Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors (48 page)

Shocked that such violence had happened so close to her, Gemma said, “Our two apartments share a common wall and I can’t help but overhear sounds, and sometimes even conversations coming from next door.”

Because they usually worked different hours, Gemma Lytle said that she didn’t know Sue Ann Baker very well. “But we recognized each other and said ‘Hi’ when we passed going to our apartments.”

Because of the flimsy wall between their apartments, Gemma knew more about what happened there than she wanted to.

“I moved in around the first of June and I hadn’t seen Mrs. Baker for three weeks then,” she told Fowler. “I knew she was married, but I haven’t seen him for a month. He’s a big, muscular man in his thirties.”

“Did you ever hear any sounds coming from their apartment that would indicate the state of their family life?” Fowler asked.

“I couldn’t help but overhear their arguments. And there were a lot of arguments, bickering, you know. But there was never any violence, at least not until recently. A couple of weeks ago, I heard arguing and crying and screaming. It sounded like they were tossing each other against the wall.”

“Could you hear what she said?”

“Yes. She kept yelling that she didn’t know why she’d put up with him all these years. She said he was worthless. I didn’t know what to do, you know—so I didn’t say anything to anyone.”

“When was the last time you heard conversation in their apartment?”

“It was Friday. That was October twenty-eighth. I couldn’t really hear him because it wasn’t loud—so I don’t know if he was there. But I could hear her crying. It was kind of sad, and I wished I didn’t have to listen to it.”

“When was the last time you saw Ron Baker’s car? Would you recognize his car?”

“Yes—it’s a green Buick. Yesterday—Halloween day—it was about seven thirty in the morning. I was surprised it was there because, when he’s home, he normally drove her to work before that.”

“Okay, what about the sounds coming from next door? When did you hear anyone alive there?”

“Early yesterday morning—about one thirty or two 
A.M.
, I heard footsteps coming down the walkway—I recognized his steps because I’ve heard them so many times, and he’s a large man who walks heavy. This time, I could hear his voice—but not hers.”

Gemma Lytle was a helpful witness, but she had not actually seen Ron Baker over the past few days. She’d heard a man’s voice, and a man’s heavy footfall.

Was it Ron—or had it been some other man in Sue Ann’s life?

The apartment manager thought he’d seen Ron Baker’s car outside the Tie-Up Tavern, and said it was one of his regular hangouts when he was in town. That seemed as good a place as any to find witnesses who might confirm that Baker really
was
in Seattle on Halloween. Fonis and Fowler headed there.

Business in a tavern on a weekday morning was desultory at best. A few serious beer drinkers sat at the bar, and a skeleton staff was setting up for the lunch crowd when the two detectives walked in.

The news of Sue Ann Baker’s murder had already reached the rumor mill at the Tie-Up, and the two detectives were directed to a barmaid who knew Ron.

“She works here part-time,” the bartender said. “I’ve seen her talking to Ron.”

Toni Giametti* acknowledged readily that she knew Ron Baker.

“How well do you know him?” Ted Fonis asked.

“Pretty well, I guess,” she said, looking down.

“Do you know if he was in town this last week—and on Halloween?”

“He was here. A long time ago, we hooked up. I kind of have a warm spot in my heart for him,” she said. “Ron stayed two nights with me last week. He told me that he and Susie had broken up for good. After two nights, he moved in with a friend of his.”

“When did you see Ron last?” Gary Fowler asked.

“Yesterday morning,” Toni said, surprising the investigators. “About nine thirty on Halloween day. He was in the Tie-Up. I said something to him about hearing he and Sue were back together and he said that wasn’t true. He told me he was leaving in three days on a Foss [Maritime Company] tug that was heading out to sea for several weeks, going to Hawaii.”

Their conversation with Toni Giametti convinced the two detectives that Ron Baker
had
come back to Seattle almost two months early.

“I guess he and Susie made up,” Toni said. “I saw him and her in his car on Saturday, and I figured they were back together because they were sitting real close to each other.”

The man that Toni described didn’t sound at all like a knife-wielding killer, but Fonis and Fowler knew well that violence and rage can be bottled up, and hidden behind a benign façade.

