You Can't Escape (9781420134650)

by Bush, Nancy

  “I’m doing this for your own good,” he’d growled angrily, stuffing the box under his arm and towering over the boy. His fury had sent Boo whimpering into the corner, covering his head.

  He’d taken the box away and driven into the hills. He’d driven right past the track that led to the graveyard, which was little more than two flattened lines from his own tires when he’d delivered the latest of Satan’s children there. Didn’t want Boo to have another reason to come this way. Instead he’d kept on going and going, right to the lookout above the falls. He’d opened the box with the loud music of the water in his ears, the spray dampening his face. The keepsakes were memories from his own past as well as Boo’s: Mama’s harsh gifts. Chief among them was the knife that she’d used to gut the deer she’d accidentally run over one starry winter night. He remembered it so clearly. Mama’s skill and iron control as she slit open the carcass from neck to hind.

  What Boo didn’t know was that the knife had been used for other purposes as well and he had the scars to prove it. Mama wasn’t the one who’d hid it in the shed, he thought grimly. He’d done that himself, to hide it from her, keep it out of her grasp. Somehow Boo must have seen him tuck it under the boards and, in his jumbled way, thought Mama had left it for him.

  He’d thrown the knife, the switch, and other means of Mama’s terrifying control over the falls, tossing the box in after them.

  Of course Mama was long dead now. She’d been taken by that Treadwell disease. Somewhere in the twists and turns of her family she’d crossed paths with the Afflicted Ones, and when he’d heard the calling from God, he’d made her the first of the saved.

  There had been pleasure in it. Mama finally got hers. He worried about what that meant, as it surely wasn’t God’s intention for him to feel anything but duty. He glanced away from the house, to the stony ground that rose like a hill between the fields, covered with trees. He’d buried Mama over by the hawthorn tree with the prickly needles. His drunken father had wondered what had happened to her, but had accepted that she’d just up and left them. Then he’d died of drink himself not long after, and he’d been taken to that other graveyard and buried there.

  For a moment his thoughts got confused. He had a sudden memory of hide-and-seek among the tombstones. Shivering, he dragged his thoughts away from that danger and back to Mama. He’d planned to move her to her special graveyard as well, to be with her own kin, but somehow that had gotten away from him. Now, with Boo traipsing all over the country, looking for his “playground,” it seemed best to keep her where she was, though he knew he was running out of time. Besides, there were others he needed to catch, brand and bury there, too.

  Jordanna Treadwell . . .

  It was a sign, a good sign, that she’d come back to town. He’d always known there were some that had escaped, though he’d always believed that he would be the one to bring them back one by one. That was God’s plan. He’d been told it, just like he’d been told what to do with all the tainted ones.

  Now, he climbed in his truck and drove toward the main road. Once he reached it, he shot a glance to his left and thought about his neighbors. There was the Wright farm next door, new people he didn’t really know, and old lady Fowler next door to them, and then the next one over was the Winters farm. Dr. Winters had taken his young bride away from the old homestead, and it had been empty until the Treadwell girl had returned and taken up residence in her father’s home. He hadn’t seen her there yet, but he’d been warned she was in town and it seemed right that she’d made for the old homestead.

  He turned the truck toward town, rattling along the road with its potholes from last winter’s snow. Jordanna Treadwell. . . Jordanna . . . Thinking of her reminded him of Emily Treadwell. Lovely Emily, with those blue eyes like windows into another world. She’d sworn she was on the Lord’s path. He’d help put her on the Lord’s path, but then she’d kissed him and moved up against him, and he’d wanted her so badly, so . . . badly. It had nearly killed him to thrust her away, cover his ears from her lies.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” he said aloud now. She was cursed. She couldn’t help herself.

  But she lied, over and over again. The Devil’s words had boiled out of her mouth like bats from a cave! Remember? Remember?

