by Lila Beckham
“My father was the sheriff back when you’re talking about, son. I heard him talk about that. The poor man went to his grave trying to figure out who done it. As a mater of fact, he suspected G. W. senior of that, and after he became the ‘Main Street Flasher’, I tend to agree. Of course, it could’ve been one of the boys, Early or G. W. junior. I don’t rightly recall what my father’s reckoning was; he never talked much about details. Of course, I was a youngster back then and not much one for details myself,” Merrill smiled. “It comes back to me though when that old man started exposing himself to folks. I hate to say it, but whoever shot him, solved our problem.”
Joshua did not think badly of him for saying so; he had felt the same way before and said so. Just because you are a lawman, don’t mean that you’re not human.
“You said your father was the sheriff. I thought the paper said the sheriff’s name was Walter Scott.”
“Walter Scott was my stepfather. He was a good man and raised me right. Brought me up to follow in his footsteps after my father passed away.”
“Did they ever find any other bodies that you know of?” Joshua asked.
“Not back then, however, we did have a butchered male body turn up here a couple of years back. We never did find a complete corpse, just bits and pieces of ‘im scattered around an area near the river. We figured the wolves and coyotes got to it. Never identified him either or had any leads on who done it, but I figured it was the same ones dumping bodies over in George County. After I read about you shooting those boys, I figured they might’ve been the ones dumping ‘em. I reckon it’s just a wait and see thing now.” When Merrill finished talking, he pulled a short, blunt stogie out of his shirt pocket and lit it. The aroma of apple-wood smoke filled the air around them.
23
Detour
Joshua drove around to the antique shop; Emma was just coming out the door when he drove up. She carried a small bag, undoubtedly something she had purchased from the shop. When she saw him, he could tell that he had surprised her.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be done for a while,” she told Joshua.
“I didn’t expect to be finished this soon either, but I run up with the local sheriff. He was able to tell me most of what I needed to know. Since it’s still early, I thought we would take a detour on the way back and drive over to Citronelle. I have something I wanted to look into there too.”
“I’m just along for the ride, Sheriff. You go wherever you need to go,” Emma said as she propped her chin on her elbow and went to staring out the window.
The cutoff to Citronelle was about five miles South of Leakesville and Joshua wasted no time getting there. As soon as they crossed the Chickasawhay River, he put his Steppenwolf tape in the 8-track player and put the petal to the metal.
When they reached the turnoff and had driven maybe a half a mile, Emma turned to him and she asked if he would take her to the house where the Dixon brothers had held her prisoner. Her request surprised him. He thought that would have been the last place she would want to go after what they had done to her there. However, they would have to pass right by the road to the mortuary; it would not be out of the way to drop by there. He nodded his head that he would. He had many questions, but remained silent. He figured when she was ready, or if she needed to, she would talk about it.
He was at the hard, ninety-degree left turn before he knew it and had to brake quickly to make it. If he had not, he could have stayed straight and gone past the old ‘Granny Hole’ swimming hole. However, going that way would have been twenty miles out of the way. After rounding the curve, he slowed down some.
There was not any use in driving like a maniac-Citronelle wasn’t going anyplace, it would be there when they got there no matter when that was.
Ten miles further and they were at the turnoff to the Rising Sun Funeral Home. Joshua parked and he an Emma got out. It was still decorated with crime scene tape and a sign that warned not to enter.
He lit a cigarette and leaned against his patrol car. Emma stood silently and looked around. The house was large, three storied, and it was old. The wrought iron fretwork was rusted; the entire place was in need of paint and repairs.
“At least Metcalf’s team had removed the plywood from the windows,” thought Joshua. “It will lend more light and make it easier to see inside the house.”
“None of this looks familiar,” said Emma warily.
“You may not have ever seen the front of the place,” Joshua suggested. “I believe they brought you in through the tunnels that come in from the river,”
“When I escaped that time, I ran out through the back door. I know it has a screened porch on the back, but I never actually saw the house. By the time I stopped running, I was in the woods and could not see the house. Past those woods back there,” she pointed, “is railroad tracks, and past those, is the river. I jumped in and swam as far as I could, as fast as I could, until I had to stop. I remember being ecstatic that I had escaped them and then disappointed when I had to stop. As scary as it was to be in that river with its dangerous currents and undertows, and river monsters such as snakes and eels, it was better than being in there with those beasts.”
Joshua did not know how to respond. He took a long drag off his cigarette and inhaled deeply. Being there was bringing unwanted visions back to his mind, too. He could still see the sword wielding, pig head wearing, maniac coming toward him from the tunnel entrance. He took a deep breath and stood up straight.
“Do you want to go inside” he asked Emma.
“Yes, I do. I still wonder about the girl that was in there with me the first week or so I was here. I don’t know what they done with her…”
“What girl?” Joshua asked, thinking to himself that he did not know about the other girl. In his mind, he was going over the timeline and trying to match the girl Emma mentioned with the bodies they had found. “What did she look like?” he asked.
