The Sheriff replied “calm down. Do you have his cell phone?”
I gave the Sheriff his phone like he asked. He then looked at Flain and said “Dr. Youngman, through the swelling I can’t tell, this is him or you wouldn’t have called?”
Flain replied “this is the man.”
The Sheriff then took the phone, crushed it in his hands, and went to his trunk for something. He came back with bolt cutters, put them on the anklet, and snipped the monitor from his leg. This he placed with the carcass of the phone in his cruiser on the driver’s side.
“Okay,” said the Sheriff really patiently. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”
This was going in a weird direction. The Sheriff had severed the tracking of this man by removing his traceable devices. I was disturbed and equally intrigued.
“Let’s get him in the back of my cruiser. Out of sight for a minute or two. Flain, you’re sure he’s dead.”
“Yessir.”
“And this is him? The man that raped and murdered my granddaughter?”
Flain didn’t respond. The Sheriff was being careful. I was floored. Grounded. Levelled. What were the odds of this unfolding? Less likely than this being planned. Either way the deed was done. I still didn’t know what was happening.
When Flain finally spoke he replied “I’m sorry she couldn’t be saved. Everything that was done to resuscitate her was my call and I couldn’t save her.”
“There wasn’t nothin’ more you could’ve done Dr. Youngman. Though I thank you for tryin’ as long as you did. Most would’ve called it earlier.”
“I’m bad to not do that. This is…
“…the man that did it.”
When the Sheriff finished Flain’s brief response things began to fall into place. Flain and the Sheriff were acquaintances. Why didn’t the Sheriff tell me that? I knew they both knew the man in question lying dead in the church parking lot. As for myself I needed an explanation because I was the murderer here. And the Sheriff wasn’t arresting me.
“Flain, get his legs. I’ll grab his wrists. Let’s put ‘em in the back seat.”
They did exactly that. Now when he cuffed me, after my confession, I’d be forced to ride in the front? That never happened on the shows that I watched. I was dangerous and had to be caged.
“Sheriff? Could you please…”
“Laney, give me a second. We’re comin’ around to the sense of it.”
After they flopped him into the back of the cruiser the Sheriff unpocketed a spray bottle. After that came latex gloves. Where there was blood he doused it, on the ground and in the car, searching gloved, wetting surfaces, until no trace remained.
“The car?” asked Flain.
“Reported stolen,” said the Sheriff. “It can be stolen to here. It’s about to be stolen away.”
I’m having trouble with these EXTREMELY CALM men casually going about this business. Right before I screamed, clawed my hair out, saying “Sheriff! Take me to jail!” he began his explanation. It saddened him to explain it. He thought the cosmos was still imbalanced because his granddaughter had lost her life.
“Laney, there ain’t no cops comin’ and you ain’t goin’ to jail. This here, it never happened. As for Ney, it ain’t none of my business. And by bein’ dramatic, don’t make it my business, which I know you ain’t gonna do, because Ney needs you for a mommy. This damndable mess is mine to clean up and that’s already bein’ done.”
“Sheriff, who’s this man? What the hell all has he brought to your family? What did he do to others?”
The Sheriff is having trouble. His eyes crack like plates into streaming tears and when they do Flain takes over. He’s resilient against his emotions. There is hate and anger in his voice. Like an executioner saying “roll on current,” right before a man is electrocuted.
“Laney, the man in the cruiser is named Percy Noon Yates and my dear, he is a bad one. He’s serially raped across the southeast and then he came back home to his mother. Squatted there being a good citizen. Then forensics finally caught up. By the time it did he’d killed the Sheriff’s granddaughter after doing still horrible things. Mental incompetence to realize his own trial, along with a slick attorney, only got him three years for that. Some botched police work and a cokehead lab guy completely set Percy free. Until now. You’ve done the world a favor. Percy Noon Yates is free no more and I think what we’re asking here, because it’s you, me and the Sheriff, is can you live with that?”
Surprisingly, gruesomely, I asked this: “his body? The tracker? The phone?”
