Lethal Lineage

by Charlotte Hinger

  She closed her eyes and I thought she had dozed off. “Water,” she said. “I need some water.”

  I picked up the decanter on her bedside table and maneuvered the flexible straw between her lips, then wiped her mouth.

  “I was numb. Just numb most of the time. Then things changed. One day one of the nurses came up to my door and said I was going to get to go home. They had heard from my husband. Just like that. He had decided to put me in and he had decided to get me out. I was thrilled plumb to death. I was going home. I could see my children. Go back to my old life.”

  Edna’s closed her eyes again and gave a little shake of her head. “My old life. Then I started thinking about what that meant for me and the kids.”

  She stroked a purple petal with her finger and looked at it like she’d never seen a flower before. “I changed while I was inside. Before, I’d had been sure things would work out for the best. Now, I knew that wasn’t true. I got to thinking about my old life. Got to worrying.”

  A nurse came into the room with some pills and stood by Edna’s side to make sure she swallowed them. I winced, worrying that Edna would lose her train of thought. But the moment the woman walked out of the room, Edna continued right where she had left off.

  “Then I got a letter. From Henry. With twelve dollars. He wanted me to take the bus to Cedarville in two weeks. That was the closest town to Gerta. He said he would meet me there at the bus stop and we would drive to Gerta’s house together and pick up the kids and go on home. It would save him fifty miles driving.”

  Edna wore a soft yellow bed jacket. The satin ties were loose and she groped for the ends with her twisted fingers, then she gave up, sighed and lay back.

  “That’s when I knew,” she said. “Knew he hadn’t changed. Knew things wasn’t going to be better. He had already ruined me and I knew he was going to ruin the children.” She turned her head from me and looked at the wall.

  “Because what kind of a man doesn’t even come after his own wife after three years? Just sends her bus money? Just to save fifty miles driving? I knew!” Her voice quavered. “A man like Henry. I knew the kind of man I was going back to. He had never once even come to visit.”

  She appeared to doze off. Overcome with pity, I sat quietly musing on this tragic story of ruined lives. Then she rallied and opened her eyes and began to speak again.

  “I thought and thought and hatched a plan. Everyone knew I was getting out, just like most of folks there couldn’t understand why I was in. After the first year, I even got to set outside for long stretches of time. The sunshine did me a world of good.” She looked down at her wasted body. “I wasn’t all skin and bones back then.”

  “All the papers had been signed. Henry had them mailed back and forth. I didn’t need to stay there anymore. The place had a little van that took folks to the bus station. There was people coming and going all the time. I had some money now.”

  I swallowed and blinked back tears.

  “About three days before I was supposed to meet Henry, I left. Just left! I took the van to the bus station and bought a ticket to Kansas City. In about ten days, I called Gerta to let her know where I was. She said when I didn’t show up, Henry drove out to the house and was fit to be tied.”

  I rose and stroked her hair and dabbed at her tears.

  “Gerta said he cursed me and my worthless offspring, like they was none of his doings. He threatened to sue the institution, but the folks there reminded him that he was the one who pushed through all the paperwork, coming and going. He was the one who’d had the bright idea of sending his wife bus money.”

  She chuckled softly. “I knew he wouldn’t pay a lawyer just to get me back.” Then her eyes filled with tears. “Just like I knew he wouldn’t fight to get the kids back either.”

  She began to sob then. Alarmed, I watched her blood pressure rise on the monitor. “I gave up my kids,” she said. “Gave away my own children. I knew my sister and her husband would love them like they was their own. Knew they would be better off. Told Gerta to tell them I was dead. Tell Henry I died, if he ever asked.”

  A nurse rushed into the room.

  “Stuart wants to know how I came to Kansas? I just did it, that’s how.” She shook uncontrollably. “I gave up my kids.”

  ***

  Shaken by Edna’s story, I fled to the historical society where I hoped to work alone for the rest of the afternoon. Find some modicum of peace in my dusty old books.

