Raveled

by McAneny, Anne

  Of all the good instincts I followed in my life—saving my mother from choking, calling 9-1-1 when my father hit his head—I suffered the biggest failure of my life that night. I lunged at Smitty who didn’t seem to realize what he’d done. I seized the rope, still in his hands, hoping the two of us could keep Shelby from crashing to the floor.

  I should have done just the opposite.

  The rope caught hard and fast in a seam between two pieces of floor board, wedging itself in and providing the dreaded fulcrum that would lead to her assured death. I’ll never forget the sudden jerk on the rope as Shelby reached the end of its slack, a wrenching force ten times more powerful than the mere child at its end.

  We hanged that poor girl. She died at the end of that rope, her neck snapped from the impact. At least I hope that’s what happened. For thirty interminable seconds, we kept her suspended, unsure if we should pull her up or let her drop to the floor. We screamed at each other above the screeching music, two compromised minds arguing over the life or death of another. We finally decided to let her fall in case she was still breathing. The secondary impact fractured her leg and arm. God strike me dead if she was still alive, struggling for air during those thirty seconds.

  So you see, I’m confessing to Shelby Anderson’s murder, and I’m doing it by default for Smitty. He never was one to do the right thing by impulse. I concede, however, that he did possess the smarts and wherewithal to set fire to the Hesters’ barn the next day. Bobby and I used to joke that Smitty could never be a streaker because his ass was always covered. I apologize for making light; I am only trying to convey impressions.

  From the moment Shelby’s body hit the floor, I entered some form of shock. The odd brain power I possessed—at least according to school administrators—did not serve me well that night. I’ve blacked out most of the details, such as what Smitty and I said to each other while we climbed down the ladders, assuming we said anything at all. I remember throwing up in the corner and I recall the soft, yielding white of Shelby’s skin when I checked her pulse. I held her wrist for a long time, convinced its internal meter was merely stalled, not stopped. Smitty pulled me away.

  The suddenness of transition from life to death—the fragility astounds.

  My only concrete memory is the dichotomy of the beauty of Shelby’s face, like an angel in repose, against the disjointed fashion in which her body had landed. From then on, a blank.

  Smitty must have held it together. I suppose we negotiated over calling the police or hiding the body or leaving it for Bobby to deal with. I don’t remember.

  Smitty eventually noticed Bobby’s prolonged absence and ventured to Artie’s Autos to see if he could find him. One of us must have turned off the music because the impenetrable silence of those minutes as I sat alone with Shelby’s body nearly crushed me. Upon Smitty’s return, he asked if I really thought that covering her body in layers of hay would hide her. I didn’t remember covering her but I mumbled something about keeping her warm.

  After that, I only remember one short portion of our walk to Licking Dog Creek. I held Shelby’s legs and Smitty her shoulders. He needed to stop and rest so we laid her gently on the ground. In that minute, even with the startling lack of moonlight, I saw Shelby’s soul leave her body. Like a wisp of smoke populated only by a pair of green eyes. They sought mine, as they had before her descent, and conveyed a message of peace.

  It happened, that last part, it truly happened. If not for that moment, I’d have killed myself several times over.

  I have no memory of lifting her again or of putting her body in the creek, but we must have. Smitty never would clarify things for me. He refused to speak of the events ever again. With one exception.

  Two months later, he showed up at my house and asked if he’d imagined it or if I had taken a picture of him and Bobby when I reached the high loft. I knew why he was asking; he was hardly seeking memorabilia. He wanted the evidence. Everything else had worked out neat as a pin for non-streaker Smitty. Mr. Fennimore had been arrested for Bobby’s murder and nobody had ever realized that Bobby had been tied up with rope from his own car. Shelby’s body had been found two weeks later and Mr. Fennimore stood accused because Smitty and I must have left that piece of rope around her waist.

  My guess is that some of Shelby’s hair remained on Bobby’s clothing and a few strands transferred to Mr. Fennimore inside that garage. No one ever associated Bobby with Shelby, though.

