by Paula Boyd
I groaned at the reality of what that meant, but my heart still went out to Fritz. He might be a “tough ol’ coot” by reputation, but he was in way over his head with Lucille. “How long has she been gone?”
“She probably left the second after we did. And no, she’s not answering her cell phone or her home phone either. Let’s wrap this up and—” Jerry cocked his head to the side as if he’d heard something.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up like porcupine quills and a shiver jerked across my shoulders and down my back. “I heard something too.”
Jerry looked toward the door. “Stay here. I’ll go check it out.”
Oh, no, he wasn’t leaving me here alone. “Jerry…”
“Fine,” he groaned, “but stay behind me.”
A few hall lights were still on, just as they had been when we’d arrived. Nothing had changed, and yet everything felt different. We made our way quietly down the hall back toward the main records office. Something was not right. With every step, the ominous feeling became thicker and heavier. By the time we got to the tall counter, I could already imagine Cindy’s ravaged body sprawled out, shot, stabbed or perhaps strangled. I knew it was coming, I just knew it.
As I looked over the counter toward the back offices, sure enough, there it was. Oh, God. On the floor by the office where we’d last seen her. Frizzy brown hair sprawled across the yellow asbestos floor tiles. One naked arm was outstretched above her head as if she’d been reaching for something and had just given up. “Oh, God, Jerry, I can’t look.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I heard a shriek. And it wasn’t mine.
The arm moved and so did the frizzy hair.
Another shriek. Mine that time.
“What the hell!” came a disturbed voice. A few seconds later, an unfortunately familiar head popped out from around the cubicle—Larry Harper.
“I’m on break, Jerry, swear to God,” the probationary deputy said, obviously lacking both couth and clothing. “I was just leaving to get back down to the office. It’s been real quiet. Donnell’s got things under control. Cindy thought she heard something so I came to check it out.” He shrugged his fleshy shoulders. “One thing just led to another.”
You know, I would have never believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my very own eyes. I’ve heard stories about such things, but I truly did not believe they actually happened. I am sure that shock and disbelief were pasted on my face.
“This is what I have to deal with,” Jerry muttered. “Or worse.”
Cindy had somehow managed to semi-collect herself from the floor and hung her make-up smeared face out the door as well. She was obviously going for “see what you missed” look to Jerry, but nobody was envious. Nobody.
“Get dressed and get out of here,” Jerry barked. “Both of you. I’ll expect you both here in the morning at 8 am to finish up what I don’t have time to deal with tonight.”
“I’m not on shift then…” Larry started to protest, but the look on Jerry’s face stopped him cold. “Okay, well, yeah. I’ll be here. But just tell me now, am I fired?”
Jerry glared at him. “Eight o’clock, Larry. And you better hope I’m in a better mood than I am right now. Fired is the least of your worries.” Then to Cindy—and it was not an amused look. “I’ll lock the front door with my master key when we’re done here. And don’t even think about getting paid for this. I will deal with you in the morning as well. Now both of you, out.”
He hadn’t said it loudly, but they were zipping around like he was shooting bullets under their feet. A good trick considering they both looked drunk.
After they had stumbled out—and not well dressed I might add—I asked the obvious. “Are you going to fire them?”
He sighed. “If I told you they would be hard to replace with anything better, would you believe me?”
The old adage of good help being hard to find was a pathetic understatement these days. “Sadly, I would.”
Click. A door closed somewhere down the hall where we had just been.
Jerry turned to me and gave me the universal “don’t make a peep” signal. I didn’t, although it sure felt like my heart had burst into a thundering rumba for all to hear. He motioned for me to follow him.
As we walked along the office wall, another door clicked closed. Jerry swung around the corner and burst through the employee access door into the hallway.
There was no way out on this end of the hallway except an alarmed emergency exit that was placarded to make sure even an idiot knew that bells, whistles and the National Guard would result if they pushed the bar on the door.
That left only the rooms where we had been and the restrooms as potential hiding places.
We headed to the restrooms. The entrance was a standard indented area with a water fountain in the center and a door on each side. Women on the left, men on the right.
Jerry motioned me back behind the wall on the men’s side. I had a full view of the women’s doorway and could see a light shining from beneath. Jerry flipped down the doorstop with his boot and kicked the door open in one quick move.
The door slammed back against the wall and stayed open.
He bent down and looked around the doorway, leading with his gun. He must have seen something because he was inside the room in a flash and I heard a stall door bang open.
“Stop! Oh, my Lord,” came a familiar screech. “Don’t shoot!”
“Jolene!” Jerry yelled.
I said nothing, just turned my back to the wall and banged my head back against it a couple of times. It did not make the nightmare go away or induce a coma so I just let myself slither down to the cool asbestos-covered floor. I didn’t actually see what happened after I sat down and propped my forehead on my knees, but here’s the gist of it.
Jerry probably holstered his pistol as he yelled at me again, “Get in here, Jolene.”
“Just shoot her.”