  Edna had not given up her children, I decided on the drive over. She had chosen to give them life for the second time.

  Inside my office, the answering machine blinked and I knew I had made the wrong choice. I would have found more peace at the sheriff’s office. I grabbed a note pad, pressed the message button, and began listening. After the first three, I could not bear to hear more and clicked off the tape. Angry, furious women, berating me for tricking them into donating to a doomed cause.

  I buried my face in my hands, then rose and walked out into the hall into the restroom and used cold water to wet papers towels and pressed them against my face. In the mirror, I looked gaunt, drawn. My complexion was sallow, like I was the one who had been locked up for three years.

  No wonder Edna wanted Stuart to hear all this second hand instead of having to look her son in the eye. I promised the wild-eyed stricken stranger in the mirror, that I would make Stuart understand his mother had been faced with an excruciating choice: give up her children or risk them with a cruel man. She had taken the high road.

  Then ashamed of my own petty unwillingness to endure a little discomfort, I went back to the office and turned on the answering machine again, determined to return each and every call.

  I scratched a little grid as I listened and labeled categories. The calls fell into a pattern. Some understood my helplessness. Some hoped I would help them skin Deal alive. Some offered bizarre solutions. And some hoped I would go to hell for wreaking havoc on the community.

  Toward the end, I was jolted by a man’s voice. “Miss Albright. I’m…” Then the voice broke off as though having descended into answering machine hell. I knew the feeling well, of bumbling a message and having no way to call it back. “Never mind.”

  I knew the voice.

  Bishop Talesbury.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Normally, it’s easy for me to concentrate on editorial work. But the next day, I was unhappily conscious of the growing pile of unprocessed stories, tackled them, and knew I had reread one paragraph over and over. Talesbury’s face intruded.

  Then Agent Brooks called to let me know the team had finished calling every person on my Excel file. Fifteen had come up with additional names. However, it was basically a dead end. I told her that rather than the community meeting giving me a chance to ask questions, it had ended in a royal fiasco.

  “We’re faced with a real problem here, Lottie. We can only hold a body for so long. If no family or friends come forward to claim the deceased, we’re required to notify the University of Kansas Medical School and then the head of the anatomy department can receive the body for medical research.”

  “Please. Please don’t let them do that. We owe her more than that. What if someone comes for her and they’ve already started dissecting her?”

  “By law, a coroner, our office, everyone must make a diligent search for ‘family or friends’ and we’ve done that. It’s like she came out of nowhere.”

  “I’m her friend,’ I said. “I was this woman’s friend. If we can’t find her family, I’ll claim her.”

  Brooks cleared her throat. “And what will you do with a dead body?”

  “Give her a decent burial. Keith and I will pay for it.”

  She said nothing.

  “She was a wonderful person.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said softly. “So you’ve told me.”

  “We’ll have the funeral at St. Helena. I’ll simply announce it and those who are decent
Christians and knew her can just come. Put their savage ways aside for a couple of hours and come to that church.”

  “Which is owned by a very strange man.”

  “Yes, but he’s a priest. Reverend Mary is entitled to a dignified burial and Talesbury is duty bound to perform certain rituals. I can’t believe he would just turn his back on us.”

  “I can,” Brooks said. “Because he doesn’t view that building as a church. It’s his, Lottie. And I suspect he didn’t regard Mary as a legitimate priest because of her gender.”

  “Bishop Rice would certainly conduct a ceremony at Salina.” I twisted the phone cord around my fingers and tried to imagine the consequences of family showing up later. Someone out of the blue. A grieving mother or other relatives, wanting to know why their daughter was six feet under in a strange cemetery.

  “OK, Lottie,” Brooks said. “There’s a way around this. Here’s what I think you should do. The medical center has to hold a body for sixty days without dissecting it. Let it go there. They will have facilities for storing it.”