The Sheriff regains his composure. When he speaks he is confident and humble. I hear thanks in his voice and I wonder to myself if what I’ve done deserves any credit. I’ve taken a life, can’t give it back, and mine seems longer before me. This I can’t forget.
“Laney, in sixty seconds, a Crown Victoria with Texas plates will come down that road from the north. When it does would you please oblige me and turn your back with Dr. Youngman? There won’t be many words said, because my dear, there isn’t any need. After that your concerns are voided. There’s nothin’ to be concerned about. Two men will get out and all trace will be gone and then the place is clean. He’ll be subtracted from a world that didn’t need him. What’d you say that day? The world won’t even know he existed. Won’t even know he was here. Of course it don’t know we’re here either. Think it went somethin’ like that.”
Then it happened. Flain and I spun. I saw a grey Crown Vic with front Texas plates before I turned to stare at the church, Flain right beside me doing what was asked as the car came into the lot. Two people got out and in a deep, crusty voice one asked “the phone, tracker and body? What else can we do for you Sheriff?” The Sheriff replied “do the car. Money’s where the money always is.” The man then said “very good. Thank you for your business.”
The Sheriff and the others worked for two minutes and then the car was gone. The Pinto following behind it. When they had sufficient distance between our eyes and themselves the Sheriff said “turn around.”
It was as if we’d just drove up. As if nothing had happened but a visit. No, not even that. We hadn’t seemed to be talking at all. We three simply stared at one another. Then broke it apart like a practice. Where do I go from here?
11.
We slept separately in our homes on the night after I killed Percy Noon Yates. The next morning Flain came to get me. We had a plan and would carry it forward. We’d decided to get Ney from Mama Dorman’s and find a house all three of us could share. The ghosts of my parents inhabited mine, so much so I could hear their voices, each demand, the fights and the darkness. My mother accusing my father, saying “I know she went with you!” and my dad responding “so what! She’s fun! You ain’t! Goddamn this! I shouldn’t’ve never married you!” Flain would also sell his. Make a brand new start with Ney and I. He didn’t want to accidentally call me Rita in the house he’d shared with her. Thought that was unfair to me. We didn’t talk about marriage, but we did discuss Ney, the baby being our focus. It would take six months to slide her onto the grid without drawing any suspicion. Child welfare was a serious matter. Although we had the Sheriff turning his back there were still a lot of damn people who would and could take her away. The locals wouldn’t accept “the appearance” of a baby unless our story was solid and flawless. Flain said “I did it once before with a baby someone brought to the hospital. It was dumped by the parent and there was a nurse on the floor that was having trouble conceiving. She didn’t have the money for adoption. I paid a guy off in administration and certain things were overlooked. Got deleted or lost in transit. After that a hacker did the rest. The kid was marvelous. Fourteen years old. He hacked here and there, added this and that, like he’d worked for the goddamned government. The child suddenly existed with all his registrations and an insurance policy paid forward. Legitimized on a fucking laptop.”
“What happened to the fourteen-year old?”
“He’s twenty and we’re go
ing to use him. The lad moved, and had to go really quick, to Moscow as a permanent resident. No extradition from there. He’ll be happy to help with Ney.”
I didn’t want or need to know any more about that process. But the air needed some clearing. So I asked. Why not ask?
“Is there anything else I need to know before we raise a child together?” I smiled at the side of his face. Between us in his truck was a car seat reversed and waiting for Ney to board. To hook the bastard up was the same as doing calculus but Flain had the patience. I-did-not-have-the-patience. Oh shit, the man is still thinking. If he tells me that he used to be a woman and that his rather large penis was a transplant, then I’m opening the door and jumping.
“Does it take that long to decide? Is there more than one thing or like a fucking line of twenty, and you’re arranging them alphabetically?”
“Only one. Deciding how to tell it.”
“Well dear, my precious Dr. Youngman, since we’re driving to collect our abandoned child from a family who has spare children, with a matriarch who has a cloudy eye, I guess you can shoot pretty straight. What we’ve done isn’t exactly legal. Might as well lay it all out. No need to show any restraint. My ass is so sore I’m having trouble sitting here and I’d like to thank you for that.”
