Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [101]
The Good Fairy project was one of Patsy’s ideas.
Instead of asking people to raise money in the usual ways—sales drives, auctions, or donations—in Good Fairy, teachers were to make a list of things they needed for their classrooms, items ranging in price from $3 to $200. The teachers would specify the item, where it could be bought, the catalog number, and the total price. Patsy then put together spreadsheets and sent the parents copies of each teacher’s list.
Good Fairies were designated for each class. They called families and merchants and encouraged them to look over the list with their own kids and pick something to donate. The entire school was decorated in the fairy theme, with pink streamers hanging everywhere. Patsy and Roxy made it an event, and the arrangements became very elaborate—too elaborate for some people. Many parents disliked all the folderol that accompanied Patsy’s projects. They would have preferred to write a check and be done with it. There were also some parents who thought that Patsy had made too big a deal of an elementary school science fair. But most people involved with High Peaks Elementary were dumbstruck by Patsy Ramsey’s ambitious and well-executed projects.
I was a schoolteacher in Chicago and got bored with teaching. Got divorced. Got into the computer business and moved to Dallas. Met my second husband, Robert Phillips, who was the author of a software program. He lived in Atlanta, and before long I joined him there. It was a fairy tale.
Ten years ago we moved to Boulder. My husband changed his profession at age forty-four. He went to law school and passed the bar. I tried painting, then some sculpting, and soon discovered I wanted to be a photographer. A black-and-white portrait photographer. I love to photograph women.
I met Patsy and John back in ’84, in Atlanta. They were already married, but none of us had moved to Boulder. Patsy worked with my husband at Hayes Micro Computer in Millcrest, Georgia. She was in charge of marketing his product, a sophisticated management system. Patsy was definitely a career woman.
She was friendly, lots of fun, a happy person, and a workaholic. She had the ability to make people like her. Whenever she was introduced, it was always, “This is Patsy Ramsey—she’s the former Miss West Virginia.” She loved it.
We all became fairly close. One year all four of us were on different business trips in San Francisco. Then we ended up going to Napa Valley together afterward.
Patsy and John were a close couple, very much in love. You felt the closeness. John was very attentive to Patsy and she to him. Lots of hand-holding, hugging. They adored each other.
John dressed casually, and Patsy always wore fine clothes. “When you go outside your home,” she always said, “you dress up. Full makeup.” In fact, she was always a little overdressed.
In ’87 Patsy got pregnant. She loved that too. It would be her parents’ first grandchild. John was the type of guy who would say, “Patsy, whatever you want. If you want to be a businesswoman, fine. If you want to be a mom, fine. Do whatever turns you on.”
Patsy quit her job and started working with John in his computer business. She ran all the marketing out of the basement of their home, where John worked with Patsy’s parents, Nedra and Don Paugh. It was a family thing. Patsy’s sisters and their husbands were also involved.
The stairs to the basement had these little strings of lights. It was like walking into a movie theater. You went down to a large television room, and Patsy worked in a back room.
When Burke was born, John built an addition to their house so Burke could have his own room, plus quarters for a nanny. The sky was the limit.
Then John merged his business with one in New Jersey and one in Boulder. The new firm, Access Graphics, located its