“Now, Jerry Don, I can explain everything,” Lucille said, probably sashaying out of the stall with a long painted nail pointed at the sheriff. “I had just run home to get a few things and was on my way back when I needed to use the restroom. I was passing by the courthouse and saw the light on, and this being a public building and all.” A pause, a screech. “Here, now, don’t you be grabbing at me like that! Why, the very nerve.” Another screech. “Now, Jerry Don Parker, you put those handcuffs away. I will tell your mother about this. Stop that! I haven’t done a thing wrong. You can’t do this!”
“I can and I am. You’re going to jail right now, and you’re not getting out—maybe ever,” Jerry said, hauling her out of the bathroom.
Yes, of course, she whined pitifully at me as he pushed her into the hallway. I didn’t even look up, but from my peripheral vision I could tell that she held her hands together in front of her.
Jerry stood beside me, waiting for me to get up. When I didn’t, he put his hand down and wagged his fingers at me. I begrudgingly took his hand, hauled myself up off the floor and trudged along behind them toward the front door.
We were going to jail. Again. Oh joy.
It was a short trip around to the back of the courthouse to the Sheriff’s Department, and of all the things to dread, it was the deputy on duty that sent my stomach churning. Just thinking of him had beamed a horrible video clip onto my mental screen. Apparently, I’d blocked out a full conscious recording of the initial event when it had happened, but now a snapshot of fleshy Larry’s goose-white skin covered with a patch of dark fur between his man boobs kept flashing in my head. I shuddered.
Thankfully, Larry Harper was neither naked nor conscious when we walked in. He was sound asleep in a chair behind the desk.
Jerry didn’t growl, sigh or even grit his teeth, just nudged Lucille inside so he could slam the door. Hard.
Larry leaped to his feet and grabbed for his pants. “What? Huh?”
I guess he just never knew whether
he had pants on or not, but knew it would be helpful to cover himself when he’d been caught and had to run. Or something like that.
“Get a cell ready for Miz Jackson,” Jerry commanded.
Larry shook himself awake, his jowls quivering at the affront, and hitched up his pants. Finally figuring out what was going on, he snickered at Lucille. “Guess you ain’t so high and mighty now.”
Jerry’s glare stopped him cold. “You’ll be staying the rest of the night here to watch her, deputy. I’m calling your father in to cover your shift as well.”
“Well, now, that’s not necessary,” Larry said, sensing bad things on all fronts. “You know, Pete comes on in a couple hours. I can handle—”Another glare from the sheriff and Larry grumbled “yes, sir” then scuttled off down the hall.
“We’ll go to my office while your cell is being checked,” Jerry said to Lucille. “But I am not spending all night asking questions that you refuse to answer. Either you give me a straight answer the first time I ask or you can sit in here until you’re eighty-three.”
Lucille had the good sense not to argue, and unlike all previous interviews with Her Highness, this one was short and sweet. No merry chase with distractions and denials and deliberately confusing statements. Nope. Not this time. This time, she simply refused to talk.
Jerry put up with that for about thirty seconds and then locked her up.
While Jerry was lining Larry out, yet again, I had a go at Mother Dearest through the bars. “This is a big one, huh?”
She stood there, arrogantly, nose tipped up, lips clamped shut.
“It is just amazing what’s available these days. The county hasn’t gotten their property tax files computerized yet, but they sure can access the state’s vital statistics. Between the county and state, we had birth, death, marriage, divorce and property ownership records at our fingertips. Meaning, of course, that I know about your first marriage.”
She sucked in her breath.
“And Bob’s second marriage to Glenda Hicks, as well as her unfortunate demise shortly thereafter. Yep, it is just amazing what you can find out at the courthouse.”
Her eyes widened and her composure wavered for a split second then she spun around and stomped to the corner and sat down on the bed. “Leroy let me watch TV last time I was in here. I don’t see that it would hurt anything now. There’s nothing on this time a night but infomercials, but it would be something to do. Prisoners ought to be allowed something to pass the time. You go tell that man to let me watch television.”
I ignored her entertainment dilemma. “Did you hear any part of what I just said?”
“Yes, I believe I heard every word,” she said, staring blankly at the wall, nose tipped upward. “And now that you’ve gone digging where you ought not have, I suppose you’re relieved.”
I grabbed the bars with both hands and strangled them as best I could. “We have got to get you on some kind of medication. That’s all there is to it.”
Lucille jumped up and lurched toward me, grabbing the bars beside my hands. “You can’t do that. I just did what I thought was best. It doesn’t make me bad or crazy. I did what I thought was best for you. Why couldn’t you have just accepted that and let it be?”
I pushed away from the bars. “I can’t take any more of this. I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it seems that if I did, I wouldn’t like it at all. I’m done.” As I turned and walked, I heard Lucille suck in a couple of ragged breaths and choke back a sob. I met Jerry in the hallway. “She makes no sense. And now she’s crying. I have no idea why. None.”
He sighed and handed me his car keys. “I’ll try talking to her one more time, but it won’t take long. She can stay right where she is until morning. We can deal with her then.”
“Good.”
