The Last Jeskey - Chapter 7

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 7

 

Freaky

 

I was wondering if I should lay down on the floor and go to sleep when the door opened and that cop came in again.  I stood up.  Right behind him though was a woman.  A woman who wasn’t wearing those same weird clothes.  Not a cop!  Or was she?  I heard the guys say many times that you had to watch out for cop tricks.  And then that female cop walked in behind them.  Did that mean that the other woman wasn’t a cop for sure?  Cop tricks!  I had to be careful.

“Freak,” the man cop said.  “I’d like you to meet my wife, Natalie.”

Wife?  Bo had explained to me once what a wife was.  Bo had a wife once, but she died.  This new woman was staring at me like she thought I was a ghost or something.  I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone, but Roxie had said I should.  Still…this seemed important.  “Wife?” I asked.  “You belong…to him?”

My question seemed to snap her out of something.  “Belong to him?” she said.  “I guess in a way.  I’m just not sure it’s the same way you’re thinking.”

She slowly moved closer to me until she was standing right in front of me.  She seemed to look me over, then shake her head.  “My dear child, what have you been through?”

“I’ve been through a day of things I can’t figure out,” I told her.  “And I just want to go home!  I’ve got wash on the line that needs to get in before it rains and I’ve got to get dinner on the table.  And they’ll kill me if I don’t do it soon.  If you’re a wife, then you know how important that is.”

I saw her turn to look at the man cop, then back to me.  “Huh!” she breathed.  “Maybe better than you think.”

“So please?” I begged.  “Take me home.  I don’t understand anything around here.  I don’t want to be in this jail cell.”

She snorted a laugh.  “Honey, this isn’t a jail cell.  This is just another room in this damn place, and not a very nice one at that.  But compared to a jail cell, this room is a luxury hotel.”

A what?  “What’s lux…”

“Luxury,” she said.  “You know…nice, fancy…”  Was she reading my face?  “You don’t understand that at all, do you.”

“Not really,” I told her.  “Please.  They’ll kill me if I don’t get home and make dinner.”

“Honey,” she said.  “I’m taking you home personally!”

I started to breathe a sigh of relief when she added, “Just not to your home.”  She turned towards the man cop.  “Will, we’re taking her home with us, and she’s gonna get a decent bath, and a real good meal, and then we’re gonna do something with all that hair!  And we’re not getting pizza tonight, no matter how much you’d rather have it.”

Her home?  And why was she telling the man what she was going to do?  She was going to get in so much trouble!

“Natalie,” the woman cop said.  “If you want, I’ll be glad to help.”

“Thanks Amanda,” the woman said.  She looked me over again.  “Something tells me I’m going to need all the help I can get.  And girl,” she said to me.  “Don’t worry about your laundry, or the stomachs of those no-good men out where you live.  Tonight, it’s all about you!”

My stomach went into knots.  What did she mean?

I got taken out of that room and all the way out the door.  It was just starting to get dark outside.  I prayed it wasn’t going to rain tonight or all my wash was going to get wet.  The woman cop, Amanda I guess, said she was going home first to change, then she’d be over.  Over what?

I got put into the cop car with the man cop who Natalie had called Will, and Natalie got into another car.  I was shocked.  She was going to drive herself?  Driving was men’s business!  And this cop, Will, her husband, didn’t mind?  What was wrong with him?  And then we were going, and I was riding in a car again, where I had no business being.  And I wasn’t going home.  At least, not to my home.  Don’t kill me Dave and Gary.  Please don’t kill me.

“It didn’t take very long to get where we were going.  The cop, Will, stopped the car and I could see Natalie getting out of her car.  But get this, her car looked like it was inside the house!  Was that a tiny barn for the car?  It had to be!

The cop, I guess Will, opened the door for me and I got out and looked around.  Another strange building.  I had seen nothing but weird buildings all day, but the only building I wanted to see was my own house…where I belonged.  The cop led me up a few steps where he opened a door in front of the house.  I went inside with him and Natalie followed me.

