Deadly Little Secrets Part 23

The hours wore on, Matt looking increasingly agitated. He told of that afternoon at the Y. Kari had left the middle school hours earlier on a high, yet she arrived at the Family Y angry and sad. Something had clearly happened in the few hours between the interview and swim practice, but what? He seemed unable to explain.

As the questioning continued, Johnston nailed down details. Matt said Kari threw up shortly after they arrived at the Y. Johnston wanted to know if once she sat down in the hallway, had Kari ever left the black leather couch. Matt said no. The importance was that Kari hadn't slipped away to the bathroom to ingest anything.

Then Johnston led Matt through his account of the last hours of Kari's life, from the time they left the Y until he called 911 at just after midnight: On the drive home, they decided to forgo pizza for Happy Meals for the girls. Not feeling well, this time Matt said Kari ate a single french fry. As soon as they arrived at the house, she threw up for a second time that evening. By eight that evening Kari was in the bathtub, soaking. Afterward, she lay in bed watching television, drifting in and out of sleep. By nine or nine thirty, Matt said he'd joined her in the bedroom, taken a shower in the adjoining master bath, then watched TV and talked.

"What did you talk about?" Johnston asked.

"There wasn't a lot of talking," Matt said, dismissively. "She was asleep, awake, asleep, awake. That's basically how she was. She asked me to run some errands."

Was she so tired, so out of it, that he worried she'd be unable to care for the girls?

"No," he said. " . . . They were sleeping, and I'd left them with her before."

At ten forty-five, when he said Kari asked him to fill the gas tank in her SUV and rent a movie, pick up a soda and M&Ms, how was she then? "It was still kind of that half-awake talking, still really drowsy," Matt said.

"Were you worried she couldn't take care of herself at that point?"

"No, I just thought she was tired."

Again and again, Matt said that Kari was awake if tired when he left at what he pegged as approximately eleven fifteen. "I knew I'd only be gone an hour or so," he said. "I walked over to her in bed and told her that I was leaving."

"How did she respond?" Johnston asked.

"She said, 'Okay.' "

"You weren't concerned at that point?"

"I knew she wasn't feeling well, very lethargic, tired, drowsy, eyes are droopy."

"But she wasn't mentally unclear?" Johnston asked.

"She was slower," the former preacher contended.

"You didn't have a concern that if you left her in that condition, she was so out of it she couldn't take care of the kids?" Johnston asked yet again. This was an important point. If Kari had already taken the pills, if she was unconscious, that set the clock back, gave her body more time to develop lividity and cool, explaining the condition her corpse was in when the first EMTs arrived. But if she was alive, talking and lucid? Then how did she die, cool, and develop lividity in forty-five minutes?

"Correct," Baker said with a nod.

As for his foray to run errands, that the ex-pastor described in much the same terms as he had to Cooper: the stop at the closed convenience store near the house, the gas station that sold only diesel, the stop to fill up the tank, then the run through Hollywood Video, where he rented the video, When a Man Loves a Woman.

So much of what Matt had described about Kari's death resonated with those who remembered Ka.s.sidy's final night. From finding them both in fetal positions, on their sides, to the time of night, just after midnight. Now, Matt drew the parallel, saying that after he walked into the room, Kari's stillness, the paleness of her body, her lips a faint blue, reminded him of their dead daughter. "That was a familiar look," he said. "Kari was not responsive and not breathing. I'm trained in CPR. I looked for her heart rate and blood pressure, any of that. Didn't find any signs of breathing."

"What did you do next?" Johnston asked, moving on to a subject he wanted to etch into stone: Matt's depiction of his actions once he entered the bedroom.

"I reached for the phone and I called 911," he said.

"And then what happened?"

As he reached for the phone, he said he saw the note on the table but didn't take time to read it. Instead, as he cupped the cordless phone between his ear and his shoulder, he got to work. Kari was naked, and instead of immediately beginning CPR, he took the time to dress her, putting her silky panties on while she was still on the bed, then pulling her off onto the floor to start compressions, yet first dressing her in the Snoopy Santa T-shirt she'd had on earlier that evening, threading her limp arms through the sleeves and pulling it down behind her back.

"How long did it take to dress her?" Johnston asked, his voice bland, giving away none of the importance of the question.

"Seconds," Matt said. "It was a loose shirt and panties, very easy to put on."

Just dressing a dead body could be an arduous task, the experts had told Johnston, but the way Matt was describing it was that he did it at the same time he balanced a phone against his ear, talked to the 911 dispatcher, and pulled Kari from the bed. He'd accomplished all of this in less than a minute. At that point, he gave her CPR for one minute, then rushed to the door and got there just in time to open it before the EMTs rang the bell and woke the children.

In his description, it seemed that Matt was everywhere at once, doing everything perfectly, not just attempting to breathe life back into his wife but protecting her modesty.

