In the Still of the Night Page 7

  "I honestly can't recall," he told Barb, "whether I discarded the bullets on the bed or on the floor."

  Dave Bell didn't know why Ronda wanted him to take the gun out of the house. She was very familiar with weapons; she'd been an instructor in gun safety when she was on the Washington State Patrol. She'd had a WSP-issued Beretta and a .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson that her uncle Bill Ramsey had given her. Mark, her first husband, had taken the S&W Model 66, and, of course, when she left the Patrol, she'd turned in the Beretta. As far as Dave knew, she no longer had any personal gun.

  "Was Ronda afraid of something? Someone?" Barb Thompson asked.

  Dave shook his head. "I don't think so. I'd say she was indecisive. She just wanted to come up to my house in Tukwila for the night, and fly to Spokane from there. But she was afraid if she left the house, and everything she'd put into it, everything she didn't take with her Tuesday night would be gone."

  And there had been the problem of their pets. Ronda had three dogs and Dave had cats. How would they get along if they were suddenly thrust together? Not to mention Bell's sons, who were older now but really didn't know Ronda. He had hoped to introduce them gradually. He hadn't figured out how he could explain a pretty woman who was a virtual stranger to them--and her dogs.

  Of course, if he'd felt she was in any danger at all, none of that would have mattered. "I would have dragged her out of there kicking and screaming if I had to," he told Barb.

  Bell said he and Ronda had driven around Lewis County for a while, holding hands. That was only to comfort Ronda. Once again she had come to a crossroads in her life, one she hadn't foreseen. She was relieved to be getting out of her marriage to Ron Reynolds but she also felt somewhat embarrassed that she had failed at marriage--twice now. Ronda made several calls to friends on her cell phone, and then a short call to her estranged husband, Ron Reynolds. It had been a very brief conversation, and one without much emotion. From what Dave could hear, Ronda had focused on some specific details of their coming separation.

  "We stopped and got a bite to eat," Dave recalled. "Ronda told me she had decided to stay one final night in her own house--because she wanted to confront Ron with what she was going to demand from him in their divorce."

  They had also driven to Cheryl Gilbert's house. Ronda had been thinking of staying with Cheryl that night and possibly when she returned from her Christmas visit home, but she changed her mind. Ronda loved Cheryl's children, although sometimes she was overwhelmed because Cheryl's friendship was oppressive and somehow she seemed always to know where Ronda was.

  "Ronda worried about that--and didn't want to encourage it."

  Dave Bell watched as Ronda knocked on Cheryl's door. When no one answered, she tossed Cheryl's house keys in through the front door and flipped the lock.

  When the two returned to the Twin Peaks Drive house, they saw that Ron's car was already there. Dave Bell had no desire to meet the man Ronda was married to--at least for the time being--and he needed to get back to his police department in Des Moines.

  "We said our goodbyes," Dave said quietly, "and that was the last time I saw Ronda, although I did talk with her by phone later that night--twice--to make arrangements for me to pick her up the next morning and take her to SeaTac to catch her flight."

  "When was that?" Barb asked. "I talked to her late Tuesday night, too."

  "Around midnight. She was going to get reservations to fly out of Portland, but I told her that would make a really long drive for me--and it would be a lot easier if she could leave from Seattle. She said that was fine, and that she'd make her reservations to leave from SeaTac."

  "Tell me the truth, Dave," Barb urged. "You've known Ronda for more than ten years. You may know her better than anyone. Did she seem distraught or suicidal?"

  "No--not at all. You know me, Barb--I would never have left her there if I sensed anything like that. She seemed fine--tired, hoping she was doing the wisest thing, but she wasn't depressed and she certainly didn't seem like someone who was thinking of taking her own life. She was tough, and she liked to be in charge. Ronda would never have given up easily . . ."

  Dave and Barb drove along in silence awhile. Once they cleared Olympia, the countryside became more bucolic with farms instead of single houses.

