Husband and Wives

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  I used the butcher knife as a lever and was able to break the wood around the padlock and thereby open the lid. When I reached in for the little girl, she cringed at my touch. ‘Hurts,’ she said in a subdued voice.

  I was having daydreams about my interrogation of Michael McKinsey. I told the little girl, ‘Lie flat, honey. I’m gonna pick up the mattress so I don’t hurt you, OK?’

  She nodded her head. It was a piss-poor mattress, not more than a couple of inches thick, so I was able to cradle it around her as I lifted her out. She winced but didn’t cry out. I was thinking this was one hell of a brave little girl.

  Jason and Liz got back as I was bringing the child out of the house. Following close behind me was Jasmine with four other children. Jason had the child I’d brought out on the mattress in the back of the ambulance while me and Jasmine and Liz checked out the other four kids. The oldest was a youngish teenaged boy. His clothes were tattered. On further inspection, we noted his ribs were showing and his abdomen distended. The other kids were also malnourished and looked more like third-world children than residents of the US of A. I was real close to puking at this, and I don’t puke as a general rule.

  I left Jasmine to help with the kids, telling her I’d send back the SUV to pick ’em all up, and I headed to the station. I was ready to charge Michael McKinsey and his little wifey with battery and the attempted murder of Rachael McKinsey, child abuse, and the murder of Mary Hudson. I was also going to charge him with the vandalism at the Smithfield Grocery Store that happened a couple of weeks ago, and the rustling of three head of cattle I still had on the books from 1984.

  Before I went into the cell with Brother Michael, I called Bill Williams in Tejas County and asked him if he’d be so kind as to bring Brother Earl Mayhew to me. I figured as the leader of this flock of assholes, he had to have something to answer for.

  We have one interrogation room with a two-way mirror between it and the break room. It was two-paned and had some kind of tinted air in the middle that could be turned on and off so you couldn’t see through without flipping a switch, and waiting longer and longer the older the damned thing got. Dalton had put Michael McKinsey in the interrogation room, and Nita Skitteridge was watching over wife number two in the break room. I went into the interrogation room and slammed the door hard behind me.

  Michael McKinsey’s hands were cuffed in front of him, a courtesy I wouldn’t have given him had I been the one who’d placed him here. I woulda let him just sweat it with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was leaning forward, his hands on the table in front of him, and smiled when I entered the room.

  I just stood there for a minute, looking at him. Coaxing myself not to start beating on an unarmed and cuffed prisoner. Just wasn’t right, I kept telling myself, but in my head I kept seeing the shaved head and naked and bruised body of Rachael McKinsey and the emaciated bodies of the five children. Somehow beating the shit out of this guy seemed a lot more humane than what he’d done to his family.

  ‘You know,’ I told him, ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you never see the outside for the rest of your life.’

  ‘For what?’ he demanded, a scowl replacing the smile.

  ‘What you’ve done to your family,’ I said, not raising my voice. If I raised it, I might not be able to stop the violence that was bubbling up inside me.

  ‘My family is my business, Sheriff! You got no call messing in where you don’t belong! My wives and my kids are my business, not any of yours! I want my lawyer and I want him now!’

  ‘If your wife dies—’ I started.

  And he laughed. He shouldn’t have done that. I lunged

  across the table and grabbed him by the shirt front, pulling him onto the table, where my hands went around his neck . . .

  It took but a minute for Dalton Pettigrew and Holly Humphries to be in the room. Dalton pulled me offa him and Holly set the prisoner back in his chair. He had a bloody lip and his hair was mussed. I guess I’m getting old. The man wasn’t near dead, and I was sorry for that.

  ‘I’m gonna sue you personally, Sheriff! And the county! And maybe the State of Oklahoma!’

  ‘Now how are you going to spend all that money in jail?’ Holly asked him sweetly.

  ‘I said I want my lawyer and I want him now!’ McKinsey screamed.

  Holly put her arm in mine and let me escort her out of the room. Dalton followed, slamming the door harder than I did.

  When we got into the big room – where the front door opens in and there’s a waiting room, and a counter that closes off a bullpen of sorts – Holly patted my hand and said, ‘Sheriff Williams from Tejas and Pastor Mayhew are in your office, Sheriff. I’ll find out Mr McKinsey’s lawyer and give him a call. When I finish my nails,’ she said.

