36 Hot August Nights

Randy easily settled into his new job at Bill Pierre Ford in Seattle. At thirty-five, he was by this time an excellent mechanic, a specialist in heavy engine repairs. He was assigned a service bay back toward the rear of the dealership’s shop, not far from two large doors that were often kept open to catch the breeze, a choice spot.

As usual in a new situation, Randy quickly assumed his Quiet Deadly Veteran persona, and tried to let the other mechanics know he wasn’t the sort of man to take any guff. On Memorial Day, in fact, Randy wore his Marine combat fatigues to work.

Meanwhile, Randy’s homeowner’s insurance company had become suspicious about his claimed burglary. An insurance investigator discovered that at least one item that Randy claimed had been stolen had actually been returned by him to the store, which gave him credit for the return. Later, when Randy asserted that he had spent two hundred hours compiling his claim, a lawyer hired by the insurance company calculated that from the hour of the burglary to the time he turned the statement in, Randy would have had to have spent eleven hours a day completing the claim forms. The attorney doubted that Randy had spent more than the few hours necessary to complete the forms.

Even more suspicious, Randy was saying that all of the tools taken in the burglary were his home tools, not business tools. The policy limited payment for business tools to only $2,500; suddenly all of the tools Randy had in his garage after having been fired at Cascade Ford were personal, used-only-at-home hobby tools, according to Randy. By early 1989, after Randy started work at Bill Pierre Ford, the insurance company was suing Randy in federal court to have the policy declared invalid because of fraud. Randy hired his own lawyer to contest the insurance company’s contentions.

The battle with the insurance people thus inevitably became a subject of discussion among Randy’s new coworkers. Randy told everyone about the burglary at his house, and how his tools had been taken. At the same time, Randy cited Mary Jo Phillips, Ben Goodwin and Tim Brocato as witnesses that Randy did own a lot of tools. All of them told the insurance company that Randy indeed kept a large tool collection in his garage. Still later, however, some of Randy’s coworkers would remember the discussions about Randy’s burglary, as well as what Randy told them had really occurred the night his dog had failed to bark.

Just why Randy became involved with Little League baseball isn’t terribly clear. Ever since Greg had gotten old enough to play, Randy had been involved with coaching or otherwise supervising the kids.

It’s likely that there were several motivations on Randy’s part for his interest in kids’ baseball. Randy may have felt that by being involved with Greg in this way he was giving his own son something he hadn’t gotten from Gordon; more likely, by being coach Randy got the respect and obedience of the kids and was able to play the role of being an authority as far as the parents were concerned. Those reactions to Randy’s “leadership” probably bolstered Randy’s ego and appealed to his never-slackening desire to have control. Some of his fellow Little League parents later came to consider Randy a “superdad” because of his intense interest in Little League; Randy went to important lengths never to miss practices or games.

Thus, Randy “played,” as he later put it, in the South Everett Little League as a coach or manager from 1985 forward, starting with T-ball and working his way up to regular baseball. By the spring of 1990, a year into his job at Bill Pierre Ford and with the insurance company still refusing to pay off his claim, Randy again was a manager of Greg’s team in the South Everett Little League, and that was where he met Cynthia Baumgartner and her two sons for the first time. In late May, Randy volunteered to work in the concession stand with Cindy for a week, which gave him a chance to see up close what made Cindy tick.

To the mind of Marilyn Brenneman, Randy’s pursuit of Cindy Baumgartner displayed all of the aspects of his previous, coldly calculated efforts to capture women: first, the sizing up, in which Randy measured the victim in terms of what she had to offer; followed by the assessment—deciding just what would it take to attract the woman’s interest.

Then would come the implementation, in which Randy would attempt to project the image he had decided the woman wanted to see.