  To answer Smitty’s camera question, I revealed to him a half-truth. I confessed to finding a camera and taking some pictures with it, but claimed to have left it on the loft. He naturally assumed it had burned in the fire. He never considered that it was ten feet away in the top of my closet, and that you, dear reader, would now be in possession of it.

  As for Bobby, I don’t know what happened to him once he entered Artie’s Autos. I comforted myself for a time thinking that if Mr. Fennimore were to suffer the death penalty for Bobby’s murder, it might be feasible to let him take the blame for Shelby Anderson. Even my dear mother begged my silence. She couldn’t bear the thought of her only son in the clutches of Mayor Robert Kettrick. Despite the opposition, I had decided to tell the truth the morning of the verdict, but when Mr. Fennimore hanged himself, I lost my opportunity and sold my soul. Through a team of lawyers, the Kettricks began paying my mother’s medical expenses. They obtained for her the best possible care, even providing a state-of-the-art hospital bed. They offered to move us to an apartment in town but we declined, preferring the familiarity of our established home. They helped us with our bills and eventually provided an anonymous third party bank account for my college tuition. All to keep me quiet about Bobby’s role in Shelby’s death.

  Nothing compromises a man’s soul more than its sale. One day, I fear, I shall pay with my sanity.

  I understand my inaction has destroyed the lives of innocent people, namely the Anderson and Fennimore families. I regret my weakness of character and hope that this letter will bring some peace to them. The enclosed camera should help prove my version of events.

  ~Jasper Shifflett

  Chapter 44

  Allison… present

  My thoughts battled for priority. The fight grew so frenzied, they all lost. I stared inanely at the Shifflett of Jasper’s signature, noting how the f’s dipped so perfectly, balancing the t’s. Gradually, my body melted into the mattress, fragmented into a thousand conflicting impulses. I couldn’t have moved if the room had spontaneously combusted, not an unheard of possibility with the hydrochloric acid on the bedside table.

  Ideas formed begrudgingly, haltingly, like a pyramid built by weary slaves. Had Shelby Anderson been murdered or was she the victim of a terrible accident? She died, literally, at Smitty’s hand, but Jasper had grabbed the rope, too. Did Smitty harbor evil intent when he jerked the rope? Could his slight shot of elbow pain have been that debilitating? Might he have tugged the rope on purpose, angry at Shelby for not showing him the goods? If he’d given in to just one iota of his sexual frustration, it might have spelled doom for Shelby and a lifetime of guilt for Smitty.

  Which was worse—the cover-up or the crime? Smitty and Jasper had consigned Shelby’s parents to a hellish limbo over the fate of their daughter. For two weeks, they had seen the posters go up. They’d watched the desperate pleas from Mr. and Mrs. Anderson on television and in the town square. They’d driven by, maybe even volunteered for, the citizen-brigade searches sweeping through field and forest. They’d seen policemen storming foreclosed homes and poking sticks into overgrown shrubs surrounding three-wheeled cars on cinder blocks. Most of it stood as a haze in my mind, but I did recall all too clearly the cloud of suspicion hanging over my father in regard to Shelby’s disappearance. After all, if he’d been too delirious to remember shooting a boy in cold blood, why wouldn’t that same mental state have led him to kidnap and kill a young girl, perhaps one he’d tied up somewhere earlier in the day? It was a destitute two weeks for all involved.


  It certainly didn’t help matters when Smitty’s dad, of all people, came forward after the discovery of Shelby’s body to say he’d seen my dad walking back from the direction of Licking Dog Creek. And now, to realize that Mr. Smith must have known the truth all along—that his own son had tied the noose that strangled Shelby. Abel Smith had sacrificed my dad right along with everyone else.

  My brother’s years on the road hadn’t been futile at all. He was absolutely right about human nature.

  Now what? I held it all in my hands. My father’s partial exoneration. Jasper’s confession. Smitty’s undoing. Bobby’s fall from grace. Neat as a pin on 8.5” x 11” sheets of faded paper… in the words of a psychiatric patient.

