by Amy Metz
“Hank? Everything okay over there?”
“Yeah, yeah, Chief. Everything’s fine. I’m actually enjoying this assignment. I got a delicious home-cooked meal and we’re getting ready to watch a James Bond movie.”
“Listen to me. I don’t want Caledonia or the boys out of your sight until you hear from me.”
“You sound kind of tense, Chief. Something up?”
“Yeah. The judge is dead. The poor man was stabbed at least ten times. The coroner will get a better count once the blood’s washed away. But I tell you what, Hank. This wasn’t a random killing; this was vicious. Dee Dee Petty is behind all this; I’ve seen proof. No telling what she’s going to do next. I’m going to put out a BOLO for her and warn that she may be armed and dangerous. She’s definitely unstable. Whatever you do, don’t let that family out of your sight. Nobody comes in or out of that house. You copy me?”
“Solid copy, Chief.”
After Johnny flipped on his siren, he wiped his brow. He was sweating, even though it was cold outside. The second murder since I’ve been chief. He shook his head and set his mouth in a firm line, remembering what he’d found on the dining room table.
He strained to see the road ahead of him. It was a trash-moving, gullywasher out there. The windshield wipers moved furiously from side to side.
The judge was dead.
And he knew who did it.
Mama always said . . . You can’t unmash the potatoes.
Johnny’s headlights sliced through the rain as he sped to Dee Dee’s house. The rain was still coming down in sheets, and the wipers’ rhythm was in tune to his heartbeat. He bounded out of the car and sprang up the steps, banging on the door, Velveeta at his heels. Both officers pulled their service revolvers and held them at their sides. Johnny beat on the door.
“Police! Open up.”
He heard something from inside. “What is that?” he asked Velveeta. His ear to the door, he heard a steady knocking sound.
He tried the knob, and it was unlocked. He pushed through the door, and they followed the knocking sound to the kitchen.
On the floor, in a pool of dark red blood, lay Dee Dee. With tears streaming down her face, she was lying stock-still, making only one motion: banging her fist on the floor. “I can’t move. I can’t feel my legs,” she rasped.
“Witherspoon, first put on gloves and then call a bus.” Johnny ran to her and knelt down, pulling gloves on himself. There was so much blood, he didn’t know where to put his hand, but he felt like the woman needed some form of human contact. He settled on putting his hand on her upper arm and giving it a comforting squeeze.
“We’re calling for help, Dee Dee. Hold on. Is he still here? How long ago did he leave?”
“She. I don’t know. Maybe five minutes ago. Maybe more.” She coughed, and it turned into a snicker. “She’s a he.” Dee Dee laughed at Johnny’s puzzled expression. “You’ll never find her. She’s a master of disguise.” Dee Dee said the last words in a mocking tone, puzzling Johnny even more.
Is she delirious?
“You’ve lost a lot of blood. Hang tight. Help’s on the way.” He squeezed her shoulder once more and jumped up, frantically opening and closing drawers. He gave up searching her kitchen and called to Dee Dee, “Where are your tea towels?”
She looked puzzled but answered him. “Fourth drawer to the right of the sink.”
Velveeta entered the kitchen. “Bus is on the way.”
Johnny yelled, “Search the rest of the house.” She quickly did as ordered.
Johnny retrieved a stack of tea towels and turned Dee Dee on her side. “Is this wound to your abdomen the only one?”
She groaned. “Yes. We fought for the knife.” She scoffed. “I lost.”
Johnny pressed the towels to her stomach, and she gasped. She’d lost a lot of blood. “Who did this, Dee?”
“Y,” she rasped out.
“I don’t care why. I want to know who.”
“I’m telling you. It was Y. I don’t know—”
“You’re talking gibberish.” He leaned over, taking her jaw in his hand and forcing her to look in his eyes. “Look at me, Dee Dee. Who hurt you?”
“Not hurt me. Killed me,” she said in a monotone. She’d stopped crying now and seemed resigned to her fate.
