The Bad Lady (Novel)

by Meany, John

  “Billy,” she says, “you know I’m trying my best to raise you. It hasn’t been easy though. I still hate your father for walking out on us. Last I heard he’s living in Chicago . . . Doesn’t matter though. He never cared.”

  “You’re doing a good job raising me,” I told her, gazing at the houses that we were driving past. “I know its tough being a mom. You don’t have to feel bad.” I was trying to ease her spirits. Her voice had sounded so frightening, like a female Jack Nicholson. As she drove, even though I could not see her eyes because of the sunglasses she had on, I doubted if she blinked. I had never seen her look so sinister. A shiver ran up my spine.

  “No, I’m not,” she disagrees. “I never should have let you be alone with that woman.” She fumbled for a cigarette. “And for that I apologize.”

  We drove in silence for a minute. Then the bad lady started to address God.

  “Lord, that woman molested my boy,” she announces, lighting a Salem Light. “I could take the matter to court. However, what good would that do? It’s my son’s word against hers . . . Lord, forgive me for the sin that I’m about to commit.”

  “Nancy didn’t hurt me,” I said, grabbing the bad lady’s arm. “Please mom, maybe it was my fault too.”

  “How could it have been your fault, Billy?” she snaps. “You’re a child. She’s an adult.”

  “Please! Turn the car around. Let’s go home.”

  I could not stop her though. I swear! I begged and pleaded, but she would not listen. She pulled the Toyota around the block. Nancy was still outside sweeping the sidewalk.

  The bad lady sticks her head out the window and then shouts, “Here I come, pedophile. Look out!” Then she slammed her foot down on the gas pedal.

  The car lunged, with a mighty jolt, into overdrive.

  As we screeched forward with screaming mad tires, I watched Nancy zoom closer and closer to the windshield, until our car, doing about fifty, struck her head-on; making a thunderous thump.

  Then, as the bad lady backed the Toyota up, smoking the wheels, sending dirt and grass flying up into the air, I will never forget the expression of horrified panic on Nancy’s face (which, at this point, had been splattered with blood), as the bad lady stomped on the gas pedal again, and ran her down for a second time. Except this time, she drove over Nancy Sutcliffe’s body. I heard her bones crack. It all seemed like some sort of shocking nightmare.

  I cringed. “Oh my God!” I screamed in fascinated horror. “Mom, what did you just do?”

  “You’re mother didn’t do anything,” the bad lady responded, in a startlingly composed voice. “Bridgette wouldn’t have had the guts to run that child molester down like that.” Grinning, she glanced in the rearview for a moment, at the body, and then drove away, obeying the normal 25 MPH speed limit.

  “But you,” I screamed, grasping for speech. “I think you just killed her.”

  “No Billy. If she’s dead, Nancy Sutcliffe killed herself.”

  I could not stop quivering. “I can’t believe you just did that.” If I had not been in shock, I would have likely burst into tears. My emotions were conflicted.

  “Sit still,” the bad lady commanded. “And get a hold of yourself.”

  “Mom-”

  “Bridgette isn’t home. She won’t be back until later.”

  After we had turned the corner, onto Waverly Boulevard, which would take us to the main highway that we needed to go on in order to get back to the house, the bad lady staggered my mind even further by singing:

  “Yes Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me . . . C’mon Billy, join in.” She slapped the steering wheel. “Yes Jesus loves me. For the bible told me so.”

  I had no idea of how to react to any of this. I was so nervous and frightened; I wanted to jump out of my own skin. I mean what could have possibly possessed the bad lady to run Nancy over? There she was singing about Jesus, while tapping on the steering wheel like a happy drummer at a concert, but there was no way that Jesus would advocate cold-blooded murder. You did not even have to be Christian or attend church on a regular basis, to know that, Jesus Christ, regardless of the circumstances, would never condone cold-blooded murder. That, in itself, was a sin.

  “How about this song, Billy. You remember this one; you used to sing it all the time in choir.”

  “Be quiet,” I yelled, putting my hands over my ears. “I don’t want to hear you sing anymore church music. Stop it! Stop it, right now, please!”

  But it was as if she did not hear me, even though I had screamed at the top of my lungs, and had started to kick my feet furiously like a hyperactive child who has eaten too much sugar.

  “Walkin’ on the heaven’s road,” the bad lady sang, while again tapping on the steering wheel to create rhythm. “I’m gonna lay down my heavy load, ‘Cause Jesus said he’d walk along with me. Dun dun dun daha dun.” That last part was her rendition of a bass. “I’m singin’ all the way, Sun’s shinin’ everyday, So why not come along and join me on the heaven road?”

  She sang like that the whole way home. Constantly asking if I would join in. Her singing was haunting. I say haunting, because the way she had sung these church classics, seemed to me, to be the furthest thing from God. That’s no exaggeration. To my ears, she had somehow made these religious songs, honoring Jesus, sound demonic.

  PART TEN

  PARANOIA

  CHAPTER 21

  Finally, when we had pulled into the driveway at the house, the bad lady gave her vocal chords a rest.