When questioned, Matt said he saw no abrasion on Kari's nose although Bevel had noted one in the photos. But then Matt hadn't noticed the lividity either, writing off what Johnston pointed out in the photos as "shadows." And instead of cold to the touch, the way the first EMT on the scene described the body, Matt said Kari felt "clammy."

"How hard was it to move her?" Johnston asked.

"I didn't think about that at the time," Matt said, yet he agreed that he'd actually had to drag Kari's body off the bed and claimed that at one point he'd dropped her and her head had hit the floor. At Johnston's request, Matt drew a diagram of the bedroom, placing the furniture and Kari's body both in the bed and on the floor. Always appearing to be more than helpful, he asked, "Do you want me to time and date it?"

Johnston declined the offer.

"How much did you receive in death benefits?" Johnston asked. The answer from Matt was somewhere between $50,000 and $60,000. People in Kerrville had donated about $20,000 that Matt said had gone to pay his lawyers. Why had they opened their wallets? Staring down Johnston, Matt said, "Because they believe in my innocence, believe in the attack mode that's been against me."

"When did you meet Vanessa Bulls?" Johnston asked.

Here, too, Matt deviated only slightly from the description of the relationship he'd given Sergeant Cooper. As the ex-pastor had in the past, he talked as if Vanessa had initially been Kari's friend, and that they only became close after his wife's death. He admitted calling her, but said he was talking to Vanessa as a counselor might. Their relationship didn't change until midsummer 2006, and only because his children were the ones who wanted to spend time with her. "She was nice to my family," he said.

He had asked her father for permission to date Vanessa, that he admitted, but it was in the summer. They'd only kissed twice, he said. In fact, Matt insisted that he'd had no s.e.xual relations with a woman since Kari's death. No, he said, he hadn't gone shopping for engagement rings with Vanessa just weeks after Kari's funeral. Instead, he said they'd been in Kay Jewelers looking at earrings for Grace. In Matt's version, the only time Vanessa had stayed over was the night of the slumber party. That, too, was the only time she had her car parked at his house. "I don't believe it was in the garage."

Again Johnston asked, "Did you have s.e.xual relations with any woman in the year prior to Kari's death other than Kari?"

"No," Matt said.

"Do you have a conclusion as to what caused Kari's death?" Johnston asked.

"I believe she took too many sleeping pills in combination with the alcohol, and that she stopped breathing," Matt said.

"Where did she get Ambien?" Johnston asked.

"I don't know," Matt said. "Unless she borrowed some from her mom."

When it came to the searches on his WCY computer, scouring pharmacies and drug information, Matt insisted it was merely out of concern for Kari, his fear that she was taking too many sleeping pills. "So you raised that concern with the doctor?" Johnston asked, pointedly.

"I did not," Baker admitted.

"It was such a concern that you had you felt like you should do Internet research . . . But you didn't mention it at all to the doctor?"

"No," he said again. "I did not."

"Did you ever order anything off the Internet?"

"Not a drug . . . a s.e.xual stimulant," Matt said. "A liquid we were supposed to drink, and it was supposed to stimulate you."

As the questions continued, Matt Baker, the ordained Baptist minister who'd earlier talked of watching p.o.r.nography to aid his s.e.x life, said that he and Kari drank the liquid to elevate their level of excitement. "What was the s.e.xual problem that you needed this for?" Johnston asked.

"To see if it would entice us more . . . Not necessarily that we weren't fulfilled. We just wanted to know if we could do more." According to Matt, the years had diminished their s.e.x life, and he and Kari were both attempting to reignite it.

"Were you s.e.xually frustrated in March 2006?" Johnston asked.

"If your question is, was I getting enough at home, the answer is yes," Baker said.

"Were you dissatisfied enough to order a s.e.xual stimulant?" Johnson pushed.

"The two of us talked about that, and it was just to try something different," Baker said, noncommittally. Of course, since Kari wasn't there to object, he could say anything without fearing she'd contradict him, as he'd done earlier suggesting that they both enjoyed watching p.o.r.nography.

"Do you remember on March 6 looking for Ambien on the Net?" Johnston asked.

"Not looking for Ambien, but looking at what side effects Ambien could cause," Baker protested.

"Did you go to a site from which you could order Ambien?" Johnston asked.

"All I know is that you can't order without a doctor's prescription," Matt said.

"How do you know that?" Johnston asked.

"I guess it's considered common knowledge," Baker shrugged.

About the possible side effects, Johnston asked if Matt knew that one was that someone could get lethargic to unconsciousness.

"I believe that's a side effect," Baker said.

As far as the missing WCY computer, Matt said that he didn't know where it had gone. When it came to the key to his office door, the one he'd had changed, he claimed that was a state-mandated order, and that he'd a.s.sumed Greenfield and the other higher-ups at the center had a key that would open his door.

