The second: Because your perception is the only one I can see through...For all the people in the room I'm alone without you...I need your insight to feel light...I'm okay but not whole without you...You're air I breathe even when you're not there.
"I don't want to think that she killed herself, but I could see it," Hibbard says. "They were so dramatically, radically off the map of what other people do and think."
Tara Schinn, who had several tattoo sessions with Kauri, says her friend "did not want to die like this."
Kim Kosnar, who had "girl talks" with Kauri weeks before her death, says her friend gave no hint of being suicidal.
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Tara Schinn walked into Breckenridge Body Art for the first time in March 2007. A Virginia resident, Schinn came frequently to Colorado for skiing vacations and business trips related to the IT security firm she owns with her husband. An abiding interest in tattoos — an integral part of an online, alter-ego pinup persona she'd cultivated known as Betty Mystique — had brought her to Kauri Tiyme's new shop.
Schinn spent six hours that day with Tiyme, who gave her a half-sleeve of cherry blossoms caressed by wind and snow. She was delighted by the work — so delicate, whispery and feminine, almost Japanese in style, yet amazingly vibrant — and even more so by the company. "It was just a magical experience," Schinn remembers. "We bonded quickly. We talked about cats, makeup, Dr. Who, being a vegan versus a vegetarian, the relationship we had with our moms."
Schinn was back over Labor Day weekend for another session, then several more in 2008. In all, she had five pieces done by Kauri. Her husband came in for five sessions of his own. People stopped them on the street to admire the work and marvel at the color. Schinn resolved that no artist but Kauri Tiyme would ever work on her again.
Other clients felt the same way. Kauri and Keenu had taken the plunge, opening their own shop in Breckenridge — some say they sold the land in Sedona to raise funds for the venture — with the expectation that they would be able to attract a younger, hipper clientele. The resort town wasn't Hollywood, but it wasn't Bakersfield, either. Kauri hoped to find customers more in tune with her art, as well as more varied work for Keenu, beyond the usual teenage girls getting their first nose rings.
Breckenridge Body Art did end up attracting a loyal core of repeat customers — mostly locals, but some regular visitors like Schinn, too. Yet after several months, Kauri began to get restless again. Even Breckenridge was somewhat limiting, she decided. And there was something else, too — a growing frustration with Keenu.
Schinn picked up on the different atmosphere in the shop when she visited last June. Kauri talked excitedly about this warehouse she was going to rent in Denver, where she would continue her tattoo work, open an art gallery, host live music and much more. "Breckenridge is cool, but I don't get to do the art I want to do here," she said.
Keenu was even quieter than usual, Schinn remembers, and went out for smokes often. The tension in the studio was palpable. Kauri waited until he was out of hearing range, then whispered to her, "We're not together anymore."
After almost a decade of being with Keenu, Kauri had filed for divorce in May. She soon had a new boyfriend, Peter Ausan, guitarist for Darker Days Tomorrow, and a new circle of friends in Denver connected with the band or the underground scene. She told them all the same thing: She was ready for a change.
"The impression she gave was that Keenu was not motivated and ill-suited to be with her," says Cora Reed.
"She described him as kind of a slacker," adds Kim Kosnar. "The only time he did anything was when she pushed him to do it."
Yet Kauri's move to Denver was far from a clean break. When Schinn visited her at the warehouse in August, she found her friend stressing over the move, selling her condo in Breckenridge, dealing with a new operator of the shop up there — and still negotiating the breakup with Keenu.
"I asked her how it was going with Keenu, and she said, 'He's a good guy, and I'm sorry it's over, in a way, but he's having a hard time letting go,'" Schinn says. "She said he was going to come down to the new studio and do piercings. She was trying to be nice and extend a hand to him. But I think he saw her friendship as a way for them to get back together."
Kosnar says Kauri paid the rent on Keenu's apartment when he followed her to Denver. He had no car, little work other than what she found for him, and called her frequently — a sore point in her new relationship with Ausan. "Peter told me Keenu would call Kauri, get her to come over for one reason or another, and then he'd try to make a move on her every time," Schinn says. "It was driving her crazy."
Kauri told Schinn that she was planning to train Keenu to do tattoos and set him up in Breckenridge on his own, that she had no intention of bringing him back into her life for long. Most of her energy seemed to be going toward launching the new business. She worked long hours and seemed to eat almost nothing except popcorn.
