Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir

by Gary Taylor

  "C'mon in," said Strong. "I think we may have a deal working that will allow all of us to live in peace."

  "Sounds like some serious talk is under way," I said, taking a seat on the edge of the couch opposite from Catherine, who eyed me warily.

  "Yeah," said Strong. "We've made our peace. If my shit comes back, I've agreed to tell you to move out and tell everybody else that I think you are crazy. And I'm going to Special Crimes and get her copies of all the tapes we made."

  I just looked at him and then at her. She still said nothing, so I just shrugged my shoulders.

  "Catherine," said Strong, continuing in the tone of a labor negotiator, "what can Gary do to end this, so that you don't have to kill each other?"

  "He has to apologize, go to Special Crimes, and tell them he is crazy," she said, repeating what had been her list of demands for the last two months.

  "Hey," I said, looking to the ceiling. "Do you hear that?"

  "I don't hear anything," said Catherine.

  "Exactly," I said. "And that's the sound of me ignoring you."

  "I guess there's nothing else to discuss," she said, looking to Strong for guidance. When he said nothing, she asked to use the phone to call a cab. Strong explained that she had ridden to his house with him after a meeting a Rudyard's Pub, where she had left her car. He started insisting on taking her back there. As he talked, I had second thoughts about the abrupt way I had handled her. Unaware of exactly what Strong had been trying to do by injecting me into these negotiations, I suddenly felt I should reopen them.

  "If Strong is getting his shit back, I want mine," I said. "I know it's paltry, but what about it?"

  Catherine turned and, for the first time, showed an interest in a reasonable discussion with me. She motioned for Strong to leave the room.

  "Do you really want it back?" she asked, once Strong had moved to a bedroom around the corner. "It's not far away. I can make a call and get it if you'll go with me to do that."

  As soon as she said that, I suspected she wanted to get me somewhere alone and kill me, or at least to try. I also saw her invitation as my chance to force that showdown in a place where I would be the only one involved. I didn't hesitate. I just looked at her and said, "Sure."

  "Let me make a call," she said, picking up the phone again. She pecked out a number and spoke into the receiver, saying, "I need my stuff. Take it to the U-Tote-Em near my house, and then call me there." Then, she looked at me and said, "Take me to my place. Some Mexicans will bring it to us."

  Still unsure about this decision, I told her I wanted to change clothes first and then moved to my bedroom where Strong was waiting.

  "Great," he whispered. "If you can go with her, go ahead and go. Get a transfer of stolen property. I'll call Stricklin and tell him what's going on. And I'll come over there with my shotgun and wait outside in case something goes wrong."

  If I hadn't spent the last four months listening to Catherine's preposterous, melodramatic outbursts, I probably would have laughed in Strong's face and asked him what 1930s gangster flick had produced that dialogue. But constant exposure to Catherine's film noir world had numbed our senses to the façade of tough talk. More importantly, it didn't matter how silly all of this sounded. After she showed her potential with that burglary, I knew what had to be done. I had to give her a final chance to do to me whatever she might be capable of doing. And Strong was right about something. A trap was being set for someone. I just hoped I could become the trapper as well as the bait.

  FIFTY-THREE

  January 17, 1980

  "Isn't this the time when you are supposed to confess everything to me?" I asked, almost as soon as we climbed into my car and started the drive to her place. Out of context, it sure sounded silly. But, in my car that night, the question meshed perfectly with the mood.

  "You need to explain it all," I said.

  She stared ahead into the windshield for a few moments, then turned, and said forcefully: "I will tell you one thing. If you fuck me on this, if I give you this stuff and you end up back at Special Crimes, Gary, I will kill you."

  "Oh, hell, Catherine," I said. "You're going to kill me anyway, aren't you?"

  Fight or flight? Stress management experts remind us our distant ancestors faced that question several times a day when confronting life and death challenges from wild animals or enemy tribes. Despite the elimination of true life and death threats on a daily basis, they say modern humans still demonstrate similar physical responses to lesser challenges, such as a broken television set or rude drivers on the freeway. I knew researchers had measured typical responses that included everything from accelerated heartbeat to pooping your pants. Most visible, however, is the release of adrenalin and endorphins to dull pain and impair judgment so you can function on instinct for the quickest reaction when attacked. Except for soldiers and cops, rarely do humans have the chance to experience the full effect of the fight-or-flight response. But I was feeling the full effects already as I drove into the night beside a woman I feared wanted me dead. I already had committed to fight, rather than flight. I had a rough plan for action, and my body went on autopilot as the adrenalin took control. I couldn't shut up, but I also felt strangely detached, as if I were watching the two of us from the back seat instead of driving the car. I had never felt anything like it before and never would experience it again.

