Shame ON You

by John W. Mefford

  “I don’t want to doubt what you’re saying. I hear you,” Ivy said, every once in a while rubbing Chantel’s back.

  Meanwhile, I just sat there and tried not to do anything that would upset either one of them—whatever that might be.

  “But with you admitting that you’re not feeling very stable, that’s a solid first step in the healing process.” Ivy paused, took in a full breath. “Would you like for us to take you to a facility? I have a friend who—”

  “I’m not going to any facility.” She wiped a tear from her face. “Maybe later...if I’m still around.”

  Was she being dramatic? I wasn’t going to ask.

  “Okay, no facility,” Ivy said and moved her arm around Chantel’s shoulder. The girl leaned into her.

  Thank God for Ivy.

  A few seconds passed. Chantel’s breathing calmed, and her tears stopped. “Did you hear me earlier?” she asked, turning her head to look at Ivy.

  “About your sister? Yes. I wanted to ask you more about that when you were ready. Both Ozzie and I are here to help.”

  Chantel glanced over at me, on the other side of Ivy. Her eyes were so hollow and recessed. She looked emaciated. I gave her an assuring nod.

  A tear rolled down her cheek. “I love Ally. She meant everything to me, and then…” She bit into her hand. That’s right, she literally gnashed her teeth into her skin. I looked quickly to Ivy, who tried the soothing process again.

  “It’s okay to be upset, Chantel. Losing a sister is horrible,” Ivy said as she rubbed Chantel’s back.

  Chantel dropped her chin to her chest and cried more. I wondered if there was any way she would break out of this cycle of depression. But I was on edge myself, wanting to hear why, even in her near-delirious state, she thought Ally was buried in the Austin State Hospital Cemetery.

  Suddenly, Chantel jumped to her feet, shocking the hell out of me. Ivy’s eyes were equally wide in surprise. “Will you help me find her? I know she’s buried out here somewhere.” She paced in a five-foot area. Nervous energy? “Or maybe she’s actually buried in one of these graves. We need to check every grave.”

  Ivy and I slowly stood up and looked at each other. We were thinking the same thing: Chantel’s brain had to be so fried that she was hallucinating. She wanted her sister to be here, maybe because it was something that would finally allow her to have closure and grieve the end of her sister’s life.

  “We want to help, Chantel,” I said. “But why do you think she’s here, of all places? I thought she disappeared in College Station.”

  Chantel turned her head suddenly toward me, her face rigid. I wanted to take a step back, but I didn’t want to upset her further.

  “It’s okay, Chantel.” Ivy put her arm around the girl and circled to stand in front of her. “Ozzie only wants to help, just like me. We know you’ve been through so much. But you and I both know that, in the middle of the night, with one shovel…it’s just not realistic to go digging up every gravesite here.”

  Chantel’s eyes softened. She looked down and began to cry.

  Ivy fully embraced her now. “I know you’re hurting. It’s okay to cry. We can talk about Ally and what you know later, after we get you cleaned up.”

  Chantel muttered something, but it wasn’t clear.

  “What, sweetie?” Ivy asked.

  Lifting her head, the girl wiped tears from her face. “Can I get some Whataburger? I’m starving.”

  Finally, something we could do—no matter how small—to help Chantel.

  36

  As I drove to the nearest Whataburger, Ivy asked Chantel three different times if she was okay with us calling her parents. On the last attempt, Chantel said, “You guys are PIs, right?”

  “Yes,” Ivy said, looking over the seat to where Chantel was sitting in the back.

  “I need to share some stuff with you. And it’s big. But I need some food first.”

  Ivy held up her phone. “I really think we should tell your parents something.”

  “Not yet, okay?”

  I looked in the rearview to see Chantel scratching both sides of her head. I pulled Ivy’s arm down, shaking my head to discourage her from pursuing the phone call right now.

  Ivy sighed. “I’m not so sure.”

  “Look, if my parents show up, everything will be about me and my situation. That’s not as important right now. So, just give me some time to tell you this shit. After I get some food in me.”

