Conquering Darkness Memoir of the Serial Killer's Wife Read online

  “For rape, mommy!”

  My head tilted sideways. “Rape?!”

  There was an echo…raperaperaperaperape… It seemed to vibrate forever.

  Then…Snap!

  I jumped back to the present. 2002. It was still a horrible day and I was on a horrible mission.

  The line of inmate visitors started moving faster—almost at a frenzied pace. I felt swept up in a tidal wave; I was swerving inside the turmoil of the past and the present. Have I missed anything?

  It took a moment, but I managed to look up again. Was it too late to turn back or to get out of line? I wondered. Usually, if I’m not bonded to a cause, I can just walk away. This was different though. I thought about my daughter and about her right to know what was going on with her father. I picked my heavy feet up and rhythmically joined the march of women. No turning back!

  There were two hallways (east and west) ahead of me. Each looked like a tunnel through to a very cool and colorless forever. I spotted the range of numbers that would take me to the ward where William was housed. Right direction. My eyes focused just slightly ahead of my steps; that was the best that I could do with my shaky self.

  I knew when I was near the end of my journey because that faint, white beacon that had been so far in the distance, came through with an eerie and jolting incandescence. Again, looking just barely ahead of me, I could see a row of painted, steel benches. And then finally, I could see the “others”. The women, who had obviously preceded me in the line, were sitting patiently, unnaturally erect. They were sentries with a funky little post that nobody else in the world wanted to guard. Before even meeting my eyes, they (the women) scooted down to accommodate me. A tenuous bond formed. My sistas!

  There was no saliva in my mouth. I started to perspire— I was a hot mess inside. I practiced the first words I would speak to William. Hey, what’s up…? …what’s going on? No, that won’t work…

  I felt inept at best.

  “Alice Sway-ford,” I heard a raw female voice calling me, pronouncing my last name incorrectly. How come nobody is ever hooked on phonics when it comes to my name? It’s not Sway, its Swah…

  I stood up and walked towards the heavy metal doors with a square of thick glass in the middle. A buzzer sounded and the door opened. In two steps, I entered another world— it looked and felt like it was… free of freedom.

  Like magic, William appeared from out of nowhere. He sat slowly down on a stool right in front of my piece of glass barrier; it was like my own private cell, my purgatory. It took my eyes a moment to focus as I teeter-totted in a moment of slight dizziness. Everything around me was spinning. And perhaps if I wasn’t shaking so bad inside, my adjustment might have been as spontaneous as the woman sitting less than a foot away from me. She was visiting another inmate. She was a pro, but I didn’t envy her.

  I searched desperately inside myself for the peace I would need for the next twenty minutes or so.

  Then… my voice wiggled up out of my throat.

  “HELLO WILLIE,” I spoke softly, slowly. I said the two words that had once connected William and me to a place of mutual familiarity. I don’t know where that impulse came from, but it felt as natural as any moment that I had spent with the man in front of me. Now, he was a stranger. Willie was the name I called my former spouse when we were playing around. It sounded cute, like it was of the Deep South where our “peoples” came from.

  “Hey girl,” he said smiling. “What’s up?”

  He stole my words. His head went down. It was poetry.

  “You!” I answered. My eyes said—you know you’re the one who needs to be telling ME what’s up. I knew I had to be cautious because our conversation was being recorded.

  “Well…you know…” William’s voice trailed off. “How did you find out where I was?” His eyes seemed to search my face.

  “Ump!” Whoa, that just came out. I turned my head to look purposely coy. “Lisa told Crystal and Crystal told me.”

  Lisa is the mother of William’s two beautiful sons.

  “Oh yeah?” William looked straight at me.

  I felt his intensity. “So much for secrets, huh?” I couldn’t resist.

  “Wasn’t no secret!” William seemed annoyed.

  “Could’ve fooled me…” Let me stop.

  “What—?” His eyebrows went up.

  “Nothing.”

