Head in a Haymow

by Chris Seaton

  “Did you check the basement for bodies?”

  “Well, there really wasn't time. I had to get my guys out of there once we saw the tank...”

  That was all Agent Wyatt needed to hear. Hope surged through him, replacing the anger. He marched toward the basement without a look back. “Bernice!” he yelled, his voice breaking. “Can you hear me? Bernice!”

  “Bernice!” Darlene and Cameron joined him.

  He took a step toward the burning timbers and stopped. “Bernice!” he yelled from the edge.

  “Stop!” The fireman approached him then. “You can't go in there! No one could live through that!”

  Agent Wyatt turned around and grabbed him by the suspenders. “I am Special Agent in Charge from the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation. You get your guys over here and get this shit hosed down now! Dead or alive, we don't stop until we find a body!” He tossed him back, making it crystal clear he wasn't taking shit today.

  Bernice had kicked as much dirt and garbage around the door as her bound feet would allow, but the smoke was still getting in. She tried working her face into the collar of her shirt to help her breathe and wormed her body down as far to the floor as she could go.

  Time was running out.

  Maybe Margie wanted her to die after all. She just wanted Bernice to think about it first like with Herb. How long was he conscious before she finished him off?

  Maybe Margie didn't really give a shit either way. She just wanted Bernice's truck.

  After all the money sunk into that stupid truck, Darlene was gonna be pissed. Hell if that mattered to Bernice if she was going to die anyway.

  The sweat and blood smells in her shirt were better than the acrid smoke that seemed to be surrounding her. “You just fall asleep from smoke inhalation, right?” That didn't sound so bad anymore. At least she wouldn't be sore or tired.

  She wondered if she was dreaming when she heard her name. It sounded so far away like it was drifting on a cloud, a smoky cloud. There were lots of people calling her name. It was a choir, a heavenly choir welcoming her. “Guess premarital sex isn't such a sin after all. Who knew?”

  But Evan wasn't dead. Why was he singing to her? He was definitely above her. He was right over her head. She could hear him walking. Angels don't walk.

  “Bernice!”

  She twisted to hear him better and winced from the pain. “Ow,” she said loudly.

  There was a pause then more urgent calling. It was closer. “Bernice! Bernice! Are you in there!?”

  "Am I"? She opened her eyes. They stung from the smoke. She coughed. She couldn't stop coughing.

  “I can hear her! Over here! Bernice! Hold on Baby!”

  She could hear digging. Were they trying to dig her up? Was she dead? Was this her grave?

  It was hard to think with all the damn smoke around.

  Chapter 25

  It was all very foggy after that.

  Bernice remembered the light hurting her eyes. She remembered the wincing pain when the thin bloody planter's wire was unwound from her hands and legs. Evan was talking to her. Darlene was crying. Cameron was carrying her. There was an ambulance and doors. There was an oxygen mask. Someone kept slapping her face. She got mad and called them a motherfucker. They laughed. She didn't see what was so God damned funny.

  In the hospital it was very bright and noisy with beeps. Pastel-colored people kept sticking her and pulling at her. Some woman complained about digging out all the dirt and gravel. Bernice told her if it was so awful to leave her alone. Someone else told her she being difficult. She told them to eat shit and die.

  Evan was in the room somewhere and commented that she was stubborn, then said, “Praise the Lord.” Bernice didn't feel like praising God at the moment. It felt like every cell in her body was being scratched at with a jagged fingernail.

  She had to turn her head every once in a while and cough up acidic tar. It reminded her of her dad's smoking habit before her mother made him quit. “Did I start smoking?” she asked someone. That person laughed. She didn't get the joke.

  Eventually the pulling and scraping stopped. It was replaced with bandaging. Bernice could specifically make out the tearing open of the packaging over and over. Her eyes were carefully covered. There were fewer voices in the room now.

  The pain began to ebb to a dull full-body throb. She licked her lower lip and felt someone put a straw to it.

  “You thirsty?” It was Agent Wyatt.

  Bernice sipped. The water felt good in her throat. She swallowed, wincing, and turned her head away. “You still here, Flatfoot?”