  I needed those pictures.

  Chapter 45

  Allison… present

  The VideoMagic shop opened just two months ago, according to the faded Grand Opening banner hanging limply above the door. They specialized in converting old videotape formats that had become obsolete. Technology’s lightning advancements had created a new niche of companies that could help the perennially behind humans keep up. The metallic sign in the front window boasted that the videomagicians could convert any medium, including last century’s VHS tapes, into DVD’s, YouTube clips, Flash Drives, or whatever cloud-like technology was invented the day before. They also developed photos, retouched wrinkled and torn memories of yore, and could Photoshop you onto Mount Rushmore if you so desired. The sooner the record of one’s memories became archaic, the faster VideoMagic’s cash registers opened, ready to aid in the hamster wheel race against progress.

  To add to my delight in finding them, VideoMagic was run by two non-native college grads who hadn’t spent their childhoods marinating in Lavitte’s sordid history. They’d no doubt chosen our fair town because they sensed the prevalence of dusty closets, rife with ancient footage of birthdays, weddings, first steps and graduations. No one ever recorded deaths, divorces, last steps and failures, but if they had, then in Lavitte’s dark basements they would remain.

  I entered the store. It smelled of new carpet, Freon, and photo processing chemicals. My lungs would pay for an extended stay at this establishment but I wasn’t leaving without my prize.

  “Hey,” said a hirsute young man sitting behind the counter. His flat voice suggested he preferred sleep over customer service and that all his enthusiasm for the store had been used up on the exclamation points on the signs. “Help you?”

  “Can you develop the pictures in this?” I held out Jasper’s camera.

  One barely detectable glance at the flimsy device told him enough. “Sure.”

  “The film inside is over fifteen years old.”

  “Whatever,” he said.

  “I can’t chance ruining it. Are you sure you guys can handle it?”

  His glimpse at the camera was more detectable this time, but barely. “Yup.”

  I considered walking out and taking it to the police. They would at least have specialists in this area who would be vigilant with potential evidence, but the childhood fear of Mayor Kettrick and his rangy influence remained rooted in me.

  “I need it today,” I said. “Right away.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  That one really flummoxed him. He looked around but the only other human in the store sat in the back drinking coffee and rubbing his head. Staring at the camera instead of me, he said, “Uh, it’s policy to say we need forty-eight hours to turn jobs around.”

  “I absolutely need the photos today. I’ll pay extra.”

  He seemed so baffled, I almost felt sorry for him. “Hold on.” He swayed into the back room, consulted the other dude, who never stopped massaging his temples, and returned. “Okay, we can do it today.”

  “And the camera will stay here, on-site?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll wait,” I said.

  “Really?” he said, showing his first sign of life with a couple blinks and a modicum of eye contact.

  I supposed that in a generation where there was always an update to be posted, a text to be returned, or a photo to upload, the concept of doing nothing but sitting and waiting seemed foreign to him. But I wasn’t about to let that camera out of my sight. Plus, if the photos were gruesome or disturbing, or if these yahoos happened to recognize Shelby Anderson, I wanted to be the one they asked for an explanation—not the police. Though really, would either of these guys have the energy or inclination to pull out their phones and call the cops?

  “It’s pretty urgent,” I said. “And the photos might be of a sensitive nature.”

  “Okay.” And with that, he disappeared into the back, his torn rear pocket trailing behind him.

  I found an empty display area where I could sit and stare out the window and still remain a quick head-turn away from Cheech and Chong while they treated my evidence like a kid’s birthday photos. Other customers came and went, the energy of the counter dude increasing as the minutes ticked by. His Red Bull must have kicked in.

