O Is for Outlaw

catapulted from these grim beginnings to her current wealth. Had she been married before? In those days, a rich husband was the obvious means by which a woman could elevate her social standing and improve her prospects. She certainly must have been eager to bail herself out of this.
    While I was still in range of the central city, I located the Jefferson County clerk's office in the courthouse between Fifth and Sixth streets on West Jefferson. The fellow at the desk couldn't have been more helpful when I told him what I needed: the marriage certificate for Darlene LaDestro, and Mark Bethel, who I believed had been married in the summer of 1965. I couldn't give him the exact date, but I was remembering the line I'd picked up from Mark's secretary, Judy, who told me he'd enlisted in the army right after his college graduation. What would have been more natural than to marry Laddie that summer, before he went overseas? I was also operating on the theory that Laddie (aka Darlene LaDestro) was an obvious choice for one of Duncan's interviews. She was young, she was lovely, she was local. She would have been easy to approach, since they lived in the same town and he'd known her for years. Duncan's press credentials were dated September 10, 1965. If he'd talked to Laddie at all, it was probably sometime between her marriage, Mark's departure, and his own flight to Vietnam soon afterward.
    Fifteen minutes later, I experienced one of those exhilarating moments of satisfaction when, sure enough, the clerk found the marriage record.
    "Oh, wow. This is great. Isn't this amazing?" I said.
    The clerk's look was jaded. "I'm completely stunned. "
    I laughed. "Well, I like being right, especially when I'm flying by the seat of my pants."
    He leaned on the counter, his chin on his hand, looking on while I took out my cards and jotted down the information embedded in the form. The license was issued on June, 1965. Assuming it was good for thirty days, the wedding must have taken place within the month. Darlene LaDestro, age twenty-two and working as a bookkeeper, was the daughter of Harold and Millicent LaDestro and resided at the address listed in the 1961 telephone book. Mark Charles Bethel, age twenty-three, occupation U.S. Army, was the son of Vernon and Shirley Bethel with an address on Trevillian Way. Neither the bride nor the groom had been previously married.
    Idly, the clerk said, "You know who he is, don't you? "
    I looked up at him with interest. "Who, Mark Bethel? "
    "No, LaDestro."
    "I don't know a thing about him. What's the story?"
    "He was awarded the patent for some kind of widget used on the Mercury space flights."
    "And that's how he made his money?"
    "Sure. He's still famous around here. Self-taught, eccentric. He didn't even have connections to the aerospace industry. He just worked on his own. I saw a picture of him once, and he looked like a pointy-headed geek. He'd been tinkering all his life without making a dime. In hock up to here, living in a dump. Everybody wrote him off as a nut, and then he comes along and aces out McDonnell-Douglas for the rights to the thing. He died a rich man. I mean very, very rich. "
    "Well, I'll be darned," I said. "What was it, the thing he patented?"
    "Some doodad. Who knows? I heard it's in use to this day. The world is full of guys who design gizmos they never get credit for. LaDestro hired a patent attorney and took the big boys down."
    "Incredible."
    "His daughter sure lucked out. I hear she lives in California now on some fancy estate," he said. He pointed to the license. "You want a copy of that?"
    "How much?"
    "Two dollars for regular, five for certified."
    "Regular's fine," I said.
    I drove from Jefferson to Third, then hung a left on Broadway, driving east until it angled into Bardstown Road. I followed Bardstown Road through an area of town known as the Highlands. Once on Trevillian, I found the house where the Bethels had lived. The white frame house looked comfortable, not large but well maintained in a solid middle-class neighborhood, certainly superior to the one where Laddie'd grown up. I parked in front of the house, traversed the long sloping walk, and climbed the stairs to the porch. No one was home, but a simple check of the mailbox revealed that a family named Poynter now occupied the house. This was Donna Reed country: green shutters on the windows, pansies in the flower boxes, a tricycle on the sidewalk, and a dog bone lying in the yard. All the window-panes