“Don’t talk like that. Just tell me who it was, dammit. Did you have an accomplice for the judge? I saw the pictures. I know you killed him. But who else was there? Who was here?”
“Y,” she croaked. “It was Y.”
He sat back on his heels. “And What’s on second,” he muttered dryly. “Let’s try a different tack. Why did someone hurt you?”
Very quietly, she said, “You won’t find her. Him. Whoever.” She coughed and continued. “It’s my doing. I brought her here. To town and to my house.”
Johnny heard the siren growing stronger. “Dee Dee, you’re not making sense.” Soon footsteps were pounding toward them. “In here,” he screamed.
Two paramedics rushed in, immediately assessing the situation. Officer Duke came in behind them.
“Stab wound to the abdomen,” Johnny informed the paramedics, stepping away to let them work. “Y’all sure didn’t waste any time getting here.” Johnny ignored their confused expressions.
Blood was everywhere. All over him, all over the floor, like she’d tried to drag herself across the room. He’d never seen so much blood. “Thanks for coming, Duke. Why don’t you check the outside of the house?”
Skeeter pulled Johnny aside. “Sure, Chief. But I wanted to tell you that something weird’s going on. Two calls came over the wire requesting assistance at this address.”
“Two calls? Me and who else?
Skeeter shrugged. “The other call was made first—anonymously.” Just then, a second siren approached the house. Skeeter went out to meet it.
The paramedics pulled the stretcher into position and began wheeling it and Dee Dee out of the house. Johnny saw the grave look that passed between the two.
“What’s that look for?” Johnny walked alongside one of them.
Speaking into the chief’s ear, the paramedic said, “Chief, it’s bad. The wound is deep, and she’s already lost a lot of blood. I don’t know if we can save her. She may bleed out on the way to the ER. In any event, it won’t be a pleasant trip.”
“I’ll ride along with you.”
In the ambulance, Johnny leaned over Dee Dee. “Dee, is there anyone you want me to call?”
She was getting weaker. She whispered, “Phil.”
“Do you remember the number? If you don’t, I can get it.”
It took all her effort, but Dee Dee gave it to him, and he punched in the numbers on his phone while holding onto her hand. She was fading in and out of consciousness now.
He talked for several minutes, glancing at her to make sure she couldn’t hear the conversation. He realized she was in too much pain to pay attention. Finally, he quietly hit “end.” Never in his life had he been so dumbfounded. The man simply couldn’t be bothered. He’d showed no emotion whatsoever.
Johnny faced Dee Dee and lied. “He’s on his way, Dee.”
Mama always said . . . Speak your mind, but ride a fast horse.
Jimmy Dean heard the sound of a key card as it was run through the lock on the woman’s hotel room door. She put one foot inside the door and pulled up short when she saw him reclined on the bed, ankles crossed, arms behind his head, watching television. He flashed her what he hoped was a roguish smile.
“Welcome home,” he said, swinging his legs off the bed and sitting on the edge, looking expectantly at her. He jumped up and down on his bottom three times. “I knew it was you. I knew it.” He pounded a fist on the bed.
“How?” was her sharp reply. She came in the room and closed the door, dropping her key card on the table. She looked every bit a man.
His eyes followed her as she moved to the closet. “Nobody else has figured it out, but I got to thinking there’ve been
some pretty strange characters lately who’ve popped in and out of town, usually—coincidentally—right around the time a crime has occurred.” He winked at her. “I recognized your work. I wish you’d told me you were coming back. I coulda helped you with the Santa caper.”
“I work alone, kid.” She took off her suit coat, grabbed a laundry bag from the closet, and stuffed it in.
Jimmy Dean began to talk a blue streak. “I saw you leave the diner earlier today. After the Santa incident, I put two and two together, and I’ve been searching for you ever since. When I saw you today, I followed you all over town, and you finally led me to this hotel. My biggest problem was that I wasn’t sure what name or which persona you’d registered under, so I didn’t know if I’d be able to pinpoint your room. But I recalled seeing enough unique characters that I figured I’d just keep describing people until one rung a bell with the clerk.” He watched as Wynona pulled a sweater from a hanger and jeans from the top shelf, seemingly indifferent to what he was saying.