Chapter
Twenty-Five
I sat in the Expedition with the windows down and seat fully reclined, listening to the crickets and feeling the thick Texas air on my skin. Nothing Lucille had said made sense. Nothing about anything made sense. But something about the way she’d looked at me in there, as if she’d been defeated somehow, had shaken me more than I wanted to admit. Whatever her secret was, it was devastating to her and it sure felt like it was going to be devastating to me too, if indeed I ever found out what it was. Was Bob Little really my biological father? Did she think I’d disown her if she admitted to an affair? Did she think I’d fall apart if I learned that she’d lied to me my whole life?
Maybe I would. At the moment, however, it was pretty easy to just be an observer and not feel much personal emotion at all. I know who raised me. Biology wouldn’t change who my daddy was. Bertram Jackson had been and would always be my father regardless of what any DNA testing might say. And while I couldn’t say I was thrilled about my mother’s choices, I wasn’t quite ready to crucify her for them either. Of course, I didn’t really know anything for fact yet. It was all so surreal that it was easy to be detached. Easier still to just close my eyes and brain and escape into nothingness.
The next thing I knew I was sitting bolt upright, belatedly hearing the squeaky shriek that I had just emitted. In another microsecond I realized why I’d screamed. Jerry had opened the car door behind me on the passenger side.
And my mother was getting inside.
I sighed heavily, but said nothing, just raised my seat back up and waited for Jerry to start the car. He obviously had a good reason for this, which I would find out about sooner than I wanted to.
“We’re all going to the lake cabin,” he said simply. “There are some documents out there Lucille wants you to see and she’ll explain everything then. Right, Lucille?”
“Yes, Jerry Don, that’s right,” she said, almost robotically. “I will do what I must.”
We had a long, quiet and tedious ride for about eight minutes. Then, Lucille broke the silence. “You know, I spent my whole life trying to keep this very thing from happening.”
I was tempted to ask exactly where that might be, but supposedly the answers were just around the corner, so to speak. The documents Jerry had mentioned were a new twist and definitely had me curious. But so did a lot of other things. One in particular kept nagging at me. If I was the result of an affair between Bob and Lucille, what about the child Glenda had died giving birth to? Did I have a half-sister or half-brother somewhere? Was that what she was going to show me?
The plot had thickened and I felt like I was swimming in quicksand. I massaged my temples, but it helped nothing. Was this somehow related to the park thing too? Was Tiger or Damon Saide my half brother? Was that why they were strong-arming Bob? Neither of them looked anything at all like me. Or Bob Little for that matter. Bob was a big man, tall and big. Damon Saide wasn’t much taller than I was and Tiger was a muscled wiry type who was probably a couple of inches shy of six feet. I realize two green peas occasionally produce a white pea or pink flower or whatever the hell it is, but shouldn’t the offspring bear some kind of similarity to at least one parent? Then again, I had no idea what that maternal side looked like. “Did you ever meet Bob’s second wife?” I asked.
“Of course, I did,” Lucille said tersely. “I suppose you want to know about her.”
“Just curious.”
“Oh, this just makes me so mad I could just spit,” Lucille said, with fury and barely contained tears.
“That’s a pretty strong reaction, even from the first wife,” I said, glancing around briefly to gauge her reaction. “Were you jealous of Glenda or what?”
“Oh!” she shrieked. “This is the most pitiful moment in my whole entire life. I cannot believe you’re saying that to me, I just cannot.” Jerry turned as if to speak to her, but she cut him off. “Don’t you start in on me again, Jerry Don Parker. I told you I’d tell her everything once we got to the cabin and I will. Then it will be done with and I don’t ever want to hear any more of this ever again. I have always done what I thought was right and if you don’t like it now, well, I guess that’s ju
st too bad.”
I turned and looked at Jerry for some kind of explanation for her ranting.
He just reached over and squeezed my hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
As we pulled into the long driveway of the cabin, I noticed a new-looking carport off to the left about halfway between Mother’s cabin and the next one. A mercury vapor light glowed on a pole beside it, illuminating a wide circle around and beneath the shelter. “Hey, look over there. That looks like an old sixty-six Mustang, just like I used to have.” I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open, but seeing that had perked me up. “You remember, don’t you, Jerry?”
“Yes, Jolene,” Mother snapped, shifting in her seat and tapping her nails on the armrest. “Everyone remembers. Now, Jerry Don, you pull on up closer to the door.”
Jerry did, slowly, but I couldn’t help but keep looking over my shoulder at that car. My daddy had bought me one just like it when I was fourteen. Gosh, but I’d loved that car. Drove it to school cheerfully and illegally every single day from the time I got it. Almost killed a linebacker over it, in fact.
It was after a game one Friday night and we were all hanging out at the school. Joey Pettyjohn had been as full of himself as he was Wild Turkey, and had hopped up on the trunk of my most prized possession. By the time I got to him, he was rolling over to crawl up on the roof. As he turned, his coat zipper caught beneath his thigh and scraped two long stripes across the trunk, down to the metal. I came unglued.
Witness accounts vary, but the story goes that a petite little brown-haired cheerleader grabbed the 180-pound linebacker by his jacket and/or head and threw him off the car. As he jumped up and tried to assure her that it would “compound out,” she shoved him down onto the gravel again and dared him to get up. Loudly. Joey got more votes for Football Queen that year than I did.
