Until the Twelfth of Never - Should Betty Broderick ever be free?

by Bella Stumbo

  Betty Broderick was of course not always this way. Once upon a time, she was just another girl next door, a woman so sheltered, so traditional that she might have been raised in the sedate fifties, not the explosive sixties. A virgin when she married, she never used a dirty word, and, in fact, at one time, used to fine her children twenty-five cents if they even said "Shut up." By every conventional standard, she was, just as she insists, "a perfect mother, a perfect wife," a pretty, energetic La Jolla housewife who rushed about town in her big Suburban van filled with children, its license plates reading "LODEMUP." Betty Broderick, now so lost in the past, was once a perfect example of what one of America's most ideal communities was all about—and Dan Broderick was, too. He was the handsome, picture-book husband, the consummate provider. Together, they seemed ideal. Which is why the destruction these two created, the distance of their fall, is so awful to see, for in the end, theirs is a story without saints or sinners. The Brodericks were just two more flawed human beings—a modern-day parable for us all—who failed almost every step of the way to honor that most ancient, sanest of all social maxims: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

  Part Two

  Betty and Dan

  Chapter 2

  La Jolla

  That Christmas, La Jolla parties sizzled with talk of Betty's revenge, spurned wives, philandering husbands, and bimbos. Men known to be having affairs were careful to keep their mouths shut; others gave away their secret by leaping too quickly to Dan Broderick's defense, or, conversely, to Betty's. Older wives were either uncharacteristically militant or adoring; younger, second wives were visibly self-conscious. For a few fleeting weeks, tension hung in the air, because to discuss the Broderick affair required everyone to look into the mirror at his or her own relationships. What Betty Broderick had done, in short, was disturb everybody's Christmas.

  But the intensity soon faded. By springtime, about the hottest topic in La Jolla, one of the world's most affluent white communities, was not Betty Broderick, but how to eliminate the civic blight of the local McDonald's, which had somehow wormed its way not only into the heart of La Jolla Village, but smack dab into the center of Prospect Street, La Jolla's answer to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. It wasn't a real McDonald's, only a McSnack, but it was inescapably there, dispensing its Big Macs and fries in the midst of some of the most exclusive shops in town. How the owner had ever gotten a permit to operate in the first place remained a source of burning contention. But now the owner had gone one step too far—he had actually placed benches on the palm-lined sidewalk for the comfort of his clientele.

  "When the benches are full, people automatically get the impression that it's okay to sit anywhere on the street eating hamburgers," fumed an art gallery manager to reporters. "It's just the greediness of the powers that be in this town to allow such a place to exist here, catering to people who think they can spend $3 on a hamburger and be provided a place to sit with a view, like someone dining in a restaurant in a dignified way."

  La Jollans were also toying that summer with the notion of banning beer on their beaches to stem the rising tide of riffraff descending from greater San Diego. Another group continued its perennial campaign to secede from San Diego altogether, on grounds that La Jolla, the city's cash cow, was paying too much in taxes to support the rest of the city. And a leading local socialite pressed ahead with her Doggie Diners crusade, aimed at winning American dogs the same rights to sit in restaurants with their owners as French dogs. She took her own dog, Chelsea, with her nearly everywhere she went—so why not into the restaurants of La Jolla, too? "Chelsea is the most photographed dog in town," remarked Los Angeles Times society writer Dave Nelson dryly. "Chelsea moves in all the right circles."

  Curled around one of the most spectacular half-moon coves in California, La Jolla is the quintessential Southern California dream town, a compact little colony—population about forty-five thousand—of pastel homes streaming down the hillsides to the sea. Property prices range from expensive to outrageous. Here, realtors cruise their clients about town in limousines, and they do not bother with zeros in their ads. If it says $3750, with $70 down, and you don't know what that means, you can't afford it.

