Blood Cries; Blood Oath; Blood Work

by Michael Lister

  He looks away a little, his blue eyes narrowing as the muscles in his jaw move beneath his tan skin.

  “I knew her, you know,” he says. “Janet. Wasn’t in her grade. I was a year younger, but we had a couple of classes together over the years and my brother was in her class. She was a genuinely sweet girl. I wasn’t at the party that night, but I’ve heard so much about it over the years sometimes it seems like I was. Her poor family. Hell, Ben’s poor family. Hell, Ben himself. Sad, sad shit. I don’t think he did it. Don’t think he had anything to do with it, but he might as well have, the way his life turned out.”

  Dad and I are both quiet, waiting to see if he’s going to say more.

  Eventually, Dad says, “I don’t care either. Who clears it I mean. We’re not looking for credit or recognition. Just tryin’ to lay to rest some ghosts—my own as much as Janet’s. We’ll turn everything we learn—if we learn anything—over to you. Let your department investigate and confirm everything for yourselves.”

  “I appreciate that, Sheriff,” Barnes says. “And I’ll tell you why. Our new DA is really pushing for results, pressing us to make an arrest. She wants Ben to stand trial, but . . . unless there’s something new uncovered, we’ve taken that case as far as it can go—and not just once but several times.”

  “Maybe we’ll find something,” Dad says. “But we do or we don’t, we won’t be getting in your way. And we’ll turn everything over to you.”

  “Thank you,” he says, standing. “That’s all I ask. Now, I’ll let y’all get to it. Know you didn’t come up here to talk to me all day.”

  It feels like he’s rushing us out, as if this was just a formality and now that it’s done he’s ready to be rid of us.

  He and Dad shake hands and exchange a few more niceties.

  “Who’s your brother?” I say.

  “Huh?” he says, turning toward me. “Oh. Brad. Brad Barnes. Why?”

  “Was he at the party that night?”

  He nods slowly, something in his eyes changing, as he studies me more closely now. “He was.”

  “What does he say?” I ask.

  “About?”

  “Any of it. Does he think Janet was there that night?”

  He nods, seeming to relax a little. “Says she was definitely there. He saw her.”

  26

  When she wasn’t crowned Miss Valentine queen, Kathy Moore wasn’t shocked. She wasn’t even surprised. But she was, at least a little, disappointed.

  Janet always got everything, but she thought this time . . . just maybe . . . she might win something for once. After all, the judges were from out of town and didn’t know any of them. They hadn’t fallen under Janet’s spell yet. They didn’t know how sweet she was. How talented. How good. How she helped her mom with her brother. How she worked tirelessly at everything she did with a positive attitude. They didn’t know how talented she was, how good at photography and fashion. So just maybe . . .

  Kathy really thought she was totally blazin’ and if there was ever a time for her, if she was ever going to beat Janet at anything, the Miss Valentine pageant was it, but no. Not even this. Not even at her best.

  If someone had to win instead of her, she was happy it was her best friend. She really was. But did she have to Bogart everything? Every. Single. Thing.

  I mean, come on. Damnit man. Let me have something.

  Most Talented. Most Attractive. Most Likely to Succeed. Best Dressed. Sweetest. The yearbook read like the bitchin’ biography of Janet Leigh Lester.

  Janet may have won everything so far, but Kathy had at least one more chance. Maybe, just maybe, she and Brad could beat Janet and Ben for Sweethearts’ Ball king and queen.

  It was a long shot, sure, but Ben brings Janet down a little and Brad brings Kathy up a little, and who knows?

  Now she knew.

  The ball was totally out of sight. Everything about it so groovy. It was as if they had been transported from their tiny little backwoods town to a totally bitchin’ disco in a big city.

  And everybody was diggin’ her and Brad—the heads, the jocks, the nerds.

  This could be it.

  Ben seemed distracted and Janet far too worried about him to pay much attention to anyone else—all the students and teachers, each of whom represented a vote.

