Winter of frozen dreams (9 page)

Both tenants were students, and neither could identify Berge or Davies as men they had seen in the hallway or in the building at any other time.

According to Jerry Davies, Barbara changed her phone number regularly. The telephone company confirmed this pattern. In 1977 alone Barbara Hoffman had changed her phone number five times. Jerry Davies had no explanation for Barbaras curious obsession. He simply wrote down the current number on a piece of paper he carried in his wallet, for the number changed too often to bother memorizing.

Under power of a court order, Barbara Hoffman's school records were obtained and studied.

If it is possible to apply mathematical formulas and numerical judgment to as elusive and precarious a concept as intelligence, then Barbara Hoffman had to be classified as brilliant. The Stanford-Binet test, administered during her sophomore year in high school, placed her IQ at 145. Her college entrance examination scores put her in the ninety-eighth percentile of those tested. Straight As were the rule of her scholastic record. She was in the National Honor Society. She spent her junior year of high school in Germany on an AFS scholarship. She was a National Merit finalist. She was fluent in French and German.

In 1970 Barbara graduated from Maine South High School in Park Ridge and was ranked eighteenth in a senior class of 482 students. She matriculated at Butler University, where she received a full-tuition scholarship. She made the Deans List, joined a sorority, and continued

earning straight As. The school in Indianapolis, however, did not suit her. She transferred to the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and shortly thereafter transferred to the University of Wisconsin.

Madison seemed to have arrested her aimlessness. For two years she was a quiet student who compiled an outstanding academic record. Biochemistry was her major field of study. She earned As in organic chemistry, biochemistry, physics, statistics, and microbiology. In 1973 she was awarded a summer scholarship to the University of Utah to assist in research on protein synthesis. Her transcript reflected the mind of a bright student with a strong aptitude for sciences. Her 3.9 GPA indicated a deep grasp of the subject material and excellent work habits. Her potential was unlimited. Future options included graduate school or medical school or a research position in private industry.

On November 15, 1974, a paltry twelve credits shy of a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry, Barbara Hoffman became a college dropout. A letter seeking a leave of absence due to illness was submitted, and the request was granted. Barbara enrolled for the 1975 spring term but withdrew in April, one month short of the semesters completion. She registered for the fall term with the intention of finishing her degree and quit after five weeks of course work. The spring semester, 1976, followed the same pattern. The deans office issued Barbara an extension on her leave of absence, but with the comment that the student had been advised to resume her degree program immediately, for requirements were continually modified and continued delay would retard her progress toward graduation. Barbara registered for the fall term, 1976, and dropped out again.

A chagrined dean placed Barbara on permanent leave and declared that future efforts at a degree in biochemistry would have to be undertaken on probationary status. For the spring of 1977 Barbara enrolled as a nondegree student, signing up for a class in abnormal psychology. She withdrew after three weeks. In the fall of that year

she enrolled as a nondegree student for another abnormal psychology course, which she quit after one month.

At a smaller educational institution such inconsistency might have earned more careful scrutiny. For the fall term, 1977, the University of Wisconsin-Madison numbered over forty thousand students. In population the campus would have qualified as the eighth-largest city in the state. The machinations of a confused individual easily escaped detection by the bureaucracy. In two-and-a-half years as a degree-directed student, Barbara Hoffman had one meeting with her academic adviser. An assistant dean discussed her muddled academic record with her and suggested career orientation services or psychological counseling if she thought either of those avenues was appropriate. Barbaras response was a polite "no thank you."

For fifteen years Barbara had excelled at school, but in November 1974 she sputtered and stalled. That date coincided with her employment in Madison s massage parlors.

Pieces of Barbara Hoffman continued to emerge, but rather than clarify, these fragments added to the enigma.

She had formed no strong friendships at work. The women at EDS Federal who shared office space with Barbara considered her polite and quiet. She never spoke about her personal life. Detectives working on the investigation were confounded. No one seemed to know Barbara. Her apartment held no mementos, no sentimental artifacts. There were no pictures of family or friends anywhere in the apartment; only the pornographic photographs were found. She was perspicacious and poised, and she had scuttled a professional career to satisfy the sexual whims of any horny man who walked through the door. It didn't fit into a neat puzzle.

