CASE 1: SLEEP TIGHT
At first glance, she looked like a saint: Dorothea Puente rented out rooms to the elderly and disabled in Sacramento, California, in the 1980s. But then, her boarders started to vanish. Seven bodies were found buried in the garden, and traces of prescription sleeping pills were found in the remains, through forensic toxicology analysis. Puente was charged with killing her boarders so that she could take their pension checks and get herself plastic surgery and expensive clothing, in order to maintain her image as a doyenne of Sacramento society. She was charged with nine murders and convicted of three.
In 1998, while serving two consecutive life sentences, Puente began corresponding with a writer named Shane Bugbee and sending him recipes, which were subsequently published in a book called Cooking with a Serial Killer.
Call me crazy, but I wouldnāt touch that food with a ten-foot pole.
1
Emma
Everywhere I look, there are signs of a struggle. The mail has been scattered all over the kitchen floor; the stools are overturned. The phone has been knocked off its pedestal, its battery pack hanging loose from an umbilicus of wires. Thereās one single faint footprint at the threshold of the living room, pointing toward the dead body of my son, Jacob.
He is sprawled like a starfish in front of the fireplace. Blood covers his temple and his hands. For a moment, I canāt move, canāt breathe.
Suddenly, he sits up. āMom,ā Jacob says, āyouāre not even trying.ā
This is not real, I remind myself, and I watch him lie back down in the exact same positionāon his back, his legs twisted to the left.
āUm, there was a fight,ā I say.
Jacobās mouth barely moves. āAnd . . . ?ā
āYou were hit in the head.ā I get down on my knees, like heās told me to do a hundred times, and notice the crystal clock that usually sits on the mantel now peeking out from beneath the couch. I gingerly pick it up and see blood on the corner. With my pinkie, I touch the liquid and then taste it. āOh, Jacob, donāt tell me you used up all my corn syrup againāā
āMom! Focus!ā
I sink down on the couch, cradling the clock in my hands. āRobbers came in, and you fought them off.ā
Jacob sits up and sighs. The food dye and corn syrup mixture has matted his dark hair; his eyes are shining, even though they wonāt meet mine. āDo you honestly believe Iād execute the same crime scene twice?ā He unfolds a fist, and for the first time I see a tuft of corn silk hair. Jacobās father is a towheadāor at least he was when he walked out on us fifteen years ago, leaving me with Jacob and Theo, his brand-new, blond baby brother.
āTheo killed you?ā
āSeriously, Mom, a kindergartner could have solved this case,ā Jacob says, jumping to his feet. Fake blood drips down the side of his face, but he doesnāt notice; when he is intensely focused on crime scene analysis, I think a nuclear bomb could detonate beside him and heād never flinch. He walks toward the footprint at the edge of the carpet and points. Now, at second glance, I notice the waffle tread of the Vans skateboarding sneakers that Theo saved up to buy for months, and the latter half of the company logoāNSāburned into the rubber sole. āThere was a confrontation in the kitchen,ā Jacob explains. āIt ended with the phone being thrown in defense, and me being chased into the living room, where Theo clocked me.ā
At that, I have to smile a little. āWhere did you hear that term?ā
āCrimeBusters, episode forty-three.ā
āWell, just so you knowāit means to punch someone. Not hit them with an actual clock.ā
Jacob blinks at me, expressionless. He lives in a literal world; itās one of the hallmarks of his diagnosis. Years ago, when we were moving to Vermont, he asked what it was like. Lots of green, I said, and rolling hills. At that, he burst into tears. Wonāt they hurt us? he said.
āBut whatās the motive?ā I ask, and on cue, Theo thunders down the stairs.
āWhereās the freak?ā he yells.
āTheo, you will not call your brotherāā
āHow about I stop calling him a freak when he stops stealing things out of my room?ā I have instinctively stepped between him and his brother, although Jacob is a head taller than both of us.
āI didnāt steal anything from your room,ā Jacob says.
āOh, really? What about my sneakers?ā
āThey were in the mudroom,ā Jacob qualifies.
āRetard,ā Theo says under his breath, and I see a flash of fire in Jacobās eyes.
āI am not retarded,ā he growls, and he lunges for his brother.
I hold him off with an outstretched arm. āJacob,ā I say, āyou shouldnāt take anything that belongs to Theo without asking for his permission. And Theo, I donāt want to hear that word come out of your mouth again, or Iām going to take your sneakers and throw them out with the trash. Do I make myself clear?ā
āIām outta here,ā Theo mutters, and he stomps toward the mudroom. A moment later I hear the door slam.
I follow Jacob into the kitchen and watch him back into a corner. āWhat we got here,ā Jacob mutters, his voice a sudden drawl, āis . . . failure to communicate.ā He crouches down, hugging his knees.
When he cannot find the words for how he feels, he borrows someone elseās. These come from Cool Hand Luke; Jacob remembers the dialogue from every movie heās ever seen.
Iāve met so many parents of kids who are on the low end of the autism spectrum, kids who are diametrically opposed to Jacob, with his Aspergerās. They tell me Iām lucky to have a son whoās so verbal, who is blisteringly intelligent, who can take apart the broken microwave and have it working again an hour later. They think there is no greater hell than having a son who is locked in his own world, unaware that thereās a wider one to explore. But try having a son who is locked in his own world and still wants to make a connection. A son who tries to be like everyone else but truly doesnāt know how.
