by Kerri Rawson
I had graduated (again) in May 2003 and moved back in with my parents for the few months before my wedding. I now had two degrees and no job.
In June, Darian flew to Detroit to meet his new company and find us an apartment in the western suburbs of the metro area. He called, saying, “I found a six-hundred-square-foot two-bedroom. It has a large picture window that looks out onto a small, green park. I picked it because of the view—for you.”
I agreed it sounded perfect, and he put down our deposit.
A few weeks before the wedding, I was quickly rounding our kitchen corner, and I stepped into Dad’s green toolbox he’d carelessly left open on the floor next to the stove. I fell, spraining ligaments in the same ankle I’d twisted in the canyon years before. Dad barked at me as if it was somehow my fault I’d gotten hurt.
The words stung, but I was used to it. He had been hard on Mom and me for our klutziness since I was little, repeatedly saying things like, “Watch where you’re going! Be more careful! It’s your fault you fell. Now you’ve done it. If you end up covered in scars, it’ll make you ugly, and no one will want to marry you.”
I spent the next few weeks hobbling around in a black lace-up brace, wondering how my fat, swollen ankle was going to fit into my petite cream heels. I rarely wore heels, but Mom insisted on them under my wedding dress. I would have preferred to get married barefoot, bum ankle or not.
Two days before our wedding, several members of our family helped us decorate Darian’s church and reception space, which was larger than my parents’ church. We wound twinkling white lights onto white canopies overlooking cake stands and hung silver and burgundy bows from wooden pews. In the sanctuary, I called out for help to Dave, my soon-to-be father-in-law, who gently replied, “You can call me Dad if you want.”
“Okay. I like that.”
Dave was a bit taller than Darian, with a head full of silvery-white hair. Darian’s mom, Dona, petite with brown hair and a sparkle in her eyes, was busy scurrying from project to project. Warm and welcoming, his parents always made me feel included and often made me laugh—traits carried over in their son.
In the midst of decorating, I stepped outside onto a fire escape for some air; I was a stressed-out hot mess. Darian joined me, calmly handing me my engagement ring, already soldered to my wedding band. When I lifted it to the light, I was startled to read the inscription: Love neve fails.
The r was missing.
I lifted Darian’s band. His was right: Love never fails.
Oh well.
We were moving to Michigan three days after our wedding, so I didn’t get it fixed. To this day, it’s still not fixed. Love neve fails.
On the morning of my wedding day, I woke up early, groggy-eyed, with broken glasses but my bag packed. By ten o’clock, I was waiting at the mall for the gate to be lifted at LensCrafters, my hair curled in ribbons, my nails freshly done in dark burgundy.
Peering into the closed store, I picked out my new wire-rims. I surprised the clerk when I said, “It’s my wedding day. I get married in three hours, I need new glasses, and those right there—they will work just fine.”
At noon, Dad, wearing his black suit and tie, picked up my glasses so I could see my own wedding and groom.
We gathered for photos before our wedding, huge smiles on our faces: Darian in a black tuxedo with a white vest and tie, me tall in my heels, desiring to spin like a princess with my fluttering butterflies and tulle veil set behind a sparkly headband.
Darian’s groomsmen, including his brother, Eron, wore black suits and silver ties. My cousin Andrea and two of my friends were bridesmaids, wearing burgundy dresses with matching necklaces and earrings.
At one o’clock on Saturday, July 26, 2003, Dad looked at me as we waited in the vestibule. He was full of emotion, trying to hold back tears and nerves. He extended his arm and said, “You ready?”
Taking a deep breath, I took his arm, holding a bouquet of white roses ringed in burgundy daisies in my other hand, and we slowly set down the aisle to “Canon in D Major.”
Near the front of the church, my foot slightly twisted and I bumped into a strand of flowers hanging from a pew, knocking them down with a thud. Red-faced, I gave Darian a half smile and a shrug, then turned toward Dad and hugged him tight.