"Whom do you suspect in the switch of the computers?"

"I don't know that I formulated that," Baker said, his eyes red from the strain of what was becoming a long afternoon.

Earlier, Matt had filed a motion contending that the Dulins were making false statements about him. Johnston asked what those statements were. "That I killed my wife," he said.

So much would be telling that day. When Johnston asked for the names of Matt's friends, there were none to offer; Kari had been his constant companion. She had friends, but individually, Matt didn't have a name to give them. While he could have been saying that simply to keep the Dulins' attorney from contacting them, it fit what Kari had said so often, that without her, he was alone.

Again, Johnston returned to a question he'd asked many times that afternoon in many ways: "After Kari's death, how long did you wait to date anyone?"

"I've never officially dated anyone," Matt said again.

"So, since April of 2006, you have not had a dating relationship with a woman . . . Certainly not a s.e.xual relationship with any woman?"

"No," Matt answered.

When Johnston pressed, Matt again agreed that he'd turn over the home computer, the one Johnston had been attempting to get for more than a year. Matt reiterated what he'd told the former prosecutor in the past, that the hard drive had crashed. Where he'd earlier said that he'd thrown it away, this time he said: "But I kept it." As for the printer, Matt said he'd not only thrown that away but also replaced it with another that he'd also discarded. Although money was tight, it seemed that Matt Baker had ample funds to replace two printers in a span of two years.

"Have you endeavored to be truthful with each and every answer to my questions?"

"Yes," Baker replied, straightening up in the chair.

"Did you go out with a girl who cut your hair?" Johnston asked with a slight smile. This was what the attorney had been waiting for.

"Did I go out with a girl who cut my hair?" Matt looked as if he'd been slapped across the face.

"Did you go out with a woman who cut your hair . . . ended up at her house?"

"Yes, we did," Matt admitted, looking markedly uncomfortable.

"You were intimate . . . kissing?"

"We did kiss, correct," Matt said.

Then Johnston cornered Baker, asking, "You had s.e.x that night, didn't you?"

Baker had repeatedly said over the three-plus hours of the deposition that he hadn't been intimate with anyone since Kari's death, but now he must have known that Johnston knew about his one-night stand in Kerrville, about the woman who described a night the ex-pastor made her feel dirty and used. Matt, however, in his continual stance of maintaining that he was the one who helped others, answered with the seemingly bizarre statement: "No, what we did was I gratificated (sic) her."

Apparently he saw his actions in bed that night not as s.e.x but as a service he was providing.

To drive his point home, that Matt Baker had been caught lying under oath, Johnston asked, "And every answer you've given me to one question has been just as truthful and just as important as each other question. Isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," Baker said, still defiant.

Johnston smiled.

In McLennan County that December, Ellison filed motions in the civil suit for Matt Baker in which he argued that the judge should rule on Matt's behalf because the Dulins hadn't supplied evidence of wrongdoing. Johnston responded, attaching the written opinions of the experts who'd reviewed the evidence, including Stafford, who'd written: "Kari Baker did not die as the result of an overdose."

Six days later, Ellison filed a countermotion, questioning Stafford's qualifications and asking to ban his testimony. "Baker looks to have civil case thrown out," read the headline in the Kerrville Daily News on December 16, 2008. In the piece, Ellison said the lawsuit was based solely on speculation. Johnston's response included the scintillating detail that Matt had attempted to order Ambien online just two weeks before Kari's death.

In the weeks that followed, Ellison continued to contest the testimony of nearly everyone on Johnston's witness list, from Heather Sigler, the jewelry-store clerk, to Ben Toombs, the young detective who'd written the arrest warrant. "We a.s.sumed the civil case would keep grinding along, and we'd get him there," says Bennett. "It wasn't what we wanted, but we were playing the cards we'd been dealt."

Then, right after the first of the year, something happened that none of them could have predicted, and it would change everything.

Chapter 50.

In January 2009, the chief investigator in the McLennan County District Attorney's Office picked up the three-ring binder on the Baker case and walked into the office of one of the investigators on his staff, Abdon Rodriguez. A round-faced, jovial man with a friendly manner, Rodriguez was a former detective who had a reputation for getting suspects to confess. "I like police work. To me, it's all a game," he says, with a ready smile. "You do the bad things, and my part is to catch you."

Years earlier, Rodriguez had even managed to convince a good friend to confess after hiring someone to torch his shop. "I don't care who you are," Rodriguez says, a bit c.o.c.ky and with a healthy share of enthusiasm. "I'm going to go after you if you commit a crime."

The other trait Rodriguez was well-known for was that he was something of a human lie detector. He could look at people, listen to their stories, judge their words and their body language, and he knew if they were lying.

"John Segrest wants you to reinvestigate this case," his boss said.