interviewed the boys and had spoken to KC’s friends and family. The state had found strong reason for the child to be placed with his father until the family court hearing scheduled for the end of June, in which Cherry and others were to testify. Yet, in Suzanne, KC had found a fresh mind to influence, shape and mold, because Suzanne did not know any of the history, only what KC told her. Suzanne had nothing on which to base what she believed and disbelieved; after all, she had only reconnected with KC recently. Why wouldn’t she believe her?

  In one of the e-mails KC sent to Suzanne, KC railed about the potential detrimental effect it would have on her financially if she was forced to pay “CS (child support) for a second child.” She explained that the upcoming hearing with the state was going to decide this, among other issues. Her ex-husband, who was suing her for CS, was a dog. He had lied to get the court to side with him.

  Suzanne could not get over what she was hearing. It was awful.

  KC generally signed her e-mails with the same salutation: God bless you—love you and may God be with you.

  Suzanne sat back and looked at everything. KC, she believed, was a God-fearing person being railroaded by exes and the system. Everything KC had told her seemed to suggest that the system was designed to beat Kim Cargill. She had no money for a real lawyer, she claimed, unlike her ex, who was loaded.

  Reading further into the e-mails, Suzanne was upset about what was happening to her old friend. KC claimed that her own mother was saying she—KC—was “mentally ill.” Everybody was against her and she could really use a friend like Suzanne, not only for support, but to testify on her behalf at the hearing. Suzanne, after all, could vouch for KC’s sanity, right?

  I’m not mentally ill, KC wrote. All these people are lying.

  Suzanne suggested in a return e-mail that KC call an old friend of theirs, who knew a great family lawyer. Suzanne even provided KC with the telephone number of the friend.

  She’s a family lawyer and willing to give you a free consult, Suzanne wrote. I think you need all the help you can get. Call her tomorrow. Beyond that, Suzanne added, My mom wants to start a background investigation on your mom. Do you have her Social Security number? Suzanne went on to explain that her mother was “so mad” she couldn’t “see straight.” She then asked KC “to come here now.”

  Suzanne invited KC to stay with her and her husband. She said none of them—Suzanne, her mother, Suzanne’s husband—could understand why everyone in KC’s life was trying to do this to her. They felt bad. They wanted to help. She signed the e-mail, Love you, Suz.

  * * *

  Reading this, KC must have known that she had Suzanne right where she wanted: on puppet strings. She could now take Suzanne and move her anywhere on the stage she wanted and Suzanne would conform—all based on the lies KC had been plying Suzanne with about herself, her children and her life. Suzanne was fully convinced that everyone around KC was trying to destroy her.

  The reason Suzanne’s mother wanted to jump into investigating KC’s mother turned out to be because back on June 7, KC had told Suzanne that the entire root cause of her problems in life and with her kids was her mother. Rachel was to blame for everything.

  In response to that e-mail about Suzanne finding a lawyer and Suzanne’s mother getting involved and wanting to investigate Rachel, KC toned her bombast down, writing to Suzanne that it might be too early “to talk out-of-town attorney.” This was merely weeks before that all-important custody hearing. KC added, Everything out here (where she lived) is so different. Then, after telling Suzanne she would call her during the upcoming weekend, KC wrote, I caught a ray of hope today, and the psychologist from a couple of years ago is retesting me . . . so they will stop saying “mental illness.” She referred to this revelation as being “huge.”

  Furthering the lie, and trying to steer Suzanne away from Rachel, KC explained, [My mother] doesn’t have a criminal record or anything, but I will see if I can figure out her Social Security number. She wanted Suzanne to know that she was grateful for all “the support” from Suzanne’s mother and “especially you, Suz.” She talked about a “postponement” that was possible with regard to the hearing—which, in fact, had never been discussed. If that postponement took place, KC said, it would be a “blessing,” allowing her additional time to “gather more defense materials.”

  Did that postponement KC mentioned involve her plans to murder Cherry Walker? Did she mean if one of the witnesses scheduled to testify had been killed before the hearing, it would naturally postpone the proceeding? Was she subconsciously giving away her plans?

  KC then asked Suzanne to write a letter on her behalf to her doctor.

  Suzanne penned a letter that night.

  * * *

  The idea of this letter to the psychiatric doctor set to evaluate KC before the hearing, and how the content of the letter developed, was significant in so many ways. One, it showed how far KC was willing to take things in order to project an image of being the victim; two, it demonstrated how easily she could convince others to lie for her; three, it illustrated how little she cared about lying to, and trying to manipulate, an expert set to testify in her case. The measures she was willing to employ to get her way were malicious and vindictive and illegal. She was willing to bring unsuspecting, innocent bystanders into her web of lies.

