My insides were boiling. I couldn’t believe this nineteenth-century bullshit! These two precious little girls were being deprived of an education and called retarded just because they weren’t boys. I was trying to think of something concrete I could get Milt to charge Thomas Whitman with so he could be arrested and rot in jail. Then I realized I needed to calm down. I would do Sarie and her daughters no good thinking like this.
‘Sarie, there are laws about children getting proper schooling. It’s OK to home-school children if you follow the state guidelines and if they’re tested by the state every few years to see that they’re on task. Otherwise, they need to go to an accredited school. Your best bet would be the local public school for both girls. I think we could get Melinda in the pre-k. She’s a little behind in language. And I’d suggest Margaret go into kindergarten. I would be happy to go with you to speak to Mr Whitman about this and let him know that the girls must be in school.’
Again, Sarie was shaking her head before I stopped talking. ‘Thomas’ll just say that me or Jane Marie should home-school ’em.’
‘I’m afraid neither of you would be eligible for that. You’d have to pass a test on knowledge and other things.’ (I wasn’t sure about this, but at this point I didn’t care. Neither she nor Jane Marie were competent to teach these girls.) ‘I’ll tell Thomas that I don’t want to have to go to children’s services, but if he doesn’t enroll these children by the end of the week, I will. Do you think he wants the girls taken into custody?’
Sarie began to cry outright. ‘Oh, no! Of course he don’t! Oh, please, Doctor, don’t do that!’
I touched her hand. ‘I don’t want to, Sarie. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. Why don’t I follow you home and the two of us talk to Thomas?’
‘You know what time it is?’ Sarie asked, wiping her eyes with a tissue from the box on the table next to her.
‘A little after four,’ I said.
‘We gotta wait for Thomas. He’s gonna pick us back up around six o’clock,’ she said.
I smiled. ‘Were you planning on having dinner here or in town?’
Sarie shook her head. ‘Oh no, ma’am. I don’t have any money. Thomas had to go back to the farm and do some work. He said if I was set on coming here, I could just wait until he finished what he was doing and he’d come pick us up.’
My whole body clinched. I so wanted to send Thomas Whitman back to the century where he belonged. I was thinking a swift kick in the ass might do the trick.
‘I’ll drive you to the farm, Sarie. And we can have that chat with Thomas when we get there.’ Maybe, I thought, just maybe, I’ll cool down by then. But I kind of doubted it.
Milt Kovak – Thursday
I called Charlie Smith, police chief of Longbranch, when I got back to the office. Charlie was a good ol’ boy, late of Oklahoma City, now here for about a year. We’d worked a couple of cases together and I’d say we’ve become close to being friends.
When he answered his direct line with a ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘Hey, Charlie, it’s me, Milt.’
And he said, ‘Well, hey, Milt, how they hanging?’
And we jawed a little like that for a few minutes, then I asked him, ‘You ever heard of a guy named Michael McKinsey?’
‘Big ol’ boy, blond Marine cut, newish Dodge Ram?’
‘That’s the guy,’ I said.
‘Oh, yeah. Real handy with his fists. Works at the refinery on Highway Five, on the way to Tulsa?’
‘Yeah, I know the one.’
‘Been called on him a couple of times. Likes to beat up his underlings when they don’t do what he says.’ Charlie sighed. ‘Wish I could get away with that.’
‘He gets away with it?’
‘Nobody ever wants to press charges. I talked to the powers that be over there and they say they’ll keep an eye on him, but from what I understand he’s got the most productive team on any shift. They don’t wanna mess with a good thing, know what I mean?’
‘Yeah, I hear you. Reason I’m calling, I’m wondering if you ever got a domestic call on him?’
‘Domestic? Hum. Let me see. What’s the address?’ he asked.
I rattled it off to him.
‘Don’t see anything. But it makes sense. Feels he can rough up people who work under him, wouldn’t be a stretch to think he’d be a wife-beater. You get a call?’
‘Naw. I went over there . . .’ Now did I tell Charlie we had plural families in our midst? Or not? I finally said, ‘I saw his wife. She’d had her face slapped real recent and had bruises on her.’
