Jake's Burn

by Randy Rawls

  Joey’s eyes glazed. “Sheila walked over to me and said, ‘You’re Joey Hart, aren’t you. My ex is making it with your sister. Why don’t you come up to my place? You’ll go deeper and longer while we do things those two prudes haven’t begun to think of. Be ready to go as soon as I hit the ladies’ room.’ That wuz it. After all the years of lusting after her, she’d said she wanted me. I couldn’t think of a thing to say as she walked toward the john.”

  “When she came back, I wuz ready to go. She didn’t have to ask me twice. I followed her to her place where she showed me positions I never knowed existed. If she’da written a book, every man in the country would have bought a copy for his wife or his honey. She could do things—”

  “Okay, okay. I get the picture. Try to fast forward through the x-rated parts and get to the murder scene. Was that when you killed her?”

  “Killed her? Oh, not a chance—not that night. I would’ve done anything for her. If she’d asked me to kill, I’d have done it for her, but not to her. I fell for her so hard I laugh at myself when I remember. It’s funny. Until her, I thought I wuz a lover, knew all the tricks. I thought I could love’m and leave’m, thought I wuz too much man for one woman—Joey-Boy, the Love Toy. Sheila made me a changed man. I became a one-woman man, and that woman wuz Sheila. It didn’t matter how old she wuz—I knew she wuz almost twenty years older than me. I wuz in love, and I wuz sure she felt the same way.” He stopped and laughed a bitter, derisive laugh. “Love. Stupid.” He paused.

  I waited, feeling the pain of what he went through. After a couple of minutes, he continued.

  “I waited at the Down Home the next night, ’spectin’ her to show up and invite me to her place again. She never came. Same thing for the next three nights. I waited. She didn’t show. I must have called her house fifty times and each time, that snotty downstairs maid said she wuzn’t there. I left a message each time but she never returned a call. I wuz beside myself. I couldn’t understand why. Every time I relived that night, it came out the same. She had to love me like I loved her. Why else had she, had we—well, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” I responded, feeling his pain, but not wanting a colorful description of what they did.

  “On the sixth night, she showed up at the Down Home with her lawyer, that damn skinny woman. Every time I got near Sheila, she turned away, ignoring me. It hurt so bad. There had to be a mistake, she must have thought I didn’t care.” He hesitated, then groaned, “What a damned fool I wuz.”

  He looked at me, pain in his eyes. “When you wuz a kid, did you ever want somethin’ so bad, and then somebody give it to ya’. But, before you could enjoy it, they took it away. That’s how I felt. I fin’ly got what I wanted, but it wuz yanked away. I wanted to reach out, to smash somethin’, to get even with the world.” His voice softened. “But most, I wanted Sheila.”

  His tone changed again. “After she died, I waited for the sheriff to bang on the door. I wuz sure I’d be suspect number one, but she ignored me so complete, no one ever suspected we’d done the bone dance all night. Even now, no one suspects Sheila and me wuz ever together. Shit, I bet nobody’ll ever believe it. Best night of my life, and ev'rybody will think I'm lying.” His head dropped to his chest. He looked like an old man.

  It was a heart-rending scene, if you were in the mood for such. I wasn't. My patience was thin. “Get back to the story, Joey. I don’t need a step-by-step narrative—cut to the chase.”

  “Humph, big city cop. I guess you guys don’t have time for plain folks like me.”

  “Wrong again. I’m just in a hurry to hear your story. I’ll visit you on death row, and you can give me all the details.”

  “You sonafabitch.” Joey’s eyes reflected what he’d like to do to me, and it wouldn’t have been pleasant, but he returned to the story. “She ignored me, she didn’t return my calls. I wuz out of it. Mah mind wouldn’t think of anything but her. Ten long days and nights passed. I wuz in the Down Home and had drunk too many Louisiana Bayou’s. Eleven o’clock arrived with no Sheila. I decided to go to her house. I sat outside a while watching. The lights wuz on but I didn’t see nobody moving around. Sheila’s car was out front so I got out and checked it. The hood was cool. Apparently, she hadn’t used it for a while. I walked around the house to see if I could see her through the back windows and saw a strange car parked in the rear driveway, a new Mercedes. I still didn’t see nobody so I went back to the front. I listened at the door and it wuz quiet inside.”