  I headed down the hall to my office, stopping halfway there to do a little deep breathing. I had questions for Brother Earl, but I didn’t want to take my wrath out on him. Not until I knew what he knew about the McKinsey household.

  The two were sitting in my visitors’ chairs when I walked in. I said, ‘Hey’ then rounded the desk to my chair and sat down.

  ‘Why have I been drug here, Sheriff Kovak?’ Brother Earl Mayhew said immediately, leaning forward over my desk.

  ‘I’m arresting a member of your flock and I thought you would want to be here,’ I said. By the look on Bill Williams’ face, I knew my speech pattern wasn’t normal yet. Maybe my voice was a little heavier than usual, or something.

  Earl Mayhew leaned back in his chair. ‘For goodness’ sake,’ he said. ‘You found out who murdered Sister Mary?’ he asked.

  ‘Possibly,’ I answered. ‘But the immediate arrest is for spousal abuse and child abuse.’

  And I got my answer. Brother Earl turned red in the face and looked at the floor. And didn’t say a word.

  ‘I suppose you know who I’m talking about,’ I said.

  He got his face under control and looked up. ‘No, Sheriff, I do not. I can’t imagine a member of our church behaving in such a way. Now you might just be confusing parental discipline with abuse. It’s happened before. Some people don’t believe in “spare the rod, spoil the child,” but we live by that credo in our church, Sheriff.’

  ‘How about starve the child, anything about that? Or beat the wife and shave her head? Got any homilies about that, Brother Earl?’ My voice was getting a little louder so I stopped talking and looked at my desk. I had to calm myself down. So I started counting, something Jean had taught me. When I looked up, Brother Earl was shaking his head and looking at his feet.

  ‘So what family you think I’m talking about, Brother Earl?’ I asked, and I couldn’t help myself, the ‘Brother Earl’ was still coming out sounding sarcastic.

  He looked up at me. ‘I’ll venture a guess, Sheriff. The McKinsey family?’

  ‘Now why would you think that?’

  He sighed. ‘I’m sorry; I’ve done all I can for that family! Brother Michael’s first wife, Nalene, ran off four years ago, right after he took Emily on as his second wife. Nalene never did have children, which was her reason for leaving – she felt so guilty, and then Emily was there for two years and never conceived either. And I got a call from a group in east Texas that had a widow with five children who needed a husband. So I talked to Michael about it and the two of us, we figured the woman already had five children, so obviously she could conceive, so Michael went down to east Texas and they got married there and he brought the whole family back. That had to be two years ago. And the whole family came to church regular for over a year, and then just Rachael and some of the children, and then less and less. Till around last Christmas, Rachael started coming by herself every once in a while with just Michael and Emily. And every time I asked about the children, Michael would just say that with that many kids, there was always something going around. Flu, a cold, something like that.’

  ‘And did Rachael conceive in the two years she was with Michael?’ I asked.

  Bro
ther Earl shook his head. ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Did anybody ever think,’ Bill Williams said, standing up from his chair, his voice hoarse with probably the same emotion I’d been fighting for hours, ‘that this Michael, the husband, that he was the one who was shooting blanks? Huh? Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle!’

  ‘Well, now, no, I never thought about that,’ Brother Earl said.

  ‘Then you’re as dumb a fuck as he is!’ Bill said, and sank back down in his chair.

  Jean Mcdonnell – Thursday

  Holly Humphries called me to let me know that Rachael and the children were coming into the hospital. The daycare was getting ready to close, so I asked my secretary to pick up John and bring him to my office, then I notified the ER and headed down there myself. Rachael was immediately rushed to intensive care and the children treated with emergency care then sent to the pediatric wing. I went with them upstairs. There were two boys and three girls. The boys shared a room and a third bed was brought into another room so all three girls could be together. The girl with the shorn hair and black dress was named Melissa. It took about an hour of hydration before she began to talk, and this young lady seemed to have no desire to ever stop talking.

