Dream With Little Angels

by Michael Hiebert

  Right away, I saw Tiffany Michelle grow tense and look away. She had no desire to think about them stains and I pretty much figured she must know something about them.

  My mother examined them with her flashlight. Her face grew even more serious as she looked to Officer Jackson. “Get someone from Satsuma or Franklin down here to do some lab work,” she said. “But my money’s on that middle one matching the blood of Mary Ann Dailey.” Tears were in her throat. You could hear them as she continued. “And I bet that far one?” Now the tears were in her eyes as she struggled to finish. “That far one’s probably from Ruby Mae Vickers.”

  The setting sun had brightened the back corner of the barn enough that Officer Jackson noticed a large butcher knife leaning against the wall. He snapped on a pair of gloves and picked it up carefully by the handle using just two fingers. The blade had been sloppily wiped. Blood still caked its edges. The wooden handle was soaked in it.

  Tiffany Michelle gripped my mother harder than ever. She buried her face in my mother’s chest as Officer Jackson dropped the knife into an evidence bag.

  “I gotta get this girl to the hospital,” my mother said.

  Officer Jackson nodded. “One thing, though,” he said. “I’m having some problems followin’ all this. I mean, sure, I’ll give you Mary Ann Dailey, but Ruby Mae Vickers? Ruby Mae turned up twelve years ago, Leah. Jesse James would’ve been six years old back then. It makes no sense.”

  “None of this makes no sense, Chris,” my mother said. “Look around you. What we walked in and found here today, this little girl the way she is”—she pulled Tiffany Michelle in even tighter—“that makes no sense. I mean, Christ, what’s happened to this world?”

  CHAPTER 28

  My mother didn’t say a word about the case for the next few days. Mainly she slept. I think everyone agreed the ordeal had put her close to dying of sheer exhaustion and frustration, so nobody bothered her while she spent most of that time in bed. Uncle Henry didn’t even ask a single question about what happened.

  Then, four nights later, with my door halfway open, she seemed to get some of her energy back. She’d gone to the station for a couple hours earlier on, and now, as I lay in my bed, I listened to her explain everything that happened to Uncle Henry. A lot of what she told him hadn’t made sense to me back at the Allen farm, but hearing it again cleared things up a bit. There were still parts I didn’t quite understand, but I resigned myself to the fact that I probably never would completely.

  After Officer Jackson took Jesse into custody, a team of officers from Mobile came up and took Jesse James Allen back with them to some hospital in Birmingham, where he was currently under guard and being analyzed by psychiatric experts, or something like that. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. I mean, I knew that meant he was probably on the floor for mental patients, but usually the people who got sent there were somehow sick in the head. I had known Jesse James Allen when he was still in school, and he always seemed normal to me.

  Then I remembered Dewey telling me what his pa had said about Jesse James not being right since the fire. I figured maybe there was some truth to that.

  “So,” I heard Uncle Henry ask. “The blood stains. Were they—”

  My mother cut him off. “Well, the middle one—the fresh one, although I hate sayin’ it that way—turned out exactly how I thought. The blood belonged to Mary Ann Dailey. Jesse must’ve hung her a few feet farther along the wall from where we found Tiffany Michelle, and when it came time, he just slit her throat right there and waited until she bled out.” She took a deep breath. “That’s why we didn’t find no blood in the truck. Well, that and the fact he used a hay bag to wrap her in before transporting her to where he left the body.” Once again, I could hear tears in my mother’s voice. I was getting used to the sound now.

  “Seems awfully well thought out to me,” Uncle Henry said. “Especially from what little I know about that kid. Jesse James Allen’s always struck me as a bit simpleminded.”

  “Me too, Hank. But we found the bag he used. He even knew to wear gloves so he wouldn’t leave any prints. We found those, too. They was with the bag.”

  “It’s almost like he read a how-to book on murderin’ or somethin’,” Uncle Henry said.

  “ ’Cept the problem there is that Jesse James Allen don’t know how to read,” my mother said. “Other than real basic stuff.”