This was my attempt to relax the atmosphere and ease the big fella right into it. Still, he seemed reluctant. As if telling would taint him for life. Or worse yet, taint another.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Now, of course I do! The pause is making me crazy!”
He drummed on the steering wheel just like the Sheriff and for a moment I got the creeps. I’d done what I’d done and the guilt was consuming. As for that, relief was impossible, the pressure of living with taking a life, even though the life was a psychopath’s, wasn’t something I found to be easy. But Ney, she needed a mother. And I’d become Ney’s mom.
“Okay,” said Flain. “I’ll tell you. When we were married, Rita and I, well…”
“If you had an affair don’t tell me. You’ve gone far enough.”
“Wasn’t me. It was Rita.”
“How? With who and why?”
“When we were young Rita balanced the books for local businesses and also for me. She would go in after they closed, do her work and then come home. We had a rough patch that included me drinking and not giving her the respect she deserved. Not including the woman in my day to day life. I would work, come home and hit the bottle. So she stopped coming home. How do I say it? Rita fucking swung.”
“What? Sex parties? Orgies? Swapping? Swinging? Like, that kinda swinging?”
I said that entirely too fast. Responded with too much assuredness. Now Flain probably thought I was a devotee to “sex party” terms and practice.
“Rita did the accounting for a local non-profit and the boss kept a Tuesday night swing, in a not too distant chain motel, and he talked my wife into doing it.”
“He must’ve talked a great deal.”
“No, probably not. Rita, like you, and I’m pleased that you have it, had a nugget of the freak inside her.”
“How the hell did you find out?”
“The Sheriff…”
Yes, the image popped in my head. A seventy-year old standing there naked yelling “time for the fucky bucky!” I asked “the Sheriff attended sex parties?”
Flain laughed. You have to laugh. He wasn’t finished telling the story. I’d interrupted and broke his concentration.
“No Laney. He didn’t attend them. He had a deputy in his department whose wife wouldn’t quit going and straying. The Sheriff wanted to help where he could. So he broke that one up. Not that he was able to stop her. I’m sure there were others to replace it. But he tried by sending in a man. An outside stranger without any connections who got himself invited then recorded it. Those were powerful recordings to threaten prominent people and I tell you the Sheriff used it, all to save the marriage of that deputy. He overstepped his boundaries and failed. Then he told me Rita was there. She went once and never went back.”
“You confronted her?”
“Didn’t have to. She admitted it without me asking. I slowed the drinking to a drip, worked on our marriage, and to my knowledge she remained faithful.”
“May I ask who the Sheriff sent in? Who the hell do you use for that?”
“The voice that you heard in the church parking lot. Crown Vic. Texas plates. That’s him. Same man. Same voice. He’s popular amongst law enforcement. Seems to be where he’s most needed.”
I let it go. Didn’t follow with any interest. When we got to the Dorman’s you wouldn’t believe what they were doing with Ney in the yard. Mama Dorman was sitting on the porch chain smoking, as was usual, but attending to the pageantry. Ney was on a raft, like the woman in King Kong, right before the natives sacrificed her. The “float” was adorned with ivy and several strands of pretty foliage. Sitting in its center on a secured “bouncy baby” was Ney giggling and laughing. She had a garland of flowers around her little head and was adorned in what I believe, was a Victorian gown for the tiny. It was WAY OVER THE TOP. Ney was embellished with lace and puffy white handmade material that seemed to be cut from the clouds. I knew the fashion nowadays, with bows and shit, made children appear like can-can dancers or miniature fucking hobos. This was NOT that. The Dorman children had the raft on their shoulders and were striding about with Ney, the platform even and her seat so secure that you could’ve crossed a river with it. They were chanting “Queen Ney! You’ve saved us!” She had a tiny wand in her fat left hand and was delivering her blessings to the people, not really knowing what the hell she was doing, but thoroughly enjoying the doing it.