  There was a chuckle and a hand touching her head. “Always, Ma'am.” It was his cop voice.

  She liked the sound of it. “Good,” she said then remembered something before drifting off. “I should have called.”

  Thankfully, she couldn't see his face.

  “She told me Jessica was dead.” Bernice laid her head on the soft, familiar pillow and looked out the window of her bedroom.

  The moment she woke back up in the emergency room, she insisted that they let her go home. It wasn't an argument won easily. Everyone was against it, including Darlene, at least until Bernice reminded her that they didn't have health insurance. Darlene shut up after that.

  Bernice thought she was being quite reasonable listening to “infection this” and “internal bleeding that.” They said their pieces, and she simply reminded them that she'd rather lie around at home for free, versus lying in some strange bed with strange noises for five grand a day.

  Agent Wyatt was still with her at the hospital, but he was in and out of her room a lot talking on his phone. Even though he tried to put on a good face for her, she could tell by the rigid set of his jaw that they hadn't located Margie or her truck yet.

  He and Cameron helped her up to her room. Sometime during her time in the basement, Bernice had managed to screw up her ankles pretty good. X-rays didn't find anything broken, but walking was still a challenge.

  It wasn't until Bernice caught her image from the dresser mirror that she finally understood what all the fuss was about. “Holy shit,” she whispered. She wanted to cry.

  Movie make-up artists would have been impressed with the amount of bruised flesh she witnessed. Her face was a puffy pile of purple, green, and brown. There was a butterfly bandage over her nose and some stitching above one of her eyebrows. Her lips were split, white, crusty appendages under her scabbed up nostrils. Her hair was shaved off in very unflattering chunks. She assumed that was to check for head wounds.

  Darlene was behind her, wringing her hands like she was preparing to hold vigil over Bernice's deathbed. After the men gingerly placed her down in the opened sheets, Darlene shooed them out of the room. “Time to get you out of these clothes.” She gingerly removed the borrowed hospital gown. There was no helping the involuntary gasp that escaped her mouth.

  Bernice looked down at her torso. Bloody scratches and varying degrees of what only could be described as “road rash” skirted their way in and out of the huge ace bandage that covered her torso from boobs to belly button. Again, x-rays found no fractures, but bruised ribs were definitely in play.

  Bernice looked up at the shocked Darlene and used her best Monty Python accent. “Tis but a flesh wound,” she quoted.

  Darlene didn't appreciate the joke. “You almost died, you know.”

  “Last time I checked, almost doesn't count.”

  Darlene huffed in disgust. She walked to the dresser. “What do you want to wear?”

  “My usual,” Bernice answered, cringing at the sheer square footage of abused skin as it wrapped its way around her limbs and down her body.

  “You don't want a nightgown?”

  “Who am I, Zsa Zsa?” Bernice groused, going to stand. She immediately sat back down in pain. The lack of mobility was making her grumpy. “T-shirt and cut-off sweats will be fine.” She went to hoist herself further up into the bed but she realized how injured her wrists were. “
Ah, hell,” she swore softly.

  Darlene approached the bed and held up a large olive t-shirt with a very worn M.A.S.H. logo on it. It was accompanied by a pair of black sweats that had been hacked in half some time ago. “These dumpy enough for you?”

  Bernice grinned through her beat-up appearance. “Perfect.” She obediently held up her arms to accept her shirt. “Completes the whole post-apocalyptic refugee look I was going for.”

  Darlene held up her weight with no complaints as Bernice painfully pulled on her sweats. Then Darlene helped her into bed.

  “Leave the covers off or I'll get too hot.” Bernice laid her bruised face down on the cool pillow case and closed her eyes.

  That's where Agent Wyatt found her when he came back in. “Darlene, if you don't mind, I need to speak with Bernice alone to get her statement.”

  “Now, after all she's been through?” Darlene stood like a bodyguard in front of the bed, her arms crossed in objection.

  “It's all right.” Bernice looked over at him, gauging his reaction with curiosity. “He needs to hear what I know while it's still fresh. Standard procedure, isn't it, Agent Wyatt?”

