16

The question of how the search of the bakery should proceed was soon answered. The troopers returned and told the employees to clear out so that a search of the premises could begin. Smith got the key from one of the employees. That way they could lock up when they left and take the key to Darla.

As the search warrant noted, the troopers were looking for several things of evidentiary value. Bullington and Smith would go through every square inch of the bakery.

Special Agent John Douglas of the FBI told Flothe to be on the lookout for mementos, which he believed were still being retained by Hansen. The bakery seemed a logical place to hide them. He spent many hours there, it was in close proximity to the area where the missing individuals were last seen, and items stored there were less likely to be inadvertently found by his family.

They also wanted to seize business and insurance records that might be kept at the business. Each time he had met a dancer, he had paid cash. Maybe he cashed a bakery check on or about the days when the victims turned up missing. The same bank statements might account for the presence or absence of Darla on those same dates. Or they might show any contacts Hansen had with John Henning, as well as the nature of their relationship and the bias or interest involved in the provision of the Kitty Larson alibi.

The insurance records, meanwhile, might corroborate the statement of the black dancer. If Hansen had smashed the driver’s window of his truck with his fist during that incident, he would have had to fix it. Flothe expected Hansen had filed a claim with his insurance company, asserting that a prowler had broken into his truck or, better yet, that he had accidentally broken the window himself. By claiming that it was an accident, he avoided the necessity of calling the police, whom he no doubt wanted to avoid after what had happened.

Smith and Bullington did seize business and banking records at the bakery. They spent hours and hours, though, going through the rest of the shop, looking for anything that might link him to the murders. They had no luck. The place was clean.

At the Hansen home, meanwhile, it had taken longer than expected to get everyone out of the house. Darla had been teaching and her students had to be sent home. And Bob’s mother was visiting, so Darla had to find a place for her to stay. It was nearly an hour after the troopers arrived before Darla backed the family Subaru out of the driveway, her shocked mother-in-law at her side.

Because Darla’s reaction was one of benign bewilderment, Haugsven sensed she could be trusted to cooperate. There was a pain visible in this woman, but a pain that bore no malice. Darla promised she would drive to trooper headquarters for an interview after she transported Bob’s mom to a friend’s house. Haugsven believed her. The way was cleared for a thorough search of Bob Hansen’s family residence.

Troopers reasoned from the very beginning that the search of the Hansen home might be the most strenuous and time-consuming. There was no guarantee he kept mementos there, but even if he didn’t there were plenty of other things to look for. Things like rifles. Handguns. Handcuffs. Chains. Surgical gloves. Ace bandages. A bear skin rug. Moose antlers on the roof (already confirmed). Fiber samples. Hair samples. Towels or other items the victim might have used. Newspaper clippings. Bank statements. Fingerprints. Expended cartridges. .223 ammunition (same as the murder weapon). Soil samples on any shovel they might find at the residence. Make-up and disguises. The portable airplane seat Kitty Larson had described. Notes or business cards that may have chronicled his assignations. And what the search warrant described as a “rape/murder kit,” consisting of restraints, a blindfold and other items used to immobilize the victims.

Even while the troopers waited outside the residence for the search to begin, they knew they faced a daunting task. Though not a mansion, the Hansen residence was by no means small. Snuggled into a birch and aspen forest, it took up more than 1300 square feet per floor, and that didn’t include the large, two-car garage that was attached to the house. The ranch-style house was on a big lot, too—almost an acre—and there was a possibility Hansen had buried stuff in the back yard.

Inside the residence, the troopers found a house crammed with the accumulations of a lifetime. The garage, like most garages in America, had rarely or never been used to store vehicles. Instead, it was packed top to bottom with “stuff.” There were skis, boots, poles, a ton of toys and games. There was a go-cart and a 3-wheeler ATV, its seat cover missing, showing a bare patch of discolored foam. And there was all sorts of equipment for reloading ammunition, including a press and work bench filled with materials. Here they might find some .223 ammo.

The inside of the house was extremely neat and showed Darla’s talent for the homey artifact. The living room was typical of her style. There was blue-and-tan thistle-patterned wallpaper on the wall facing the double picture window, and a clock made of a polished tree trunk hung at its center. To either side of the red brick fireplace were bookshelves with her collectables—a statue of an Eskimo in traditional costume, a carved sailing ship, some figurines, a decorative cup, and some blown glass.

Above the mantle was an oil painting of a stereotypical Alaska scene, framed on either side by some Eskimo masks. In the adjoining hall there were pictures of the children, Darla’s family, and of Christ. There was no mistaking that this was a religious household.

What the troopers soon noticed about the house, however, was the incredible amount of storage space. No wonder the place looked neat as a pin. There were closets everywhere. Above the bar was a long glass cupboard that held glasses and dishes. The kitchen was surrounded by blond cabinets, both overhead and at counter level. Just going through all this storage would keep the troopers busy. And they hadn’t even started in the basement.

The basement figured to keep them the busiest. After all, it was reputedly Hansen’s private torture chamber. There they might find Kitty Larson’s fingerprints, or hair and fiber samples, or any number of items Hansen had used in raping and murdering the young women of Anchorage.

