Empty Promises

to any conversation she might have with a stranger. It was part of her job to make diners feel welcome, but Pat was primed to discourage any men who approached her.
    Lehn had given Kathi some “diamonds,” but she and her stepfather had begun to wonder how he could afford expensive gems on his salary. She had the stones appraised, and both turned out to be fakes. In fact, everything about him was either threatening or phony. Kathi was miserable in the suffocating affair, and she tried to break it off only to find out, too late, that it was almost impossible to get free of Lehn.
    Her stepfather verified that she was sure it was Lehn who damaged her Mazda, especially since Kathi knew he had almost destroyed his former girlfriend’s car when she had attempted to break up with him. “I thought she’d broken off with him completely,” Kathi’s stepfather said. “But I saw Pat at Kathi’s condo about two weeks ago.” And Kathi assured her stepfather that she wasn’t afraid of Pat Lehn; she was positive she could defuse his anger. She said he had some of her things and she had worked too hard to just let him walk away with her possessions.
    Don Cameron studied the results of the postmortem examinations on the two homicide victims. Three-year-old Kris Haugen had succumbed to massive head injuries that were consistent with his having been kicked in the head. The homicide sergeant sighed when he read that there had been six separate identifiable blows to the youngster’s head and neck. The imprint on his forehead had probably been made by a ring with a distinctive pattern.
    Kathi Jones had sustained fatal brain-stem injuries and facial fractures. Like her son’s, her neck appeared to have been stomped on as well as kicked. She had been hit or kicked so many times about the head and neck that it was impossible to count the blows; Dr. Eisele was able to isolate only eight to ten areas of trauma.
    Neither Kathi nor her small son had a chance of survival once their attacker had started to pummel and kick them. The child must have run after his mother when she fled her car. She was probably trying to lead Lehn away from her little boy, even if it meant losing her own life.
    Now that the detectives knew they were dealing with the aftermath of the jealousy and rage exhibited by the classic stalking ex-lover, they set about reconstructing the last evening of the lives of Kathi and Kris. It wouldn’t change the ending, but the full scenario might help a judge or a jury to decide the fate of a heartless killer.
    They talked with the owner of L’Tastevin, the restaurant where Kathi worked on the last night of her life. Her employer recalled that her shift as a hostess at the front desk ended at 12:30 A.M. She had received a phone call around 7:00 P.M. , and the co-owner of L’Tastevin had overheard her side of the conversation. He recalled that Kathi seemed quite upset, but he wasn’t sure why. She couldn’t hide her distress, but she hadn’t confided the details of the call to the owner.
    “Did she talk to anyone here—any of the other employees?” John Boatman asked.
    “No, she wasn’t close enough to anyone here to share really personal things,” the co-owner said. He also said that Kathi parked her car in the restaurant lot, but to his knowledge, no employees or diners had witnessed the removal of the lug nuts from her wheels while she was at work inside. At least, nobody reported it.
    Kathi’s sister told the detectives that she always took care of Kris while Kathi worked. On March 29, Kathi took her little boy to her sister’s home a little before 4:00 P.M. She returned to pick him up at 1:10 A.M. “She said she was late because the lug nuts had been taken off her wheels and she had to get help to put them back on,” the victim’s sister said. “Kathi said she hoped Pat wasn’t up to his stuff again.”
    “Did she say anything about receiving a phone call at work that upset her?” Detective Boatman asked. “Did she mention Pat again?”
    “No. Nothing about a call. Nothing more about Pat. She just stayed to visit for a while, and then they left to go home.”
    Apparently Kathi Jones had been angry over the missing lug nuts, but she was not overly frightened. She had bundled up her little boy in clown pajamas, packed him and his overnight bag into the car, and driven to a convenience store to get milk and eggs for Sunday breakfast, a breakfast she would never cook.
    Another former boyfriend of the