Read Killer Women for Free Online Page B

tried to slow down his drinking so they could resume a normal family life together with the kids. They actually seemed to start enjoying each other’s company again.
    Kathy wondered whether she had been wrong to condemn Keith in the first place. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
    But soon his own self-doubt began to return and the booze battled its way back into a dominant position in his life once more. Many believe it was brought on by the reality of the situation that Keith found himself facing – his wife was even more heavily involved with the Roy Vernon Dean drug cartel than before. Now she was delivering vast quantities of cannabis around the county. If anything, she was in much more deeply than before.
    ‘I told you to stop dealing drugs, Kathy. I won’t have it.’
    Kathy Gaultney tried to humour her husband by promising that she was not involved any more. But he knew she was. Mind you, it was the only way they could scrape together enough money to survive.
    ‘Drugs are going to be the death of us, Kathy. You mark my words.’
    Keith Gaultney had a habit of putting his foot in his mouth. But this time he was putting ideas into hiswife’s head. She looked over at him, droning on and on through the alcohol, and thought about that Saturday Night Special she purchased even before the DEA raid on the salon.
    She knew she could not bear the thought of listening to his drunken accusations for much longer. Something had to be done to silence him for ever. But it wasn’t until almost a year later that Kathy Gaultney actually built up the courage to shut him up for good. They had many ‘near misses’ – with Keith threatening to go to the authorities virtually each time she came home late. But somehow he kept quiet, although the ranting was becoming less and less coded. Now he was getting pretty blunt.
    ‘One day, I’ll go to them and then that’ll stop that bastard Dean.’
    Kathy knew all the danger signs were there. She had to do something before it was too late.
    Rachel was delighted when her mom told her and a friend to ‘get lost’ for a few hours on the evening of 22 September, 1989. St Jacob was the sort of place where kids could safely play on the streets until all hours.
    But there was one small problem. Neither Rachel nor her pal had any money and they wanted to go down to the late-night store and buy themselves some sodas and a packet of potato crisps.
    So the two girls sat down in the empty breaker’s yard opposite their house in Second Street andwaited for Kathy Gaultney and Rachel’s half-brother Walter to leave on a shopping expedition. The plan was to then slip in and steal a few dollars from Keith Gaultney’s wallet. He was always so far gone on booze by about seven that he’d have long since collapsed in bed, out to the world.
    But as the two girls waited patiently for Kathy to leave the house, they could not possibly have had any idea what was happening inside.
    Kathy Gaultney looked down at the snoring man who called himself her husband and sneered. As he lay there in his drunken state, she felt no qualms for what she was about to do, She had locked her son out of the bedroom and told him to wait in the hall before they went shopping. Now she had some unfinished business to attend to.
    The .22 Saturday Night Special was rock steady in her hand. Just seeing him there in that comatose state convinced her that what she was about to do had to be right.
    She cocked the gun, leant down silently and pressed the barrel right into the fatty folds of skin on his forehead. Still he did not stir. Even with the ultimate killing machine pointed right into his head, he could feel nothing because of all the booze he had consumed.
    She prodded the barrel one last time just to see if he would notice. But there was nothing there.Perhaps if he had stirred then Kathy Gaultney might not have seen it through. But somehow she imagined he would hardly feel a thing because he was already out cold anyway.
    As her