Ch 14: the Arrivals

The Edwards family was trying to figure out what to do, being so far away from the site of the tragedy.  Communication was difficult and expensive with the South Pacific.  The bits of sparse information coming from Papeete didn’t make sense.  Loren died when the boom came loose and hit him.  This also injured Kerry. . . Jody died the next day.  Things weren’t adding up.   Murder certainly wasn’t on anyone’s mind yet. The family just wanted some logical answers to their questions.  It was clear someone had to go to Tahiti and help Gary, Kerry and Lori tend to the Spellbound. Everyone hoped sending someone out there would also yield some answers about what really happened to Loren and Jody.  Gary and Kerry needed the family’s support in this difficult time.  Both Little Jody and Bobbie couldn’t go because they had their daughters to look after.  This left Larry.  He helped sail the Spellbound to San Diego.  No one outside the current Spellbound crew was more familiar with the boat. He might even be able to help Gary sail the boat home.  The question was whether he could get time off from his job.

After leaving the Spellbound, Larry found a job editing resumes for people wanting to work for the navy.  Nothing exciting, but it paid the bills.  He was happier living in a sunnier place than the Pacific Northwest.  And, he had purchased a little sailboat to live on.  But, the fact that he lived on a boat meant he did not have a phone.  Thus, it was while he was at work that Larry learned of his dad’s death.  After he heard the news on Friday morning, Larry retreated to his sailboat for comfort, solitude, and reflection.  On Saturday, when the family learned of Jody’s death, they called Joe, a friend of Jody and Loren’s who lived in San Diego, and asked him to play the difficult role of messenger.  Joe agreed and drove immediately to Larry’s boat.  He asked Larry to come home with him.  It was at Joe’s house that Larry learned the unbearable news of his mother’s death.  

Larry was stunned into silence, and then anger – so much anger.  He hurdled questions at Joe, who of course had no answers.   The only place answers could be found was in Tahiti.  Larry decided before the family could even ask him that he wanted to go.  He left on the next flight for Tahiti, which was Sunday evening, and arrived on Monday early in the morning. 

Larry’s mind was reeling during his twelve-hour flight.   He knew his parents were dead and that his sister was wounded.  His thoughts must have turned to a question that he would visit many times for the rest of his life.  If he had remained on the Spellbound, would he be dead or would he have been able to save his parents.   He had plenty of time to ponder this during his long flight.  Larry landed in Tahiti jet lagged and emotionally drained, but eager to piece together the jumbled events and snippets the family had received. 

Russ and Flo had sailed into Papeete on the Drummer a few days before Loren and Jody died.  Both were in shock over the death of their friends.  The trip they had planned for a year together was ending in the worst possible way.  Russ and Flo were surprised when the French authorities opened an official inquiry on Monday, indicating they suspected foul play.  While the gendarmes were considering how to proceed, and Larry was landing at Faa’a International Airport in Papeete, Russ went to see Kerry at Mamao Hospital, where she’d checked in just a few hours earlier.  He wanted to offer her comfort for the loss of her parents.  He also wanted to know why the French authorities were involved. 

When Russ opened the door to Kerry’s hospital room, he was alarmed by what he saw.  Kerry looked like she had been in a barroom fight.   She was bruised, there were stitches above her right eye, and her head was bandaged.  Russ walked over to Kerry’s bed and bent down to give her a hug, but she winced at the gesture, so he held back.  “What the heck happened?” was all he could think to say.  Kerry told Russ that Gary was beating her up in the main cabin when Loren heard the commotion from the deck outside, where he was on watch.  Loren ran down the steps into the main cabin and saw Kerry on the floor with her face covered in blood.

“Why was Gary beating on you?” Russ interrupted.

 Kerry ignored the question and continued telling her story: “Dad told Gary to go up on deck and steer the boat.  Gary could see that Dad could barely contain his anger, so he shrugged and went up on deck.”  Kerry paused and looked at Russ and quietly said, “I have never seen Dad so angry before.” It took Kerry a second to compose herself before she continued.  “Dad bent down and helped me onto my sleeping couch.  After I was settled, he asked me what happened.”  Russ was holding his breadth.  “I was crying and couldn’t say anything.  Before I could answer, Gary yelled from outside that he thought he saw an atoll.”  Russ began to understand he hadn’t heard the worst part of her story yet.  “Dad rushed up the stairs into the cockpit, thinking the boat was in danger,” Kerry continued. 