  We ordered our food and found a table. A sleepy-eyed teenage boy with more zits than whiskers delivered the food to our table. He did a double-take when he looked at Chantel. I gave him the eye—which meant, in so many words, “Don’t say a damn thing.” He caught it and walked off.

  Chantel grabbed her food from the tray and bit off a quarter of the burger. Food fell out of the corners of her mouth, but she didn’t notice or care. She went after the burger like she hadn’t eaten food in a long time. Ivy and I shared some fries and slurped on our Diet Cokes as we watched Chantel as nonchalantly as possible.

  I’d eaten about five fries by the time Chantel used her napkin for the first time…after her final bite of the burger. She’d almost literally inhaled it.

  “Taste good?” Ivy asked.

  “Damn. You have no idea.” Chantel took a pull from her straw—she was drinking water—and she didn’t stop until she was slurping at the bottom of the cup. I offered to get her some more, and she nodded.

  I was back in a flash and handed her the cup.

  “Thank you,” she said, immediately drinking about half the cup. She wiped her mouth again and exhaled a breath that lowered her shoulders about four inches.

  “How long has it been since you’ve had good food?” Ivy asked.

  Chantel shrugged. “I know burgers aren’t exactly the greatest, but it beats dog food.”

  We both stared at her.

  “I don’t want to get into it. Not yet.”

  Ivy inched up in her chair, licked her lips. I knew she was trying to figure out how to get information out of Chantel without coming across as pushy. Good luck with that.

  “You look tired. Where have you been sleeping for the last two months?”

  Chantel dropped her napkin onto the table, clasped her hands in front of her, and leaned forward. “Everywhere. Anywhere. And yes, that includes drug houses. I’m an addict.” She looked off for a few seconds before coming back to us. “I have so much to tell you. I just don’t want to get sidetracked.”

  Sidetracked by what? I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. “Take your time, Chantel. We can stay here all night,” Ivy said.

  She sipped more of her water, and my eyes landed on her forearms. How had I missed this before? Had Ivy seen it? Both forearms were covered in parallel abrasions. Some were red, others scabbed over. Were they scratch marks? Had to be. I couldn’t tell if they were self-induced or a result of some physical altercation. I also saw circles of redness around both wrists.

  Chantel shut her eyes, put a hand to the bridge of her nose. My God, she looked like she was suffering. Was it the drugs? Was it her memories of Ally? Was it the hell she’d experienced over the last few months? Probably all three. But I had a feeling there was something else gnawing at her psyche.

  “Earlier,” Chantel looked at me, “when you said Ally had disappeared in College Station, you were only partially right.”

  I could feel my heart start to pick up the pace. “Okay. Do you know something more about what happened that night?”

  She nodded as her breath sputtered. Ivy put her arm around her. “It’s okay, Chantel.”

  “No…no it’s not. I have to tell you. I have to tell someone…someone who will believe me.”

  She grabbed her napkin and covered her eyes, but only for a second. “I’ve been afraid for so long, I’m not sure what it’s like not to be terrified.”

  “Of what, sweetie?” Ivy asked.

  Chantel brought her hands together in front of her face in a prayerful posit
ion. “My demons mostly. But there’s a reason those demons exist.”

  She took a quick pull from her cup of water. I did the same with my Diet Coke, but my eyes never left her.

  “Ally, uh…” She began to speak, but it was as though she’d lost ninety percent of her lung capacity. Her breaths were short and choppy. But she looked determined to share whatever she knew about her sister.

  Ivy gave Chantel a fresh napkin. She wiped a couple of tears away. What were supposed to be the whites of her eyes were mostly red.

  “Ally was killed the night she left the dorm room.” Chantel’s hands were curled into fists.

  “What?” Ivy asked. “How? And how do you know that for sure?”

  A moment of silence. I held up a hand. “Sorry for hitting you with so many questions. Feel free to tell us what you wanted to say.”