‘Maybe I should have a patrol car cruise by there every once in a while.’
‘Couldn’t hurt. But he’s got a lot of land around him, and his wife doesn’t seem like the screaming type. Might be hard to know what’s going on inside from the street.’
‘Don’t worry, Milt,’ Charlie said. ‘I learned some interesting techniques while on the mean streets of OK City. I’ve passed ’em on to some of my boys.’
‘The mean streets of OK City?’ I repeated and laughed. ‘Whatever.’
‘Hey, it sounded good for a minute there,’ Charlie said and hung up.
I was still chuckling about the mean streets of OK City when Holly Humphries came in.
‘Sheriff?’ she said, leaning on the doorjamb.
‘Yeah, Holly?’ I said.
‘You have some visitors. Pastor Earl Mayhew and his son.’
Hum. Now this was interesting. ‘Send ’em on back, Holly, and thank you.’
‘You’re welcome, Sheriff.’
In a minute, Holly was back ushering the two Mayhews into my office. Now see? Gladys never would have done that. She’d just point in the general direction and hope for the best. Well, actually, no, she wouldn’t hope for the best. She’d point ’em in the general direction and forget about it.
I stood up as they came in and Holly said, ‘Can I get anybody anything to drink?’
Pastor Mayhew, or whatever they called him, and I shook our heads, but Jr said, ‘Could I have a Dr Pepper, please?’
Holly smiled. ‘Sure. Be right back.’
I shook hands with Pastor Mayhew, sr. He introduced his son, and I shook hands with him too. By the time that was finished, Holly was back with the Dr Pepper and I asked her to shut the door on her way out. Then we all sat down. Sometimes it seems to take a while to be civilized.
‘What can I do for you, Pastor Mayhew?’ I asked.
‘Please, it’s not Pastor. Just call me Brother Earl.’
‘OK, fine, Brother Earl. What can I do for you?’
He put a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘My daughter, Naomi Ruth? She’s married to David Bollinger?’
‘Yes, sir. I met them and the rest of the family earlier.’
‘Naomi Ruth tells me she mentioned to you that Buddy here – he’s Christened Earl Vernon Mayhew Jr, but we just call him Buddy – that he had seemed overly interested in Sister Mary Hudson, and we just came here to straighten all that out.’
‘I see,’ I said. Then I looked right at Buddy and he spilled a little of the Dr Pepper he’d just put to his mouth. ‘Were you overly interested in Sister Mary Hudson?’ I asked.
Some of the Dr Pepper dribbled down his chin as he drew the bottle back. ‘Oh, no, sir,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’
‘You were seen peeking in the windows of the kindergarten class she taught at the church,’ I said.
‘Ah . . .’ He looked at his father.
‘Go ahead, boy,’ Brother Earl said. ‘Tell him what you were doing and why!’
Buddy took a deep breath and blurted out the following: ‘I was suspicious that some of the teenagers were picking on the little kids and I looked in the window of the kindergarten class to make sure they weren’t, just like I checked all the little kid classes, and when I realized they weren’t there and I saw Sister Mary all by herself I was worried those boys might come in and bother her so I just watched to make sure they didn’t.’ And
then he took another breath. And yes, it sounded rehearsed.
‘Um hum,’ I said. I leaned back in my chair, elbows on the arms of the chair, and steepled my fingers. That wasn’t rehearsed, but it looked damned impressive. ‘Well now, son, I thank you for coming in.’ I stood up and reached a hand out to Brother Earl. We shook, then I shook Jr’s hand. ‘Boy, you work or what?’
‘Buddy is my second-in-command at the church,’ Brother Earl said. ‘I’m training him to take my place in a few years.’
‘Well, ain’t that nice,’ I said. ‘I may have to come up y’all’s way a couple more times, but I’ll try my darnedest not to be intrusive,’ I said, ushering them out the door.
They were both smiling when they left. I didn’t intend for them to keep those smiles. Earl Jr was lying through his teeth and Daddy Earl knew it, had even probably told the boy what to say. This whole thing was turning out to be more fun than I ever thought it was gonna be.