  They arrived at the Lewis County Sheriff's Office in Chehalis at 11 A.M. Detective Dave Neiser met them. Neiser explained that he had been one of the first investigators at the Reynolds's house, having been called out from home shortly after 7 A.M. the day before--Wednesday. He said that he was to have been the detective in charge of the investigation, but he had scheduled a week's vacation. So he had passed the case to Jerry Berry. He reassured Barb that Berry was "the best detective on the force."

  And possibly he was right. Although Barb wouldn't know it for a long time, it had been Neiser who removed the death gun from its original position--for "safety's sake." He said that he didn't want the fire department EMTs to be hurt if the gun went off accidentally. After that huge mistake, there was no way to ever know for sure where it had actually been.

  In this case, that mattered a lot.

  Getting Jerry Berry to work on the mystery surrounding Ronda's death was one of the luckiest breaks Barb could have hoped for. Still, coming from her point of view, Barb was astounded and angry. How could the world go on as if nothing had happened? Who cared about Christmas vacations? She didn't know anything about Jerry Berry, and believed she was getting a fast shuffle.

  "[With Neiser] I saw only a man whose demeanor was detached and unconcerned," Barb remembered. "As if David Bell and I were a bother and Neiser didn't have any time to spare for us. It took everything I had to keep from bursting out, 'Excuse me, but my daughter happens to be dead! Are you more concerned about your vacation than about a human life?' "

  Dave Bell sensed her angry frustration and kept her from saying aloud what she was thinking He pinched her arm hard, and the resulting pain helped her keep her mouth closed.

  "He knew what I was feeling, and how close I was to losing it. He wasn't doing much better, but at least he had roped in his anger and was able to snap me back to reality. I knew I had to remain calm and objective if we were to accomplish anything."

  Barb Thompson was passing through the stages of grief rapidly. Things she had always believed in were crumbling; she knew that law enforcement agencies and judicial systems had their flaws, but she had always had faith and respect for them. Now her instincts told her to beware, and to keep her guard up. She honestly didn't know who it was she suspected of destroying Ronda, but her gut told her that she and Dave Bell had to think out what they did or said very carefully from this point on.

  "We had to remain aware and cautious," she sighed later. "Dave at least had years of law enforcement experience, but I didn't. I had to learn fast, and keep my mouth shut, and not wear my emotions on my face.

  "That I could do. It wouldn't be easy but for Ronda, I could do it."

  LEWIS COUNTY DETECTIVE Jerry Berry greeted them. He wasn't an especially big man, but Barb found his presence "enormous." His blue eyes looked directly into her own, and she instinctively felt that she could trust him. He wasn't smiling but his eyes were kind and concerned. Berry had craggy, "down-home" features, a sun-weathered face, and dark hair that was beginning to recede. He wore black slacks, a white shirt without a tie, a sport coat, and cowboy boots.

  Berry held out his hand and his grip was firm--but gentle. For the first time since Barb and Dave Bell had walked into the sheriff's office, she felt somehow comforted. This detective was a compassionate man, and his eyes never left hers as they talked.

  "I felt God had given me a guardian angel," Barb recalled. "I was glad that he was now the lead detective because I knew somehow that he cared for her. Ronda was no longer just another body, but a human being who deserved to be treated with dignity. I knew Detective Berry would do everything in his power to uncover the truth about her death--whatever the truth might end up being."

  Even
so, Berry didn't give them much information. He couldn't. Barb understood that many facts had to be kept under wraps, even from a victim's survivors. In order to maintain control of a murder probe, investigators had to keep to themselves any information that only a killer might know. Although she was bursting with questions, she tried to hold back.

  "Jerry Berry did tell us that Ron had called 911 at 6:20 A.M. on Wednesday, and that he'd managed to remain calm when he told the dispatcher that his wife had committed suicide. When the first deputies arrived, Ron, his three sons, and then two men from the school district were at the house."

  She was appalled and she saw Dave Bell's jaw tighten when they heard that the boys were allowed to leave the death site without being questioned. Even most laymen knew that was one of the basic rules in Death Investigation 101.

  "They had already left when I got there," Berry said quietly. "We can question them later."

