Authors: Ken Englade
Andy never denied trying to extort money from Johnston. The reason charges were not filed in connection with the extortion was allegedly because Johnston was not able to positively identify Andy as the thief who took his wallet. But it was never satisfactorily explained why police did not file charges themselves in connection with the alleged highspeed chase, which, inexplicably, was never joined by Roberts and Accord. Later, McKenzie would say that
he
did not file the charges against Andy because it was not his case.
The incident resulted in one significant development: Investigator Ken McKenzie appeared in Andy’s life. Not only was he the one who chased Andy through the streets of North Dallas, but he was the one who arrested him at his home that evening. For the next several years McKenzie would weave in and out of Andy’s life at crucial moments. Over time, he became Andy’s archenemy, one of the few people whom Andy admitted disliking intensely. Years later, Andy’s loathing of the detective made it easier for Richardson police to use the good-cop/bad-cop routine when he was being questioned about Rozanne’s murder. McGowan was the good cop; McKenzie, Andy knew immediately, was the bad cop.
While Andy’s sexual affairs were usually short-lived, there was one that was not. In 1986, to help bring in extra money, Andy joined three friends in the operation of a nightclub called Beethoven’s. This put Andy into contact with a crowd that included a barmaid named Shelley Zachary, who seemed to strike up an immediate friendship with Andy’s wife, Becky.
Over the weeks, Shelley became a faithful guest at the Hopper’s Friday-night bashes. The evenings had become something of a tradition in their own right, frequented not only by Andy and Becky’s new friends in Dallas, but by some of their old friends from Houston as well. The way Texans measure distances, 250 miles was only a hop and a skip away, certainly not too far to go for a good party. One of the regular commuters from Houston was Andy’s boyhood friend Buddy Wright, who quickly became enamored of the Hoppers’ new friend, Shelley. Unknown to Wright and to Becky, though, Shelley’s eyes were on Andy.
Shelley, like Investigator McKenzie, would play an important role in Andy’s future.
One of those from this period of Andy’s life who would later claim a special insight into Andy’s dark side was James Carver, the drug dealer. “I think I know him as well as anybody,” Carver contended, “and there’s definitely a ‘tiger’ in him. He appears to be subtle, but he’s not; he’s more fearless than you would imagine.”
Several weeks after the attack on Rozanne, Carver said he again accidentally bumped into Andy and again they sat down for a friendly chat.
“I killed that woman,” Andy bragged to Carver almost as soon as their coffee arrived.
Carter, a major law breaker in his own right, didn’t want to be saddled with unwelcome revelations from others. Still, Andy seemed bent on filling him in on the details.
“She kept squirming the whole time,” Andy added, pausing for emphasis.
“Hold it right there,” Carver told him. “If you killed somebody, I don’t want to know about it.”
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Andy continued. “It wasn’t the first time. I’ve done things like that before.”
Carver said he again tried to shut him up, but Andy seemed compelled to boast about his experiences, real or imagined.
“You wouldn’t believe the power you have when someone’s life is in your hands,” Andy said.
At that point, the drug dealer got up and left.
The next time Carter heard from Andy, he testified later, was in 1986 when Andy telephoned asking for a job in Baltimore, where Carver had moved his drug-dealing headquarters.
“Forget about it,” Carver told him.
Needless to say, the drug dealer never reported these conversations to the police until years later, after he had been convicted in connection with his drug activity and was serving time in a federal prison in East Texas. Ironically, when Carver did tell the story, it was to Detective Ken McKenzie. But by the summer of 1988, except for the Johnston incident four years earlier, Richardson detectives were not interested in Andy and certainly didn’t suspect him of shooting Rozanne Gailiunas. Only after McGowan began delving into the seemingly unrelated events surrounding Larry and Joy Aylor did his name emerge.
