Twisted Ones

by Packer, Vin

  Robert Brown was summoned from his vacation immediately, arriving in Sykes in the early hours of this morning.

  “It is impossible for me to believe that Brock did this,” he told reporters. “He was always a good kid. I never worried about my boy.”

  His stepmother, a war widow before she married Brown, said that Brock was a model boy with a tremendous inferiority complex. “There was never any difficulty between us,” she said, “I am as stunned by this whole business as my husband is. Neither of us can believe it!”

  To the Bates home last night came a stream of shocked neighbors to offer Caroline Bates’ parents their condolences.

  Michael “Derby” Wylie, a boyfriend of the girl, said: “Carrie was the most popular, the nicest girl in Sykes High. I think she felt sorry for Brown. He didn’t make a fraternity, and he wasn’t the kind of guy anyone warmed up to. He was always a lone wolf. If Carrie felt anything for him, it was pity.”

  Mrs. Bates was placed under a doctor’s care last night when her daughter’s body was brought into the home by the grief-stricken father. Several times Mrs. Bates had to be restrained as she burst into tears, crying, “My little girl! … my baby darling!”

  But this morning, Mr. and Mrs. Bates gazed aimlessly and philosophically at a recent photograph of the slain girl.

  “You just don’t know where it will strike next,” said Nathaniel Bates, an attorney with Gilbert, Gortman & Bates. “We never thought anything like this could happen in Sykes. We never dreamed anything like this could happen to our daughter.”

  The only apparel left on the girl’s body was a black sweater, a brassiere, and black socks with brown loafers.

  Dr. Jonathan Hunter, Sykes City Hospital pathologist who conducted the post-mortem of the girl’s body, reported that the girl’s death was due to the stab wounds. Dr. Hunter said the girl might have lived if the youth had not knifed her after the attack.

  Brock Brown was kept under guard last night in Kantogee County Children’s Home because he is still a juvenile.

  Chapter Fourteen

  REGINALD WHITTIER

  On Memorial Day afternoon, Reginald Whittier and his wife stayed in their room at the tourist home.

  Originally, they had planned a picnic, but since the scene in Mac’s Diner the night before, Reggie did not want to go anywhere.

  “It’s such a beautiful day, Reg,” Laura had complained that morning. “It’s a shame to stay cooped up in here.”

  “I’m not going where everyone will laugh at me, Laur.”

  “We’ll go to the woods, honey. No one will see us.”

  “I made a fool of myself!”

  “You couldn’t help it. It was my fault for saying that about your mother,” said the girl.

  “Don’t always make excuses for me, Laur. That’s all you ever do—make excuses for me.”

  “I want everything to work out, Reggie. It will, if you just give it time.”

  “Are you afraid I’ll leave you?” he asked.

  “I know you better than that, Reggie.”

  “You’d be better off without me. You have to support me, don’t you? I’ll never get a job.”

  “Oh, honey, come on! Let’s not worry! It’s my day off!

  Let’s go out and get some sunshine! That’s what you need, a little color in your cheeks!”

  “My skin is very sensitive, Laura. It doesn’t take to the sun.”

  “All right, Reggie. We’ll just sit around, I guess.”

  “I never did go out a lot anyway.”

  “What you used to do is over, Reggie. Don’t you see?”

  “You wish it was over, don’t you?”

  “No, honey. But it’s just like inhaling cigarettes and everything else. You have to learn to be different.”

  “What else have I learned besides inhaling, Laura?”

  “Give yourself time.”

  “I’ve been stuttering worse than ever. Worse than ever!”

  “No, you haven’t. I don’t even notice it.”

  “You just won’t admit the truth. That was one thing about mother. At least she told me the truth.”

  “She sure did! She hammered it into you that you stuttered! No wonder you never got better.”

  “You see. You do admit it. I never got better.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Reggie.”