  Sickened by hearing Mary referred to as “it,” by talking as though she were slab of meat, I tried to process her words.

  “Then when that period is nearly up, you can step in as her friend, claim the body, and give her a church burial. It will buy us a lot of time.”

  ***

  When I drove up to the house, and parked, I saw Sam’s Suburban bouncing across our pasture. Keith was in the passenger’s seat. They came through the gate leading to the farmyard. The dead animal disposal truck with a winch and pulley system attached to the truck bed came up the lane. Sam parked, hopped out, opened the gate wide, and beckoned at the driver to follow him.

  When both vehicles drove off into the pasture again, I knew one of our prize Herefords had died. I went into the house. I had pulled steaks from the freezer early that morning and placed them in the refrigerator to partially thaw. I began mixing salads and turned on the TV to catch the 5:00pm news. We were under a storm watch, which made it an ordinary day.

  Keith came in silent and angry. He gave me an absent kiss, but his mind was somewhere else.

  “I saw the truck,” I said. “Bad luck?”

  “It wasn’t luck, Lottie.”

  He walked out to the mud room and began scrubbing his hands. I watched him from the doorway.

  “That cow was cut.”

  “Cut?”

  “I found her over by the fence on the south side. The fence had been cut and there was barbed wire around one leg. She bled out. It was a piss-poor set-up to make it look like an accident, but anyone that knows anything could tell it was deliberate. Whoever did this knew I’d know that at once. It doesn’t take a vet to see that gash couldn’t have been caused by barbed wire.”

  And anyone who knew my husband would know that attacking him through animals was a sure fire way to stoke the fire.

  “I don’t know what to say. It’s got to be Deal. It’s the kind of thing that family has done for the last hundred years.”

  “It’s going to stop,” he said. “Right now. That’s why I called Sam and had him come over. We’ve been going over laws and procedures and it’s important that I go through all the steps a man would take if I wasn’t a law enforcement officer. I need to file all the paperwork and document everything.”

  I nodded. “Sam needs to be the one to do the reports and take pictures.”

  He nodded wearily. “He went back to town to write everything up. Another long day for the poor old son-of-a-bitch.” I glanced at him and went to the refrigerator and handed him a bottle of home brew.

  “I’m going to call Sam,” I said, “and ask him to come right back over here for supper. We have plenty. I’ll hold the steaks until you two get your work done.” I looked around at my spotless kitchen. Zola was a wonder. She went far beyond weekly upkeep and was already making a dent in deep cleaning and repairs.

  I walked outside to fire up the grill. Keith went into the great room and picked up his guitar. Soon the mournful tones of “The L & N Don’t Stop Here Any More” drifted out to the patio.

  Sam drove up again a half hour later. The two men drove off to the pasture again in Keith’s pick-up. Grim-faced, they washed up in the mud room after they came back.

  After we’d eaten and carried the dishes inside, Sam reached for his pipe and Keith lit the fire pit.

  “We’ve got to catch the bastard in the act,” he said finally. “This can’t go on forever and I think it’s about to come to an end. A lot of folks have told me that he’s madder than hell about this recall election, and that he’s going to lose out. Don’t know how he’ll manage to make an honest living.”

  “So why would that mean anything is coming to an end?” Keith asked. “He’s a sneaky bastard. That won’t change.”

  “Sneaky bastards are planners. I think this is going to set him off. He’s going to lose control of himself. It will come to a head.”

  “Something else is coming to an end,” I said. “Up until now, anything he’s done has focused on equipment, inanimate objects. He’s moving up to animals. That means something. I don’t know what, but I’m going to check with Josie.”

  ***

  Josie came back for the big election event. The evening was hot, disturbing, and we sweltered as we stood in the Copeland Courthouse while the ballots were counted. The room was packed and voters spilled out of the courthouse onto the grass. It was better than a Fourth of July picnic.