  He shuddered violently and damn near had to pull over to catch his breath. What he remembered was how in the end she’d run away from him, screaming. How she’d driven into the hills and how he’d chased her. How he’d screamed himself as her car slid fully around, three hundred and sixty degrees, and slipped over the edge of the precipice to rumble, crash, and thunder down the cliff, carrying Emily to her death.

  He’d cried for her, for the soul he hadn’t been able to save. But there were many other sorry souls in need of redemption, and he was ready to answer the call.

  “You don’t have to accompany me to the clinic, but I need to go,” Dance said an hour after they had both watched Dr. Dayton Winters’s car disappear back down the long drive. His head had a dull ache and he could feel the incision on his leg, but he damn well wasn’t going back to the pain pills. In the meantime, Jordanna had pulled the bench over to use as a table and they’d both eaten the burgers that she’d brought home. Though they’d been stone cold, Dance hadn’t cared, and though Jordanna had offered to heat them in the microwave, he’d waved that off. For him, the meal had been damn near perfect, and if the burgers were this good cold, he was going to find where she’d purchased them because they might be spectacular warm.

  Jordanna wiped her fingers on a napkin. She’d been tight as a coiled spring since her father had departed, and it was clear that she didn’t want to talk about him, ever. But now that they’d finished eating, he wasn’t willing to just act like nothing had happened.

  “I know,” she said. “You should go. You will go. I’ll take you and drop you off.”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday, but he said the clinic was open and he’d be there.”

  “Yes, he’s always available for the residents of Rock Springs.”

  He tried to navigate her mood, but she’d shut down. He attempted some small talk, but it was never his forte, so eventually he just gave up and asked, “Why’d you shoot him?”

  She turned to face him, her hazel eyes brilliant in the last rays of sunlight coming through the living room blinds. “You won’t believe me. No one does.”

  “I’ve heard a lot of unbelievable stories that were true.”

  She made a sound in the back of her throat that said he didn’t know what he was talking about, but she wiped her mouth with the napkin, then said, “I caught him in bed with my older sister her last year of high school.” When he didn’t immediately respond, she said, “You’re trying to come up with some plausible explanation because he’s a wonderful man. Dr. Dayton Winters. Upstanding member of Green Pastures Church. Married to Jennie Markum Winters, daughter of the chief of police. I know. I get it. It’s much easier to believe Dayton’s middle daughter was crazy, probably as a result of that rogue gene carried through the mother’s line.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she heaved a deep sigh and said, “I could use a drink. You want some wine? Oh, wait, no, you’re on pain pills.”

  She headed for the kitchen to get the wine. He could’ve told her he’d eschewed the analgesic, but what the hell. She was already touchy and seemed eager to shut down the conversation at the earliest opportunity, so he didn’t want to piss her off about neglecting to take her advice.

  He heard her going through the motions of opening the bottle, then the sound of her pouring liquid into a glass. A few moments later she returned with a half-full plastic cup of red in one hand, the bottle of cabernet in the other.

  “I don’t trust my father,” she said as she sat down beside him on the couch. “He denied everything about Emily. Made us all pretend that I thought there was an intruder. The chief knew, though. But everyone’s afraid I�
�m just like my mother. . . .”

  “You going to tell me what that means?”

  She took a long sip, then tilted her head. “I don’t know yet. Maybe. If I’m liquored up enough.”

  “Maybe I will have a glass,” he said, changing his mind. “I have a confession to make about the pain pills. . . .”

  The two stoners in the interrogation room said they were in their late-twenties, but they had the tired, used-up look of chronic drug abusers. If September had needed to peg their ages, she would have thought closer to forty, maybe more.

  The man had a scruffy beard that he couldn’t stop scratching. The woman was just hangdog limp, nearly falling out of the chair she’d been shepherded into by a stern-faced deputy who uttered no words at all.

  Gretchen said, “Are you ready to explain the bones?”

  The woman looked at the man, who scratched even more furiously, as if the motion itself would help him concoct a story.

  “Uhhhhh . . .” she said, like a record on stall.

  The man answered, “Fairy, there, it’s her grandparents, I think.”

