Read What Strange Creatures Online
Authors: Emily Arsenault
“But that was the only time you saw him be . . . like, physical.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Mostly he seemed like a loser to me. Not like a
killer.
But isn’t that the sort of thing people usually say when this stuff happens?”
“Uh . . . abso
lute
ly.” My voice cracked. I hurried to add, “Listen, I wanted to ask you about something specific.”
“Yeah?”
“Did Kim have any VHS tapes that you know of? Did you see anything like that around?”
“Huh. You know, she asked me if I had a VCR or I knew anyone with one. But I didn’t see any actual tapes.”
“You think there might be some in her room?”
“Maybe. The police were here right after she died, of course.”
“So it’s possible they took them, if she had any.”
“Possible. It didn’t look to me like they took much. They took her computer, but they left her clothes and some other stuff. Her family didn’t take everything yet. But maybe they forgot. I don’t know. Probably it’s hard.”
“Do you mind if I take a peek into her room?”
“I guess.” Brittany shrugged. “What’s the deal about these VHS tapes anyway?”
“Kim was working on a little video project. She and some other friends of mine want to complete it for her. A sort of tribute.”
“Video project? Like of Wayne?”
“Yeah. It was like a compilation of all of her pets. That’s why the old VHS.”
“Oh. That’s . . . uh, sweet of you.”
She thought I was lame. But that was good. Lame is harmless. Lame is trustworthy. Lame is clean. It’s easy to trust lame. And damned if she didn’t just lead me right into Kim’s room after that.
It was pretty spare—all that was left of Kim was a queen-size bed and a large bureau painted chartreuse.
“See, her family didn’t have a truck for the big things,” Brittany explained. “They just put everything in plastic bags. It feels weird, though, to still have a little bit of her furniture here.”
I opened one of the green drawers. It was empty. “Can I look in the closet?”
“Sure.”
I did. Also empty.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize they took
everything.
I never actually looked. Didn’t feel right.”
I started out of the bedroom. “It’s okay.”
“You know, I really
was
thinking of you just yesterday,” Brittany said quietly.
“Of me?”
“Yeah. ’Cuz I remember you asking about Kim mentioning Donald Wallace, and I remember thinking how weird that was.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hold on a sec,” Brittany said, then disappeared into her bedroom for a moment. When she returned, she handed me a folded-up piece of paper.
I unfolded it—another printout about the Hallidays. The headline read
SUSAN AND TODD HALLIDAY:
“
A CASE OF OPPOSITES ATTRACT.
”
“I found this in our magazine basket in the bathroom a few days ago. I guess Kim had shoved it in there. I don’t know when. But I thought of you because it has Donald Wallace in it. Near the end.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I . . . uh . . . know she was interested in this case.”
“Seems interesting.” Brittany shrugged. “I read it through when I found it. It’s kind of a crappy article. And I don’t know why Kim cared.”
I agreed, thanked her, and returned to my car.
“Wayne, she didn’t even ask about you,” I said as I opened the door.
“Shhh,” Jeff said, and pointed to Wayne sleeping in the backseat.
I didn’t look at Jeff. Instead I read the article.
May 3, 2005
Cranford Reminder
Susan and Todd Halliday: “A Case of Opposites Attract”
By Ruthie Benoit, Our Towns columnist
CRANFORD, MASS.—As the prosecution continues to lay out its case on Court TV, locals are asking themselves how this could ever have happened to the Hallidays, such a well-known and well-liked Cranford family. Still others of their neighbors and friends are admitting that they saw some subtle signs of tension in the family for the past couple of years.
Susan and Todd Halliday have lived in Cranford all their adult lives. Sweethearts in their early twenties, they married when Susan became pregnant with their elder son, Trenton. Dustin followed two years later.
“They were a case of opposites attract,” says Todd’s childhood friend and longtime Cranford resident Sam McBride. “At least in the beginning. Susan liked fashion, parties, and romantic comedies. Todd liked fishing, working hard, bowling league, and going to church.”
Susan was the spender, according to many friends, and Todd was the saver.
“There was definitely some disagreement about how those boys should be raised,” says McBride. “Todd didn’t grow up with much. He didn’t think the kids needed hundreds of dollars’ worth of toys on Christmas and birthdays, and all sorts of phones and computers in between. He truly felt that that sort of thing screwed up kids’ values, made them into unhappy adults.”