At first glance, however, it hardly looked like a torture chamber. The white linoleum, streaked with black, was utilitarian. The wood paneling was typical of many a finished basement. An old red couch was hunkered up against one wall, more accustomed to holding toys and pool cues than people.

Still, it was clear that the basement was more Bob’s province than Darla’s. Sure, there was an Apple computer positioned along one wall, which Darla used for teaching. And at the other end of the room were a desk, five chairs and a shelf of schoolbooks. But almost everything else was from Bob’s world.

In the center of the large basement were a foosball game and a pool table. Along the walls were Bob’s hunting trophies, the mounted heads of his world records, some of them reported stolen—but obviously not stolen. Along the south wall, moreover, was a large wooden storage closet. The locked doors held the promise of something important inside. When troopers opened it, they came across a cache of enough rifles and handguns to start a small armory. Altogether, the troopers expected to have a field day.

Meanwhile, as Hansen’s interview eased into its second half-hour, he was discussing his early years in Anchorage. He talked about his job at the Safeway on 9th and Gambel and his wife’s teaching job up on Government Hill. They bought a duplex in Mountain View and sold it to buy a house almost three blocks due north.

“Everything went along pretty good there for a while,” Galyan noted, “and then you got yourself in trouble there again.”

“Um hum.”

“What happened then? You were involved in the theft of a chain saw?”

“Um hum.”

“Okay,” Galyan said. “And ah…”

“Back in 1971,” Flothe interjected, “there was an incident involving a young receptionist over there in Spenard. You were on your way, supposedly, to the base, or out to the airport to go bow hunting.”

“Uh huh.”

“And apparently, for some reason you got diverted over to this young lady’s driveway,” Flothe continued.

“That’s true.”

“What happened, Bob?” Galyan asked.

“Well, ah…” There was a long pause while Hansen gathered his thoughts. He seemed to be thinking: Where were these questions leading?

“Everything seemed to be going fine for you,” Galyan said. “You moved to a new state, you got a job, money, a new wife, everything was just going along great. And then you got involved with this young woman. What happened?”

“Well, I guess, more or less ah, um…” Hansen muttered. “I don’t know what to say. I guess it may have been just an urge. I don’t know if you want to call it that or not. Ah, it happened. I’m sorry it happened, but it did happen, I can’t, you know, dispute that.”

This was not a cooperative Bob Hansen the troopers were hearing. He was acting like he wanted to cooperate, Flothe realized, but he really was being evasive and noncommittal. They had to press him harder, Flothe figured. And keep the pressure on.

“Does this incident have anything to do with what Dr. McManmon discussed in court at your sentencing?” Flothe asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember what…”

“Manic depressive problems, a mental state that you would probably go into, and apparently it’s an ongoing problem, according to the doctor,” Flothe said, gesturing quietly with his hands. Hansen let out a deep sigh.

“Was the doctor totally out of line on that?” Flothe asked.

“Well…” Hansen paused again. “Yeah.” He looked earnest.

Galyan decided it was time to move on to something else. “And after that particular incident,” Galyan noted, “then you got yourself in trouble with a chain saw, am I correct?”

“Um hum,” Hansen mumbled.

“If I ask you an honest question, will you give me an honest answer?” Galyan asked.

“Sure try.”

“Why didn’t you just go buy one?”

“There ain’t—ain’t nobody in the world that’s asked…asked that question more…more…”

“Than yourself?” Galyan filled in.

“Well, no, I—no one has kicked myself more for not doing it that way. Ah, I guess I, ah…”

Galyan now noticed something: Hansen kept looking over at the tape recorder as they talked. He had already noticed how nervous he seemed. That was expected. But Hansen couldn’t keep his eyes off the tape recorder.

“Is that bothering you, Bob?” Galyan asked.

“I got a little bell in the back of my mind that’s going off here,” he said. The bell told him that he had a dilemma: By talking to them, he hoped to clear things up; but by talking to them he might also give them something they could use against him. Besides, he told them, he’d been warned by attorneys that he should “never under no circumstances ever talk to any police official without an attorney present.”

“Well, if you remember now, that’s up to you,” Galyan said.

“Hum, I-I realize that. I know. I know,” Hansen responded intensely.

“We don’t lie to you, and at any time you can – “

“I know. I know,” Hansen said again, almost impatient.

“—have one.”

The look on Hansen’s face said he had reached a decision, at least for the moment. Suddenly he circled back to the subject they’d just been discussing, a return so swift as to be nearly disorienting. But if Galyan and Flothe had learned one thing so far, it was to let the man keep talking.

“Yeah, okay,” Hansen said, as though to dismiss Galyan. “Getting back to your question here—you asked if the doctors were way off base? Ah, they were not off base with what I told them, but what I told them at the time may not have been one hundred percent, you know, true.”

“And you’re actually going to hurt yourself by not being—” Galyan started to say.