  Creepy Clyde Wolf was staring at Janet again and something about it, about the way he had gotten even more freaky-deaky about it, not trying to hide it or anything, was making Janet and Ben even more la la.

  If any night was her night, it was tonight. Even more so than the pageant. This was it.

  But no. Not even when Ben and Janet were acting all dopey and bogus. Not even then.

  Brad could tell how dejected she was. Told her he was sick of it. Said she needed to stop living in Janet’s shadow. Told her to get her own life. It led to a big fight.

  Kathy didn’t think she was in Janet’s shadow. They were friends. Best friends. They were in each other’s shadows, right? This wasn’t a one-way thing, was it? Had she been kidding herself? Did Janet see her as a fan instead of a friend?

  No, come on. Cut it out. You know better. Janet is your friend. She’s just what she seems. Y’all are just what you seem. But what do we seem to other people? Is Brad right?

  Stick with what you know. You know Janet like a billion times better than Brad. You know that.

  What she didn’t know, what she still doesn’t know to this day, was why after Janet was crowned queen for the second time in the same weekend, she hugged her a little longer than usual, a little too long, like she somehow knew it would be the last time she ever did.

  Kathy meets us outside the administration building of Sunland Center, the community for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She is on her break.

  She has aged well. She looks years younger than Sabrina, lightyears younger than Ben.

  She’s a modestly dressed middle-aged woman with light brownish hair going to coarse gray. Still shoulder length like it was back when she and Janet were best friends, parted in the center, but now pulled back into a ponytail.

  She stands before us holding an expandable file folder in her right hand.

  “I’ve gone over and over that night across the years,” she says. “Haven’t been able to shake anything loose by turning it around again and again in my mind. Not sure I can add anything.”

  The moment we stepped out of the air-conditioned truck, the sweat began to pour out of us, dampening our bodies, causing our clothes to cling to us. Kathy has led us over to the side beneath the shade of a huge oak tree, but even in its shade the heat and humidity are intense, and I’m worried about Dad, who seems to be moving even more slowly today.

  I wonder why she doesn’t meet with us inside one of the buildings, out of the heat, but decide not to ask until we’re well into the interview, if at all.

  “We understand,” Dad says. “It’s a long time ago now. Believe me, I know. But talking helps—helps us, and it may help you remember something that thinking about it alone won’t.”

  She shrugs and turns up her lips, then nods. “Maybe so. I’d do anything to help. I still can’t believe it happened. At times the wound is as fresh as if it happened yesterday. Others it feels like something that happened to other people—like in a story I heard or something. In the yearbook, Janet was most likely to succeed, not die. And God, do I feel bad for her family. They never got over it. You never do, though, do you? The death of a child. It’s just not . . . You can’t get over it. And probably don’t want to.”

  “Do you have children?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Never did. Looking back, I think it might be more because of what happened to Janet than anything else.” She tilts her head back toward Sunland. “These are my children. I’ve tried to get Verna—Janet’s mom—to put Ralphie out here. She can’t really take care of him. She’s always been a little frail.”

  Ralphie is Janet’s little brother who was born with mental and
physical impairments.

  “Even got permission for him to come out with me during the day,” she continues, “but she wouldn’t even hear of that. Since Janet died, she clings to Ralphie like the last piece of floating wreckage of what once was her life.”

  “A poet,” I say, nodding appreciatively. “Nice image.”

  She blushes a bit, a plume of red rising up her neck. “In my youth. Not anymore.” She looks away wistfully, her eyes narrowing as if squinting to see something. “Time is a thief. Robs us of so much along the way then steals everything in the end. Hadn’t thought of this in years—years and years, maybe decades. Janet and I were going to do a book together. Words and pictures. My verse, her photography.”

  “Maybe you still should,” I say.

  She looks as if the thought has never occurred to her, not in almost four decades.

  Reaching over with her left hand, she’s caressing the folder she’s holding in her right. “Here are the pictures I promised,” she says. “Hope they help. They’re all I could find. Photocopies of pictures from the party that night, from school, from the ball and pageant that weekend, and, of course, several of Janet’s. I’d almost forgotten how good she was. What an eye.”