Verses from 1 Corinthians were read: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”1
We said our vows, sticking to a modern exchange; there was no plighting anyone’s troth.
Darian’s eyes were full of happiness, but I chattered nervously to him during our song “Come What May” from Moulin Rouge. I was immensely relieved when the pastor dismissed us as husband and wife, and we flew back down the aisle to Third Day’s “I’ve Always Loved You.”
After our receiving line, I stopped Darian on the stairs to our reception so I could remove my heels, thankful to be barefoot under my dress. At the reception, we tried to make it around to everyone to say goodbye. And it hit me: we would be leaving Kansas in three days. All of a sudden I felt homesick.
Outside, Darian’s red Corsica awaited us, festively decorated, brimming full of balloons. After breaking through rolls of plastic wrap, we were greeted with a blast of bright-colored confetti from the air conditioner.
We honeymooned the next two nights in a suite in Old Town, and on Monday, we picked up a new mattress and jammed a moving truck full, with the help of our families. Monday night, wiped out and trying to save money, we settled for Darian’s parents’ basement. He gave me the couch and slept on the floor with his blue heeler, Skipper.
Early Tuesday, Dad drove the moving van and Mom rode along. They took the Indiana route after Saint Louis, giving us newlyweds a few days to ourselves. We set out for Illinois in the Corsica, our AC breaking while crossing the sweltering Midwest the first day. We quickly blamed the confetti still occasionally spitting out at us.
Wednesday evening, after a detour to Chicago to shop at IKEA, we passed a large, blue Welcome to Michigan sign. I was mesmerized by the cooler air and majestic pine trees as we crossed I-94 to Detroit. We arrived late to our hotel and were surprised to hear my parents’ voices directly across the hallway from our room. So much for the honeymoon.
The next morning, Darian and Dad unloaded the truck while Mom and I went to rent a car for their return trip home. That evening, surrounded by boxes and unwilling to search for our new bedsheets or anything else we needed—we splurged for one last night in a hotel.
On Friday morning, we said goodbye to my parents, Mom and I both in tears after butting heads the day before. I had tried to push them away because I didn’t want them to leave, just as I had seven years before in college. Dad was more matter-of-fact as he hugged me tight, his daughter was grown up and married. Helping us move was his way of showing love.
It would be nine months before we would see them, or any other family, again.
CHAPTER 20
Some Carpet Cleaners Can Leave Unexpected Results
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2005
DETROIT
Your dad has been coming home late, playing catch-up with a pile of paperwork. He’s stressed out—you know how he can get. Wanna talk to him?” Mom and I were chatting on the phone, just as we had every week for the past nine years.
I talked to Dad for about ten minutes, not about anything much—the tire tread on our old car, making sure to keep up with oil changes, and how the weather was (surprisingly nice for February in Wichita, cold and lousy in Michigan).
“All right, well, you stay warm, kiddo. Proud of you and Darian, making it there. Love you.”
Making it there. It had been more like make it or break it, sink or swim. Whatever was said to young couples.
Darian’s job started three days after we moved, but he wasn’t paid for a month, so we lived off wedding money and a cashed-in life insurance policy from his folks our first weeks. While Darian was working, I alt
ernated between unpacking, applying for teaching jobs, and wigging out, eating cheese puffs by the handfuls and watching Days of Our Lives.
I thought getting married and moving was going to be one big, fun adventure. But the reality of being far from home soon landed.
Not long after we moved in, the flimsy storage area in our apartment building’s basement was broken into. We only had boxes in ours, but I grew fearful downstairs in the dark basement while doing laundry. I started waiting for Darian to come home before hauling the loads up and down the stairs. I didn’t even want to park in the garage under our apartment, deciding instead to park near our building’s front door when I was alone.
My night terrors also caught up with us after we were married. I’d wake up screaming in Darian’s ear or landing a solid punch or kick. He’d jump while I fumbled for the light. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe. Go back to sleep. It’s okay.”
“It’s not—there’s a man over in the corner.”
