by Linda Ladd
Bud shook his head. He blew into his gloved hands, and his breath turned vaporous in the frigid air. “She seemed pretty hung up on her husband. She was definitely devastated when we told her he had been murdered, no doubt in my mind about that.”
“I think she knew the perp but didn’t expect him to kill her. Maybe it was a member of her own family.” Claire stared down at the woman covered in a thin layer of ice, one that made her look shrink-wrapped in glass. “Why would they want her dead, though? For marrying a Parker?”
“Who knows? Maybe her family’s anger and resentment’s been festering since she hooked up with the enemy. I haven’t met any Fitches yet so I don’t know how crazy they are,” Bud said. “But my initial take is that they are crazy as loons, one and all, and need to be committed.”
“The Parkers intimated as much. But they’re not exactly the definition of well-adjusted themselves, and they hate anybody born with a Fitch last name, bar none. They had a ‘No Damned Fitches Allowed’ sign on their front door, for God’s sake.”
“This is just so way eighteenth century. I bet they use pitchforks and six shooters to whack each other. And the women probably wear pantaloons and bonnets.”
Claire looked at him. “Pantaloons, Bud?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Whatever. Okay, I read the rap sheets, pages and pages of them. Not that many murders until now. Enough, but not as frequent as all their other crimes.” Claire looked at Bud. “How long you think she’s been dead?”
“A couple of days, I guess. It’s hard to tell when the body’s frozen. Buck can tell us.”
“What’s your gut telling you that this’s all about?”
“I think this looks more like the St. Louis mob’s handiwork than some hillbilly beef goin’ on out in the boonies.”
Claire sighed. “Me, too. Which is not good, not good at all.”
“Cheer up. Maybe they left some evidence behind, just for us so we could nab them and get in outta this Antarctic cold. Maybe we can nail them in nothin’ flat and I can go to Miami with Brianna.”
“Dream on, and nary a chance in hell. You can quote me on that.”
So they began to look around, but found nothing outside that would help them. The driveway was cleared and hard frozen so there were no tire tracks and covering rapidly now with a new layer of snow. Back inside, they had shoe prints, but it didn’t look like anything else in the house had been touched. Not ever, in fact. Undoubtedly, it was the cleanest, most orderly, and downright austere home that Claire had ever seen in her life. Black’s places weren’t even this clean, and he always had a ton of housekeepers. Maybe albinos were allergic to dust particles. Maybe Blythe also had seventy or so housemaids who were all on vacation when the crime was committed. Maybe she simply had a very real and lifelong affection for Mr. Clean and all his products.
The closet was full of lots of white clothes, or at least the “Hers” closet was. Guess she liked to look rather invisible in her clothing, too. She seemed the type to want to look invisible. Expensive clothing, lots of cashmere and suede and flannel. Mostly pants and sweaters and long skirts and tall boots. They finally found the room that was obviously Paulie’s refuge from the Comet and Scrubbing Bubbles and Spic and Span. It was the only normal room in the house. It had a desk that, oooh, actually had stuff scattered around on it. Fighting magazines, western novels, and a few classics, mostly Leatherstocking Tales. There were pictures on the walls, mainly Paulie’s own fighting posters, and glass cases holding his awards and certificates and championship belts and newspaper and magazine covers. He had a red sweater hanging over the back of his swivel desk chair, as if he had gotten hot and whipped it off. She felt like she almost knew him, being in that room. Could almost smell his aftershave. She had a feeling he had been a good guy, but a good guy caught up in one hell of a family feud, one hell of a profession, and one hell of a wife’s ex-husband. She felt very sorry for the man, and she’d never even met him when he was alive.
Buck and Shaggy and the rest of the gang showed up within the first thirty minutes and got right down to work. But they weren’t gonna find anything, she thought. Just a very bloody and white and icy woman, who probably did not deserve to be murdered and thrown out that second-story window. So it was up to Bud and her, and one thing for sure, they were up to the task. No matter what it took; no matter how long it took. And the first thing it was going to take was a trip to the Fitch farm. Claire could not wait. Now she was getting angry.
Blood Brothers
When Punk awoke from that last brutal blow to his head, he found himself inside a stark white room with thick padded walls and floor and ceiling. His arms, legs, and torso were secured with wide blue nylon straps to an iron hospital bed. Even so, his first lucid thoughts were of his own true love. At least, though, and no matter how bad things were, she was no longer married to that old man. She was a widow now, and Bones had escaped and was free as a bird. And that meant that Bones would come to Punk’s rescue again, just like he always did. All Punk had to do was be very patient and wait for his twin to show up and get him out of this place. It looked like a hospital, probably a mental institution. Good, at least they hadn’t put him in jail. Bones could get him out of a nuthouse in nothing flat, no question about it.
But Bones didn’t come for him. Punk tried to stay hopeful as the days lengthened into months, but still nobody came to see him, much less to rescue him. Not even his own true love. Her father was probably holding her captive again, of course, locking her up so she couldn’t get to him. Now, though, she had nobody to help her out unless Bones had stepped in and done it for Punk. Where was Bones, anyway? Why wasn’t Bones helping him get out of this stupid hospital? Why hadn’t he even come to see him? Or written him a letter?