  “Then, how—” Uncle Henry started, but stopped halfway through his sentence and changed topics. “What about that other blood stain. Did it come from Ruby Mae?”

  My mother blew her nose. I assumed she was crying. “We’re still waitin’ for the official forensic reports, but initial analysis shows a probable match. The blood types are the same, and the team from Mobile have already put the age of the stain around the same time, so I think it’s safe to say that it did.” She hesitated, then added, “Poor little Ruby Mae Vickers, hanging there all by herself for three months a dozen years ago.”

  “Tiffany Michelle Yates disappeared before Mary Ann Dailey’s body showed up. Were they both in that barn at the same time?” Uncle Henry asked. This was a question I hadn’t thought of.

  “That’s something we don’t know yet. Tiffany Michelle is in the Alvin Hospital Psychiatric Care Facility. They don’t want to push her into answering any questions too quickly. But by the way she buried her face into me when Abe pointed out the blood, and especially her reaction to the knife when Chris picked it up from where it had been leanin’ against the wall, I think it’s a fair bet they were not only both there, but Jesse killed Mary Ann in front of Tiffany.” Her final words broke into tears. “Can you imagine, Hank? Can you even imagine?”

  “No, Leah, I can’t. Not even for a second. But there’s a big element to all this that doesn’t make a heckuva lot of sense. I’m sure you’ve realized this. If that is Ruby Mae’s blood on the floor of that barn, that means the three cases are connected. But Jesse James Allen . . .”

  “Was six years old when Ruby Mae was killed,” my mother said, interrupting him. “That one had everyone ponderin’. But the therapist in charge of interviewing Jesse at the facility in Birmingham has already managed to unroll most of that mystery. Even though it’s only been barely three days. You remember, Hank, how six years or so ago, Jesse James Allen stopped going to school?”

  “Yeah,” Uncle Henry said. “Right after his family’s farmhouse burned down. George Allen needed him on that farm after that and, like I said before, from what I heard, Jesse wasn’t too good at school anyway. He was probably much more of an asset to Grandpa George, who was left with nobody ’cept those Mexicans during the harvestin’ season.”

  “Right,” my mother said.

  “And I remember the two of them, George and Jesse, built that new farmhouse entirely by themselves,” Uncle Henry said. “What’s this got to do with anythin’, Leah?”

  My mother didn’t correct him about the farmhouse construction. “Well, from what we’ve gathered so far,” she said, “both George Allen and Jesse’s father, James, molested Jesse. They started when he was really young, from about five or so.”

  “You’re shittin’ me.”

  “God’s honest truth. They didn’t stop, neither. It kept on goin’ for years. Then, and this is the horrible part—not that the last part wasn’t horrible, but this is . . . well . . . unspeakable—when Jesse was six, the two men kidnapped Ruby Mae Vickers and tied her up in the barn, exactly the same way we found Tiffany Michelle Yates, only a little farther down. I reckon they used that same winch and all, only that chain was looped over three or four rafters instead of just the one.”

  There was a pause and then my uncle said, “I don’t believe it.”

  “It gets worse, Hank. For three months, they raped that girl every which way you can imagine. Many times they brought little Jesse in, makin’ him watch and even participate while they did it. Then, one day, somethin’ happened and they got nervous, I guess, ’bout being caught.”

  “
I know what happened,” Uncle Henry said. “You happened, Leah. They got scared because you refused to let up on that case, and you scared them.”

  “Hank, don’t. Sayin’ that is the same as sayin’ I killed her.”

  “No, sayin’ that is sayin’ you came a lot closer to savin’ her life than you’ve ever given yourself credit for.”

  I listened to another spat of tears before my mother spoke again. “At any rate,” she said, “they got nervous and so they killed her. Slit her throat right there in the barn and let her hang there like a piece of beef until all the blood run out. Oh, Hank, it’s just so awful. When she was finished bleeding, they wrapped her in a hay bag, drove her out to Skeeter Swamp in the dead of night, and dumped her beside that willow tree across from Bob Garner’s ranch.”