  The few short blocks of shopping in La Jolla Village, along Prospect and Girard streets, offer many of the world's most prestigious designer labels. Minor excursions out of the Village to the Neiman-Marcus, inconveniently located five miles away in a noisy shopping mall, are of course permissible; likewise, everybody shops at the Price Club, a discount house five minutes away, especially for wines, liquors, and cheese. Otherwise, trips into downtown San Diego to shop are déclassé, although most everybody does it on the sly. A swank dress shop in the heart of the Village once had a special on $200 T-shirts emblazoned with sequined motifs of Mickey Mouse, the American flag, and the Mercedes-Benz crest. In the same window display was a black satin tunic with brass studs in the design of a dollar sign. And it was no joke.

  In La Jolla, there is no grafitti, no homelessness, and, beyond all else, no ugly. Here, if you're not naturally beautiful, you make the most of what you've got. Joggers are everywhere, smoking is virtually unseen, plastic surgery centers are beehives of activity. Mailboxes in La Jolla are crammed not with flyers from Sav-On Drug and Sears, but with ads from local gyms, hairdressers, suntan parlors, and dentists wanting to bond your teeth to a newer, brighter white.

  Every other car is a Mercedes convertible, although Jaguars and BMWs are also fashionable. The Von's supermarket lot is commonly dotted with Rolls-Royces. If you don't own such a car, a local rental service will pick you up for a mildly outrageous daily rate, and drive you about town in a Mercedes so that you can appear to own one after all. There are no car washes in La Jolla. Instead, residents pay $80 for detail jobs, executed mostly, it appears, by Mexicans illegals.

  In fairness, there is a more substantive side to La Jolla, although it is often hard to see. The town's beauty has always drawn writers, artists, and scientists. Raymond Chandler wrote his thrillers there; Dr. Seuss wrote his fanciful children's books from his home overlooking the Cove. And today some of the world's most respected research centers are located there, including the Salk Institute, the Scripps Institute for Oceanography, and the Scripps Medical Research Center. The University of California at San Diego is on the far edge of the town, as well as the highly regarded La Jolla Playhouse.

  But this was not Betty Broderick's La Jolla. Hers was the pretty, placid, uncomplicated La Jolla of PTA meetings, charity luncheons, fashion shows, and heady, ever-advancing social ambition. Betty was always more interested in meeting Times society writer Dave Nelson or Burl Stiff of the competing San Diego Union, than Jonas Salk. In that active, aggressive La Jolla circle that calls itself "society," it matters whose names are printed in the next morning's papers.

  But it's not hard to crack La Jolla society. It's not about old money. You only need to have money, period—whether you got it yesterday or three centuries ago—or at least appear to have it. The La Jolla social structure is less dependent on pedigree and taste than on personality, hustle, and flair. If you can pronounce foie gras and au pair, identify all makes of Mercedes by alphabetical and numerical order, and spot a fake Vuitton at twenty yards, you're on your way.

  Even so, serious La Jolla socialites felt their little town had been unfairly saddled with Betty Broderick, thanks to the tacky, sensationalizing media. True, she had lived there, true she had a $16,000 monthly support settlement, and, yes, she had worked a few charities and shopped at all the right places. Still, she was not one of them. Not actually.

  "I always cringe when they say 'La Jolla socialite,'" said Alyce Quakenbush, society editor of the La Jolla Light, 'because she was not a part of the upper group … She was very active in things for children, but … I wouldn't have considered her to be the crème de la crème."

  In La Jolla, to be seriously crème de la crème requires membership in Las Patronas, the most elite sorority in town. Only fif
ty women at a time can belong, by invitation only, for seven-year terms. Requirements are unwritten, but it is a definite plus to be married to a successful man. Or at least married to some man.

  Once in, the duties of a Patrona are clear: to do anything necessary, from September until the next August, to ensure the success of the premier social event of the season, the Jewel Ball, a seaside bash on the terraces of the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club—yet another elite organization with a waiting list years long, and where, naturally, most Patronas already hold membership. Jewel Ball tickets range from $250 minimum to $5,000 a table, proceeds donated to various charities and the arts.