  “Fairy?” Gretchen questioned, eyeing the lank-haired woman with the slight overbite.

  “It’s Frances, and I hate it,” she admitted grudgingly. “Everyone calls me Fairy.”

  “So, what happened to your grandparents?” Gretchen asked her.

  “Well, Gramps and Gran didn’t really like each other anymore. It happens. My parents didn’t last five years. And then, after what happened with Daniel, everything went to hell.” She choked a bit and her eyes shone wetly.

  September was about to ask her what had happened, but Gretchen was in interrogation mode and didn’t want to be sidetracked. Her laser-eyed glare made Fairy shrink back a little, however, and she turned to September. “They really couldn’t stand each other,” she revealed. “Gramps and Gran. They were dead when we found them. I think she poisoned him, or maybe he poisoned her. We just didn’t tell anybody.”

  “When was this?” Gretchen inquired.

  “Oh . . . I dunno.” She looked over at Mr. Beard Scratcher, who shrugged and scratched some more.”

  “How did you find them?” September asked.

  Fairy looked to the man and said, “You tell ’em, Craig.”

  “They were just sitting at the table, kinda slumped over. Like they ate their meal and just died,” he revealed.

  Gretchen said coolly, “If you don’t stop scratching, I’m going to handcuff you.” He immediately dropped his hands to the table. To Fairy, she said, “Was this a year ago? Or, two? Those bones have been there a while.”

  “Umm, maybe three?” she said uncertainly.

  “You found the bodies at the kitchen table?” Gretchen queried, and to her quick nod, asked, “And you did what?”

  “Huh?” She gazed at Gretchen warily.

  September could tell her partner was becoming frustrated, so she clarified, “What did you do after you found them?”

  Craig and Fairy shared a look, and he said, “We put ’em in the closet.”

  “Jesus,” Gretchen expelled. “And then what?”

  “We said a prayer,” Fairy said, her eyes swiveling from Gretchen to September and back again. “Or, two . . . ?”

  “The house is owned by Phillip and Jan Singleton,” Gretchen said.

  “That’s them,” Fairy said, nodding.

  “Did they live with anyone else?” Gretchen pressed.

  “Uh . . . just me?” Fairy asked, as if looking for the right answer.

  “What if I told you there might be more than the bones of two people in the closet?” Gretchen asked.

  Both Craig and Fairy blinked at them blankly.

  “Okay, so after you found them, and put the bodies in the closet, and said one or two prayers, what then?” Gretchen asked.

  Fairy said, “Umm, Craig moved back in. Gran didn’t really want us to be together, on account of the drugs and stuff, but we’re married.”

  “So, Craig moved back in and the two of you stayed there and didn’t tell anyone that your grandparents died.”

  Fairy nodded. “That’s right.”

  “What about the smell?” she asked.

  “What?” Fairy asked, and Craig’s hands jumped to his beard and began digging again in earnest.

  “When those bodies decomposed, it smelled,” Gretchen explained with extreme patience.

  “It sure as hell did!” Craig burst out. “Gagged me all the time! Fuckin’ dead bodies! Shoulda buried ’em in the backyard.”

  “Shoulda called the authorities,” September pointed out.

  “Yeah, yeah we shoulda,” he muttered, shooting a glance at Fairy before looking away.

  “Social Security,” September said when there was a long moment of silence, and both Fairy and Craig looked stricken. “That’s why you didn’t report their deaths. For your grandparents’ Social Security checks.”

  “Oh, come on,” Gretchen said, disbelieving.

  “Well, they just kept coming,” Fairy defended, going even limper. “Every month. The checks just kept coming. We didn’t know who to send ’em back to. And Harry’s, too.”

  “Harry?” September asked.

  Craig said grudgingly, “That’s kinda how we got the idea. Harry died a long time ago.”

  “Harry was?” Gretchen asked.

  “Gramps’s brother,” Fairy said. “He just had a heart attack and died one day, and then Gramps said it would be a shame to give up all that money Harry earned, so they just . . .”

