Betty's Confession

They were seated in the Cooper's parlor.  Sheriff Steel sat on a wing-back sofa, while Thomas Cooper sat in a straight back chair.  There was a large fireplace with an ornate mantle, filled with framed photographs, some of Thomas and his deceased wife, Elizabeth, but most were of Betty, their daughter.  Betty at various stages of her young life, from her being held as a baby, to a year ago, sitting atop a horse, the same horse she rode to an equestrian championship five years ago.  That trophy was at the center of the mantle.

It was clear that Thomas was proud of his daughter.  His wife died a decade ago, and Thomas had been raising Betty alone.  Betty was 13 at the time her mother died of ovarian cancer, just a teenage girl.  But she never was rebellious or defiant as many adolescent girls were.  She never went through a stage where she hated her father.

Alan Steel did not have any great expectations that he would discover much in talking with Betty.  He did not really think she had it in her to kill Rondy, no matter how much the cuckold had hurt her.  Thomas insisted he be there for the interview, and who was he to argue with that?  He had a great deal of respect for Thomas.  For all of Thomas's family standing and heritage, he did not behave as if he was part of an elite that was above everybody else, and could often be counted on to do the right thing, as he had done in getting Dabs Denison his military disability.  And he could not discount the help that Thomas's legal assistant, Ramona Adams, had provided.  If Thomas had common sense, he would do whatever he could to promote Ramona, and help her achieve her ambitions.

Betty came in with a plate of homemade cookies and a pot of coffee.  She offered some to her guest, and he politely took one and nibbled at the corner. "This is delicious, Betty!  Tastes like pecan pie!"  She smiled and found out how he wanted his coffee black with a little sugar.

I'll say this for him.  He certainly does look like a sheriff, right out of central casting, like a cross between Andy Griffith and Tommy Lee Jones.  And he is a nice man, always helpful to my Daddy.

Betty sat down at the end of the sofa that Sheriff Steel was sitting on.  She was petite and pretty, with platinum blonde hair, and wore a brightly colored dress, one that came to just below her knees.  "Now, what can I do for you, Sheriff?"

"I'm sorry to do it.  I know that it just happened, and the grief may be fresh, but I needed to talk to you some about Rondy," the Sheriff said, a look of compassionate understanding in his eyes.

Yes, let's do talk about Rondy.  Let's talk about what a special man he was and how tragic his loss is.  Let's talk about what it's like to give your heart and soul to someone, only to have him prefer to be with another man's wife.

"Of course, Sheriff," answered Betty, giving a reassuring pat to Alan's knee.  "It's a hard loss to recover from.  Rondy, for all his faults, meant a lot to me.  I'll be glad to help in anyway I can."

Rondy had meant a lot to me.  That was very true.  Who else loved him, even when I was a little girl, seeing the chubby little high school freshman, the ugly duckling that would not emerge from his cocoon until years later?  We were six years apart, me just eight to his fourteen, but even then I knew.  This was the boy I was going to love.  Could Christie say that?  Could she have fallen in love with him when he looked like nothing?  When he was insecure and nerdy?

"When did you find out about Rondy and Christie?"  Thomas objected to the question, but Betty swept it aside, with a hand gesture to her father, indicating it was okay, and that she would answer.

"Rondy had grown increasingly distant the last few months, but I thought it had to do with the Compton project.  I didn't know anything for sure until the fight with Gariton became public."

I knew.  I knew form the moment I saw him smile at her, over a year ago at the Dixon Community Awards Banquet.  I knew the way he looked at women when he was interested, and I knew the way she looked at him.  These were two forces of nature that would be compelled to create their own storm.

In a way, it wasn't really Rondy's fault.  When he was in high school, he couldn't get a girl to give him the time of day.  I would have, but I was still too young.  He didn't get his full looks and charm until law school.  And how do you behave when all of a sudden the attention you craved from women is yours just by snapping your finger?

"And how did that make you feel?" Sheriff Steel tried to take a sip of the coffee, but it was still too hot.  Maybe he should have added some cream.

"You're not implying that my daughter was angry enough to kill Rondy, are you, Alan?" asked Thomas Cooper.  Even in his own home, Thomas was dressed as if he was going to court, in a dapper navy blue suit, even a light blue handkerchief sticking out of his pocket in a perfect triangle.  "I really resent that kind of questioning."

"Please, Daddy.  I don't mind answering whatever the Sheriff has to ask.  We all need to do what we can to help him get to the bottom of this terrible incident," said Betty.  "And how did I feel?  The same way I do now.  I was very hurt and disappointed.  We were engaged, after all.  But there was side of Rondy that I tried to ignore, a side that showed that his love for me was not as great as mine.  And as much as that hurt, I had to understand.  We weren't married yet, and you can't hold people prisoner.  You can't turn people into what they're not, no matter how hard you wish it otherwise."

He cut out my heart.  He cut it out and he stomped on it.  He made me feel like my life's devotion to him was worthless.

Maybe it was partly my fault.  I wasn't the 'bad girl'. I did not have a naughty, nasty side.  I was too sweet and giving.  I should have been played harder to get.  But I just didn't have a mean, cruel bone in my body.

At least, I didn't.

They talked more, the sheriff gently trying to find out about the nature of her relationship with Rondy.  Then he had to ask where she was the night of the murder.

"Here, with my father,'' Betty replied.

"I can verify that, Alan," chimed in Thomas.

Yes, as far as Daddy knew, I was home.  But Daddy falls asleep.  Daddy doesn't always know where I am every minute.

"What about Rondy's house?  When was the last time you were over there?" the Sheriff asked.  He was finally able to take a stronger gulp of coffee.

