by T. J. Jones
"I wanted you to know that Frank Jeffries hung himself this morning."
"Local police just notified me. Did Maggie call you?"
"I came over to run with her, but Eddy and I found him. Same stall as where Davey was hanging."
"Did he leave a note, a confession? One fake suicide is enough, I have people going there to make sure all the forensics work out."
"He used three of his own belts, nobody else wanting to hang him would go to that much trouble. I think he really cared about Maria and couldn't live with what he thought he had done to her. This one's on you I'm afraid."
"Maybe so, but all things considered, I can live with that. I don't know if the end justifies the means, but he wasn't a good guy Slater. He was anything but that. He didn't kill Davey, but he helped set it up to cover his own ass. Davey thought he was going to meet someone who wanted to get more girls out. You were right about the list. A person with a lot to lose was sure some of those girls knew who he was and he got very nervous when he found out they were being spirited back to the US. He's moving into a position of power, and it would ruin things for him if our government knew he was involved in this kind of shit. He killed Davey because of his part in bringing the girls back to the US where they might identify him. I don't know if Frank realized they were going to kill Davey, but once they did, he and two thugs took the body back to the horse-barn to make it look like a suicide."
"Have a name?" I tried to sound casual.
Susy chuckled into the phone. "Not for you Slater, you already crossed too many lines. It's not somebody I can prosecute, at least not right now. But trust me, I'll find some way to get the bastard, legal or not. Look, we shut down the Talent Agency at least and made a lot of kids safer. Someday I'll get the chance and I'll even the score for Davey and Sam, I promise you that."
"I hope you'll let me get in on that, Susy. Next time we work together, let's try to keep each other honest, alright?"
"Next time? I thought you were going into construction?"
"Part time, but something tells me you haven't heard the last of me, or Maggie."
"Well, thanks for the warning. I'm kind of looking forward to it. Tell Maggie I'm sorry about her Dad. Does she know anything about her uncle?"
"She knows he died a few years ago in a plane crash, what else is there?"
"Good answer, Slater. Take care of yourself."
***
The last of the mourners had found their way out of the big house, and Jasmine and I had finished piling dishes in the dishwasher. I had no idea if I should stick around and try to be supportive, or clear out and let the family have some time alone. I wasn't sure that alone time was what either Maggie or her sister wanted.
Rita Jeffries breezed into the kitchen and gave me a quick hug. "Eric, thank you so much for helping out. Jasmine, you must be exhausted. Thank you for being here for Maggie, but can I ask you to give us some time alone? We've all grown very fond of you dear, really, but Maggie needs to be with her sister right now. She's always the one that knows what to do with Angie."
"Alright. I know I'm not Angela's favorite person." Jasmine wrapped her arms around Rita and held her awkwardly for a minute. "I'll talk to Maggie and have her call me if any of you need something. I'm really sorry about your loss, Mrs. Jeffries."
"Thank you, Jasmine. The truth is Frank was never here enough for me to miss him and we weren't close for a lot of years. Angela is struggling, but Angela always struggles. Maggie is saying goodbye to the last of her Dad's friends. Eric dear, if you wouldn't mind, can you go up and check in on Angie before you go? She refused to come down for the service. I think she's alright, but she may do something rash. The last thing we want is for her to take too many pills again. Maybe she'll talk to you, she hasn't spoken a word to me all day."
It was the most I had ever heard Rita Jeffries say at one time. She didn't seem devastated, or even unhappy.
I knocked softly on Angela's door and she asked who it was, then told me to come in. She had a loveseat in her room, and she was curled up on it. A bottle of Crown Royale and a glass sat on a table within her reach. She had just emptied the glass, I saw her put it down on the table as I walked in. Her eyes teared when she saw me, and she dropped her bare feet to the floor and patted the cushion next to her. I sat down and without a word she climbed onto my lap, buried her face in my shoulder and started sobbing.
I held onto her, trying to whisper the right thing, anything that would help in that moment. She moaned a little and suddenly turned her face up to mine and started kissing me. It wasn't warm or sexual, just a haunting hunger and desperation, raw emotion that needed a direction to go. As I eased her away and slid her off my lap, all I could think about was the fact that she wasn't wearing much, a bra and underwear with some sort of tiny wrap that passed for half a housecoat. It didn't excite me, it made me uneasy. I stood up and took a couple steps away as she reached out a hand to me.
"I'm sorry Eric, I didn't mean it that way. I just really needed to feel close to someone, even if it was only for a minute."
The door swung open and Maggie stepped into the room, looking tired and visibly angry. She glanced at me. "Slater, you have lipstick all over your face."
"He was just holding onto me for a minute, Maggie. You know it's you he likes, you don't have to be jealous."
