“It’s sea kelp and it’s really good for you.” Then she leans her head back and gulps down the green goo like a shot of whiskey.
“Where’d you get that stuff? It looks like puke; I’d never eat that crap! Who says it’s good for you?”
“Ben, my friend from the health food store. We ate Chinese together the other night after I bought my bike, and he explained the health benefits from kelp, and it makes sense to me.”
“Well, you go right ahead and eat it if you like. I’m not touching it.”
We carefully loaded our glamorous selves into a taxi and anxiously sat in the back seat trying not to mess up our hair. We were both excited and could not wait to arrive at Caesar’s. We already felt like we were missing out on something because the taxi was driving too slowly for our excitement overload.
When we pulled up in front of Caesar’s, the place was buzzing like we’d never seen it before. People and limousines were everywhere, and we dashed right out of the taxi so quickly we almost tripped on our heels. We noticed flashes going off in the lobby and as we entered the opulent front doors, we caught a quick glimpse of Sylvester Stallone and his entourage of people moving towards the center of the room with reporters, microphones and cameras. It was so exciting. We both stood there until security pushed us over and out of the way of all the action. Stallone was magnificent.
As we slinked around the bejeweled lobby, I noticed Fred come walking towards us. He was dressed up and had his camera hanging around his neck. It wasn’t a Polaroid though; it looked like a regular camera to me. He asked if we wanted to pose over by the statues in the lobby and we thought that was a good idea, so we stood there while Fred snapped away. Chris was happy; I was happy, and it looked like this was going to be a smooth-flowing afternoon. The fights were scheduled in a few hours, so we continued to walk around the bar and gaming areas to see who else we could see.
The ladies rooms were packed with women, and it looked like a war zone every time you had to go in there. Too many people, too much crowded noise, I was getting annoyed. I was just not a crowd person. I never even liked Christmas shopping in Pittsburgh at the downtown department stores. I hated crowds.
People had started streaming towards the gates to go outside, so we got swept along. As soon as we emerged into the fight arena area, the heat smacked us right in our faces like a ball of fire. Wow, it was scorching, blistering hot. As I sort of expected, our free seats were in the proverbial peanut gallery and we had to climb and climb. Chris jogged up the steps while I lagged behind, not wanting to even go there. We weren’t seated more than fifteen minutes when I knew I didn’t want to endure this. It wasn’t worth it. I was already so overheated I felt sick, so I told Chris I was going to the ladies room to cool off.
As I slowly stepped my way down from the peanut gallery seats, I knew in my mind that I wasn’t going back up there. Too much work to see two guys punch each other around….
On my way to the ladies room, I ran into Fred standing by the front entrance. He seemed to be lurking. There was something about this guy who was always lurking around; I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I told him I was leaving and asked him if he had tickets to the fight and he said he didn’t. So I handed him my ticket stub and told him to have fun, and to please tell Chris I’d see her later on at the apartment. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
I hopped a taxi and headed back to Woodbridge. I tore off my hot clothing and threw on my bikini. I couldn’t wait to jump into the ice-cold water at the pool.
After cooling off, I called Kathy Roberts and asked her if she wanted to have breakfast the next day because I’d probably be leaving soon and wanted to say goodbye.
“Sure,” she said. “That sounds great; let’s get up early. I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock.”
“I’ll be ready, Kathy.”
I set my alarm clock for seven, ate a salad and went to bed early; I figured I’d shower in the morning. I slept soundly and never heard Chris come in.
SEVEN: PREMONITION
“Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.”
–Bryce Courtenay
The alarm clock on my nightstand screamed at seven, and I managed to smash the off button before it awakened Chris, or so I thought. She must have come in late because I heard nothing. Then again, I would sleep through a hurricane, and I think it becomes that way after you’ve been a single mom for a while—you are always worn out and always up early.
In my life, there’s before coffee, during coffee and after coffee. After coffee is the best part of the day for me, where I’m thinking clearly and ready to start processing what’s next.
I thought I heard a whisper as I dragged myself to the kitchen. No coffee, what a depressing thought this early in the morning. When I turned to open the fridge, Chris was standing there in her night shorts and tank top, her mouth wide open. I waited for the screaming to begin.
Feeling like a zombie, I didn’t much care what she said or did, as long as she didn’t physically attack me, because if that had happened I would have been completely helpless with no defense. I thought about that for a minute, as she was looking very aggressive, angry and distraught. I figured I’d just not respond to any of it this time because honestly, without coffee, I wasn’t capable of a response. Yes, no response was my choice. I knew there was a slight chance that she would freak out on me, completely lose it and possibly beat me up. I knew this after the first outrage in the buffet line. I knew she was capable of violence. I always did my best to avoid violence and walk away from it whenever possible.
Wait, I could try a little humor I thought. I smiled a little smile and stuck two fingers in both ears to signal I wasn’t listening. This attempt at humor made her worse. She was flailing now, arms were going, hands were going, and she was jumping around the room.
“You woke me up, you woke me up. I can’t stand it when anyone wakes me up this early.” Her head was bobbing around and the screams were getting louder. Her face turned red, and she screeched again, “I’m moving out of here today.”
