Love Me To Death. Steve Jackson

      “You’ve just got to meet this cowboy.”

      Rebecca Holberton smiled at her friend’s insistence at setting her up with the smiling man in the tight black T-shirt and even tighter blue jeans. They were at an outdoor party, and she didn’t really know most of the people present. At forty-two years old, she had not expected to meet someone romantically, being a little on the shy side when it came to men since her divorce a couple of years earlier. She wasn’t seeing anyone in particular and lived on her own in a town house she’d recently purchased on West Chenango Drive in unincorporated Jefferson County, a large, mostly rural area that encompassed a half-dozen bedroom communities northwest of Denver.

      The man in question was a little on the short side, but she had to admit that he had cheerful blue eyes beneath the black Stetson he wore, and a sexy voice—sort of a low, rumbling western twang. “Just call me Cody,” he said when they were introduced.

      Forty years old, William Lee Neal was no longer the young outdoorsman he’d been when he met his second wife, Karen Wilson, in Washington, D.C., or even the free-spending patron of the strip club where he met his fourth wife, Jennifer Tate, and where all the girls and bartenders knew him as Wild Bill Cody.

      He’d developed a paunch, and the muscles of his youth were soft with alcohol and disuse; he had a persistent cough from the cigarettes he chain-smoked. But he still carried himself like he owned the world, and his tongue was as glib as ever, maybe more so from the years of practice. He wore his hair long beneath the hat, which, he’d tearfully point out to any listening female, had been given to him by his dear departed mother. “The only thing I have left that’s from her,” he’d say.

      Holberton thought he was cute and he certainly came on strong with his charm that afternoon; soon they were seeing each other every day. In many ways, he seemed like the perfect man. He was a great listener and offered what seemed to be good advice on everything from her finances to remodeling her town house.

      He was sensitive, too, particularly when it came to his young daughter, who his former wife—an “evil,” unfaithful stripper, he said—kept from him. His descriptions of his battle to win custody of the child would bring him to tears, as would any mention of his mother.

      Cody, as he wanted to be called, romanced her with roses and back rubs. Always the gentleman, he opened doors and lit her cigarettes as fast as she could get them out of the pack.

      There was also an air of mystery and wealth about him. He sometimes painted houses for a living, but said that was just to get by while he waited for a trust fund to be released to him. The fund was currently tied up in the Las Vegas court system but, he said, when he eventually got his hands on the money, he’d be rich beyond her imagination. He sometimes hinted that the money had something to do with his mob connections, or “The Family,” as he referred to them, warning her that she had to keep that knowledge a secret. Or else.

      It just added to his allure and she’d fallen for him. He moved in with her after a few weeks of dating.

      Holberton wasn’t the only one convinced that Neal was something more than an underemployed house painter. When he divorced Jennifer Tate in March, he’d claimed to be $51,000 in debt, listed an old truck and $4 as his only assets, and described himself as an “unemployed alarm technician.” However, around the dive bars he frequented, he talked as if he were a bounty hunter, or some heard he’d once been a hit man for the mob. He cultivated the image by always dressing in black—from the crown of his Stetson to his shirts, with maybe a break in the motif for blue jeans. On cooler days, he also sported a long black duster that reached down to his black cowboy boots.

      He told a lot of stories, such as having been one of the army’s elite Airborne Rangers. He seemed to know what he was talking about. At least that’s what the regulars at the bars thought who listened to him spin his tales as he sipped his favorite drink, rum and Coke, and bought rounds for his audiences. Not everyone heard the same story, which rather than identifying him as a liar, only enhanced his mystique.

      The money helped. He seemed to have plenty of it around, too—$50 tips for a few drinks or a haircut, limousines, wild parties at local hotels. Depending upon which story one heard, the money came from a trust fund or his shady past. One story even combined the two: Years before, he was supposed to kill a wealthy man in Las Vegas for The Family, but he decided to spare the man. The intended victim was so grateful, he’d set up a trust fund for Neal.

      Not everyone bought his act. Plenty knew he was a con artist almost as soon as they heard him speak; but being a “liar and a strange bird,” as one bartender would later describe him to the police, wasn’t against the law. He ignored or avoided those who saw him for what he was. . . . They were of no use to him.

      In September 1997, Holberton and Neal went to Las Vegas to meet up with her best friend and former sister-in-law, Tammy. Tammy wasn’t impressed. He struck her as the kind of guy who lived by mooching off others. He did seem to have some connections in Las Vegas, because Holberton confided that they were getting their room for free.

      Still, if Rebecca was happy, then Tammy was happy for her and didn’t worry much over Cody. That is, not until Holberton called a few months later and said she might be contacted by her insurance company. Apparently, she’d had some expensive jewelry stolen on the trip, though she hadn’t mentioned it at the time. Now she was warning Tammy that the insurer might call to verify if Holberton had once owned the jewelry. After they got off the telephone, Tammy wondered if Cody had anything to do with its “disappearance.”

      Neal had plenty of drinking buddies among the men at the bars, but not many who thought of themselves as his friend. Instead, he surrounded himself with the women, who gravitated to his old-fashioned manners, shadowy past, and money. He certainly knew how to win them over. He frequently ordered flowers—always long-stemmed red roses—from Beverly Wise, a local florist, and had them sent to various dancers at strip clubs. The florist thought he was such a polite man, who always paid with cash. Even she was somewhat taken in by his air of mystery, such as the time he asked her to deliver two arrangements of roses to a hotel room.

      “Who for?” she teased.

      Neal smiled back. “Nobody in particular,” he said. “I’m just gonna go out, find a girl, and let her think I did it all for her.”

      The only problem with Neal’s generosity was the money wasn’t his. It came from other people. Some from his former business partners, but mostly from women he could seduce out of their savings. Rebecca Holberton was one of those women.

      When she met Neal, Holberton was leading a quiet, uneventful life. She’d once been married to an airline pilot, Rodney Holberton, but they divorced with no children. For twenty-three years, she’d worked for US West telephone company, where she was considered a well-liked,