"I'm not jealous, but this is hardly the time to be sticking your tongue down a guy's throat Angela, Dad's barely in the ground. Fuck!"
"Maggie, it was nothing." I tried.
"It's always nothing with her Slater, as long as she's the center of attention. She sees that you aren't following her around like a love-sick puppy anymore and it makes her nervous, that's all it is. It's not like she wants a real relationship with anyone. Mom said I should make sure you aren't going to do anything stupid, Angela."
"Why are you being like this? I'm sorry I can't be strong and perfect like you. Have you cried at all? Daddy was no saint, but it wouldn't hurt to show that you cared about him, let it out a little."
"I can't take the time to cry." Maggie snapped. "I have to keep it together and be the normal one while you pull your tortured Angela act again and hide up here in your room like you're the victim. Mom's pretending to be strong, but really, she just doesn't give a shit. And you don't care how I feel, you're too self-centered to let another person's pain affect you. You're too stuck in your own head to have any real feelings for anyone else. Do you really care that he's dead, or is it just another reason to feel sorry for yourself?"
Angela lunged to her feet. I expected them to cry, maybe scream and then start hugging, but it got a lot worse. Angela swung quickly, surprised Maggie and slapped her hard across the face, then started yelling again. "You spoiled little bitch, you have no idea what I feel or do, what I've done for you."
Maggie hit her back, not with a fist fortunately, but with the butt of her palm, hard enough to knock her to the floor. I had seen Maggie in a fight and I wasn't about to let it continue. I got between them. They were both crying now, screaming irrationally, and Angela had a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth. She turned and stared up at her sister, shocked. "What the hell is wrong with you? I'm your sister for God's sake."
Maggie wouldn't let up and when she pushed me aside I decided to let them have it out. She was hysterical too. "Some sister. Dad is dead, and maybe he was cheating with some girl down south, but he was my father. What hurts more than anything is that I never even got the chance to know him. I barely knew my own God damn father because of you. You were his special child, the only one in this family that ever mattered to him. You made damn sure you got all of his attention so there wasn't anything left for me."
"Maggie, stop! You don't know what you're talking about." Angela begged. "We're sisters, sister stick together."
"I'm tired of being your sister Angela. Since I was ten years old, all I've ever heard is how I have to help you, take care of you and be sure you're alright because you're so God damn fragil
e or something! Take your meds Angela, stop being a drunk and take care of yourself for one time in your fucking life! You're the big sister, why couldn't you take care of me once, just one Goddamn time."
Angela was on her hands and knees sobbing, and it broke my heart, but I figured it was time that whatever this was came out. She wailed, screaming at the floor, not even lifting her head. "But I did Maggie, can't you see that? I always took care of you, all those years, I always did!"
Maggie turned cold suddenly. "I can't do this. Take her pills away from her Slater, I can't do this anymore, I have to go."
She started for the door but Angela screamed at her. She was crying so hard it was difficult to understand what she was saying. "I am your big sister, Maggie, and I did take care of you, always! Always!" She drew a breath and continued between sobs. "I kept that son of a bitch off of you for all those years."
Maggie froze, then spun around. "Who? You kept who off me?" The dread of what Angela was saying hit me and I knelt down beside her, helping her sit up as Maggie dropped to her knees in front of her. "What are you saying Angie? You kept who off me, Dad? Did that bastard hurt you?"
"All those trips you don't remember when you were little? That's because you never went with us. He didn't want anyone else along. It started when I was twelve, and I couldn't stop it! I couldn't stop him! He was my Daddy, Maggie, why did he do that to me?" She choked on tears and sobbed again. "I couldn't stop it, or he would have gone after you too, don't you see?"
"You're lying." Maggie said coldly. Angie continued sobbing helplessly, and she relented. "How long? How long did he do that to you?"
"He promised, he wouldn't, touch you, if I kept being with him." She was nearly incoherent, choking out the words. "When you left for college, I finally told Davey. Davey went to him and threatened to shoot him, said he would tell everyone and call the cops. That's why Daddy hated Davey. He never knew, he never even knew."
"He never knew what Angela?" Maggie asked softly, her anger spent as she picked up Angela's hands. "He never knew that Davey was our brother?"
"How?" Angie looked at me quickly, but I shook my head.
Maggie sighed deeply. "I wasn't sure, not until just now. Why wouldn't you tell me about Davey, and all of the rest?"
"It broke my heart, but Davey wouldn't let me tell you, he wanted to protect you. I guess because of Daddy." Angela's sobbing slowed, and she found her breath. "Davey, he loved you Maggie, he loved you so much."
"He had your eyes, Angela." Maggie leaned forward and stroked her sister's face, wiping away some of the tears. "Those beautiful, sad fucking eyes of yours. Oh my God, I am so sorry." Angela collapsed into Maggie's arms and they both started sobbing again. I decided it was time to go home.
