Although Rob didn’t know it, his parents were scheduled to meet Tom and Kathy for lunch on Friday, and his testimony was given more weight than he realized, for, after his call, Florence called Tom and canceled their appointment, suggesting that they meet at Bob’s office that afternoon instead.
Tom and Kathy were unaware of the reason that made the Newsoms change the time and place for their meeting, but they realized that something wasn’t right.
“They were nervous,” Kathy recalled. “Mrs. Newsom acted very strange. She sat not facing us. She wasn’t talking. She didn’t say much.”
Tom thought this was because of the awkwardness of the situation and meeting Kathy for the first time. Kathy, too, was nervous, wanting to make a good impression. “I was scared to death,” she said.
Tom and Bob did most of the talking. Tom began by essentially repeating what he’d said in his letter.
“I said I didn’t think the boys were being handled properly and there had to be some solution to this so I could see them more and they could be exposed to a more normal life-style. Mr. Newsom agreed. He basically said that we had seen the boys more than they had in the last couple of years. He said they wanted to keep the windows open for the boys so they could always have opportunities. He felt the same way I felt. There wasn’t any difference of opinion. He said that when the boys reached the age they could talk to the judge, ‘I’m one hundred percent sure the boys will come to live with you, Tom.’ He said that was fine.”
Tom said if that should happen, he would be glad to pay for the boys to come back regularly for visits.
“He asked me if I would pay for college,” Tom remembered. “I said there would be no doubt they would go to college and I would handle whatever it cost.”
Tom was surprised at some of the things Bob said about Susie that day, all of which Tom had already observed. She had to have her way, Bob said, had to be in control. She was spoiled, stubborn, bossy, and “pathological in her possessiveness of the children.” At one point, he called her a “smartass” and said he didn’t know what to do about her.
Before he and Kathy left, Tom had a question.
“What is the relationship between Susie and Fritz?”
Bob remained silent.
“We really don’t know,” Florence finally said.
Not until this trip did Tom realize that Fritz was actually living with Susie. He saw Fritz walking the two chows at 8 A.M., an unusual time for somebody just to come calling. The boys said that Fritz stayed there most of the time now, and Tom didn’t like it. Neither did he like the boys’ appearances. Their shoes were too small, their toenails long and curling, their hair dirty. They wore crosses and St. Christopher medals on chains around their necks.
Tom and Kathy went shopping for new shoes and clothes for the boys. They took them to see the movie
Gremlins.
They went to their school and met their teachers. On Saturday, Tom and his friend Bob Brenner of High Point, a former Wake Forest football player who had been an usher at Tom’s wedding to Susie, took the boys to Raleigh to see their first live college football game between North Carolina State and South Carolina. Later, Tom bought a kickball for the boys and went out to play with them but the boys were too concerned about soiling their clothes to have a good time.
“Mother will kill us,” they said.
On Sunday, Tom and Kathy took the boys to Reidsville to have the lunch buffet at the country club with Louise Sharp. Bob and Florence came, and so did Annie Hill Klenner. Bob and Florence had a good time with the boys, whom they hadn’t seen for several months. Later, Louise took Tom and Kathy on a tour of the big Sharp home. She showed the boys photos of the tragic, long-dead twins, their great uncles whose names they bore.
On Monday, Tom and Kathy had lunch with the boys at school, and John’s teacher told them that John had been crying all morning because his father would be leaving the next day. She told him to keep John for the afternoon.
“I won’t tell his mother,” she promised.
Taking the boys back to Susie was difficult.
“John was crying,” Kathy remembered. “He kept looking at me and looking at her.”
Tom and Kathy wanted to see the apartment, see the boys’ room, but Susie made it plain that they weren’t welcome. She swept the boys up before they had a chance to give good-bye hugs and took them inside.
Tom and Kathy flew home the next day, election day, feeling sad about leaving the boys but good about the effect of their trip. They felt they had made a good impression with Susie’s family and possibly had won support for the future.
Judge Sharp missed little that went on in the family. Having been informed of Tom’s earlier letter to Louise, she knew his purpose, and after hearing about the Sunday meeting in Reidsville, she called her niece at Florence’s suggestion and asked her to lunch at the K&W Cafeteria in Greensboro. Actually, it was Rob who had suggested to his mother that his aunt Su-Su meet with Susie to see if she could get a reading on his sister’s mental condition and the situation with Fritz, although his aunt was unaware of that.
As Tom and Kathy were flying westward, Susie Sharp was waiting at the cafeteria for her niece to arrive. “I thought maybe I could get her to talk,” she said later, “but she showed up with Rob. I was thoroughly thwarted.”
After lunch, Su-Su stopped at Bob’s office to report her conversation to Bob and Florence. She found them in a low mood. Although they had evaded mentioning it to Tom and Kathy, they remained deeply distressed about Susie’s relationship with Fritz and greatly worried about its effect upon the boys.
“Florence and Bob were at their wits’ end,” Judge Sharp recalled later. “They just didn’t know what to do. They were very apprehensive that something terrible was going to happen. They were afraid Fritz was going to kill the children with his doctoring.”
On November 10, Louise wrote to Tom: “It was good to see you, Kathy, John and Jim last Sunday. Your concern for your boys is commendable and heart-warming.”
She went on to write about the election, family visits, and other affairs, before reporting the cafeteria meeting arranged by her sister Susie.
“After lunch she met Bob and Florence at Bob’s office for a talk before returning to Raleigh. I believe she has Susie Q ready to find bunk beds for the boys and to go to Bowman Gray for a medical check-up. She looks pretty but is too thin.”