  I bent my head down so that I could meet William’s eyes straight on and on my own terms. “So, you didn’t know that Crystal had been calling your mother’s house for the past year? Every time she called, yo’ mama your mother gave her a different story.”

  “”No!” He paused. “I didn’t know about that…what kind of story did my mother tell Crystal?”

  “Well… your mother said stuff like…your job had moved you to Sacramento.”

  “SACRAMENTO?” William paused like he had heard something familiar enough to shock him back to a prior moment in time.

  “UM HUH?” I looked straight into my former spouse’s face again. I became suddenly anxious about continuing our conversation. “And when Crystal asked for your telephone number, yo mama your mother said it would take a while before you would get your new number.” I giggled. “Please!” I sucked my teeth. “She could have kept that shit baloney!”

  I knew and William knew that it was just another Choyce family secret that was supposed to be neatly sewn up. It was his mother’s perpetual design for her “perfect” family. Nobody was supposed to know that he was in jail. Ah…Ooops!

  We both laughed and an imaginary door opened. And then it seemed that the real reason I was there, at the county jail with my former spouse who was charged with and pled guilty to rape— was unimportant for the moment. I knew that before any meaningful conversation could take place, we had to re-anchor ourselves to the past, our past.

  I told William about my impending departure from AT&T after more than twenty-six years. He looked serious, concerned. William was always interested in my life even after we divorced. But his concern that I accomplish my academic and career dreams outweighed his concern that I was loved like he knew I wanted to be— more than anything.

  “You sure about leaving AT&T?”

  I paused to think again about my decision. “Yeah, I’m damned sure.” I drew in a quiet breath. “You know William,” I smiled, “you’re the one who wanted me to quit a long time ago. You said you would take care of me so that I could just do my writing.”

  “Oh yeah. I did, huh?” His head tipped forward as he seemed to explore his memory.

  “Ahh huh.” I giggled. “You were serious when you said I could quit?”

  “Yes!” He paused. “I was for real!” His head moved back like he couldn’t believe I could doubt him, or his past intentions.

  I studied William for a moment. We were actually having a conversation. It was one that hadn’t been possible since I had taken him to court for child support back in 1992 when our daughter was sixteen. Back then, it was like he had drawn a line that I couldn’t cross over because he believed I betrayed him by taking our personal issue before “the white man”. It was senseless, too, because money had never been a problem for us until we got divorced. Everything changed between us, I assumed— forever. And yet, there I was— in a place that did not require my presence. William’s imprisonment didn’t have to be my business. I was caring and he was taking it all in. But I was careful not to mislead him about my intentions.

  “You still live in Concord?” He asked like he wasn’t sure whether it was something he needed to know.

  “Yep, I’m still there. Been twelve years now.”

  “Damn,” William whispered. “It’s been that long?” He looked surprised, as though he wanted to recoup lost years.

  He asked me for the time. I gave it to him, not thinking about why he needed it.

  “HOW ABOUT THAT RACIST MOTHERFUCKA WHO LIVED UNDERNEATH YOU?” William seemed to perk up more. Almost excitedly.

  “Who, Racist Richard?!
”

  “Yeah!”

  The outburst from William took me by surprise and I was shocked at myself when I couldn’t stop laughing. Get it together. It’s okay to joke. Just answer the question.

  I told William that before Richard the Racist, my neighbor, moved out from under me, he lied and told the Board of Directors that I tried to push his wife down the stairs. He was a racist AND he was nuts. I also told William that Richard’s little wraith wife and children left him. We both laughed.

  “That’s what his ass gets!” William smiled like a free man.

  I couldn’t help but laugh some more. But I didn’t tell William how sad I really felt for Richard’s children… losing their dad and all.

  For a few seconds, there was a brick of silence that lay between us, the prisoner and the free woman. I guess that we both went mentally back to a time and place we once knew. William was probably digging up all his regrets. Me too, but I was also digging into how spaced out I must have been not to see that I was living with a resident rapist. And then out of nowhere—

  “I FUCKED UP WITH CRYSTAL, HUH?” William’s voice was louder than someone who should have been watching what they said.