  "It's not the same," Barb mouthed under her breath. How many other mistakes had this small-county department made, omissions and blunders that would slow down the probe of Ronda's death?

  Berry looked as if her questions had struck a nerve. He was angry, too, that the boys had been allowed to leave before anyone questioned them, but he couldn't say that. Barb sensed that he seemed to want to say more--but he was fighting back the impulse. She couldn't determine if he agreed with her or if he was being defensive.

  "Mr. Reynolds told us he found your daughter in the closet--covered with an electric blanket," Berry said. "The entry wound was next to her right ear; she was lying on her left side. It appeared that both hands were under the blanket, and the gun was resting on top of the blanket. He said it was in her left hand."

  "But Ronda was right-handed," Barb Thompson said. "It's Ron who is left-handed."

  "How do you know that?"

  "My mother and I had breakfast with Ron and Ronda in May when they came over for Mother's Day, and we talked about it then," she answered. "We joked about the fact that he and I are both lefties."

  Jerry Berry was still looking into her eyes, but he was noncommittal about his reactions.

  She plunged on. "Don't you find it strange that Ronda's husband asks for a divorce, Ronda makes plans to visit me in Spokane, she tells Ron that she wants financial compensation for what she contributed when they bought their new house, and she told me she refused to give him a divorce until six months had passed and she had a clean HIV test--and bang!--she ends up dead? Doesn't all that raise any red flags for you?"

  Berry looked up sharply, surprised. The HIV test was a new thread in an already complicated case. Barb explained that Ronda knew that Katie Huttula Reynolds had had problems with drugs off and on for years, and that Ron had been unfaithful with her. Ronda feared she might have been infected.

  It was apparent that Ronda and her mother had been very close and had no secrets from one another, and Berry noted that in his brain, but outwardly, he remained frustratingly calm. "No, there was no 'suicide' note. There was a note on the mirror that read 'I love you. Call me,' and a phone number with a 509 area code."

  "That makes no sense at all," Barb replied. "I don't believe my daughter killed herself. I want an investigation."

  "And I plan on doing one, Ms. Thompson."

  "Do you think she killed herself? Does it make any sense to you?" Barb persisted.

  "There seem to be some discrepancies here that I find disturbing," Berry said. "I'm sorry--but I can't say more at this point. I assure you I'm going to work hard--it will be my priority."

  She believed him but it seemed as though she wasn't really learning much about the details of what had happened.

  Barb had another request. She asked to see Ronda's body. Neither Dave Bell nor Jerry Berry had expected this.

  "I don't think that's a good idea," Berry said. "You need to remember her as the way she was--not the way she is now."

  Dave Bell's look of distress mirrored Berry's. "He's right, Barb," Dave said quickly. "Trust me, you don't want to do that."

  She hadn't allowed herself to visualize Ronda after a bullet had crashed into her head, and now an image pushed through her protective shield. Barb Thompson gulped back sobs, and feared she was going to vomit.

  All she could think of was her daughter lying in a morgue somewhere on a cold metal tray. She wanted so much to go to Ronda and tell her everything was going to be all right. She had always done that--that's what mothers did.

  "I was going to say, 'Mama's here,' " Barb remembered years later. " 'Mama will take care of you.' But I knew I couldn't think that way. I had to redirect my thinking. Inside my head, I began to say: 'Look hard. Look deep. See her smile? She's smiling at you. She's warm. She's okay. You can handle this. Settle down and focus on what you need to do.' "

  Barb took a deep breath. "All right. If you don't want me to see my daughter--then I want to go and talk to her husband--to Ron."

  Detective Berry warned her that that wasn't a good idea, either. But he could see going in that he wasn't going to dissuade this woman. She seemed to have an inner core of strength that overrode her sorrow and her shock. Most mothers would be basket cases only twenty-four hours after learning their child was dead. Inexplicably dead.

  Sighing, Berry gave in. "I still don't think it's wise," he said. "I wouldn't advise it."