  “Put him in the closet?” September asked.

  “Jesus,” Gretchen said again, pacing around the room and shaking her head in disgust.

  “Well, they buried him first, but the dog kept digging up the bones.” Craig started to scratch, shot a glance at Gretchen, and clasped his hands together as if he were about to pray.

  “And no one ever asked about Harry, or Gramps or Gran until Carol Jenkins showed up,” Gretchen said on a huge sigh.

  “Well . . . yeah . . .” Fairy said.

  Gretchen asked a few more questions, but Fairy and Craig were apparently tapped out. September followed her partner out of the county jail, and this time when they stepped outside, they were greeted by a light rain, which coalesced in Gretchen’s tightly curled black hair.

  “This is what drugs do. Make everyone a criminal. And the fucking apathy, God help me!” Gretchen stalked through the rain to the Jeep with September ducking her head and hurrying after her. “I thought this was going to be a helluva lot more interesting,” she growled as she got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind her.

  Sliding into her own side, September said, “The grandparents might have poisoned each other.” In the Jeep’s overhead light, raindrops glistened on her ring.

  “Doesn’t say much for marriage, does it?” Gretchen observed, following September’s gaze.

  “No . . . it doesn’t.”

  “What are we gonna do with Fairy and Craig?” she muttered, but she really wasn’t looking for an answer.

  September looked out the window as Gretchen turned around in the gravel. One of the wheels slipped into the mud, but Gretchen pressed her toe to the accelerator and the Jeep lurched back onto the road.

  Doesn’t say much for marriage at all, September thought.

  Jordanna swallowed a healthy gulp of red wine that left her choking. Dance actually reached over and clapped her on the back. “I’m okay,” she managed to squeak out, trying to set down her glass on the bench. “Holy moly. I’m going to get some water.” She practically sprang to her feet to get one of the water bottles stacked on the kitchen counter, cracking it open and drinking it down between choking coughs.

  Finally under control, she took a few more swallows of the water, then returned to the living room. Dance had taken a glass of wine but was drinking it far more slowly. A good idea, she thought ruefully, as she seated herself beside him once more. She topped off her glass and took a deep breath. She’d basically promi
sed to tell him all about her father and her past, and she planned to, she really did . . . she just wasn’t sure what depth she wanted to go into.

  He was waiting for her, and that annoyed her.

  “There are about a million things I’d rather talk about than my history with my father,” she said testily. “I’d rather talk about the Saldanos, or the unidentified body with the branding, or the missing Fread girl, or pretty much anything else.”

  “Fine,” Dance said, and she squinted at him, wondering if he was just humoring her.

  “Okay, well, I’m planning to go over to Malone tomorrow and check with the ME. Find out what I can about that body. And I might go to the Green Pastures Church and ask Reverend Miles about Bernadette Fread’s relationship with her father, even though Chief Markum would rather cut out my tongue than have me interfere in any way with the good people of the church.”

  “What did you mean, everyone’s afraid you’re just like your mother?” he asked when she wound down.

  She clenched her teeth and half-smiled. “The Treadwell Curse. She had it, and maybe I have it, too.”

  “And what’s that?” he asked carefully.

  Jordanna took another gulp of wine and said, “My mother died of an unknown form of dementia that seems to run in her family, the Treadwells. It manifested when she was in her twenties and she died about ten years later. She had a number of relatives likewise afflicted. It’s sort of like Huntington’s without being Huntington’s. No cure. The victim slowly loses their mental capacity and the body shuts down and then they die. . . . That’s the Treadwell Curse. Fortunately, it only has affected a small part of the population, so far. Pretty well contained around here. Unfortunately, that means there hasn’t been a lot of testing on it. It’s genetic, that’s all we know for certain.

  “When I shot my father, a lot of people around town thought it was a first sign. I swear Chief Markum wanted to lock me up, but my father stepped in. They settled instead for sending me to a psychologist, Dr. Eggers.”

  Dance stared into his wineglass. He was listening hard, so she decided to get it all out.