  “HUH?” My head jerked itself back at the mention of our daughter’s name. What? I took the uncomfortable words deeper into my mental space. I was stunned, but not enough that I didn’t realize I was hearing the truth. But I didn’t feel like I should respond, so I tried to just listen.

  “I messed up, didn’t I?”

  “You can’t change the past, William. So…—” I was cut off.

  “HOW IS NANA?” William’s voice revved up like a race car shifting gears.

  What tha—

  “My mom is fine.” I paused to reflect, because at that moment, I needed to switch gears myself after the drastic change of subjects. I cleared my throat. “She had a little surgery, but otherwise, she’s okay.”

  “That’s good.” William shook his head like he was satisfied with the news of my mother.

  I studied the putrid green walls in the confining space around me and William, and I took in the oddness of the new bit of silence sitting between every inmate and every visitor. Then I studied William some more. I remembered how fond he was of my mother. “You know my mother still loves you, William.”

  He looked deeply sad for a moment. Then he showed his beautiful teeth. “I know,” he said. “Nana was fun when she was drinking, huh?”

  “BOY! MY MAMA HASN’T HAD A DRINK IN OVER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS! SHE STOPPED SMOKING TOO!”

  “For real?” He looked stunned and pleased at the same time.

  “Yeah,” I answered softly.

  I wondered why he didn’t realize this simple fact. This was part of his past too. Had he blocked out part of his memory? I also wondered whether he had forgotten about terrorizing me and our daughter before we left his crazy ass.

  Then—

  “MEMBA THAT TIME YOUR MAMA CUSSED ME OUT WHEN CRYSTAL WAS BORN?”

  “HELL YEAH I REMEMBER!” I shot back. “You know you deserved that shit.” It slipped.

  William laughed himself back to that single moment in time. It was on his face.

  “How did you think you were gonna just walk in someone’s home without speaking?” I paused. “You were messin’ with the wrong one buddy!” I laughed some more. “Disrespect my mama in her own house? I don’t think so!”

  “I know, huh?”

  William loosened up a little more. He told me that Lisa— who was still “his woman”, as far as I could discern— was having financial problems. He was concerned for his sons. [This changed after he was charged with additional rapes and three murders.] I didn’t bother to tell him that I thought he had lost his damned mind for getting together with that woman in the first place. Didn’t remind him that he said he would always love me on the same day he brought his new son home from the hospital. Strange times, I thought and then I put the memories away again.

  I tried to stitch up the past on a totally different side from my present and my future, but no matter, William would always be in the inseam. We laughed some more. I almost forgot that I was in “Rita”, short for Santa Rita. Then a buzzer rang out. I twisted my neck from the shock of being startled.

  “What’s that?” I asked William. I was startled.

  “Oh…in five minutes, visiting time will be up.”

  My, my, my. It was the way William spoke those few words that affected me as I will never forget. It indicated to me that he was not only seemingly acclimated to life in jail, he had also accepted it. It was the same as if he had acknowledged that the morning alarm clock had rung.

  I faded for a moment into my own thoughts.

  I had so many questions I wanted to ask.

  None of them were safe. None.

  Time was a factor that I instantly became acutely aware of once into the county facility. Was it like that behind bars too? I wondered about how awful it must have been for people counting hours, days and years until their freedom— if freedom were indeed a possible reality.

  My eyes focused on William’s lips; they were not lips that belonged behind bars. I looked at his hands while I was still in my quietness. They appeared as gentle and as soft as ever. And his eyes… they were infected with a fluffy peace I knew must have been misplaced, and if not, then why? For what must have been an extended moment in time, I allowed my mind to stray way past the space that confined me, and past the sensibilities I knew I must assuredly dismiss if I were to still care about a man who could own up to the title of rapist and by implication, the natural enemy of all women— even me. But, when I faded back into my dense reality again, I heard…

  “…HONEYBOO.”

