Practice to Deceive
Ann Rule
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CONTENTS
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Epigraph
Foreword
Cast of Characters
PART ONE:
The Body in the Woods
Chapter One
Chapter Two
PART TWO:
Russ and Brenna
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
PART THREE:
The Investigation
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
PART FOUR:
Likely and Unlikely Suspects
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
PART FIVE:
Mark Plumberg
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
PART SIX:
Peggy Sue Stackhouse
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
PART SEVEN:
The Stackhouse Family: 1963–2002
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
PART EIGHT:
Arrest and Punishment
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Epilogue
Photographs
Acknowledgments
About Ann Rule
To good cops everywhere who never give up, even when they are investigating the most difficult cases imaginable. The public will never really know the overtime they put in, the emotional toll they often pay, or how much it matters to them that justice will one day be served.
Oh what a tangled web we weave
when first we practice to deceive.
—Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto VI, XVII
FOREWORD
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THIS STORY OF MURDER has as many facets as an intricately cut diamond, far too many to seem believable as either fiction or nonfiction. Either way, as the bizarre scenarios blaze a path through encounters between people who would not be expected to know one another, this saga might well seem contrived. As nonfiction—which it is—it is a murky sea of reality with myriad characters who seem larger than life. They are infinitely different from one another in personalities, lifestyles, and possible motivations.
I have wondered if their machinations can be reconstructed here in any orderly fashion. Where do I jump in and build a foundation of sentences and paragraphs strong enough to bear the weight of everything that must be told? There are no locks that my author’s keys will open easily, just as there are few threads that might be woven into a pattern that makes sense.
The denouement of this baffling case took a decade. The entire story traverses fifty years. Even now, there are shadowy corners where secrets still hide.
Many innocents have died violent deaths in unlikely places. Over time, the motives behind why these particular human beings were singled out for death are more obscure.
* * *
IN THE SIXTIES, A group of authors decided to write a rather silly book where each writer penned a chapter. New additions didn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with the story line that came before. The provocative title and book jacket drew potential buyers, and Naked Came the Stranger became a bizarre bestseller.
Some years later, I belonged to a similar social organization of a dozen or so Seattle best-selling authors. We called it the Bitch and Moan Society. It was a venue to air our disappointments, complaints, and anxieties about our profession. Eventually, we decided to write a book similar to Naked Came the Stranger, where we, too, took turns writing disconnected chapters.
Our manuscript, Deadly Obsession, Possession, and Depression Revisited, was packed with implausible plots and wacky characters. A reader could start at the beginning, the end, or the middle and none of it fit together, which isn’t surprising, because each of us wrote in a different genre: romance, horror, military espionage, true crime, psychological suspense, teenage love stories, humor, and historical sagas. We never intended to publish it, which was just as well, but we all laughed hysterically when each segment was read aloud.
One of our rules demanded that we always had to “put the action on an island!”
