Chapter 12, Two Codes for Murder
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Two Codes For Murder
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320 pages
7 pages of crime photos
©2001
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5½" x 8½"
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A Lesson in Self-Control
It was nearly time for schools to begin, all too soon the
girls thought. They were preparing to start classes at their respective
schools in Allied Gardens, a few miles from La Mirage.
Floyd continued to lift weights, bike, run or otherwise
divert himself. Even though there had been trouble at his store, he
rarely went to work. He seemed unconcerned, confident that the store
would take care of itself.
According to him the business was not making money.
The image of a successful man with plenty of money was fading.
Charlene was taking grocery money out of his wallet and found that it was
full of big bills: $100's, $50's and $20's. The wallet was bursting at
the seams. She had to wonder where this money was coming from if
the business was not making any.
Floyd purchased a Titanium racing bike of which he was
very proud. Charlene knew it had cost Floyd nearly $3,000; her old
dependable Dodge had sold for less.
When the kids were asleep, she asked Floyd again: "Are
you getting health insurance now?"
"You won't give up, will you, you DC," Floyd yelled.
"Sh-sh-sh," Charlene warned. "Don't wake up the girls. It
has been more than three months now. You promised you'd use some
of the child support money to pay for the health insurance. You
have the money my folks sent me when my car and stuff were sold;
can't you take that money and get at least minimum coverage? Why are
we broke? Where is all the money?"
"You'll have to take my word for it. I can't spend any
more money on your kids. Enough!"
"Well, then, you are not a man of your word.
Why did you promise things you never intended to do?"
"I said we will not discuss this any more."
"This isn't fair. You are keeping all the money for yourself.
You are cheating me just like you cheat the IRS. I hope they catch
you," Charlene said angrily.
Floyd came up to her chair and gave it a tremendous
push backward. She fell on the floor with it and cracked the back of
her head on the hard surface. He rushed to her side and put his
hands around her neck. She cried out in pain and fright. His strong
hands tightened and she could not breathe. She began to choke.
Floyd released her as abruptly as he had grabbed her.
Gasping for air Charlene managed to get up and run to the privacy of
their bedroom where she locked the door. She heard the familiar
door squeak; he was gone.
Her neck was sore and she couldn't swallow
right; she patted cold water on her face, remembering how he had hit her before
and the splash had helped. Somehow she fell asleep despite the vision
of Floyd, sitting at a massive desk, counting stacks of dollar bills.
"Don't bother me now," he was saying. "I'm busy making my fortune."
He was sleeping on the living room couch next
morning, wrapped up in his favorite brown flannel blanket. He was
cuddling motionless with his face almost hidden in the back cushions and
his body in a fetal position.
The car keys were on the table. Charlene did not have to
beg for them.
"Have a wonderful first day," she told each of the kids,
trying to maintain her sanity. The kids knew something had gone wrong.
"I'll be back for you at dismissal," she promised. Charlene
had hoped this day would be a very happy one; as it happened she
was only glad to be alive. Floyd could have killed her. For a
paralyzing moment she really thought he was going to. It could have been
just like the O.J.-Nicole story, she told herself. The world would not
have cared so much about Charlene. She was not a celebrity. But
there would have been motherless mortified children, destroyed lives, un
precedented pain: the same elements of Nicole's death,
Charlene thought, her mind going wild with the visions of what could
have been.
Floyd was still in a long, deep slumber when she returned
to the apartment. She went upstairs to the extension, called Susie
and told her about the incident. She had to tell someone.
"I think you should come home. Don't let pride stand in
your way. This has been just a mistake in judgment. Everyone makes
them some time. You know I have been very worried about you ever
since he threatened Will and me."
"When was that?"
"Never mind now, Charlene. It was about money. He
wanted us to make a house payment for you and I mean he was really
pressuring us, since we were close friends. He wasn't going to make it
for you. That's when I began to see him for what he is-a man whose
first priority is money. I've known the type, though not this extreme.
But that's in the past. Let's get back to you and how to get you out
of there."
Charlene sat alone after talking to Susie, trying to reconcile
her comments with the heartbreak she now felt.
Floyd came to the dining table where she was having
coffee. He was trembling as he looked at her with tears in his azure
eyes. "I'm sorry; I don't know what got into me. I lost it."
"I can't take it," she sobbed. "I think I should go back home.
It has only been a few months, and you already have fallen out of
love with me. Lord only knows what you'll think of me in the months
or years ahead."
"Don't go, please. Stay with me. Give me another chance.
We've come this far. Don't give up on us. I still love you."
Because the girls liked their respective schools and were
enthralled by the freedom and loose structuring of the school
programs, Charlene vowed once more to try harder to make this
marriage what she had dreamed it would be.
She thought of nothing else from that moment on. She
thought that Floyd knew more than anyone else what control meant; he
just didn't know how to apply it to himself. He needed a lesson in
self-
control. Had not his parents, or any of his role models, ever
taught him? It would be up to her, Charlene told herself. Her resolve
dominated her being.
Just as she was beginning to feel better, believing this
incident to be a one-time thing, before the month of September was
over, Floyd again turned against her during an argument about money.
"Everything I owned has been sold, except the house, and
I have turned all the money over to you. Can't we get me that used
car you promised? I don't like to have to beg for the keys to your
car. Why is it your car? We are married. Can't this be our car? I hate
the uncertainty. I have to take the kids to school and go to the
market dependent on whether or not I may use your car. It is like
'Mother, may I.' Get me my own car and I'll never use the Grand
Marquis again."
"If you don't stop whining about money," Floyd
declared, "you're going to be sorry. I will take Tracie out to the edge of
town or to Santee, some place far away, and drop her off. She'll never
find her way back; she'll just fall apart, or someone will pick her up
and do whatever they want with her. There are plenty of weirdos
looking for an opportunity like this. She'll . . ." Charlene's heart was
pounding in her chest and breathing was labored. Her gasping became
uncontrollable ire.
"You are a sonofabitch," she yelled, totally out of
character. "How does such a terrible thing occur to you? What has she
ever done to you or what has any of us done to deserve this kind
of treatment? If you ever even think of doing such a thing," she
cried, unable to go on.
This threat conjured up the worst crime scenario
imaginable, the brain child of a deranged man. Her young daughter out on
the street somewhere, running, her long blonde hair bobbing up
and down, terrified, quietly weeping, no one to help her. Where was
Floyd coming from?
"I have no intention of doing what I said. I was just
talking, and you were just talking, about money, about the IRS, about
health insurance and needing a car, right?"
"I am talking about real issues. You are threatening the
welfare of my child. It is not the same." Charlene was not in the mood to
play Floyd's mind games.
She thought of Floyd's stated goals back when they were
dating. He wanted to make money, plenty of it, because if you have
it, you can buy anything. So what he wanted was whatever money
can buy. . .for himself. He could not bring himself to spending
money where he could get by without doing so.This had to be the reason
he would not give in to any monetary demands.
Whether she feared his threats were real or simply that
she hoped her love would somehow reverse this frightening
existence with Floyd, she realized she had to stop confronting him. She
would refrain from asking him for anything from that day forward.
She had to trust in God that Floyd did not have a bite to go with his bark,
and that he would somehow be purged of the demon within him,
the demon who would not let the unselfish man he promised to emerge.
And so his control over Charlene continued. Charlene
turned her full attention to the two real loves of her life: the two
innocent children who had faith in her and needed her. She didn't know
what else to do. She silenced her own voice. She had passed the lesson
of Self-Control herself.
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