“Where was Jody?” Russ asked.  Again, Kerry ignored his question and told him that she heard a loud and prolonged scuffle outside but couldn’t see what was happening from the couch.  She said she tried to get up but almost fainted and had to sit back down.  Russ could see reliving the events caused her face to turn white.  Between sobs Kerry told Russ, “The noise outside just stopped.  It was too quiet.  Everything slowed down.  Then Gary called down that Dad had been hurt.”

Russ was now in tears too.  He was very fond of the Edwards.  They were all excited to travel together around Tahiti.  Now, he was here in a hospital room with an injured and traumatized Kerry, his friends were dead, and a story that led to more questions than answers.  Where was Jody, he wondered again, and Lori for that matter.  He felt Kerry clutch for his hand, sniffling.  She looked exhausted and frightened and so young.  

“What started all of this?” he asked her.

“I’m real tired, too tired to talk” she barely whispered, and then closed her eyes.  He held her hand while she quickly drifted into a drug-induced sleep.  Russ looked at Kerry one last time, shook his head, and tiptoed out of the hospital room.  He walked back to the Drummer and told his wife Flo about his conversation with Kerry.  Neither of them ever spoke to any of the crew of the Spellbound again. 

After checking through customs, Larry went straight to Mamao Hospital.  Russ had left shortly before, and Lori arrived a few minutes later.  Kerry was still asleep when Larry walked into her room.  Larry walked over next to his sister’s bed, whispering to Lori, “What’s the prognosis?”  Lori explained Kerry had fractured her skull above the left temple. “Shit,” he muttered, wondering if it would be safe for her to fly to Seattle.  “When are you leaving for Seattle?” he asked.

“I need to call my Dad and ask him to buy us tickets to fly home as soon as possible.  The doctors said Kerry can make the flight okay,” Lori replied.  Lori looked frail, almost childlike, even though she was almost twenty-one.

Larry looked around, “Where is Gary?” he asked.  Lori explained Gary had stayed in Rangiroa because they couldn’t leave the Spellbound unattended.  Their whispering woke Kerry.  Larry walked over and took her hand.  Larry had a million questions, but waited for her to speak.

Kerry said, “I’ll be fine once I have surgery back in the U.S.”  Larry exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding, knowing he would not lose another family member.

Larry wasn’t sure what to say next.  What did one say under the circumstances?  “I wanted to make arrangements for their bodies,” he said, not looking either of them directly in the face. 

“We buried them at sea,” Kerry explained.

“Why?” Larry asked, stunned.  Kerry sighed and said that it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. “Was there a heat wave? Were you caught in a storm?” Larry asked, raising his voice but checking himself so he didn’t upset his injured sister.  “No, the weather was normal, there wasn’t much wind.  We were trying to get to Papeete so Dad could fly back to Seattle so we were motoring,” she told him.  

“I thought you were hit by the boom when Dad was hurt?” Larry inquired.

“No” was Kerry’s all-too-short answer. “Dad fell when he was stepping onto the deck from the cockpit.  He hit his head on the wheel.  The boom didn’t hit him.”  Larry just gave her a questioning, somewhat flabbergasted look.  “Dad’s equilibrium had been off for a bit, maybe from an ear infection or perhaps an infected sore in his leg,” she offered.  Unbeknownst to Larry, this answer differed significantly from her earlier account to Russ and it is the beginning of continued inconsistencies with Kerry’s rendition of what occurred. 

“Did you see this happen?” he asked her.  Kerry explained she was lying on the couch in the main cabin. Mom was attending her when it happened.  “I heard a big crash,” Kerry puffed and then started to cry.  She finished her account in between tears barely able to speak. “Mom was so distraught from losing another husband . . . she shot herself with Gary’s pistol.” 

Larry was troubled by this.  He knew Mom wouldn’t shoot herself; it just didn’t fit who she was.  “What was Mom like after Dad died?” Larry asked.  Kerry couldn’t answer.  She said she was in and out of consciousness.  Lori joined the conversation, saying Jody she seemed okay and told them that they would go to Tahiti, sell the boat, and fly home. “Where was Gary when she died?” Larry thought out loud. 