  ‘They’re horrible people!’ she told me in a hoarse voice. ‘He beats on my mommy and she doesn’t feed us all day sometimes! She calls my mommy names and sometimes she hits her too! And she locked me in the cellar for two days one time and then she started shaving my head, but my mommy made her stop, and then she started hitting my mommy! And then Papa comes in – he made us call him papa, but he isn’t our papa! Our real daddy died when he fell off the tractor and it ran over him! There was blood everywhere; I heard my mommy tell our preacher! And not that Brother Earl either, our real preacher back in Tyler! Brother Timothy! Brother Earl’s always saying that girls are unclean and should be kept away some of the time. I don’t know when, but I don’t wanna ever be kept away, but I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be kept away from! He just don’t make any sense, that Brother Earl! Brother Timothy was always nice and talked about heaven and Jesus and stuff, not about the Devil and damnation and how bad women are! My mommy’s a woman and she’s not bad at all!’

  She stopped and I took a long breath. ‘Wow,’ I said.

  ‘And that’s not all . . .’ she said, starting up again.

  I touched her arm. ‘Melissa, I think you need to rest, you’ve been through a horrible ordeal—’

  ‘I don’t know what an ordeal is, but I can tell you this, Papa’s a bad man! He hits all the time, and not just me and Mommy, he hits the boys a bunch! Mommy would get mad and try to stop him, and then he’d just start hitting her! I don’t like Papa one little bit, and you can tell him I said so!’

  I could see why Michael and Emily had abused this child more than the others: Melissa had spunk. She stood up to them and probably talked back to them – certainly talked back to them. I patted her hand and told her I’d be back in a minute, and went into the next room to talk to the boys.

  The oldest at fourteen, Matthew, was subdued, but the anger he was feeling radiated off his body like a high fever. ‘May I talk to you?’ I asked him.

  He nodded his head but didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m trying to find out what went on in that house. The more information we have, the longer we can put Michael and Emily away for. What can you tell me?’

  Matthew shrugged his shoulders but didn’t open his mouth. I turned to his brother, Luke, who was twelve. ‘How about you?’

  He looked to his older brother for guidance and then just shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know why you two won’t talk to me,’ I said, ‘but I want you to know that Melissa already has.’

  Luke snorted, and I looked at him. ‘What?’ I asked.

  He again looked at his brother, then back at me. ‘Melissa don’t suffer fools gladly,’ he said.

  ‘And that means . . .?’ I started.

  ‘It means,’ Matthew said, rising up on his elbows, ‘that she’s braver than me and she took them assholes on when I was too chicken shit to do it, and she got beat for her efforts. And her pretty hair was all cut off!’ There were tears in his eyes when he threw his body back on the bed.

  ‘That’s not your fault, Matthew,’ I said. ‘If you had interfered they would have just beaten you and still hurt Melissa.’

  ‘I’m the man of my family,’ he said. ‘At least I’m supposed to be. Instead, looks like Melissa turned out to be.’

  The gender roles in this family were so tightly specific that it was hard to find a toehold to give the boy some comfort. Luke just looked at the floor, refusing to look at either his brother or me. I’m sure he felt the same as Matthew, that Matthew had messed up and that he, Luke, should have taken his place but didn’t. And they both felt shame that a girl had to take up for the family.

  I forget sometimes how far we’ve come, even in a small town like Longbranch. Gender roles are probably a bit more specific here than in a large city, but still there are women deputies at the sheriff’s department and male nurses at the hospital, and I saw a young woman up on a telephone pole just last week. We accept these things. Sure, there are a lot of stay-at-home moms, but these days it’s mostly their choice, and there are some men who chose to stay at home with their children as well. These things are commonplace now, so much so that it’s a shock when you find families, such as some of these plural ones, locked in nineteenth-century gender roles.

  But the McKinsey family was dabbling in more than gender preference: what they’d been doing to the family from Tyler, Texas, amounted to slavery. It was going to take these children, and their mother, a long time to recover from what Michael and Emily McKinsey had put them through.

  Milt Kovak – Thursday

  Around eight o’clock that night, about an hour after Bill Williams had taken Brother Earl Mayhew back to Tejas County, I got a text from Holly Humphries, who was working some overtime.

