Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

$100,000 on computer ware.
    He began to buy “collectible currency” on eBay and attempted to sell it at considerable profit. He attended conventions with others who were fascinated by coins and bills that were either history-laden or the result of mint mistakes that had slipped through before production stopped.
    One currency convention in Tennessee led to his next preoccupation: genealogy. Bill developed an intense interest in his family’s genealogy, searching out the Pate family (that was his birth surname). He traced that name back to Tennessee and a man named John O. Pate, who was thought to be Bill’s great-grandfather. In the late 1890s, locals described John Pate as “mean looking, with a handle-bar mustache.” Although he had a wife, he was involved with a woman whose last name was Crowder. When his mistress was unfaithful to him, John O. Pate was enraged.
    The Crowder woman fled his wrath, only to meet up with Pate on the trail across Tennessee’s Big Bald Mountain. In what historians called “a brutal murder and mutilation,” Pate killed her. John O. Pate was about fifty at the time. He hid out in a cave on the northwest slope of Big Bald Mountain, and Margaret, his forgiving wife, brought him food. When lawmen caught up with him, he refused to come out until they threatened to toss dynamite into the cave. He was convicted on murder charges and served either nine or twenty years in a Tennessee prison, depending on which genealogy you read. Thereafter, he stayed clear of the law.
    Riley Pate, who may also have been related to Bill Jensen, was sentenced to death in 1896 for the shooting of a fifteen-year-old youth who had thrown a rock at him when he was drunk. Mat Hensley, the victim, died of wounds to the “lungs and liver.”
    Although Bill Jensen had never considered himself a Pate, he was intrigued by his possible connections to the Tennessee Pates.
     
    As Bill Jensen immersed himself in one near obsession after another, Bill and Sue grew further apart. She had come to a place where she simply quit trying to get him to do chores around their home and just did them herself. As far as their children knew, they were still a close family. Some days, Sue vowed to try harder; on others, she tried to cope with the desolate feeling that comes with an increasingly empty relationship. She concentrated on Jenny and Scott.
    Bill continued to coach Jenny’s teams. Sue worked hard to retain family traditions for her children’s sake.
    The Jensens hosted their traditional Halloween parties, where Bill invariably dressed up as a homicidal maniac, his skin and clothes stained with fake blood.
    And everyone laughed.
    Bill’s gun safe held at least seventeen weapons, a few of them the gold-plated Centennial guns, but most were firearms he’d bought or traded.
    If the delicate balance in the marriage could just stay suspended where it was, there was always the chance that the Jensens could stay together in some kind of détente.
    And then, on July 23, 1997, their lives changed dramatically and there was no going back. Ever.
    *Some names have been changed. The first time they appear, they are marked with an asterisk.

Two
Secrets and Lies
    It was full, hot summer in Washington State in July 1997, and Bill Jensen continued to work as a court security officer in Issaquah, in the shadows of Snoqualmie Pass. It seemed to be a much safer assignment than patrolling at night in a one-man sheriff’s patrol car.
    But it wasn’t.
    Court was under way when a fugitive from the law who was armed and intoxicated entered the Issaquah courthouse through an unauthorized entrance. Bill ordered him to stop, and at first, he did. He gave his name as William Martin. Bill led him back to the desk area where he was stationed.
    He ran Martin’s name through the WASIC police computers and found that there were warrants out for Martin’s arrest. Realizing that he’d been found out, Martin fled down two flights of stairs and was outside the courthouse and in his car when Bill caught up with him. Bill grabbed Martin through the window and held on tight, but the escapee managed to get his car started. He threw his vehicle into reverse, dragging Bill with him until Bill was forced to release his grip and fell heavily.
    “He put a big dent in my knee,” Bill said later. He recalled that he ached all over the following day, but expected he would heal within several days.
    But he didn’t. Unfortunately, Bill Jensen’s right knee