That was Randy’s pattern, Brenneman would decide, and it was strikingly evident in the earlier marriages with Janis Miranda, Donna Clift, and the courtship of Mary Jo Phillips. For each of the earlier women, Randy had assumed false colors—at least long enough to get control of them. In some ways, Randy’s behavior resembled something out of a particularly gruesome nature movie, in which the secret predator lures the prey with an attractive disguise, until too late, when the unsuspecting victim is abruptly attacked and consumed.

It was well known in the South Everett Little League circles that Cindy Baumgartner was relatively well-off financially. As a widow, her previous husband Tom had left her with means, primarily through his life insurance.

For one thing, Cindy didn’t have to work, unlike many other parents in the league. Attracting Cindy as a mate would give Randy access to a substantial pool of regular, guaranteed income—Cindy’s saved assets, as well as about $1,700 a month in Social Security payments for Cindy’s two boys. In addition, Cindy owned her own house free and clear. And Cindy had her own life insurance policy.

Randy, of course, was quite familiar with life insurance already. In Brenneman’s mind, he likely saw Cindy as someone who would be far easier to convince of the value of still more life insurance than Donna Clift, for example.

Randy’s years of experience in dealing with women—beginning with Lizabeth and continuing forward through three marriages and numerous girlfriends—gave him the tools he needed to assess Cindy’s wants and desires, and to tailor his persona accordingly, Brenneman believed.

Cindy was a particularly feminine woman. Her preoccupation with her hair, her nails, her clothes, her makeup, indeed her intense interest in her appearance, all gave Randy clues as to what approach to take with Cindy, as did her house filled with dolls and similar girlish knickknacks.

While it would be inaccurate to say that Cindy was naive, she was in many respects guileless. Married young to Tom, the product of a loving family, widowed at an early age, cared for by her family, her friends and members of her church, Cindy tended to have an idealized view of marriage—a view that was likely influenced by the bittersweet memories of Tom, as well as by her own strong Christian beliefs and her associated dedication to family values: going to church, doing things together in the family, expressing love for one another, adhering to clear standards of right and wrong.

In Cindy’s worldview, a wife was someone to be cherished, appreciated and cared for, while a husband and father was someone who loved his wife and took responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the family unit, through his work, his role as head of the household, and through his behavioral example to the children.

Therefore, Cindy had fairly rigid standards in what she wanted in a man, and those standards were easily perceived by someone of Randy’s experience in manipulating women and assuming poses. And while Cindy had come through the emotional pain associated with Tom’s death, having independent financial means and a widespread support network had protected Cindy from some of the hard knocks that in others tends to temper such views or give them experience in detecting false behavior; thus, Cindy was more susceptible than others in accepting Randy’s carefully crafted pose.

In Brenneman’s view, Randy, searching through the toolbox of his psychic manipulators, selected some of the items he thought might be useful in gaining Cindy’s affections.

The most powerful of these, Brenneman believed, was the use of the children. When Randy first asked Cindy on a date, he made sure all the boys, Greg included, went along. That made Randy seem like the family man Randy wanted Cindy to believe he was. On this and on subsequent dates, Randy portrayed himself as a man whose family life was most important. He buttressed this image by an earnest sincerity, leavened with sorrowful hints about the horrors of war, doubtless calculated to get Cindy’s sympathy while also underscoring his masculinity.

Randy also engaged Cindy’s attention on romantic dreams of the future together, which appealed to Cindy’s romantic idealism; and finally, Randy projected the image of a strong, male father figure to Tyson and Rylie, which Cindy believed would be necessary to their growing up.

Some of the other familiar tools also began making their appearance: flowers, frequent telephone calls, fun dates in which Randy projected his best, chivalrous, I’m-in-love-with-you demeanor. Greg began spending more time at Cindy’s house with Tyson and Rylie, and soon Randy made it a point to drop in after work. Cindy began cooking dinner for the whole group. Soon Randy and Cindy were going on weekend dates to movies and comedy shows or restaurants.