Marybeth Blunt, a friend of Susan’s, explains the Hallidays’ conflict differently: “Susan didn’t spoil the kids. She just wanted to make sure they had the same advantages as the kids around them. She thought Todd was too severe. She wanted to find the right balance.”
For seven years they lived in a modest house on Wagon Ridge. Most people on the street knew them as a hardworking dad and good-looking mom with two smiling, rambunctious boys.
On Tuesday of this week, at a Wagon Ridge/Yardley Street Neighborhood Watch meeting, several of the Hallidays’ neighbors chimed in on the subject.
“I don’t usually believe in curses,” remarked Ron Bishop of Yardley Street. “But it did start to feel, around the time of the thunderstorm last fall, like the Hallidays were cursed.”
“They had a terrible string of bad luck,” agrees neighbor Krista Hammerbacher. “Starting when Todd’s office closed. He found a part-time job to keep the household afloat, but it was an hour away, and I think he was exhausted from all the driving. Then there was the damage their house had from that thunderstorm in September. Then the fire in November. And their dog died in that fire, poor thing. Not to mention the kids were traumatized because Todd barely made it out. They ended up having to stay at Todd’s sister’s place for a few months while their place was being fixed up. I don’t think it’s been a positive time for them, being displaced from their home like that. Having to stay crammed in at someone else’s place. When they already weren’t getting along anyhow.”
Other friends cite the time at Todd’s sister’s as a source of strife.
“Dustin was having serious difficulties in school,” explains Donna Hewitt, a coworker of Susan’s. “Susan believed that it was because he felt unsettled in her sister-in-law’s home. They argued a great deal about money—about renting a place while their house was being fixed. Todd refused.”
A month before Todd’s death, the family moved back into their Wagon Ridge home. But while their house was fixed, Blunt says, the damage to their relationship was now quite serious.
As District Attorney Donald Wallace has made much of in court this week, Susan Halliday began a romantic relationship with her coworker at the DMV.
“I don’t believe that Susan was by nature a cheating sort,” Blunt claims. “I think the home situation with her in-laws made her feel the need for some kind of escape. It’s a shame what that prosecutor is saying about her. She needed an escape. She needed someone who would love her and not criticize her all the time. That doesn’t mean she was a murderer.”
“Susan is one of the kindest women I know,” agrees friend and neighbor Peggy Straight. “Very devoted to her sons. She’d do anything for them. She made a mistake. But it’s a mistake that, under those conditions, I can see a lot of people making. I hope the jury will be smart enough not to judge her based on that mistake.
“And their home was unoccupied for so long I believe that it was a likely target for a home invasion. I don’t think Susan’s story is so far-fetched, given those circumstances.
“These are people who’ve had some terrible luck in the past year. That’s how these things happen, isn’t it? Tragedies lead to more tragedies.”
At the bottom of the last page, Kim had scribbled:
I know what it’s like to be swallowed whole by a story. I know how hard it is to uncurl yourself from its warm, wet stomach, climb up and out of its vile throat, and feel the cold truth. You think I don’t know?
“What’s that?” Jeff asked.
“Just another article about Dustin’s parents,” I said, handing the paper to him. “From a local paper.”
Jeff read it as I pulled out of Barton Village. I expected him to comment on Kim’s note at the bottom, but he simply refolded the article and placed it on the console between us.
“Did you give Kim that candle I got for you?” I asked once I was on the highway. “The big Baked Apple one?”
Jeff fiddled with my iPod. “Yeah.”
“Did she ever burn it?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Jeff looked up, frowning. “Why?”
“Oh, it just smelled pretty nutmeggy in there. I guess her roommate likes it.”
“I guess.” Jeff settled on some old Flaming Lips.
“So, Jeff,” I said.
“So, Theresa.”
“Things were getting tense between you and Kim a couple of weeks before she died?”
“Yeah.” Jeff gazed out the window. “They were.”
“Have you told Gary Norris everything about it that he should know?”
“Haven’t we already been over this?”
I stared ahead at the highway “I don’t know. Have we, for real?”
“For real?” Jeff repeated.