“See, I go to school with Darla, who was at the desk. She went on and on about company policy,” he mimicked a whiny tone, “and she wasn’t going to play nice until I threatened to take off my leg and beat her with it. That loosened her lips. She knows I will and I have done that.”
Wynona disappeared into the bathroom without a word.
He talked through the bathroom door, raising his voice a little. “You wanted to stick out like a sore thumb, didn’t you? And that was a good plan since your multiple personalities are untraceable. But you didn’t count on me recognizing you, did ya?” When he got no response, he tried again.
“You know I don’t even know your name? I mean your real name.” Still nothing from the bathroom, so Jimmy Dean went back to reclining on the bed and flipping channels. His nervous energy made it hard for him to sit still. His eyes darted around the room, and his foot bobbed up and down.
After a few minutes, he turned down the sound and hollered, “So what did you do? Was that blood all over you? Say, that was you I saw yesterday dressed in a tan velour warm-up suit, a cowboy hat, and big cover-your-face sunglasses, wasn’t it? And I gotta tell you, the Santa get-up was a stroke of genius.” His hand surfed the air.
The closet door wasn’t closed all the way, and it got his attention. He went over and pulled out the overstuffed laundry bag. Holding it upside down, he dumped the clothes on the bed. There was an assortment of different styles and sizes of clothing, both men’s and women’s.
When Wynona came out of the bathroom, she’d lost a good twenty to thirty pounds and some inches in height. Jimmy Dean could see on the bathroom floor a padded body suit and the brace that she must have used to force her posture to appear ramrod straight. She was dressed in a sweater and jeans, barefoot, but she still wore John Noseworthy’s nose, teeth, and fake glasses. She’d taken off the wig and put her hair up in a ponytail. She threw a pair of black wing tips on the bed.
“There must be clothes for three or four people here,” he marveled.
“Exactly. The Boy Scouts were onto something.”
He looked at her blankly.
“Be prepared?” She held out a hand, waiting for him to get the reference.
“Oh! Yeah. I get it now. Good one.”
While she was changing, Jimmy Dean had tried on a pink woman’s jacket. He held out his arms. “How do I look?”
She walked behind him and yanked down the sleeves. In one smooth move she had the jacket off. She snatched the empty laundry bag off the bed and began stuffing the clothes back into it. “You sure are a nosy one, aren’t you, kid?”
“How else am I gonna learn?” Noticing the shoes, he marveled, “So that’s how you got taller. Lifts. I shoulda thought of that.” He dropped the shoes and moved to the dresser next to the television, opened a drawer, and found various wigs, eyeglasses, and rubber noses. He put on a brown-haired men’s wig with a dangling ponytail.
She snatched it off his head and began adding the contents of the drawer in with the clothes she’d stuffed into the laundry bag.
“Oh come on. Can’t I have that?” He reached for it, but she blocked his hand with her arm. The murderous look in her eye caused him to step back and swallow hard.
“Sit down, kid.” She jerked her head toward a seat at the table by the window. He obeyed.
Wynona took two bottles of water from the mini-fridge, put one on the table in front of him, and unscrewed the cap of her bottle. She loomed over him, studying his face. She was very subdued. Almost morose.
His eyes darted from the bottle to her. He swallowed hard. “It’s not poisoned, is it?”
She scoffed. “You have a fertile imagination. No, it’s not poisoned.”
He took a long gulp of water.
“So what is it you want, kid?” She pulled out a chair opposite him, slumped into it, and crossed her legs.
He held out his arms, palms up. “I done told you. I want to be your apprentice. I want to be a male version of you.”
She let out a long breath. “You should aim higher, dude.”
“So, I’m guessing you killed the judge?” When she looked at him quizzically, he continued. “I followed you today when you went to his house. I looked through the window after you left, and since he was deader ’n dead, I—”
“I didn’t kill him,” she said with conviction.