  She squeezes the folder with both hands then hands it to me.

  “Thank you. These are going to be extremely helpful.”

  The traffic on 71 is steady, lots of trucks, many of them towing livestock trailers. All of them seeming to be traveling way too fast.

  “About the party that night,” Dad says. “You still certain you remember seeing her there?”

  “I am. I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t. She was this amazing, electric person. I’d’ve been aware of her even if she wasn’t my best friend. She was there.”

  “Did you talk to her?” he says.

  She shakes her head. “She never came inside. I’m not sure why exactly. I only saw her from the upstairs window. She didn’t stay long. She pulled up. She and Ben talked for a little while, then he left with her.”

  “What were you doing upstairs?” he asks.

  “I hope you won’t think too badly of me if I tell you that my boyfriend and I had just made love. There was a bedroom up there with an old mattress on the floor. I shudder to think of how dirty it must have been now, but . . . He had gone down the hall to the bathroom and I was getting dressed near the window when I saw her pull up.”

  “We don’t think badly of you at all,” I say. “He was a very lucky young man. Brad Barnes, right?”

  “Gosh, this is really going to sound bad, but . . . I was young and . . . he wasn’t really my boyfriend . . . anyway . . . Brad broke up with me at the ball.”

  “Really? Wow. What a terrible thing to do.”

  “It really was,” she says. “I was hurt and I was young and impulsive and . . . I had been drinking. I was up there with a guy named Gary Blaylock. It wasn’t a one-night stand or anything. We dated for a long time after that, even lived together for a while after high school.”

  “He also saw Janet there, didn’t he?” Dad says. “I didn’t realize y’all were together.”

  “We weren’t. I was in the bedroom. He was in the bathroom. We didn’t know we’d both seen her ’til later.”

  “Why’d you and Brad break up?” I ask.

  The color drains from her face, she takes a deep breath, and it appears as though it physically hurts her to say it. “He was hung up on Janet. He sensed something was wrong between her and Ben and he thought . . .”

  Dad and I exchange a look she doesn’t see.

  “That never came out back then either,” Dad says.

  “Sorry. I was embarrassed, but I wasn’t trying to hide anything. If I’d thought it had anything to do with what happened to Janet . . . I would’ve . . . said something, but . . .”

  “It may have been the key to solving the whole thing,” Dad says.

  “What?” she asks, her voice rising. “How? I don’t understand.”

  “What if Brad tried something and she shot him down and he lost it and . . .” I say. “What if she and Brad got together? What if Ben found them?”

  “Oh my God. No. There’s . . . no way. Believe me, I’m not fan of Brad Barnes but there’s no way he or Ben could do what was done to Janet. Not in a millions years. No way. It has to be Bundy. Do something like that. Has to be. I just wish we knew where he hid her body.”

  27

  How are you holding up?” I ask.

  Dad and I are back in his truck, driving away from Sunland.

  “I’m okay.”

  “What do you need? You ready to eat? Need something to drink? Take something?”

  “What I need is a new body,” he says. “Short of that . . .”

  “Figured we go see Janet’s family now, then get some lunch, and I’ll track down a few things while you take a nap.”

  He doesn’t say anything. He’s been resistant to the idea of going to see Janet’s family, though he hasn’t come out and said so, and I wonder what his hesitation is about.

  “Do you not want to go see Janet’s family?” I ask.

  “We’ve got to see everybody,” he says.

  “You just seem hesitant to go there.”

  “It’s a sad place,” he says. “And a reminder of my biggest fuckup and failure.”

  I nod slowly and give him an understanding look. “I can go alone if you’d rather.”

  “Nah. Thanks. I’ve got to face them again. Just . . . not looking forward to it.”

  “Then we should do it next and get it out of the way.”

  He nods. “Fine. What about what Kathy said?”

