by S. E. Green
“Go ahead,” she challenges. “I dare you.”
I turn to get the heck out of here when I hear him speak again, and I stop to listen.
“Did you do it?” he quietly asks, but she doesn’t respond.
I step closer, my ears tuned, my pulse throbbing in my neck. Did Bee-Bee do what? Kill Michelle? Surely, that’s not what he means.
“Get. The. Hell. Off my property,” she grits out.
I start to move again, to hide, to run, to something, but then I hear Mark’s shoes hit the back porch steps, and I realize he’s leaving through the house. A door opens, slams, there’s some stomping, and then he’s out the front and in his car and gone. I hold my breath, waiting. If Bee-Bee comes around the side and sees me, I’ll just play it off. I just got here, I’ll tell her.
She’s next, up the back porch and into the house, but then she surprises me by heading right on out the front door, climbing in her car, and driving off, too. Mark went left and she went right, so I doubt she’s following him.
Everything I overheard between them circles my brain, and I come back to that picture in the woods of all of them. Uncle Jerry said Mark and Daniel James were getting too into the dark stuff, and the rest of them backed off. But what if Uncle Jerry was wrong. What if Bee-Bee didn’t back off? What if she’s been a part of this all along?
An unexpected chill runs through me. She was the last to be seen with Michelle. She could’ve killed her. She could’ve staged this whole thing—the murder, stashing the evidence in our pond, pointing fingers at Mark.
I don’t know how long she’s going to be gone, but if I can find something, anything to prove she might not be so innocent in all of this, then I can take it to the authorities. I know they haven’t searched her house, and I also know where her hide-a-key is.
I could go in, quickly look around, and get out. She has enough nightlights throughout that I won’t even need to turn anything on. I know her house well enough, I can search with just the dimness to see by.
If by chance she pulls in, I’ll hear her and can scurry out the back before she finds me. Yes, I was in her house just a few days ago cleaning, but this is different, I wasn’t actually looking for anything, I was on auto-pilot, organizing, dusting, washing, vacuuming.
Nerves kick through me at the thought I’m about to break into her home, I’m about to search it and possibly find something that will link her to Michelle’s murder. Maybe I’ll even find the weapon.
I’ve got to be crazy thinking this way, but I just don’t know any other way. If I go to the cops with everything I just overheard and my new suspicions, they’ll likely brush them aside, because Bee-Bee’s right. Everyone thinks Mark is loony. No, if I go to the cops, I need to go with something, though I don’t know what yet.
But if I stand here very much longer, I’m going to talk myself out of it, so I move through the darkness of the side yard, reach under her back porch where she keeps the hide-a-key, and quietly let myself into her kitchen.
I stand for a second and take a breath, realizing as of this very second I am officially breaking the law. I almost laugh. No, I’ve already broken the law when I disposed of the evidence I pulled from the pond. My God, I don’t even know myself any more. Two short weeks ago I would’ve never entertained this idea. Never.
Quietly, I make my way into her bedroom and start opening and closing drawers, looking for anything suspicious. I go to her closet next. Then I head into Michelle’s room, and as I step over the threshold sadness clenches through me. My little sister. If only I’d have known. Things would’ve been so different. I’d have spent more time with her. I would’ve cared more, loved more, everything more. If only I’d known.
With a deep breath, I start siphoning through her things. Her closet, her toy box, her dresser drawers. It’s a small clean house and it doesn’t take me long to move from room to room—bedroom to bathroom to kitchen and finally into the living room. I look through the book shelves, experiencing both relief and disappointment. I don’t actually want Bee-Bee to be guilty, I just want answers.
But it’s as I’m looking under the couch cushions that a thought hits me—under. I didn’t look under the mattresses.
Hurrying back into Michelle’s room, I quickly check and find nothing there, then I go into Bee-Bee’s room. I fling her covers aside and lift the corner of the queen size mattress, but don’t see anything. I repeat on the next corner, and the next, and on the last one I lift and there sits a thin black folder.
