by Abigail Keam
That certainly knocked the wind out of my sails, but I refused to let sentimentality cloud my judgment. I was fighting for something too – me. “You could have just left Richard like Agnes did.”
“Left him?” Tellie was indignant. “That’s what everybody says who has never been faced with a woman beater. I did leave him. See what it got me.” She pulled up her sweater. There were faded scars on the inside of her arms, looking like someone had carved a face on a pumpkin. “I ran away with Taffy when she was eight. It took him over a year, but he tracked me all the way up in Seattle, where I was working as a waitress.” She shook her arm at me. “This was my punishment. He told me while I was lying in my own blood, that the next time he would take it out on Taffy.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police, the women’s shelter, something other than murder?”
Tellie laughed out loud. “What do you think would have happened when he got out on bail and that is, if he got a judge who took my situation seriously? How many women are killed each year in this country by angry estranged husbands? Just in this city alone?”
“Too many,” I agreed.
“Do you think an EPO is any protection? It’s a crummy piece of paper. Unless a battered woman has the money to hire a bodyguard, she’s a sitting duck. You know it.
“The law is no use to women like me. The law doesn’t protect women like me. It’s all in the man’s favor. And don’t quote me the law, Josiah. The law states that I can only defend myself while I am being attacked. Why should I wait until I am the most vulnerable? Even at Richard’s weakest, he was stronger than me. He liked to sucker punch. Most of the time, the blows came so fast I didn’t have time to move out
of the way. You can call the police but I don’t deserve to go to jail. I don’t deserve one hour of punishment. Richard got what was coming to him.”
Her tired bloodshot eyes pleaded with me. “With this money, we can have a new start. I can live without fear. It is up to you, Josiah. Let me go. Please.”
“You murdered a man! You tried to frame me for his death. Don’t you have any remorse?” I cried.
“It was the only way out. You know that if I left him, he would have come for me. You know there would have been more violence. Every time he went into a rage, I would think – he’s going to kill me today. I lived with death every day, then I decided I had to get him first before I tried to leave him again. I just didn’t want to take a chance on it being me that was dead.” Tellie pleaded, “Please. Let me live my life in peace and take care of my daughter. You know what it is like to love a child, wanting only the best for your baby. What will happen to Taffy if I am not around to guide her? You saw how that crazy nurse talked her into the stupidest things.”
“Shut up,” I demanded. “Don’t say that. What you did was wrong.”
But was it justifiable? The problem was I do believe in justice . . . but sometimes justice doesn’t come from a courtroom.
Shaneika called me later that afternoon, saying she wanted to come over. I gave her the new gate code, as I changed it every few days. It wasn’t long before her car pulled up. I was out by the pool drinking sweet tea spiked with lots of vodka and chewing on a cigar. Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue was playing. His was the best music to get drunk by.
She plopped heavily into a lounge chair and poured herself a drink. “Wheee, that is strong!” Shaneika exclaimed.
I pulled a wet towel from my eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that you are a very loud person?”
“Is that Coltrane playing?”
“Davis. Shhhh. You’re destroying the mood.”
“Why do you smoke those filthy cigars when you have asthma?”
“Self destructive, I suppose.” I took a long pull.
“I guess that’s better than chewing tobacco. Whose Prius is outside?”
“Mine.”
“Yours?”
“A friend gave it to me.”
“That is highly unlikely. You don’t have any friends.”
“Funny.”
“It couldn’t have been the check for the Mercedes. I know for a fact that check was only around six thousand dollars.”
“I told you a friend gave it to me.”
“Hmmm, okay, let’s leave it at that.” Shaneika took another sip. “Are you sober enough to talk business?”
“Just barely.”
“I’ve got a buyer for those ten acres.”
I sat up in my chair. “So soon?”
“Yep, but the price is too high.”
“Non-negotiable, like I said.”
“Won’t come down on the price?”
“Nope.”
“That could pose a problem.”
“Tell them to take it or leave it. Who is it?”
“Me.”
“You?”
“Yeah, me. Got a problem with that?”
“Ya gwonna bwuild a house?” My words were starting to slur.
“I’m going to buy a racehorse. That is my dream. My passion. I never told you that my grandfather worked for Calumet Farm years ago. He used to help train all those great champions. He’d take me to work with him, let me feed those horses, brush them. Now I am going have one of my own.”
“Ten acres ain’t gonna to do it.”
“That is why you are going to let my horse graze on the rest of your property for free.”
“Now wait . . . a min . . . ute.” I struggled to find words to express my indignation. My tongue felt like a big fish flopping in my mouth.
“Look, you’ve got llamas, worn out horses, and weird-looking sheep running around. My horse needs the extra pastureland and isn’t going to bother one of your little pets.”
My mind cleared a little. “I was thinking of the liability. I don’t want to be responsible if your horse stumbles in a gopher hole.”
