The next day, Tuesday, February 12, he buys four books for Jessica on Amazon, all to help with her studies. He includes the gift message, “You are the best Jessica! You’ve done so much for me, and I truly do love you. You will make an excellent psychologist or social worker someday! Don’t forget about me! Love, Steve.”
He also buys her a phone and memory sticks for $426, a purse for $302, sterling silver peace earrings for $38, data cables and other accessories, CDs, and he wants to buy her an engagement ring, something she’ll receive after the event. He wants to take care of her. He calls her in the afternoon, but she’s at work.
He tries to reach Joe Russo and also his father. Jessica calls him back at 3:38 and they talk for a little over ten minutes. He asks her what ring size she is and ‘what finger a woman wears her marriage ring on.’ He tells her she’ll be receiving a package in the mail from him. She can’t open it until Valentine’s Day or it won’t make any sense.
Jessica thinks he’s going to propose.
~ ~ ~
A COUPLE DAYS AFTER MY FATHER SHOT HIMSELF on the phone talking to my stepmother, saying “I love you but I’m not going to live without you,” she received flowers from him. A romantic gift from the grave, the same as Jessica will receive. And how can anyone ever make sense of this kind of gift?
One of my former colleagues at FSU, Thomas Joiner, is an expert on suicide, and he maintains that suicide is not a selfish act. “That’s not the way they’re thinking,” he says. They often believe their suicide will help the people they leave behind. My father, for instance, believed his insurance policies would help us, better than miring us in his financial problems with the IRS. We’d be better off in the end. Thomas Joiner’s father committed suicide, too.
After twenty-eight years of suicide bereavement, I’m moving closer to Joiner’s view. At first, suicide seemed like the most selfish act possible, and I felt rage and shame. Now I’m not so sure. But here’s what my father did to my stepmother, here’s how he was a monster.
Eleven months before my father’s suicide, my stepmother lost her parents to a murder-suicide. Her parents had a big house on top of a hill, overlooking an entire valley in Lakeport, Northern California. A valley with pear orchards and hills all around. They had horses. They were well off from a successful pool and spa business. I spent a lot of time at that house, riding all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes, swimming in the pool, learning to play backgammon, hunting and shooting. My stepmother’s father had a gun collection, pistols and shotguns, in cases. A room with dark wood and velvet. Many of the guns rare.
My stepmother’s mother felt bitter about her husband. He had cheated on her, was thinking of leaving her for another woman. Their years together were not what she had thought they were, her life a kind of lie. I remember her sitting in the kitchen on a stool, her little dog running around clicking its nails on the linoleum. She chain-smoked, had a raspy smoker’s laugh. I was always a little scared of her.
One day she went to the gun collection and picked out a shotgun and a pistol. She shot him at close range with the shotgun, killing him, then killed herself with the pistol.
Killing him had not been the plan, though. She included a letter to him in her suicide notes: “I’m really sorry for your last miserable 15 years. I really didn’t know. I really thought you loved me. . Above all, Rollie, be happy because I’m taking your hell away. I’ve loved you more than you will ever know.”
This was a small town, a small community, and for their five children, the shame was nearly unbearable, but they all stayed. They fought each other bitterly over the will, over the money.
My stepmother had already lost her daughter’s father to a car accident. Then her parents’ murder-suicide. She told my father, right near the end, “Don’t do this to me, Jim.”
But he did it. And he sent her flowers that she’d receive afterward. And to me, those flowers are the greatest cruelty. So although Jessica Baty has lied to me over and over, and should have seen warning signs, and is one of the most psychologically screwed up people I have ever met, buried deep in denial and still not able, really, to acknowledge Steve’s victims, the people he killed and wounded, I will never stop feeling sorry for her. Can you imagine believing a proposal is coming on Valentine’s Day, then finding out instead that he’s a mass murderer?
~ ~ ~
THAT TUESDAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 12, after Steve asks Jessica ‘what finger a woman wears her marriage ring on,’ he talks to his father for about fifteen minutes. He gets a call, also, from the Navy recruiter, Nole Scoville, and puts him off, says he’s too busy to come in to the office. This is remarkable timing, a last chance to go another direction. Does he hesitate at all?
Steve orders Jessica a platinum ArtCarved Montclair six-millimeter ring for $1,435.50 from Amazon. That evening, he talks with Jessica again for eighteen minutes, then again for fourteen minutes, several calls for just a few minutes, and a longer one for twenty-one minutes at midnight. What do they say in these calls? There are limits to what Jessica will tell me. She hides as much as she can.
Steve talks with Mark that evening, too, and it’s a normal conversation. “He was asking me about someone I dated down in Louisiana, and what it was like living out there and a different culture, and we talked about that for about twenty minutes, and about the PS3 [PlayStation3], and that was about it.” Mark doesn’t sense anything wrong with Steve, maybe a bit formal on the final goodbye, is all. Steve talks with Joe Russo, too, for sixteen minutes, and Joe doesn’t think anything is wrong. The conversation ends as usual, with “talk to you later.”
Has Steve gone out at all today, even for food? He has Red Bull and cigarettes, a bottle of lotion on the nightstand.
Kelly sends him an email, asking to get together: “This week was craptastic. The ice on my windshield was completely impermeable to scrapers and ice melt spray this morning, so I was 20 min late to class as well. On a positive note, I didn’t slip and fall once today!:) What day did you say you weren’t doing anything later this week? I forgot already. We should do something. . karaoke, movie, whatever. I just need to get out of here for a bit. Anyway, I hope your day went well and I’ll talk to you soon!”
He answers her the next morning, Wednesday, February 13: “I know what you mean about getting out once in a while, Kelly, lol.” He’s been in the Travelodge now for two days alone, waiting. “The snow and melted ice were a pain to deal with today, but at least you or I didn’t fall! Friday may work, but I’ll have to see what’s going on. karaoke is always fun!” But he’s not trying to get together with her. What about the prostitutes: Megan, Elyse, Katie? They’re all a long drive south, but “Sheri,” a woman with multiple arrests for prostitution, is closer, in Chicago. Does he see her? He has handcuffs on the nightstand beside his bed, which he’s mentioned before with Kelly, for light bondage, so maybe someone does visit. Sheri tells police Steve “seemed weird,” tried to get her to come to DeKalb, and even tried to arrange transportation for her. But she denies ever coming to DeKalb.
Steve goes to the post office and sends Jessica a package with the return address of Robert Paulson, 1074 Stevenson C, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, his old dorm address at NIU. He’s asked Jessica recently whether she remembers who Robert Paulson is, and she remembers he’s the one who dies in the movie Fight Club.