  He had to smirk at the mocking tone. “Yes, Ma'am,” was the required response.

  Darlene had had enough. “Oh good God.” She walked out shaking a finger at Agent Wyatt. “Don't you go wearing her out. Bad enough, I got to take care of her as it is.” She tartly shut the door.

  “Did Margie tell you she killed Jessica?” Agent Wyatt pulled up the upholstered wing back chair closer to the bed.

  “No,” Bernice replied, watching him. “But I bet if you checked Jessica's old house for five year old trees, you'd find Ms. Breck playing the part as fertilizer.”

  Agent Wyatt presented a deadpan response to her poorly delivered idea of a joke. “If you ask me,” She added more tactfully, “I think after she killed Herb, she finished off Jessica and took over her life.”

  “That seems a little farfetched.” Bernice could see him analyzing her injuries like she was a piece of evidence. Knowing how well he knew her body, she silently wondered if he was making comparisons.

  “Let's look at the evidence then,” Bernice continued, trying to distract herself from her pessimistic thoughts. “The last receipt found in Jessica's car was from July of '05. The account in the Bahamas was reduced and moved around the same time. I'd place good money on poor widow Abernathy taking a trip south somewhere, and Jessica's passport being used not much longer after that.”

  “If that's truly your theory, then why didn't she just leave after she got the money?”

  “You forget she still had three kids at home.” The bandage on one of her ankles started to itch. Bernice went to scratch it and sucked in a breath as her injured wrist protested.

  Agent Wyatt immediately assisted her, working his nubby nails over the offending spot. “Better?” he asked.

  “Yah.” It made her heart all thumpy, watching him cater to her. Bernice swallowed and went back to the subject at hand. “This is how I'm imagining it went down. Margie puts up with Herb's floozies and his money grubbing because she thinks she has to for the kids.”

  “Then one day she finds out about Jessica, either through the garage or the bar or Herb lets it slip. Anyway, she realizes that Jessica isn't Herb's typical bimbo. After checking out Jessica through her connections at the bank, she finds out about the whole scheme with Herb stealing money from her dad.”

  “So then she laid out her plans to kill him,” Agent Wyatt contributed to the theory, carefully moving his scratching attention to the other ankle.

  “Oh, that's nice,” Bernice complimented him then continued. “No, I don't think she planned to actually kill Herb. I think she only planned to drug him to get him to admit to the stealing and the affairs. She sent the kids to her dad's for the evening for their anniversary, and when it came out that he was actually going to leave her for Jessica, Margie just snapped.”

  “And that's why his body wasn't buried.” Agent Wyatt concluded.

  “There was no time,” Bernice reasoned. “She strangled him in a fit of rage, realized what she'd done and had to figure out what to do with the body before her dad brought the kids back home.”

  He was stroking her leg now. She wasn't even sure it was conscious anymore. “Where do you think she cut up the body?” he asked.

  Bernice couldn't help the sick smile that grew on her face. “Darlene actually helped me figure that one out.”

  Agent Wyatt stopped stroking. “How?”

  “When we were at Sam's Farm Supply the other day she commented that planting roses in summer was crazy because of all the hot weather. But Margie told me that the star shaped rose garden out in the back yard was put in to honor Herb's yearly anniversary presents of roses. Their anniversary is in July.”

  Agent Wyatt was confused. “But Herb got her a freezer for their anniversary.”

  “That's kind of the point. I think she pulled him out into the yard, did...well...what she had to do and tilled up the bloody spot for a new garden.” The smile turned into a sad grimace. “Maybe after nineteen years of marriage, in her mind Herb was going to give her roses one way or the other.”

  Bernice was frustrated, sore, and itchy. Being it was easier to leave her upstairs, closest to the bathroom, Cameron went to the extra trouble of moving the TV and DVR from the living room to her dresser. She finally got to find out what happened to her favorite character on her crime show, but TV got boring quickly. Bernice tried reading but she couldn't seem to concentrate worth a damn.