Hansen cut him off. “I realize that, yes. Now. But at the time I didn’t realize that and once you start something like that, you more or less feel that you’ve got to go through with it.”

It was a stunning revelation: Hansen had lied to his psychiatrists. Why? To reduce his responsibility for the acts he’d committed? Or just to pull the wool over their eyes, to see if he could get away with it? Was all this just a game to him? Quick on the uptake, Galyan asked Bob if he’d taken some corrective measures once he realized he’d made a mistake.

“No,” Bob said. “By the time I realized this-here, you know, it was more or less all done with and, ah, like the old saying, you know, ‘Let sleeping dogs lay.’”

Galyan kept after Bob about his psychiatric history, but it was little use. He’d submerged everything that troubled him and replaced it with a standardized response. He insisted that he’d gone along with the program. Told them he’d taken his medication until everything stopped during his incarceration. Told them if he’d just bought the chain saw in the first place, he’d never have had these problems.

They didn’t get much further than that, so Galyan moved on to the topic of Robyn Patterson. It was a way to introduce Bob’s continuing history of problems with the women of Anchorage. Hansen seemed to shrug it off.

“She was a prostitute,” he said of Patterson, as though this designation in and of itself was enough to dispose of the matter. When he finished explaining himself, he reduced the matter of her kidnapping and sexual assault to nothing more than a dispute over money. It was an old saw.

“She quoted me one price,” he said of the incident, “and then she wanted an awful lot more money. And I told her, ‘Hey, we agreed on one price, and that’s what it’s going to be.’ And she argued about that and so forth and I said ‘bullshit,’ you know. ‘We are going back to Anchorage, and I’m going to pay you the price.’ And I give her the money and I let her out, and I guess her dad is a state trooper, or something like this. Anyway, she ran to her daddy or something or other…”

“Obviously, she told a whole different story,” Galyan said.

“Huh?” Hansen asked.

“Obviously she tells a whole different story,” Galyan repeated.

“Prob-probably does,” Hansen admitted. “But that’s the way it was.”

Hansen denied everything that even remotely implicated him in the Robyn Patterson attack. He even denied destroying the incriminating piece of paper he had managed to steal back from the jail guards, the one with Robyn’s name on it in his handwriting.

The denials had only just begun. Galyan brought up the 1975 incident when he had allegedly bound, kidnapped and raped a woman from the Kit Kat Club. Hansen said he didn’t force her to do anything. “And again,” he said, “it was strictly for money.”

Then Galyan brought up the 1979 assault and attempted kidnapping of a black topless dancer in Anchorage. That, too, Hansen said, was a dispute over money.

Exasperated, Galyan asked, “Haven’t you learned by now, Bob, that hookers and street girls and whatever are not going to play it cool with you?” Galyan asked.

“You’re kidding,” Hansen replied.

“You know, they’ve got a commodity that you want, that you can’t get,” Galyan said. “Only they have it and only they can give it to you, and they are going to get as much for it as they can, and their word is no good. And why, with a nice wife at home, would you be down there on the streets digging around with these girls anyway? Is there a problem there?”

“Huh-uh. No. There’s not problem at all whatsoever at home, although I mentioned to you, both the times there I wanted oral sex, okay?”

“You seem to be a little uncomfortable talking about –” Galyan started to say.

“All right.”

“— oral sex.”

“Uh, well, it’s just something that—I guess maybe it’s an old-fashioned idea or whatever, but it’s something that I would never, under no circumstances, ever want my wife to perform, okay?”

“Uh huh,” Galyan acknowledged.

“And, uh, this is what I wanted there. And, you know, you hear so many girls talking about, ‘Oh boy, this gal here or that gal there will give you a good blow job,’ or whatever, and I guess it was just more or less out of curiosity. I would not want anything like that from my wife. I would want just more or less what you would call straight sex with my wife.”

Bob Hansen was persisting in his old theme: how can you take the word of a prostitute against that of a respectable business and family man? Every run-in with prostitutes was a dispute over money. It was always a case of Bob defending himself against the mercenary women of the streets.

More disturbing, Flothe noticed, was that he had a very deeply etched moral standard that divided women into saints or whores. And when he was with women he didn’t put in the saint category, things had a way of going awry.

“You’ve had a lot of incidents that have gone sour,” Galyan pointed out. “Let me ask you a question to see if I’m too far off the ball park. You tell me—and let’s face it, you know, all three of us are men in this room, so—don’t you think that sometimes we do things that we really can’t stop ourselves from doing?”

“Oh, I don’t agree with that.”

“You think you could’ve prevented your –”

“Well, anyone that has a conscience, that’s done something wrong, your conscience will tell you what’s wrong.”

“But we go ahead and do things that we know are against our moral teachings. Even though we know that it’s wrong, we go ahead and do it anyway.” Hansen was shaking his head in disagreement.

“You don’t agree with that?” Galyan asked. “You think you have total control over all your actions all the time?”

“Yeah.”

“Whether to do something, even though you know it’s wrong or not?”

“Yeah. Everybody, whether they want to admit it, knows entirely what’s right and wrong.”