Susie did pick out bunk beds for the boys, and Su-Su sent a check to pay for them. John and Jim argued the first night about who would sleep on top. Later they sent thank-you notes to Su-Su. John called the new beds “neat.” Susie also took the boys to her parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner. Susie had been made aware that if Tom went to court again, it would be in her best interest for the boys to have a closer relationship with their grandparents. Susie stayed only long enough to eat, but despite the strain, everything went well.
On December 13, Kathy wrote long, almost identical letters to Bob and Florence and Louise:
It is hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner. Usually, this is my favorite holiday, but this year with all that has happened, it is hard to get into the spirit. Tom and I are going through the motions. We were supposed to be in Kentucky this Christmas, and we were hoping John and Jim
would have been able to join us for a couple of days.
Both of us are trying to keep busy so we won’t be reminded of how empty this Christmas will be. Tom needs me now more than ever. I feel so frustrated at times because sometimes no matter what I say or do makes Tom feel better.
We have gotten our shopping for John and Jim finished. We just have to get their gifts in the mail. Tom says he hopes the boys will be allowed to play with their presents from us because in the past the items were given away or put up. The same was true when Delores sent their gifts, so she used to send everything here for the kids to enjoy.
Tom says he will be surprised if he gets a Christmas card, phone call or thank-you note from the boys.
I am still concerned about Tom. He has been through so much this year with the loss of his mother and sister. It doesn’t help that he is always worrying about John and Jim and that he misses them a great deal.
I know the Lynches loved John and Jim very much and they were upset that they weren’t allowed to see them. Tom says he knows Susie has painted a distorted picture of his family because she never wanted anything to do with any of his relatives while they were married. The boys have told us the awful things their mother has said about Chuck, Delores and Janie. All this has hurt Tom terribly. Tom says Susie tried to dominate him and alienate him from his family just like she is trying to keep John and Jim away from him, you and the rest of her family.
We understand that Susie Marshall bought bunk beds for the children. That was a thoughtful and generous thing for her to do. The boys are pleased that they finally have beds. Tom is happy the boys came for Thanksgiving dinner and he feels it was our trip to North Carolina that prompted them to go. The boys are still very secretive and we get all kinds of conflicting stories from them. Tom says the
boys are still being told what to say and what not to say. When talking to the boys on the phone we can always tell when their mother is there by the way the boys act. Jim and John say they want to spend more time with us but are afraid to tell anyone. We would also like to see more of them. Thirty-five days in the summer (when they get ninety days off from school), every other Christmas and every other spring break is not enough time to form the kind of close relationship the kids need.
Florence answered Kathy’s letter five days before Christmas.
We are looking forward to our Christmas Eve dinner here. It will be our last Christmas dinner in this house. Susie and the boys are coming and we will be delighted.
I had a nice surprise last week. Bob asked me to go to lunch with him, and he took me to the Hilton—it turned out to be a surprise retirement luncheon for me by the staff and faculty of Rutledge College.
Tom and Kathy learned about Christmas at the Newsoms when they returned from a holiday trip to her parents’ home in Nebraska and found a letter from Louise.
Susie and the boys had come to the big Christmas Eve dinner, and Susie had seemed her old self. The boys looked well. They got jogging suits from Bob and Florence, pajamas from Nanna, and games from Louise.
Florence served a big, traditional meal: ham, turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberries, yams, green bean casserole, squash casserole, wild rice, biscuits, coffee, egg nog, mincemeat and pumpkin pies, fruitcake, and cookies.
“Poor Florence worked like a Turk,” Louise wrote. “She did not eat until we all left. Bob carved the meat and Nanna helped cook. Nanna spent the night. On Christmas Day the Newsoms went to Raleigh to be with the Millers.
“I feel sure that your fall visit to Greensboro did a lot of good.”
Thus the worst year of Tom’s life came to an end. The new year, he thought, would have to be better. Surely it would bring him more time with his sons.
32
Neither Tom nor anybody in Susie’s family realized that Susie and Fritz had become so close that they were now calling themselves husband and wife. Neighbors at Susie’s apartment complex assumed them to be married, and although Fritz and Susie seemed somewhat secretive and kept largely to themselves, when they did have contact with neighbors they did nothing to dispel that impression. At nearby businesses they frequented together Fritz referred to Susie as his wife in her presence and to John and Jim as his sons. He wanted the boys to call him Papa instead of Uncle Fritz, and they usually did.
In February of 1985, Fritz presented Susie with an elaborate valentine “to my loving wife,” and she tucked it away for sentimental keeping.
Early in March, Fritz moved out of his apartment in Durham, which had stood largely unused in the previous year. He left behind a telephone, smoke-permeated walls, and a big, perfectly round hole burned in the center of the living room carpet, causing the property manager to wonder what strange activities this young doctor had been up to. No request was made for the return of the security deposit.
Fritz moved many of his things into Susie’s second-floor apartment, which became as cluttered as the Klenner house always had been. He hung blankets and camouflage sheets over the closed window blinds in the bedrooms, shutting out all light, and while Susie went about her routine of getting the boys off to school and diligently attending her classes at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she was nearing completion of her work for a master’s degree in business administration, Fritz continued his habit of sleeping through most of the day and prowling late into the night. He still presented himself as a doctor, and even some family members still thought he was one. The previous fall, when his cousin Vera Luten, the only child of Fritz’s favorite aunt, Marie, was dying of leukemia, Fritz drove to Pennsylvania with his mother, arriving late on a Thursday. Marie wanted him to hurry to the hospital because Vera was near death. “He said, ‘Aunt Marie, I’ve got to get cleaned up. I’m a doctor. I’ve got to get cleaned up and look like one,’” Marie later recalled. “We just assumed that he had got his papers.” Fritz continued to freely offer medical advice to casual acquaintances and strangers. Neighbors and others who encountered him on a regular basis assumed that he worked a late hospital shift.