  “She met up with this boy she liked. Despite what everyone thought, Ally, like most kids going off to college, had a rebellious streak in her. But really, I think she looked at life as more of an adventure.”

  She let out a deep breath. “This guy was…I don’t know…messed up in a lot of ways. Going through some shit. He, uh…” She bit into her lip.

  Ivy and I both somehow withheld the urge to jump in. We waited, although my gut was churning like rocks in a blender.

  “This guy wanted to kill himself. I don’t know how he did it, exactly, but he convinced Ally to sit with him in a car across a railroad track.”

  Every statement took my breath away, but I just sat there, a placid look on my face…anything to keep her talking.

  “Maybe he got her high or gave her some other kind of drug. I don’t know. A train came right for the car.” She paused, took in a shaky breath, and squeezed back more tears.

  My body tensed at these last words, almost as though I were preparing to get hit by a twenty-ton piece of metal.

  “Do you need to take a break?” Ivy asked.

  “No. I can’t stop now.” Her eyes scanned the table, as if she were playing out the scene in her eyes.

  Had she been there? How would she otherwise know what had taken place if Ally and this guy were really killed by a train? And then my mind took it another step. Why wouldn’t have authorities found both bodies? So many questions.

  Patience, Oz. Give her a moment.

  She wiped her mouth and looked at us. “He jumped out of the car at the last second. Supposedly, she tried to get out, but the seatbelt was stuck. I’m not exactly sure.”

  “So you weren’t there?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “So then…”

  “You want to know how I know, right?”

  We nodded.

  “Hold on. So the guy jumped out of the way just before the train rammed into the car. Then the guy panicked. He grabbed her from the car, saw that she was...”

  She couldn’t say it, not even after all these years. Damn, she needed therapy in the worst way.

  “And what did he do?” Ivy asked.

  “He fucking ran off, holding her in his arms.” More tears welled in her eyes, but she pressed on. “He borrowed his buddy’s car and then drove her back to Austin.”

  “Why Austin?” I asked.

  She turned her palms toward the ceiling. “Apparently, his mom worked as a nurse at the state hospital, and he knew about how they buried their patients in the cemetery and that some of them had no relatives. So, he…” She gasped and pressed the napkin against her face, which was covered with red splotches.

  “He fucking buried her in the cemetery. Where, I don’t know. But he dug up some grave or dug a new hole. But he did it. And he never told a soul.”

  Ivy’s eyes became glassy, but her focus remained on Chantel. A minute went by, and we all took a drink and gathered ourselves.

  Ivy spoke first. “Chantel, this story is…I don’t know.”

  “Impossible to believe?”

  “Not impossible, but just horrific.”

  “How did you find out about all of this?” I asked.

  She turned her head and looked out the window into the parking lot. Two girls were getting out of a car. They looked like they’d been out dancing at a club. One was chewing gum, and both were smiling, enjoying a good laugh over something or someone. A life that Chantel had never experienced.

  Chantel looked at us and paused for a second. “I’ve never told anyone any of this. Well, I did once, and my so-called drug counselor said my imagination had taken over my mind. He thought I was having some type of false-memory episode. Like I made this shit up or something just to give myself an excuse for using drugs.”

  What a dick.

  We waited another few seconds, and then she dropped the bomb.

  “The guy came to my house, broke into my room, and raped me.”

  Ivy couldn’t help but gasp. My jaw dropped, my heart at the back of my throat.

  “So, he’s still out there…and that’s why you’re afraid?” I asked.

  “No, he died a few months later. But the night he raped me, he told me the whole messed-up story about my sister. He even said he knew he was going to die soon. But that I could never tell anyone, or he would come back from the dead and rape me all over again.”

  Silence blanketed our space. I looked toward the soft-drink stand. At first, I just replayed everything Chantel had shared. Her sister’s disappearance. Learning of her violent death from the very man who had caused her death. Raped by that same man, more beast than human. Chantel was only thirteen and had just lost her sister. Thirteen!