***
I went out to the horse barn the next day to say my farewells to Davey Templeton. Going to his grave didn't make any sense to me, there were no memories there. Life for Davey Templeton had started and ended in the old horse barn, and it seemed like the place to say my goodbye to him. I just held onto the old haying rope that was still there after all the years that had passed, thinking about some of the fun we had had as kids, and the fact that his hands had held that rope so many times.
It seemed right somehow that the man Davey had known as his father, the man who had turned away from him for all those years, had finally accepted him when the monster that had spawned him had turned his back on him at the end. Frank Jeffries undoubtedly thought he was saving Angela when he stepped off that chair and hung himself, but the truth was that it was Davey who had saved her again and again, holding her and loving her without condition when an evil, twisted father and an inexplicably cold mother hadn't.
I didn't know for sure how much Davey knew about the kidnapping of young girls or when he knew it, but I knew in the end he had made the right choices. That was enough for me, and I realized now that I didn't have any right to judge him. It was clear that Davey's life, and Angela's too, had been very different from what I thought, and much more difficult than anything I could have imagined.
As a kid I had missed Davey's need for understanding, or took it for granted because I didn't have the same needs. My mother said she would love me if I was gay, but I had never doubted that she would. Tommy Ackerman hit me with his books and I got bigger and hit him with my fist. I always had that lucky kind of certainty that comes from a life unexamined, and I had expected the same ignorance from the people around me. I couldn't imagine what their lives were like because I was too caught up in my own. It was that total lack of empathy that made me miss the pain my friends were going through.
Sometimes empathy means standing in waist deep water, screaming out Metallica lyrics while you try not to drown, because you know that's what the other person needs in that moment. And sometimes empathy is pushing the neighbor kid's bike home for him, because he ran away, too afraid to face the man who is actually his father. Davey's sisters had managed to understand him in ways I hadn't, and I guess that shouldn't have surprised me.
I untied the thick hemp rope from the crossmember that had held it for as long I could remember, pulled it through the pulley and let it fall to the floor. That was our rope. Unlikely as it was, I didn't want any other kids swinging on it. I kicked it into the corner and closed the barn door behind me.
Davey Templeton had written that I was the lucky one, and he was right, if for the wrong reasons. He and his sisters had showed me what empathy was, and what friendship and love meant. That was what made me the lucky one.
***
"Hey Boss man, company." Luis tipped his head toward the street.
We had just finished setting the new picture window in the latest of my remodeling projects. Maggie Jeffries stood leaning against her car, her auburn hair blowing off her shoulders as the cool wind hinted at the coming winter. I tossed my gloves down and walked across the lumber strewn yard, then motioned at the house. "What do you think?"
"Make somebody a good first home if you can keep the price down."
"You should buy it, we could be neighbors and run together."
"We can do that anyway. It's not that far to the Point and all you have to do is show up. Looks like you're getting in shape, you lost some weight."
"Construction work will do that for you, but thanks for noticing. How are things going over on Point Road? I've been keeping my distance, kind of letting the dust settle. I'm really glad you stopped by."
"Angie says to tell you Hi, and that you're invited for supper any night you want. She might even cook. She's finally taking her medication, so we only fight once in a while. She and Jasmine are even getting along. She stopped drinking twenty-four seven and she's in counseling, so that's a good thing. God knows she needs it, after everything my Dad did."
"Surprised you're not on the couch right next to her. Your Mom, how's that going?"
"Happier than I've ever seen her. She even called the neighbor lady up a few days ago and asked her to coffee."
"Get out! Edith?"
"Who knew they'd hit it off after all these years? A shared hatred of my father, I guess."
"How about us? My days of mooning over your sister are long gone and the Piper is going to be out of the shop any day now. There's still a thing or two I'd like to teach you."
She eyed me skeptically. "Are we still talking about flying?"
"I wasn't."
"You need to meet me at Bayside tonight at eight, and wear a damn jacket so you can get in." She leaned forward suddenly and kissed me, long and hard.
I eased back. "Was that what I think it was?"
"Yeah Slater, but did you really need a hint at this point? Eight o'clock, and don't be late." She got back in her car and put her seat belt on.
"What's at eight o'clock?" I leaned down and she kissed me again. It went on for a long time, my carpenters started cheering. She pulled back, laughing.
"We have a case, Partner. Lady on the north end got fleeced out of half her inheritance and we have to track the
bastard down." She drove away and I walked back to the house where my small crew was taking a break.
"Your girlfriend, she is muy caliente, Mr. Slater." Luis chuckled.
I stood there grinning. That much Spanish I knew.
"Not sure I get to call her my girlfriend yet Luis, but I'm working on it."
***End***
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