“He was cleaning something on the deck.  He told us he found the pistol lying in the cockpit next to Mom,” Lori softly answered.   Again, Larry thought it just didn’t sound right.  He tried to ask Lori some more questions, but she couldn’t speak anymore.  He didn’t want to press Kerry given her condition.   Larry was tired and jetlagged and wanted to go back to his hotel room to gather his thoughts.  Lori left the hospital right after Larry did. 

When Lori got back to her hotel room, she called her dad.  This was a call she had been reluctant to make.  Everyone kept asking her what happened and she didn’t want to talk about it, especially to her parents.  Dick answered the phone, “Hello.”

“Dad, it’s Lori.” He was expecting the phone call.  Lori wasn’t sure where to start, so she told her father that Kerry had fractured the left side of her skull and needed to return to the U.S. immediately for an operation or she could die.  Dick listened trepidatiously to his daughter’s account of Kerry’s condition.   He really just didn’t want to know what happened and therefore didn’t ask.   This suited Lori just fine.  Dick told his daughter he would buy tickets for them on the next available flight.  He asked her not to talk to anyone about what happened on the Spellbound until she returned home.  Speaking with the authorities in a banana republic only invited trouble. As soon as they were finished talking he would find an attorney for her.  “Okay, Dad,” Lori answered and he hung up.  Even though he hadn’t bothered to say goodbye, Lori thought the conversation had gone better than she had expected.

After speaking with her father, Lori refused to talk with anyone about the Spellbound.  This was extremely frustrating for Larry.  Larry had asked if she wanted to have dinner with him, but Lori declined saying she was tired.  When Larry tried to ask more details about what happened to Jody, she pursed her lips, shook her head no, and looked away.  After their short conversation at the hospital, she had barely spoken to Larry since he arrived.  Larry decided to go out a find a beer, or perhaps something stronger. 

As soon as Dick hung up the phone from speaking with his daughter, he called the family’s attorney.  Then he purchased plane tickets for both Lori and Kerry to fly home on Wednesday.  Dick was looking out for the best interest of his daughter.  His life-long friends were gone, and there was nothing he could do to help them now.  He called Lori and told her he bought tickets to come home on Wednesday.  Lori was glad the nightmare was almost over.

Larry returned to the hospital Tuesday morning to ask Kerry more questions, since he had gotten nowhere with Lori the day before.  He opened the door to her room and stepped inside.  Lori, he saw, was already there.  Before he could proceed, two gendarmes entered the room and asked to speak to Kerry alone.  In a brisk manner that only police on an official matter can assume, they informed Lori they would be interviewing her tomorrow.  Lori tried to protest, saying she was flying to Seattle and that she had an attorney.  The gendarme told her she would have plenty of time to make her plane as they only had a few questions for her.  Larry then interrupted and said he would like to stay with Kerry for her interview.  Larry was quickly informed they would interview her alone.  One gendarme firmly led Larry and Lori from the room.  

Walking out of the hospital, Larry wondered why the French police wanted to question Kerry and Lori?  Lori was now crying silently and quickly fled his side.  Unsure of what to do with himself, Larry waited outside the hospital, running scenarios through his head.  What would cause the police to be involved?  Drugs, he decided.  Most definitely drugs.  He waited for a bit outside the hospital hoping he would get a chance to talk with Kerry once the gendarmes left.  After a couple of hours he decided to wander around Papeete.  He called Seattle to tell them Kerry was fine, and that she would be coming home on Wednesday.  He was still trying to find answers to many questions, but he wasn’t sure what questions he should ask. He still hadn’t spoken with Gary.

On Wednesday, the Restless Wind, with Jerry and Randi aboard, sailed through the Avatoru pass into Rangiroa at about 12:30 am. They had heard about the fatalities on the Ham radio and Jerry had done the best he could to help Gary get the boat to safety when he talked to him earlier.  Before he even had a chance finish letting his anchor down, a speedboat zoomed towards him.  It pulled along side the Restless Wind and the man in the boat asked, “Are you Jerry?”  Jerry nodded at the young man.  “Gary really needs to speak with you before he leaves.  Get in and I’ll take you to him.  He’s on the first flight to Papeete in a few hours.”  Jerry hopped into the speedboat while his wife Randi waited in the harbor to register their arrival as required by French law.

