In early 1977, a Boeing 747 crashed in the Canary Islands; five hundred and eighty-three people were killed. The rings of Uranus were discovered that year. The Communist Party was legalized in Spain, and in my hometown, in the summer of that year, Deborah Bettis was found dead in the trunk of her car.
At the time of her death, Deborah Leanne Bettis worked as a medical receptionist. She wore her blond hair in a page boy style. In early July of that record-breaking summer, calls from concerned citizens led police to the Gossett Branch Library where Deborah’s white convertible had been parked for almost a week. The residents of a nearby apartment complex were complaining about the smell.
William Bettis, Deborah’s husband, quickly became the prime suspect. The Bettis family, in a time, were big fish in our small pond. From the early sixties to the mid-to-late seventies, they owned a chain of highly successful grocery/ department/ automotive stores. At Bettis’ you could buy a new sofa and shoes for the kids, do your grocery shopping and have your tires rotated, all under one roof.
Bill Bettis, we would learn, was the black sheep of his family. Dishonorably discharged from the Navy, a gambler and a drinker, he was tall and he was dark and every night he was on the news, pleading for Deborah’s return.
Deborah Leanne was a simple soul. Blue eyeshadow, flower print dresses. Bit heavy in the thigh, and self-conscious about it. Do you love me, she would ask, and Bill would say, you know I do. Not "I love you" outright. It drove Deborah crazy.
She asked all the time, and it got on his nerves. She was like a child. Needy, the way that children are needy. Do you love me, she’d ask, open-mouthed, pitiful, vacant as cattle. Nobody loves you like I do, he’d say, but he wanted to smack her. Sometimes he did.
If you grew up in the seventies, like me, there’s a Calgon commercial you probably remember. A blond housewife-type in a Chinese laundry says, Mr. Lee, how do you get these shirts so clean? Mr. Lee smiles. Ancient Chinese secret, he says.
Then the scene cuts to the back of the store, to a woman we assume is Mrs. Lee. She is holding a blue and white box in her hand. My husband, some hotshot, she says, almost rolling her eyes. Here’s his ancient Chinese secret. It ends with her shaking the blue and white box, telling her husband, we need more Calgon; the blond woman turns. Ancient Chinese secret, hunh? And Mr. Lee oh-so-sheepishly grins.
Attitudes, stances, creep into cultures. Reveal themselves in nudges and winks. That commercial winked at you. Ladies, it said, we know, and you know, who’s really in charge, so go right ahead, roll your eyes at your men.
It might be because I come from the South, where ignorance and male privilege often walk hand-in-hand. But when I watched that ad, I envisioned the scene once the camera crew left. I could hear Mr. Lee berating his wife. I hope you’re happy, you stupid bitch. That was our future you just tossed out the window. I pictured blood spatter on pristine white shirts and terrible things between man and wife.
Bill Bettis had hired two men to kill Deborah; his brother-in-law, and the brother-in-law’s friend. Paid them five hundred each and they beat her and stabbed her and before she was strangled, they took multiple turns raping Deborah Leanne.
I did not know Deborah. I was twelve at the time. But it's hard to imagine her rolling her eyes, saying, we’re running low on Calgon, you know. Nagging. Needling. Challenging her husband’s authority that way, and I can’t see Bill grinning sheepishly, either. Not an ex-Navy man, dishonorable discharge notwithstanding.
Deborah had no idea that morning their house was unlocked and her husband was gone; the two men he’d hired testified later when she cried out for Bill, they laughed as they told her, he paid us to kill you. That’s why we’re here.
They also assumed that Deborah was dead when they slammed the trunk closed and left her like so many empty beer cans. They were wrong, she was not, and five days would pass before Deborah was found, in temperatures that soared past a hundred degrees.
The prosecution offered a smorgasbord of reasons why William Bettis might want his wife dead. A $30, 000 insurance policy. An affair he was having. Suspicions he had she was planning to leave.
I think she took a long, hard look one day, and said to herself, my husband, some hotshot. Maybe rolled her eyes at him. Bettis sensed he was losing control, and it sealed Deborah’s fate. No one told Bill when to go buy more Calgon.
He died in prison, in 2017. His partners in crime have both passed away, too. The Bettis’ stores became Targets and Wal-marts. The library closed for a time, then it moved.
Whenever I drive by the place where it was, I think of that summer. I think about her, and the motive, the reason. It wasn’t Chinese and hardly a secret. But it was almost ancient: she wasn't leaving, unless on his terms. Nobody loves you like I do, he said, but Deborah Leanne had stopped asking, by then, and her world, in the end, was just patterns and swirls.