If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood(3)

“Paul was wild,” she acknowledged. “He was like an animal. He even carried a switchblade. Really. Not kidding. He did.”

Lara did what she could, but she knew almost right away that she was in way over her head. Les was busy with his businesses, and Lara didn’t fault him too much for not having much time for his children, but she was doing all she could as a stepmother to three handfuls—willful Shelly, wild Paul, and silent Chuck. Chuck, who still didn’t speak unless Shelly put words in his mouth, was a loner. People who knew their birth mother suspected that his difficulties might have come from some kind of child abuse, though in the 1960s little of that was actually put into words.

“A neighbor told me one time that they’d seen Chuck in his room with the window open and he was just standing there crying,” Lara said. “It was something that he did all the time.”

As difficult as Paul and Chuck could be, the child who created the most difficulty for Lara was Shelly.

The Watsons put extra emphasis on getting the most out of their family time on the weekends, shutting out all other distractions and focusing on the kids, which by now also included a daughter and a son Lara and Les had had together. They made regular trips to the Oregon or Washington coasts for boating in the summer months, and in the winter, they skied the slopes of Mount Hood. It would have been a fine and happy life, if not for Shelly.

She pitched fits, started fights, and would flat out refuse to go. If something wasn’t Shelly’s idea, it was a nonstarter. Whenever she didn’t get her way, Shelly was crafty enough to find a suitable solution. Usually it involved a lie. Her excuses were vague and often ridiculous. She didn’t like doing her homework, for example. So she’d complain that her youngest siblings had destroyed all of her hard work. When that ruse didn’t work anymore, she’d simply refuse to go to school.

“I’d try to find ways to make [things] easier for her in the morning,” Lara recalled. “I would set her clothes out at night, so she wouldn’t have to worry at the last minute to decide. I would set cereal and fruit out on the dining table—all ready to go. Anything to make the mornings go a little more smoothly. But that didn’t matter. Shelly didn’t want to do what she didn’t want to do.”

Each morning, a sullen and frequently angry Shelly would head off to school and the morning battle would be over.

At least that’s what Lara believed at the time.

“I got a phone call one time from the Standard Oil service station down the street from the school. They said, ‘This is the craziest thing! We’ve been seeing this little girl come in and going in [to] use the bathroom, and she brings in a sack of clothes [and then] she goes out,’ and they say, ‘She’s got a pile of clothes here. But she leaves with another set of clothes, jeans.’”

Lara got in her car and drove to the Standard station. She was astounded by what she found.

Shelly had indeed left behind a stash of clothes. “Probably had four or five dresses and skirts of hers squirreled away there. Beautiful brand-new things that Shelly didn’t want to wear to school.”

The impasse on clothing was only a fraction of the discord between Shelly and Lara, though Lara kept trying to find a way to get her stepdaughter on the right path. When Shelly was a little older, Lara took her to dance lessons, but half the time the girl refused to go inside the studio. She’d skip the recitals too.

“Everything was a big drama with her. Every little thing. Shelly always looked distraught and upset, whatever we did, wherever we went. No matter what it was. Even doing something nice for her like getting her a gift brought anger. ‘What are you being mad about?’ I’d ask. No answer, but I knew from the way she acted that nothing was good enough. Nothing whatsoever. Nothing satisfied her.”

In time, Shelly’s behavior began to change from being merely disruptive and ungrateful to dark and vengeful. She especially resented her siblings. Every bit of attention to another person meant a deficit in what she felt was owed to her. Whenever the deficit wasn’t paid, Shelly sought revenge. Her tactics were brutal and, frequently, sadistic. There would be lies about family members, stolen money, and even suspicion of arson in the Watson house.

Years later, Lara took a deep breath, recalling, “She used to chop up bits of glass and put them in the bottom of [the kids’] boots and shoes,” she said. “What kind of person does something like that?”

Lara didn’t have to look far for an example.

Grandma Anna, Shelly’s paternal grandmother, was just that kind of person too.





CHAPTER THREE

For Lara, seeing her mother-in-law, Anna Watson, meant a tightening of the muscles along her spine, hoping that Les’s mother wouldn’t cast her sharklike eyes in her direction. If Anna passed by, it brought Lara a shudder of relief. Only then could Lara take a breath. A very deep one. At least that’s how Shelly’s stepmother felt whenever she faced the singular terror that was Anna Watson.

Born in Fargo, North Dakota, and transplanted to Clark County when she was a teen, Shelly Watson’s paternal grandmother was tall and large, with muscled, shot-put shoulders and the sinewy trace of tendons that ran from her neck into the collar of her plain blue blouse. Anna tipped the scales at more than 250 pounds, and her left foot dragged when she walked, emitting a scraping noise that let people know when she was coming or going. Like her physical size, Anna’s self-certainty was formidable. She was absolutely right about everything, so much so that no one ever dared challenge her. Not Les, and certainly not his young wife, Lara. Anna ran one of the Watsons’ nursing homes, and there was no mistaking that everything had to be done her way. “Iron fisted” often came to the lips of those recalling Anna Watson’s style.