Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [227]
Although GE didn’t pick up his contract, Ramsey would stay with Lockheed Martin for six months after the sale to GE. Gary Mann, his boss at Lockheed, had wanted to keep Ramsey, but he wanted to keep his family in Atlanta, and the company didn’t have a management opening in the area.
In the first week of November, Hunter met with Boulder County commissioner Paul Danish, who had recently lost his mother.
Danish told Hunter that he had cleared out his mother’s apartment and found her diary of the period when she divorced his father. Danish was having a hard time mourning his mother’s death, and it made Hunter think about how everyone grieves differently. He remembered that when his own mother had died, less than two months after JonBenét was murdered, he hadn’t been able to lament properly.
Hunter had recently heard something Patsy Ramsey told a friend—that John often put himself in situations that didn’t allow for venting of emotion. But he woke up in the middle of the night sobbing and crying, she said. That was his time to grieve; then in the morning, he would be ready to meet the challenges of the new day. It was ironic, because Ramsey’s apparent stoicism in the face of JonBenét’s death was exactly what made some people believe that he had murdered his daughter.
In the second week of November, Cordwainer Bird, a reporter for the Daily Camera, got a call from one of John Ramsey’s lawyers. Ramsey wanted an off-the-record conversation with Bird; one attorney would be present.
Bird was not to tell anyone about the meeting—not even his editor. He wasn’t allowed to use a tape recorder, and he could not take notes. He could not ask any specific questions about the forty-eight hours before and after JonBenét’s death. Bird asked how many other reporters had been given the same opportunity. A handful, he was told, and everyone had been given the same conditions. He didn’t know that Lisa Ryckman of the Rocky Mountain News and her editors had turned down the same offer.
Bird believed that a reporter should never shut the door on information. Here, he knew he’d be dealing with someone who was less than forthcoming and who had an agenda. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to hear Ramsey out, he thought. And maybe he could get something useful out of him.
Late in the afternoon of November 20, in crisp weather, Bird arrived at a house in Boulder where Ramsey greeted him at the door. The two men shook hands and made some small talk, then sat down a few feet apart. Bird’s first impression of the fifty-four-year-old John Ramsey was of a poised, mild-mannered man—not gregarious and not a performer. Bird saw JonBenét’s father as an ordinary man caught in far-out-of-the-ordinary circumstances.
Bird asked Ramsey what he had been like as a young man. Was he a drinker? Did he go out and screw girls? Did he think he was well endowed? Ramsey blushed, obviously embarrassed by the question. He thought he was fine, he said, but he was not King Kong. He had been kind of a boring kid, he said. He didn’t take drugs. Didn’t even like sports.
Sensing Ramsey’s discomfort, Bird said he’d been told he could ask anything, so he plowed on: What about your sex life? Any kinks? With an embarrassed smile, Ramsey said he wasn’t creative enough to be very wild sexually. Bird believed him. Ramsey came off as an all-American guy who did what all-American guys do—bed their wives a couple of times a week or, if they’re really unlucky, once a month. Asking questions, Bird was more interested in Ramsey’s reactions to his questions than in his answers.
Their conversation turned to other topics—politics, money, children. Had JonBenét ever pissed him off? Bird asked. How did he react? What had she done to irritate him? Of course she’d made him angry, Ramsey said. She was a little girl and sometimes bratty. He had scolded her the way any father would. Ramsey’s love for his daughter was audible in his voice. As they talked, Ramsey’s attorney, who had been silent throughout the interview, shifted in his seat; Bird saw he had tears in his eyes.
Bird