Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? by Ann Rule

the city of Portland, in the early hours of
    a Monday morning, a long time before the city below woke up to begin
    the business week.   Somewhere in that large apartment, three little
    boys slept, unaware.   Brad's older son Brent was also in the apartment,
    although the detectives didn't vet know that.
     
    "Did you kill Cheryl?"   Ayers asked, suddenly blunt.
     
    The question hung heavily in the air.   Ayres's dark brown eyes bore
    into Brad Cunningham's.   Brad stared back, unflinching.
     
    "No."   At that time, Ayers saw what he later estimated to be "fifteen
    seconds of emotion."   Brad seemed startled and even a little
    frightened.   But those feelings washed over his face like a slight wind
    rippling a pond, gone as quickly as it blew in, leaving no sign that it
    had ever been there.
     
    Ayers pulled back.   "When were you in the Toyota van last?"
     
    "MarchþMarch, I think."
     
    March was almost six months ago.   Of course, even if they found Brad
    Cunningham's fingerprints in the Toyota van, they would likely be
    useless as far as physical evidence went.   Mom-and-Pop homicides were
    tough when it came to physical evidence, both victim and killer had
    good reason to leave their prints, hair, cigarette butts, semen, urineþ
    you name itþwhere they lived or had once lived.   Fingerprints could be
    retrieved after decades, and Cunningham's prints could be expected to
    be found in a van he had often driven.   Unless they happened to find
    his prints in blood, they wouldn't necessarily link him to this
    investigation.
     
    Having sprung his most straightforward question on the man before him
    and gotten little in the way of response, Ayers excused himself and
    went out on the walkway to have a cigarette, allowing the events of the
    evening to sink into Cunningham's mind.   Sometimes silence was more
    intimidating and productive than questions.   At this point, Ayers and
    Finch knew next to nothing about Cheryl Keeton or her estranged
    husband, other than that there seemed to have been no love lost between
    them.   The two detectives were akin to researchers just beginning a
    scientific project.   They would weigh any number of variables that
    might eventually bring them to the truth.
     
    Brad had not spoken of his newly deceased wife in hushed, shocked
    tones.   Whatever love or respect or friendship he might once have felt
    for Cheryl, it was patently clear he felt it no longer.   He was coarse
    and voluble about the woman who had been his wife for seven years, who
    had borne him three sons.   He told the two detectives that Cheryl had
    been "fooling around" with a large number of menþprimarily other
    attorneys with whom she worked at the law firm of Garvey, Schubert and
    Barer.   These men, he said, were all married.   "There are a lot of mad
    wives," Brad said a little smugly.
     
    Of course, he admitted with a half grin, half grimace, he had not been
    exactly celibate himself Why should he have been faithful, once he
    found out Cheryl was cheating on him?   He told Ayers and Finch that,
    initially, he had been involved with a woman named Lily Saarnen who
    worked with him while he was a bank executive in Salem and then in Lake
    Oswego.
     
    Coincidentally, Brad said, Lily also lived in the Madison Tower.
     
    "In fact, it was.she who introduced me to Dr. Gordon, and we started
    dating."
     
    Ayers let Brad continue his odd, almost stream-of-consciousness
    conversation until he eventually wound back around to Cheryl.   His
    description of his dead wife was hardly flattering.   He said that she
    had been a great fan of country music and had often hung out at the
    Jubitz Truck Stop south of Portland alongside the 1-5 freeway, where
    she went to pick up men.
     
    Finch and Avers exchanged glances.   Why would a woman who was a partner
    in a prestigious law firm be picking up truck drivers?   But then, why
    not?   The O.S.P detectives had seen all varieties of human