By June of 1990, Cindy was thinking seriously about a possible future with Randy. And when Cindy, Lori and the boys visited the family of Cindy’s sister-in-law in California, Randy maintained his pursuit with long, intimate telephone calls and the dispatch of more flowers. “What do you think of him?” Cindy asked Tyson and Rylie. “He’s great,” the boys replied.

Meanwhile, Hazel and Merle Loucks watched this pursuit of Cindy with some degree of apprehension. Ever since Tom’s death, the Loucks had been protective of their daughter. Merle saw Cindy’s vulnerabilities as only a father could. He knew she was an attractive target for unscrupulous men. But Merle believed that Cindy had enough native shrewdness to sniff out and detect the phonies, and as time passed after Tom’s death, Merle was gratified to see his daughter learn how to rebuff and discard unsuitable suitors.

Randy seemed to be different. Merle and Hazel thought he was quiet—maybe too quiet, the Loucks sometimes thought. On Father’s Day in 1990, Cindy brought a picture of Randy and Greg over to her parents’ house in Marysville, telling them she had just met Randy at Little League and was excited about their prospects.

A few days later, Cindy brought Randy and Greg in person to have dinner with Hazel and Merle. Cindy told her parents that Randy had been in Vietnam, and the Loucks put Randy’s quiet nature down to natural shyness and his war experiences. They weren’t sure about Randy, but Hazel and Merle knew that Cindy had been alone for five years after Tom’s death, and that she wanted to be married again.

In mid-July, the Loucks went to visit relatives in North Dakota. While they were gone, Randy heard about a classic car show and parade in Reno scheduled for the week of August 1. “Hot August Nights” would include displays of cars from the fifties, along with musical acts like Little Richard and the Righteous Brothers. In late July, Randy asked Cindy if she would be willing to go with him. Cindy told Randy she couldn’t go anyplace overnight with him if they weren’t married.

“Well, maybe we could do that while we’re down there, too,” Randy told her. “Are you serious?” Cindy asked.

“Yeah,” Randy said. “We seem to be getting along really well, and the boys all enjoy each other’s company. I can’t think of any reasons why we shouldn’t get married.”

“Well, if you’re asking, my answer is yes,” Cindy said.

Cindy quickly called Hazel and Merle in North Dakota to give them the news. Hazel and Merle tried to dissuade her. First Merle told her that she couldn’t get married because they wouldn’t be able to come to the wedding. But Cindy told them that she and Randy intended to get married in Reno, so Hazel and Merle wouldn’t be able to come anyway. Then Cindy’s parents suggested that she and Randy wait for awhile, arguing that Cindy hadn’t known Randy long enough. “But her mind was made up,” Hazel said later, “they were going.”

Randy bought a ring and then took Cindy for a motorcycle ride. They went to Silver Lake—the place where Randy once claimed to have scattered the ashes of Jan Roth, and the place where his brother Davy had picked up the ill-fated hitchhiker in 1977. Later, Randy was asked to describe how he had popped the question.

“I presented her with the ring and re-asked her formally down at the lake that evening,” he said.

“What did she say?” he was asked.

“She reinforced that she had desires to become my wife and that she knew that we were going to be happy,” Randy said.

“Well, she certainly didn’t say it quite like that, did she?”

“No, she didn’t. I don’t remember exactly what her words were. She expressed … she expressed her contentment with our relationship, and she was happy that we were, we were going to pursue this. And she was concerned that I would have enough time, or would not have enough time to be able to make all the arrangements that would be required on such a short notice in Nevada. And I tried to reassure her that I would do everything I could to make all the contacts and make it as memorable an occasion as it possibly could be.”

On Friday night, August 3, 1990, Randy and Cindy went to the Chapel of the Bells in Reno and were married. The following two days were spent looking at the classic cars and listening to Little Richard and the Righteous Brothers. By Monday, Mr. and Mrs. Randy Roth were back in Seattle, and Randy, in Brenneman’s later belief, was preparing to go on to phase two.