  “Jesus,” Uncle Henry said.

  “They even made little Jesse come along for the ride, tellin’ him if he ever breathed a word of anything that happened regardin’ Ruby Mae Vickers to anyone, he’d end up just the same way she did, throat slit and all. Hank, the boy was barely two months out of his sixth birthday. What does somethin’ like that do to a six-year-old?”

  “Damned if I know, Leah,” Uncle Henry said. “Nothin’ good, that’s for sure. So I guess this puts Bob Garner in the clear.”

  “Yeah, we let him go on Monday. I’ve never done so much apologizin’ in my life. I told him he owes everything to Abe. Without my little boy, he might still be in jail.”

  “Abe?” Uncle Henry asked. “What could Abe possibly have had to do with it?”

  “That’s a long story. I reckon I best let him tell it. You can ask him in the morning.”

  “So, what’s gonna happen to Jesse James Allen now?”

  “He’ll be institutionalized for a long while, maybe even the rest of his life. According to the doctor, even Jesse’s mother and grandmother knew about the molestin’ . . . well, at least about Jesse being molested anyway . . . they just pretended it wasn’t happenin’. ’Course that left Jesse with absolutely no one to turn to, nobody he could trust. You put a child in a situation like that, I don’t see how he can help but become some sort of sociopath. Then, on top of all that, he literally watches while everyone in his family except his grandfather, who was probably the worst goddamn bastard of the bunch, burn up in a farmhouse fire.”

  Mr. Garner told me and Dewey that when the fire happened, the authorities investigating construed it as accidental. Now, listening to everything my mother and Uncle Henry was saying, I thought about poor Jesse James Allen and how scared he must’ve been growing up in that house, and started wondering how accidental the blaze really was.

  “Do you know yet what happened to George Allen? Did Jesse kill him?” Uncle Henry asked.

  “No, unfortunately,” my mother said. “I reckon, somehow, there would be a weird sort of justice in it if he had, but the autopsy report said the man died of congestive heart failure over a month ago.”

  “And Jesse just stuck him in a tool shed?” Uncle Henry asked, his voice full of disbelief.

  “I don’t reckon the kid had any idea what to do with him. I’m surprised George Allen didn’t end up down by that willow tree, to be honest.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Uncle Henry said.

  “Neither can I. But when you think about it a certain way, it’s hard not to feel at least a little bad for Jesse James Allen. He must have been so lonely on that farm after George died. And having to walk by that tool shed every day, knowing his grandpa was inside . . .” She paused. “So, I guess he decided to fix his problem the way he had been taught to do as a kid: Find somebody to make your life less lonely, use them all you can, then get rid of them. He only knew one way to do all that, and so he did it exactly the same way his father and grandpa had done with Ruby Mae Vickers.”

  A very long stretch of silence followed, finally broken by Uncle Henry. “Well, I suppose Sheryl Davis will be happy now.”

  “Why’s that?” my mother asked.

  “She’ll once again get a chance to enter her strawberry rhubarb pie in the bake-off after all this year. We’ve still got three weeks until Thanksgiving. Plenty of time to organize the fair.”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” my mother said. “I almost want to keep it canceled just out of spite. Some people’s priorities never cease to amaze me.”

  I started to nod off after that. Their conversation quickly dissolved into the normal type of conversation my mother and Uncle Henry used to have before little girls started going missing from Alvin, almost as though the whole incident never happened. But it wasn’t like that for me. The experience of seeing Mary Ann Dailey dead beneath that tree, and then being there when my mother found Tiffany Michelle Yates alive, stayed with me and would for the rest of my life. I often dreamt of them. Sometimes the dreams were good, sometimes they were nightmares, but it didn’t matter. Having gone through the ordeal and being nearly as close to the case as my mother was a life-changing experience I wouldn’t trade for anything.