“No. That’s our pile of laundry.”
Oh.
“But I was sure I saw—”
“No. Nothing there. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe. Try to sleep.” He’d pull me close to his chest, blocking out the world with his body.
A few weeks after we moved in, our power went out late on a Thursday afternoon. I heard we were under another terrorist attack on my battery-operated radio, and when I couldn’t reach Darian at work, in a panic I called his father, who was usually home from work by four o’clock.
Dave reassured me. It wasn’t terrorism; it was a blackout in a good chunk of the northeastern and midwestern United States. Darian would be home as soon as he could be, Dave said. With the streetlights out, it took Darian two hours to drive the normal twenty minutes.
On Friday, I was hot and miserable with an earache and fever and asked if we could escape to Indiana where there was electricity. I pressed my head into the passenger-side window while Darian meandered far into the metro area, in search of an open gas station. On fumes, we sat in a long line of cars, paying with rolled coins—our laundry money, the only cash we had on us. With enough fuel, we booked it south toward two nights of hot food, showers, and air-conditioning paid by credit card.
We arrived back home Sunday evening to a stinky apartment, a fridge full of groceries gone to waste, and more debt. I googled nearby doctors, was diagnosed with an ear infection and put on antibiotics. We got in more of a bind the next week when our bank misplaced our deposit, shorting us—blaming the blackout.
In October, after struggling for two months to find a teaching job, I gave up, deciding any job would do. I had a student loan to pay. I saw a poster for seasonal work at Target and was soon hired for second shift and weekends.
We only had the Corsica, so I’d drive Darian to work in the mornings; then I’d go to work in the afternoons. Darian would hitch a ride to my nearby store, pick up the car, and come back after my shift was over. We’d often run through Taco Bell for a fourth meal and crash, doing it all over the next day.
On evenings off, we sat in camp chairs that kept breaking, ate at a folding table, and watched Hockey Night in Canada through a foil-wrapped antenna connected to a flickering green-tinted television that had fallen during the move.
A few weeks after my job started, fed up with our lousy chairs, I declared to Darian, “That’s it! We’re buying a couch!”
Soon, a dark-eggplant couch and loveseat from Art Van were delivered. Propped up backward on the loveseat, I spent a lot of time staring out our picture window at the changing colors, missing the open air of Kansas.
I got darn homesick those first months; I wanted to click my heels and land back in the wheat fields, like Dorothy. We figured we would quickly find a church in Michigan, make new friends, and get settled. But we only visited a few churches before I started working Sundays.
During the fall, we had a few dinners out with some of Darian’s coworkers and shared our first Thanksgiving with a couple who didn’t have family in Michigan either. But most of the time, it was just the two of us.
I remember calling my mom in December in tears, letting her know we couldn’t make it home for Christmas due to my job—I would be working Christmas Eve and the days following Christmas. Darian and I had a quiet Christmas Day, opening gifts that had been shipped to us, next to a simple tree we bought with my discount. I made Christmas dinner for two, and it was back to a busy store the next day.
It was just Darian and me against the world. Occasionally we’d get into it, but it was still just him and me.
One winter evening, we got into a silly fight about nothing I can remember, and I threw foot powder at him. I ran off to the bedroom but came back out when I heard the door slam, surprised to find a profanity sprinkled in the carpet.
Soon Darian came back home with carpet cleaner, and later I heard the vacuum.
That night, he broke in the couch after I tossed his pillow and a small blanket out in the hall. The next morning there was nothing to do but fall over and giggle when I saw a faint swear word stained permanently into the carpet.
He told me off with foot powder and made it worse with carpet cleaner.
In the new year, my temporary job became permanent, and we were able to buy a new TV and entertainment center, delivered in time for the Super Bowl. No more green-tinted sports for us. We also got word my folks would be visiting in May and his parents in June. Knowing family was coming in the spring helped pull me through our first long, dreary winter.
