A Tangled Web

by Leslie Rule

  Liz told him that Cari blamed her for her breakup up with Dave and had been harassing her. As for the $5,000 check, allegedly signed by Shanna, she had a reasonable explanation for that. A checkbook had been stolen from her garage. There was vandalism, too, she added. The intruder had painted “Whore from Dave” on her garage wall. The break-in had left her rattled, Liz told Deputy Phyllips as she gave him Dave’s contact info. Dave lived and worked about three miles north of Liz’s place. When the investigators stopped by to see him at Hyatt Tire the next day, Dave mentioned that he, too, had been receiving intrusive texts.

  The behavior described by Liz and Dave sounded like the actions of a stalker. If Cari was stalking the pair, that would explain why her phone had pinged near Liz’s neighborhood. Had the missing woman been lurking near her rival’s home, waiting for a chance to pounce? It was possible, of course, that Cari was no longer in possession of her phone, but it seemed unlikely that someone would go to the trouble of impersonating her. If someone had stolen her phone, why in the world would the thief then spend days pestering Dave and Liz, pretending all the while to be Cari? Police figured that only someone with a personal vendetta would go to that extreme. Detectives came to the logical conclusion that Cari was jealous and behaving like the proverbial woman scorned.

  Dave was surprised to hear that she had been reported missing, and he promised to phone Phyllips if she showed up. Dave was disturbed by the avalanche of messages filled with crazy rantings and wished he could confront her. But his tormentor was in hiding, and he never so much as glimpsed her.

  Shortly after he left the tire store, Deputy Phyllips finally got a text message from Cari’s number: I don’t care about this missing person report, but I would really appreciate it if you leave Dave Kroupa out of it. I will be leaving the state. My mother overreacted. I have been to my house a few times.

  The deputy texted a warning: If you get stopped even in another state, you will still be held until this matter is settled. He was referring to the fact that Cari’s missing person file was in the NCIC database and wouldn’t be removed until investigators could speak to her to verify she was okay.

  “Cari” responded: Dave texted me and said you had the sheriff at his work. Please stop talking to people. I have nothing to say to anyone. I want one person to go away for destroying everything for me.

  That sounded like a threat! It confirmed what Shanna had told Phyllips about the harassment. “I contacted Shanna and informed her of the text message and told her she might want to contact the Omaha Police Department and have a report placed on file.”

  She seemed grateful for the advice and was quick to tell Dave that police were worried his ex could harm her. Shanna showed Phyllips a text Dave had forwarded to her. It had originated from Cari’s phone and referenced the stolen checks: Well, I’ve been talking to my mom on and off, but when I was at Liz’s house a few nights ago, she had some stuff in her garage. I stole a checkbook from her. I wrote a check for $5,000, and because I haven’t gone home in a few days [my mom] made a missing persons report. LOL. I think she thinks Liz is involved. [My mom] told me today to go talk to police, [to inform them] that I am okay, but I don’t think so. I hope she is arrested. Then you can’t be with her.

  If the text, allegedly from Cari, was to be believed, it was obvious she’d left on her own steam. It also indicated she’d stolen Liz’s checks in an effort to frame her. The texter was jealous of Liz’s relationship with Dave, and frankly, sounded like she had a screw loose. That fit investigators’ theory she’d had a breakdown. From the cops’ perspective, it sure seemed that the lady was not in danger as her mother feared but had shirked her responsibilities and was now whiling away her days playing head games.

  The games were wearing Dave down. As November wound to a close, he was bombarded with over sixty texts and emails per day. He remembers watching television as he tried to relax after work. Suddenly he got a text: I see you in the chair with your feet propped up. You’re wearing your blue t-shirt.

  Dave was startled. His feet were propped up. He glanced down at his shirt and realized with horror that his shirt was blue. “That kind of thing happened quite a bit. I’d run outside and look for her.” The wooded setting was appealing in the daytime but eerie at night. The grounds were unlit, and the lights on the street did little more than cast shadows. The trees provided too many hiding places. It didn’t matter how quickly Dave reacted. The watcher seemed to melt into the darkness, always beyond his reach.