  The closest competitor to the Jewel Ball is the Monte Carlo Ball, held a week later, which raises money strictly for the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, also located in La Jolla. Although a few Patronas also help out with the Monte Carlo, it is mainly a function of the second-stringers who couldn't make the grade into Las Patronas. As underdogs, the Monte Carlo ladies bill their party as less formal but "more fun." Most La Jollans with serious social ambitions attend both balls. If you don't have the money to attend in style, then you borrow to rent both the proper car and clothes, and many do. "It costs me about $5,000 a year to look like I belong," said one local realtor, "but it's worth every cent of it. I just write it off on my taxes as a business expense."

  In the old days, Betty loved attending both balls with her handsome, ascending young husband. It was the time of year when she shed her sweat suits, donned her increasingly expensive evening gowns, and, as she later said proudly, "held in with the best of them, all those women who don't do anything else all year but work on themselves."

  "To Betty, those balls were the end-all, be-all," said one friend. "She and Dan both just loved being seen in all the right places."

  But Betty never made it into Las Patronas.

  "I don't think her name ever came up …," says Barbara Zobell, one of the high priestesses of the La Jolla social scene and of course a retired Patrona herself. A tall, stunning former fashion model with long, straight blond hair and bangs, given to four-inch earrings and other flash that the average La Jolla matron would never dare wear, Zobell is, at least for social aspirants, among the most sought-after luncheon dates in town. For that reason, she was also one of the few prominent ladies of La Jolla with the self-confidence to discuss Betty Broderick openly in the months following the killings. Others ran for cover, distancing themselves as far as possible from the scandal. ("Oh, I can't talk, I'm too busy working on the Ball," said one typical society maven who had once liked Betty Broderick well enough to hostess a fortieth birthday party for her. The Jewel Ball, she stressed pointedly, not the Monte Carlo.)

  Zobell had known Betty Broderick ever since Betty's first days in La Jolla, when Dan went to work with the same large San Diego law firm where Zobell's husband, Karl, is still a senior attorney. But the two had never become close friends. Betty had babies, Barbara had parties. But, because La Jolla is a small place, "All of us, of course, had heard about the breakup," said Zobell, forty-something herself, curling her nose over lunch at one of La Jolla's most "in" patio cafés. "It's such an old story, these guys running off with the office chicky-poo. I sometimes think, 'Don't these guys have any imagination?'." Still, Zobell added, "I just can't understand her reaction. I mean, it wasn't as if she was the first one to go through the Big D … and $16,000—my God!"

  The Big D is a common La Jolla euphemism for divorce. Few words, beyond menopause and cancer, have a harsher, more final impact on a polite luncheon. La Jolla is, at heart, still an old-fashioned place, where traditional marital roles are at least superficially observed. Here the men still go downtown each day to their offices; the wives stay home, running the house, chauffeuring the children to their private schools and spending the rest of the day at gyms or shopping and "doing lunch," which is, as one local divorcée put it, La Jolla's answer to scream therapy. The luncheon site of choice is usually the patio of La Valencia Hotel, an elegant old Spanish colonial structure, built in 1926, looming in hot pink, wrought-iron splendor in the heart of the Village. It affords the best view in town of other La Jollans.

  Lunch is where women provide one another with peer counseling if their children are raging coke freaks or their marriages are menaced with the Big D. Here is where the exact measure of the new girlfriend's potential threat is taken; here is where women coolly help one another plot the counterattack, which hopefully will involve no more than a bit of cosmetic surgery and a new wardrobe, and then simply waiting it out. In most cases, the husband won't go so far as to leave the wife, he will simply keep the girlfriend on the side. And that is a widely acceptable solution.

  Betty Broderick's final solution was so stunning that it literally lacked meaning. Murder? Dan and Linda's friends suddenly understood—murder meant blood, bullets, and who knows what kind of last-minute fear for their friends in those moments before Betty fired her gun. But, to peripheral observers like Barbara Zobell, who knew Betty and Dan only casually, it was abstract, less real than the latest hush-hush case of shoplifting down at Saks by one of the city's leading socialites, an aging lady who simply can't seem to stop herself, but is wealthy and well-connected enough to keep herself out of both jail and the gossip columns.

