Dead to the World

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  ‘She’s OK,’ Mrs Benton said, her hand on Cathy Robbins’ arm. ‘And the baby’s fine.’ Mrs Robbins wrapped her arms around Mrs Benton’s neck and burst into tears.

  ‘Thank God!’ the coach’s wife finally said.

  ‘You’re sure the baby’s OK?’ Coach Robbins asked, grasping Mrs Benton’s arm.

  ‘The doctor said everything is just fine. He said the cramps were probably brought on by stress’ – and at this point, she turned and glared at the kids, which led them to believe that maybe she had noticed them – ‘and they’re going to keep her overnight, but everything’s fine. They’ve got the monitor on her now, if you want to go in and see the baby,’ she said, smiling at the coach and his wife.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Mrs Robbins said, her face almost bursting from the smile displayed on it.

  ‘Yeah, definitely,’ the coach said, and Harper’s mom went to the nurse who buzzed the door open and the Robbinses went in.

  Once they were inside, Mrs Benton turned on the four teenagers. ‘What in the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she hissed at them.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Logan demanded. ‘Was Harper having an affair with the coach?’

  Mrs Benton stopped cold, stared at Logan, then she laughed. ‘Oh, my God! No!’ She put her hands on her hips and looked at each in turn. ‘Could you people be any more clueless?’ she said.

  But then the doors to the parking lot opened once again and Tucker Benton came rushing in. And Mrs Benton stopped laughing.

  We had a clue – a real live clue. But I had to agree with Chief Cotton – if the fingerprints on the straight-razor came back to Norris Hutchins, I’d move to Florida with him. Norris Hutchins was long dead, of that I was positive. Mostly. Ghosts and goblins and things that went bump in the night were all well and good on the big screen, or even the little one in the living room. They were even OK when written by a Steven King or a Dean Koontz. But they didn’t fit well into reality.

  I knew as well as I knew my own name that Diamond Lovesy and Humphrey Hammerschultz were frauds, out to take Miss Hutchins for every dime she had. But that didn’t tell me anything about who might have killed the pair. If you take the reality of what they were up to into consideration, really the best suspects would be Miss Hutchins or Willis and myself. Miss Hutchins’ daddy, if alive, could be a suspect, if you considered a man near one hundred years of age as viable. I didn’t. Besides, he was dead. Miss Hutchins had the letter from the War Office and her father’s dog tags to prove it.

  And then I sat straight up in bed, the need for an after-lunch nap totally forgotten. What Miss Hutchins didn’t have was any proof of the death of her father’s youngest brother – Elmer, Edgar? Something like that. I jumped out of bed, disturbing my husband who was lying next to me with a book on his chest and his newly acquired reading glasses on his nose. I appeared to rouse him from a deep sleep.

  ‘Wha?’ he said.

  ‘I have an idea!’ I said, slipping my shoes back on my feet and heading for the door to the hall.

  ‘Is it a good one?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s find out,’ I suggested and headed out the door for the stairs.

  Miss Hutchins was nowhere to be found in the common rooms of the house. I figured she’d followed my lead and gone to her room for a nap. Instead of disturbing her, I went to the shelf where she kept her family’s picture albums. I’d noticed one of those albums had loose papers shoved in the back. She’d shown me one – the letter from the War Office about her father’s death on D-Day. I took that album back to the sofa and sat down, Willis next to me.

  ‘What now, Nancy Drew?’ he asked.

  I gave him a withering look, then said, ‘We have proof of Norris Hutchins’ death, right?’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ he answered.

  ‘But what about his younger brother? Elmer?’

  ‘Edgar, I think.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Miss Hutchins said he died in the Pacific. Let’s see if we can find anything in here that proves that.’

  ‘You think Edgar’s still alive? He’d have to be in his late eighties at least, right?’ Willis said. ‘So how’s an eighty-year-old running up and down two flights of stairs, sleeping on a bedroll in the attic and doing all this so silently we barely hear him?’

  ‘We did hear him!’ I insisted. ‘Dragging whatever it was down the hall that night.’

  ‘Whatever was being dragged down the hall was heavy, E.J.,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘I doubt it was some eighty-year-old geezer.’

  ‘You’re an ageist!’ I accused.