CHAPTER 21
Don’t Say Goodbye—Say See Ya in a While
MAY 2004
The cherry trees were blooming when my family arrived in Michigan at the beginning of May. Dad, Mom, and Brian arrived on Mom’s birthday, after driving two days in my parents’ new minivan. I’d anxiously been fluttering around the apartment all day and was nearly dancing on my toes by the time they rang the buzzer.
“An authentic experience” is what Dad called Mom’s birthday dinner at a favorite Italian restaurant that night, a family place nestled in a small downtown area a few miles east of where we lived.
The next day, we left for a short trip to the west coast of Michigan while Darian stayed behind, working. In Holland, we spent the afternoon walking up and down rows of brightly colored tulips at a farm, where Mom bought a blue-and-white pitcher for her collection. That evening, we walked out on the pier to the Big Red Lighthouse and watched the sun lower onto Lake Michigan from a sugar-soft beach.
Near Ludington, the next morning, Dad, Brian, and I hiked the steep, tree-covered dunes at P. J. Hoffmaster State Park, working our way down to Lake Michigan, whose chilly waves broke on my bare feet for the first time. We etched the sand with driftwood we trailed behind us and watched the water quickly erase our footprints.
Later that week we spent the day with Darian, meandering around the massive exhibit hall at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn. That evening, we had dinner in Greektown and took a turn at the slot machines at the casino.
A Welcome Rader Family sign greeted us from a small motel in Frankenmuth later that week. We weren’t sure we’d ever get Dad out of Bronner’s, the world’s largest Christmas store, after he spotted the miniature towns, festively decorated, with trains running in circles.
We dropped Mom off to shop the next morning while Dad, Brian, and I drove along the coast of Lake Huron, stopping at a wooden walkway along the Au Sable River to watch for bald eagles. I’d come to this spot with Darian the October before, catching a glimpse of an eagle fishing. That afternoon, I was thrilled to stand next to Dad as two eagles fought and tumbled in the sky for a few moments.
Dad let me choose where to go on the map that day and told me on our way back to pick up Mom that I’d chosen well. I thought it was the first of many family trips to Michigan, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I had no idea we were just months away from the world crashing down on us. If anyone should have known, it would have been Dad. But that’s impo
ssible to say—then or now.
JULY 2004
During the summer of 2004, I read about the BTK serial killer who had resurfaced after decades of silence in Wichita. He had committed seven murders in the 1970s and sent taunting letters to the police and media, but then ceased communication in 1979. It had been assumed he was dead or in prison. But in the spring of 2004, he claimed an eighth murder from 1986 and started mailing letters and leaving drops, similar to his behavior in the 1970s. This led to an immense manhunt.
This was the first I’d heard of the murders or the infamous acronym. I was surprised and taken aback by the news that this was happening back home, but I don’t recall following the local Wichita news closely in 2004.
I do remember two things: I mentioned the manhunt to Darian, who had read about it also. And sometime that summer or fall, I asked Mom on the phone about the murders in the 1970s. She told me that at the time a lot of women were fearful. She had been scared, since Dad would sometimes work late and was taking night classes at WSU—but Dad had reassured her, told her not to worry, she was safe.
In the late fall, I read about the new possible attributes of BTK. I remember puzzling over the list—coming back to it a few times because it was nagging at me.
BTK had written to the police that he had a cousin in Missouri and a grandfather who played the fiddle and died of lung disease. His father died in World War II. He was in the military in the 1960s, had a lifelong fascination with trains, and always lived near a railroad.1
I kept thinking of a hazy, dreamlike image of a white house with black trim and a train running right near it, close enough to rattle the windows. A house like my grandparents’ house. But that didn’t make any sense.
I determined the list was odd but couldn’t make anything solid from it, and I dropped it when I heard in December there had been an arrest. It ended up being a false arrest, and I don’t remember following the news after that.
Hindsight would come hurtling down soon enough, but I’m not alone in thinking my ordinary, normal, everyman dad was the last person on earth who could be BTK.