  “Yeah,” I answered. I was startled once again. He said our mutual pet name. I had misplaced that part of our closeness in the time that had passed.

  His voice sounded too sweet and too innocent to be real.

  He continued. “I wanna know something?” William’s eyes had an unfamiliar depth.

  “What, William?” An alarm sounded in my head. I braced myself.

  “YOU KNOW YOU NEVER TOLD ME WHY YOU LEFT ME.” His face went blank as if every bit of even involuntary expression had been erased.

  Wow!

  I mentally darted back to 1988; it was the time when William dragged me all over our home screaming and yelling that he was the man of the house. And after he let me go, he went to our bedroom to get a gun that he hid underneath a white hand towel…

  How could I have put that memory aside to find my way to come and see about him?

  Hell, how could he forget? Wasn’t that single terrifying moment in time reason enough to leave someone with the quickness?

  I came back to the confines of the jail facility.

  Reality again. I was getting good at climbing in and out of myself.

  Then the small space between me and William blew up into a universe of unresolved issues still remaining. And I heard something in his voice that I had only heard a few times during our whole relationship. There was a pleading tone in his voice. There was an innocence that should only belong to children; it became his.

  ‘You never told me why you left me.’ I examined the words again. They sounded strange coming from someone I had been divorced from for so many years. I raised my left hand and covered my mouth with my four fingers to hide my quivering lips. My thumb securely hinged itself right underneath my cheekbone. “Are…are you serious?” I had to ask. My head tilted in disbelief. “You really don’t know why I left?”

  Then—

  There was another awkward silence. Maybe this happens a lot on the jail scene.

  “Yeah,” William snapped. “I’M DAMNED SERIOUS! I still don’t know why you had to leave ME!” His eyebrows went way up and his head moved back into a pose of “the indignant”.

  “…if you’re not joking then—” I was cut off yet again, just when I started really digging inside of my own head for the one answer that was eluding me.

/>   Then—

  “You know—?” William started speaking. Then his words seared off for a moment. He sighed. “I tried to blame YOU for me being in HERE.” He spoke so clearly.

  I remembered that he was in jail for raping women. Not just one! Blame Me?!

  My eyes darted dizzily towards the correctional officer walking in William’s direction. “YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD BLAME ME?”

  I could feel William’s mental finger pointed towards me. I was astonished and felt myself choking up from my neck to my stomach. And just as I felt prepared to speak about the absolute necessity of my decision to leave him (yes, it finally came to me) I noticed William’s mouth moving.

  “But…you know Alice…I COULDN’T BLAME YOU.”

  Silence inserts itself. Again.

  A cool breeze embraced me. I gave a sigh of relief just in time to keep from swallowing my tongue because of the dryness in my throat.

  William was looking straight at me like it was the most important thing he could ever do. I didn’t know what to say or think after that. But I knew for sure that there was going to be no, ‘I love you baby and I’ll see you next week’, like I heard the woman visitor sitting next to me say. All I could do was get ready to walk away and try to figure out what I was going to tell my daughter about my visit with her dad.

  One minute of visiting time remained, and in it, I remembered that somewhere in our conversation, William tried to tell me what had landed him in jail. I kept spacing out. It was a defense mechanism, I think. He was saying something about ‘the DEVIL having a hold of him.’ He said that he wasn’t himself, and that he didn’t know what he was doing. I didn’t want to encourage any conversation because I knew we were being recorded, plus, I didn’t want those crazy words to stick in my head.

  My fear was a two-ended fear; to know and not to know. And right before I got up to leave, William quickly threw in that he had read the Bible from front to back—two times. He said it with such pride. I had never looked at William before and thought— how pitiful he looked trying to embrace the word of God only after raping two women. And the yet to be discovered irony was that he (my former spouse) had also raped and killed three more women. These were rapes and murders that were waiting their turn to be discovered through DNA testing.