  He began to shut the blinds at night, but if someone crept close to the window, they could see him in whatever tiny gap he failed to close. They seemed to delight in reporting this to him. You’re in your robe! You just got out of the shower! I see you! The stalker was constantly observing him, aware of his every action. Though he would not have been afraid to face Cari, the idea of being spied on was downright creepy.

  Every corner of Dave’s life was invaded. He was nearly fired when someone called his work phone, only to hang up and call back and hang up again. It went on for an entire day, and his boss was not pleased. The incessant calls tied up the line, making it impossible for customers to get through. Dave also worried about his kids and their mom. Amy was receiving multiple intimidating messages daily, often dozens in a twenty-four-hour period, all from someone claiming to be Cari. Amy was called unflattering names, sworn at and warned to: Leave Dave alone! She was uneasy, and somewhat resentful of her ex for inviting a madwoman into their lives.

  When his kids visited, Dave watched them closely. Calista was twelve, and Trey, ten, old enough to walk across the grounds to the apartment’s clubhouse without supervision. Now he wouldn’t let them out of his sight. There was no telling what the bully might do.

  Dave went to every nearby shop, restaurant, bar and business, and asked managers and employees to be on the lookout for the lady who was making his life so miserable. He showed them her photo, and they listened, astonished, as he told his story. They all shook their heads. No one had seen her.

  Dave and Liz began to date again, seeking each other out for comfort whenever their nemesis struck. Compared to the stress of being stalked, the conflicts he’d once had with Liz seemed trivial. Their tormentor, as usual, was aware when they were together. “Sometimes Liz and I would be hanging out, watching a movie together, and we’d both receive an email.” Caught up in the movie, their troubles momentarily forgotten, the sudden alert from their phones was jarring. Liz’s phone was usually tucked in her purse across the room when this happened. Only one person contacted them simultaneously. The stalker. As their phones chimed in unison, they would stare at each other for a moment, delaying the inevitable. Dave remembers Liz sighing in exasperation as she retrieved her phone. He felt a flash of guilt when her eyes widened in fear as she read the latest threat. As usual, the texter vowed to harm Liz while professing devotion for Dave.

  Despite the fact that he hadn’t been the one to end his relationship with Cari, the notes he received now expressed romantic feelings for him and didn’t acknowledge that there had even been a breakup. She seemed to be in her very own odd realm where reality had been churned inside out. After the garage incident, the texter had written: So how did Liz like having her life destroyed while she was with you? That’s what will happen to everyone else who comes into your life . . . As usual, the writer pointed out in that message that Liz was a “whore,” but ended on a cheerful note: I hope we can see each other soon.

  Meanwhile, Cari appeared to remain active on Facebook. On November 21, her family was shocked to see a new post. Moving to Kansas for a great job. Will miss family and great friends. On November 26, another appeared. Hey, got a great guy, David Kroupa. Moving down to Kansas. Now if I can get my son to move with me, I’d be so happy.

  Dave had not seen Cari since the day he’d gotten the break-up text, so the reference to them as a couple was another sign the stalker lived in her own warped world. Most alarming to Cari’s family was the idea that someone could be plannin
g to take Max. Nancy had also received texts from “Cari,” insisting that Maxwell go away with her. She didn’t believe that Cari was the one posting on Facebook and texting her, but she couldn’t be certain, especially after Max verified that his mother had once mentioned the possibility of moving to Kansas.

  Maxwell’s life was in Macedonia. He was involved in school activities, and he had friends and a girlfriend. His mother understood that and had always put him first. Even if Cari had toyed with the idea of moving, it couldn’t have been an immediate plan because she’d never mentioned it to her mother. It would be very unlike Cari to uproot her son. Either someone was impersonating her or she’d truly lost her mind. Both scenarios could be dangerous for Max. The teen was spooked. He and his mom were extremely close, and he had never ever had a reason to be afraid of her, but if this really was his mother doing all of these strange things, she was not herself.