  "You know," I said, trying to goad her while using language to bolster my courage, "Mark called you a bum fuck."

  That grabbed her attention.

  "He told you that?"

  "Why did you bring him into this? Surely you could have found some other stooge to fuck you for an alibi."

  "He really called me a bum fuck?"

  Pleased to see I had at last found a raw nerve, I decided to pinch it.

  "Oh yeah, he was pissed. He expected big things from you, and you treated him like your mind was on another planet. And then what about me? Now I have to explain why I spent the last three months taking nothing but shit from a bum fuck. Do me a favor. Next time you fuck one of my friends, please, give him the time of his life. I have a reputation to maintain."

  Catherine hesitated before speaking again, obviously amused by my excited state. Then she said, "Gary, you need to get control of your mouth. When these men come to bring your property, they aren't going to listen to it. They will just take you outside and shut you up."

  "Ha, huh, just like you planned for them to do on Tuesday night anyway, right?"

  "Are you wearing a wire?"

  "A wire? No. Be my guest. Check me out."

  She leaned over while I drove and patted me down, checking for recording devices while I continued to blather.

  "You know, I had Little E with me that night. Did you know that? What would have happened with her there?"

  Apparently satisfied with the frisk of my body, she moved back onto her seat and said, "These were honorable men. They would have seen her and taken her somewhere to be safe."

  "That would have been over my dead body."

  "Then, it might well have been."

  Her admission shut me up as I mulled her words. In my mind, not only had she conceded a role in the burglary but also exposed it for what I actually suspected she wanted: A serious beating, or something much worse, for me.

  "So you admit somebody came over there to get me."

  "Teach you a lesson."

  "And what's happening tonight?"

  "I told you. I've had enough. This isn't worth my time any more. Take your stuff and Strong's, too, and be out of my life for good."

  "If that's what you truly have in mind, it sounds like we finally have a deal."

  "Did Mark really call me a bum fuck?"

  "Yes, Catherine, that's exactly what he said."

  About eleven-thirty we pulled up to the curb in front of the duplex I had helped her rent just a couple of months before. I realized it had been just about a year to the day since the brutal slaying of George Tedesco. And now, I was abo
ut to meet in private with the woman suspected in that case.

  C'mon, bitch! I said to myself. Let's see if you are a real killer or just a little woman with a big mouth. Show me something. Fuck Strong's hope for a penny ante burglary conspiracy charge. If I leave here, I expect to see you facing life for attempted murder.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  January 17, 1980

  Catherine's duplex apartment was a simple structure with the layout of a one-bedroom mobile home. Some would call it a "shotgun" style arrangement—but I've always hesitated using that term where she is concerned. It was just typical of a duplex made from a one-story house divided into two equal-size single-bedroom apartments. A front door opened into a living room and a hallway ran along a side wall to empty into a bedroom at the rear. Off the hallway to the right, as you headed toward the rear, was a kitchen and then a bathroom. Besides the door on the front wall of the living room, Catherine's apartment also had a large window.

  She had furnished the living room with a couch, a wicker chair, some sparse bookcases, and a table that held her prized Sony color television set and a stereo. She had decorated a table with a framed, black-and-white, eight-by-ten studio photo of Humphrey Bogart striking a 1930s gangster movie pose. In the kitchen, Catherine had a small, mobile dishwasher with a butcher block top. Her cabinets held a variety of liquors. In her bedroom, an average size closet sat in the wall immediately to the left beyond the hall, with a wooden door that opened outward. Catherine's double bed sat across the floor from the closet. Beside the closet doorway, farther into the room, still sat that chair I had helped bring down from the attic for her Christmas party. The front door in the living room was the only way in or out of the place.

  When we came inside, I took a seat in the wicker chair while she went straight to the phone and made a call. She said she wanted to make sure "the Mexicans" were still on schedule. I took her comment in stride, wondering if she really had any "Mexicans" working this mission at all. I knew she was physically incapable of handling me without a weapon, so I felt comfortable as long as I could keep her in sight. I did have concerns, of course, about the arrival of reinforcements that might include anyone like my bounty-hunting associate Kenneth. But I had faith in the vision of Jim Strong parked somewhere out on the street, ever vigilant with shotgun primed—ready to spring if Catherine's "gang" were to approach. I believed I had reinforcements of my own. So I kept a careful eye on Catherine as she made her call and prepped me for what would be a much longer night than I had expected.