Jean Mcdonnell – Thursday
I drove Sarie Whitman and her girls home in my car. She wasn’t the world’s greatest conversationalist. As a matter of fact, she was quite poor at that particular art. My initial conversational gambits, such as, ‘So, Sarie, what do you do for fun?’ and ‘How do you like living in this area?’ and ‘It’s fairly warm for October!’ were met with one- or two-word answers. Finally she started a conversation of her own.
‘Dr McDonnell, how come you wear them braces and walk with them crutches?’
‘I had polio as a child,’ I told her.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
So I told her about the plague of polio that had long since been eradicated, and about all the children it had taken for so long. She shuddered thinking about it. ‘That’s just horrible,’ she said.
‘I was one of the lucky ones,’ I told her.
‘But you can’t hardly walk!’ she said.
I laughed. I knew she wasn’t being mean. She was just being earnestly ignorant. ‘Actually I walk quite well,’ I said. ‘The only time in my life I haven’t been able to get around on my own was in the last couple of months of my pregnancy with my son. I had to use a wheelchair because my balance was off.’
Sarie laughed. ‘I understand that! I coulda used a wheelchair with both my girls. I fell down a lot!’
I pulled into the driveway of the farm and Sarie quieted down. I could see Thomas Whitman on his tractor, turning over a field a few hundred yards to the left of us. I pulled the car into the yard and we all piled out. Jane Marie came out of the house and stood on the porch, looking at us. She wore the same dark dress she’d worn before, and her lusterless hair still hung in strings down her back. She didn’t say anything, and the two little girls certainly didn’t run to her with open arms.
Thomas appeared to see us, pulled up the equipment on the back of the tractor, and drove the tractor toward us.
I asked Sarie, ‘Can Jane Marie take the girls inside?’
Sarie was chewing her lips. Finally she said, ‘Girls, go with Jane Marie.’
The girls didn’t hesitate, but headed up to the porch. Jane Marie didn’t smile at them, but she did touch them both gently on their heads and ushered them inside.
Thomas Whitman stopped the tractor and climbed down. ‘Thought you was gonna wait for me in town?’ he said to Sarie.
‘The doctor wanted to talk to you anyway, Thomas, so she drove us home.’
Not looking at me, he said, ‘Do I owe her money?’
‘For driving us?’ she asked.
He laughed and came closer, taking her hand. ‘No, silly. For seeing you and the girls.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘This was on the county.’
The smile left his face. Again, to his wife, he said, ‘Tell her we don’t take charity, Sarie.’
She turned to look at me, her mouth open to speak. I interrupted. ‘This isn’t charity, Mr Whitman. It’s part of the school board’s new policy about enrolling children in school,’ I said, making it up as I went along. ‘When I realized neither girl was in school, I felt it was my responsibility to see to it that they were set up to enter. I know Melinda’s a little young, but she would surely benefit from pre-K, and Margaret is way overdue for schooling. She’s a bright young girl who needs to be in a proper setting to reach her potential.’
‘Tell that doctor that those girls are retarded and I can’t have them—’
‘No, sir!’ Sarie said, squaring her shoulders. ‘I will not say my daughters are retarded! Because they’re not! The doctor said so! And I won’t be having you calling them retarded either! Because they’re not! Do you hear me, Thomas Whitman?’
Whitman scowled at his wife. ‘Go in the house now, girl!’
‘I will not! I don’t know what Jane Marie has been telling you about my girls, but there’s nothing wrong with them! They are not possessed by the Devil! Margaret talked funny when she was a baby but . . .’ She turned to look at me, a pleading look on her face.
‘A lot of children have early speech problems, but they often just work themselves out, like Margaret’s did.’
‘And a lot of children are possessed by demons!’ Thomas Whitman said, still looking only at his wife.
Sarie put her hands on her hips. ‘You listen here, Thomas! I never once defied you in all these seven years I’ve been married to you. But on this I’m taking a stand! Those girls are going to school. If they don’t then I’m gonna have to leave you because the doctor here said the State of Oklahoma will come and take away my children because you won’t let them go to school! So I’ll leave you and find someplace else to live so that my girls can go to school! Do you hear me, Thomas? Do you want me to leave? Because I’ll do it! And all you’ll have is Jane Marie for company, Thomas! Is that what you want? And while we’re on the subject –’ Sarie’s voice was getting louder – ‘it’s beyond time for Jane Marie to move on. She’s thirty-five years old, Thomas, and I know and you know that there’s no man out there gonna marry her, so it’s time she moved in with those women over in Tejas County that live in that dorm thingy by the church. Now you agree to all this right here and now or me and the girls will just ride back into town with Dr McDonnell and find us a room to live in.’