  In her first draft, written without any help from KC, Suzanne addressed the letter as “to whom it may concern.” She talked about knowing KC since the eighth grade: We were both the new kids in class, and we liv
ed in the same neighborhood. (All true.) She said she could recall “sleepovers and many outings together” and how they had a “babysitting club” and how “great” KC was with children: I’ve never heard any complaints from the parents. Further, Suzanne added, she had reconnected with KC over the past several weeks, after not having seen her for twenty-five years. Suzanne said that while KC was at her house, “just this past February,” she called Timmy back home “several times to check on him and talk.” KC appeared “very nervous” since she had been away from him overnight. Ending the brief letter, perhaps stretching the truth just a bit, Suzanne called KC “the nicest person” she had ever known.

  After polishing the letter a few times, Suzanne sent it off to KC.

  Click.

  KC immediately sent back a detailed critique. She thought the letter needed to be “a lot more flattering, longer.” She encouraged Suzanne to “talk about me as an adult”—a person Suzanne did not know—“and be vague about the kids.” Talk about how the kids have come first always, even above education, money, KC instructed. She wanted Suzanne to “mention” how “cold and unfriendly” Rachel was back when they “were kids,” and that Suzanne could never “imagine” Rachel ever being a “better parent” than KC was.

  Before sending the e-mail to Suzanne, KC made one final request: Hurry, please.

  Suzanne had only met KC once as an adult, when the Facebook group met up for the reunion cocktail hour and KC stayed overnight at her house. She didn’t know her. She had no idea what type of parent KC was, or whether or not she put the kids before herself. She was going strictly by what KC was saying about herself. KC was asking Suzanne to talk about things she had no knowledge of.

  Still, Suzanne wanted to help her old friend. She believed what KC was saying. She didn’t see any harm in it. So she rewrote the letter, making it more personal and more affecting, what KC had ordered. Suzanne even mentioned in the new draft of the letter that she had two stepchildren. This was important because KC had told her in one conversation that she needed to write about her personal life. She then went on to change her opinion about Rachel, saying she was “always cold,” a word—“always”—that carried with it the insinuation that Suzanne had known Rachel and KC forever and had interacted with them.

  Suzanne sent KC drafts of her letter and KC edited and rewrote sections herself, adding her own words, phrases, paragraphs and descriptions. In one section Suzanne had written about their childhood together. KC sent back an entirely new, entirely rewritten paragraph that, in part, read: Even when Kim was on the drill team, she lacked love and support from home. She excelled at school . . . on the student council . . . [had] many friends . . . and is now being rallied around by old friends from our alma mater.

  On and on, this new version—totally rewritten by KC—went, applauding KC for being “Mother of the Year,” sacrificing everything for her boys, being constantly put down by an overbearing and scurrilous mother. The letter was trying to draw pity from KC’s doctor, hoping he would rush to her side during the upcoming hearing and argue for her to have custody of her son and not have to pay child support to her ex.

  Had Suzanne known any of the facts surrounding KC’s life—and some of the lies that spewed from KC’s computer keyboard in this new draft—it might have scared Suzanne into running for the hills. However, Suzanne had little information about what was truly going on and zero background data to gauge whether KC was writing truth or lies. She simply went with it, trusting KC. In one section of the letter KC wrote (for Suzanne to sign): [KC] never buys for herself, but always makes sure the boys have what they need, and they’re happy kids. She added how “good grades” were “important” to KC. In fact, the main reason why KC had moved to “the small town of Whitehouse” was so her sons “could have a safe environment.” The letter pleaded with the doctor that taking Timmy away from “the only security he has ever known” would be a “travesty” in the boy’s life. Carrying on, KC wrote how she would gladly “give her life” for Timmy, and that she wasn’t so sure Timmy’s grandmother or grandfather would because “they’re just doing this for money and selfish reasons.” (Rachel and her husband were also named in the suit to obtain custody of Timmy.)

  If Suzanne knew anything about KC’s personality, she could have seen that it had been interjected throughout the letter. She clearly expressed her hatred for anyone that disagreed with her, anyone that had tried to say she was not a good mother, anyone trying to come between her and her kids.

  Rachel is cold and calculating, the letter continued. I do not believe what [the kids have said about all the abuse]. . . . Kids will say anything to get what they want.

  At 4:08 P.M. on Tuesday, June 15, KC sent Suzanne an e-mail: Can you get it in the mail today? . . . Thanks a million, Kim.

  Suzanne, who had never met Timmy (or spent any amount of time with any of KC’s kids), signed the letter as though she had written it herself.