  The magnitude of trauma that Chantel had experienced was too far out there to measure.

  With tears in my eyes now, I put my hand on the table. “I’m so, so sorry, Chantel. For everything.”

  She welled up and buried her head into Ivy’s shoulder. Ivy held Chantel, rocked her like she was a little girl. Chantel was twenty-three. In some respects, she’d been forced to skip all of those years of growing up—the awkward first dance in middle school, hanging out with friends at the mall, laughing it up with schoolmates in band or orchestra or volleyball or whatever extracurricular activity. She was robbed of it all in the cruelest of ways.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I did what I could for the moment—I went and refilled our drinks. We took another moment of silence, each drinking our beverages, and tried to calm our nerves.

  I looked to Ivy. “We’ll need to talk to Brook. Chantel will have to tell her story, but once she does, I’m sure we can convince them to work with the people who run the cemetery to try to narrow down where Ally might be buried. It will take a court order to dig up graves, but I know it can be done. I’ll fight to make it happen.”

  “Thank you. And you said your name is Ozzie?” Chantel asked.

  “I know. A strange name.”

  “And you’re Ivy,” she said, pointing to my roomie.

  “Yep.”

  Ivy put her hand on the table. “Is it okay if we—”

  “Sorry for cutting you off, Ivy. One more question. I want to call Brook right now. But I need to know the name of the boy who did this to you and your sister.”

  Her jaw trembled a bit, but she bit down harder, as if she were drawing power from some other source. She lifted her chin and said, “I’ll never forget his face, his breath, or his sweaty, disgusting body. And I’ll never forget his name. Brandon Fletcher.”

  I think my heart just stopped.

  37

  I had to get out of the restaurant. I had to move, to take in fresh air so that my brain could somehow process what Chantel had just said.

  I ambled into the parking lot, my mind swirling as if I’d just downed a pitcher of trash-can punch.

  Brandon Fletcher. She could have said any other name in the world, and I would have been less shocked.

  “Brandon Fletcher,” I said out loud. I went on to repeat the name to myself again and again, so I could try to convince myself that I hadn’t misheard what she’d said.

  Was she talking a
bout the same Brandon Fletcher who’d died from brain cancer at such a young age? How was all of this other crazy shit possible?

  If I were to believe her story, Brandon had essentially murdered Ally, even if he’d done so indirectly. His weak, selfish decision had put her in a situation where she had been killed. The idea of having a train crash into a car where you were trapped…I couldn’t imagine a more terrifying death.

  Brandon, in whatever bizarre state of mind, had buried Ally in the Austin State Hospital Cemetery. But he didn’t stop at that heinous crime. He broke into the Chantel’s house and raped her. He fucking raped a thirteen-year-old girl! A girl who was probably reeling from the loss of her sister. Now I was looking at “the guy” in Chantel’s story, and he had a face. A face I knew very well.

  “Godammit!” I yelled, pressing my palms into my eyes. I bumped into the Prius, then anchored my hands on the dented hood and tried to get my bearings.

  I forced out a breath and let my mind finish the replay of Chantel’s story. With malice unlike anyone I’d ever considered a friend, Brandon had leveled a threat so severe that it had haunted her for ten years. It had completely dismantled her life.

  It just couldn’t be. What Chantel had described wasn’t human. It wasn’t the Brandon I knew. It had to be a different person. Had to be.

  But then I thought through the facts that I knew. Brandon had gone to A&M. He’d probably gone to orientation that summer. The exact timing would be easy to verify. From what I recalled, he’d continued going to school after numerous surgeries and chemo and radiation, before dying sometime in his second semester in College Station.

  He was the shining example from our class of someone who’d lived life to its fullest and not allowed himself to be swallowed up by the negatives. He’d stayed positive and told his family and friends to remember him with a smile on their faces. He didn’t want pity.

  I flashed back to our class reunion, where Kate had honored her cousin, singing that Norah Jones tune so beautifully. Oh my God. Kate. What would she think of this story? Or Brandon’s parents, for that matter?