Gary was on the beach waiting.  At first there were no words, just tears.  Jerry was surprised when Gary walked over and hugged him, crying.  They never really got along, actually. Jerry thought Gary was just a kid on drugs with little respect for anything. They had little in common, and interacted as little as possible during the few weeks the boats were together.  Jerry wasn’t sure what to do as Gary stood there crying.  

Finally Gary was able to control his emotions and told Jerry how Loren and Jody had died, how Kerry was injured, and how they had been lost.  Jerry felt sorry for him and for his lost friends. It was all so horrible.  Gary’s voice pierced his thoughts: “Kevin hired some natives and cleaned the Spellbound, but there is more to be done,” Gary said. “Can you help me?”  

“With what?” Jerry asked.  

“I need help to finish cleaning the boat,” Gary sobbed.  Between tears, he requested that Jerry give all of his parents’ things to the natives.  Seeing their belongings would be too hard on him when he returned.  After Jerry grudgingly agreed, Gary thanked him and walked towards the hotel.  Jerry headed back to the speedboat to return to the Restless Wind.  There he found comfort in his wife’s arms, and together they grieved for their lost friends.

Hours later, when Gary landed at the airport in Papeete, he was met by gendarmes who drove him three miles to the gendarmerie for his first official interview.  Not long after his arrival, Larry and Lori walked into the gendarmerie for Lori’s meeting.  The brothers didn’t even bother to greet each other through the open door of the interview room.  The gendarmes led Lori into another interrogation room and shut Gary’s door.  Larry waited quietly, alone with his thoughts. He couldn’t hear what was being said in either room, nor could he see their reactions to the gendarmes’ questions.   Larry had too much time for his rampant thoughts these days; his imagination was starting to get the best of him.

After about thirty minutes, Lori’s door opened.   The gendarmes told Larry they were going to escort Lori and Kerry to the airport to ensure nothing happened to Kerry that would exacerbate her injury.  Larry asked if he could come along to say goodbye to his sister.  The gendarme nodded agreement.  Gary was still being questioned and wouldn’t be joining them.  They picked up Kerry from the hospital and drove to the airport.  Larry hugged Lori stiffly.  She was still acting very aloof.  He embraced his sister carefully, not wanting to hurt her.  He would have liked to wait and watch their plane take off but his gendarme escort was leaving and he wanted to ride back to the station with them.

During the drive, Larry asked the gendarme what Lori had told him during her questioning.  When the Gendarme didn’t answer, Larry lost his composure.  He yelled, “My parents are dead, my sister is hurt, and I don’t know why.  I don’t even know why you are questioning the Spellbound crew.  What happened?!”  The gendarme squeezed the steering wheel, exhaled through his nose, and told him that Lori’s questioning yielded no new information.  Lori told the gendarmes she was asleep when Kerry and Loren were hurt and was below in the galley when Jody died.  Larry nodded.  The rest of the drive they were silent.

Gary was questioned the rest of the day.  Larry waited impatiently at the station.  The door finally opened and Gary walked out.  He nodded to his brother and tilted his head in a silent invitation to leave, then waved to the gendarmes as the brothers walked out the front door of the police station.  They still hadn’t spoken to each other since Larry arrived from San Diego. 

On the street, Gary wasted no time on formal greetings. “Let’s grab dinner,” he said. “I am starved.”  Larry was surprised these were his first words, but when he thought about it, he was hungry too.  He quietly followed Gary a few blocks to some café that Gary seemed to have visited before.  While Larry really wanted shake his brother and shriek, what the hell happened out there, he made small talk instead.  Every time Larry tried to broach the topic of what happened only four days earlier, Gary changed the subject.  Gary chatted as if nothing strange had happened.  Towards the end of the meal, Gary paused, looked at Larry and said, “Look, Dad hit his head on the boom and Mom was distraught from losing another husband and killed herself.  That’s it. There is nothing more to say.”

Back in Rangiroa, as the sun was setting, Jerry and Randi marshaled their energy to board the Spellbound to carry out Gary’s request.  The only clue on deck that something out of the ordinary had occurred was a large gouge in the “dog house” (the outside of the main cabin building) about a foot from the door to the main cabin on the starboard side.  Where did that come from, Randi asked?  Jerry shrugged his reply.  The inside of the main cabin was another story.