  "I have to. I need to hear him explain what happened with my own ears," Barb said firmly. "Ron was the only one there with her yesterday morning--except for his sons."

  "You're upset, and you're very angry, and we don't need any trouble."

  "We already have trouble."

  "Okay," Berry said. "If you feel you have to do this, please control your temper and don't ask a lot of questions. But listen closely to everything he says, and then go to your car and write it down as close to word for word as you can get it. And after that, I would like for you to come back here and talk to me."

  Barb nodded. She hated to ask Dave Bell to drive her back to what had been Ronda's home, knowing it would be difficult for him to relive what had happened a day earlier when he learned that Ronda was dead. It had been just a little more than a day, but it felt as if Ronda's death had been a week--even a month--ago. Everything was happening in slow motion, as if she were slogging through quicksand.

  Barb offered to rent a car and drive herself, but Dave wouldn't let her do that.

  "He was hurting, too," she recalled. "But he would be there for me. He wouldn't go in with me. I needed to talk to Ron alone, but Dave would wait nearby. Neither of us knew for sure what we were looking for, but we weren't nearly ready to agree with the coroner that Ronda had probably decided to commit suicide."

  She and Dave headed back to his green pickup to travel ten miles south to Toledo.

  Barb wondered what her son-in-law would say to her. Maybe he wasn't her son-in-law any longer.

  She realized she hardly knew him.

  JERRY BERRY NEVER INTENDED to be a cop. He didn't have relatives in law enforcement, and he'd never been particularly fascinated with that kind of career. In fact, he'd spent the first twenty-two years of his working life in heavy construction--beginning at the age of seventeen. He enjoyed the work and the pay wasn't bad. He recalls feeling a sense of pride to finish a job and observe the results of his hard labor under a blistering sun or in driving rain.

  At thirty-nine, he suddenly realized that a time would come when he wouldn't be able to lift the backbreaking loads he'd lifted at twenty. His muscles ached at the end of the day, and heavy construction wasn't nearly as appealing as it had been when he was a teenager.

  "I wanted to do something else," he says. "But I really didn't know what I was going to do. Still, I knew I was going to find it."

  He was living in Mossyrock at the time, a hamlet so tiny it doesn't get mentioned on most Washington maps. Not surprisingly, everyone knows everyone, and Berry was chatting with Knute*--who owned the Mossyrock Market--when their attention turned to the town marshal, who stood on the sidewalk across the str
eet.

  His name was Rufe* and he had become town marshal by appointment from the mayor.

  Everyone in town viewed Rufe as a poor man's Barney Fife, but Barney got points for wearing a full uniform and keeping his one-bullet gun in its proper holster. Rufe wore his gun in a shabby holster and hung it around his neck on a leather shoestring. Fortunately, he had never shot himself or anyone else in the foot--or worse.

  "What does it take to be a marshal?" Knute asked, trying to make conversation.

  Jerry Berry wasn't positive, but he figured there would be a test, a background check, and attendance at the Washington State Criminal Justice Center in Burien, Washington. He couldn't imagine that Rufe would be able to go through all those obstacles and pass.

  Half joking, Berry said, "I could do a better job than Rufe and I don't know anything about the law."

  Knute then suggested that Berry go over to see the mayor and apply for the job.

  James Roberts, the Mossyrock mayor, didn't have a regular office; the town wasn't big enough for that. The mayor was licensed to run the Washington State Liquor Store in Mossyrock, and Mayor Roberts conducted both liquor sales and political business from behind the counter of his store.

  Berry walked over and automatically held his breath against the thick cigar smoke that seemed to curl around the bottles, ads, windows, and other displays. He'd never been in the liquor store without seeing it through a cigar-tinged haze.

  He approached the mayor and announced that he wanted to apply for the job of marshal. Or as "chief of police" of Mossyrock, which seemed the correct term as they neared the millennium. "Marshal" sounded more like someone out of Gunsmoke.

  Roberts looked him up and down, took the cigar out of his mouth, and asked, "You got any experience?"

  "No," Berry said honestly, "but I'm in good shape and I can get through the academy."