  Joey’s eyes took on a hurt puppy look. “You gotta understand, Ace. I wuz desperate, and I wuz drunk as a skunk. Nobody answered the doorbell. I tried the latch and the door opened. I went in, scoped the place out, and didn’t see nobody. I climbed to the second floor. You know, up that fancy spiral staircase old man Adams had built. When I got upstairs, I heard noises from down the hall and walked that way.” He hesitated.

  “Let’s go, Joey. My time is valuable.”

  “I shore wish you’d show some patience.” Joey appeared to gather his thoughts. “I only took a few steps before I realized it come from Sheila’s bedroom, the same room we used. As I got close, I recognized Sheila’s voice, or maybe I should say, her moans. I heard them all night when we wuz together. The door wuz open so I snuck up to it and peeked in.”

  His mouth stopped moving and his facial features froze. Emotions rippled across his face as his eyes looked into the distance, seeing things known only to him. He’d kept a straight face during the telling, but now it flashed ugly, mad, hurt, and several other emotions I couldn’t identify, and didn’t want to meet.

  “There wuz Sheila. She wuz on the bed, naked. Her body all wet with sweat, her beautiful red hair a mess and splayed around her face. She wuz so beautiful, so perfect in every way. I wuz so taken with her beauty that, at first, I didn’t notice what she wuz doing, or who she wuz with.”

  He stopped talking and grinned, like he was milking the punch line of a good joke.

  I pretended boredom. “Can you pick it up a little? I’ve still got time to get lucky tonight, if you don’t keep me too long.” I looked at my watch. “There must be some Cisco women I can meet.”

  Joey glared before continuing. “Then, she rolled over and the other one rolled up on her, kissing her long and hard. That woke me up. It wuz a dam’ woman, and she was naked too. Later I learned it wuz that bitch lawyer. I never seen two women together before, but I knowed what they wuz doing. Hell, the way they wuz wrestling and groping one another, anybody woulda knowed what they wuz doing.”

  “What?” I couldn’t help but interrupt. “The lawyer? You’re saying Sheila and the lawyer were in bed together having sex, or whatever passes for sex between women?”

  “Yep. Kinda hard to handle, ain’t it?” He leaned back and grinned.

  I was still reeling from his revelations. “Is that why you killed her, because she was in bed with the lawyer?” From what I’d learned during the investigation, Sheila was a free spirit. Hearing that she was having a lesbian affair didn’t surprise me. She was not the young woman I’d known in college. I did wonder how Jake would take it, though.

  “I don’t blame you, Ace. It surprised me as much as you.”

  Joey had misread my facial expressions.

  “How could a woman like Sheila, who enjoyed men like me, be in bed with another woman? Hell, I know for sure she enjoyed me. Ain’t no woman can fake all them orgasms. Course, I’m a whole lot better than other guys.”

  Again, he stopped. I refused to comment except to nod for him to continue.

  “That ain’t why I killed her. I ain’t like you old farts. I kin handle them kind of things. Nah, that ain’t why she died. Close, but no cigar. Like they say, ‘Different strokes for different folks.’ Don’t bother me none as long as I get mine.”

  He stopped and looked at me. I gave him my stone-faced stare and he continued. “When I saw the two of them in bed together, I screamed or yelled or…” He paused with a befuddled look on his face. “Hel
l, I don’t know. I said something. I don’t know what. They both sat up and stared at me. The lawyer pulled the sheet up over her.”

  He giggled. “Hell, that wuz a waste a her time. Compared to Sheila, she didn’t have nothin’ worth hiding. I seen better stacked mannequins. Sheila climbed off the bed and picked up her robe, cool as a cucumber. You’d a never knowed she wuz moanin’ and groanin’ a minute before. She wuz back in total control of herself.” A leer took over his face.

  He stopped talking again, so I prodded him. “Great, Joey. She put on the robe and acted like she didn’t give a shit. Then what?”

  “You got it. She slipped on the robe and walked past me into the hallway and down the stairs. She never said a word. I followed. She went in the study and poured herself a scotch and water. Then she asked me what I wuz doing there, what I wanted. She treated me like I wuz the bug man who’d showed up to do his quarterly spraying.”