“Come up to the porch!” yelled Mama Dorman. “Come have ye a drink on me!”
We parked, got out, let the procession continue, and walked to the house for a visit. There were lawn chairs beside her and I took the one next while Flain sat in the other. She apprised the whole situation.
“The little bastards lashed that raft she’s on like they was taking it down the Mississippi. Cut the fuckin’ saplings with a handsaw. They kinda got the Egyptian theme down. I’m rather proud if you ask me. They were goin’ for the Cleopatra feel but veered forward to the nineteenth century. Don’t matter, Ney seems to love it. Here, have ye a drink. I’m half a jar in already. You shoulda been here at daylight. Today’s my drinkin’ day. Fuck it. There’s time to catch up.”
Mama Dorman handed me the liquid fire. I sipped it and gave it to Flain. The white liquor cleaned my teeth and tongue, followed by my epiglottis, before my vocal cords, esophagus and trachea were cleansed to the point of melting. It found passageways to reach where it shouldn’t and I paid a heavy price. The entire space between my lips and breasts was set afire and continued to burn. As for Flain, he bought a jar. Sipped once then again and again.
“Thank you Mama Dorman,” he announced.
“Ya’ll stay and eat lunch with us. Laney, take a ride on the raft. I’m tempted to ride myself. Might be the onliest time I get praised like that. What with the chantin’ and all. They’ve been totin’ her for hours. And Ney allows them to tote. She’s a hell of a queen, the girl is. We all are. Laney, ain’t it true?”
“I can’t say that I’ve ever been treated very queenlike, but I look forward to the opportunity.”
“The good doctor will oblige ye I think. Ya’ll get rollin’ in the right direction?”
“We are underway,” replied Flain. “Think we’re going to combine both of the households and sell the old places for Ney.”
“Live as one. Great idea,” she said. Then she asked “Laney, how much for your place? You got any idea a’tall?”
“Mama, it’s run down to crumbs. I’ve failed miserably with the upkeep. Be lucky to get thirty thousand.”
Mama Dorman stood, said “ya’ll stay put” and went inside to the back of her house. When she returned she said “Laney, your hand” and then dropped a roll of bills. A huge
wad of hundreds and fifties. “That’s thirty-five thousand, but I want that back three, your daddy would never sell me. We’ll do the paperwork later. My attorney will call with a meeting.”
“What? Ah, Flain, ah…”
Flain replied “take it. That’s cash. You wouldn’t have gotten twenty-five.”
“Oh, okay Mama Dorman.”
“Good business. I thank ye sweety. Always hankered for that place. And one other thing Laney dear.”
“Yes mam.”
“I thank ye kindly for killin’ that fucker Percy Yates. I knifed his daddy back in ’62.”
“How…”
“Sweetheart, leave it be. Mama Dorman’s cloudy eye sees the future.”
She smiled and took another drink.
12.
Two month’s elapse, both houses have sold, and we’ve bought our own outside of Remount. It’s remote, secluded, 2,000 square feet, which is enough for the three of us. You take the main drag going south from the town and ten miles later turn west. From there it’s a dirt road. Another five miles off the asphalt. Up and up and up. The home is on a hillock, not really a mountain, with ten acres and a pasture around it. The old couple that owned it were placed in a home by their children who didn’t want the hassle of taking care of their elderly parents. That was a thing I always wanted to do, but never got the chance to do it. No matter what they did in this life. They were my parents and now they’re gone. I guess it would’ve been easier, if they were alive, to lock them away. But easier doesn’t help a person sleep. I read a book on this subject a year ago. In the text the author said she considered “retirement villages” and “elderly homes,” to be a symptom of fractured families. Seventy years back, even less, those that raised you weren’t “inconveniences,” whenever they aged beyond “usefulness.” I miss my mother and father, all their faults, even their voices, in my former ghost house. I could give a fuck about easy. The harder the better I believe. What do I know? I’m only twenty-three. I know enough that I miss my parents. Wish they were here with me.
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