  The situation was perplexing, but Nancy was sure of one thing. Cari loved her son more than anything. If Cari was no longer among the living, Nancy was certain that her last thought would have been for her child. If her daughter had flipped out, Nancy knew that deep down, Cari would want Max protected. The one thing Nancy could do for her was step in and become Max’s fiercest protector. Even so, she was overwhelmed with guilt as she and Mark took legal action to become Maxwell’s guardians. What if things were not as bad as they seemed, and Cari came home to find she had taken away her rights to her son? Would her daughter ever forgive her for such a betrayal? Nancy’s attorney told her not to worry. The guardianship didn’t have to be permanent. They could undo it if Cari returned in her right mind.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MARK AND NANCY RANEY became their grandson’s guardians on November 29, 2012. The next day was Cari’s thirty-eighth birthday. Nancy vividly remembers November 30 in 1974 when she welcomed her baby girl into the world via natural childbirth. The infant was amazingly calm, so calm that she woke up only once during her first night home. By her second day on Earth, Cari was sleeping through the night, and she never again interrupted her parents’ sleep.

  Nancy’s first child, Adam, was born about two and a half years before Cari. “He was a beautiful baby—a mama’s boy until he was about three.” But his temperament was the opposite of his sister’s. Nancy loved him every bit as much as she loved Cari, but he was colicky and cried incessantly. “I had postpartum depression after Adam was born.” The fact she was sleep deprived didn’t help. She laughs as she recalls that she didn’t get a single good night’s rest the first year of his life. “He would sleep for a couple of hours and then be awake for three or four. When he did sleep six hours, I felt like I’d died and gone to Heaven.”

  Nancy had steeled herself for more sleepless nights with the new baby and was relieved to see how easily Cari slid into a peaceful slumber. The infant was not only relaxed, she seemed surprisingly aware of her surroundings. When friends and family gathered to see the baby for the first time, they commented on her intense gaze. The infant’s knowing blue eyes seemed to hold a thousand years of wisdom. Cari looked around, assessing her new environment as if it were familiar to her. She was, some remarked, “An old soul.” Nancy didn’t argue with them, for she, too, was in awe of the newborn’s serene demeanor, and she noted that the baby seemed to be thinking, “Okay, here I am again.”

  Because she was her second child, Nancy was more aware of Cari’s uniqueness. She was the exact opposite of her big brother in many ways. While Adam had been a typical infant and had clung to his mother when he was tiny, Cari was surprisingly independent and adventuresome, but very quiet. “It took Cari a while to start talking,” Nancy remembers, adding that her daughter was age three before she talked, and when she did, it was in complete sentences. “It was as if she was waiting until she had everything right before she spoke.”

  By kindergarten it was apparent that she was brilliant. Her teacher told Nancy it was a challenge to find things to keep the little girl’s mind busy, adding “She’s so advanced. She’s the only one in the class who can read.” It was somewhat of a luxury for her to count her among her pupils, because it was almost like having an assistant. At age six, Cari sat down with her classmates, reading books to them as they listened, enthralled. In elementary school, Cari was enrolled in the talented and gifted program. Even among the smartest of the smart, she always rose to the head of the class.

  While she had been the dream baby who slept through the night and the brilliant child who kept her room neat, she was no Goody Two-Shoes. She had her rebellious moments when she became a teen. She ruined her mother’s thirty-ninth birthday, on the Fourth of July 1990. She can laugh about it now, but Nancy was livid on that sultry summer day when teenage Cari and her friend went out drinking with some boys. Nancy and the other girl’s mother were worried sick when their daughters didn’t come home that night. The next morning when Cari nonchalantly walked through the front door, Nancy was waiting and said firmly, “You aren’t going anywhere for two months!”

  Grounded for the rest of the summer, Cari apparently learned her lesson. It was the last time she missed her curfew. She was a spirited teen, and she and her mother had their share of arguments, but they always made up. When Cari went away to college at the University of Kansas, she indulged in the normal amount of partying and was not that excited by her classes, but she did well and never got into trouble.