I was totally dumbfounded. But I just stood there and waited. As did Sarie. Thomas Whitman worked his jaw some, took off his hat twice and put it back on twice, then looked at his wife. ‘OK,’ he said.
SIX
Milt Kovak – Thursday
It was still daytime and I figured Michael McKinsey was at work. So I grabbed Jasmine Bodine Hopkins, one of my deputies, and headed the couple of miles to the McKinsey house. I knew Rachael wouldn’t talk to me without her husband, but maybe she’d talk to Jasmine. Just a hunch.
The other wife, Emily if I remembered correctly, opened the door. She looked directly at me and said, ‘What can I do for you, Sheriff?’
I nudged Jasmine and she said, ‘We’d like to see Mrs McKinsey.’ I nudged her again. ‘The other Mrs McKinsey.’ I nudged her again, hoping she wouldn’t bruise. ‘Rachael McKinsey.’
Emily gave Jasmine a smirk. ‘I’m afraid Sister Rachael is not receiving visitors today.’
Excuse my French, but I thought fuck it, and said, ‘Let me in now or I come back with a warrant.’
The little bitch said, ‘Come back with a warrant,’ and slammed the door in my face.
I gave Jasmine the keys to my Jeep. ‘Go see Judge Lee and get me a goddamned warrant now! Use the siren coming and going!’
Jasmine took off at a trot to the Jeep and burned rubber getting out of the driveway.
I stood in the driveway, placing bets with myself on who would show up first – Jasmine with the warrant or Michael McKinsey and his Dodge Ram pick-up. It was almost a tie: Jasmine came screeching in with the warrant only a minute before Michael McKinsey came Rambo-ing in from the other side of the circular drive. It looked amusing, but actually that was the last thing it was.
I grabbed the warrant from Jasmine and hit the fro
nt door the same time as Michael. I handed him the warrant as I banged on the door.
‘What are you looking for?’ Michael demanded.
‘Everything,’ I said as I pushed past Emily and headed into the bowels of the house.
I found Rachael in a small room off the kitchen. Inside was a large crib with a top on it that was locked with a padlock. The little girl I’d seen the last time I’d been in the house – the little girl with the shorn head and the black dress – was inside the crib. The stench in the room was unbearable. There was a bare mattress on the floor and Rachael was on that. She was naked and her head had been shaved. As there were no blankets or anything else in the room, Jasmine said, ‘Give me your jacket,’ then took it and covered Rachael with it. The woman was alive, but not by much. It was hard to see any pink skin on her naked form – most of her body was covered in bruises, in all shades, from the deepest black to purple and yellow, some parts oozing blood.
I used my walkie to call for an ambulance and back-up. Everybody in this house was going in. I went back in the living room. Michael was yelling at Emily, who was yelling back. I went up to the man of the house, stared him in the face and started reciting his Miranda rights. He, of course, started yelling at me. I kneed him in the groin, and while he was bent over, shoved him frontwards onto the couch, my knee in his back as I continued reading him his rights and cuffing him. Emily, meanwhile, was pounding on my back and yelling at me. Before I had a chance to cuff her, Dalton Pettigrew and Nita Skitteridge showed up, as well as an ambulance. I yelled for Jasmine, who was still back with Rachael and the little girl, and she came out to get the paramedics while Nita grabbed Emily McKinsey and cuffed her.
I sent Michael and Emily out with my deputies, grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and went back to the little room by the kitchen.
The paramedics, Jason Pool and Liz Johnson, took Rachael’s vitals and were dead set on getting her to the hospital. I told ’em to go on but to come back in case there were more problems. They left, and while I worked on the lock to get the little girl out of the crib, I sent Jasmine to check the other rooms.
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