“What are you doing?”
With a gasp, I whip around to see Bee-Bee standing in her open bedroom doorway glaring down at me. I scramble back across her carpet, my thoughts stumbling, my lips trying to form words, but nothing comes out. How did I not hear her car?
Her glare goes over to the corner of the mattress and then back over to me. I try to get to my feet, but my legs and arms begin violently shaking. I’ve never seen her look this way before. Angry, yes, but more than that. Furious. Almost violent.
That last word shoots a fresh spike of fear through me and has me scooting further back. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what she’s going to do.
She bares her teeth when she barks at me, “Get out.”
I don’t move. I don’t think I can.
She comes at me, and I try to scoot back more, but my spine lands against the wall, and I’m stuck. I can’t move. She reaches down, and I flinch when her fingernails dig into my forearm and she yanks me to my feet. Then she charges out of her bedroom, down the hall, and straight toward the front door, dragging me behind her. She flings open the door and throws me out onto the porch. Then she slams it and throws the lock, and I hear her stomp away.
I don’t wait a second. My feet meet air as I leap down the steps and race across County Line Road back to Wade’s house. I don’t go to his front door this time, I go to his bedroom window and bang, bang, bang.
Immediately, his blinds open. Quickly he unlocks the window and lifts the glass. “Vickie? What’s wrong?”
Everything hits me hard, slamming into me, and I burst into tears. “I-I-I think Bee-Bee killed Michelle.”
IT’S ALMOST MIDNIGHT, and I’m sitting with my parents in our living room. After my break down at Wade’s house, he loaded me up in his car, and drove me the tiny distance to my home. He led me inside and holding my hand, sat with me in the living room until Mom and Dad got themselves together and came out of the master suite.
Now they’re across from us, and Dad has looked at our linked hands more than once. I don’t care. This is so not about me and Wade right now.
I tell them everything I overheard between the Doughtery’s and then I tell them about what happened in her house. My parents listen, quietly taking it all in, and it’s Mom who speaks first, “I wish you wouldn’t have gone in her home. This is Honey’s car all over again.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble and Wade squeezes my hand. “I’m just so desperate for answers, and after everything I heard them say, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.”
Dad blows out a very long sigh, like he’s trying to dial down his reaction to all of this, and I wait expectantly for what he has to say.
“Well,” he begins, “I have to say I agree. There is definitely something going on, but we can’t go to the authorities about that black folder you found because you broke into her home. Besides if there’s anything to it, she’s probably gotten rid of it by now. What we can do is tell them the details of what you overheard. I would think that would give them reason to search her home.”
Relief eases through me at my dad’s validating words.
He looks at Mom. “We’ll go in the morning.”
I DRIFT IN and out throughout the early morning hours, my brain fogged with everything, but mostly I think about the fact that tomorrow is Sunday—the day. If I could round my family up and convince them to stay in one room, I would, but I know they won’t.
Turning in my bed, I look at my digital clock. It reads
6:00 a.m. I grab my phone and swipe my finger across the screen and bring up my news feeds to see if anyone is talking about all of this, and they are.
“Satan entering and taking over our world? Please,” one reporter says. “How many times was the world supposed to end and nothing occurred?”
True, and that’s similar to what PaPaw said about all of this. I do remember last year there was this religious cult out on the west coast that proclaimed the world would end one night, and of course that night came and went, the world woke up, and everyone was still here. But this is different. This is in my own back yard.
“Mom!” Kevin screams, and I sit straight up in bed. “Mom!” he screams again, and I hear him run past my room.
I throw my covers off and rush out, and Travis’s door opens at the same time. “What’s going on?” he asks, and I shrug.
Together we hurry toward the master bedroom where we hear Kevin’s frantic voice and Mom’s calmer one. When we walk in, she’s bent over and staring at a spot on his stomach.