  He took on a puzzled look. “It wuz wild, Ace. She didn't act angry, disturbed or nothin’. She wuz totally cool. I told her I loved her, and I wanted to be with her. She laughed at me—threw back her head and laughed at me. She took another sip of her drink, then threw the rest of it in my face. I guess I snapped. I didn’t know ’til later what happened—after I had lots of time to think about it.”

  He frowned. “I think I grabbed her and tried to kiss her. She slapped me, laughing all the while. She said the reason she picked me up wuz because I wuz such a dork, a pint-sized, no-personality dork. She decided to do me a favor, like giving a beggar a dollar.” He hesitated, a faint grin showing. “She said she’d been raised to believe charity begins at home, so she gave it to me at home.” He stopped talking again and crossed his arms.

  After a moment during which we locked stares, I caved and said, “Let’s go, Joey. Let it out. I’ve known punks like you all my life. You want to tell this story.”

  The grin disappeared, replaced by a snarl. “Edwards, you’re a cold-blooded bastard, but you might be right. Maybe I do want to tell you how I wasted them bitches.” Gradually, his face relaxed into something resembling normalcy. “I wuz holding Sheila by the arm, and when she made that comment about charity, I hit her. I must’ve had a grip on the robe because when I hit her, she stumbled back and fell, and I wuz left holding her robe. As she went down, I remember thinking what a gorgeous body she had. She wuz some stacked.”

  His face changed again, back to his I’m sorry look. “Her head hit the edge of the fireplace hearth with a loud crack. I knelt beside her and saw blood coming out of her ears. I checked for a pulse, but couldn’t find none.”

  He stopped and looked at his hands, then spoke without lifting his head. “It wuz an accident, Ace. You gotta believe me, I didn’t mean to kill her. Hell, I didn’t even mean to hit her. If she hadn’t laughed at me—”

  “I don’t need your excuses,” I said. “Save them for a jury. Get on with the story and pick it up. You’re boring me.” Part of it was true. I didn’t want him to bog down in self-pity.

  “You sonnafabitch.” At least Joey hadn’t lost his spirit, or his vocabulary, limited though it was. “I sat and stared at Sheila—stared and cried, cried and stared. Yeah me. Rough, tough Joey-Boy. I cried. I might still be sitting there but I heard a noise. That damn lawyer wuz in the door. I’d forgotten about her. She said something, I don’t know what, but it pulled me out of my crying jag. My first impulse wuz to explain I didn’t mean to hurt Sheila. Then I saw what she had on—a white robe with a Texas star over her tit, like the one I used when I stayed with Sheila. And like me a few nights ago, she’d been screwing Sheila.”

  His face changed again. “Damn, Ace, how come women do that? Ain’t there enough men out there for them? I mean, why—”

  “You don’t want to go there, Joey. I know I’m not going there. Get on with your story.”

  He clenched his fists, then flexed his fingers as he glared at me. “Okay, but someday I’m gonna meet you when you ain’t got no gun.”

  “I don’t think so, except when we’re in the courtroom.”

  He glared some more. It was surprising such a young person had mastered such a great glare.

  “Let’s see, where wuz I? Oh, yeah. The lawyer screamed, ran from the room, and headed up the stairs. I followed as fast as I could, and would have caught her except I wore my new boots, same ones I got on tonight. Ain’t they nice?”

  “Sure, Joey, they’re great. Move on.”

  “You ain’t got no sense of humor, have you?”

  “Nope. Move on.”

  Another of his super stares. “The sole of my new boot slipped on the carpet of the steps, and I stumbled. By the time I got up and started again, she had made the top and was turning into the bedroom she and Sheila had been in. When I reached the bedroom door, she had the phone at her ear and wuz dialing. I dived and knocked it from her hand. We wrestled, and I tore the robe off her. She fought like a wildcat, a naked wildcat.”

