Mortal Danger

taking them and taking them.”
    Whether he had told his psychiatrist about all the other pills he was taking, only Daniel knew. He certainly hadn’t confided about his alcohol and illegal drug use.
    While her new husband had been a “real good” lover and companion right after they were married, he had become more “aggressive” and she felt he “manhandled” her the morning of the murders. Now she gave an accurate timetable.
    Daniel hadn’t slept at all on Friday night. And he hadn’t come home at 8:30 either. He had called Jennifer to say he was on his way several times, but he hadn’t come home until 1:00 a.m., “raging” about being attacked by two of her ex-boyfriends. And that was odd because she had broken up with Eddie twelve years earlier and almost as long ago with Todd.
    She was angry with Daniel. He had promised to take her on Friday night to one of the many Indian casinos that abound in Washington.
    Detective Mark Merod joined in the questioning of Jennifer Lynn Tavares. She was either being evasive or she had a terrible memory. At first she said she hadn’t learned that Daniel had killed Bev and Brian until later on Saturday. She didn’t know if she’d heard gunshots, but she’d heard “something” and peeked out her window around 7:00 a.m.
    “I just looked and I didn’t see nothin’.”
    “See Daniel?”
    “Didn’t see Daniel, no,” she said. “I just kinda had this feeling, but then I was scared ’cause I met him when he was in prison, and I didn’t know what he was gonna be like. I believed he was a good person, didn’t think anything was gonna happen. And now this. I was scared. I was pretty much told by him not to say anything. I was afraid it would happen to me—like them .”
    Daniel hadn’t told her what he had done—he’d said only that the Maucks were “gone.” She said she’d had no idea beforehand what he had planned to do. When he left their trailer just as the winter sun was giving off pale light at about 7:00 a.m., he’d said he was going out to use the “honey bucket.” He’d been gone awhile, but she hadn’t heard the door of the outhouse squeaking as it usually did.
    “When he came back,” Jennifer said, “he acted real agitated and kinda freaky.”
    She estimated he’d been gone for twenty minutes.
    Jennifer recalled her husband saying something like, “They were running their mouths” and “They won’t do that anymore.” Then he had warned her not to call the cops on him, threatening her with reprisal if she did.
    “All I could think of was, ‘Oh, my God, my whole family’s here; I can’t have something happen to them. My little nephews and everything, because I’m the stupid fucker that met him. And I believed he was so great…’”
    Jennifer was either totally afraid of Daniel or pretending to be. She was definitely in shock to find herself at the sheriff’s office. When Ben Benson asked her why she hadn’t told the deputies or detectives what she knew on Saturday, she explained she knew Daniel could break out of jail and overcome cops.
    He had threatened her and her family if she told anyone. Gradually, Jennifer modified her memories of Saturday, November 17. She admitted that she knew the Maucks were dead within fifteen minutes of the murders.
    Daniel had been eager to leave the Freitas property. They couldn’t drive her red Ford Explorer because two tires on one side were flat, so they borrowed a car from Jeff and Kristel and drove to Point Defiance Park, along Five Mile Drive. They had been married there four months earlier in the summer sunshine in a sylvan setting at one of the turnoffs. That was a much happier day.
    Point Defiance extends high above the Tacoma Narrows and Commencement Bay, and the cliffs are steep there. She was driving and followed his directions to turn into the spot where they’d promised to love and cherish each other. On this day, there was no sunshine, no romance, and thewind carried sheets of rain over the cliffs. Daniel had told her that he needed to walk down a path to urinate. She watched as he disappeared into a thicket of evergreens. He was back within minutes and had seemed a little calmer.
    Before going home, they’d gone shopping at Big Lots, a discount store, and eaten at a Mexican restaurant.
    The two Pierce County detectives refused to believe that Jennifer had no idea what Daniel was doing when he walked down the trail to the cliffs. She finally said she had asked him if he had