“Welcome, um…Freak,” she told me.  “This is our home.”

I was looking all around.  Was my mouth stuck wide open?  “You’ve got to be rich!” I breathed.

“Hardly!  Trust me,” Natalie replied.  “Come on,” she said after she dropped a leather bag she was carrying on a little table by the door.

“Do you mind if we give you a bath first?” Natalie asked me.  “Besides, I haven’t had a chance to make dinner yet.  Will is just going to have to wait a bit to eat tonight.”

I didn’t answer.  I was too busy looking all around.  Yes, this was a house.  A home.  There was a living room, a kitchen, and I was betting there was a nice bedroom too.

“This way,” Natalie said as she led the way through the house toward the back.  I passed a bathroom along the way.  It was huge, and also fancy and shiny.  More so than that ladies’ room I had been in back where I had been with all the cops.

“We’ll use our bathroom,” Natalie said as she walked into a bedroom.

I followed her and stopped.  What a room!  The bed was…humongous!  That’s the only way I could describe it.  “How do you make a bed that big?” I asked.

“It’s not hard,” she replied.

I looked around.  “Why does he need a bed that big?”

“It’s more comfortable with two of us,” she told me as she headed for another door inside the room.

“Two of you?  In the bed?  You sleep there too?  All the time?  Not just for sex?”

She turned back to me.  Of course.  Where did you think?”

“But you’re a woman.  Girls sleep on the floor, unless they’re having sex,” I said as I stared in awe at the huge bed.

“They what?” Natalie exclaimed.  She looked at her husband.  “Don’t get any dumb ideas.”  I heard the cop laugh.  “Come on,” Natalie said to me, then she looked me over again.  “Maybe we better start with a shower, then we’ll move on to a bath.”  She looked me over again.  “Yeah, definitely both!  And as for your hair.”  She shook her head.  “I’m not sure what we’re going to do.”  She looked at her husband, the cop.  “Will, there’s chicken thawed in the fridge.  Can you get it started?  Maybe on the grill tonight.”

“Sure,” Will told her.  “Glad to.  Sounds good.”

I wasn’t sure what was going on here.  “Is he…going to cook?  But he’s a man.”

“Hell yes!” Natalie replied.  “Now come into the bathroom.  Let’s get you undressed and into the shower.”

“But it’s not raining,” I told her.  “How do you shower with no rain?”

“Rain?  Who needs rain?”  She grabbed my arm and pulled me into another room.  Another bathroom.  And it was a whole lot bigger than the bathroom the guys used at home.  And fancy wouldn’t begin to describe it.

Do you know they have a little room…inside the bathroom…where they can make it rain – hot water!  Inside the house!  I took my dress and my boots off, and she took them and threw them out of the bathroom.  Then she started getting undressed herself.

“Something tells me you’re going to need a little help,” she said.

While she was getting undressed, I saw her looking me over again.  Why?  I also saw her do another of those head shakes like she wasn’t happy about something.  How could you not be happy about everything if you had a room where it rained hot water inside your house, and you were allowed to use it?

When she was as naked as me, she reached her hand into the little rain room, and let the water hit her hand.  “Perfect,” she muttered.  I wasn’t sure what that meant.  She had told me it would be hot water, but how hot?  Could I get burned?

She was looking at me again.  “Honey,” she said.  “Maybe it would be a good idea if we cut some of that hair of yours.  Shorten it so it’s easier to take care of.  Would you like that?”

I immediately panicked and grabbed as much of my hair as I could, holding it as close as I could.  “No!” I wailed.  “Don’t cut it.  I need it!”

“For what?  It’s too much!”

“No!  It’s mine!  Mine!  I need my hair.”

She shook her head again.  “Okay, no haircuts.  We’ll just wash it…somehow.”  She pointed toward the rain room.  “Okay kid, in you go.”