What about drug use? Vice officers presumed that most women who toiled in the flesh trade used some form of intoxicant to get by. A prescription pill bottle for Dal-mane, a sedative, had been found during one of the apartment searches, as had a small amount of marijuana.

Lulling put out word to vice and to other detectives

that the investigation needed a lead on Hoffman. The word he got back was that the streets were mum regarding the Berge homicide and Lullings only suspect. The skin business in Madison was a closed universe, and much of what happened filtered back to the cops in vice through informants. A murder pulled off by someone in the massage parlor clique would have tongues wagging with speculation, innuendo, hearsay. Someone in a jam would be apt to swap what he or she had heard for leniency regarding a parole violation or for help with a bust or a sentence reduction.

But the silence on the streets was as eerie as the wind howling off the snow-crusted hills of Tomahawk Ridge. No one talked about the murder. No one tried to purchase a favor with a piece of knowledge concerning it. Yet everyone in the city's sex world knew Barbara Hoffman. She was the queen of the parlors, vice had been told, and they were told nothing more.

— 21 —

Hockey games on the radio, sausage pizzas and large Cokes, the twang of a pedal steel guitar at Johnnys Packer Inn, and on Fridays after work the ride west on U.S. 14, where two lanes of traffic whizzed to and from Madison at sixty miles per hour, slowing for small towns—Cross Plains, Black Earth, Arena, Mazomanie—accelerating again through the Wisconsin River valley, through a countryside of snow fences and denuded oak trees, where billboards shone under spotlights as round as cows eyes, touting the wonders of the House on the Rock, or Taliesin, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, or the Circus World Museum in Baraboo; Jerry Davies pondered his lonely winter and winced. He had been through the motions before. The script varied little each year, but never had it appeared so dreary.

On Fridays he would treat his mother to the fish fry

at a local restaurant in Spring Green. On Saturday nights he left her home and attended the high school basketball games: River Valley versus Fennimore or Boscobel or De Soto. And should the game be on the road, he'd travel the twenty miles to an opponents gym. The spectacle as well as the sport entranced Davies—the ponytailed cheerleaders launched airborne with every score, the players outfitted in gaudy polyester, the tall, gawky center in crew cut and squeaky shoes, the smattering of applause from bleachers one-third full, mostly farmers in overalls watching their sons run and shoot. They nodded hello to Jerry. He nodded back.

It had not been easy before Barbara. It might be impossible without her. Jerry Davies had never realized the depth of his loneliness until she had fondled his cock and his heart. When he spurted into her hand, it was like shedding a skin. He felt new. He remained the same. The paradox hurt. Things inside him had been irrevocably altered. His ordinary life appeared hollow without the thought of Barbaras touch.

When he had sought her company at Jan's he had been desperate, and through an unspoken admission Barbara relayed that she was desperate too. She wanted his companionship. Jerry Davies was disbelieving and baffled and thrilled.

"Barbara Hoffman." Davies rolled the name on his tongue and tasted flavors he had never tasted before. How was he to push forward without her company, her voice, her haphazard affections? His head ached.

On New Years Day 1978 Jerry Davies drove to his mother's home in Spring Green. He watched football games on the TV and feasted on the meal she had prepared.

It was after midnight when he returned to Madison. In his mailbox was a missive from Barbara. She wrote that adversity should push them together, not rend them apart. Would he pick her up in the morning and drive her to work, as previously? She'd be waiting in the stairwell.

On the second morning of 1978 Jerry Daviess stom-

ach jittered. He drank a cup of instant coffee and painted his underarms with stick deodorant. Perhaps the winter would bring reconciliation and the spring recovery.

22

Kensington Drive is imbued with the serenity of a country lane. There are no sidewalks to shovel, no curbs to trip over. The houses are two-story and elegant, built of flagstone or brown brick, and feature bay windows, porches framed with scrolled, wrought-iron railings, bedroom balconies. Volvos topped with ski racks or Buicks or Cadillacs or Mercedes frequent the plowed driveways. The tennis courts in the backyards are knee-deep with snow. The quiet is pervasive.

