Perfect Victim (21 page)

Then he dropped the bomb: He told Jan that he had sex with K while performing bondage on her.

Jan was devastated. All these years she’d foolishly believed that, for all their problems, at least her husband was faithful to her. She’d been lied to, betrayed.

But after the “confession time,” beyond these painful revelations, there began a healing process.

To a couple of souls as lost as Jan and Cameron Hooker, the Bible seemed as likely a key to repairing their marriage as any. It was a do-it-yourself approach, with no third parties asking questions, just the two of them, the Holy Book, and God. At first, Jan read by herself, looking for answers. Then Cameron, who didn’t read well, asked Jan to read the Bible to him, and in time, she had read the entire New Testament aloud, with Cameron sitting and listening carefully for parts he considered significant.

Hardcore pornography fans don’t usually have much interest in the Holy Bible, but Cameron Hooker was nothing if not unusual.

To his surprise, much in the Bible spoke directly to him. He paid particular attention to references to husbands and wives or slaves and masters, and there were many, especially in Corinthians, Ephesians, and Colossians. Clearly, he and God were in agreement that a wife should be subservient to her husband in all things.

1. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

“For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.

“Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

Ephesians, 5:22-24. Holy Bible, The New King James Version

He emphasized this to Jan, and she heard him: If she didn’t obey her husband, she would go to hell.

Noting that the Bible indicates that women should pray with their heads covered, he gave Jan a “prayer hat” to wear whenever she prayed. Actually, it was just an inexpensive, red, white, and blue knit ski cap, but Cameron instructed her to wear it as a sign of submission. And so she did.

With Cameron’s encouragement, Jan began to read the Bible more often, not just aloud to Cameron but by herself and with friends, including Cathy Deavers, a neighbor who had moved into a house down the lane in 1981. Besides having their locale in common, Jan and Cathy were both mothers of young children, and Cathy’s little son often played with Jan’s daughters.

One afternoon when Jan was over visiting, their talk turned to a discussion of the Bible.

“Before we start, Cameron wants me to put this beanie on,” Jan said, pulling on her red, white, and blue cap. Cathy thought it queer, especially since it was summer, but she didn’t want to embarrass Jan, and they proceeded with their discussion.

Cameron gave K a prayer hat, too — hers was a solid gray.

Sometimes she wouldn’t put it on when in the box; it was too hot. But if she was out and reading the Bible, she pulled it on like an obedient schoolgirl. Occasionally Hooker had her read passages aloud, again lavishing attention on any mention of slaves and masters. The Bible had become more than a source of spiritual consolation; now it was a tool in her enslavement.

2. “But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved.”

I Corinthians, 11:5. Holy Bible, The New King James Version

3. “Servants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.”

Ephesians, 6:5-8. Holy Bible, The New King James Version

Cameron also recommended that Jan and K pray together, and toward the end of 1983, these two women with so much in common finally began to spend amiable hours together, without Jan giving orders, without hostilities. About three times a week, Jan would take K out of the box while the girls were at school, and they would read the Bible in the bedroom — their caps on, their Bibles open, their hearts fined with prayer. They reflected on the meaning of those passages, turning them over, discussing them, relating them to their own lives, until, for the first time, they found themselves actually talking with each other.

When the bricks were ready, Cameron and K carried them down a makeshift ladder into the hole. In time, they had laid a floor. Then the walls went up, and the hole was finally beginning to look like a dungeon.

Hooker had big plans for his secret torture chamber. He affixed a hook to the ceiling beam, for hanging, and even put in a drain for an eventual shower. He also put two odd “windows” in the north wall, recessed places about eighteen inches wide and twenty-four inches tall.

Now that Cathy and Dawn were getting older, it was difficult to practice bondage in the house, and Hooker hoped that eventually he could keep his slave and his equipment down here, secure and out of the way. He explained to K that the windows would leave room for expansion. They could dig an adjoining room beneath the other shed, turning the windows into doorways.

“Later,” he boasted, “I’ll enlarge the dungeon so there’ll be room for more slaves.” He told K that it would be her job to prepare the dungeon for them and then to train them, an idea that left her horrified.

Hooker’s plans had an even more critical effect on Janice.

Guilt was already growing inside Jan like a tumor, and the idea of another kidnapping seemed a nightmarish possibility. Ignorant of his wife’s increasing disquiet, Cameron confided that, ultimately, he’d like to capture four more women. And these new slaves might even bear his children.

Both Jan and K believed that Cameron was capable of carrying out these plans. Once Cameron Hooker decided on something, he pursued it with a chilling singlemindedness, and slaves were his ultimate obsession.

This called for nothing less than divine intervention. The two women prayed — fervently, with their prayer hats on — that Cameron’s plans would never materialize.

It took until November of 1983 — when Hooker had just turned thirty — to complete the hole beneath the shed to the point of usefulness, though it still lacked a few finishing touches. It was cold in the dungeon, so Hooker installed a heat lamp. Now, with both electricity and a ventilation system, the hole was ready for trial occupation.

Cameron gave K some clothes to put on: shoes, socks, jeans, and a sweatshirt. He took her out to the shed, unlocked it, removed the heavy board that covered the entrance to the hole, and said, “Climb down.”

He handed down her Bible and a cheap radio they’d given her the month before. Inside, she found a portable toilet and a lounge chair with the same sleeping bag she’d received for Christmas of 1980 — a bit worn, because the family had been using it, but a welcome touch.

Cameron had lingering doubts about keeping K in the hole, since it was possible she might somehow be discovered, so he left her with final instructions. “If anyone happens to find you down here,” he told her, “say that you want to be here because it makes you feel closer to God.”

He placed a sturdy board over the opening to the hole and went away.