17
Considering his experience with Investigator McKenzie in the Johnston incident, Andy was not exactly delighted to see the detective when he showed up with Rhonda Bonner at the Chevrolet dealer’s body shop where he worked in July 1988. It had been roughly twenty-four months since the two of them clashed, but as soon as he saw the officer coming, the Johnston incident flashed through Andy’s mind. As the two investigators approached, Andy considered what to do. Although he had no idea what they wanted, he knew that it was not going to be to his benefit. He thought about running, but decided against it. I’ll tough it out, he told himself. See what they have in mind and make my move from there.
But when they asked him about Rozanne, he thought he was going to give himself away. Nevertheless, he managed to get through it all right and was happy that he had at least been able to stall them; at first he thought McKenzie was going to haul him off in handcuffs as he had before.
As soon as they were gone, Andy went to his boss, Carl Joplin, and asked if he could take off early. “I have some personal things to take care of,” he told Joplin. “I may be gone for a few days.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Joplin asked solicitously.
“No,” Andy said, “but thanks anyway. The police are trying to put something on me and I need a few days off to take care of it.”
At the mention of the word
police
, Joplin’s pulse quickened. He didn’t like the sound of that, but he had too much respect for his employee to question him about it. Ever since Andy had come to work for him more than a year earlier, he had proven to be an exceptional employee. He kept his records in perfect order, he regularly showed up on time, he hardly ever called in sick, and he was never,
ever
, rude to the customers. Andy, Joplin knew, was roundly liked and admired both by the people he worked for and those he worked with. “Don’t worry about it,” Joplin told him. “Take as much time as you need.”
When he left the dealership, Andy went home and sat down with his checkbook. He was making roughly $40,000 a year, but he had next to nothing in the bank, no cushion that Becky and their two daughters could fall back on. As he went over the bills to be paid and thought more about the visit by McKenzie and Bonner, he got increasingly depressed. It brought back too many memories. Putting aside the financial records, he called a lawyer he knew and set up an appointment. Then he got more discouraging news. Before he would even talk to him, the lawyer wanted a hefty retainer. Andy simply did not have the money, but he knew he would have to find it somewhere.
Desperate for cash, he dialed his old boyhood friend in Houston, Buddy Wright. “Buddy,” he said when he got him on the line, “I’m in a bit of trouble and I need some money.”
Like Joplin, Wright respected Andy too much to ask him what kind of trouble. Instead, he asked: “How much do you need?”
“Five thousand,” Andy replied.
“Okay,” Wright replied. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Over the years Wright had been buying stock in the company he worked for, Continental Airlines. He had access to the $5,000 that Andy needed and he didn’t hesitate. The next day, cash in hand, he flew to Dallas to deliver the money personally to Andy’s lawyer.
Andy, in the meantime, had told Becky little more than he had told Joplin, that the police were trying to “put something on him” and he was going to have to hire a lawyer to help get it settled.
Unlike Joplin, Becky knew about Andy’s experience with the Richardson police. Like Andy, she vividly remembered the encounter with McKenzie, the time the detective had come to their house, searched the dwelling, taken some of Andy’s clothes, and then dragged her husband away while their two daughters stood by in shock and embarrassment. McKenzie had been rude to her then, she recalled bitterly, yelling sarcastically at her to “get a job” as he led away her husband. She also remembered that nothing had ever come of that incident. No charges had ever been filed against Andy. If her husband was telling the truth then, she reasoned, why might he not be telling the truth now? Maybe McKenzie
was
just out to get him.
Becky’s support did little to help Andy’s spirits. Despite her attempts to be cheerful, Andy’s mood continued to sink. One night he called her and said he was at a motel. In an alcohol-slurred voice he said he had gotten so worried about his situation that he had had too much to drink. Since he didn’t want the girls to see him drunk, he had checked into a motel.
A day or so later, Becky got really frightened when Andy told her he had borrowed a pistol from a friend. Afraid that he might try to shoot himself, Becky called Buddy Wright and poured out her problems. Wright took the first available flight to Dallas and sat down for a long talk with Andy. When he left, Andy’s spirits seemed to improve. As far as Becky could tell, her husband was over the hump and was working at becoming more like his old self.