  ‘Mr McKinsey’s lawyer’s here, Sheriff,’ she said.

  Oh, goodie, I thought, wondering who would be stupid enough to admit they were that asshole’s lawyer. ‘Send him in,’ I told Holly.

  I was looking down at some paperwork when a shadow was cast across my office floor. I looked up to see David Bollinger, the only father of a normal-looking plural family, standing there.

  ‘Hey, Sheriff,’ he said, smiling big at me. ‘I’m Mike McKinsey’s attorney. Can we talk?’

  I halfway stood up and waved my hand at one of my visitor’s chairs. ‘Have a seat,’ I said.

  He did and then breathed a big sigh. ‘Now this is a real kettle of fish, don’t you think?’

  ‘If you’re referring to the charges against Mr McKinsey,’ I said, ‘I think it’s a bit more than a kettle of fish. Or even a barrel of monkeys. It’s more like a cage full of abused and neglected children.’

  Bollinger shook his head. ‘Brother Earl Mayhew, our pastor?’

  I nodded my head.

  ‘He called me. Told me what had happened. I had a message on my phone from Mike saying he was in trouble and at the sheriff’s office, but he didn’t say what for.’

  ‘Have you been in to see him yet?’ I asked.

  ‘No, sir,’ he said, shaking his head for emphasis. ‘I wanted to hear it from you first.’

  Since he was the defense attorney, I just gave him the basics. I’d already talked to our DA and he was working up as many charges as he could come up with, so I didn’t want Bollinger to know all the aces up our sleeves.

  Bollinger shook his head all through what I had to say. When I stopped, still shaking his head, he said, ‘There’s got to be some mistake. I’ve known Mike since we moved here. Good man. Real good man. Not a bit of violence in him. I’d stake my reputation on that.’

  ‘You do that a lot?’ I asked. ‘Stake your reputation on the vagrancies of assholes?’

  Bollinger stood up. ‘I’d like to see my client now,’ he said.

 
I pushed the button on our new telephone system that got me to Holly. ‘Yes, sir?’ she said.

  ‘Mr Bollinger, the attorney, is coming out now. Please let him see the prisoner,’ I said. I thought the words ‘the prisoner’ rather than ‘his client’ sounded lots better.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Holly said.

  I pointed at the door and Bollinger nodded his head. ‘Thank you, Sheriff.’

  I just nodded back.

  Twenty minutes later, Bollinger came out of our little cellblock and strolled down to my office. He was grinning as he leaned against my doorjamb. ‘You’re not getting sued,’ he said.

  ‘That’s good,’ I said, leaning back in my chair.

  ‘County’s not getting sued.’

  ‘That’s good too.’

  ‘Oklahoma’s not getting sued.’

  ‘That works.’

  ‘Other than that, what can I say?’ he said.

  ‘Well, you could say the asshole pleads guilty to all charges, including the murder of Mary Hudson,’ I said.

  Bollinger was shaking his head before I got all my words out.

  ‘Not going to happen,’ he said. ‘I’m a tax attorney, not a criminal attorney, so I’ll have to find him one.’

  ‘Who’s gonna pay for all this?’ I asked.

  ‘All what, Sheriff?’

  ‘Your services, the criminal attorney’s services, all that?’ I asked.

  He smiled but shook his head. ‘That’s not for me to say.’ He straightened up from my doorjamb. ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days, let you know the new attorney’s name, or he or she will call you. Got any referrals?’

  I just smiled and watched as he left the office. Then the question became, did Michael McKinsey kill Mary Hudson, or was it someone else? Did I formally charge McKinsey with it or not? I needed to have a talk with our little assistant district attorney.

  I usually only have a deputy on duty till midnight, then we got somebody on call, which means the phone calls, if we get any, are directed to that person’s cell phone. Back in the old days, we had to either have somebody on duty all night or, for a while, we just went with a sign on the door saying call this number in an emergency. Now we’ve got all these new gadgets that do everything but blow your nose, and then half the time they don’t work. OK, half the time they don’t work for me. I’m snake-bit when it comes to electronic bullshit. I put a finger on a computer or one of them fancy cell phones or a blackberry or any of that other crap, and it’s just gonna up and die. Hand to God.