  "We have to wait a while," she said, taking a seat on the couch. "I don't know when they will be here."

  I was prepared to wait until Catherine attempted an assault, or, at least, until she reassured me with her hesitance that she lacked the courage to try. I wanted to offer myself to her as a target and give her every opportunity to strike. I resolved to just go along with just about anything she wanted. I kept an eye on her as she went to the kitchen and mixed a couple of drinks. At that time, Campari and soda had become her cocktail of choice. I stayed with scotch and water.

  "We've got some time," she said. "Maybe we should talk."

  "Sure. What's on your mind?"

  "I want to know if you ever really loved me. Did you?"

  "Of course. But I've told you that doesn't mean two people can be together. And in our case, that's particularly true."

  She nodded and started to adopt what I perceived as an air of detachment. As it turned out, Catherine had plenty to discuss before getting down to the real business of the night—deciding what to do with me. I sensed an internal agony in her demeanor, as if two conflicting personalities were debating some action inside her skull.

  "I want to read something to you," she whispered. Catherine was a voracious reader, but she had only a small shelf of books with her in this place. She went to the shelf and extracted a copy of one her favorites: Mario Puzo's The Godfather. During our time together, she had quoted it often. And now, sitting there waiting for her "soldiers" to return my stolen property, she selected a section from Book One outlining the fate of mob enforcer Luca Brasi when dispatched by Don Vito Corleone to infiltrate the camp of a rival family. At a meeting in a bar, the rivals surprise Luca and strangle him from behind with thin silken cord. After an anxious day wondering what had happened, the Corleone brothers are startled to receive a package that holds a fish wrapped in Luca's bulletproof vest. They look to their consigliore, Tom Hagen, for an explanation.

  Catherine read the final passage with emphasis: " 'The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean,' he said. 'It's an old Sicilian message.'"

  I wondered if I should take that as a message for me, as well. In her version, I suspected, Special Crimes became the mob with Stricklin as the Godfather. Of course, I was Luca Brasi, exposed while trying to infiltrate her bush league criminal camp and soon to be sleeping with the fishes.

  "Eloquent," I said. "What's next? The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?"

  "Dance with me one last time," she said, laying the book on the table and ignoring my sarcasm as a slow song came onto her stereo. I agreed, although I couldn't remember when we had ever danced before in the first place. It came as no surprise when she tried to lead.

  When we stopped dancing, she made another call and frowned when she couldn't get an answer. Then she looked at the phone and asked me for a favor.

  "Anything you want," I said.

  "I need you to call Denise and tell her something. Tell her you made a mistake when you took her out. Tell her you meant to take out Catherine."

  "I don't think she'll take my call, and besides, it's getting pretty late," I said, more perplexed than ever by this request. I suspected Catherine wanted me to establish contact with another person outside her house who might later testify, "Yeah, he called me late and sounded creepy."

  "Also," I said, "I don't recall her number, and it is in my address book—you know, the one that's been missing since that last day you visited me at Strong's house but before the burglary."

  "If I can find it, will you call her?"

  "Sure," I said, confident Denise would decline to talk. Catherine immediately reached beneath the couch and produced my address book. She handed it to me along with the telephone. I dialed my one-time canoeing partner and, after about seven rings, she picked up the phone.

  "Denise," I began, but she hung up as soon as she heard my voice. Aware that Catherine had no way to know I only had a dial tone on the other end of the line, I continued as if Denise were still there. "I'm calling because I want you to know I should not have gone out with you. I wanted to go out with Catherine, but she rejected me—"

  Just then Catherine ripped the phone from my hand, put it to her ear, and recognized the dial tone. She grabbed my address book and redialed the number, only to receive the same rude treatment by Denise.

  "Imagine that," I said. "The girl won't even take our calls. Anybody else I can dial? Mario Puzo maybe. How about Humphrey Bogart? You know, listening to your shit is enough to make my blue eyes brown."

  She said nothing and returned to the couch, where she sat with an obvious aura of detachment. I wasn't sure about the time, but I did know I had been in there long enough. Obviously, I thought, her gang had let her down. I had given her every opportunity to attack, but it looked like she only wanted to dance, read from The Godfather, and make ridiculous phone calls. It was time for me to go.

  "That's it," I said, rising from my spot in the wicker chair. "Nobody's coming, are they? No Mexicans? I'm going to leave, and I guess we'll all just have to handle this another way."