Fatal Web

When the police called Bridewell in the early hours of December 11, Rehrig had been missing four days, but she wouldn't listen to what the officer had to say, instructing him to call Ron Barnes.

Barnes then called the Askews and told them their friend had been found shot to death. Phil went to Bridewell's house to break the grim news.

"She didn't have much of a reaction," he says. Barnes, who talked to Bridewell later, was puzzled: "She never asked one question of me about where he was found or what happened."

Phil Askew accompanied Bridewell to pick up Britt and Kathryn, who had spent the night with friends. Britt seemed matter-of-fact, but 15-year-old Kathryn started screaming, "Oh no, not again!"

The funeral director pointed out the bottom-dollar casket. "Alan would want it that way, to save money for the family," Bridewell said.

Bridewell had to be reminded that detectives wanted to talk to her. The Askews went with her to the police department. She swept into the interrogation room in a knee-length fur coat.

Though Bridewell shed a few tears, she didn't look too distressed. She explained that her first husband died of an aneurysm and the second of cancer. Rehrig, her third husband, had been dealing drugs and gambling, she claimed, and he must have been homosexual, because he only liked sex from behind and he had lost interest in her before the separation.

"Don't you think I'm desirable?" Bridewell asked the cops.

When they pointed out to her that her first husband had shot himself in the head, she didn't skip a beat. When they pointed out that she had undergone a hysterectomy in 1977 and had lied about the pregnancy, she brushed it off. It wasn't until they asked one question that Bridewell seemed shaken: "Who was Betsy Bagwell?"

When they interviewed Bridewell, the detectives knew only the bare bones about the crime: At about 10 p.m., on Wednesday, December 11, two officers had found Rehrig dead in his Bronco, parked near an electrical substation about three and a half miles from the Oklahoma City airport. Someone in the passenger seat had shot him in the side. The bullet pierced his heart and led to almost instant death. For good measure, the killer squeezed off another shot in his head.

Rehrig's body then had been rolled on its side between the bucket seats, his head in the back floorboard. The driver's seat had been pulled forward indicating someone much shorter than Rehrig had driven it last.

When found, Rehrig had been dead several days. Though it was near freezing, he wore the clothes the Askews had last seen him in—shorts, T-shirt and sweater.

An autopsy found no drugs in his body. His last meal was still in his stomach, probably the cake and ice cream served at a birthday party on Saturday, the day the Askews last saw him. Officers found no wallet, no keys and no murder weapon.

It almost looked like an execution, but early conversations with friends and family indicated Rehrig hadn't been involved in drugs or gambling, despite Bridewell's allegations. The only person who described Rehrig's unsavory behavior had benefited from his death—the pale Southern beauty who had sat before detectives, acting bizarrely seductive.

By the time of Rehrig's funeral on Saturday morning, an undercurrent of anger had built up toward Bridewell: the cheap coffin, the crocodile tears, the financial irresponsibility. The funeral cortege was stopped at the cemetery gate because Bridewell had not paid for opening and closing of the grave. "I forgot my checkbook," Bridewell said. Barnes wrote the check.

Dear was working for Bridewell after receiving a call from Dr. Harvey Davidson in the weeks before Rehrig's disappearance. The psychologist wanted him to come immediately to his Park Cities office; he had a distraught woman who needed protection.

At 6-foot-5, Dear was renowned in the world of Texas private investigators and not just because of his size, booming voice, gold jewelry and press clippings from newspapers like The Wall Street Journal. Dear had written books about several of his high-profile cases. Rivals might grumble that his reputation outpaced his skills, but Dear would grab onto a case and shake it until something popped loose.

In Davidson's office, Bridewell wrapped her arms around Dear. "I'm really in fear of my life," Bridewell said. She'd recently separated from her husband, who was using cocaine and running up gambling debts. Bridewell described Rehrig as a "moody person with definite personality changes" who had married her for her money. Rehrig had already tried to kill her once, Bridewell said, by stranding her in a lake while they were waterskiing.