Maple Bluff, which includes Kensington Drive, is an unincorporated village encompassed by the city of Madison and a shelter for its property owners from the city's exorbitant tax rate. The village curves along a couple of miles of lakefront and comprises maybe two hundred homes. The community employs its own police force and a public works department whose function is to collect refuse, plow the streets, maintain the village beach, and cultivate the village tulip gardens. There is no intrusion from the city into village affairs. Maple Bluff is an island of affluence and exclusivity, with a population as white as Januarys snow.

When Ken Curtis purchased the colonial home at 1651 Kensington Drive, the neighbors welcomed him. The presumption was that anyone who could afford to live in Maple Bluff belonged there. Curtis could afford the address. He harbored no notions about belonging. The new Lincoln Mark IV Continentals—one burgundy, one black—parked in the driveway attested to his success, and the elaborate alarm system installed shortly after he moved in indicated that he had something to protect.

What impressed neighbors foremost was the power

exuded by Curtiss physical presence. At 6'2" and 240 pounds, he appeared constructed of mortar and brick. His thighs stretched the seams of his jeans. His back flared broad, latissimus to the extreme. Biceps bulged at the slightest contraction. Shoulders as thick as cinder blocks were slapped aside an expansive chest, and his neck jutted like a pylon from a mass of trapezius muscle. Curtis did not walk; he swaggered. Intimidation and strength were a part of his carriage. Ken Curtis had watched thirty years come and go, and the experiences of that span had toughened his face but not wearied it. His eyes were icy green. Rather than look at people, he appraised them. A blond beard, well groomed, edged his jaw. His hair was a shade darker and was combed straight back, which revealed the small knot of scar at the left corner of his forehead. In leather jacket and boots, straddling a Harley-Davidson, Curtis would have embodied the quintessential outlaw biker aiming for trouble. In a Brooks Brothers suit he could have passed for a football jock tackling the corporate ladder.

Ken Curtis was neither. T-shirts, sweatshirts, dungarees were his usual garb. Curtis had little book knowledge, but he was smart and loaded with street sense. He owned or co-owned four massage parlors in Madison, including Jans Health Spa. Moreover, the vice cops suspected him of involvement with drug traffic, fencing stolen merchandise and credit cards, dealing in unregistered weapons, and any of a half dozen other illegal scams. Some people in Madison's law enforcement community regarded Curtis as a punk, a hood with few smarts and a lot of guts. Others held a loftier opinion of Curtiss prowess. Curtis owned a large percentage of the skin trade in the city. He owned property. He knew how to hide and launder his monies. There was nothing small-time about Ken Curtis.

On January 9, 1978, Chuck Lulling pushed the doorbell of Curtiss Kensington Drive home. It was 11:00 a.m. Lazy loops of smoke swirled from the chimney. The upstairs blinds rattled. With a second ring the door opened.

A Hispanic woman in a red sweatshirt large enough to be a cocoon asked what he wanted. Lulling showed her his badge. He wanted Ken Curtis. The woman yawned. "Not home," she said and gently shut the door.

Lulling scratched his chin. He heard her bare feet thump the carpet as she ran upstairs. He waited a minute and rang the bell again. A scowling Ken Curtis flung the door wide and invited Lulling into the kitchen.

"Want some coffee?"

"No, thanks. IVe got a few questions for you. It'll take a couple seconds."

Curtis grumbled at the detective. He didn't like having his sleep disturbed. Anytime before noon was an unreasonable hour to him.

"Whatever it is you're asking about," Curtis said, "I don't know anything about it."

Lulling reminded Curtis of his recent arrest for possession of an unregistered firearm.

"My lawyer'll get that tossed out of court," Curtis snorted. "Illegal search. Harassment without due cause. It's pending."

"The matter can be dropped very easily," said Lulling.

"You want a free blowjob at Jan's, Chuck?" laughed Curtis.

"I want to know about Barbara Hoffman," said Lulling.

"Never heard of the lady."

The detective reminded him of Hoffman's working history.