If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood(9)

To prove her story, Shelly led her husband and father to the rifle.

“Right here,” she told them. “That’s where he hid it.”

Randy knew better than to believe this story. He suspected his father-in-law did too. Shelly’s stepmother did for sure.

Shelly simply didn’t want to live in that trailer anymore. It wasn’t good enough. She was Les Watson’s daughter, for God’s sake. She deserved better.

“She said it was too dangerous for her to live there,” Lara said, rolling her eyes years later. “Instead, she wanted to live in a cute little house in town.”



Whatever Shelly wanted, she got. Shelly acted like she owned Battle Ground. She left unpaid bills at the gas station and the grocer. She bounced check after check. She grew such a tab over time that some business owners thought it necessary to strong-arm Randy into paying. He’d tell them never to let Shelly charge a penny again, and they’d agree. And then they’d always give in.

Now Randy knew why Les had been so quick to welcome him into the family. It was more than handing off a daughter to be married; he’d been passing along a very big problem.

When Shelly announced she was pregnant in the summer of 1974, everyone took a gulp of air.

Maybe this would help?



Randy’s parents announced they wanted to make the trip from Pennsylvania to Washington, bringing along baby gifts and the excitement that comes with the anticipation of a new addition to the family.

Shelly, however, told Randy that she didn’t want his family to come. He brushed her off. They were coming and that was that. When the Rivardos finally arrived, she sequestered herself in her bedroom. She never once came out during the time they were there. It was embarrassing, but Randy put on a brave face and he and his family had a great time without her.

That, in turn, made her even angrier.

The fallout came later. Books brought as gifts from Randy’s little brother to the new baby went missing. Randy couldn’t find them anywhere. Shelly said she didn’t have a clue what happened to them either. After looking all over the place, they gave up.

After the family left, Randy sampled homemade candy his grandfather had sent as a gift. His grandfather had made it a hundred times. Randy took a bite and had to spit it out. It tasted of nothing but salt. He called his grandfather to tell him of the mistake with the latest batch. The old man couldn’t understand what had gone wrong—none of the other family members tasted anything but marshmallow.

The only bad batch was the box delivered to Battle Ground.

When it was discovered that Randy’s sister left some new clothing behind, Shelly offered to mail the articles back.

The package arrived in perfect condition. Its contents, not so much. Someone had taken a pair of scissors and shredded the garments.

Shelly told Randy she had no idea how that could have happened.

“Someone at the post office must have done it,” she said.





PART TWO

SISTERS

NIKKI AND SAMI





CHAPTER SEVEN

“Love Will Keep Us Together” by the Captain & Tennille and the Bee Gees’s “Jive Talkin’” played on repeat on Shelly Rivardo’s cassette player when her daughter Nikki came into the world in February 1975. It wasn’t a moment too soon either. Shelly had complained for weeks about her pregnancy, and how she was sure it was going to ruin her figure.

With both her mother’s coloring and features, Nikki could not have been a more beautiful baby. Everybody said so, even Shelly, who saw her daughter as the perfect extension of herself. She told everyone how excited she was to be a mother. How she had big dreams for her little girl. Those who knew Shelly were skeptical, but hopeful that having a baby would refocus her attention away from herself.

Instead of taking her newborn back to Battle Ground, Shelly decided that it would be best if Nikki was cared for at her parents’ rambling Tudor home in Vancouver. Lara couldn’t tell if Shelly was indifferent or worried about caring for a baby. With the exception of the disastrous stretch of babysitting for her grandparents’ neighbors in Hoodsport, Shelly had zero experience caring for a child.

“I don’t think she’d ever held a baby in her life,” Lara said later.

Lara was the opposite. She was born to be a mom, delighted to be a grandmother. When she’d first felt Nikki’s kick inside of Shelly, Lara had dubbed the baby Thumper after the rabbit from Bambi, and she had loved that baby from that little kick.

What Lara thought was going to be a few days’ stay, however, turned into three months before Randy finally put his foot down and the three of them returned to Battle Ground.

Lara drove up to see the baby every day.

“I just didn’t trust her,” Lara admitted of Shelly.

Randy didn’t either. Trouble in the Rivardo marriage escalated. His wife locked him out of the house at night. Whatever money he brought in, Shelly would spend without any regard for what the family needed.

He told Lara something that stuck with her for decades.

“Shelly is only nice to me when there are other people around.”

Randy started sleeping in his car, something that became a nightly occurrence. Shelly wanted only his paycheck, which she insisted he hand over on Fridays. The checks weren’t a magnificent sum. Far from it. Even with a decent job and no rent payments, things were tight. Shelly was used to getting more of everything. She complained to her father, so Les Watson interfered and made it so Randy’s check got delivered straight into Shelly’s hands.