I reach out to comfort him but stop myselfāa light touch can set Jacob off. He doesnāt like handshakes or pats on the back or someone ruffling his hair. āJacob,ā I begin, and then I realize that he isnāt sulking at all. He holds up the telephone receiver heās been hunched over, so that I can see the smudge of black on the side. āYou missed a fingerprint, too,ā Jacob says cheerfully. āNo offense, but you would make a lousy crime scene investigator.ā He rips a sheet of paper towel off the roll, dampens it in the sink. āDonāt worry, Iāll clean up all the blood.ā
āYou never did tell me Theoās motive for killing you.ā
āOh.ā Jacob glances over his shoulder, a wicked grin spreading across his face. āI stole his sneakers.ā
* * *
In my mind, Aspergerās is a label to describe not the traits Jacob has but rather the ones he lost. It was sometime around two years old when he began to drop words, to stop making eye contact, to avoid connections with people. He couldnāt hear us, or he didnāt want to. One day I looked at him, lying on the floor beside a Tonka truck. He was spinning its wheels, his face only inches away, and I thought, Where have you gone?
I made excuses for his behavior: the reason he huddled in the bottom of the grocery cart every time we went shopping was that it was cold in the supermarket. The tags I had to cut out of his clothing were unusually scratchy. When he could not seem to connect with any children at his preschool, I organized a no-holds-barred birthday party for him, complete with water balloons and Pin the Tail on the Donkey. About a half hour into the celebration, I suddenly realized that Jacob was missing. I was six months pregnant and hystericalāother parents began to search the yard, the street, the house. I was the one who found him, sitting in the basement, repeatedly inserting and ejecting a VCR tape.
When he was diagnosed, I burst into tears. Remember, this was back in 1995; the only experience Iād had with autism was Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. According to the psychiatrist we first met, Jacob suffered from an impairment in social communication and behavior, without the language deficit that was a hallmark of other forms of autism. It wasnāt until years later that we even heard the word Aspergerāsāit just wasnāt on anyoneās diagnostic radar yet. But by then, Iād had Theo, and Henryāmy exāhad moved out. He was a computer programmer who worked at home and couldnāt stand the tantrums Jacob would throw when the slightest thing set him off: a bright light in the bathroom, the sound of the UPS truck coming down the gravel driveway, the texture of his breakfast cereal. By then, Iād completely devoted myself to Jacobās early intervention therapistsāa parade of people who would come to our house intent on dragging him out of his own little world. I want my house back, Henry told me. I want you back.
But I had already noticed how, with the behavioral therapy and speech therapy, Jacob had begun to communicate again. I could see the improvement. Given that, there wasnāt even a choice to make.
The night Henry left, Jacob and I sat at the kitchen table and played a game. I made a face, and he tried to guess which emotion went with it. I smiled, even though I was crying, and waited for Jacob to tell me I was happy.
Henry lives with his new family in the Silicon Valley. He works for Apple and he rarely speaks to the boys, although he sends a check faithfully every month for child support. But then again, Henry was always good with organization. And numbers. His ability to memorize a New York Times article and quote it verbatimāwhich had seemed so academically sexy when we were datingāwasnāt all that different from the way Jacob could memorize the entire TV schedule by the time he was six. It wasnāt until years after Henry was gone that I diagnosed him with a dash of Aspergerās, too.
Thereās a lot of fuss about whether or not Aspergerās is on the autism spectrum, but to be honest, it doesnāt matter. Itās a term we use to get Jacob the accommodations he needs in school, not a label to explain who he is. If you met him now, the first thing youād notice is that he might have forgotten to change his shirt from yesterday or to brush his hair. If you talk to him, youāll have to be the one to start the conversation. He wonāt look you in the eye. And if you pause to speak to someone else for a brief moment, you might turn back to find that Jacobās left the room.
* * *
Saturdays, Jacob and I go food shopping.
Itās part of his routine, which means we rarely stray from it. Anything new has to be introduced early on and prepared forāwhether thatās a dentist appointment or a vacation or a transfer student joining his math class midyear. I knew that heād have his faux crime scene completely cleaned up before eleven oāclock, because thatās when the Free Sample Lady sets up her table in the front of the Townsend Food Co-op. She recognizes Jacob by sight now and usually gives him two mini egg rolls or bruschetta rounds or whatever else sheās plying that week.
Theoās not back, so Iāve left him a noteāalthough he knows the schedule as well as I do. By the time I grab my coat and purse, Jacob is already sitting in the backseat. He likes it there, because he can spread out. He doesnāt have a driverās license, although we argue about it regularly, since heās eighteen and was eligible to get his license two years ago. He knows all the mechanical workings of a traffic light, and could probably take one apart and put it back together, but I am not entirely convinced that in a situation where there were several other cars zooming by in different directions, heād be able to remember whether to stop or go at any given intersection.
āWhat do you have left for homework?ā I ask, as we pull out of the driveway.
āStupid English.ā
āEnglish isnāt stupid,ā I say.
āWell, my English teacher is.ā He makes a face. āMr. Franklin assigned an essay about our favorite subject, and I wanted to write about lunch, but he wonāt let me.ā
āWhy not?ā
āHe says lunch isnāt a subject.ā
I glance at him. āIt isnāt.ā
āWell,ā Jacob says, āitās not a predicate, either. Shouldnāt he know that?ā
I stifle a smile. Jacobās literal reading of the world can be, depending on the circumstances, either very funny or very frustrating. In the rearview mirror, I see him press his thumb against the car window. āItās too cold for fingerprints,ā I say offhandedlyāa fact heās taught me.
āBut do you know why?ā
āUm.ā I look at him. āEvidence breaks down when itās below freezing?ā
āCold constricts the sweat pores,ā Jacob says, āso excretions are reduced, and that means matter wonāt stick to the surface and leave a latent print on the glass.ā
āThat was my second guess,ā I j...