In many ways Practice to Deceive has challenged me to cover murderous plots with players as diverse as our mythical Deadly Obsession. And, ironically, many of the nefarious plots in this book did take place on an island.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
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JAMES STACKHOUSE
First wife: Mary Ellen
Children:
Thomas Stackhouse
Michael Stackhouse
Lana Stackhouse Galbraith
Brenda Stackhouse Gard
Rhonda Stackhouse Vogl
Robby Stackhouse
Second wife: Doris
Children:
Peggy Sue Stackhouse
Amy (stepdaughter)
Sue “Sweet Sue” Mahoney (stepdaughter)
Third wife: Terry
(three stepchildren)
GAIL DOUGLAS O’NEAL
First husband: Jim Douglas
Children:
Matthew Douglas
Russel Douglas
Holly Douglas Hunsicker
Second husband: Bob O’Neal
RUSSEL DOUGLAS
First and only wife: Brenna
Mistress: Fran Lester*
Children:
Jack Douglas
Hannah Douglas
PEGGY SUE STACKHOUSE
First husband: Reverend Tony Harris
Second husband: Kelvin Thomas
Children:
Mariah Thomas
Taylor Thomas
Third husband: Mark Allen
JIM HUDEN
First wife: Patti Lewandowski
Second wife: Jean Huden
Mistress: Peggy Sue Stackhouse Harris Thomas Allen
Vickie Boyer, best friend of Peggy Sue Thomas for seven years
Cindy Francisco, good friend of Peggy Sue Thomas
Bill Hill, Buck Naked and the X-hibitionists band member and close friend of Jim Huden in Florida
Dick Deposit, Lloyd Jackson, Bill Marlow, Ken Kramer, Ron Young, all longtime friends of Jim Huden on Whidbey Island
INVESTIGATORS, ISLAND COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE
Detective Mike Birchfield
Detective Sergeant Mike Beech
Sergeant Mark Plumberg
Detective Shawn Warwick
Detective Sue Quandt
Detective Ed Wallace
Island County Coroner Robert Bishop
Mine That Bird, Kentucky Derby winner, 2009
PART ONE
* * *
The Body in the Woods
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
>
WHIDBEY ISLAND, WASHINGTON, IS one of the largest islands in the continental United States, a vacation spot for some, home to sixty thousand residents, and a massive duty station for navy personnel. Ferries and the Deception Pass Bridge transport visitors and residents alike to this idyllic body of land that floats on Puget Sound with any number of passages, inlets, bays, and other waterways.
Whidbey is a study in contrasts. The sprawling Whidbey Island Naval Air Station is in the town of Oak Harbor at the northern tip of the forty-seven-mile-long island. It is the premier naval aviation installation in the Pacific Northwest and the location of all electronic attack squadrons flying the EA-6B Prowler and the EA-18G Growler. It is also home to four P-3 Orion Maritime Patrol squadrons and two Fleet Reconnaissance squadrons that fly the EP-3E Aries.
South of Oak Harbor along Highway 520, there are smaller, homier towns: Coupeville, the Island County seat, Greenbank, Langley, Freeland, and Clinton. Although supermarkets and a few modest malls have opened in the last several years, much of Whidbey Island is composed of hamlets, bucolic pastures, evergreen forests, marinas, and a good number of lavish waterfront estates built by people from the mainland.
Visiting much of Coupeville is akin to stepping back in time; the tree-shaded streets are lined with any number of restored houses more than a hundred years old.
From some island locations, there are views of Seattle rising out of a fog-smudged mist, but mostly Whidbey Island is still a place to get away from the stresses of city life. With so much waterfront and so many parks, Whidbey draws tourists in every season. And it is a great place to raise a family with good schools, friendly neighbors, and a true sense of community.
A number of high school graduates move off-island as they search for a quicker-paced world, but they almost always come back for reunions and holidays to catch up with family and old friends.
There isn’t a lot of crime on Whidbey; bank robbers prefer spots where they don’t have to wait for a ferry to make a clean getaway. There are, of course, some sex crimes, and a murder from time to time. When law enforcement officers do have a homicide to investigate, it tends to be out of the ordinary, even grotesque. Island County detectives have investigated explosive cases that made headlines in Seattle, and sometimes nationwide. Colton Harris Moore, “the Barefoot Bandit,” a brilliant teenage lawbreaker who went from robbing cabins to stealing airplanes and boats, began his crimes on Camano Island where he grew up—but he was tried on Whidbey Island.
Like all insular areas, Whidbey Island has active gossip chains of communication. Illicit liaisons seldom remain secret for long. There aren’t many “No-Tell Motels” or discreet cocktail lounges where lovers can hope to escape prying eyes. Frankly, some of the posher restaurants and health clubs have been headquarters for swingers and “key clubs,” and they aren’t all that secretive. With the advent of the Internet, gossip spreads more rapidly with every year that goes by.
During the last days of 2003, the chains were buzzing. Some residents were fascinated with a violent mystery and some were just plain frightened.