“I have taken care of all that in a little document which you are going to sign.”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t afford a big outfit. Horse farms that come on the market are way out of my reach but you have all this land here. I’ll buy ten acres. I will replace those rundown fences but you have to let me use some of your land for free and also that rickety old barn. I need a place to put all my tack and equipment. This is a win-win situation. You are land rich but cash poor. I am cash rich but land poor. We are going to do some horse trading – that’s all.”
I winced at the pun.
Shaneika’s eyes became two large moons with twin hazel lakes. “Look, I will make you so liability free that no one can take a penny from you even if they squeezed your big titties.”
“The land is raw. How are you going to train a Thoroughbred here with no track, no nothing?”
She threw the document on the table. “Aren’t you tired of being a victim, wallowing in poverty like it’s a badge of honor? Want to play beekeeper? Fine, but don’t act like you are poor when you have all of this.” She waved at the house. “Sell some paintings. Buy some new clothes, get your hair done and get on with it. You’re not the only woman to have her heart broken by some man.”
I was tired of being poor. I was tired of wallowing in self-pity. If Tellie had the courage to make a new life, so did I. “I’ll sign tomorrow after I read it. I don’t want to do it drunk. And I want a percentage of any purses.”
“The only way you are going to get a piece of the action is if you help pay the bills for my horses.”
“Horses! How did we get from one horse to several.” I shook my head. “You are using my pastures for free, using my water, which is free, and having 24/7 guards when you are not here. Matt plans to live permanently in the cabana, and I will be here most of the time.”
“Okay, two percent of the purse plus tickets to the owner’s box.”
“I also want to go to the horsey-set parties.”
“Done. Your haggling is wearin’ me out. I know that you are going to have Matt go over the contract like a fly on an overripe melon, but it’s a fair deal and helps
us both get what we want. The check is attached to the title. Sign it and cash the check. Easy money.”
I sat back in my chair and thought about the high price of this so-called easy money. “Will you get a quilt square for the barn?”
“Yes, if that will make you cash that check. I will take care of it.”
“I want something pretty and in soft colors, maybe a pinwheel square.”
“I’ve got something else to talk to you about,” said Shaneika, ignoring my rambling.
“Yeah?”
“I got an official copy of Richard’s death certificate – not just a duplicate.”
I didn’t react.
“Also, as soon as the body was released, Tellie had it cremated. No one knows where she put the ashes. It is over for good.”
Again, I didn’t respond.
“And Tellie and Taffy have left town.” Shaneika examined me closely.
“They have? Maybe they’ve gone on vacation.”
“Tellie resigned from her job. The phone, the water, and electricity have been turned off. They’ve left no forwarding address. They are gone. Looks like maybe you might have been right about them. Do you want me to pursue this?”
“Nope. Leave it be.”
“It looks like Taffy is going to miss her court date.”
“I don’t care anymore. In fact, I dropped the charges against Taffy this afternoon. Just make sure that a restraining order is in place on both her and Nancy forever.”
“No can do. You can only take out an EPO if you are a domestic couple.”
“Don’t we have any stalking laws?”
“Inadequate.”
I just shook my head in disbelief while pulling a paper out of my pocket. “Make a copy of this, send it to me, but put the original in your safe.” I was hoping that the prepaid Visa cards that I made Tellie purchase for me wouldn’t spill out of my bra.
Shaneika quickly read the handwritten document. She looked at me in amazement. “This gives you ownership of all Richard’s equipment and his bees – signed by Tellie today. Plus she also gave you the ownership papers to her new Prius. You want to tell me about this?”
“Nope.”
“You already knew they were leaving town.”
“No reason the bees should suffer. This weekend, Matt and I will go get them and bring them here. On your way out, there is a CD on the dining room table. Put that in your safe as well. Don’t listen to it.”
“What was said and who said it?”
Faking sleep, I began snoring softly.
“Well, it looks like crime does pay if you can blackmail,” said Shaneika. “Knowing you is going to be interesting, Josiah. Don’t bother showing me out, even though I know you are not asleep. I also expect a key to this house. I don’t want to be piddling in the fields like some poor migrant worker.”
Around midnight, my daughter called. “Are you going to sell to Shaneika?”
“Hello to you too.”
“Well?”
“I need the money. The house needs some serious maintenance. I will pay you back too.”
“I didn’t pay Miss Todd one red cent. She owed me.”
“That’s what she said when we first met. Want to tell me why?”
My daughter chuckled softly. I took that as a no. “I guess things are looking up all the way around. The case has been closed,” she said.
“With minimal damage to us both. And I’ve got some good news. I got a part-time teaching gig at Transylvania in the art department and I am going to sell the Stephen Powell and others from my collection.”
“But you love your art collection.”
“It’s gotta go. I am tired of being broke; besides, there are new hip young artists in town I can buy on the cheap. Plus the house will be on tour twice a month. The bees, the teaching and the touring will get me back on my feet financially. I hate being poor.”
“Looks like you are coming out of your funk.”
“Three years is long enough for a hissy fit while watching the farm fall apart. These bees are keeping me broke.”