“Oh come on. You expect me to believe that? You can be honest with me. I’m not gonna rat you out.”
“I’m serious. I didn’t kill the judge. But I know who did: one Dee Dee Petty.”
His face froze, and he sat up straight. “No shit?”
She nodded. “I shit you not. But watch your language, dude. My mama always told me those who swear don’t have much of a vocabulary.”
“Oh, I get it. Do as I say, not as I do, huh?”
She put the water bottle to her lips and studied him out of the corner of her eye as she took a long drink. “Kid, take my advice. Don’t be me. In fact, don’t be anything like me. You’re from a good home. You have two parents who love you. Why do you want to be me? I don’t even want to be me.”
He picked at the sticker on the bottle and unraveled a strip off the top. He kept his eyes on the bottle, and his voice came out husky and soft. “Nobody likes me. I’m different from everybody else. I’ve been deformed since day one.” His eyes teared up, and he tried to lighten the moment by adding, “And do you have any idea what it’s like to have the same name as a sausage king? What were my parents thinking?”
Her brow came to a V, and her eyes asked the question.
“I was born with a deformed foot. When I was two, I had to have my left leg amputated right above the knee.” He stared at his own leg as he held his foot in the air several inches from the ground. He was silent for several minutes, and she waited him out.
With his head propped on his right hand, he continued in that same lost voice. “My parents don’t care what I do. And I don’t have any friends. Nobody wants to be friends with a freak.”
“Or is it nobody wants to be friends with a bully?” Her tone was flat and held no hint of pity.
His head snapped up.
She shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. “I don’t know you, but I bet I can sum up your life story real quick: You were coddled as a toddler. When you were in grade school, you started acting out to get attention because you felt different and unwanted. But that pushed kids away, and the only attention you got was negative. So you got mad at the world.” In a sulking, singsong tone, she mimicked, “Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. Guess I’ll go eat worms.” She cocked an eyebrow. “How’m I doing?”
He gave a half-shrug. His lower lip stuck out slightly, and he kept his head bowed, fidgeting with the water bottle on the table.
“After that, it wasn’t so much about attention. It was more of a contest to see how much you could get away with. Your daddy always fixed the scrapes you got in, smoothed things over when you got into trouble. When money talks, pe
ople listen.”
Elbow on the table, he rested his chin on his knuckles. His exuberant demeanor had swung drastically to sullen in the last several minutes.
“How do I know all that?” she asked rhetorically. “It’s classic Punk 101.”
He looked up sharply, his arm falling to the table.
She touched his hand. “That’s what it is, but it doesn’t have to define you, kid. It’s what it is. It’s not who you are.”
He let out a scoffing laugh.
She tried again, tucking one leg underneath her rear, her voice monotone. “I was never popular. In grade school, I was a fat tomboy with kinky, wild hair and buckteeth. The girls were afraid of me, and the boys didn’t want to play with me.”
“You?” His voice was tight.
She nodded and brought a finger to her chest. “Me. By high school, I was so backward I spent four years sneaking off behind the stage in the auditorium to eat lunch by myself. Nobody ever wondered where I was at lunchtime. Nobody cared. I’ve always been a loner, and I’ve always been invisible.”
“What about your parents?”
“I didn’t have a dad. And my mother was too busy trying to support us to have much time for me. At least that’s what she claimed. I eventually fell in with the wrong crowd, and by ‘fell in,’ I mean I stood around smoking and drinking with them and soaking up everything I could. I wasn’t there to be social. I was there to learn. Being involved with that gang got me introduced to an even bigger, badder gang by the time I graduated high school.
“I got married to the first man who showed any attention to me. Two weeks later, he started using me for a punching bag. I left him, and in a few years, I attracted the Big Man’s attention and became his right-hand girl. He liked that I was a loner, I didn’t answer to anybody, and I learned quick. I’d slimmed down by then, and one thing led to another, as it always does,” she shrugged, “and I got pregnant.”
“You got a kid?” He was astounded.