  Darlene was in every hour or so, coddling her one minute and admonishing her the next. “Well, all those raspberries you babied are almost ready to be picked.” She made this announcement as she hauled Bernice off of the toilet. “Guess we know who's job that's gonna be now.”

  “First crop of hay's done,” Bernice grumbled, depressed. “Ask Marsha if Jason's kids would like to make a few bucks.” She hung on to Darlene's sturdy shoulders, and they shuffled back to her room. “You may have to supervise for a little bit, but if you pay them by the pint and make sure they're not crushing the berries, it shouldn't work out too bad.”

  “I'll think about it,” was Darlene's way of complimenting Bernice on a good idea. She gave her sore hip an unapologetic shove into the bed and went to grab the brown prescription bottle from the nightstand. Bernice shook it off.

  “It's time for another pill,” Darlene reminded her.

  “No,” Bernice refused, gingerly laying herself back against the up-righted pillows. “Those damn things plug me up like nobody's business. I'd rather be sore than constipated.”

  “But you're not sleeping.” Darlene shook the pills like they were some miracle drug. “We can hear you tossing and making noise all the way from my room.”

  “How long are you going to continue to be a 'we'?” Bernice turned onto her less sore side, knowing she was going to have to flip in an hour or so anyway.

  Darlene set down the pills and dejectedly concentrated on the hem on the bedspread, running her fingers over the well preserved loops of the chenille. “He goes back to work next Monday.”

  “Huh.” Bernice watched the piss and vinegar drain out of her aunt at that admission. “So then what?”

  Darlene turned away. “I don't know. With everything going on with you and this whole murder business, we really haven't talked about it.”

  “But that's all done now.”

  “Oh, really Smarty Pants? Then where's our truck?”

  She was interrupted by the cursory pounding on the screen door downstairs and footsteps walking into the kitchen. “Anybody home?” Agent Wyatt yelled.

  “I don't know why he bothers,” Bernice remarked. “It's not like I'm going anywhere.”

  “We're up here!” Darlene bellowed back then turned to Bernice, scowling. “He's only trying to be polite.” She looked Bernice over, clicking her tongue. “Considering the shape you're in, it's a miracle he still comes around at all.”


  “Why don't you just dispense with the pleasantries and call me 'damaged goods' outright?” Bernice smacked away the hand trying to smooth out her chunky, un-brushed hair.

  “Shh. He's coming up the stairs. You be nice.” Darlene put away the medicine bottles discretely in the nightstand. She made no comment that they had to share the space with a new box of condoms.

  Agent Wyatt stopped in the open doorway, leaning casually and inquiring, “Everybody decent?”

  “Hardly,” answered Bernice, “but you're used to riffraff.”

  Bernice was not one who could ever be accused of fussing over her appearance, but it actually hurt to watch his handsome face smirk at her from the doorway when she knew she resembled roadkill.

  “Any news on the truck yet?” Darlene covered Bernice with the blanket, smoothing it out like it was camouflage for the less attractive person underneath.

  “Actually, yes.” Agent Wyatt left the door jamb and wandered in. Both women were staring at him. He shook his head. “No sign of Ms. Abernathy though.”

  Darlene automatically moved the wing chair next to the bed and got out of the way. “Where'd you find the truck?”

  “It was located in a parking lot next to a storage unit in Roseau, Minnesota.” His regulation blue shirt was open at the throat. Bernice guessed the tie and coat were left in the car. “Keys were left inside along with Bernice's purse.”

  “Seems she's got a thing for storage units.” Bernice could already feel her hip protesting. She cringed and shifted more onto her back. “Me, I've had enough of dark, enclosed spaces for a while.”

  Darlene and Agent Wyatt shared a look in the ensuing silence. Darlene chose to use it as an excuse to leave.

  “Hope you're staying for supper, Agent Wyatt,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Wouldn't miss it,” he returned pleasantly.

  “What're we havin'?” Bernice barked.

  “Well, it should be goat stew after the morning I had, but Cameron decided on burgers and potato salad.” Darlene sent an accusing look at Bernice before walking out and shutting the door behind her.