  There were no stars and inky black clouds blotted out the fading moon. Josie cradled Tosca in her arms. It had been a mistake to bring her and the little Shih-Tzu nervously growled when strangers reached to pet her.

  Deal and his relation formed their own little cluster of on-lookers. If looks could kill.

  Mabel Sidwell stared at Tosca, then turned to whisper to Deal. He glared at our little dog like she was vermin.

  In my purse was my Smith and Wesson .640 Airweight Special.

  When the tally was complete, the clerk rose and announced that there were 406 ballots cast in favor of recalling Sheriff Deal and 274 votes against it. Cheers and clapping filled the air.

  Deal’s face went white. I looked at the stunned faces of his gathered relation. Their dominance was coming to an end.

  No longer would this families’ crimes be treated differently than other members of the community. Tyranny toppled in a single night.

  On the ride back to Carlton County, Keith told Josie about his Hereford.

  “He’s changing,” she said. “Accelerating.”

  “Well, we’re changing too,” I said. “And so is Copeland County. I don’t know who they are going to elect next, but you can bet it won’t be any of his kin. Now, everyone is going to get a chance at due process.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Keith was on duty and had left for the office before I got up the next morning. Josie sat on the patio drinking coffee. She smiled when I came outside bearing the pot and refilled her cup.

  “Don’t tell me this place is growing on you.”

  “You know, it actually is,” she said. “It’s the space. The incredible space. I understand more about the connection between landscape and the psyche every time I come here. No wonder people from the plains see endless possibilities. Endless is all they’ve ever known.”

  “And the wind? The endless wind?”

  “That’s another story altogether.”

  “We’re bent, you know, out here.” She looked at me and smiled at my words. “No really. Kansas was named for the Kansa Indian, the People of the South Wind. It’s always present. Look at our trees. They lean slightly to the Northeast.”

  “And that has what to do with the people?”

  “I don’t know. Something, though. I haven’t figured out what yet. There was a great book published awhile back, Leaning into the Wind. Having to cope with the wind all of the time changes women. Sometimes I think women who come here even now…”<
br />
  Her face turned toward me. I recognized her bright-eyed psychologist’s curiosity. A trace of sadness passed over her face.

  “We could team up,” I suggested cheerfully, abruptly rising to my feet. “Team up for a knock ’em dead journal article, but for right now, I’d better get a move on. Pages due for the printer and a stack of bills to pay.”

  She closed her eyes and turned her face up at the sun. Tosca sat alertly at the edge of the flagstones, protecting our property. She suddenly dashed wildly toward some invisible critter and then trotted back, head held high, preening over her success.

  On the drive in I thought about Northwest Kansas’ wind issues. They were the newest in a string of controversies about energy and resources since the state was first admitted to the Union. The wind was coming up again now, and Josie would soon abandon the patio. Tosca would see to it.

  ***

  During lunch hour, I swung by the green house to buy a plant, then drove to the hospital to visit Edna.

  I laughed when I stepped into the room and saw the volume of plants and flowers. “Whoops! Look’s like you don’t need any more foliage. It’s like stepping into a jungle.”

  Her color was better. She beamed when I walked over to her table. “Folks is so good to me. Just lovely.”

  “Any why not? I hear you’re a perfect patient. Have you been sleeping well? Getting rest?” Her big move was coming up and I worried about the physical strain.

  “Yes.” She glanced at me. “I’m just fine. Fine here, and I’ll be fine there.”

  I smiled and nodded. Then I gave her hand a squeeze. “I know that. You would be fine anywhere.”

  “You know a lot about me. More than anyone else in the world. And I’ve been thinking about what you said about Stuart being hurt.” A spasm of coughing racked her frail body. I reached for some tissues and patted her mouth. “I’m going to talk to him myself next time, Lottie.”

  “Good,” I said. “That’s the right thing to do. You know, the part that bothers him the most is having a brother and sister out there. Siblings he’s never met.”