“Ron’s a very easygoing person,” Toni said. “I’ve never seen him angry. He usually drank only Cokes or coffee when he came in here.”

“Ever see him drunk?” Fowler asked.

“No—never.”

“You don’t know of any time he attacked his wife then?” Fowler pressed. “Any time he’d been violent with her?”

“I hate to say this. I really do—because I can’t imagine that it could be Ron who did that to her. But the night before he came to stay with me, he told me that both of them had gotten drunk and that he grabbed Sue around her neck. He said he just didn’t know why he’d grabbed Sue around the neck, whether it was because he was drunk or what was going on in his head. That’s when he decided he had to move out.”

Perhaps it hadn’t been Ron Baker who’d killed his wife. Robbery detective Bud Lee had talked with a man who called headquarters the evening of the thirty-first to inquire if anyone had reported that Sue Ann was hurt. This would have been well before her body was found. The man insisted that he was concerned about her because she hadn’t shown up for the Halloween party at the Rendezvous. He had seen her the day before and she’d been fine.

The informant said he had only a platonic interest in the tall brunette and didn’t even know her address. He just thought it was strange that she hadn’t come to work. The male caller’s whereabouts on October 31 were checked and he was cleared.

Detective Dick Sanford contacted the owner of the Rendezvous to see if Sue Ann Baker’s personal problems had been common knowledge.

“Sue Ann talked to us some about Ron. She was trying to break off with him,” Sue Ann’s boss said. “And she came to work about two weeks ago with big bruises on her neck. They looked like fingerprints.

“Sue Ann was frightened; she’d thought Ron was going to kill her. I know it happened, because Ron himself came in and admitted it to me. He said, ‘I just about killed my wife.’ I already knew about it, and I said, ‘I know Ron.’ ”

Baker had asked the Rendezvous owner to talk to him and they had discussed the marital problems for a while. Ron had promised he wouldn’t come around Sue Ann anymore.

“I told him that was what Sue Ann wanted, and he said he guessed that was the way it had to be . . . and he left alone.”

“When was the last time you saw Sue Ann?” Sanford asked.

“Friday—the twenty-eighth. She worked from eight to five. Ron had been in the day before and thanked me for talking to him and he told me he was determined not to bother Sue Ann anymore.”

The manager said that Ron had called in Monday, the thirty-first, to say that Sue Ann had “female problems” and couldn’t come to work.

“I just couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t at least call to discuss the party she planned for Halloween night, and then the phone was off the hook, so I called the police to check on her.”

Sue Ann was described as “the best” as far as employees went; she drew customers with her ready smile and was very dependable. Apparently she felt compelled to work because her husband had a very spotty work record and seldom held a job for long, even though he was accomplished as a cook. He didn’t have any trouble getting jobs, but he quit with a regularity that upset his wife. She’d had hopes that the job in Alaska as a cook on the crab boat would turn out to be more permanent, and she was disappointed when Ron quit after a few weeks and came home.

A friend of Sue’s called the homicide office and came in to talk to detectives. She said she’d been out of town until Friday, and had occasion to call Sue and ask about chances for a job at the Rendezvous. She’d learned that the Bakers were separated, and Sue had seemed very glad to have her old friend to talk to.

Ron Baker was described as a “very deep thinker,” concerned with “mind development,” but also as a man who hadn’t been able to hold down a job. “He was just totally dependent on Sue—emotionally as well as financially.”

Sanford contacted the bartender at the Tie-Up Tavern and the woman told him that she had last seen Sue Ann and Ron on Sunday night, October 30, when Sue Ann bowled in her league game. She had seen Ron Baker in the tavern on Monday between 10:30
A.M.
and 1
P.M.
and he had seemed preoccupied and hadn’t said much.

Other members of the bowling team were contacted by detectives. They had seen Ron and Sue Ann together on Sunday about 10
P.M.
Sue Ann had mentioned to one member of the team that she was afraid to go home with Ron.

“Then Ron asked us if we wanted to have a drink with them after, but we had to get home because of the babysitter. I never saw them after that.” The man did say that he thought Sue Ann had filed for divorce and gave the name of her attorney.