I was a bit scared, but also curious.  I looked at her, but she was just waiting for me to go in there.  Slowly, I stepped in and the water started to hit me.  Aaahh!  The water wasn’t too hot at all, something I had been a bit worried about.  In fact, it felt…delicious.  She got in with me, but she stood in the corner where she wouldn’t get as wet as me.  “This feels…unbelievable,” I told her.  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt.”

“Yeah,” she said softly.  “I don’t doubt it.”  She grabbed something from a tray on the wall.  “Here,” she said.  “Put this to good use.  There’s a washrag hanging right behind you.”

I took the thing she gave me and looked at it.  “What is it?” I asked.

She stared me in the face for a moment before she replied.  “You don’t know what that is.  What the hell have those men out there been doing with you?”

“What do you mean?  They feed me and give me a place to live,” I told her.  “They’ve kept me alive, even though sometimes they come close to killing me.”

“I’m gonna kill them myself!” she said.  “Just as soon as I can!”

I couldn’t help myself.  I chuckled.

“Here,” she said as she took the thing from me.  She held it up in front of me.  “This is soap,” she said.  “You use it to get clean.”

I didn’t understand how it could do that, but I didn’t say anything.  She grabbed a piece of cloth that was hanging behind me and then she started rubbing that soap stuff all over the piece of cloth.  Then she did the weirdest thing of all.  She started rubbing it…hard…all over me.  She scrubbed my front, my back, my arms, my legs, my face, my feet, everything!  She even did my clit.  She was very careful about it though and said she was worried about hurting me.  She didn’t…too much.

“Nat?” A woman’s voice called into the bathroom.  “You okay in there?”

“I’ve got this Amanda,” Natalie yelled back.  “It’s gonna take a bit though.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Amanda called back.

“Check with Will,” Natalie told her.  “He should be out back with the grill.  See if he’s got time to help you find something for her to wear when she gets out.”

“Good idea,” Amanda answered.

Natalie went back to scrubbing my entire body again.  By the time she was done, my neck was beginning to get tired.  Whenever my hair got all wet, it got real heavy.  I had to pick it up and drape it over my arm so my neck wouldn’t hurt so much.  “Can we get out of here now?” I asked.  “My hair is killing me.”

She grabbed the hair where I had picked it up and lifted it.  “Oh my god!” she said.  “That is heavy.  I should have known.  No, don’t get out yet.  We’ve still got to wash all that hair.  And I hope I’ve got enough shampoo to do it.”

There was that word again.  The one that Roxie had used.  “What’s…shampoo?”

“Soap,” she said.  “For your hair.”  She looked around.  “But your hair is too heavy for you to keep standing there.  Wait!  Here,” she said.  “Try sitting on the floor over here.  See if that helps.”

She pointed toward a spot on the floor, and I sat down.  Most of my hair was now lying on the floor so it wasn’t nearly as heavy on my neck as it was.

“Do you think you can manage that way for a bit?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I told her.  “It’s still heavy, but not nearly as bad.”

“Good!”

Then I felt her doing something with all my hair right on top of my head.  She made me close my eyes tight and keep them that way.  “Otherwise,” she said, “this stuff will sting them like the dickens.”

I sat there and felt her massaging my head and doing stuff with my hair.  Pulling it and pushing it and doing all kinds of things.  Eventually I realized she was gradually moving further away from my head as she attacked the rest of my hair.  When she got far enough away, I chanced opening my eyes.  There were what looked like thick laundry suds all over my hair.  Laundry suds.  For hair!

And then she made me stand up and make sure my eyes were closed tight again, and she pulled me back under that real nice rainwater.  I felt her doing it all over again while she pulled and pushed every bit of my hair all over the place.  I realized she was rinsing all the laundry suds out of my hair.

“Okay,” Natalie said when I thought she was done.  “Cream rinse time.  And I’m sorry, but with all that hair, I’m afraid we’ve still got a long way to go.”