There were many doctors and nurses and a whole lot of security around the locked ward in which Punk was imprisoned. He found out from one friendly orderly, a black guy named Marcus, that he was in the State Hospital for the Insane and that it was located in Fulton, Missouri. That put him pretty far from home. Maybe Bones didn’t know where he was, maybe that was it. Punk was forced to have daily sessions with all the staff doctors, one-on-one, private talks that were a real waste of time. They shot him up with drugs and always kept him restrained in wheel chairs or to beds with tough leather cuffs on his wrists and ankles. What did they think, anyway? That he was Dracula, or a zombie, or something? And after a while, it was a good thing that they did keep him cuffed because he wanted to kill all of them about as much as he had ever wanted anything in his life. He wanted to crush their bones into powder.
One doctor was in charge of things, well, at least Punk thought so. Punk was forced to talk to him every single morning, over and over and over. It always turned out the same way, the same questions about Bones and his own true love, and killing his pa, and his pa liking to beat him up, all that kinda stuff, the same old, same old crap. It was no different one particular day as he sat down in the doctor’s office, clanking his chains and shuffling his feet. He sighed, and spent his time fantasizing about beating to death the prissy little pipsqueak doctor with his black-framed glasses and red-and-gray, old-man-plaid, button-down collar shirt, and navy cardigan sweater.
“Good morning,” the doctor said in his usual bright and cheerful and careful and annoying voice. “And how are we feeling today?”
“We are feeling fine.”
“You say we. Who are you talking about?”
“You said we first. Who were you talkin’ about?”
“True. Very perceptive.” The doctor steepled his fingers and rocked back in his chair, as if they had made an important breakthrough. “So, is Bones here with you today?”
Punk looked around the empty office. He shook his head. These endless stupid questions were really getting on his nerves. “Don’t see him anywhere, but I sure wish he was. Maybe he could get me outta here and away from you and these chains.”
“Is he your best friend?”
“No
, sir. He is my twin brother. I done told you that every single day since you locked me up in here. Aren’t you listenin’ to me, at all?”
“Are you aware that your older brothers deny that you ever had a twin brother named Bones?”
Punk stared hard at him. Now both those things were great big stupid lies, but he’d heard the doctor say them before, and nearly every day, too. “If they did say that, they’re just tryin’ to protect him. They probably think you’re gonna lock him up inside this place like you did me. Hell, they probably think you’re gonna lock them up. Like I told you a million times, he’s the one who killed Pa, not me, and he killed some other people, too. He’s probably hidin’ out somewhere over there on the farm.”
“They said that Bones is a figment of your imagination and always has been since you were a small child. They say they went along with it so you wouldn’t have one of your temper tantrums and attack them with a hammer.”
Punk threw his head back and laughed out loud. “Well, then they’re all lyin’. Find our birth certificates, why don’t you? That’ll show you that I’m tellin’ you the truth. What is this, anyway? What’re you tryin’ to get me to say?”
“Please, now, remain calm. I’m not trying to upset you. As a matter of fact, we’ve been searching for your birth certificate, but there isn’t one to be found. It appears that you and your brothers were born at home and never were legally registered by the state of Missouri. Therefore, there is no legal documentation for your birth.”
Frowning, Punk tried to think what kind of joke they were playing on him. “They’re lying to you, I tell you. Lots of people have seen Bones. He fought people in the cage, just like Pa made us all do every Saturday night. The guys he put face down in the dirt sure do remember him. Ask ’em.”
“Well, to date, we haven’t found a single person who admits to ever having seen this twin brother you talk about. This Bones person. No one has a picture of him. No one has ever spoken to him or seen him or even known about him. How do you explain that?”
Then they stared at each other. Just like every day, always the same questions, the same answers, the same dumb idiots. Punk didn’t know what the hell to say this time, either. They didn’t know what they were talking about. Or it must be a trick, a shrink’s trick to make him say things that would keep him locked up in the looney bin and far away from his true love. Finally, he said, “Well, I’ll just say it again. I don’t understand any of that. Bones is my twin brother. He’s tougher than anybody and he always helps me when I get in trouble. You must be askin’ the wrong folks. Or they’re still scared to cross him. Look for the ones with the broken bones and fear on their faces.”
The doctor gave Punk his usual kindly, you-poor-crazy-nut smile. “I know all this must seem very confusing to you. Would you like for me to tell you what I suspect has happened to you?”
Sure, spill it out again, I’ve only heard it a million times, Punk thought. Then he stared at the doctor, trying to remain patient, but always expecting some kind of double cross or a new untried psychiatrist tactic to throw him off. He didn’t trust doctors, none of them. Especially the ones he had met in this place. He had never even seen a head doctor until they locked him in and chained him up and ogled at him like he was some kind of wild animal in the zoo.
“We’ve talked to you a lot since you came here. Not just me, but everyone on our psychiatric staff. We’ve come to the conclusion that you have Dissociative Syndrome. Split personality is the layman’s term, and that’s probably what you’ve heard of.”