The first thing Jerry noticed as he entered the cabin was a book on the medical trunk, which also served as a coffee table. The book’s title: “How to Dispose of Bodies at Sea.”  Who brought the book on board and why, Jerry wondered.  Jerry knew the temperature had hit a high of about 90 degrees with 80% humidity in the past week – typical tropics weather.  He could only imagine how putrid the smell must have been.  The thought made him want to vomit.  The poor kids were not sure when they would be rescued, so of course they buried the bodies at sea.

DID YOU KNOW . . .  About Decomposition in the Tropics?

Even after Kevin’s cleaning crew had done its work, they could still see traces of blood all over the floor.  Randi couldn’t stand the sight of blood, so she volunteered to pack up Loren and Jody’s cabin.  Jerry started to scrub the floor with bleach.  The blood was soaked into the floorboards.  He scrubbed until his fingers felt numb, tears sliding down his face.  There was blood in the main cabin, on the couch where Kerry slept, and on the settee near the dinette.  In the corner by the wood stove, he saw the top of a cardboard box on the floor with more than a quarter of an inch of dried blood in it.  Rage filled his body, he grabbed the box and stormed out of the main cabin onto the deck and tossed it as hard as he could into the sea.

Randi was trying to pack Loren and Jody’s things in between crying fits.  Somehow they managed to work through their emotions until their self-assigned tasks were finally done.  All of Loren and Jody’s personal belongings were packed to give to the natives.  They left the Spellbound and hoped to never set foot aboard her deck again.  They never did.

Among much press coverage, Kerry and Lori arrived at SeaTac International airport in Seattle late Wednesday night.  Seattle police had to escort the family through the airport, as the story was now front-page news.  The Spellbound tragedy was a media frenzy.  The family refused to talk with the press.  They thought this was the best course of action to help the story fade out of the public eye.  They were mistaken.  It only added more fuel to the fire of speculation. 

Kerry was admitted to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue after she left the airport. She had to be very careful traveling as the slightest bit of pressure on her injured skull could have caused major and irrevocable damage.  Lori left the whirlwind of the press and the Edwards family at the airport as soon as she cleared customs, escorted by her parents Dick and Rosie.

Once admitted to the hospital, Kerry’s X-rays showed she had a closed depressed hinge fracture to the left side of her skull in her parietal bone.  The X-rays of the depression area resembled the outline of crescent wrench.  The doctors told the family there was no possibility her injuries resulted from an accident.  Only another individual could have caused such damage.  Likely, an attacker, if right handed, would have clutched a wrench in his fist and swung it backhanded at Kerry’s skull while she was facing away from him.  If the assailant was left handed, he would have swung the wrench forward and swung at Kerry from behind.  The family wondered if this was what triggered the involvement of the French police.

The doctors shaved the left side of Kerry’s head.  She had beautiful long blonde hair that almost touched her waist.  Her scalp was opened about an inch and a half and the doctors pushed the compressed skull up.  They used a wire to keep it in place.    

DID YOU KNOW . . . What Can Cause a Depressed Skull Fracture?

Thursday morning the newspaper in Rangiroa headlined with a story about the Spellbound tragedy.  Jerry sat down to drink a cup of coffee and read.  The story in the newspaper did not match Gary’s account yesterday on the beach.  What precisely did Gary tell me, he tried to remember.  He called his wife over to read the article.  “The newspaper has the story all wrong,” he told her.

“Well, what really happened then,” she asked? The words from the newspaper and his emotions fogged over the events of the day before, mixing Gary’s words with the details from the paper.  He couldn’t identify who said what from his memory and the story he just read.  “I’m not sure anymore,” he answered.   Everything his mind was blank.  A strong sense of sadness came over him.

Trying to dispel his sense of melancholy, Jerry and Randi decided to have dinner at the Kia Ora Hotel.  Of course everyone at the bar was talking about the arrival of the Spellbound on Saturday. Jerry couldn’t help but overhear someone say that Gary, Kerry, and Lori were walking on the beach deep in congenial discussion the morning after they arrived.  This made Jerry pause.  A friendly stroll on the beach was in stark contrast to the kids’ behavior he’d observed earlier on the trip.  Jerry was surprised by the change.  In January, when his boat met up with the Spellbound, the “kids” could barely stand each other and were always arguing.  Loren and Jody complained to Jerry about the incessant fighting.  Loren even told Jerry that he often wished he had built a smaller boat.  Jody concurred wholeheartedly.  Jerry wondered what brought about the change of heart.

