The Last Jeskey - Chapter 2

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 2

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

I watched as the girl got slowly up from her chair and headed just as slowly in my direction.  While I waited, I had plenty of opportunity to observe her and look her over.  As I had noted before, she was without a doubt the dirtiest, filthiest excuse for a girl I had ever seen.  She also had without a doubt the longest hair of any girl I had ever seen.  From what I could tell, it hung down almost to her ankles, and that’s on top of it being all tangled and messed up.  Didn’t this girl ever brush it?  For that matter, didn’t she ever take a bath?

The skirt of her dress hung down halfway between her knees and her ankles, and the entire thing looked not just out of place, but too big for her.  It also looked old.  Instead of wearing nice shoes, she was wearing what looked like men’s work boots on her feet, and they didn’t look to be in very good shape.  Obviously she didn’t wear makeup or any jewelry either.  It didn’t look like she cared about what she wore or how she looked at all.  She was simply…a mess.

“Take a seat,” I told her as she got close, and then I stood back to let her into the room.  Yup!  She smelled just as bad as she looked.  I wasn’t going to enjoy this little talk.  She started to sit in my chair, but I quickly stopped her.  “The other seat!” I told her.  She glanced back at me then went around to the far side of the table.  I noted the quick move of her head as she sat down and the way her arm caught all that hair so that when she was sitting it somehow wound up in her lap.

I closed the door and sat across from her.  I opened my notebook and picked up my pen.  “Name?” I asked as I looked at the paper and waited.  And waited.  I looked up, she was just looking at me.  “What’s your name?” I asked.  Still she said nothing.  “Tell…me…your…name!” I demanded.  Like before, I was met with silence.

I set my pen down and looked at her.  “Why the hell are you so dirty?” I asked.  “And I’m sorry to say it, but you smell to high heaven.”  The look on her face seemed to change to anger, but still she refused to utter a word.  “You know, I can lock you in a cell for impeding an investigation.”  Still no answer, and the look of anger on her face never changed.  Now what was I going to do?

“Did you witness Roxie shooting Bo, Steve, and Ben?” I asked.  “Were you there in the house when it happened?”

The damn girl gave new meaning to the old phrase, silence is golden.  “Did you help Roxie to kill those men?” I tried.  Still nothing.  Even the perturbed look on her face didn’t change.

I sighed.  Obviously I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this girl.  I was wasting my time with her.  Was it worth it to throw her in a cell for the night and let her think about clamming up so much?  Probably not.  Roxie had already told us that she had shot them.  Roxie also had assured us that she would cooperate fully.  Talking to the others was just because we had to check with everyone who was there to make sure the stories all matched.  What I had gotten out of both Dave and Gary had pretty much jelled with what Roxie had already told me.  The only question now was this girl, and I had no clue who she was.

“Stay here!” I finally told her.  “I’ll be right back.

I went out and down the hallway to talk with Dave and Gary.  “Your lady friend in there isn’t exactly cooperating,” I told them.  “Who is she?”

I saw smirks of amusement on both their faces.  Why should they think this was funny?  This was a murder investigation.  Not only that, it was the murders of their own father and two of their brothers.  I waited for an answer from either of them, but not only did they not say anything, eventually Gary actually snorted a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, completely perturbed at them.  “Who the hell is she?”  I saw Dave shrug, and Gary continued to snort bits of laughter.  “Shit!  I ought to lock the both of you up…forever!”  Why the hell wouldn’t anybody tell me who the girl was?  I was beginning to wonder if maybe she had more to do with this whole affair than I had originally thought.

Since nobody was talking to me about her, I went back to the interview room.  The girl watched me come in, but still said nothing.  What the hell was I going to do with her, just send her home?  But the fact that she wouldn’t talk, and both Dave and Gary Jeskey wouldn’t even give me her name, made me too suspicious about her.  Not to mention how filthy she was.  What the hell was going on?