Actually, Punk had never heard of either of those things. This guy was a real kook, way out in left field. He was the one that needed to be in handcuffs. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Simply put, it means that you probably experienced some kind of terrible trauma at some point in your young life, so horrible that your mind just could not handle it. Therefore, it created another stronger personality to handle the most stressful situations that would otherwise cause you to shut down. We have come to believe it was as if two different people lived inside you, two distinct personalities, but you only related to the one you identify as Punk. Although you obviously were aware of the Bones personality as well and what that second personality said and did, we don’t think you metamorphosed into him. We believe that you always remained identified with the persona that you refer to as Punk, which allowed you to stand by and watch as if another person, all the deeds you perpetrated when you became Bones, but without realizing you were actually committing them.”
Punk did not move a muscle. This guy was so far out in left field that it was pitiful. “I see you’re still spouting the same old crap, right? You can’t really believe all that crazy stuff. Bones is as real as I am.”
“We don’t use that word here.”
“What word? Crap?”
“No. Crazy. The patients here are ill, not crazy.”
“Well, I’m not talkin’ about them, I’m talkin’ about you. Anyways, you oughta wake up and smell the coffee. Everybody in this place is pretty much bonkers, and you know it, too.”
“Please, listen to me. You have a serious mental disorder brought on by severe childhood abuse. Please understand that we’re all working very hard to help you resolve this issue. If you will allow yourself to relax and cooperate with our diagnosis and treatment, then you will be fine one day and you’ll be able to go home and lead a pleasant and productive life with your brothers.”
Listening to all that, yet again, Punk mainly latched on to the going home part. “What kind of therapy? What are you gonna do to me? You gonna cut up my brain and make me dumb like I saw once in that movie about flying over the cuckoo’s nest.”
“No, no, not to worry. We’ll just continue with your sessions where you’ll be encouraged to chat with us about your past and what you went through with your father. We want to try to figure out what initiated this fantasy figure that you’ve created inside your mind. Once we figure out what specifically caused this mental aberration, then we’ll talk through it with you.”
This doctor dude was so weirded out nuts that it was downright hard to watch, Punk thought, disgusted. Bones was every bit as real as he was. Nothing they could say would ever make him think otherwise. Just ask all the boys he beat up all those years. Just ask anybody who watched all those Saturday night fights. Nobody up around home gave out information to the cops, and didn’t trust them doctors, either. Maybe that’s why nobody copped to knowing Bones. It had to be something like that. But, maybe, if Punk just played along with this guy, see if he could get the shrinks to take off the chains, then he could escape and go back home and find his girl. He heaved in one deep breath. “Okay, but I’m tired of being locked up like this. Can’t you let me go around here some without all these restraints? I won’t hurt nobody. I swear to God, I won’t. I don’t even want to, not anymore.”
“In time that will happen. Once you convince us by your good behavior and willing cooperation that you never intend to hurt anyone else, ever again. You beat several men to death on the day they brought you here. Do you remember anything about that?”
“Bones did it. Not me. Why won’t you believe me?”
“You see, here again you have returned to that story, and rather convincingly, I must say. But as I said, there is no one named Bones in your life. He does not exist, and you need to accept that. He is nothing but a strong character in your imagination. One that is very real to you and that protects you and handles all the stressful events that you are forced to face. Your brothers have all told us that you’ve been volatile and unpredictable since you were a small boy.”
“What’s ‘volatile’?”
“In this context, it means high-strung, easily angered, aggressive, and prone to physical altercations.”
“That’s Bones to a T, I’m telling you. Not me. It’s not me! Why don’t you just believe what I say? I’m tellin’ you the truth. Why wouldn’t I? I wanna get outta here! My brothers are the ones who’re lyin
g.”
The shrink just looked sad. He shook his head. “Okay, I think that’s enough for today. You’re becoming agitated again. How about we make us a little deal, okay? If you are quiet and behave well and cause no more trouble for the nurses and orderlies, we’ll take off the restraints and let you mingle with the other patients in the common room. How does that sound?”
Now the guy was talking. “That would be good. I won’t make no problems at all, I swear it.”
“Then I guess you may go back to your room now and think about all the things we have discussed, and we’ll chat again tomorrow. Same time, same place.”
“Yes, doctor,” he said meekly. What a laugh. He couldn’t wait to fool this little sissy guy and head back home. He and Bones had some serious work to do.
Chapter Seventeen
Man, alive, Black was gonna be so royally pissed off, it wasn’t even funny, Claire thought, frowning at the mere idea of what he was going to say about what she was getting ready to do. But then again, he was still way down yonder in New Orleans waiting for the skies to clear, and totally unavailable to warn her off and/or accompany her to St. Louis to step into Ivan Petrov’s creepy and highly dangerous compound. Unfortunately, Charlie had ordered Bud and her to again postpone their planned trip to Fitch Hillbilly Hollow and to instead pay an up close and personal visit to a certain East St. Louis criminal don. They were almost there now, using Bud’s GPS to find the place. It was fairly isolated, too, especially being located so close to a large metropolitan area, but they finally found it, way out in some snowy woods in the middle of nowhere.