Bad Chemistry

Keith Morrison Correspondent • Profile

His name was Tim Schuster, and he was having a bad day. Not that he'd say so himself.

Mary Solis: Well, Tim was pretty quiet. 

Still, bad day, bad week.

Tami Belshay: He was despondent after being laid off from Saint Agnes. 

That was on top of the daughter trouble.

Tami Belshay: Enough to want to have her re-located to-- Missouri to get her straightened up.

And of course, the divorce.  Last thing Tim would ever have wanted.

Mary Solis: The sad part of it is he really, really wanted his marriage to work.

Awful how things can pile up on a person.  And so, when, on that particularly difficult morning…

Bob Solis: Tim didn't make his appointment. 

It wouldn't be the first time a man had left a life not going so well, now would it? And there had been such chemistry once. He was a young nurse, she still a college student. And she was exciting, ambitious.

And after graduation they came here to the heart of the California breadbasket, a little town - a suburb, really - called Clovis.

Bob Solis: Clovis is a really nice community. You find the newer houses there, the wealthier families live there. 

Theresa Freed is a TV reporter in  bigger Fresno, next door.

Theresa Freed: Fresno's nice as well, but-- a lot of-- a lot of wealthy people do live in Clovis, and it has very low crime.

And here was where they made their life, a somewhat unusual arrangement by traditional American standards. She was an entrepreneur, rose to become the president of her own agricultural chemicals company. A double a type - a smart, demanding boss who succeeded by becoming a workaholic.

He employed soft-spoken empathy as a nurse-administrator at Fresno's St. Agnes hospital. And, at home in Clovis, was Mr. Mom to their daughter Kristen, and younger son, Tyler.  He liked that, said these friends and fellow nurses, Mary and Bob Solis. But he was also supporting his wife's ambitious career.

Mary Solis: He allowed her to do what she needed to do by getting off work, coming home, taking care of the kids, making sure they got to their doctor's appointments.  Making sure they had their meals.  Making sure they did their homework.

And for a long time, it worked. 

At the hospital where he helped run the nursing department, Tim was a popular leader. The other nurses liked him and looked up to him.

Mary Solis: He was certainly someone that was open to listening-- to different ideas.  If he made a decision he took responsibility and accountability for the decisions he made.

But at home, he remained his quiet, undemonstrative self.

Mary Solis: She was probably the one that pretty much drove what was going on. 

Keith Morrison: So he was always-- as soon as you saw him with her you-- at the beginning, you realized he was whipped, as they say?

Mary Solis: Yeah.

Balance of power, as long as no one rocked the boat. There was peace in the Schuster home, its normal discontents unspoken, unexpressed. But you can't keep trouble at bay forever by pretending it doesn't exist. When Larissa laid down the law, Tim went along.  But her now teen-aged daughter Kristin defied her. Kristin stood up to her mother's powerful personality in ways Tim wouldn't dream of doing. She'd sneak out of the house with boys, stay out too late, talk back.

This is Larissa's friend, Tami Belshay.

Tami Belshay: She had a very tough relationship with Kristin. I know that they were really-- at it for quite some time.

It got so bad eventually that Larissa sent Kristin away; packed her off to live with her grandparents back in Missouri, a decision Tim did not necessarily agree with. Around then might have been the time when resentments started to boil under the placid surface of Tim's demeanor. In public, however, he suffered in silence, even when Larissa spat out her belittling insults.

Bob and Mary Solis: It was obvious that-- she didn't-- she didn't mind embarrassing him in front of his friends.  She didn't mind that at all.  In fact, she took relish in that at times. And then the friends that we hung with-- also noticed it.  And they made the same comment.  You know, "Is there something going on with-- with Tim and Larissa?"  "We don't know.  Tim never said anything."

What was going on?  Increasingly, Larissa told her friends she was fed up with Tim, that he was not a real man. She'd even had an affair and she hated his passive/aggressive response. She even let it get around that he wouldn't have sex with her. She wanted out.  Tim seemed despairing.

Mary Solis: I mean they went to counseling.  And his thought was that, "Okay, you know, we're both agreeing to go to counseling so there must be a chance that, you know, we can work this out."  And that was never gonna happen 'cause that wasn't her plan.  Her plan was, you know, you could use the counselor as the opportunity to say to Tim, "This marriage is over with."  You know, "We're done."

So, divorce it was, but about as messy as a divorce can be: a process which, for Larissa, was extremely frustrating.

Tami Belshay: Oh, she told me all the nuts and bolts.  She told me-- about the frustrations, about the small successes.  And then, the retreating to-- losing you know, the small battles with Tim.  So, it got to be really acrimonious. 

Once, after the split, Larissa sent a young male employee to break into Tim's house and take back items she claimed belonged to her. But somewhere in the painful process, Tim Schuster seemed to grow a backbone. After that break-in, he even bought a gun.

Bob Solis: Tim was changing.  He was evolving.  And he was changing to a point where he was starting to get some stones.  Although he was reluctant at first to do it, he was slowly progressing to a point where he was starting to say, "No."

But the marriage he cared so much about was over. His beloved daughter was gone, the son he adored bounced back and forth through the poisoned air between him and his estranged wife. And then one day he got a pink slip; lost his job in a round of lay-offs at St. Agnes hospital. Had Tim hit bottom? He arranged to meet the hospital's human resources person the next morning.

Bob Solis: Tim didn't make his appointment.  And she looked really, really concerned.  Well, I also got real concerned, because we knew how Tim was in regards to keeping appointments.

Keith Morrison: Which was what?

Mary Solis: Very meticulous.  Always on time.  Never missed anything, or he called if he was running late.

What happened to Tim Schuster? What had he done?

Bob Solis: And I says, please, "call-- the police-- we have a friend. He's not answering his phones.  And he's registered to carry a handgun."

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