The Last Jeskey - Chapter 22

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 22

 

(Day 4 – Sunday)

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

Right after lunch, I was at my desk, once again engrossed in paperwork, when my cellphone rang.  When I pulled it out I noticed Nat’s name.  I quickly connected the call.  “Hi Honey,” I said happily.

“Hi Will,” she replied.  “How’s it going today?  Have you found Gary yet?”

“Not yet, but my deputies are out looking.  I can promise you that,” I told her.

“Look harder!” she replied.  “I’m not crazy about having a bodyguard, and my clients aren’t happy seeing the police with me every time I show up anywhere.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” I told her.  “But sorry Nat.  Until we get Gary in jail, you’re going to have to put up with it, and I’m not backing down on that.”  I heard her let out a small grunt of dissatisfaction.

“Listen Will,” she said.  “Pam McGregor just called me.  She’s insisting that we meet to fill her in on everything we know about the situation with Freaky.  She asked if I could get you in that meeting too since you’ve got knowledge about her that I don’t.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “I was expecting her to hold a meeting, but are you sure you need me there?  I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”

“Will, she’s right.  You do know probably more than anyone else.  And all that could be useful to her.”

I considered that.  “Yeah, you’re right.”  I thought about that Knoxville detective on his way to see me.  Well, he was just going to have to wait a little bit if I wasn’t available.  But I had already warned him about that.  “When’s your meeting?” I asked.

“In an hour,” she said.  “At her office.”

“Okay,” I agreed.  “I’ll be there.”

“Good.  And please consider getting rid of this police car going everywhere I do.”

“Not gonna happen,” I told her.  “At least not until Gary is caught.”

She hung up on me, and I went back to the never-ending pile of papers on my desk.  Reports about crimes, reports about my men, and twice as many reports concerning expenditures.  And if I didn’t get all that paperwork done, we wouldn’t keep getting the money we needed to run the station.  I knew there’d be paperwork involved when I had first run for sheriff, I just didn’t know how much.

I was just about to leave for that meeting when Russ suddenly poked his head in through my doorway.  “Sheriff.  You’ve got a visitor.”

Russ moved out of the way and a man wearing a suit and carrying a file folder walked in.  Actually, he was wearing a suit and also a badge attached to his belt.  No doubt, this was that detective from Knoxville.  I stood up and stretched my hand across my desk.

“Sheriff Cobb,” he said as he came over and shook my hand.  “Detective Benson.  Knoxville police.”

“Have a seat,” I said as we sat down.  My eyes quicky went to the clock on the wall.  Yeah, he was going to have to wait a bit.  “I’m sorry to say this,” I told him, “but I was just about to leave for that meeting I warned you about.  Like it or not, they’re saying I need to be there.”

I could tell he wasn’t happy.  “That’s not exactly good,” he said.  “How long do you think you’ll be?”

“I don’t know.  Half an hour maybe.”

“That’s not so bad then,” he decided.  “If you’ve got a coffee pot, I’ll be fine.”

“Perfect!” I replied as I stood up and grabbed my hat.  “I’ll show you where it is.”

I got halfway to the door when I stopped.  “Wait a minute!” I said.  “This is stupid.  You’re here to talk about the Jeskeys, right?”

“Clive and his wife.  His son too if you know anything.”

“This meeting I’m going to is about the Jeskeys.  Or rather one of them.  Maybe you should be in this meeting too.  Let’s get all the facts on the table at one time.”

“Sounds good,” he replied.

I could tell he was now very interested in being at that meeting with me.

“Come on,” I said.  “We’ll take my car, and we’ll hope we don’t get shot at along the way.”

He laughed.

As I drove out to Pam and Les’s legal office, I kept my eyes on my rearview mirror the entire way.  That car last night had been some kind of muscle car for sure.  I just didn’t know exactly what kind.  All the way out to the McGregor’s office though, I didn’t see one car that I could put into that fast-car category.  I breathed a sigh of relief when we got there in one piece.  I was even happier once we got inside.

Everyone else was there already and their receptionist not only led us straight to the conference room, she took our coffee orders as well.  I took the time to kiss my wife, then I introduced the detective to everyone in the room.  I noticed that not just Pam, but her husband Lester was going to be at the table too.  The five of us sat down as soon as their receptionist had delivered coffee for Benson and me.