  ‘No, I’m a realist. Mom’s in her late seventies. Can you see her doing any of this shit?’

  I had to consider that. No, I couldn’t see Vera, Willis’s mother, climbing up two flights of stairs and/or dragging large pieces of furniture or whatever down the hall and down a flight of stairs. And she was very fit for her age. Hell, I couldn’t see myself doing any of those things either. I’m not saying I couldn’t do it – only that I probably wouldn’t want to.

  I ignored him and went through the papers in the back of the photo album. And there it was – another letter from the war department, this one addressed to Clayton Hutchins at an address other than that of the Bishop’s Inn. Possibly the father of Norris and Edgar? And Herbert, of course. Can’t forget Uncle Herbert.

  ‘There goes that theory,’ Willis said, glancing at the letter.

  I read it through. ‘No, now read this! It just says he’s missing in action. This is not a death notification!’

  Willis pointed at the letter. ‘In the Philippines in 1943? It’s as good as a death notification. Ever hear of the Bataan Death March?’

  Vaguely, I thought. I wasn’t the World War II buff that my husband was. Rosie the Riveter was my WWII hero and about as far as I got into that particular part of history. The rest was too awful to contemplate. ‘Does that mean no Marines made it out of the Philippines?’ I asked dubiously.

  ‘No, of course not! But if he was missing in action, then chances are about ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent that he’s long dead. Just like his brother,’ Willis said.

  I stood up and took the album back to the shelf where I’d found it. Turning to my husband, I said, ‘That gives me point zero one percent that I’m right,’ I said. ‘I’ve worked with less.’

  BACK HOME

  Tucker Benton stopped short when he saw the four teenagers – particularly Logan – standing by his mother.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he said, fists clenched as he moved slowly toward his prey.

  Bess moved in front of Logan, but Logan pushed her gently aside. ‘Not again, OK?’ he whispered to her.

  Bess had to consider that this might be a guy thing – he had to prove his manhood or something – so she stayed by his side.

  ‘Tucker!’ Mrs Benton said sternly. ‘Leave him alone. And by the way, your sister is OK. And so’s the baby.’

  Tucker hadn’t taken his eyes off of Logan. ‘Hear that, asshole?’ he said to Logan. ‘Did you do something to try to get rid of the evidence?’ he said, his teeth also clenched, his fists like ham-hocks at his side.

  ‘Tucker!’ Mrs Benton said again. ‘He’s not the father!’

  Finally Tucker looked over at his mother. ‘What?’

  ‘This boy isn’t the father! You need to just leave this alone!’ she said.

  ‘Yeah!’ Megan who could never keep a secret said. ‘Looks like Coach Robbins is the proud papa!’

  Tucker whirled around on Megan. ‘What the fuck?’ he shouted. ‘Who the hell you think you are, accusing one of the greatest men I’ve ever known of doing something so … so …’

  ‘Rotten?’ Megan supplied. ‘Evil? Disturbing?’

  Alicia grabbed Megan’s arm. ‘Stop!’ she whispered.

  ‘Why?’ Megan asked, breaking away from Alicia’s grasp. ‘Is he gonna try to beat me up now? You big bully!’

  Tucker turned to his mother. ‘Mom?’

  Mrs Ben
ton just shook her head, a look of total defeat on her face. It was at that moment that the locked doors to the depths of the ER opened and Coach Robbins walked out. Tucker took one look at him then walked up and cold-cocked him.

  If Edgar Hutchins didn’t die in the Pacific, then what happened to him? I thought. Could he still be alive? Could an octogenarian have done these things? Maybe. Maybe not. But he could have had help! I decided. Yes, he certainly could have had help. Like another relative – a son or a daughter! That could be it! But a son or daughter would probably be in their sixties. Could two relatively old people do all this damage? Kill two very healthy specimens like Diamond and Humphrey? What about another generation? What about a grandson or granddaughter! Eureka! I think I might have stumbled on it. Of course, all this rested on one fact I didn’t have: did Edgar Hutchins survive the war in the Pacific?

