Miss Fortune (16 page)

All of the responses are the same. Nobody seems to know him, yet everyone has one uncertain fact about him. “I think he got hit by a car once” or “I think he fell off a building one time.”

Brady is the closest of the mutual friends Scott and I have. He directed some shows of mine back in the day. I text him:
“Hey, Brady, I have a question for you—you know Scott Bauer, right? He sent me an email asking me to write his life story for him. I know he's sick, so I was willing to but he just told me he killed nine people. Do you know exactly what is going on with him?”

“Hey Buddy, saw your message. Don't know him that well. Seems like he's pretty sick. I think he was in some
accident involving a moving van. Wild about the killing part.”

“Wild”—that's it? Brady was obviously the wrong person to ask. He's a big stoner. Nothing riles him. Or maybe he has a day job and is too busy to care. But come on! How can you hear about anyone claiming to kill even one person and not care?

My friend Elizabeth who runs a dance company in Seattle sends me a long response. I'm trying to read it while I push Leo on the swings. Elizabeth recently went through a pretty brutal bout of cancer. Everyone has cancer these days. I blame Facebook. She didn't really know him either and couldn't remember why she was even Facebook friends with him, but she has a theory—

I hear a female voice: “We're next for the swing!” I give a quick “You got it!” and keep reading.

Elizabeth suggests that the cancer could be in his brain, causing some delusion.

Oh man, I knew it. I'm sure that's what's happening.

I send a direct message to Scott asking him what sort of cancer he has. He writes back with an answer, but it's such a complicated name I can't even sound it out. A line is forming for the swings. I grab Leo out of his seat with a quick, “Sorry, buddy, time to go!”

A nanny in hospital scrubs holding a newborn asks me if I'm okay as I run out of the playground with Leo. “Oh . . . I've had a MORNING!” I say and run back to the apartment to look up what kind of cancer it is.

I go back to Scott's message so I can cut and paste the name of his cancer.

But the message has been deleted.

That night I get a message from a guy I used to wait tables with. He's the first to claim Scott as a close friend.

“Listen, he's a good friend of mine and I have to tell you, it doesn't surprise me that he's saying he killed people. I'm sure he has. He's that kind of guy.”

He's
that
kind of guy. That's it? How can he be so casual? Are his other friends ex–Khmer Rouge and Scott seems quirky in comparison?

I used to think that my artist friends in Seattle were a bunch of harmless carny folk whose idea of living outside the box was walking backward as they crossed the street or never going to the dentist. Who knew they were running with such a dangerous crowd?

“Hey, Scott, quick question, does anyone know about this?”

“Those that I am close to know. Like parents, siblings, a couple of friends. I want to make the book truthful and honest in hopes of helping others. I want the story to be told with the trauma part but also with humor. :)”

It has been three days since Scott entered my life, and I can think of nothing else. “What would you do if someone told you that they had killed nine people?” has replaced “How much sand can a kid eat before it becomes a medical emergency?” as my opener in all social situations.

Moo Moo Musica is a music class for babies taught by free-spirited yoga people in Venice that Leo loves. Today we're singing “Five Little Ducks,” about a group of baby ducks that go missing one at a time. First there are five, then four, then three, then two, then one . . . and then there are none. I get chills.

During the break, all of the moms are caught up in the Scott
story. The oldest mom in the class, a woman in her midfifties, leans over during the next song and tells me that I have to go to the police, immediately. “You're an accomplice now,” she tells me. She's singing loudly and off key—“Quack, quack, quack, and all the little ducks come waddling back”—right at my face and has a tiny little cowboy hat on her head.

She just made it even more exciting.

The only person I don't want to tell is David because he's always giving me a hard time for being too open with strangers. But he's my husband; I don't want to keep secrets from him. Plus, there's nobody else left that I see in the course of my day to tell.

After demanding to “see a picture of this guy,” David declares him a “lonely drunk.” Nobody should be vilified based on the red color and bulbous size of his nose, so I defend Scott. “I don't know, David. I think that this is what would happen to a killer for the FBI who lives with the secret for so long. Getting cancer, dying slowly. That is exactly the kind of scenario that would lead to this kind of death.” David points out the idiotic logic in my theory. “So cancer wards are just full of lying serial killers?” He's right. According to my logic, the Race for the Cure breast cancer 5K should be changed to Race for the Killers.

David insists that I cut off all contact with Scott. “You're a mother now, Lauren. You can't let random crazy people into your life. And let's say he's telling the truth. Do you want to be number ten?”

I lie and tell David that I will stop contacting him. Scott hasn't told me how or why he killed those nine people. I can't stop now.
That
would be crazy.

That night, I can't sleep. Scott killed those people. Why would someone lie about something so huge that you could get into so much trouble for? Right before you die, why would you tell such a
huge lie? Why did he tell
me
? I can't keep a secret. Everyone knows that. I'm the worst. The worst! People I hardly know will be mid-story at a party—“so I was trapped in the tops of the trees eating gum to stay alive and I”—but as soon as they spot me they clam up. “Tell you later. Here comes Lauren.” Nobody tells me anything anymore.

I've been blabbing about Scott all over the place. I've told too many people.

David's right. I'm going to be number ten.

I've started making copies of all my correspondence with Scott. There's a good chance I'll be asked to testify in court at his murder trial. Or after he sues the TV network that I sell his story to for slander.

I open my laptop and type

“Is this a secret? I know you said it is but I should let you know that if you tell me, I'm not great with secrets. It's no secret that I'm not great with secrets! So before I turn your very personal story into a musical, what are your thoughts about that? I know you wanted to write about it—but could I? Not saying I'm going to. I just want to let you know that I use my life as fodder a lot.”

I type
“Don't want to make you mad!”
but delete it.

