Worth More Dead

Tim. Roland wanted to be right there with him to be sure he said the right things at the right time.
     
    One element of the perfect caper went awry early on. Bud Halser, who was to be Roland’s wing man, was arrested for the umpteenth time and sent back to prison. He was no longer available to help Roland “kidnap” Tim.
    That wasn’t a real problem, Roland told his new girlfriend. She could take Bud’s place. It wouldn’t require any particular strength. All she had to do was follow his instructions.
    First they had to do some construction in the basement of Beth’s house. She became caught up in the plotting, each step tumbling after the other until it seemed to make some crazy kind of sense, and the deeper she was pulled in, the more difficult it was for her to back out. Roland convinced her that they had to build a little room within a room that had to be soundproof so that no one inside or outside the house would know where Tim was staying.
    The bathroom in Beth’s basement was fairly good-sized, and Roland built a tiny room inside. By removing the shelves in a large closet in the bathroom, he constructed a space that was approximately two feet by three and a half feet. He built a false wall that hid the entrance to the room within a room. He added thick layers of insulation to deaden any sounds coming from the cramped chamber. Then he pulled the flowered shower curtain over his handiwork so that no one could detect that this was anything but a basement bathroom.
    Beth went on with her confession. The earplugs in the two bags accidentally left behind after the failed kidnapping had a purpose. Tim Nash was supposed to be tied up and taped to a chair in the hidden room. Then the earplugs would be inserted into his ears so he wouldn’t be able to hear whether anyone was home in the house.
    Essentially, had the kidnapping been a success, Tim would have been held captive and deprived of most of his senses. He would not have been able to move, to see, to hear. If he called out for help, no one would be able to hear him outside the soundproofed walls.
    By this time, Beth said, she was terrified by Roland. She felt she had to continue with the plot. “I was afraid of not doing it, and I just didn’t say no.”
    He instructed her to get a gun. She borrowed one from a coworker, telling him that she was afraid to be alone and needed a gun for protection. Roland told her to buy a box of bullets and some greeting cards. They were to be used as letters that Tim would periodically send to various relatives. Beth said she wore brown gloves whenever she purchased the things on Roland’s list at Kmart so she wouldn’t leave any fingerprints behind.
    Roland prepared the script that Tim was to follow and printed the words carefully on the five-by-eight-inch lined cards she bought. When Tim called his mother, he would be forced to stick to the words written on the cue cards. Roland’s scenario called for Tim to tell his mother that he hated her and that she was responsible for making his life miserable and for his disappearance. Further, the script called for Tim to say that Roland was not to be blamed for leaving, that instead Della should notify Roland that Tim desperately needed his help.
     
    This woman, who never expected to see the inside of a jail, said she was completely trapped at this point and could find no way out of her lover’s scheme. Beth said Roland’s scenario moved along with a life of its own. Whether the detectives were buying her whole story was questionable, although it was apparent that she didn’t have a strong personality: they could see how someone like Pitre could have dominated her.
    Doug Wright asked her what she and Roland had worn when they went to his former home to confront Tim Nash.
    “Roland was wearing black pants and either a black turtleneck or sweatshirt; I can’t remember which right now. He had a black leather fanny pack and a black pair of shoes.”
    On his instruction, Beth said, she also wore black clothing, and they both wore dark ski masks.
    Actually, they had been geared up to kidnap Tim a week earlier than when they carried it out. Roland said they should do it on a Sunday night since he could be sure that Tim would be alone. They’d gotten dressed in black on March 14, but for some reason Roland had a bad feeling and put it off for a week.
    Roland had it worked out to the tiniest detail. He had Bud Halser’s girlfriend, Bobbi,* babysitting for André at his