“But you love them.”
I sighed. “Yes, I do love my honeybees. They are magical creatures in an ugly world.”
“You can’t ever tell me the truth about Mr. Pidgeon’s death. Ever. It would make me an accessory after the fact.”
“You are assuming it was murder. I have changed my mind about that, and the death certificate says otherwise.”
“I trust your instincts, that’s all.”
“Daughter, Susan B. Anthony once said that woman must not depend on the protection of man but be taught to protect herself.”
“I doubt she meant revenge killing and I’m not going to get into a debate with you about the morality of murder,” she said stiffly.
“Some men are just too mean. I think any person has the right to defend themselves. The decisions people make are not black and white but very strong shades of gray. It’s hard to know what the right thing is sometimes. As my mother use to say, “You do your best and trust in the Lord.”
“The question remaining is – are you going to be able to live with your decision? I know something heavy went down, and you are somehow involved. All things point to it.”
“Baby of mine, I’m just gonna have to find peace. God knows that I tried to do the right thing – so should you.” And with that, I hung up. I hated giving her the last word. After all, we both knew deep in our hearts – there is the law, and then there is Kentucky justice.
24
That should have been the end of the trouble Richard Pidgeon caused me, but there seemed no end to his interference in my life. He was more trouble to me dead than alive.
It took several weeks in the hospital again to remember the details clearly. I do remember that the phone was ringing insistently. I had been doing repair work on some windows, taking me some time to climb down the ladder and run inside the house to the phone. Thinking the call might be from one of my two lawyers, since that was whom I talked to mostly these days, I was surprised to hear the voice of my next-door neighbor, Lady Elsmere.
“Daaarling,” she said in her Tallulah Bankhead voice. “What took you so long to answer my call?”
“Working on the house,” I replied between breaths. Lady Elsmere was really June Webster from Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky, who had the good fortune of making rich men fall in love with her and then die. Her first husband was a garage inventor, who in his spare time made some doohickey for
some thingamickbob and became a multi-millionaire selling his doohickey to a big corporation. Unfortunately, he had the bad luck to die of a heart attack on vacation with June in Venice while celebrating their good fortune.
But as always, a star hung over June. While mourning the loss of her beloved husband in Rome, she ran into an elderly English lord who thought he was the reincarnation of Lord Byron. June, assuming the esteemed Lord Byron was a TV game show host, was introduced into a world of literature, art, and sin to which she took like a duck to water. Noting that she was such a good companion for all his tomfoolery, the elderly lord married her and took her back to England as Lady Elsmere, where she lived for some time until he, too, died. Lord Elsmere’s estate passed on to the next male in the Elsmere line, but the elderly lord left June loads of wonderful cash, just pounds and pounds of it, which she converted to the dollar when the dollar was weak. She came back to Kentucky, rich as Midas and with an English title too.
June bought the horse farm next to me several years after I had purchased my farm. Brannon refurbished her run-down ante-bellum house until it rivaled Tara. After her house was restored as one of the most impressive early nineteenth-century houses in the South, June got into the horse racing business. It was due to her precious Thoroughbreds that we crossed swords all the time. Her farm was a desert of grass. I was trying to let my farm revert back to nature and the seeds of my so-called weeds kept blowing on her property, thus fouling her perfect pastures. Also, my animals occasionally had t
he bad manners to wander onto her property.
“What is it now?” I asked sharply. I was pressed for time and wanted to get her complaining over fast.
“I am not even going to comment on your rude tone,”
June commented. I rolled my eyes. “But some of your peacocks are in my driveway. You know they make a lot of noise.”
“Sorry, June, I will come over and get them later today,” I said, ready to hang up.
“Don’t do that. I want to keep them for a while to provide ambiance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Josiah, you will never guess who my houseguest is this weekend.”
“I give up,” I said, looking at the clock on the microwave oven.
“Meriah Caldwell.”
“The number one mystery writer in the country?” I was impressed.
“Yes, and I am giving a dinner party for her this Saturday.”
“No, no and no. Did I say no?”
“Now don’t be that way, my pet.”
I shook my head. “I hate your dinner parties. They’re too formal. I don’t have anything to wear. I always feel like I’m dressing for a prom. Besides, I have no escort.”
“I will expect you at eight in your best dress with some lipstick on. I am sending my car for you because I don’t want you to show up in that wretched van of yours. As for your escort, bring the delicious Matthew Garth with you. Have you two been up to any naughtiness?”
“Matt is gay,” I replied. It was time the truth about us was cleared up.
“So was my second husband, but that didn’t stop us from getting married and having a wonderful time before he passed away.”
I didn’t respond.
“Listen, I know you hate my dinner parties, but I want you to do this as a favor to me. We go back a long way, don’t we? Wasn’t I one of Brannon’s first clients, and didn’t I help spread the word about his talents?”
“Yes, June, you were and you did.” I hated it when she played the guilt card. Her contacts had helped make Brannon very successful.