  “Then don’t, Laur. Just call a spade a spade. I learned to inhale. Period. I still sleep here on the floor. I still don’t know how to kiss. I’m a scrub. Period.”

  “A scrub!”

  “That’s what I said. A bush. A nothing.”

  “You mean a shrub.”

  “No, I don’t. I ought to be sure of that by now. I’m a scrub. A dwarfed tree. That’s one meaning. Or an inferior person. That’s the second meaning. Look it up in the dictionary. I did, years ago.”

  “Well, I never heard of that. I’ve heard of shrubs.”

  “You’d be better off without me.”

  “Reggie, I don’t want to be without you. I’m your wife!”

  “Then put some clothes on, for the love of Pete!”

  “I’ve got my slip on.”

  “I don’t sit around like that.”

  “You’d look awfully funny if you did, Reg … if you sat around in a slip.”

  “I got the joke, Laura. I’d look awfully funny if I sat around in a slip. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  “Well, Jeez, it’s hot! It’s up to eighty.”

  “Do you have to say ‘Jeez’ all the time?”

  “I guess nothing I do or say or think is right, is it, Reggie?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Aw, I know you are. I know you are. You’re just upset. It isn’t your fault.”

  “You’d be better off without me.”

  “Don’t even think about it, honey,” she said. “Let’s just enjoy our holiday. I don’t have a living thing to do until tomorrow noon! That’s marvelous, isn’t it?”

  “Sure,” he smiled. “Sure.”

  “You bet it is!” she answered. She leaped off the bed and down to the floor, where he was stretched out on two pillows.

  “Who are you?” she laughed, “Are you gloomy-ears?”

  “Go on!” he said, grinning.

  “Old gloomy-ears,” she said. “Bet I can make him laugh.”

  She reached out and began to tickle him. He wiggled and writhed about on top the pillows, drawing his knees up to his chest, and trying to ward her off, while he giggled hilariously.

  “Laugh, gloomy-ears!”

  “Go on! Get away!” he laughed.

  “So that’s your funny-bone, ah? I knew I’d find it!”

  He caught hold of her hands and pulled her over on the side, on the rug, next to his pillows.

  “Now, I’ve got you.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Say Uncle?” he grinned.

  “Uncle! Uncle! Uncle!”

  “I have you in my power,” he said. “Say Uncle five more times.”

  She sprang free of him, falling on top of him, tickling him with her fingers. Reginald Whittier laughed until the tears came to his eyes. He grabbed hold of her hands again and drew her up above him. He tried to bite her ear. She squealed and shouted “Uncle! Uncle!”

  Then they both collapsed in a fit of hysteria, side by side, hugging one another. After awhile, when the laughter had gradually died away, she leaned up and kissed him quickly on the lips.

  “That was fun,” he said.

  “Some rough-house, for a wife in my conditon,” she answered happily.

  “Holy leaping lizzards!” said Reginald Whittier. “Your condition! I forgot!”

  “You’re just playing with your wife and child,” she told him. “Is there anything wrong with a man playing with his family?”

  “I really have a lot of feeling for you, Laura,” he answered solemnly. “I do.”

  “You know something?” she said. “You’re going to make me cry, Reggie Whittier.”


  Now, four hours later, they were sitting in their room reading the newspapers—Laura propped up on the double bed, Reggie slumped down in the overstuffed chair by the window.

  “Hey,” said Laura. “Listen to this, Reggie!”

  She began to read the article on the inside page of the morning paper. She read it slowly, stumbling over the words, unaware that her husband was not listening but reading the front page of the evening paper.

  She read:

  QUIZ KID SAYS HE SPOOFED

  The International Broadcasting Company was the scene of considerable confusion late last night as the parents of quiz kid Charles Berrey left with him for their home in Reddton, New Jersey.

  The boy, age 8, known to millions of viewers of Cash-Answer as “Chuck” but called “Chuckles” by his mother, wasn’t doing much chuckling as the threesome hit the lobby of I.B.C. after his failure to answer correctly the question that would have won him $52,000.