  1972–2004

  So Edgar, known to his wife and son as Don Winslow, moved into the apartment his son was renting. Several months later he found a job at a discount store acting as a greeter. He knew he couldn’t go to any of his old gambling hangouts, even if they still existed. He might not look at all like ‘Don Winslow’ anymore, but considering he’d killed a man at those old hangouts, he didn’t want to take a chance. Besides, twenty years inside had lessened his desire to gamble. Every day inside had been a gamble, and he figured coming out of that alive was the best pay-off he was ever going to get.

  But he couldn’t stop thinking about the house on Post Oak Street back in Peaceful, Texas, and the treasure buried somewhere within. He kept the fantasy to himself until the day, five years later, when Chet took him to the ER because of a dark red stain on Edgar’s pants from an accidental peeing incident of which Edgar was unaware.

  ‘God, Dad!’ Chet said, having decided almost immediately upon finding out that Edgar really was ‘Don Winslow,’ his long-lost father, to call him that. ‘That’s disgusting! You peed your pants!’

  Edgar looked down at his crotch. ‘I don’t pee red, boy! I musta spilled something.’

  Chet leaned down and took a whiff. ‘Gross! No, Dad! That’s pee!’ Then he looked up at his father. ‘You been pissing blood lately?’

  Edgar shrugged. ‘Every now and then,’ he confessed.

  That’s when Chet loaded him up and took him to the ER. Edgar ended up in the hospital for several days until all the tests came back. Chet was with him when the doctor came in with the bad news. Bladder cancer. Too far along. Maybe a few weeks left. And then he was gone and Chet and Edgar both stared off into space. Finally, Edgar said, ‘Son, I got something to tell you about a place called Peaceful, Texas, and a house on a street called Post Oak.’

  And that’s when Chet learned who his father really was, about his half-sisters in the Philippines, but mostly about Helen and the treasure in the old Victorian. Edgar failed to mention that he’d sliced Helen’s throat with the straight-razor he was to leave his son in his will. That was about the only thing of any value – as little as it may have – that Edgar owned. Only that and the secret of the treasure on Post Oak Street.

  Chet buried his dad on a payment plan and left town, figuring they wouldn’t chase him down for the remainder of the bill. He moved to Jackson, where things were really happening, and found a friend who needed somebody to move weed for him. Chet had traded his old Valiant in for a VW micro-bus in pretty good condition and his friend thought that would be just the ride they needed to get in and out of Mexico. Chet spent two years hauling weed from a little town in Mexico back to Jackson, Mississippi, and made a lot of money doing it. Like his father back in his Shanghai days, Chet spent his money on women and gambling. And he inhaled a lot of the profits, too.

  It was one stormy spring night crossing the border from Nuevo Larado to the Texas side that Chet saw a border guard with a dog who was sniffing away at the cars as they passed through. Chet was riding shotgun, his friend Elias driving Chet’s VW. He looked at his friend, looked at the dog sniffing away and jumped ship. He heard later through the grapevine that Elias got sent down for ten years at Huntsville and was looking to mete out some justice to his old buddy, Chet. Which was why Chet moved back to Biloxi. Once there, he discovered that his mother, Rita, was in bad health and died shortly after he got home. She, too, left him nothing but bills.

  Chet was worried about how he was going to handle all this, since he hadn’t exactly saved any money back in his heyday, and now didn’t even have a car, as the VW micro-bus – which was never exactly in his name – was confiscated by the state of Texas. It was while looking over used cars that he met Lola Montgomery. Lola worked at the dealership and gave him quite a deal on a used Chevy Bellaire. The fact that her daddy owned the dealership – one of the largest in Biloxi – may have played a part in the deal. Lola had a one-year-old daughter, Darlene, father unknown, who was an embarrassment to Lola’s family. So Chet married her, gave Darlene the last name of Winslow (he’d found it would cost money to change his name back to Hutchins, and Chet wasn’t big on spending money on things that didn’t get him high or laid), and got a job selling used cars at his father-in-law’s dealership.

  In the winter of 1980, his wife, Lola, gave birth to a son, who Chet named Edward in secret honor of his old man. Big sister Darlene was smitten with her younger brother, a reality that lasted all of her life. As far as Darlene was concerned, Eddy could do no wrong, although Eddy liked very much to do wrong. He liked to pull the wings off flies when he was just a tyke, and graduated at the age of nine to killing neighborhood pets. When anyone ever got close to finding out what Eddy was doing, big sister Darlene would cover for him. Her parents never knew what Eddy was up to, and he sure wasn’t into confessing his sins. By the time he was in high school and Darlene, still living at home and going to a junior college, was in her early twenties, she discovered that her little brother got caught trying to rape a girl under the bleachers at a football game. The boys who caught him beat the shit out of him, and it was only by the intervention of a school guard that Eddy made it out of the situation in one piece. Darlene sold her car to pay off the girl he tried to rape. Eddy didn’t really notice.

