Part 10 (1/2)

”No, but she talked about it,” Matt said. ”She's been upset ever since our second daughter died seven years ago. She's been depressed, and she's talked about suicide, especially in the past couple of weeks.”

The phone rang at Jim and Linda's home at 12:08 that night. Linda felt an involuntary shudder. She didn't like late-night phone calls, especially not around midnight. The last time Linda had answered the phone at midnight was seven years earlier, the night Ka.s.sidy died.

”There's been an accident at your daughter's house on Crested b.u.t.te,” a dispatcher said, following through on Matt's request to have someone call his in-laws. ”You need to go there.”

”Oh, my gosh, something's happened to one of my granddaughters?” Linda said.

”No, it's your daughter,” the man said.

”My daughter? I'll be right there.” Minutes later, Linda and Jim had thrown on clothes and were in the car, barreling down deserted suburban streets shrouded in darkness. From the car, Linda called Matt. When he answered, Linda asked, ”What's going on? What's wrong with Kari?”

”They're working on her,” he said. ”She's not breathing.”

”We're on our way,” Linda said.

Once Matt hung up, Linda called Nancy. ”We're on our way to Kari's. There's been an accident,” she said.

On Crested b.u.t.te, other Hewitt PD officers arrived including Sgt. Chad Kasting, who heard the call as he patrolled. The emergency was described as ”an unresponsive female, not breathing.” When Kasting called for more information, the dispatcher told him the husband said his wife had committed suicide. Once in the house, Kasting heard the man he'd later identify as Matt tell one of the EMTs that his wife had left a note.

On the bedroom floor, the two EMTs continued to administer CPR, but at least one wondered how long ago the woman on the floor had stopped breathing. When Gates felt Kari's body, it was cool, and he noticed something else, a pale purplish coloring to the woman's hands and back, lividity. Occurring after the heart stops beating, lividity is caused by gravity pooling blood in the lowest parts of the body.

”Looks like she's been unresponsive for some time,” Gates mentioned to Kasting.

The sergeant looked at Kari as the CPR continued and noticed that her fingertips, lips, and feet were all blue. About then, a second ambulance arrived, this one manned by two paramedics. They quickly went to work, and Kasting asked one of the other officers on the scene to stand at the hallway to the children's bedrooms. The sergeant didn't want Kari's daughters to wander into the master bedroom. ”Keep them from seeing what's going on,” he instructed.

On the ambulance that night was Shelton Chapman, a paramedic employed by East Texas Medical Center. He and his partner a.s.sessed the situation, and one of the first things he noticed was the same thing that caught Gates's attention, that lividity had already discolored Kari's arms, back, and the back of her neck. That was a bad sign. Quickly, Chapman put a cardiac monitor on Kari's chest, attaching the sensors with tape. The printout verified that there was no electrical activity. Chapman examined the woman's body, touched her skin, and found it cool. Her pupils were dilated and fixed.

As the others a.s.sessed Kari, Irving and Kasting stood not far away in the living room, talking to Matt. Listening in to their conversation, Chapman thought that Baker seemed to be continually changing his answers to the officers' questions, as if rethinking what he wanted to say. It was frustrating because the paramedic couldn't get a read on what the man was contending about how long his wife had been unresponsive. But based on the condition of the body, what Chapman knew for sure was that any further attempts to restart Kari's heart were futile.

As the others talked, Chapman picked up his radio and called the doctor overseeing the ambulance service that s.h.i.+ft, reporting to him on the condition of the body. The doctor p.r.o.nounced Kari dead at 12:17.

Minutes later, Matt's phone rang. ”What's going on?” Linda asked.

”Kari's dead,” Matt replied. ”She committed suicide.”

”But how could that be?” Linda asked. ”I talked to her this afternoon. She was in such a good mood.”

Chapter 24.

”Kari's dead,” Linda told her sister Kay while she and Jim were still driving to the house. ”My daughter's gone. Matt said she committed suicide.”

Kay insisted that she'd jump in the car and be at Matt and Kari's house quickly, but Linda wouldn't hear of it. ”I don't want you to come. Kensi and Grace are there. They're sleeping, and we want to keep things quiet,” she said. ”I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

News always spread quickly in the family. As soon as she hung up, Kay called Nancy, crying. ”Kari killed herself.”

”Oh, my G.o.d, there's no way,” Nancy said.

