Murder In The Heartland. M. William Phelps
1
It was five days before the winter solstice. December 16, 2004, started off a bit abnormal—although, upon waking up to what was a magnificent sunrise, few would have guessed. The wind was blowing in across the Nebraska plains from the west at a steady pace of twelve miles per hour, which, by itself, was not so unusual. Yet the temperature capped out at around fifty degrees by midday, making it feel like a chilly evening in late September, or maybe a pleasant early-October morning: brusque, cool, effervescent.
In town, many of the women took advantage of the un-seasonable weather. Wearing red-and-white aprons, some felt inspired to take out muddy throw rugs and floormats, hang them from clotheslines, and beat the dirt out of them with brooms. Others opened windows and aired things out a bit—the cool, fresh air casting a sparkle on everything it touched. Some men, unimpressed by such a scant spike in the mercury, donned customary black-and-red plaid flannel shirts, coveralls, leather gloves, and winter caps with earflaps. They were seen making repairs to property-line fences and timber corral posts, while others stood sipping coffee and “shootin’ the breeze” near the center of town, framed by the cottonwoods, oaks, and maples, leafless and brittle, that stood in perfect rows along the gullies of Highway 113.
Before that Thursday afternoon, the town of Skidmore was but a black dot on the map of America’s heartland. To say it was a small farming parish would understate how rural the countryside actually was. Skidmore, according to the green-and-white “city limit” sign on the edge of town, is home to a mere 342—“give’r take a few,” noted one native—nestled in the northwestern corner of Missouri, a state named after a Siouan Native American tribe, which, translated, means “canoe.”
To an outsider, the town resembles an eighteenth-century landscape painting hanging on a velvet saloon wall somewhere farther west, dusty and ignored, a bucolic setting, innocent of technology, infrastructure, big-city bureaucrats, and mundane problems.
But to townsfolk, Skidmore is Eden, a comfortable, intimate place to live and die. “Everybody knows everybody” is a reliable cliché there, evident in the way people greet each other with a nod and wave. In Missouri, where the state license plates proclaim “Show Me State,” red, white, and blue are more than simply colors; and rolls of hay, coiled up like massive cinnamon buns as tall as street signs, dot the thousands of acres of gently sloping farmland.
In many ways, time has stood still in Skidmore. An old railroad line that carried cattle and grain a century ago marks a decomposing path through the countryside, subtly reminding folks that nothing ever truly goes away. All over town are remnants of another day and age: memories verifying how life, regardless of how it is elsewhere, moves at a slower pace, and how people still take the time to stop and shake hands, pat one another on the shoulder, ask about the kids, quote a passage from the Bible, or maybe just share a bottle of “pop” while sitting on a porch swing.
In their hearts, any one of them will gladly admit, with a snap of their suspenders, Skidmorians care about the place where they live and the people who make up their community. They don’t bother anyone, and, in return, expect the same treatment from others.
“People there, well, it’s a different sorta place,” said one outsider. To which an acquaintance added, “If you don’t belong in Skidmore, ya betta jus stay the hell outta there.”
2
Nearly two hundred miles south, in eastern-central Kansas, the day hadn’t started out so warm and inviting. When she awoke, a cold snap lingered in the house.
Getting dressed, she put on one of her oversized bulky sweaters, a pair of baggy blue jeans, sneakers, and glasses. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail. Her heavy winter coat was downstairs on a kitchen chair. She could grab it on the way out.
As usual, she sat by herself at the dining table, forgoing coffee for what many later agreed was an “addiction to Pepsi.” Then, staring out the window, she lit a Marlboro, because she knew her husband had left for work already. Like a lot of things in her life, she’d been hiding her affair with nicotine from him.
Her two daughters and son slept upstairs. She had told her husband the night before she was “getting up early to go shopping” in Topeka, but the kids had no idea she was awake. It was close to five in the morning. If she wasn’t working one of her three part-time jobs, there wasn’t a chance she’d be up so early.
After stubbing out her cigarette, she walked upstairs into her oldest daughter’s room and sat on the edge of the bed, as she did on most mornings. She and Rebecca* were close, like best friends. They talked about things she wouldn’t consider sharing with her other children, and unquestionably not her husband.
“What are you doing today, Mom?” asked Rebecca. She was muzzy and worn-out, having just awakened. Seventeen-year-old Rebecca and her mother had gone shopping for baby clothes several times over the past few months. Her mother was “excited” about being pregnant and wanted to share the experience with her oldest. “You’ll have children of your own one day,” she told Rebecca more than once as they browsed through racks of clothes, baby rattles, and toys.
Sitting quietly, she brushed Rebecca’s hair away from her eyes with her right hand and stared at her for a brief time. In almost a whisper, “I’m going shopping in Topeka,” she responded.
Everyone in the family was under the impression her due date had passed the previous Monday, December 13, and she was going to have the child any day now.
“Shopping might get things going,” she continued when Rebecca didn’t respond. “I need to pick up something for Kayla, anyway.”
Kayla was the baby of the family. She didn’t live at the house anymore. She was staying with a friend in Georgia.
At fourteen years old, Kayla was pretty much the free thinker of the four kids. She wasn’t a submissive conformist, like so many children her own age, ready to accept anything anybody told her. Nor was she one of those kids that fell into, say, the “Goth” movement at school because it was the latest fad. Kayla thought about things thoroughly and made her own decisions. Her independent way of thinking had landed Kayla in Georgia, hundreds of miles away from her mother, stepfather, and siblings.
On August 25, 2004, exactly one week after her birthday, she bid farewell to everyone. First she went to Texas to stay with a fellow rat-terrier breeder for a couple days so she could attend a dog show there before traveling on.
Kayla referred to the woman she moved in with in Georgia as “Auntie,” she said, out of “Southern respect,” but Mary Timmeny, “Auntie M,” as Kayla and others referred to her, was a friend of the family, and had introduced Kayla to her passion: raising, breeding, and showing rat terriers. Mary had invited Kayla to spend a few weeks with her in Georgia during the summer of 2004 so she could teach her how to train her dogs and ready them for the dog show circuit. Kayla’s father, Carl Boman, was amazed his ex-wife had agreed to it. As Carl viewed the situation, Mary was a stranger, someone Kayla’s mother had met only a few times. Carl was beside himself with anger that his ex-wife had allowed Kayla to spend part of her summer with someone so far away.
Kayla’s mother had custody, though. Carl couldn’t do much about it, even if he wanted.
“So, in July,” said Kayla, “I went out there for three weeks and got to go to two dog shows and showed dogs in both of those shows.”
Kayla met her mother at a Lexington, Kentucky, dog show after the three-week sabbatical was over and went back home to Kansas.
A while later, Auntie Mary called. “I miss you,” she said.
“I miss you, too.”
“Would you like to come back and spend a few months with me here in Georgia?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” replied Kayla. She was “really excited” about it. It was all she had thought about since leaving.
“Don’t tell your sisters, though, Kayla. Okay?”