“Like me,” Emma replied, sarcastically. “Well, that was what I thought when they took me upstairs and I first looked into a mirror-that she looked like me. They had cut and dyed our hair, or I say they did. Her hair may have already been dark. Her eyes were dark, almost black in color. They were decorated as mine were, she looked as though she might have been Asian or had Chinese or Vietnamese in her. She looked scared the last time I saw her and very tired. They were practically toting her down the stairs. I think they tried to starve us to death. Why would they do that on top of all else they did?”
“They were mentally unstable, Emma. We will probably never know the whys.” As he said it, Joshua realized that the same might be said about his mother; he might never know why or how she died or where her body was. However, he was certain she was dead, and certain one of the elder Dixons had killed her.
While they talked, he and Emma had walked around to the back of the house. They ducked under the yellow tape and into the screened porch area. It surprised Joshua that the back door was standing open. He knew Metcalf’s team would never have left the door open like that. He drew his gun and held his arm out to stop Emma from moving past him. When she saw the gun in his hand, she stopped.
“What is it,” she mouthed quietly.
“I don’t know,” Joshua shrugged. “Someone, might been in there,” he mouthed back, and then motioned for her to stay put until he checked to see if it was safe.
Joshua entered the kitchen. It was bright and surprisingly clean. He did not recall whether it had been or not the last time he was there. He was strictly looking for Emma then and had not paid attention to the décor. He passed through the short hallway and entered the heart of the home. It was quiet, its beat almost silenced.
In one corner, he saw several buckets of paint, some rollers and extension handles. He figured whoever brought the paint and rollers was who had left the back door ajar.
On the walls, someone had written in red, the words ‘Murderous PIGS, Sicko’s, Morfidikes’ misspelled of course and other assorted name-call
ings. Undoubtedly, the Dixons had someone left in their family that intended to paint and fix the place up and sell it. Hell, they might even intend to live in it, thought Joshua. It was a shame the lovely old plantation home was used in such a manner as to scar it forever.
Joshua knew that houses held onto energy and to memories, both good and bad; his own cabin was proof of that. He hoped the house would let loose the haunted souls, those who infiltrated its fabric, the ones who permeated the internal soul of the home and seeped deeply into it as liquid does cloth…
The thought of all of those that had entered the place, both living and dead, and those that had suffered beneath its roof, flashed through his mind. The pure evil that had dwelled there the last few years was overwhelming in its intensity.
Startled by a footstep behind him, he turned to see Emma. She stopped and stood staring at the large wheeled object constructed in the center of the room. Joshua knew that it was some sort of tortuous device but did not know exactly how the brothers had used it on their victims. From the location of the straps, he assumed they tied them to it and somehow manipulated them for their own sexual gratification.
Emma stood a moment; then turned toward a hallway. She walked to the bathroom door and looked inside. Joshua could see that she was righting things in her mind of what had happened to her while she was there. She left the entrance to the bathroom and walked straight to the door leading down into the embalming room.
As far as he knew, it was the only entrance from the main house to the basement section, which had a separate entrance, and was used as a mortuary. He had taken the same route the morning he came in there looking for Emma and her abductors. He followed quietly behind her.
Emma opened the cellar door and stepped through. She stood on the landing and stared down into the darkened room. Joshua flipped one of the light switches. An ultraviolet black-light glow shined into the room below. It illuminated only the white objects in the room and the painted window and nothing else. Emma could see the painted window on the wall ahead. The pink mimosa blossoms painted on it shined brightly. The white of the sky in the painting glowed oddly as did some other objects in the room. She turned to look at Joshua. He nodded his assurance that he was there and was not going to leave her.
“Can you turn the other light on please,” she asked. “That one there was how I figured out that there were no windows in here.”
Joshua looked at the painted window frame that someone had hung on a wall of the windowless room to fool the mind into thinking there was one.
“Yep, that’s a piss-poor excuse for a window for sure.” Joshua observed aloud.
“It had me fooled for a little while,” Emma admitted. “I even thought that it was the month of May because of the mimosa blossoms painted on it.” She looked around the room. Underneath the fake window was a long lavatory sink. To the left of that was a cabinet and beside that, on the same wall, was a cot that folded down from the wall. It was near the foot of the stairs and about waist high.
“That was where the girl was that I told you about,” Emma said, pointing toward the cot. “She looked at me with large frightened eyes just before they took me up, bathed me, and then tied me to that wheeled contraption back there. When I looked into her eyes, I knew that they were fixing to do something horrible to me.”
“Do you know if she had any tattoos?”
“I never really got but that one good look at her, Sheriff,” Emma replied. “The next time I come to, she was gone from here.”
If he had to guess, Joshua would think it was Ken McCullough’s girlfriend, Dee Dee, that Emma saw there. Hers was the body found by the county road worker. Joshua followed Emma down into the room.
Emma stopped to stand beside the metal table protruding from the cold chamber storage unit. “This was where they kept me, wasn’t it,” she said as she placed her hand on the table. To the right of the cold storage chamber, Emma saw a door that was almost beneath the stairway; she headed toward it.
“I always wanted to see back here. I wondered if there was a way out of this room besides the stairs leading up, but my head faced this way on the table.”