“I don't care about me right now. You can write about it if you want. I will give you the info. You can do with it what you like. Yes, you can use my name. I will be fine.”

I try to decide if his message has a bit of a “go ahead and enjoy yourself, you'll be dead by the morning” ring to it. But maybe he's
resigned to it all because he's dying. I'm the one making a big deal out of this when he's facing something far larger and I need to grow up and stop sensationalizing the fact that he's a dying serial killer. He's also a person. Did I learn nothing from
Dead Man Walking
? Before we say good-bye, we set a time for our first phone conversation.

Scott's voice on the phone is earnest. And sweet. He's very sweet. The conversation starts with “tears of gratitude in his eyes” followed by a copious amount of thank-yous. Scott grew up in Missouri doing theater at his church. It was there he was bitten by the old acting bug and started getting involved with community theater. It's hard for me to stay focused as he slowly recounts his youth to me.

“I just loved how children's theater could touch ordinary people's lives.”

Sure, I think, but not as much as murdering them.

We've been on the phone for more than forty-five minutes, and I've written down the words “theater,” “church,” and “killer!” on my notepad. He's talked about his high school years, his “pretty nice school and really cool friends,” and about a book he'd received in the mail just that day,
Adventures of Frog and Toad.

“So simple, but so heart wrenching for me. It made me realize what I'd really love for you to help me write—after we finish my life story—are children's stories.”

He thinks the books should be about love. “And maybe we could find an angle on bullying since it's such a big thing in schools right now.”

Oh my god . . . GET TO THE STABBY PART.

Not one time during his ninety-minute monologue has he mentioned his illness or the killing. If I have one note for him so far on his life story, it's “You may want to add in a mass killing to sort of punch it up a bit.”

I thought I'd be hearing sounds of hospital machines or family members tucking in his sheets. But he's standing outside a mall waiting for his girlfriend to get done shopping. “She's done shopping, so I have to go.”

None of this, as odd as it is, deters me from wanting to talk to him again. It's made me hungrier for the truth.

For the next week, we email daily. I realize that all I want to hear about is the killing stuff. I should respect a sick man. This is wrong. It's been good for Leo, though. Now instead of trying to pry him away the playground after twenty minutes I'm happy to stay for hours and hours.

I fess up to Scott:
“I feel guilty about this, Scott. I have to admit that I can't move on past the killing stuff. Why did you tell me that that happened?”

“It's true.”

“Oh, okay. Just checking.”

How does anyone ever really know that someone is telling the truth? People make up shit all the time. They swear to god on their grandmother's dead body to be telling the truth. I've accidentally lied at least seven times since I woke up. It's so easy to lie. You just open up your mouth and start saying whatever the hell feels good to say.

If they don't lie to anyone else, you're the only one who has the info. They can say, “I didn't say that.” It's their word against yours.

Sometimes people find out the truth behind lies and it rattles their entire life. “I never loved your mother.” “We lived on Indian burial grounds.” “The cat didn't run away . . .”

He's lying. He must be.

A brother is listed as a “family member” on Facebook. I email and I use my expired
Daily Show
credentials—“I'm a reporter for a cable news show”—to look like some sort of legitimate journalist. I tell him that I'm working with Scott on his life story but am confused as to what I am supposed to do with the information that he had killed nine people.

His brother responds,
“Yeah, he keeps saying that.”
It's a long and very cordial email. It ends with
“Cancer is the least of his troubles.”

“WHAT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? IS HE LYING? HE DOESN'T HAVE CANCER BUT HE IS A KILLER?” I never hear back from him and he erases our correspondence.

As I'm freaking out, I hear a super-cheerful tune, “The Bear Went Over the Mountain.” Leo has become obsessed with a tiny plastic keyboard that has only five piano keys on it. The only song you could play if you really wanted to would be the
Jaws
shark-attack song. The rest of the toy keyboard plays prerecorded songs. There's a light-jazz version of “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” that Leo loves. He hits the button and scrambles to get up on his feet so he can dance to it. He moves like an eighty-five-year-old black man getting the spirit. The song is only six seconds long . . . “The bear went over the mountain—the bear goes over the mountain . . . yeah!” As soon it's over, he plops down on the ground, hits the button, and hurries to his feet. By the time he can stand up, there's only a few seconds of the song left. It breaks my heart to see him trying so hard to get up to dance. He could do it forever, and I could watch forever.

I snap back to my murderer. What did his brother mean “Cancer is the least of his troubles”? I break down and ask David. “It means he's lying about everything and is just a lonely drunk who has your attention!” I'm starting to agree with David. Except that I would add “who killed nine people” at the end of the thought.

David asks me if I'm still talking to Scott directly.

“Oh god, no! He's crazy,” I tell him. David doesn't believe me.

“He wanted your attention, and look, he got it. You're taking dumb risks.”

I remind David that I once was a volunteer in our nation's most violent jail, LA County. I know how to handle myself.

“You gave our home address to a gang member.”

That was true. I had done that. My quick “that was a joke address” after I'd given her the cross streets had saved our lives.

David gives me a sad look and leaves the apartment. I have no idea where David is going. He could be going out to rob a bank.

He walks back into the apartment and says, “You are the only person I know who can be friends with a serial killer and not think it's a horrible thing.”

“You know why?” I tell him. “It's because I'm aware of life and its complications and want to accept it all.”

Scott was clearly unstable. Maybe the 654 people I told the story to were right and I needed to put an end to all of this.

Just one last question.

“Hey, Scott. Yeah, it is hot here. But it's hard to complain when it's 120 degrees in Palm Springs, right? Anyway, my life is starting to get pretty busy over here so I need to get down to it. Why aren't you scared of prosecution?”

“Hey, Lauren. I just looked up Palm Springs weather and you were right. It's 120 there. That is hot.”