  “Billy,” she says as she parked the car. “You know what’s going to happen now, don’t you?” Her tone sounded a bit deflated. The bad lady did not sound as confident as she normally did.

  Rather than unbuckle my seatbelt, I kept it on and just sat there in the backseat. I did not know what to do. Should I stay in the car or get out?

  “I said do you know what’s going to happen now?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “What do you think is going to happen?”

  I did not want to have to get into this, yet I forced myself to play along. “They’re gonna come for you.”

  “Who?” She stared over the seat. Now with her sunglasses off, her dark sunken eyes seemed to cast a spell on me. I could not look away.

  “Them.”

  “Who’s them?” she pressured.

  “You know-”

  “Yes I do know. Except I want to hear you say it, Billy. Whose going to come for me?”

  “The cops.”

  “That’s right. They will. And do you think that’s fair?”

  I said nothing. It seemed to be a trick question.

  “I asked you if you think that’s fair? Do you think it’s fair that the cops will come looking for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do?” That got her mad.

  I nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “How could you think that’s fair after how that woman Nancy Sutcliffe had abused you?”

  In my mind, the gruesome image of Nancy lying on the ground, not moving, and presumably dead, would not go away. No matter how hard I tried to think of something else, that unsettling image remained front and center.

  “You shouldn’t have done what you did,” I said, now forced to abandon her pitch-black eyes. I did not get her. Did she want me to lie or tell the truth? How could I sit there and tell her that it wasn’t wrong to crash the car into Nancy, and then back over her, seemingly crushing every bone in her body? Heck, for all I knew, perhaps, by backing over Nancy, the bad lady had crushed her skull as well. Again, that was something that I did not want to have to visualize.

  “Billy, what I did would have never happened if that lowlife scumbag had never laid a hand on you.”

  “Mom, don’t you realize what you did, you ran Nancy over, and like I said, probably killed her. C’mon, you have to snap out of it.”

  “Bridgette,” the bad lady says, now gazing at her bizarre pale, gothic, vamp
ire reflection in the rearview. “Your son doesn’t think I’m in his best interest.”

  “Who are you talking to?” I questioned. I had to ask her that. I should have asked her this question a long time ago.

  “I’m speaking to your mother, who else?”

  “Where is my mother?”

  “Oh. She’s around here somewhere.” With her knuckles, the bad lady knocked on the rearview. “Bridgette, hello, are you awake?”

  “Why do you take her over?” I asked, not sure whether to be scared, angry, or sad. “And when you do take her personality over, whoever you are, where does my mom go?” I had raised my voice.

  “The name is Mary Kate.”

  “Who’s Mary Kate?”

  “Me.” She turned back in my direction and smiled. It was one of the craziest smiles that I had ever seen, like the possessed smirk of a lunatic in a nut ward about to feast on a spider. “You mean your mother never told you my name?”

  “No.”

  “Then child, who does she say I am?”

  “The bad lady.”

  “Really?” She chuckled.” That’s what she calls me?”

  “Yes.”

  “The bad lady.”

  “Uh huh.” I thought she already knew that.

  “Bridgette.” She swung her attention back to the mirror. “You call me the bad lady? Now why would you go and do something so rude like that?”

  “She’s always calls you the bad lady,” I said, listening to her finally shut off the engine.

  “I don’t understand why, I’m always good to your mother.”

  “No you’re not,” I disagree. “You’re crazy.” I shouted the word.

  “Why Billy, how could you say that about me? Your mother calls me the bad lady, and now you’re sitting there telling me that I’m crazy. My goodness. Why are you people ganging up on me? That’s no way to treat a member of the family.”

  I could not believe I was having this conversation, especially after what had just happened. You would have thought if the bad lady had any sense at all, rather than return home, she would have fled town. Would have tried to avoid the long arm of the law.

  “Well,” she adds, “I guess there will always be a black sheep in every family . . . Anyway, we don’t have time to get into that now. Listen to me, Billy, eventually when the cops do show up at the house, whether it’s today, tomorrow, or next week, they might ask you some questions. And do you know what I want you to tell them?”

  I shook my head. “No. What?”

  “Nothing. You’re to tell the police absolutely nothing. They will probably ask where we were today, in between two and three o’clock. I’m going to say that we were here, at the house. That’s what I want you to say as well. You got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Other than that, I really don’t want you saying anything to the police. By law we’re not obligated to answer any questions.”

  Before we went inside, the bad lady walked to the front of the Toyota. She got down on her knees and studied the bumper, making curious facial expressions. She seemed to be annoyed. Then she peeked underneath the car.

  “You know, its times like this, my dear boy, when I wish we had a garage.” What an odd thing to say, and to say it so nonchalantly, the way one might speak about the weather.

  When I went to bend down to have a look, she gently shoved me away from the vehicle.

  “No, no,” the bad lady says. “You don’t need to see that. Just go inside the house.”

  “Why?” I ask impetuously. “Is the bumper ruined?” I had been thinking that the car must have been damaged, at least to some extent. After all, how could you have a head-on collision with someone and not have some kind of scratch or ding?

