Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

investments he and Sue shared, and his teaching salary, life was far from over for Bill Jensen at the age of forty-one.
    While it was true that teaching computer science might not have been as exciting or even as personally rewarding as being a cop, Bill had his family, a very comfortable home, and any number of options for the future.
    He taught at City University until June 2002. But from 1997 to 2001, Bill spent the rest of his time watching TV, sleeping, or off someplace participating in activities that Sue Jensen knew nothing about.
    In October 2000, a year after Bill retired from the sheriff’s office, Sue poured out her feelings in her journal, hoping that Bill might see what they would both lose, what their children would lose, if he didn’t make an attempt to resume their family life.
    “Bill,” she wrote, “today I attended my daughter’s basketball game—alone. I thought how sad it is, you have no idea. Will you wake up one day and just have no idea of what you have missed?”
    Another entry read: “I came home to find that you had finally gotten up at 12:30, unshaven and unbathed, to find you were not ‘up to’ attending Ryan’s wedding.
    “Sitting there alone in church made me realize how desperately I miss [your] companionship. I looked over at [a couple] holding hands and felt so very hurt.”
    Only special friends had been invited to the $100-a-plate reception after the close friend’s wedding, but Bill refused to accompany her. “I look back at the time with the Johnsons—which was probably the best [time] there has been in our marriage. We behaved as a couple and actually enjoyed each other’s company.”
    After working so hard for a year and a half, twelve-year-old Scott had triumphantly passed a karate test to move up to the next belt, but his father wasn’t there to see him glow with pride.
    “Again,” Sue wrote, “I thought how sad—for you to miss the hard work and drive he has fought for all of his life—a simple reward but so meaningful. I was so proud I cried. You chose to miss that moment in life.”
    “I always believed what Bill told me,” Sue later recalled with some exasperation. “It never occurred to me that he might be lying to me or be unfaithful. We had our problems—but I always trusted him.”
    Bill no longer participated in his children’s’ activities. He said he couldn’t coach Jenny anymore, or ride motorcycles with Scott. And that was probably true, but there were other ways he could have spent time with them. He occasionally went to Jenny’s ball games, limping in from his car and sitting on the bleachers. But that didn’t last long; if he couldn’t be the coach, he didn’t want to be there at all.
    Sue, Jenny, and Scott tiptoed around Bill, trying not to do or say anything that would set him off into a screaming tantrum. Scott’s tutor noticed how anxious and afraid Scott seemed, and he whispered to her that they couldn’t talk very loud because it would make his father angry.
    Even though Sue understood that Bill was depressed, he didn’t seem to be doing anything to lift himself out of his situation, and his dark moods and outbursts of anger were making their whole family anxious and depressed too. His bad knee and constant pain were all that mattered to him, and he obviously had no interest in his marriage or his children. Sue wrote in her journal, trying to understand, “Bill, I know you are in pain, and it is not easy. But at some point you will have to accept that which you cannot change. It is up to you to determine your destiny.”
    They weren’t really a family any longer.
    Bill stayed up all night and slept through the day. During the few meals they shared, Bill lost his temper and sent Scott to sit in a corner for punishment for some small annoyance. Eventually, Bill no longer ate with Sue and their children.
    Bill blamed Sue, insisting it was her fault that things were going wrong. He told her repeatedly that she needed counseling, and she agreed to go. Sue had begun to doubt what her husband told her. One night in December 2000, after the family had gone to bed, she was shocked to find him counting out large bags full of lottery tickets and peel-off pull tabs. She eventually learned he had spent $69,000 on them—most of them were from machines on the bar of a little tavern close to their home.
    When she asked Bill about the lottery tickets and pull tabs, he had an easy answer. He explained he was saving them as a favor