  Some of the real gory details I never divulged to anyone, Dewey included. Especially Dewey, actually. I figured one of us having to go through life with something like this in his head was enough. I did tell him what my mother said about me being the one who helped free Mr. Robert Lee Garner from jail and how my mother shot Jesse James Allen in the back of the leg, though. That last part, Dewey made me go over at least ten times. I think he kept expecting me to change some detail or something and that would prove I had made the whole thing up.

  But I never did.

  My story always stayed the same, and continued to throughout the years. I would always remember every detail, right down to Jesse James lying there in the field, looking near on as dead as the cornstalks surrounding him.

  CHAPTER 29

  First thing in the morning the next day, Uncle Henry left for home. We all stood in the doorway, watching him put on his boots and coat. He’d already packed his suitcase the night before.

  “Well,” he said, gripping my shoulder firmly, “you take good care of your mama and sister now, soldier.”

  “Always do,” I said.

  “And maybe next time we see you, Hank,” my mother said, “my little girl here will have developed a bit more common sense.”

  “Oh,” Uncle Henry said, “I reckon she’s well on her way to doin’ fine.” He gave Carry a hug and then hugged my mother.

  “Take care of yourself, Leah.”

  Gripping the handle of his suitcase, he opened the door and followed the steps and driveway down to where his car was out on the street. We watched him pull away, waving from the doorstep until he was out of sight.

  I looked at my watch. “I miss him already,” I said.

  Carry stood there, her arms crossed. I couldn’t remember a time before this had become her usual stance. “Why do you say things like that, Mother?”

  “What? That you have no sense? Caroline, honey, it’s true. Sorry if I embarrassed you. Anyway, you’re off your grounding. I figure at this point, I’ve either done my job with you, or I haven’t. I just hope to God you’re not stupid enough to continue dating nineteen-year-old boys after all this.”

  Carry’s gaze dropped to the carpet. “Mother, there isn’t one boy in Alvin or Satsuma that will even come near me since you pointed your gun at Stephen and told him you were gonna blow his nuts off.”

  That brought a smile to my mother. “Perfect.”

  “He peed his pants, by the way,” Carry said, looking back up.

  Me and my mother laughed. Carry went to the living room and turned on the television. My mother started pulling on her boots.

  “Where you goin’?” I asked.

  “I have to go into the station for a bit. Won’t be too long, though. I’ll be back in time to make supper.”

  “Can I tag along?”

  “What for?”

  “Nowhere else I know of ’cept Chief Montgomery’s office has satellite,” I said.

  She laughed. “Problem is, I’m gonna be
in that office with Chief Montgomery havin’ a little meetin’. That’s what I’m goin’ for. So you can’t watch TV anyway.”

  “Oh,” I said, frowning.

  She stood thinking a moment. “Abe, how ’bout you come into Chief Montgomery’s office for this meetin’ with me?”

  My eyebrows went up in surprise. “Really?” Then I remembered the last time we tried that, and brought them down hard. “Why? So he can kick me out again?”

  She finished with her boots. “I don’t reckon that’ll happen this time. Put on your shoes.”

  I did. “Why not?” I asked, doing up the laces.

  “I just don’t.”

  We walked outside and got into the car. I did up my belt and my mother backed out onto Cottonwood Lane and headed toward Main Street. Houses and trees swept past my window. The few clouds hanging overhead seemed thin and vulnerable. I figured they wouldn’t last even another hour. The day was set to be a beautiful one. We passed a rather nice house with bushes of flowers out front, still in full bloom. Bursts of purple, blues, and reds. A nicely painted birdhouse hung from the branch of a tall oak in the yard.

  Lately, I had found myself noticing details around me I had never paid attention to before. Things like trees, and flowers, and birds, and all. I suppose what I was noticing was life. “You know,” I said, “I reckon we live in one of the prettiest places in the world.”

  “Where else have you ever been?” my mother asked.

  I thought it over. “Satsuma.”

  “Well, that ain’t much to compare with.”