  “Sheriff rushes us out of his office this morning and now we find out his brother had a thing for the victim and made a play for her the night she disappeared.”

  “Got to add him to our list of people to interview,” he says. “But what about two of the main witnesses who say they saw Janet there that night and saw her leave with Ben having the kind of connection they do?”

  “A love connection?”

  “Angry, revengeful, I-just-got-dumped-because-my-boyfriend-has-a-thing-for-my-best-friend sex is not love,” he says.

  “You speaking from experience?”

  Ignoring my question he asks one of his own. “Why not tell us they were together upstairs that night?”

  “Maybe out of embarrassment. Like she said.”

  “Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe they’re lying. One saw from the bedroom window at the same time one saw from the bathroom window down the hall. You heard what Sabrina said. Kathy was obsessed with Janet. Was jealous of her, wanted to be her—or at least take her place.”

  “If it was someone Janet knew and not Bundy or another stranger,” I say, “why take the body? Why hide it? Why do that to her family? Seems like an excessive level of hate and anger.”

  “Yes it does. And that’s worth remembering.”

  We ride along in silence a moment, Dad trying to get comfortable in his seat.

  “You heard from Jake?” I ask.

  “No. Why?”

  “I tried calling him last night and this morning and it goes straight to voicemail, which is full, and he hasn’t called me back.”

  The Lester place is an old two-story wooden house on some former farmland. It sits at the end of a wooded, white rock and pebble driveway, an old barn where Janet used to keep her horse in the back. The yard, like the house and the barn and the family, is in disrepair, in need of care and restoration.

  One look at Verna Lester and I can see why Dad was averse to the idea of coming here. She wears her brokenness like a burial shroud and the sadness in her eyes is difficult to take in, though I don’t look away.

  “Jack,” she says to Dad when she opens the door, her voice filled with surprise and something else—more pain maybe, or maybe something a little more subtle and complex than that, something bittersweet with streaks of pain and pleasure.

  “Verna,” Dad says, taking off his hat and holding it in his
hands. “Mind if we come in? This is my son, John.”

  “Hi John. It’s so nice to meet you. Yes. Sorry. Please come in.”

  She leads us through a cathedral-ceilinged foyer filled with huge framed photographs, mostly professional portraits, of Janet and Ralphie, through an immaculate and nicely furnished open-concept living room/dining room/kitchen, to a den beyond.

  Unlike the rest of the rooms, the den actually looks lived-in—a comfortable, well-worn couch and chairs, a TV showing cartoons, a small stack of mail that includes a newspaper and a couple of catalogs on the coffee table.

  Ralphie, a soft, overweight man with glasses, hearing aids, and other obvious impairments, is seated in a recliner snickering and repeating certain words and lines from the cartoon on the television.

  “Ralphie, you remember the sheriff,” Verna says, muting the TV with the remote from the coffee table.

  “Hey Ralphie,” Dad says.

  “Sheriff Jack,” Ralphie exclaims, clearly happy to see Dad. “Sheriff Jack.”

  “Hey,” Dad says. “How’s my old crime-stopper buddy?”

  Dad’s demeanor and tone of voice take on a certain quality of kindly condescendence that is sweet and endearing.

  Not only is this extra time with Dad such a gift, the opportunity to help him so rewarding, but I’m getting to see and appreciate him in ways I never have before.

  With the help of a cane, Ralphie pushes himself up and awkwardly hugs Dad.

  Ralphie is large and crippled, Dad weak and sore, and I step over toward them to catch Dad if Ralphie’s weight and clumsiness is too much for him.

  “He’s always loved your dad,” Verna says. “Sheriff Jack is his hero.”

  “Mine too,” I say.

  “Okay, Ralphie,” she says. “Let him go now. Sit back down and I’ll turn your show back up.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Ralphie lets go and returns to his recliner.

  I look over at Dad. He’s breathing heavily but seems okay.

  “Why don’t we step out onto the porch so we can talk?” Verna says as she turns up the volume on Ralphie’s cartoon.