CHAPTER TWO
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WAHL ROAD IS ABOUT four miles from the small Whidbey Island town of Freeland, and a hodgepodge of homes and buildings line the narrow roadway. Some are sparsely furnished old cabins with few luxuries, and then there are newer cabins, upscale houses, and even a few lodges worth a million dollars or more where access to those walking to the beach is cut off by iron gates and impenetrable shrubbery. As Wahl Road wends its way parallel to the part of Puget Sound known as “Double Bluff,” it passes everything from a monastery to trailers tucked far off into the woods.
Many of the residences are getaway retreats for people who live in Seattle, Everett, or Bellingham, Washington—or even in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since many of the places are vacant during the winter months, neighbors who are full-time residents keep an eye out for strangers or any sign of suspicious activity.
Nicole Lua and a woman friend—Janet Hall—left Lua’s Wahl Road home at about three in the afternoon on the day after Christmas 2003, and headed toward the Double Bluff beach area where winter sunsets are often spectacular. There was a narrow parklike area they could access via the road or by cutting through neighbors’ yards.
It was raining and threatening to rain more, but it wasn’t that cold for December, about forty degrees, which would drop to just above freezing during the night. Many of the homes in their neighborhood had already turned on their Christmas lights, and beams and shards of color sliced through the rain and fog. As always, the day after Christmas didn’t seem nearly as joyful as the day before Christmas.
As the two women cut across the thickly forested property at 6665 Wahl Road, Nicole noticed a bright yellow SUV parked in a small cleared space at right angles to the dirt driveway leading back to a cabin. She knew that her neighbors who lived there—the Black family—had gone to Costa Rica for the Christmas holiday, and she was a little surprised to see a strange vehicle there. It was an idle curiosity, however, since nothing seemed to be amiss, and there was a light on in the cottage kitchen. The Blacks sometimes invited friends to stay at their vacation spot.
The two women didn’t walk near the yellow car. When they headed back from the beachfront, it was four thirty and full dark during this week of the shortest days of the year. Now they could see that the yellow Tracker was still there, and its pale dome light was on. Caution told them not to walk closer to a strange car in the dark on their own. If the car had a mechanical problem or was out of gas, the driver had probably called for help or walked up Wahl Road toward town.
They decided they would look for it the next day—if it was still there. If it was, they would call the Island County Sheriff’s Office and ask that a deputy check it out.
Before they did that, however, someone else noticed the yellow car that was almost hidden by the fir trees beside the long driveway. On the early Saturday afternoon of December 27, 2003, Joseph Doucette, who was a schoolteacher in Bellingham, Washington, left one of the cabins on the Blacks’ property with his sons to take a walk.
One of the Blacks’ sons was Doucette’s pupil, and the teacher, his wife, their two sons, and her sister had happily accepted an invitation to spend Christmas in the cozy cabin.
With all the excitement of Christmas and the somewhat close quarters of a cottage, the little boys were bouncing off the walls. Doucette rounded them up and they headed out for a hike with their dog, hoping they could get rid of some of the pent-up energy.
The Bellingham teacher saw the yellow SUV backed into a grassy spot between two fir trees. Its dome light was still on. His oldest son noticed that the passenger door was open.
“I thought I should go up and shut the door,” Doucette recalled. “To keep the battery from draining and rain from getting in. I called out to anyone who might be in the car, but no one answered.”
With an eerie sense that there might be something really wrong, Doucette quickly led his boys back to their cabin and told them to stay inside while he checked on something. Once his sons were safely out of the way, the teacher jogged back to the SUV.
As he moved to shut the car door, he glanced in and froze in shock. There was someone inside the Tracker. The man behind the steering wheel appeared to be asleep, drunk—or perhaps even dead. Half hoping he might only be imagining the worst, Joe Doucette looked closer. The silent figure appeared to be buckled into a seat belt. He saw that the man was slumped over with his head down and his fists tightly clenched.
Backing away, Doucette knew he shouldn’t touch anything, and he hurried back to his cabin to call 911.
He told the Island County dispatcher that he’d noticed something that looked “like goo” coming out of the man’s forehead. That led him to believe that the stranger might be dead.
Doucette had no idea who the man was or what had happened. He stayed beside the yellow vehicle, waiting for the ICOM (Island Communications) operator to dispatch someone who might kn
ow how to determine that.