  Joey stopped and laughed an evil laugh. “You know, right then, she didn’t look too bad. If she hadn’t been such a bitch, I mighta give her a treat. But she was a fighter. Stark naked, she fought me as hard as she fought Jake during the divorce. Only difference was, against Jake she used the law, against me she used everything she had—nails, fists, teeth.” He grinned. “Hell, I think she tried to hit me with a tit. I know damn well she spit on me. I proved I’m a better man than Jake Adams, though. I beat her, I choked her. I choked the life right out of her.”

  The look on his face made me want to smash him, smash him as he’d done Millener. I didn’t know her, but I figured no woman, no human being deserved to die at the hands of a punk like Joey.

  “That’s the story. Anything else you want?” Joey wore a satisfied sneer on his face.

  “You’re cool, Joey, real cool, a real sub-human son-of-a-bitch. If I had a son, I’d want him to be just like you. What about the fire, how’d you do that?”

  “Huh?” He looked like he was trying to discern my meaning, then gave up. “The fire, yeah. That topped off the night, my best move.”

  There went that stupid laugh again.

  “I’d have gotten away with it if Jake hadn’t brought you in. These local yokels would’ve never caught me.”

  “Flattery won’t get you anywhere,” I said. “Get back to the story. Where did you leave the lawyer’s body?”

  “Right where she fell. We’d fought our way into the hallway on the second floor. That’s where I got my hands around her neck and choked her. When she fell, I left her there.”

  I mentally checked the house plans. What Joey said fit where the body had been found. She’d burned and fallen through from the second floor. That explained the confusion around the location of her remains. “How did the fire start?”

  “I went downstairs and sat with Sheila for a while. I don’t know how long. By then, my mind had cleared, cold sober, and I was trying to find a way out of the mess. I remembered I had several cans of gas in the back of the truck. Dad asked me to fill them for the generator. I brought them in. I started with the lawyer, dousing her good, then the bed they were in. That was a fun part of the night, getting that bitch-lawyer ready to burn. After spreading gas on the second floor, I did the same on the first. I laid a trail from the front door to Sheila.”

  Joey stopped talking and rubbed his eyes. Could those be tears, or was he putting on a show for me?

  “I told Sheila good-bye and poured the last of the gas over her. I drenched her pretty good. Then, I gathered all the cans and walked out the front door. Before closing the door, I tossed a match into the trail I laid down. It shore surprised me. That place went up like a Roman candle. There wuz a huge whooshing noise as the flame tracked the gas I poured around the place. Makes me wonder if Adams hand them builders cut corners. Whatever, it scared the hell out of me. I took off running as fast as I could. Somewhere between the house and my truck, I tripped and dropped the gas cans.”

  He looked at me. “I heard you guys found’m whe
n you went out in the morning. Think the cops would give’m back? Dad asked if I knew what happened to them.” He crossed his arms over his chest again. “That’s it. That’s the whole story. What’s next, hot shot? You got the gun.”

  “Book matches from the Down Home. Did you know you wrote Sheila’s number inside the cover?”

  “Yep, you musta found them. What, did I lose them when I kicked yo' ass?” He grinned. “I missed them the next day. Wondered ’bout that.”

  At this point, it was difficult to keep myself under control. I wanted to let him know in a physical manner what I thought of him. But, with a superhuman effort, I continued my questions. “Sonny. Why’d you kill Sonny?”

  “I’da thought a hotshot cop like you would have figgered that out. It wuz a mistake. When you showed up here, I made sure I met you in the Down Home. You thought I wuz drunk. Not on your life. I wuz checking you out, and I didn’t like what I saw. You looked too damn sharp for my tastes. Like I said earlier, I don’t think the locals would have gotten on to me, but I wuz worried about you. So, I left a note for Bubba figuring he'd give it to you. Terri took me home, but I went in the front door and out the back. Mom and Dad never even knowed I had been there. I headed for the lake, ready to take both of you out.”

  “Why Bubba? What did he do to you?”

  “To me, nothing. With Sheila, he did all the things I wanted to keep doing to her. He deserved to die. Anyway, somehow you got out of the car without me seeing you. Might’ve been while I watched a couple of teenagers get it on in a back seat. When I snuck up and cut loose on your car, there wuz only one person there. I didn’t know until the next day it wuz Sonny, and not you, or maybe Bubba.” He grinned. “Shore disappointed me when I heard I didn't get neither one of you.”