  "Did she reeeeeeealy walk up those stairs?" hissed Zobell, green eyes glinting, grinning slightly, lips moist. "Did she realllly pull that trigger?" She looked, just then, like Patty McCormick grown up, "The Bad Seed" peeping intently from beneath her bangs at the locked shed she was about to burn down, with people inside. Zobell laughed and shook the moment away. But it was a perfect example of the effect Betty Broderick has on married women everywhere, once they start seriously discussing her and what she did. They lose, however briefly, their veneer of civility.

  "A socialite, my ass. Of course I wasn't a La Jolla socialite, I didn't have time," said Betty Broderick later from jail. "I was a Supermom, is what I was. That's who runs around with kids, everybody else's and her own, and wears jogging suits and sweat suits all day, and is always covered with snot and peanut butter and spit-up. Because that's what mommies do. I was never a socialite. I never got my nails done, my hair done. I didn't drive around in a Mercedes, I didn't wear tennis outfits, I didn't even play tennis. I didn't have lunch every day of the week. I never did any of that. I was a baby machine.

  "Then, when I finally got my tubes tied, when the really big money started to roll in, after all the years we did without and worked day and night—just as I was starting to enjoy a little bit of freedom—Linda Kolkena knocks on my door and says, 'Excuse me, I want your life.' And I'm supposed to say, 'Go right ahead, I’ll just walk away'?

  "I never got to the point of luxury. By the time I was in a place to actually have the time to even think about Las Patronas, I was divorced—and they don't take divorcées. It was Linda Kolkena who was going to be the socialite, not me … I never got to enjoy a minute of what I helped Dan Broderick build. I didn't get the mansion, the cunt did. I never even made it out of the goddamn tracts!"

  The Brodericks moved to La Jolla in 1975, two years after their arrival in San Diego. She was twenty-eight, he was thirty, they had two little girls, and they began modestly. The house they bought—their first and last as a married couple—was on a street called Coral Reef, in a subdivision on the south side of the hills, far from the ocean views. "Baja La Jolla," residents fondly called it. The house cost $130,000 and was perfect for a young, growing family. It was big and comfortable, with five bedrooms and a pretty, oversized backyard that spilled into a woody hillside.

  It was also the perfect atmosphere for Dan and Betty Broderick. Up and down the street were other young, ambitious couples like themselves. Here, it went without saying that Coral Reef was but a stop on the way across the hills toward Coast Road, or La Jolla Shores, or the hilltop Muirlands area of gated mansions.

  Dan was then earning only about $30,000 a year at Gray, Cary, Ames and Frye, one of San Diego's oldest, largest, a
nd most prestigious law firms. But even in a community of hard-driving, aggressive overachievers, his dual degrees in medicine and law were cause for instant pause at any cocktail party. From the outset, the Brodericks seemed destined to move over the hills even faster than their neighbors.

  Later on, during her murder trials, several of the Brodericks' old friends and neighbors from their Coral Reef days would recall their early impressions of Dan and Betty.

  What most remembered was a thin, reserved young man mowing his lawn on weekends, or waxing his car, then an MG sports coupe, or sitting in the backyard reading legal briefs. His eyes were oddly intense, even disconcerting, but when he smiled, he dazzled. He looked like a teenager, all bony with knobby knees and an adolescent's bobbing Adam's apple.

  "He loved that lawn," recalls Helen Pickard, an early friend who later became a prosecution witness. 'I’ll never forget watching him on weekends, how carefully he went down one row, then back up, and down again. He had such a look of concentration. He wasn't just trying to get it done, he was enjoying it. And then he would work in his rose garden. I thought it was great. My husband wouldn't do a damned thing around the house."

  Except for weekends, however, Dan was never around much, and when he was, he said so little that most neighbors never really seemed to know whether they liked him or not. But they do remember how proud his young wife was of him. His credentials were their credentials.