  “Did you hear me?”

  “What?”

  “I said that I want you to go inside. Here’s the key.” She put it in my hand. “I’ll be in, in a minute.”

  Bitterly, I climbed the porch, used the key to unlock the door.

  As I slunk into the living room, my mind was filled with dread. I think I might have still been in shock. My thoughts were as mixed-up as the most problematical jigsaw puzzle imaginable. The crushing anxiety that I underwent also made it difficult to breathe. It felt as if there was something jammed in my throat, preventing fresh oxygen from entering my lungs. Every so often, I worried that I might be choking.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Are there any messages on the machine?” the bad lady asked a few minutes later when she had entered the cottage. Immediately, she locked the door.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t look.”

  She brushed past me, rushed into the kitchen to see who might have called. It appeared that she feared that the cops might have left a message.

  “Did the police call?” I inquire.

  “No. Law enforcement did not contact us,” she replies derisively. “There are no messages.”

  I could not help but wonder when my mother would return. And when her personality did finally materialize, would she remember any of this; that she had now become a possible murderer?

  “They will call though, won’t they?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What’s gonna happen?”

  “It’s like I told you,” the bad lady explained. “Eventually the police will come looking for your mother. But not by phone. They’ll likely stop by the house.”

  “That isn’t right,” I said crossly, “that they’ll come looking for her when you’re the one who ran Nancy over.”

  “The name is Mary Kate. Remember that. And Billy, I don’t appreciate your snappish tone.”

  “I don’t care what your name is,” I argued. “I don’t like you. I don’t like you one bit.” I figured it was about time that I gave the bad lady a piece of my mind. I was sick of her. Sick of her attitude and sick of looking at her stupid, made up face that resembled a Gothic creature from the black lagoon.

  “Your mother wouldn’t be who she is without me.”

  “My mom would have never done what you had done to Nancy,” I contested. “You even said so yourself.”

  She scowled, and put her hands on her hips. “Are you defending her?”

  “Who?”

  “Sutcliffe.”

  “No. I’m defending my mom.”

  “Really. Aren’t you sweet?”

  “I want her back!” I demanded, stomping my foot. “Bring her back!”

  “I don’t think so. Not now.”

  “Why?” In a huff, I folded my arms.

  “Because Bridgette Hall doesn’t know how to deal with certain situations, like this one here. That’s why I have no choice but to remain in charge.”

  “You got her in serious trouble,” I again accused. “And for that I’ll never forgive you.”

  “I did what your mother didn’t have the courage to do herself. We care about you, Billy. What I did, I did out of love.”

  From the living room table that was in front of the couch, I picked up a magazine and then whipped it at the wall. I had to do something to release some of my frustration.

  “Now was that necessary?” Mary Kate reprimanded. “To throw a magazine like that?”

  “I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” I made known loud and clear.

  She put the crinkled People magazine back on the table.” Is that a fact?”

  “Yes. I said I want my mom back. I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore, you’re an imposter.”

  “Billy, you just don’t get it, your mom’s a fool. If Bridgette had her way, she would have gone to the authorities last night and pressed charges against Nancy Sutcliffe. I’m the one who talked her out of doing that. Because if we had taken that route, justice would not have been served.”

  That was totally insane. In fact, the way I saw it, just about every statement the bad lady made was off the wall mad. Edgar Allen Poe mad.

  Because I could not sit
still and because I had resolved that it was only a question of time before the police showed up, I knelt on the couch and peeked out the window.

  “Get away from the window,” Mary Kate ordered. “I have enough to worry about right now. I don’t need you making me more skittish.”

  “Fine,” I say, jumping off the sofa and then marching to my room.

  “No, no, no, young man, I want you to stay in here?”

  I stopped, swung myself around. “What for?”

  “Because you and me need to come up with a plan.”

  Grudgingly, I returned to the living room and resumed my seat.

  “I want my mother back!” I wail rebelliously.

  “Stop saying that.”

  “I want her back! And I want you to go away. Please, Mary Kate, just go away!”

  The bad lady kicked the wall. “You hurt me, Billy,” she shouts. “Do you realize that? You really hurt me. All I do is go out of my way to give you the best in life, and this is the thanks I get. ‘I want you to go away.’ Who do you think puts the clothes on your back, provides you with three square meals a day, not to mention all the junk food you eat? And who do you think puts a roof over your head, gives you a dry bed to sleep in at night? It’s not your mother. I can tell you that right now. No. I’m the one with the talent in this household. I’m the one who writes all of those greeting cards that brings in the money that we live on. And you and your mother have the nerve to refer to me as the bad lady . . . Don’t you think there’s something wrong with that description, young man?”

  The bad lady had me so unbelievably confused and shaken up, I just wanted to bolt out of the house, and run away. I desperately needed some peace and quiet.

  PART ELEVEN

  POLICE INVESTIGATION

  CHAPTER 23

  As anticipated, at seven o’clock that same day, a half dozen of Ohio’s finest showed up at our doorstep.