  Tearful, obviously nervous, the boy was forced by his father to say that he really had known a zebra swallowtail butterfly from a tiger swallowtail.

  “I knew the answer instantly,” said the morose youngster. “I was spoofing.”

  Mr. Howard Berrey, the quiz kid’s father, a salesman, was visibly angry with the prodigy. It was alleged that he threatened the boy in the elevator immediately after the Berrey family left the television studio, and there were speculations that he may have forced young Chuck to pretend that it was just a spoof and not a failure on the boy’s part.

  “All we want is some peace,” said Evelyn Berrey, the mother of Charles. She refused to answer reporters’ questions as to whether or not she and her husband were angry with their son.

  It was the boy’s fifth appearance on Cash-Answer. By missing the question last night, he forfeited all his winnings under the games’s rules. He had won $47,000 on his previous appearances.

  Jackie Paul, the master of ceremonies for Cash-Answer, was asked to comment on the youth’s claim that it was all a spoof.

  “I believe in all honesty,” said Paul, “that Chuck was unable to give the correct information because he did not know the answer. Why would any kid want to strike out when the whole world was watching?”

  “What do you think, Reggie?” said Laura. “You think he was spoofing?”

  “Hmmm?”

  She glanced over at him. His head was hidden behind the newspaper he was reading.

  “Didn’t you hear anything I said?”

  “What did you say?”

  “That quiz kid says he knew the answer all the time. He says he was just pretending to miss.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Maybe he was, though.”

  “His parents were pushing him. I’ve watched that show before. Even mother noticed. His parents were probably forcing him to be better than he was.”

  “You never know, though.”

  “You can push someone just so far,” said Reggie Whittier, “Then they won’t take it any more. A person can’t be forced by anyone to be something he isn’t!”

  “Well, what are you mad at? It’s just a newspaper story!”

  “Didn’t I ask you once before not to sit around in your slip?”

  “What did you get so mad at all of a sudden? I’ve been sitting around in my slip for hours now!”

  “That’s the point. You got dressed to go out and get the newspapers and sandwiches earlier—why couldn’t you stay dressed!”

  “Because it’s hot! It’s boiling! And we have to stay cooped up in this stuffy room just because you’re ashamed to show your face!”

  “You should be ashamed! Not me! I can take just so much, you know! You have your wet things hanging all over the place, and you don’t wear all your clothes! How much do you think I can take?”

  “And everything was so nice earlier,” she said. “I don’t understand you!”

  “Leave me alone! Stop harping on me!”

  “I just might leave you alone,” said Laura Lee Whittier, getting off the bed, grabbing her clothes angrily. “I just might go off for a walk by myself!”

  Reginald Whittier said nothing while his wife dressed. He kept the newspaper up in front of his face.

  “And I’ll come back when I feel like it,” said his wife. She stepped into her shoes, and pulled her blouse on.

  “You can sit here and feel sorry for yourself. That’s all you’ve been doing since we left Auburn!”

  She grabbed her handbag from the doorknob.

  “You just sit here!” she shouted at him. “I’ll come back when I feel like it!”

  “I bet you will!” said Reginald Whittier a second before she slammed the door. “You’re Tobacco Road trash!”

  When she was gone, he threw the newspaper to the floor.

  Momentarily, he stared at the headline of the news story he had been reading:

  SHOOK-UP SLAYER SAYS GIRL DROVE HIM TO MURDER!

  When he got up and walked across to the washbasin, Reginald Whittier had made his decision.

  Chapter Fifteen

  CHARLES BERREY

  In the Reddton Library, down in the basement in the Children’s Section, it was quiet at last.