To see how secure her new prison was, K climbed up on the ladder and pushed hard against the door. It didn’t budge.

Something heavy had been set on top of it.

But after surveying the situation, K found that even this dark, dank dungeon was an improvement over the box. She had room to move around. And sleeping on the lounge chair with the sleeping bag was fairly comfortable. The heat lamp didn’t do much to counter the chill, but the light was a bonus; she could read the Bible or work on macrame or crochet dolls while listening to KVIP, the local Christian station.

It seemed feasible to keep K in the dungeon indefinitely. Her daily meal had to be brought out to the shed and handed down, which was a bit inconvenient, but no real problem. Cameron periodically came to empty the Porta Potti, K awkwardly passing the tank up to him so he could dump it down the toilet inside the mobile home. He told her that he would even get a hot plate so she could cook for herself.

But this new arrangement proceeded smoothly only for about one week.

One afternoon, Jan brought something out to K, went back in the house to fetch something else, and neglected to cover up the hole and lock the shed. This would have been harmless enough — K was far too intimidated to try to escape — except that children tend to find whatever mischief is about.

Cathy, now seven, and Dawn, now five, were exceptionally well-behaved children, and they had been told to stay away from the sheds. But on this particular day, they had company: six-year-old Denise Hooker, their high-spirited cousin. They’d been playing in the backyard, and when Jan came back outside, she found Dawn and Denise in the shed, looking into the hole.

Alarmed, Jan shooed the girls away, scolding them for misbehaving. Once they’d gone, she covered the hole back up and locked the shed.

K had seen the girls; she wasn’t sure if they’d seen her.

When Cameron came home, Jan told him what had happened.

They couldn’t be sure what the girls had seen, but they were both worried that Denise would say something to her parents. They decided to take K out of the hole and put her back in the box until this blew over.

They waited nervously. A week or two passed. No one mentioned anything about a woman imprisoned in a dungeon. K was put back out in the hole.

But then the rains came.

Northern California’s fall and winter storms made up for the long, dry months of summer with bone-drenching cloudbursts.

The sky turned to ink and for a moment seemed to test the air with a tentative drizzle before the heavens ripped open and anyone with any sense took cover.

The earth turned wet, and water gradually seeped into the dungeon. It went from dampness to puddles, getting K’s feet just a bit wet at first, then inching slowly up the wags, lapping at the legs of her chair, moving up toward her ankles as the hole flooded in earnest. By the time Hooker came out after work to check on her, the cold water had risen up her shins.

He gave her a scoop and bucket and together they tried to bail the water out, but this was only moderately effective. Finally, Hooker went out and bought a water pump — noisy, but more successful. When the water had receded to a manageable level, he left K in control so that she could turn the pump back on when the water level rose again. But, at last, he had to admit it was a losing battle. Winter had arrived, the dungeon flooded badly, and there was nothing to do but take K out and put her back in the box.

You can’t try a case in a vacuum. -Christine Mcguire

Christine Mcguire was anxiously awaiting her first extended interview with Colleen. Dr. Hatcher had said that, during his interview with Colleen, she’d impressed him as being cooperative and frank; Mcguire hoped this was true.

Still, Hatcher had unearthed some worrying surprises in Colleen’s history, and Mcguire was concerned that these could be used to besmirch her character and cast suspicion on her testimony.

She worried about Colleen’s mother, too. Today would be her first meeting with Evelyn Grant, but she already had a vaguely negative impression of the woman. For one thing, she’d read an article in The Globe that Mrs. Grant had supposedly written, and it galled her to think of the possibility of Grant selling her daughter’s story to a tabloid. Moreover, it bothered her that when Hatcher asked what kind of “moral outrage” Colleen’s parents had expressed upon her return home, Mcguire had to admit she was aware of none.

Now Colleen’s plane had landed, and Colleen and her mother were emerging from the arrival lounge. Mcguire’s brow furrowed when she caught sight of Colleen. Here she was again, wearing tight black cords and spike heels. She’d have to advise Colleen to wear something conservative at the trial.

In the car, Colleen seemed quiet, withdrawn. Mcguire was starting to wonder whether her star witness had become hostile when Colleen abruptly pulled out a business card and handed it to her: “Here’s the card of my attorney, Marilyn Barrett. You should know she’s representing me.”

1. In rape cases, the victim’s past has no bearing on the crime and is generally disallowed, but ultimately it’s up to the judge to decide whether certain evidence is admissible. Since myriad crimes had been committed here, and since this was a highly unusual case, Mcguire was unsure how the judge might rule. She resolved to do everything she could to keep Colleen’s past out of the trial.

2. Though the article carried her byline, Grant later denied having written it. Colleen also insisted that her mother hadn’t been paid anything for the article in The Globe.

Startled by Colleen’s defensiveness, Mcguire wondered: Whose side does she think I’m on? As she accepted the card, she said she’d received a phone call from Barrett a few days earlier, adding, “She seemed better informed than the first attorney you thought of retaining.” Mcguire hoped this sounded reassuring.

Actually, she was perplexed that Colleen had retained a tax attorney to represent her. While well-meaning, Barrett hadn’t impressed her as particularly knowledgeable about Colleen’s case, and her primary qualification seemed less her legal expertise than her involvement in the California Commission on Assaults Against Women.

In a few minutes, Mcguire mentioned her daughter and asked: “Would you like to see some pictures?” Colleen smiled, her posture relaxed, and Mcguire saw that she’d touched a soft spot. She shared her photos of Nicole, then was surprised when Colleen started pulling out her own pictures of nieces, nephews, and halfsisters. It touched her that Colleen so clearly delighted in these children. This was a side of Colleen she hadn’t imagined.

The two-hour drive back to Red Bluff gave Mcguire a chance to get a feeling for this strange, sweet, submissive young woman.