  Then she dropped it in the mailbox.

  25

  ON FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010, KC called Suzanne. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  “What’s going on?” Suzanne asked. By now she had become so deeply involved in her old friend’s life, they were speaking every day, several times.

  Suzanne was feeling a dash of unease because she hadn’t really known KC well enough to have written those things about her in a letter she had signed and sent to an expert slated to testify in court. Was she in some way obstructing justice? Suzanne had an icky feeling about this latest stunt KC had directed.

  “I need more help,” KC said on that Friday.

  “What do you need?”

  “Well, there’s not a lot of people willing to miss work . . . ,” KC explained, meaning that she didn’t have a long list of people lined up to testify in court on her behalf. Not because they didn’t want to, she gave the impression, but because they didn’t want to—or couldn’t—get out of work. “Would you consider coming [on] Wednesday?” KC asked.

  “If I can, Kim, I’ll make it. I do not have a lot of vacation left. What time is it at? Maybe I can call in sick or something. I will see what my boss says.... We . . . have a lot of stuff happening.”

  Actually, Suzanne did not want to attend the hearing and testify on KC’s behalf. Writing a letter was one thing; raising your right hand and going on the record was another. She’d gone too far already. Suzanne was beginning to think enough was enough.

  The next day, Saturday, June 19, KC and Suzanne communicated several times. Suzanne told her, “I spoke to my boss and he said I could not go, unless I got subpoenaed. Sorry, Kim.”

  KC called Suzanne Saturday morning. “Really early,” Suzanne later recalled. This would have been the Saturday after Cherry went missing. So early, in fact, that nobody in Suzanne’s house was even up yet. When Suzanne got up sometime later, she called KC back and asked her what she was doing.

  “Oh, running errands. Washing the car. Going to the cleaners. All those things you normally do on a Saturday. Grocery shopping.”

  “Oh, okay . . .”

  That was it? She called before sunup to say she was heading out to run around doing her Saturday errands?

  For some reason, KC then added, “I tried to find my babysitter last night, but I never found her.”

  Lie: KC had spoken to Cherry. Phone records proved as much.

  “Okay . . . ,” Suzanne said.

  “What are you doing today?” KC asked Suzanne.

  “Tomorrow is Father’s Day, so we’re getting ready for that. We’re going to my father-in-law’s.”

  They hung up. Later that afternoon KC called Suzanne again. “Did I tell you my two babysitters were subpoenaed?”

  “No.”

  “One is an old lady.... The other, my main babysitter, is a young lady whose child has been recently taken away from her. I’m worried about her.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “I’m concerned about the old-lady babysitter. She’s dirty and uncl
ean. I am worried the young babysitter is going to tell [DFPS] about the old-lady babysitter.”

  Suzanne had a tough time recalling every detail surrounding these conversations because KC had called so many times. They stayed on the phone for hours sometimes. A short call, like this one, ran on average about twenty-five minutes. Yet, during this second call, Suzanne later remembered, she was certain KC talked specifically about Cherry Walker (referring to her only as the “young babysitter,” never by name) and mentioned how she had tried to find Cherry the previous night because she wanted to take her out to dinner and talk to her. “But I never could find her,” KC added, sharing details with Suzanne for some reason that Suzanne could not figure out. “I need to take them both out to dinner and talk to them, but I cannot find my main babysitter.”

  During this same conversation KC mentioned that Timmy’s father lived in the same apartment complex as her “main babysitter.” Then, for reasons that would baffle Suzanne, KC said, “I’m going to call Forrest (Garner, Timmy’s dad) and ask him if he’s seen Cherry.” KC mentioned something about Forrest perhaps “confronting” Cherry.

  KC was making a huge deal out of not being able to locate Cherry and making sure that Suzanne knew all the details surrounding her not being able to find her on that Friday night or Saturday.

  Suzanne considered all of what KC had to say—the entire conversation—to be “odd.” The idea that she was going to call Timmy’s father, for one, who lived in the same complex as Timmy’s babysitter, but did not know it—the same guy who was taking her to court to take the child away—seemed bizarre to Suzanne. Things were not adding up anymore. She was beginning to question KC and what she was up to.

  KC rarely called Suzanne on Sundays because KC generally worked a full shift on that day. But on Monday, June 21, KC called Suzanne on her cell phone number, which KC had never done. Suzanne was at work. It was just after noon. When KC called, Suzanne said she wanted to take the call outside and sit in her car.

  KC sounded different, freaked out about something. Maybe even paranoid, Suzanne considered. “Have you seen the Tyler news?” KC asked Suzanne.