Unknown to Becky, however, Andy had asked Wright for another $2,000, explaining that the lawyer was hitting him up for still more cash up-front. What he really wanted the money for—although he did not tell Becky—was to help finance his escape. Wright said his slush fund was empty, but suggested that Andy call another mutual friend. Andy did and the friend sent the money.
On Sunday, July 31, Andy went to the dealership to work on his books. Ever since McKenzie and Bonner had come to see him earlier, he had spent very little time on the job. Joplin had been very supportive of Andy and did not pressure him to return. That Sunday afternoon, with the place to himself, Andy closed out the month and placed his records in a neat stack on Joplin’s desk. Then he went home. That evening, his daughter Ginny invited several of her friends over for a small party to celebrate her twelfth birthday, which was the next day. There was no hint that anything was wrong.
The next morning, Monday, August 1, Becky asked Andy to drop Ginny off at cheerleading practice on his way to work. Andy said he had not yet shaved and he would not be ready to leave for several minutes yet. He was going to his office, he said, and that afternoon he had another appointment with his lawyer.
“Okay,” Becky said with resignation, “in that case you’d better shave. I’ll take Ginny.” Grabbing her car keys, she headed for the garage. “Come on, girls,” she yelled. As Ginny and Crystal, then nine, ran to join their mother, Andy grabbed his younger daughter and hugged her tightly. “No matter what happens,” he told her cryptically, “always remember that I love you.”
Becky would also remember it. Years later, both she and Andy would break out in tears as she recounted the incident to a jury that held Andy’s life in its hands.
As soon as Becky and his two daughters were out the driveway, Andy quickly packed a small suitcase, filling it with a number of improbable items: black dress socks, a heavy coat although it was the middle of summer, a pair of boots, jeans, and a single shirt. Throwing it in the back of the car, he drove to the house of Shelley Zachary, the former barmaid from Beethoven’s who had befriended Becky. In actuality, Shelley had exaggerated the friendship as a cover to be close to Andy, with whom she was involved in a torrid affair. Telling Shelley only that he was being sought by police who were trying to frame him, Andy begged her to drive him out of the city in an attempt to escape.
A few hours out of Dallas, after they had crossed the border into Oklahoma, Shelley left Andy on the side of the road and headed back to Dallas in his car. When she got back to the city, she parked the vehicle on a quiet side street and left it. For awhile, Shelley went to stay with Becky and continued to pretend to be her friend. Days later, she led Becky to Andy’s car. It was a double shock for Becky. Shelley’s action made it clear that the barmaid and her husband had been having an affair and that Andy was not coming back. Hurt and rejected, she packed up and again took the children to Pampa. There was nothing else she could do; Andy had left her with very little money in the bank and a stack of unpaid bills.
Over the next few months, against her instincts, she kept in touch with Richardson police, hoping they would give her some news about Andy. Her contact was McKenzie, whom she still did not like. Later, she recalled, it was McKenzie who told her about Andy’s affair with Shelley. And it was McKenzie who continued to harass her with requests for information that might lead him to her missing husband. By that time, too, McKenzie had learned about the Hoppers’ dope-selling escapades and Becky feared that the officer would use it against her, possibly even jailing her and charging her with selling narcotics.
In the meantime, McKenzie’s boss, good-cop Mo McGowan, was pursuing other avenues in an attempt to track Andy. A few weeks after Andy disappeared, a man identifying himself as a friend of Andy’s from Houston contacted the detective and volunteered to help police find him.
McGowan also had been in touch with Shelley, who, when she learned of the seriousness of the suspicions regarding Andy, had volunteered to help police track him down. Since Andy continued to telephone Shelley periodically from wherever he happened to be, the investigator felt it would be only a matter of time before Andy would suggest a rendezvous with his lover. When that happened, McGowan wanted to be prepared. Explaining his plan to Shelley, the investigator asked for her help in baiting a trap. To his delight, she agreed to cooperate.