Murder, Interrupted

Frank Howard had always been proud that he was born and raised a preacher’s kid. He met Nancy in his father’s church in San Marcos—when they got married in that same church, Frank’s father performed the ceremony himself—and here in Carrollton, their Baptist church was the center of their social life. Frank and Nancy took part in the church’s community outreach programs. They prayed for international missionaries and for poor people closer to home. They sang in First Baptist’s choir. And they gave very freely to the church.

A few days before Christmas, the Howards’ minister pulled them aside after choir rehearsal to thank them for the truly remarkable donation they had just made.

“Well,” Frank told the minister, “the Lord’s blessed me with so many incredible opportunities.”

“It wouldn’t be right not to share our good fortune with others,” Nancy added.

Moments like these made Nancy thankful for Frank’s job. Giving to others reminded of her of how much she herself had been given. Blushing slightly, she thought of the good things that the past few years had brought their family. Nancy knew that for Frank, gaining Raley as a client had been the start of a whole new life.

In point of fact, it had been the beginning of two new lives. A richer, more rewarding life here in Texas. And a life on the West Coast that Nancy knew nothing about and would have been shocked to discover.  

But what Nancy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her—at least not today, as she smiled at the minister and all of the nice things the minister said.

“You know, I’m still just a preacher’s kid from downstate,” Frank said as the minister wrapped up his song of praise and gratitude. Turning to the minster’s wife, he added, “Who knows, if things hadn’t turned out differently in my life, I could have ended up with a church of my own. But Nancy and I love it here at First Baptist. We’re so happy to give back. And, truly, it’s no big thing. Just the way my daddy raised me.”

The four of them stood there silently. Maybe even a bit awkwardly. Then the minister’s wife turned to Nancy.

“Won’t it be nice,” the wife said, “to have all your chicks coming back to their nest?”

“Heaven!” said Nancy. “You know, it’ll be like paradise, right here on Earth.”

She was beaming now as Frank took her hand and stood, smiling, beside her.

On Christmas Eve the whole Howard family—Frank and Nancy, Ashley, Jay, and their youngest, Brianna—gathered in front of the fire. It was a family tradition, and this was a special year. Their family was about to get bigger. Brianna had brought her fiancé, Jed, along, and Nancy couldn’t stop oohing and aahing over the engagement ring that Jed had bought for her daughter.

“How did you and Frank meet?” Jed asked.

Nancy loved to tell this story: Frank’s daddy’s church in San Marcos. Falling in love with the minister’s kid. It had made perfect sense at the time—Nancy herself was the daughter of a church pianist in Driftwood—and Nancy still remembered how handsome Frank looked, with that crooked smile of his and his thick shock of black hair. She loved to talk about how they fell in love across the pews and tied the knot in that very same church.

She’d just gotten to the part about the pews when Frank’s phone started to ring.

“Work,” he whispered.

“On Christmas Eve?” Nancy whispered back.

“I have to take it,” Frank said, loudly enough to catch Ashley’s attention.

“What’s happening?” she asked. “Daddy, what is it?”

“Nothing, sweetie. I’ll be back in a moment.”

With Frank gone, Nancy tried to pick the thread of her story back up: Frank’s father’s church. Falling in love across the pews. But all the emotions that she’d felt rising up in her just a moment ago fell as flat as a collapsed soufflé. She stumbled on her own words. And when Frank returned, he broke the bad news to the whole room at once: The call was from his boss, who needed a new account set up and needed it done before New Year’s.

It was important work. Work that would not wait.  

“No!” Nancy said. “Flying out on Christmas? Just say no, Frank! Who works on Christmas Day, anyway? Don’t you have any backbone at all?”

Frank made the usual appeals. First, he played the part of the patriot: “Those boys in Iraq that we work for—they don’t take Christmas off. They’re laying down their lives for us every day, making the hard sacrifices.”

Then Frank played the part of the victim. Brought up the sacrifices he’d made—sacrifices that he continued to make—for the troops, for Nancy, for the kids: “You think I want to be traveling on Christmas? My whole life is here, in front of this fireplace. Who else would I even be doing this for?”

Frank teared up a bit, thinking about all he’d done for his family. His voice broke, twice, as he talked, and Nancy’s heart broke to hear him. Duly chastised, she dried her own tears, apologized, and felt bad for feeling so selfish—for wanting Frank all to herself—when all he wanted to do was take care of them. Looking at him now, she really did understand how hard Frank had been working. How tiring all of this traveling must be. How much he’d given up for his family. All those late nights at the office. All of those trips out of town.

By the time Frank was done talking, she’d fallen in love with him all over again.

It was Christmas Day in Santa Cruz, California, and Suzanne Leontieff had been waiting—forever, it seemed—for her lover to walk to her door, take her in his arms, and…and what?

Standing there in her lace nightgown, Suzanne blushed just thinking about it.

She was middle-aged now but more attractive than most women half her age. A true born-and-bred California girl, blond as the best of them, smart, self-assured. She had a good, solid job as a dental hygienist. Daughters as beautiful as she had been when she was their age. And Suzanne’s lover was attractive too. Wealthy, and with a full head of hair that had only just begun to go gray at the temples.

Suzanne thought it made him look dignified rather than old.

The two of them had met a few years previously, at a softball tournament in Tahoe. Both of Suzanne’s daughters played softball at the tournament level. She was forever ferrying them to tournaments. But in Tahoe she’d decided to take some time for herself. After another long day out in the bleachers, she’d wandered into a lakeside casino. There, at one of the tables, she’d met the man she would fall for—a man who would sweep her away.

They gambled together for a night, flirted, and, finally, parted. But the attraction was undeniable.

“It’s too bad you’re married…,” Suzanne said, and stared at him meaningfully.

A part of her had to have known that once she said it out loud, there’d be no going back.  