In Papeete, both brothers sat in the station again.  While Larry still couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, he did notice the gendarmes started to take a harder line with Gary.  Their tone changed.  They also asked Larry a few questions about what Gary was like growing up, his parents’ motivation for going on the trip, and what type of person Gary was now.  Larry was torn.  Again he wondered what the French authorities knew that he did not?  He decided he would wait to push Gary about what happened after he saw the boat.  Perhaps being onboard the Spellbound would prompt Gary to tell him how their parents really died.  Maybe Gary wasn’t talking because he didn’t want to get in trouble for doing drugs.

The gendarmes informed Gary and Larry that they wanted the Spellbound moved to Papeete as soon as possible.  It was decided that Gary and Larry would sail the boat from Rangiroa.  Larry bought plane tickets for them to fly to back to Rangiroa on Friday.  Larry thought the short trip would be the perfect time for a heart-to-heart discussion with his brother.  He would wait to tell the rest of the family his fears until he had a better idea of what was going on.  If they knew what Larry was now thinking, they may have preferred to remain in the dark.

When Larry returned to the station, the French confiscated his passport. They had already taken Gary’s.  Larry still wasn’t willing to give up on Gary’s story, especially if all of this was about drugs.  He protested the seizure of their passports saying they were now essentially being held in Tahiti without cause.  Gendarme Captain Michel Bereze told Larry that he would announce later that day that the Spellbound affair was “not normal.”  He suspected the deaths of Loren and Jody Edwards were not accidental.  Much to the surprise of Larry, Captain Bereze stated that the French investigation would be officially turned over to the American authorities upon their arrival.  The FBI was now in charge of the investigation as their deaths occurred in international waters and all parties involved were U.S. citizens.  Larry and Gary left the police station without saying anything to each other.  On Friday, two FBI agents and a U.S. Coast Guard agent arrived in Papeete to take over the investigation from the French.  The agents escorted Larry and Gary to Rangiroa on Monday to examine the Spellbound.

Newspaper article from the Seattle Times, published March 2, 1978, "Survivors Voted for Sea Burial"

The family back in Washington was desperate for details, but no one wanted to press Kerry.  She was in the hospital with major trauma to the head.  Her siblings wanted to protect her, especially after all that she had been through.  The day after Kerry had surgery, while Little Jody was visiting at the hospital, a female FBI agent appeared in the hospital room flashing her badge.  She introduced herself as Natalie.  She wore a dark suit and stiletto heals, which made her already tall stature seem overbearing, even ogre like. “I need to speak with Kerry alone about what happened on the Spellbound,” she stated in an authoritative voice.

“There is nothing that Kerry can’t say in front of me,” Little Jody haughtily responded.  The agent promptly told her to leave or she would have her removed.  Little Jody learned very quickly that one should not try to interfere with an FBI investigation, especially when a rookie FBI agent is in charge of her first case.  As she waited in the hall watching the FBI question her sister through a glass window, Little Jody started to wonder, just like Larry was doing half way around the world at the police station in Papeete, why the FBI wanted to question Kerry so badly.

A little less than a week later, Kerry was released from the hospital.  She moved in with Little Jody, as she had little money and nowhere else to go.  I was happy aunt Kerry was back playing games with me again.  I was too young to notice the tension slowly develop between my mom and my aunt.  Kerry’s skull slowly healed and her hair began to grow back.  It never had the same luster as it did before the incident.  The cut above her eye became an ugly scar.  Since Kerry moved in with us, Natalie hadn’t been in touch with the family.  Everyone was hoping that perhaps the FBI had decided there was nothing to investigate.  A couple of weeks later, Jack – another FBI agent – knocked on our door and introduced himself.  Natalie was promoted to the Washington, D.C. bureau and he was taking over the case.

The family liked Jack, a veteran agent.  He told us he was ready to get things moving, find the truth, and close the case.  Jack was more patient and listened better than his predecessor.   My mom, Bobbie, and Larry were confident he could draw the truth out of Kerry, Lori, or maybe even Gary.  Later, Jack was the one who would bring me chocolate pies and my first cat.

Letter to Larry & Gary in Papeete, Tahiti from little Jody, Kerry, and Lori in Seattle, WA (March 17, 1978)