  Upstairs, it was different. There was a Memorial Day display set out in the glass cases, and visitors were filing by it, exclaiming and praising Miss Schuster for her ingenuity. The display traced the history of the Unknown Soldiers of the United States of America. Charles Berrey had wanted to add his praise to the other’s. It was a remarkably thorough and enlightening exhibit, in his opinion, but he avoided the head librarian. He slipped under the rope that barred the entranceway to the downstairs without Miss Schuster seeing him.

  It was a hot afternoon, even hotter where Charles was. The fans that were usually in operation were not in use. Officially, only the lobby of the library was open for the holiday.

  Charles Berrey took a seat over by the basement window. With him, he had brought the newspapers and some stationery. His father had given him the writing paper and the envelope.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he had said as he laid them on Charles’ desk that morning. “Things got out of hand.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, I’ve never put a hand on you at any other time, have I?”

  “Not on me, sir. No.”

  “A man has a right to hit his wife. That’s something between a man and his wife. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, dad.”

  “Yes, dad,” said Charles Berrey.

  “Your mother asks for it. You’ve heard her. And last night, you asked for it.”

  “Yes, dad.”

  “But I shouldn’t have hit you. A man shouldn’t hit his kids. And I’m sorry, Chuck.”

  Charles Berrey said nothing to that.

  “It wasn’t the money, Chuck. It wasn’t just the money. That’s a lot of money, you know. That’s not chickenfeed, in case you’re interested.”

  “I know that.”

  “And it wasn’t my money, or your mother’s. It wasn’t our money you threw away. It was your own money. Money for your education.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You just threw it away,” said his father. “Chuck, come over here. I want to show you something.”

  “What?” the boy asked, approaching the desk in his room cautiously.

  “Now, don’t act so damned afraid! I’m not going to touch you! Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t going to hit you any more?”

  “No, sir. You said a man shouldn’t hit his kids. I remember.”

  “Well, what do you think that means! Now watch!”

  His father took a dollar bill from his pocket. There was an ash tray on Charles’ desk filled with paper clips. He dumped the paperclips on the ink blotter and put the money in the ash tray.

  “In my business,” he said, “one demonstration is worth a thousand words, Chuck. That’s your two weeks’ allowance there, what I’m supposed to give you tomorro
w. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, dad.”

  “Here’s a match, Chuck. Light it.”

  “But why, dad—I—”

  “You light it! You light it and burn that money! For God’s sake, you threw a hell of a lot more than that away last night!”

  Charles Berrey did as he was told.

  Silently, the pair watched the money burn in the ash tray.

  When it was ashes, Howard Berrey said: “It makes you sick, doesn’t it? Seeing good money just go phfffft!”

  “Yes, dad.”

  “That’s how I felt last night, Chuck. Sick!”

  “I see.”

  “Do you? I wonder if you see. It isn’t just the money, Chuck. There’s more to it than that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You made a fool out of me, did you realize that?”

  “You told me to admit I was spoofing, dad. I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”

  “Sure, I told you! I was hot under the collar! I couldn’t believe my ears! All that money—phfffft! Like that dollar bill there!”

  “I thought you wanted me to miss. You told me not to know all the answers all the time.”

  “Chuck, I told you to spoof Mr. Carter about your English grade, and that’s all I told you to do! I didn’t tell you to spoof anyone else!”

  “Yes, sir.” “Did I?”

  “No. I guess you didn’t.”

  “You made a fool out of me! Your mother blames the whole thing on me, just because of that little spoof with Mr. Carter!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry! You made a fool out of me! And what do you think Mr. Carter thinks of me this morning, hah? You read the newspapers.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Charles Berrey was remembering the story of the boy in Sykes, New York, who had stabbed a girl with a knife. For that split second, he had forgotten the little piece about him and his family: Quiz Kid Says He Spoofed. … The other story—the one about the “shook-up slayer”—had sent him back and forth to his knife rack three, four, even five times, to check the rack, to make sure the knives were secure.

  “I know you read them, Chuck. Why do you lie to me? Chuck, what’s come over you?”