Pamela McGregor opened the meeting.  “Since we’re discussing…Freaky…here, and specifically the chance that she may or may not be due any money from Bo Jeskey’s estate, if there is one, I’d like Natalie to lay out for us just why she thinks that…Freaky may be able to inherit something.  And I do hope we can come up with a better name for her soon!  I hate calling her Freaky.”

“Me too,” Natalie replied.  “When Will mentioned that they didn’t find any money at the Jeskey farm, but he knew there should be some, it got me thinking.”

Something hit me just then.  “Wait a sec Nat,” I interrupted her.  I looked around the table.  “I’ve got information on the Jeskeys.  I pointed across the table at Natalie.  “You’ve got information about Freaky Jeskey.  I looked over at Benson.  “And he’s got more information about the Jeskey family.  Is there any chance we can expand this little discussion and maybe get a bigger picture here?”

Nobody seemed to have any opposing views to that.

“Why not?” Les said.  “A bigger picture could be useful to us as well…well, Pam there.  She’s the one who drew this case.  I’m just sitting in to lend a hand where I can.”

I nodded.  “Thanks,” I told him.  I turned to Benson.  “Your murder case happened about fifteen years ago,” I said.  “Our information is about what’s been going on now.  Maybe we should start with what you know, then we’ll add what each of us knows, and maybe we’ll get something that actually means something.”

Benson nodded.  “Okay,” he agreed.  “Where to start.”  He opened a file folder he had brought with him, then he seemed to settle on something.  “Jebadiah Jeskey was a rather influential man around the Knoxville area, until he died about fifteen years ago.  He owned a good-sized farm on some good land that turned a good profit every year.  We know he had a couple of sons, Bo and Clive, and from what I hear, Jeb ran his little empire with an iron fist.  I don’t know anything about his oldest son, Bo Jeskey, except that he was supposed to have been a rather troublesome kid.  He disappeared from our area a long time ago, before my time, and as far as I know, we haven’t heard from him since.”

I had that answer for him.  “Bo Jeskey has been the biggest headache in our area here for years!” I told him.  “Until a few days ago anyway, when he was murdered.”

Benson nodded towards me.  “Good to know.”  He looked down at his file for a moment then looked up and continued.  “Jeb’s son Clive ran the farm with him for years, until all of a sudden Clive bought himself another farm.  A bigger one than his father’s.  We’re not aware of any animosity between the two.  In fact, I’m guessing that the second farm was more of a business decision between the two of them.  Records show that both Jeb and Clive were doing rather well financially.”

“So there was money there,” Pam noted, interested in that fact.

I was surprised to see Benson shake his head.  “That’s what we thought too.  Except that when Jeb died, we were surprised to find there wasn’t nearly as much money in the bank as we figured there should be.  I do have a rather strong suspicion though as to where all that money wound up.”

“Where’s that?” Pam asked.

“In his safe.  Probably in cash.  And that brings me to Clive Jeskey and the murders of him and his wife.  When Jeb died, he left everything to his son Clive, which was only natural.  Clive not only worked closely with his father, but they were making all their business decisions based on the two different farms.  And of course, Bo Jeskey hadn’t been heard from in years.  We don’t know if he showed up for his father’s funeral or not.  We’re not even sure if he heard his father had died.

“He knew!” I threw out.

He nodded at me, then continued.  “Evidently, Jeb Jeskey had a rather large safe.  We never saw it, but everyone involved said it was big.  And that of course is where I suspect some of Jeb’s money wound up.  With Clive dead, we had no one to confirm one way or another how much was in that safe, or even what it contained, since it disappeared at the same time as the murders.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “No wonder you suspect there was money in it.”

He nodded.  “And probably a lot.  We’re guessing it could have been millions.”

I shook my head.  Even in large bills, a million dollars would take up a lot of space.”

“As I said, that safe was described as being big.  From all reports we have, it was very big.”

“Which means,” Pam said, “that you still don’t know what happened to it.”

“No.  Not a clue.  Just like we don’t know who murdered Clive and his wife Hailey.  We never had one shred of evidence to point us one way or another.  All I can tell you is that for some reason, most likely because he wanted the safe at his own house, Clive Jeskey decided to move it from his father’s farm to his.  From what I hear, it took some doing to get the thing out of the house, then they had to use a large tractor to lift the thing up onto a flatbed truck.  That’s the last anyone ever saw of that safe.

“Clive and his wife were found dead in their pickup truck, on a sideroad somewhere between the two farms.  Their son Brian, who we know had been with them at the time, was missing, and there was no sign of that safe or the truck it had been on.  To this day, Brian has never been found.  We presumed him to be dead shortly after the murder.  We just didn’t have a body to specifically say what happened to him.”