I passed a sluggish blue Ford.
“I mean, how bad did it get?” I asked. “What was the worst thing?”
“The worst thing was me following her up to Rowington and sleeping in my car. I’ve told you that.”
“What about when you guys were drinking together?”
“I did go overboard occasionally. So did she. I blacked out a couple of times. I’m told we fought pretty bad once or twice when I was blackout drunk. Why, was Kim’s roommate talking about me?”
“Fought pretty bad? Like what?”
“Like Kim told me I kept calling her roommate Dolly Pumpkin. Like ‘Get out of my way, Dolly Pumpkin.’ ‘Got any soda or chips, Dolly Pumpkin?’ I feel kind of bad about that.”
Oddly, the name did seem to fit Brittany. What didn’t fit was
Jeff
saying it to her face. That was a nastier Jeff from the one I knew. What he was trying to tell me, it seemed, was that he was a mean drunk. I’d never seen it—but we hadn’t ever done much hard stuff together. Only beer and wine with takeout.
“And you don’t remember it?” I asked.
“No. Haven’t you gotten blackout drunk before?”
“Is that what they call it? Is that a thing? ‘Blackout drunk’?”
“It’s when you don’t remember—”
“Of course I know
that.
I just never heard it said like that before.”
“Well, they say it’s hereditary. Some people are more apt to black out when they drink too fast than others. I mean, I learned that online. When I looked it up after the first time it happened. I had a lot of time on my hands, you know?”
I shrugged. “I had some benders in college. But I always remembered everything, pretty much. I never liked doing shots, and it’s hard to drink beer fast enough to black out, I think. And I don’t remember you ever drinking that much either. When we were that age. Even when everyone else was.”
“That was a long time ago,” Jeff said.
I was behind a semi truck now, and I felt too depressed to pass it. I stared at its
HOW’S MY DRIVING
? sign as Jeff continued.
“You don’t know what it’s like to spend all day by yourself,” he said. “Going back and forth between watching the news and trying to find little Band-Aids for your latest past-due bill or your broken laptop. Find something you can sell on Amazon or eBay. If you can borrow someone’s computer to do it on. Or trying to find out if one of your credit cards has a little bit of credit left on it. You don’t know what it’s like, I don’t think, to be drowning in that stuff so much that you can’t focus long enough on the big picture to get out of it.”
“Not financially, no,” I admitted. “But I’ve had other situations where I felt like I was drowning.”
Jeff turned away from me. “Drowning in your own self-made academic situation isn’t the same thing.”
My fingers tightened over the steering wheel. “Okay.”
“But sure. You and I are used to disappointment. Anyway, when Kim came along, there was suddenly, weirdly, a part of my life that
wasn’t
about drowning. Every night wasn’t some long abyss. Suddenly. And for a few months. But when I realized she was getting tired of me—when I realized that all it had ever been was to pass the time when she wasn’t with Kyle, to maybe even get Kyle’s attention—I couldn’t stand it. I could’ve dealt with the hole that was in my life if she hadn’t come and fixed it. Before she came and fixed it, it was just a ragged hole, wearing itself bigger at the edges. But slowly. Then she came and filled it. And when it looked like I was losing her, it wasn’t slow and natural anymore. It was a giant black hole. Torn wide open. Not only at night anymore. All the time.
All
the time. Because I’d made a mistake. I’d let myself think things were getting better for me. I was stupid.”
I held my breath and slowed the car down, realizing I’d been tailing the semi too close. I wasn’t sure where Jeff was going with this.
“It wasn’t Kim’s fault. Kim was involved in her own crazy shit, whatever that was. But for a little while, I let myself think she’d
made
the black hole. And that it would close up if I could keep her.”
HOW’S MY DRIVING
?
HOW’S MY DRIVING
?
HOW’S MY DRIVING
? I had to focus on keeping that sign at a safe distance, because Jeff’s words had begun to weigh on my body, drawing down my shoulders and straining my foot on the gas.
“So what are you telling me?” I gripped the wheel so hard my knuckles hurt.
“I’m answering your question. I’m telling you why I started drinking so much. Which is what I thought you were asking. Right?”
Was it? My mind felt scrambled. I took a moment to find the words with which to form a reply.