That part of her had been right.

They met the next day, and the day after that. Suzanne was separated from her own husband. Now the man she’d suddenly fallen for told her that his own marriage had taken a turn for the worse.

It wasn’t long until the man, who was now her lover, was paying for tournament trips. He paid the college tuition for one of Suzanne’s daughters. He bought Suzanne a new house in Santa Cruz—the house she was pacing around in now as she waited for him to arrive. The house had cost close to a million dollars. But her lover had paid in cash, then bought another home—a luxury condominium that they could share in Tahoe.

Suzanne’s lover took her to exclusive restaurants, bought tickets to sold-out sporting events, flew her and the girls to the West Indies for a vacation.

He’d even started an IRA in Suzanne’s name, depositing $700,000 of his own money.

This was not why she had fallen in love with the man. But, to be brutally honest, none of it had hurt his chances.

And now here he was. Ringing her doorbell. Holding an expensive bouquet and beaming.

The flight from Texas had hollowed Frank out. The man sitting next to him in the fifth row was wearing an LSU sweatshirt, snakeskin shoes, and just about the amount of cologne it would take to drown a mama cat and all of her kittens.

It was a blessing that the good old boy hadn’t talked all that much.

Frank no longer liked to fly commercial. The talk from other passengers made his head spin; the food made his bowels hurt; the stewardesses treated him (or so he felt) like a baby. When he was lucky enough to drift off, he dreamed of driving through the very same landscape—that long drive from Texas to California, with pit stops in Santa Fe, Tucson, Los Angeles. But there never was time enough for the drive, and Richard Raley’s private plane was a luxury, not a day-to-day thing he could use whenever Suzanne sank into one of her moods.

“Frank,” she would say. “You said you would leave her. But here we all are!”

The way Frank figured it, he’d spent millions of dollars on the woman. The least she could do was be grateful. But, of course, some part of Frank knew she was grateful. She missed him was all, and was lonely for him. And when she opened the door in that lace nightgown that Frank had bought her, Frank was grateful too.

Together, they moved through the house. It was as if they were dancing. From the entryway to the living room. From the living room to the staircase. Then up the stairs to the bedroom, with Suzanne whispering in his ear the whole way.

“Frank,” she said, in that low, sultry voice she used when she was feeling seductive. “Oh, Frank, the things that I’m going to do to you.”

It was dark and they were naked and spent, drinking champagne in the bedroom, when Frank reached over, stuck his hand deep in the pocket of his black Burberry coat, and pulled out a baby-blue jewel box.

The box was small and wrapped with a ribbon, just the right size for a ring.

Suzanne squealed when she saw it. She tore off the ribbon. And then her face dropped.

“Baby, they’re diamonds,” Frank said. “You don’t like ’em?”

“They’re perfect,” Suzanne said, and managed a smile.

“You were expecting a ring?”

“Years, Frank. It’s been years. How much longer am I supposed to wait?”

“I’m here, aren’t I? Here, on Christmas, in the house that I bought for you. Can’t you just wait a bit longer?”

He flashed the same smile that got to her back in Tahoe and she couldn’t help but smile back. It really was Christmas. He really was here, and not back in Texas with her.

“Yes,” Suzanne said.

“Promise?”

“I’m yours. And don’t ever forget it.”

The next day they drive to a casino. Suzanne forgets herself there, flirts with two men at the blackjack table, and ignores Frank until the moment her chips are all gone, at which point she asks him for another $10,000.

Frank nods to the floor manager. A moment later, new stacks of chips appear in front of Suzanne. But Frank’s smile is as tight as it was in Texas, when Nancy was nagging him about those Christmas lights that he should have paid someone else to hang—and as he walks away from the table, that smile turns into something twisted.

Outside the casino, Frank pulls out a disposable cell phone—a burner—and punches out a short text.

Need to see you, he writes. SOON. Next week. I’ll drive out to your town.

Frank’s text from Tahoe caught Billie Earl Johnson passed out on the couch.

Billie’s girlfriend, Stacey, was passed out beside him, snoring loudly, stirring slightly with each snore. Off in the corner, a hound dog whimpered away.

All in all it was just another Christmas in Ben Wheeler, an East Texas town that was as methed out as Carrollton was manicured.

In Ben Wheeler, Christmas might as well have been any old day of the week.

At rest, Billie’s face was sunken and skull-like. Every crease was a physical record of years of hard living, hard drinking, and hard drugging. His slumped-over body was tattooed and sinewy.

Stacey’s was tattooed and plump.

But as soon as he woke up, Billie’s face took on a much harder edge.

The couch they had passed out on was tatty and stained. The wood-paneled walls were all bare. But on the floor all around them, fifty- and hundred-dollar bills lay scattered like crisp, new confetti. The flat-screen TV propped against the far wall was enormous and new. Billie would get around to hanging it up eventually. The assault rifle leaning against the couch cost about as much as a new Mustang.

By now, the hound dog was barking. Billie’s burner kept ringing. After sending three unanswered texts, Frank had taken to calling and calling and calling again.

Fully awakened by the third call, Billie jumped up from the couch.

“Mr. John,” he said, using the name he knew Frank by.

Frank spoke briefly, and Billie replied.

“Okay, then,” he said as he rubbed a bit of crust out of his sunken eye sockets. “Look, I am down for whatever. But listen here: If we’re going to go ’head with this, you’re going to have to pay the next installment. Then there’s some other expenses that we’ll talk about.”

Billie Earl Johnson knew full well that in East Texas, $750,000 was not the going rate for any job—even when that job was the murder of a nice churchgoing lady like Nancy Howard.

But if that’s what this man, Mr. John, was willing to pay, who was Billie to keep him from getting strung along and along? Especially when Billie was the one doing the stringing?