  Chet was as enamored of his son as his step-daughter, Darlene. In Chet’s mind, the boy could do no wrong. And when Eddy turned sixteen, Chet told him the tale of the treasure in the house on Post Oak Street in Peaceful, Texas, and Eddy’s true family history and true name of Hutchins.

  ‘So why didn’t you ever go for it, Dad?’ Eddy asked his father.

  Chet shrugged. ‘I dunno. Just never got around to it. Maybe one of these days.’ Then he smiled real big. ‘Hey, maybe you and me, huh, boy?’

  Eddy smiled at his dad. ‘Sure, Dad, that sounds great.’ Eddy knew he’d be going after that treasure, but he sure wasn’t taking dear old dad along with him.

  SEVENTEEN

  BACK HOME

  Coach Robbins was sitting on the floor of the ER waiting room, rubbing his jaw while Tucker Benton towered over him, his face blood red. ‘How could you?’ he yelled. ‘You were my friend! My goddam hero! And you raped my little sister?’ And then he kicked him.

  Coach Robbins scrambled out of the way and made it to a standing position. ‘Hold on a minute! What in the hell are you talking about?’ He turned to Mrs Benton, a confused look on his face. ‘Nancy? What the hell?’

  Mrs Benton sighed. ‘He doesn’t know, Les. I wasn’t sure how he’d take it …’

  ‘Ha!’ Coach said, with little humor. ‘Oh, he seems to be taking whatever this is just fine!’

  ‘What are you talking about? Mom? What’s going on?’ Tucker asked, his face still red, his fists still clutched by his side.

  Mrs Benton looked around the waiting room. There were only a few people in there, and one side was empty. She ushered her son in that direction. The coach followed – as did Logan and the Pugh girls. Uninvited but still involved. Well, at least Logan was, and since he was holding Bess’s hand, she had to go, and where one Pugh girl went, they all went.

&n
bsp; ‘Les?’ Mrs Benton said.

  ‘What about them?’ the coach asked, pointing at Logan and the girls.

  Mrs Benton shrugged. ‘They may as well know the truth. It’s better than what everyone is thinking.’

  The coach nodded his head and rubbed his face. ‘Cathy and I have been trying to have a baby for almost five years. We’ve tried everything. Then the doctor suggested a surrogate. We were opposed to it at first, but …’ He looked at Mrs Benton.

  She took a deep breath and said, ‘Cathy told me what they were going through. I wanted to help.’ She stiffened her shoulders and said, ‘And we needed the money—’

  ‘Mom, what the fuck—’

  ‘Don’t talk to your mother like that!’ the coach said.

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ Tucker yelled at the coach.

  ‘Tucker! He’s still the same man who got you through four years of football! The same man who got you that scholarship! It’s not his fault you didn’t fulfill your end of the bargain—’

  ‘Mom!’ Tucker whined. ‘I can’t help it if I got bad grades!’

  ‘If you’d studied instead of going out drinking every night—’

  ‘People!’ Megan said. ‘Enough. So, Harper’s carrying Coach and Mrs Robbins’ baby, is that what you’re saying?’

  Mrs Benton straightened her shoulders again. ‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying.’

  ‘I’m not real clear on the law, but isn’t Harper underage and isn’t this like, you know, illegal?’ Bess asked.

  Mrs Benton fidgeted in her seat, and Coach Robbins stared out the window. ‘It’s not cut and dry,’ she said in a small voice.

  Coach turned back around. ‘She’ll be eighteen before the baby’s born,’ he said defensively, then sighed, his shoulders drooping. ‘We weren’t sure ourselves at first, Tucker, but … well, Cathy was desperate—’

  ‘Mom, you, like, sold Harper’s womb?’ Tucker said, his voice louder than necessary. The people at the other end of the waiting room looked up.