  Overall, Cari had been a pleasure to raise, and her mother and both fathers could attest to that. While she was close to her father, she lived more years with her stepfather, Mark Raney, and she couldn’t have loved him more if he had been her biological father. While Mark is Nancy’s second husband, he was her first love and one of her very first friends. “We’ve known each other since we could communicate.” They first played together as toddlers when their parents met at the Methodist church. Mark’s parents, Charles and Betty Jane Raney, were a little older than Nancy’s parents, but they had a lot in common. The Raneys’ four kids were in the same age range as the Bisbees’ three.

  Charles and Betty built floats for the Macedonia’s annual summertime festival, Donia Day, and spearheaded the creation of The Grist Mill Theater. They not only produced, directed, and acted in the theater’s plays, they were among the group who helped to create the theater. Housed in the building once occupied by the old John Deere Implement store, inside it looks as if it has always been a theater with its heavy stage curtains and rows of plush, red-velvet seats. The seats had been an exciting find. When one of Omaha’s grand theaters was remodeled, their old seats were discarded, and Macedonians were thrilled to discover them.

  Betty was also among the group credited with rescuing the rock quarry, just north of town. Tucked into a forest of old oaks and cottonwood trees, the quarry’s spring-fed lake has been a favorite place for swimmers and picnickers for generations. Many years ago, the owner of the quarry had planned to close it down and fill it but generously agreed to give it to the community when Betty approached him.

  Whenever the Raney and Bisbee parents worked together on various causes for their church and community, their kids played together. If it was raining or too cold to be outside, they played checkers or Monopoly or gathered on the floor to watch television—George Reeves in Superman or The Huckleberry Hound Show and Yogi Bear cartoons, all in shades of gray on a small black-and-white TV set.

  “I didn’t pay much attention to Mark until junior high school,” Nancy admits. They had no classes together because he was a year older, but when they hit their teens, they became very aware of each other as they passed in the school corridors. They made a point to linger in the halls in the spots where they knew they would run into each other, and at first tried to make their encounters seem accidental, but it soon became apparent they shared a mutual attraction.

  Nancy was bashful, unaware of how pretty she was. Dark haired with a creamy complexion and bright blue eyes, she melted Mark’s heart when she smiled—and he knew just how to make her smile! He was the
class clown, a daredevil and as outgoing as Nancy was shy. Mark challenged authority and was a mischief-maker, but so charming that the teachers quickly forgave him. He was also an athlete and competed in both wrestling and football, though he was smaller in stature than his teammates. “He was very good looking,” Nancy remembers, “but I fell in love with his personality. He doesn’t know a stranger, and he can take hold of most any situation.”

  They went steady from the time she was fourteen through high school. It was the 1960s, and they were drawn to two popular Iowa bands with Beatlesque sounds, The Green Giants and The Rumbles. The Rumbles had started in Council Bluffs as a garage band, and the members of The Green Giants hailed from small towns around Iowa and Missouri. Mark and Nancy’s song, however, was the Righteous Brothers’ incredibly romantic “Unchained Melody.” They often double-dated with other couples, driving long distances to the dances where their favorite bands performed.

  After high school, the couple drifted apart when they attended different colleges. Mark studied art in Maryville, Missouri, and Nancy went to business school in Des Moines, Iowa, where she met Dennis “Denny” Farver. “I became infatuated,” she recalls. He was charismatic, quick witted, and handsome. “He always looked put together, no matter the situation or event.” He put his sense of style to work when employed by a clothing store while going to school. Denny’s meticulous grooming was a lifelong habit, and that didn’t change when he became terminally ill decades later. “Even when he got sick, he still dressed immaculately.”

  Nancy was only nineteen, and Denny, twenty-one, when they were swept up in the thrill of the kind of love that comes only to the young and starry-eyed, and they married in the misty autumn of 1970. Soon they had two children, Adam born in the summer of 1972 and Cari in the winter of 1974. Cari was named by her father. He chose the name after watching ten-year-old singer, Carrie McDowell, debut on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in October 1974 with her extraordinary performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Carrie McDowell was adorable, talented and from Iowa—all factors that inspired Denny to select the name for his baby girl, born a few weeks after that Carson episode aired.