“All of this over an alarm clock going off,” I said quietly. Damn, she heard me, and this set her off like a banshee….
“I’m getting my own place today, I’m not taking this shit anymore, I can’t stand it, I can’t tolerate it, I want out of here, away from you.” She looked disheveled and spent. The screeching continued as I quietly shuffled over to the living room, where I was now just an observer, no longer wishing to participate in any of it. The squealing was giving me a headache, and I just quietly looked at her and mumbled, “Someone is going to kill you.” It came oozing out of my mouth from nowhere. The immediate thought that flashed over me was of a big man lunging towards her as she screamed and flailed about.
The comment dropped out of my mouth and to the ground and she never heard it, and I never thought about it again. It was something that would take me years and years to figure out, and I can only say it was because I had no interest in anything paranormal back then. The only thing that happened right after I said it was that I wanted to say out loud to myself, “Why the hell did you just say that?” That was it—such a weird thing to say, an oddball, out of nowhere thing to say. That’s all I thought at the time I said it. I thought it was a stupid thing to say and did not know where the hell it came from….
Chris was throwing the covers around on her bed, dragging out the suitcases from under it, and ignoring me. “I’m moving out, I’m getting my own place, today.”
I said nothing. I slowly walked towards the bathroom and shut the door, locking the lock, shutting out her insanity. She had stopped screeching, but I could still hear it in my head as I turned on the shower and soaked my head in the steamy water.
By the time I got to the cold part of my shower I was feeling much better, and I
was looking forward to opening the door and having her gone.
Yes, she was gone. I was all smiles and felt like dancing around the room in my bath towel. No more insanity, no more temper tantrums, no more drama. I was so relieved that I mixed a glass of iced tea and savored the moment for at least an hour before it dawned on me that Kathy must be running late. It was close to nine, so I called her. She said Larry had needed to use the car and she’d be over shortly. “No problem Kathy, take your time.” And I did mean that. I was enjoying the silence.
Breakfast was a lovely event with Kathy, if just for the coffee. We laughed and talked, and I told her I’d probably never see her again in life but it was nice getting to know her and Larry, and then we spoke of slot machines and winnings.
I never mentioned that the eleven hundred dollars I had won at Baccarat had been wired home to my mother the day after I won it.
EIGHT: WARNING VISION
“Synchronistic events provide an immediate religious experience as a direct encounter with the compensatory patterning of events in nature as a whole, both inwardly and outwardly.”
–C.G. Jung
It was either one or two days later that Chris knocked on my door. I couldn’t imagine who was knocking on my door, as I was not really socializing with anyone at the apartment complex. Seeing her standing there smiling happily with a bulging envelope in her arms was a shocker. She caught me off guard in that I didn’t know exactly how to react.
I just stood there and said a meek hello. She was fidgeting around with the envelope and opened it in front of me. Out came a huge pile of photographs, which appeared to me to be 35-millimeter professional quality pictures.
Politely, she asked me if I’d wanted any of the photographs that Fred had shot of us over at Caesar’s Palace on the day of the fights, as she handed over the pile to me. I felt odd but justified in not inviting her into my apartment, and she didn’t ask to come in.
She quickly added, “Fred gave me these.” I was surprised to hear that because Fred didn’t seem like the type of guy to give away anything for free, and she was very happy in telling me that he had given her these photographs—I immediately had a passing thought that she’d hooked up with him somehow.
I halfheartedly flipped through the photos and saw a few that looked quite nice of the two of us, but I declined her invitation by saying, “Nah, none of them look that great Chris, I think I’ll pass.” She took the pile from my hand and said, “No problem, I’ll keep them myself.”
I did not at this point feel the least bit inclined to ask where she had moved. I was feeling kind of numb about the friendship, just not feeling it anymore. It was over; I didn’t want to be friends with her. I’d lost interest, and as she walked away and I closed the door, I felt the welcomed silence again. It was magical to me now.
I would forever regret not taking one photo of her and me together from the pile….
I hadn’t made reservations back to Pittsburgh yet. I planned on staying until the end of the week when the rent would run out on the apartment. I was playing it by ear, but I figured I’d probably want to return home soon since I missed my son desperately and I was getting bored. My daily ambitions were limited to the pool, the laundry room, the grocery store and an occasional dinner out with Kathy and Larry Roberts. It was quiet around the apartment complex, and I imagined most people who had been there for the fights were now checked out. It seemed to be hotter and hotter in Vegas now; I only did short stints at the pool. I already had a great tan and was spending less and less time in the sun.
One late afternoon when the sun was waning and not scorching, I lay down on my beach towel at the pool, where only a few people were swimming. I was off to myself in a corner by the hot tub with nothing but my towel and my brown leather cigarette case on the towel beside my head. I kept the key to my apartment tucked in the front pocket of the leather case.
The last thing I remember seeing before I fell asleep was Fred lurking around the soda machine over by the laundry room area. I didn’t feel he would come over to talk to me, as I had not seen him before this, and some time had passed since handing him my ticket stub for admission to the fights. I hadn’t given him any signals that I was interested in pursuing anything with him.