Shaking hard, Nancy dropped the phone and fell back into the arms of her husband. She lay there for moments, wondering what to do, then decided that she had to talk to Linda. She called, and Linda answered, and like Kay, Nancy insisted on coming to help, but Linda again said no.

When Nancy hung up the phone, she decided to go to Kay's house, but first she needed to talk to Lindsey. The two girls were closer than cousins, more like sisters, and although it was the middle of the night, Lindsey needed to know.

Once she got her daughter on the telephone, Nancy delivered the terrible news.

”Kari didn't kill herself. Matt killed her,” Lindsey said. Nancy had been pondering the same possibility. Yet how could they know? They couldn't say anything to Linda. It would be horrible if they were wrong.

”You could be right,” Nancy told Lindsey. ”But we'll have to wait and see. We need to leave this up to the police. There'll be an autopsy. That will give us answers.”

”I'm going over there,” Lindsey said.

”Linda doesn't want us to,” Nancy replied.

”Mom, I'm going,” Lindsey said. ”Linda may not want us, but she needs us.”

At the house on Crested b.u.t.te, as soon as Kari was p.r.o.nounced dead, Officer Irving called Hewitt PD headquarters and talked with Sgt. Stuart Cooper, the investigator on duty that night, and Captain Tuck Saunders, just under the chief of police in the department's hierarchy. Irving informed them of the unfolding situation.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Kasting called a local justice of the peace, William ”Billy” Martin. A gruff-faced man with thick dark hair and a bushy mustache, Martin was a former DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency, investigator, who'd spent time overseas, including working in Peru and La Paz, Bolivia. He talked about his experiences often, and one of his fellow agents would remark how Martin's eyes lit up recounting the days when he lived in foreign lands investigating drug cartels. After retiring, Martin moved to Waco and ran for and won a seat as one of eight justices of the peace in McLennan County.

On the phone, Kasting described the scene, telling Martin about the suicide note and the Unisom and wine-cooler bottles, and what the woman's husband, a Baptist minister, said: that his wife had been depressed and talked of suicide.

The reason Kasting called Martin was that McLennan County, in which Waco and Hewitt were located, had no medical examiner. Not populated enough to support an M.E., decisions involving deaths fell under the purview of the local justices of the peace, elected officials who handled small-claims court and performed marriages. Although not a pathologist or medical expert, it was up to Martin to rule on Kari's cause and manner of death. It was also at his discretion whether or not her body would be autopsied.

After listening to Kasting, Martin asked a few questions, including if there were any stab or gunshot wounds in Kari's body. Kasting answered that there weren't. During their conversation, Kasting read the suicide note to Martin, explaining that the child mentioned in the note, Ka.s.sidy, was the couple's dead daughter.

Based on Kasting's answers, Martin apparently decided that he didn't need to leave the comfort of his bed and travel out in the wee hours of a Sat.u.r.day morning to personally investigate. While just a modic.u.m of care might have convinced Martin that seeing the scene firsthand was a good idea, the law didn't require it, simply stating that a death determination could be made ”any place determined to be reasonable by the JP.”

Without even looking at her body, still on the telephone, Martin ruled Kari's death a suicide. When asked if he wanted the body autopsied, he answered, ”No.”

Minutes after she'd heard those awful words, that Kari was dead, Linda and Jim arrived on Crested b.u.t.te. The street was lined with ambulances and squad cars. Jim parked, and he and Linda ran toward the house. Before they could enter, an EMT, Chapman's partner, a woman, stopped Linda.

”What happened to our daughter?” Linda asked.

”She overdosed on Unisom,” the woman said.

Inside the house, Linda walked toward the master bedroom, but Matt came up to her and hugged her. ”I'm so sorry,” he said.

”How is this possible?” Linda asked, repeating what she'd said on the phone. ”I talked to Kari this afternoon. She was happy. Excited about her interview, about the new job.”

Linda began to walk toward the bedroom, but Matt took her arm. ”No, don't go in there,” he said. ”You don't want to see her like this.”

Linda thought for a moment, then agreed. When the EMTs emerged from the bedroom, Linda overheard Matt talking to a police officer. ”My wife didn't want to be buried. She wanted to donate her body to science.”

”No,” Linda said. ”Kari wouldn't have wanted that.”

As soon as she objected, Matt backed down.