“I don’t know, Kevin. Did you get bit by a spider?” she asks.
“That’s not a spider bite. Look at it!” he yelps.
Me and Travis move closer, and I lean in to look at the side of Kevin’s abdomen where a round, raised and puffy red mark is.
“Measles?” Travis suggest. “Chick pox?”
“No, it’s definitely not that.” Mom frowns as she leans in again. “It’s almost like somebody took a car cigarette lighter and stuck it to his skin.”
Kevin jostles in place and I can tell he’s completely freaked out. “What is it?”
Mom shakes her head. “I don’t know. You don’t remember anything? You haven’t been itching there have you? You didn’t come in contact with poison ivy, acid, I don’t know, anything?”
“No! Nothing. I woke up and there it was. I was fine when I went to bed, and I slept through the night.” Kevin looks down at it. “Do you really think it might be a spider bite?”
“I don’t know,” she says again. “Why don’t you go get some clothes on and I’ll drive you to the emergency room.”
Kevin nods and hurries off, and I stand for a second thinking about the mark. Round and puffy, pinkish in color, with a smaller circle in the center. Realization slowly settles in, and with it a heaviness in my chest. I remember seeing this mark.
“What is it?” Travis asks.
But I don’t answer. Instead I race from my parents’ room and straight into mine where I lock myself in and get the laptop. My fingers fly over the keys as I do a search and begin scrolling through images and articles. My eyes dart back and forth as I look at pictures and read different views and explanations. There’s everything from the Devil licking the skin, to the Devil scraping his claw across the area, to the Devil biting in.
But the bottom line is that mark, however Kevin got it, it’s the mark of the Devil. My little brother has been promised to Satan. Kevin is going to be the Ultimate Sacrifice.
BETWEEN NEWS CREWS, those praying, cops patrolling, and people dressed all in black who I assume are Satanists, the road in front of our house is impassible. It’s disgusting to think they are all here because another murder might occur. Why don’t people show up like this for good news? Why does it take horrific events to bring this kind of attention?
When Dad and I leave our house for the police station, we turn right out of our driveway instead of the usual left. Right takes us away from the crowd and past Michelle’s house, past Wade’s, and winding even further out into the country before we can circle around and take the long way into town. Mom’s ahead of us, driving a very freaked out Kevin to the emergency room.
“That mark on Kevin,” I tell Dad. “I looked it up.” I hold up my phone so he can see a picture that I found online. “It’s supposedly the Mark of the Devil.”
Dad doesn’t even look at my phone. “Vickie, we have enough on our plate without you thinking Kevin has some satanic mark on him. Please listen to me when I say you cannot bring that up to Detective Crandall. Do you want to be thought of as another Mark Doughtery? Do you want people making fun of you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I don’t either. Listen, we are there to speak to Crandall about what you overheard between the Doughtery’s, and that is it. Do you understand me?”
With a nod, I lower my phone, thinking am I another Mark? Has my imagination and paranoia taken over all logical thought? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
“I’m sure it’s just a bite or a rash,” Dad tries to soothe me. “Kevin’s going to be fine.”
I nod, but I don’t truly feel the nod.
Silence falls between us in the cab of Dad’s work truck, filled only by the sound of the wind blowing through his open windows. I gaze out at the houses dotting the green hillside. At a farmer on his tractor idling along. A dog racing after another one. And at an old man sitting in a rocker on his porch.
Tilting my head into the morning sun, I close my eyes and inhale the summer scents of grass and honeysuckle sweetness. Kids at school used to complain about growing up in such a small town, but I never minded it. I still don’t. I have no aspirations of big city life. I like small town slow. Which is why I’m going to do this stupid trip my parents want and then come right back and start college. With—I smile—Wade, my brand new boyfriend.