  As I gazed out the window, my eyes locked onto a big rock disrupting the edge of the parking lot between VideoMagic and a neighboring drug store. Fences changed in Lavitte, kittens replaced worn-out cats, and new babies filled old cribs, but the rocks stayed put, as if an ancient decree mandated that all structures must give right-of-way to these hunks of mineral composites and their comfort. The rocks might not grow roots, but they surely harbored twisted secrets. Remembrances of who kicked them, sat on them… leaned a bike against them. Last night, I’d found a picture in my dad’s evidence box of Shelby’s bike. It leaned against a sturdy boulder with a concave top that practically begged a weary bottom to rest on it. In the photo, a round, white stick remained stuck to the side of the rock, like a finger pointing to a clue, glued in place by a remnant of the lollipop that had once topped it. According to Mrs. Anderson’s statement, she’d just bought a big bag of mixed candy and my Shelby, she’s got quite the sweet tooth. I’d noticed her use of the present tense, even though, unbeknownst to her, Shelby had plummeted to the barn floor by then. Some intuitive officer must have sensed that the abandoned bike meant more than just another kid wandering off or hiding at a forbidden friend’s house. Either the terrified tone of Mrs. Anderson’s call to the police or the cold solitude of metal against rock had stirred enough passion that he’d snapped a photo that very night, lit solely by his camera’s flash because the sun had long set.

  The VideoMagic dude finally appeared with my envelope of photos. I walked to the counter. “Here’s the best we could do,” he said. I had expected judgment, maybe disgust, but he seemed unfazed. “Normally, we have to call it in if we suspect child porn or something, but since that film is like, ancient, we’re letting it go.”

  Wow. Good to know our children were safe in the hands of these guys. What if I’d lied about the age of the camera? What if I still had the girl from the photos locked in my basement all these years? I decided not to press the issue as the police were the last thing I needed.

  “That’ll be $26.50,” he said. “Considering the rush.”

  Figured I was getting off cheap. I paid and left as fast as I could without appearing suspicious and took off in my car. I parked in a barren lot four blocks away and quickly opened the packet, squeezing the narrow ends of the inner, cardboard envelope. It felt like birthing a baby as I pulled out the small pile of 4”x 6” photos, giving new life to a moment in which so many lives had changed. In my hands, I held the power to travel back in time and change history, to rewrite the outcome of a tragic play. Some would like the new ending. Others wouldn’t. And at least one person may have deemed it worth murder to maintain the current narrative.

  The first picture showed Shelby on that swing. Contrary to what I’d expected, she looked joyful and glassy-eyed. And oh so young. Had I looked that innocent at her age? Her shirt made a blur off to the side, like a ghost swooping in. It must have been in motion. Her full breasts, far nicer than my own at any age, served
as the focal point of the picture. It was difficult not to stare at them, the bra made nearly translucent by its sheerness and the flash of the camera.

  To think, she’d be dead within the hour.

  The picture and the fate seemed utterly incongruous to me. Inside, my intestines felt like a boa constrictor wrapping around my stomach, contracting for dear life and telling me to hurry up and save that girl. I wanted to reach out to the happy, spacey face and scream at her to get the hell out there, to jump if she had to, to charm Bobby’s stupid ass if necessary. Whatever she had to do to avoid the horrible events coming her way. This girl had hardly begun. Not even old enough for the brutal North Carolina sun to have taken its toll on her fair skin. God damn you, Bobby Kettrick, for denying her a chance—at everything.

  Then it hit me. God had damned him. About half a mile from the site of the photo. But He’d unfortunately chosen my dad as the instrument of His wrath. Ha. Imagine. My dad being feted, maybe even sainted, as a direct tool of the Lord. Dad might have liked that. He’d used it as an excuse a few times himself.

  The second photo appeared to have been taken immediately after the first. The angle varied by only a few degrees, but it captured Shelby staring right at the camera’s lens, her expression no longer emanating joy. She hadn’t known about the first picture but she’d caught on by the second and didn’t like it one bit. Probably felt like an animal trapped in a cage, unable to do anything except be on display for the human parasites. Bobby played the latter role to a tee, no doubt. And why had Shelby been on display in the first place, subjugated to this bestial treatment? For the crime of carrying an X chromosome. For the crime of puberty.