Many people had seen Sue Ann alive—but frightened—at 10
P.M.
on the night of October 30. After that, only Ron alone had appeared at their usual haunts.

Detective Sanford talked to a friend of Baker’s who said that Ron had come into the Tie-Up at 11:30 on Sunday night. The two men had shot pool together until sometime after 1
A.M.
He hadn’t sensed Ron was particularly upset, and thought he’d been his normal self.

But Ron Baker’s “normal self” had vacillated a great deal in the month preceding his wife’s murder. The friend said that Ron was sometimes mellow and resigned to the fact that she was leaving him. And sometimes desperately jealous. Baker had reason to be. Cal Samuelson,* who was instrumental in getting him the Alaska job, had bragged to the witness that he and Sue Ann had “a thing going,” and that he was going to try to arrange to have Ron sent to Alaska a week ahead of him. That way he could be alone with Sue Ann. Baker had evidently not been aware of his benefactor’s hidden reason for getting him a job so far away. But he had found out after he’d been up on the crab boat, and come home.

The witness said that he felt Ron Baker might try to kill the man who had cuckolded him. Fonis called the Alaska State Troopers and urged them to be on the lookout for Baker and keep a protective surveillance on Cal Samuelson, who was supposed to be serving as head cook on the crab boat. “We’ve got a homicide down here and Baker is the chief suspect. We can’t locate him,” Fonis advised, “and we think he may be headed up there.”

A short while later, Fonis received a call from the chief of police of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, who said he knew Cal well and that the man was presently on the boat. “We can monitor all incoming flights from the lower forty-eight and we’ll be able to spot Baker if he does come up here.”

Whether Sue Ann Baker had been interested in Cal Samuelson or not is a moot point. During the weeks before she died, she seemed to be agonizing over ending her marriage. She feared her husband, yet she hesitated about filing a divorce action. Friends had advised her to move out, stay with a girlfriend, and get a restraining order. And she said she would, that she’d had enough of the marriage, yet she hesitated; she had loved Baker, and maybe she still did.

She was not a chaser. Sue Ann had talked to several platonic male friends about her marital problems. One in particular, Benny Larson,* a very large man, recalled that she’d begged him twice to come home with her because she was afraid.

“She wanted me to sleep on her couch—but I told her that would just make things worse because he wouldn’t understand.”

Larson recalled one evening when he’d gone to Sue Ann’s apartment to watch TV and to keep her company because she was frightened.

“I went over there on the twenty-fourth of October, but as soon as I got there, Ron and a friend of his showed up. He was really hot when he saw me. He came walking up when I was knocking on the door—she’d called me because she thought he was coming over. He kept pounding on the door and yelling, ‘Open up the goddammed door or I’m going to bust it in!’ and she finally did.”

Larson agreed to stand by in case there was trouble, but to stay out of the argument so that they wouldn’t provoke Baker’s anger further.

“I guess he wanted to get his things out of there, and he went in and slammed the door behind him. We could hear them wrestling around, but then Ron let us in and he seemed to have cooled down a little bit. Sue was crying, and I stayed with her awhile after they left. She told me, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ and I just told her to run—get out of there and find another place where he couldn’t find her. She said he told her that if he couldn’t have her, no other man would, either. I left after about an hour and she was still saying that she wasn’t going to move, that she wanted to stay in her own place. . . .

“I saw her on Friday the twenty-eighth at the Rendezvous . . . and then I left to go elk hunting and I never saw her again.”

Detective Fonis talked to Sue Ann’s lawyer. The lawyer said that Sue Ann had come to him a week or so before she was killed and talked to him about a restraining order. He had advised her that he’d need to know where Baker was living so that it could be served, and she had promised she would try to find an address where her estranged husband might be located.

“I saw the marks on her throat—two huge bruises, like finger marks. She was supposed to come into the office this week and start divorce proceedings,” the lawyer said.

Sue Ann Baker had been walking a tragic tightrope yet, oddly, she apparently had made one last effort at reconciliation with Ron Baker. On the Saturday night before she was killed, she had invited Ron over for a steak dinner. Ron had told a close friend that he planned to go over there and act like a “reasonable person—not a jealous husband or anything. Maybe we could just get along if I can act civilized.”