“You may not want to go in there,” Joshua said as he reached out to stop her. He was not sure if Metcalf’s team had removed the women’s heads yet. He did not want Emma to freak out and then faint or something.
“After watching them chop two people to death with an axe, I don’t think what’s behind this door is going to scare me, Sheriff Stokes. Now, kindly let go of my arm.” Joshua released her but insisted that she let him go inside the room first.
24
Déjà vu
When Joshua opened the axe-riddled door and walked into to the ‘trophy room’ of the Dixon family, he was immediately transported back to that day. Although the shelves were now emptied of ‘trophies,’ it was the same as the last time. The bloodstained floors were further proof that what happened had happened. Joshua’s pulse quickened. He halfway expected to see the brother that wore the pig head, burst forth from the doorway to the tunnels. However, it was eerily quiet in that part of the house. He turned to see Emma staring at the rusty stain on the floor, her manner extremely calm.
When they first arrived, he had expected her to fall apart at any moment. So far, she appeared calmer on the outside than what he felt on the inside. He did not know exactly how to take her. He did not know what to say or not say for fear of saying the wrong thing and causing her to have a breakdown of some sort.
“Where does that door lead?” Emma asked, indicating the door to the tunnels.
“That one leads to a system of tunnels,” Joshua replied. “One of the tunnels leads to a room beneath the barn; the others lead to the river.”
“I wish I had known that when they had me down here. Maybe I could have escaped through there. Maybe they went through there and that was how they knew where I had gone. They probably got to the river before I did and saw me get into the river.”
“Maybe, but you’ll never know for sure.”
“I know. I’m just trying to make sense of it all…”
“I don’t think any of us will ever make sense of what those men did or why they did what they did,” Joshua responded.
“No sir, probably not, but I believe it had something to do with their mother. They dressed me as their mother… I think they tried to arouse themselves by it, especially Earl. That was really weird. Everything about them was weird.”
“From what I’ve found about their ancestors, it’s in their genetics… going back several generations.”
“Sorta like drinking, drugs, and crazy folks runs in mine. I know what you mean.”
“Exactly”
“What about that door” Emma asked, indicating the other door. “Where does it go?”
“That one goes to the office of the funeral home, the coffin room, and several viewing rooms. I believe that is what my deputy said; I never did go through there.”
As soon as Joshua finished speaking, they heard noise coming from the other side of the door. Joshua drew his revolver and moved between Emma and the door. He saw the handle turn. Then the door swung open, revealing a large well-dressed man.
“Freeze,” Joshua yelled. The man stopped and raised his arms.
“I’m frozen, don’t shoot!” he yelled.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Joshua asked bluntly, noticing the note pad the man held in his left hand. He clenched a pen in his right.
“I’m Douglas Knowles, with Southern Reality. I was hired to sell this place. I was just checking on things and getting everything ready for the handyman. He is coming tomorrow to begin the painting and repairs. He-”
“This is still a crime scene,” Joshua interrupted “There’s tape strung around the doors.” Joshua informed him as he holstered his weapon.
“No sir, the coroner released it day before yesterday. I left the tape to deter vandals, although, so far it has not deterred them from anything!” Knowles said gr
umpily. “Did you see the writing all over the walls and such?”
“Yes, I did. I’m Joshua Stokes, Sheriff of Mobile County.”
“Good to meet you, Sheriff,” Knowles said, pocketing the pen and extending his hand. Joshua shook the man’s hand and then introduced Emma.
“You said you were hired to sell this place. I was under the impression that the boys were orphans. I know their parents, grandfather, and uncle is all dead, so if you don’t mind me asking, who was it that hired you?”
“If you know all of that, then you ought to know that G. W. Dixon came from a large family. He has one brother and three or four sisters still living. His brother J. B. Dixon is the one that hired me. He lives out of state so he told me to take care of everything. They’re selling the place and splitting the profit.”
“Out of state… you mean like Mississippi, where the other relatives live?”
“No sir,” Knowles replied. “J. B. says he moved to New Mexico forty years ago to get away from the stigma his kinfolk were bringing on the family.”
“Hmm… do you have a number where I can reach Mr. Dixon?” Joshua asked, thinking of what Vivian had told him about the man that was stalking his mother. His name was supposed to be Leroy. If he talked to this J. B., then maybe he could learn the whereabouts of Leroy.
“Yes sir, I do have his phone number, I’ll write it down for you.” Knowles wrote the number on a note pad. He tore the page out and then handed it to Joshua. Joshua thanked him for it, they exchanged a few more words, and then Knowles left them.
Once Knowles was gone, Emma turned to Joshua and said, “That was interesting. I wish I could afford to buy it. I wonder what they’re asking for it.”
Joshua thought it odd that she seemed interested in owning the place considering what had taken place there. “I don’t have any idea, but I would imagine a lot,” he replied.
With an odd look on her face, Emma asked, “Can we go through the tunnels?”
“No, it’s not lighted and I don’t have a flashlight with me,” Joshua said quickly. “There’s not much else to see. I think we need to be leaving. I wanted to get to the courthouse before they close for the day.”