I was asleep on my towel. I felt a dream presence near me, but it didn’t wake me. Then I felt a small delicate hand tap me on the shoulder and a meek voice said, “Get up and go to your room right now.” This, coupled with a strobe-like flash of white light that blasted me, and I woke up. I assume because of the voice telling me to get up, I grabbed my cigarette case and looked inside the pocket and the key was gone. I stood up half-groggy and took off to my room, which was less than a driveway’s length from where I had been laying. I turned the corner and stood at the bottom of the step leading up to my apartment, and I could plainly see the door was cracked open.
I eased my way up the steps and over to the door, where I pushed open the crack and saw Fred standing in the back of the apartment digging through my luggage.
I wasn’t going in; something told me not to go inside. The fear was welling up inside of me, and I knew if I went in there something would happen to me. So I stood outside the door on the patio and yelled in, “Fred, there’s nothing in there; I have nothing, only some silver dollars for my son.” I never kept money in my room. What cash I had left to live on I had tucked deep inside the main part of my cigarette case with my cigarette pack, along with the one credit card that I owned.
I thought about running. I thought that if I did run he might catch me and beat me down. There was no one around at this point and dusk was setting in rapidly. I thought that if I screamed no one would hear me. You could hear nothing but the loud hum of air conditioning, and I would have been drowned out by it. I knew I had to think fast.
I casually walked over to the top step and sat down. When Fred came walking out of my apartment I just sat there. He sat down next to me. I didn’t want him to smell my fear, but it was all over me. I had to be an actor right now. I was scared out of my head—this guy could snap my neck in three seconds flat.
“Fred, listen honey; I am a single mom from Pittsburgh. I don’t have much. I won a little bit of money, but I wired it back to Pittsburgh right away to my mother who is taking care of my son. I’d like to have my key back please.” He handed me my key and said nothing.
Reading this guy was difficult. He just sat there and was waiting to see what I was going to do. He probably knew there was little I could actually do, but I could see that he was thinking, and he was weighing in his mind what he should do. The atmosphere of extreme danger is something I will never forget. The leasing office was closed for the day, and I couldn’t dart back into the apartment and call the police. I felt that any move on my part that made him think that I was going to expose him, would make him act.
The rest of what happened is a blank for me. I made some small talk with this guy, and eventually when I felt he was feeling secure in knowing that he wasn’t in any kind of trouble, I went back in my apartment and locked the door, and he got up and walked away. As I watched him from the window, he walked across the parking lot and knocked on a door to an apartment across the way. A white girl answered the door and let him in, and this was the first time I actually saw where he was staying. A scam robber team came to mind right away, and I knew this guy was no damn good. He had only planned on robbing me. He hadn’t gotten anything either, and I didn’t want to start any shit, but I knew I had to go find Chris and I had to find her fast. If she was still hanging around with Fred, she needed to be told this story.
I thought about notifying the police or letting management know about the incident, but decided against it because I sensed there would be punishment for my actions, just as there had been at Riverview Park with the menacing thugs. I knew thugs would retaliate, and I knew Fred was a thug.
I stayed in that night, fearful that if I opened my door and even went to the soda machine, that I would encounter Fred. I tho
ught about where Chris might have moved to and decided that she was probably on the other side of the 300 or so unit complex, because I had not even run into her anywhere near my end of the complex since she’d left.
I was anxious and distraught and didn’t sleep well. I awoke early the next day to go look for Chris.
NINE: LURKING AND KNOWING
“Mystery is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend.”
–Dennis Covington
The next morning I went directly to the leasing office. I told the manager that I had to find my friend that I had previously been living with. He looked at the records and noted that we had arrived there together, and readily gave me her apartment number. I was correct in my assumption that Chris had nestled herself closer to the other side of the complex, and I started walking towards her apartment immediately.
Her drapes were drawn shut and the air conditioner was off, which I found strange, because it was at least 99 degrees in the shade. I banged on the door and no one answered. As I was leaving the area, I noticed Fred ambling along the pathway from the other apartments, and I ducked into one of the laundry rooms. Why was he lurking around again? Did he lurk around everywhere? Why was he over at this end of the complex? I was scared and I felt that he was looking for me, watching for me; he knew I was going to try and warn Chris.
The next day I went over there again, this time her drapes were wide open and I could see inside the apartment. I saw her keys on the coffee table, her bike was parked in the corner of the living room, and when I smashed my nose against the window I noticed that the bottom part of the bed that was exposed was stripped of all bedding. It was stripped down to the bare mattress. There was no comforter or sheets, and I thought she was probably out at the laundry room, but then I didn’t understand why her big ring of keys was laying on the coffee table. I was confused, but thought, well, maybe she kept a separate key in her pocket or something like that. I knew she had to be somewhere close by because her bike was there. She traveled by bike if she left the complex.
Who Killed Chrissy?: The True Crime Memoir of a Pittsburgh girl's Unsolved Murder in Las Vegas Page 7