“Bo Jeskey took him,” I told him.  “Are there any other details you’ve got?”

“Nothing major.  You said Bo has him?  Which means that Bo knew his father had died, and most likely took that safe.”

“Yep!  I don’t know about the safe,” I said, “but Bo’s son Dave told me that Bo and some of his other sons killed Clive and his wife, and took the boy.  He never mentioned a safe though, but I can tell you for a fact that Bo and all four of his sons have never worked a day in their lives, but they always seemed to have plenty of money.  Of course, we know for a fact that they’ve been running drugs for years, and we just found out guns too.  We found enough guns stashed out at Bo’s place a few days ago to start a small war somewhere.”

“You know,” Benson said as he took that in.  “We were thinking that whoever took that safe, threatened to kill Clive’s son if Clive didn’t tell them the combination, but if Jeb’s oldest son Bo took it, he might have already known the combination since he had lived on the farm with his father until he disappeared.”

“Either way,” I said.  “I’d bet anything that Bo’s got that safe stashed away somewhere, and he had no problem opening it.”

“You’re probably right,” Benson agreed.  “So Clive’s brother Bo murdered him and his wife,” Benson said.

“That’s according to Dave Jeskey, Bo’s third son,” I explained.  “He told me as he was dying himself just recently.”

“And what happened to the boy, Brian?” Benson asked.

I shook my head.  “Well, as it turns out, that’s what this meeting is all about.”

“Sheriff!” Pam said.  “I don’t have time to get into someone else right now.  “I’m here to discuss Freak Jeskey and that’s it.”

“Pam,” I said.  “Believe it or not, Freak Jeskey is Brian Jeskey.  And I’m guessing what they did to him is why they call him Freak.”

She looked at me and I was sure her eyes were going to pop out of her head.

“According to Dave Jeskey as he was dying, Bo took Clive’s son as some kind of retribution for whatever he had against not just his brother, but his father as well.  Once he got the boy home though, he eventually decided he wanted to turn Brian into some kind of ridiculous object lesson that would be so disgusting that either Clive or his father would probably immediately put a bullet into the boy’s head.  And to do that, he eventually got the idea to turn the boy into Freak, and he spared no mercy in making sure it was all going to stick.  You should hear how he had the poor kid mutilated.”

“Mutilated!” Pam said.

“Mutilated!” I confirmed.  “Not only were his balls cut off, but his genitals were cut up and reconstructed into kind of a pseudo looking vaginal area that would be useless for anything except peeing out of like a girl.  Trust me, you don’t want to know any more of the details about that.”

“How did you find out?” Natalie asked me.

“I tracked down the person Bo forced to do it,” I told her.  “Don’t ask me who, cause I’m not saying.  It’s not pertinent to this meeting anyway.”  Natalie didn’t look exactly happy, but she knew I wasn’t going to back down on that.

“So he was raised as a girl,” Pam said.

“More than that I think,” Nat threw out.  “Amanda mentioned to me while we were driving Freaky out to the women’s shelter, that she found an entire box of pill bottles in the kitchen.  Freaky has been taking estrogen pills her entire life.”

“Her entire life?  Since…  How old was he when Brian was…I guess we can legally say kidnapped now?”

“According to our records,” Benson replied, “Brian had turned four years old about a month before his parents were murdered and he went missing.”

“Four!  Just barely,” Pam said.  “And he’s been taking estrogen all this time.”

“Every single day,” Natalie confirmed.  She shook her head as she said, “But I’m guessing all that, including the mutilation, is pretty much nothing compared to everything else Bo and his boys did to her.”

“Nothing?” Pam said, not believing that.  “Right now, I want someone to sue so badly, I can’t stand it, except everyone is dead.  I’ve got no one to sue.”

“Gary’s still alive,” I told her.  But I don’t think suing him is going to do you much good.”

Pam didn’t look happy.

Natalie then laid out all the weird things that she had heard from Freak and that she had noticed about her, including some of the ways Freak had been punished in the past.  All of it was just as unbelievable to hear the second time around.  I supplied the information about what had happened at the hospital when she had expected to have sex with the doctor.  It was one thing on top of another, and all of it left every one of us in not just an unbelieving state, but it left every one of us completely confused.  What were we going to do about it?  So far, the answer to that was nothing at all.  Except perhaps that maybe Nat’s idea of sending her down to that women’s shelter had been a really good idea.  But there again, it was only temporary.  Perhaps very temporary.