My thoughts drift from Wade, from here to there, floating into childhood memories. Of catching fire flies with my brothers. Of camping out in the woods and cooking hotdogs over an open flame. Of chasing PaPaw’s goats around his farm. Of snuggling in the living room and watching the original black and white version of King Kong. I’ve, we’ve, had a wonderful life, and I wouldn’t change of any of it.
Eventually, we pull into the police station and soon we’re sitting in an interrogation room with Crandall, me, my dad, and one other person who is wearing a badge but no uniform, and I assume she is a detective, too. I find it odd we’re in an interrogation room when every other time we’ve been here, we’ve met in Crandall’s office.
After we exchange a few stiff hello’s, I carefully, in great detail, tell him everything I overheard between the Doughtery’s, and when I’m done I glance over to the wall mounted mirror that I know is two way. I wonder who is on the other side observing.
Crandall gives me that same smug smile that he’s been wearing quite a lot lately, like he knows something the rest of us don’t. I hate that smile. I want to smack it right off of his face. I wait for him to respond to everything I just told him, but he doesn’t, and instead just stares at me for a few long seconds. It makes me shift uncomfortably in my chair. Why isn’t he speaking?
Finally, he opens his mouth and some of the pressure in my chest loosens, but then immediately tightens back up when he says, “I heard you broke into Bee-Bee Doughtery’s house.”
My eyes snap over to my father, and I watch as he closes his in dread.
“She’s not going to press charges,” the detective simply states, “but she did want me to know that you had been in her house without her permission.”
“There was a black folder,” I blurt, “hidden under her mattress.”
“Is that so?” Crandall’s eyebrows lift as he unlocks his briefcase, reaches inside, and pulls out a black folder. “You mean this one?”
I feel my eyes widen as I stare at it. He lays it on the table and pushes it across to me, nodding at it, indicating I should open it. My heart picks up pace as I reach forward, and I note my fingers are shaking when I open it.
Inside are pages upon pages of printed documents off the internet—basically the same stuff I’ve already seen: a picture of the medallion Kevin found; research on cults, specifically The New Satanic Empire; and pictures upon pictures of various human and animal sacrifices some dating back centuries.
Everything in this folder I myself have found in my search engines. Yet I still can’t help wondering, “But why did she have this hidden under her mattress?”
“She
didn’t have it ‘hidden’,” Crandall tells me. “She was looking through it while in bed and simply slipped it under her mattress when she was done.”
“But who does that?” I question. “Why not just put it on her bedside table?”
Crandall doesn’t respond to my challenging outburst, and his silence has me railroading on, “She could’ve known I was going to tell you about this and switched everything out. And what about everything I overheard? She threw a brick at Mark’s head. She aborted a baby she didn’t even tell him about. He said there were other things. Plus he point blank asked her if she did it, and she didn’t deny it!”
I hear the desperation in my voice, the panic, and I stop talking. Raspy, agitated breaths fill the room and as my ears tune into them, I realize they’re mine. I do sound panicked. Several quiet seconds drift by and my eyes slide back over to my father who is looking back at me with concern. When did I become the point of focus here?
Crandall slides the folder back across the table, closes it, and places it inside of his briefcase. “Rest assured, we know all about the Doughtery’s volatile history.”
“Mark alluded to things you didn’t already know,” I lamely remind him.
Crandall reaches inside of his briefcase again and this time he pulls out a photograph. He lays it face down on the table and links his fingers on top of it. “Would you care to amend where you were the night of Michelle’s murder?”
The room begins to close in on me and things seem to spin. I dig my fingers into the table top and my vision tunnels in on that picture. Crandall unlinks his fingers, flips the photo over, and slides it across the table to me. I don’t move a muscle, only my eyes as I focus in on the grainy depiction.
It’s dark out with things dimly lit by the moon and the exterior light situated on one corner of our garage. It’s a picture of me dressed in what I usually wear to bed, boxers and a tee. I’m walking, my hand extended back, holding onto Michelle’s fingers. She’s wearing a yellow nightgown and is carrying the red haired Barbie that I gave her.