"I hadn't been there since Gariton confronted him," Betty said.  "Well, I did move some stuff out the next day.  But that was it. I gave him his key back the day after that.  I gave it to him when he was in the Honey Dew, at one of his Lunch Bunch gatherings."

I gave him the key back in front of plenty of witnesses.  Well, I kind of more threw it at him than gave it to him.  It was funny watching that waitress, Franny, duck at the other side of the table, as if my flung key was going to hit her.

But Thomas Cooper did not raise a fool.  I kept a copy of the key for myself.  And I had been there several times.  Times when I knew neither one of them were there.  I went there, not knowing what to do.  One time I went into the bedroom and just sat at the edge of the bed, trying to tell if my smell was gone.  And it was gone.  All I could smell was her.  The odor of their sex, the distinct aroma of her sickening raspberry vanilla perfume, hung about the bed. I ran out in tears.

Sheriff Steel didn't pursue establishing that up until that time, she had been pretty much living with Rondy.  That was fairly clear, and there was no need to embarrass Thomas like that.  He could get the specifics on that later if he needed to.

"Are you sure you haven't been there in the last few weeks?" the Sheriff asked.

"No, Sheriff Steel.  I have not," replied Betty, a little uncertain.  Was she hiding something, or not clear in her memory.  Alan wasn't sure.  He was good at reading people, and the non-verbals here were definitely mixed.

"I'm a little confused.  A neighbor said you approached the house the day before the murder.  They're not mistaken, are they?  Did you go there that day?"

Betty touched her forehead, as if a revelation was coming to her.  "Oh, yes.  I thought you meant inside the house.  Yes, I did come there that day.  I intended to return some books and CDs of his I had found, but there was no one there.  I should have known better, that there would be no one there, but I guess I was in a bit of a haze.  I was in a cleaning mood and just forgot about the time."

I was in a mood, that's for sure.  In a mood to break into his house and smear that bed with blood, blood from my own body.

"Did you leave the books and CDs?"  The Sheriff knew that if she did, Christie did not report finding them.

"No.  I took them back with me.  I had thought I would give it to him later," Betty said, choking up a bit.  It was striking her hard, the Sheriff thought. She would never be able to give them to Rondy now.

"Did you notice a box on the porch?"

"A box?  I don't recall."

"Yes.  Gariton had left a box full of things for Christie earlier that morning."

Betty appeared to be trying to recollect. "Maybe.  You may be right.  But honestly, I didn't take particular note of it."

The hell I didn't.  How could I resist Pandora's Box?

"There were some things that Gariton claims he packed in that box that Christie insists she never found.  The missing items included, and I apologize to you both for saying this, but I'm just trying to be exact, some porn tapes, and more importantly, a gun."

A gun?" asked Betty.  "You mean the gun Gariton used to kill Rondy with?  That's horrible!  But, no, I'm sorry.  I don't know anything about what might have been in that box.  Perhaps Gariton lied to you about what he put in there."

My plans changed when I opened that box.  I saw those awful DVDs, including one titled Betty Does Archie. Disgusting. I also found that gun, careful to only handle it with a handkerchief.

I tossed the DVDs into a nearby dumpster.  I kept the gun.

The Sheriff sighed.  "Perhaps he did."  He finished a last swallow of coffee.  It got better as it cooled. 

I saw his car there that night.  I had hoped maybe Christie was with him.  But no such luck.  He was alone.

He didn't seem at first to realize the seriousness of what he was doing.  When it finally sunk in, he groveled.  He said he was sorry, that he should not have let Christie's aggression in moving in on him get the better of him.  He was over Christie and her shallowness, and he wanted desperately to return to me.

Oh, my.  The things men will say at the point of a gun.  Sincere or not, it was too late.  The damage had been done.

I shot him in the heart and watched him bleed.

It wasn't my blood that I covered him with, drenching his traitorous bed.  It was his blood, in his own office.  The office where he had pretended to be loyal to my Daddy.  The office where he had told me he loved me.  It was his blood.

The sheriff got up to leave.  "Thank you both.  I'm sorry to dredge up stuff like this, but we have to check all our p's and q's, you know.  If I have anything else, I'll let you know."

Wait.  He wasn't shot in the heart.  He was shot in the head.

That's right.  I shot him in the head, not the heart.  I wanted to take out the brain that came up with all his cheating nastiness.

And he didn't beg for mercy.  He laughed at me.  He said he was going to marry Christies as soon as she was free from that milquetoast Gariton.  So I shot him in the head, ending his ability to think of such crap.  Never again.

It was his blood.  Leaking from the hole in his forehead. 

And it was his brains, splattered against the back of his chair.

The Sheriff shook Thomas's hand, and then went over to shake Betty's.  But she hugged him instead.  "I understand, Sheriff," she said to him, gently clutching him.  "It's a very hard thing to absorb, but Daddy has taught me, life goes on."

Just not Rondy's; thank you, sweet Jesus.

"You let me know if you think of or hear of anything else, y'hear?"  Thomas and Betty nodded to Sheriff Alan, and he left.

Let you know of anything else?  I think not!  Let you know I killed that cheating bastard?  Hell, no!

But I didn't.  I'm just dreaming.  I wish that I had.  Sometimes, I think I really did.

I took that gun, yes.  But I threw it in the same dumpster as the DVDs.  Who got it from there, I don't know.  It probably wasn't Gariton.  Why would he go to the trouble of leaving it on Rondy's porch, only to later retrieve it from a dumpster?

I don't know, and I don't think I will help the Sheriff figure it out.  Would Gariton pay for a crime he didn't commit?  I don't know.  Part of me doesn't care.  He should have kept Christie on a shorter leash.

But I would like to know who did it.  Not to see them prosecuted, though.

I would just love to shake their hand.