“One thing I noticed,” Natalie said as she leaned over towards Pam.  “When she sleeps at night, she sleeps on the floor, and she wraps all her hair around her.  She lays her head on part of it like a pillow.  Come to think of it, when she’s just sitting in a chair she usually holds it in her lap and often hugs it a lot.  Pam, all that hair of hers is like her security blanket.”

Pam nodded.  “I guess it could be.  Kind of like a strange stuffed animal, and one that’s always with her.”

“Most likely, exactly that,” Natalie agreed.

Pam noted something else as well.  “She’s had all that hair for so long that I’d bet it’s become a major part of her identity too.”

“Very possible,” Natalie conceded.

“Thanks,” Pam replied.  She looked around the table briefly as she seemed to come to a decision.  “I think I’m going to set myself up as her advocate,” Pam told us.

“Are you sure about that?” her husband asked.  “That could be a lot of work, especially with someone like her.”

“Yes,” Pam replied.  “I’m very sure.”

“But you haven’t even met her yet.”

“I think I’ll do that tomorrow.”  She turned to Natalie.  “She knows you, not me.  Can you drive down with me tomorrow and we’ll see her together?”

“Yes,” Nat replied.  “I think I can arrange that.”

“One other thing I think you should keep in mind about her,” I threw out.

“What’s that?” Pam asked.

“Freak has been living on that farm all her life, and naturally, living with Bo and his boys too.  My bet is that she knows a whole lot more about their business than she lets on.  She showed us to two of their hiding places pretty easily.  My bet is that she knows where more of them are.  We haven’t found any money yet.  She may be the key to finding it.”

“I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” Pam replied.  She looked around at the table.  “Anything else?  No?  Then I think we’re good to go.  I’ll not only see if we can recover any of those estates into her name, but I’ll set myself up as her advocate as well.”  She turned to Natalie.  “And I’ll call you later and set up a time when we can see her tomorrow.”

“Works for me,” Natalie replied.

We all got up and slowly trooped out of there.  As we went out the door.  Nat was walking next to me.  “Thanks,” Nat told me.  “I appreciate all your help.”

“Does that include the deputy over there?” I said with a nod toward the squad car that I hadn’t been driving.

Nat didn’t get a chance to answer, because just then a gunshot rang out and Natalie screamed right next to me.  Instead of looking to see where the shot came from, since it was Nat, I turned toward her.  Blood was gushing out of her left arm, and she was dropping to the sidewalk.  “Nat!” I yelled as I dropped down beside her.  I noticed Benson on the ground a well.  He had his gun out and was looking all around.  “Nat!” I said as I grabbed her arm and squeezed the wound tightly to stop the blood.

Benson came around to her other side with his cellphone already out.  He was calling in the emergency.  “I couldn’t see who did it,” he said.  “As far as I can tell, whoever it was, was parked across the street, fired the shot, then took off.  All I could see was a dingy red car.”

“Probably a muscle car,” I supplied.

“No.  No way.  It was old and cheap for sure.”

Still holding Nat’s arm, I looked up at him.  “Shit.  Whoever it is, and I’m still betting Gary Jeskey, seems to have access to all kinds of different cars.  Last night it was a muscle car that he used when he took a shot at me.”

“Last night?”

“That’s not my usual squad car,” I told him.

“And you don’t know who did it,” he stated.

“No more than you said when you saw the car today.”  A thought struck me.  “When we raided the Jeskey place, we found a ton of weapons including automatics and AK-47s.  If he had access to them before, he may still have a supply of guns like that somewhere else.  If he had used one of them today, it would have sprayed all of us before we knew what was happening.  We’d all be dead.”

“Sheriff,” he said.  “You’ve got a problem here.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

We had squad cars and an ambulance surrounding us in no time flat.  When you’re the county sheriff and you get shot at, you get help pretty quick.  Except of course when you’re out in the boonies somewhere like I usually was.  This time though it happened right near the middle of town.

They loaded Nat into an ambulance, and Benson and I drove to the hospital.  He stuck around long enough to make sure Nat was going to be okay then he took off.  I had one of my deputies drive him back to the station where he could get his car.

While Nat’s arm was being stitched up I had little to do but sit there and wait…and think.  What the hell was I going to do about Gary Jeskey, or whoever it was that wanted us dead so much.  So far, Dave Jeskey had been right.  Gary Jeskey was being a problem.  A big problem!