Free In the Still of the Night by Ann Rule Page B

suicide. Stunned, Dave had continued on to Toledo to see what could possibly have happened.
    Never once had Bell believed that Ronda had killed herself.
    When he arrived at the house on Twin Peaks Drive, he identified himself as Ronda's friend and as a longtime police officer. A Lewis County deputy met him and questioned him after telling him only the most basic assumptions--that Ronda had shot herself in the right side of the head, using her left hand to fire the gun, and that she'd been found in the walk-in closet in the master bedroom, covered with an electric blanket that was plugged in and turned on.
    "Evidently, Ron told them that he was sleeping lessthan fifteen feet away--but he didn't hear the gunshot," Dave said.
    Barb Thompson listened. Every word brought up more suspicions.
    "We were packing her things Tuesday night in the bedroom," Dave said, "and Ronda took a revolver down from a closet shelf and she handed it to me. She said she wanted me to take care of it."
    But Dave Bell asked who it belonged to, and Ronda answered, "Ron. It was his father's gun."
    Bell said he couldn't take possession of a gun that belonged to someone else. He'd carefully unloaded the weapon, put it back in its holster, and placed it in a drawer under the waterbed in the master bedroom.
    "I honestly can't recall," he told Barb, "whether I discarded the bullets on the bed or on the floor."
    Dave Bell didn't know why Ronda wanted him to take the gun out of the house. She was very familiar with weapons; she'd been an instructor in gun safety when she was on the Washington State Patrol. She'd had a WSP-issued Beretta and a .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson that her uncle Bill Ramsey had given her. Mark, her first husband, had taken the S&W Model 66, and, of course, when she left the Patrol, she'd turned in the Beretta. As far as Dave knew, she no longer had any personal gun.
    "Was Ronda afraid of something? Someone?" Barb Thompson asked.
    Dave shook his head. "I don't think so. I'd say she was indecisive. She just wanted to come up to my house in Tukwila for the night, and fly to Spokane from there. But she was afraid if she left the house, and everything she'd put into it, everything she didn't take with her Tuesday night would be gone."
    And there had been the problem of their pets. Ronda had three dogs and Dave had cats. How would they get along if they were suddenly thrust together? Not to mention Bell's sons, who were older now but really didn't know Ronda. He had hoped to introduce them gradually. He hadn't figured out how he could explain a pretty woman who was a virtual stranger to them--
and her dogs
.
    Of course, if he'd felt she was in any danger at all, none of that would have mattered. "I would have dragged her out of there kicking and screaming if I had to," he told Barb.
    Bell said he and Ronda had driven around Lewis County for a while, holding hands. That was only to comfort Ronda. Once again she had come to a crossroads in her life, one she hadn't foreseen. She was relieved to be getting out of her marriage to Ron Reynolds but she also felt somewhat embarrassed that she had failed at marriage--twice now. Ronda made several calls to friends on her cell phone, and then a short call to her estranged husband, Ron Reynolds. It had been a very brief conversation, and one without much emotion. From what Dave could hear, Ronda had focused on some specific details of their coming separation.
    "We stopped and got a bite to eat," Dave recalled. "Ronda told me she had decided to stay one final night in her own house--because she wanted to confront Ron with what she was going to demand from him in their divorce."
    They had also driven to Cheryl Gilbert's house. Ronda had been thinking of staying with Cheryl that night and possibly when she returned from her Christmas visit home, but she changed her mind. Ronda loved Cheryl's children, although sometimes she was overwhelmed because Cheryl's friendship was oppressive and somehow she seemed always to