“I’m wondering,” I said to her.  “If I should just send you home with Dave and Gary, or if I should throw you in a cell where I’m starting to think you belong.”  I was amazed at her sudden reaction to that.

“Home!” she said.  “I need to go home!”

I was so startled.  “So you can talk,” I said.  “Now tell me.  What’s your name?”  But I immediately saw her lips glue themselves together, and I knew she wasn’t going to tell me.  “Why do you want to go home so badly?” I asked.  I didn’t expect an answer, but I got one.

“I’ve got wash on the line and I need to get dinner cooked for the guys.”

“Wash…and dinner,” I said.  “You mean for Gary and Dave out there?”

“Yes.  Of course.  And Uncle Bo and Uncle Steve and Uncle Ben.”

“But they’re dead,” I reminded her.

She seemed confused for a moment, then those lips of hers glued themselves together again.

“You said Uncle Bo and Uncle Ben.”  I waited for an answer but got nothing.  “Were they your uncles?”  Still nothing.  “How about Dave and Gary out there?”  But as I expected, she had shut her mouth again and had every intention of keeping it that way.

As I saw it, my choices were to either send her home, or throw her in a cell overnight until I could get some answers about her, which something told me probably wouldn’t work on her either.  So…home it was.  Except for one thing I needed to know.  “You said home,” I said to her.  “Do you live there in that house where we picked you up?  Is that home for you?”

She seemed confused for a moment, almost as if she wanted to speak.  Then I saw a slight hesitant nod of her head.  So, Bo and the others had a girl living with them.  Who knew?  And I realized that that might be a very good question.  Who knew about it?  But first I needed this girl, whoever she was, to open her mouth and say something.

“Okay,” I said.  “Get up.  I’ll send you back with…those other two out there.  Are they your uncles too?”  Surprise.  No answer.

She stood immediately and I watched as she headed toward the door, and then her hair swayed to the side a bit and I noticed something else.  “Stop!” I said.  She turned back toward me.  I shook my head.  “Turn around again.” I had to physically grab her and turn her so I could see her back.  I pulled her long hair aside and held it.  There was a round hole in the top of her dress, and what looked like an old blood stain all around that area.

“Where did you get this dress?” I asked.  I noticed that she almost answered, but those lips quickly sealed themselves shut again.  That hole and that blood changed everything for me.  There was no way I was going to let her go when her dress had a bullet hole in the back, and obviously someone had bled profusely from it.

I pointed back at the chair where she had been sitting.  “Sit!” I ordered in no uncertain terms.  She grunted angrily, but under my stern gaze she finally sat.  I left the room and locked the door behind me.  I didn’t want her trying to run off.  I walked back to Dave and Gary Jeskey.

“Where is she?” Dave asked.

“Staying, for now,” I told him.  “I’m sending you two home though, although something tells me that’s probably a mistake.”

“Why aren’t you letting her go?” Gary asked.

“Because she’s got me pissed off” I said angrily back at him.  “What’s her name?”

The two of them just looked at me, then Gary sniggered another laugh.  “Do you two want to spend the night in jail again?”

Neither of them appeared to care.  I cursed.  Of course they wouldn’t care.  “Come on,” I told them.  “I’ll get someone to drive you home.”

After a quick word with one of my deputies, I left Gary and Dave in the care of someone else and went back to the interview room and…the girl.  Now what?  But she had a bullet hole in the back of her dress, and the red stain had been old blood.  Was it possible that the blood had been hers?  I seriously doubted it.

I was tempted to get Amanda, my only female deputy, in there and have her take a look at her body, but something told me that wasn’t the best way to go.  As filthy and unkept as the girl was, I wondered if a doctor might be the better bet.  A real doctor, who could tell if she had any bullet holes in her…anywhere on her body.  And knowing the Jeskey boys, and especially Bo, it was almost hard to believe that she wouldn’t.

“Come on,” I told her.  “Let’s go.”

“Home?” she asked hopefully as she stood up.

“Hell no!”