I sat back on the floor and let her start all over again.  I had no idea what she was putting in my hair, but it smelled nice.  I just hoped it wouldn’t take so long.  My head and my neck were starting to really ache.  Eventually, it was all over, and she turned that nice warm rainwater off.  I watched as she grabbed big lengths of my hair and started wringing it out.  And then we were done.  Finally!  Something told me I would be dreaming about that little rain room for the rest of my life.  And they would be happy, happy dreams.

“My neck and head are really tired and hurting,” I complained as I grabbed as much of my hair as I could and held it up.

She looked me over.  “Yeah, I guess they might be,” she said.  “You’ve just got way too much hair.  Why don’t you cut it?  It would be so much easier.”

“Bo doesn’t want it cut.  He wants it as long as possible.”

“Bo is dead honey,” she reminded me.

“But he wasn’t,” I told her.  “Until today.”

“Yeah.  True.  We’ll discuss cutting it later.”

I had to think about that.  My hair was precious to me.

The bathroom door opened, and I heard the man cop say, “Nat…how you doing?”

“We’re making progress,” Natalie told him.  “Is Amanda still out there?”

“I’m right here,” Amanda said.  “Can I come in?  I’ve got something she can wear…for both of you.”

“You can come in,” Natalie told her, but I think we’re going to have to do something with her hair first.  In fact…  Will, you still there?”

“Right here Nat,” I heard him call back.

Grab my cellphone from my purse.  Give it to Amanda to bring in with her.”

Natalie grabbed two towels that were hanging nearby and handed one of them to me.  It was amazingly thick and soft…and big!  I saw her using her towel to dry herself off, so I tried to do the same.  I couldn’t believe how fast it dried my body.  Not like the one I had at home.  This towel was thick.  Mine was thin and full of holes.

Amanda opened the door.  “Hello?” she called before she came in.

“Come on in,” Natalie told her.  Amanda had a robe in her hand that she handed to Natalie.

“Thanks,” Natalie told her as she slipped it on and tied a rope of some sort that went around her waist.  “I found this one too,” Amanda said as she took another robe from her arm.  “I thought it might be good while were trying to do something with all that hair.”

“Yeah,” Natalie agreed.  “Perfect.  Since it’s wet, that hair is too heavy for her to manage with.  I think we’re going to need to find her a chair before we get started.  You got my phone?”

“Right here,” Amanda told her.  I saw her reach into a pocket on her pants and pull one out.  Pockets!  What were they like?

While Amanda helped put the robe on me, having to work it under all my hair, I heard Natalie talking to someone on the phone.  “Lila?  It’s Nat.  The sheriff’s wife.  …  Yeah.  Sorry to call you, but I’m afraid we’ve got kind of an emergency here.  I need you to come to my house and bring your stuff.  All of it!  …  No, it’s not for me.  We’ve got…the strangest case you’ve ever seen here.  I just used an entire big bottle of shampoo on her hair and an entire bottle of cream rinse, and I’m not sure even that much was enough.  …  No, I’m not joking or even exaggerating.  This girl’s got the longest head of hair you’ve ever seen.  About six feet of it!  …  No, for real.  Six feet!  And it’s a tangled mess!  We’re about to start working with the blow dryer next.  …  Don’t?  Okay, if you say so.  …  Yeah, thanks.  See you soon.”

Amanda ended the call and put the phone down.  “That was my hairdresser.  She’s on her way.”

“Great idea!” Amanda said.

Hairdresser?  How did you dress hair?  Did they have clothes for hair?

“You got a blow dryer?” Amanda asked.  “I can get started with it.”

“Lila said don’t.  She’ll do it when she gets here.”

They took me out of the bathroom and let me sit in a real nice chair in the bedroom.  With my hair in my lap where I usually kept it, the weight of it wasn’t so bad.  It smelled nice too.  Not to mention, I was really enjoying wearing that nice robe.  It was so soft and comfortable.

“You should have shaved her legs,” Amanda noted as she looked me over again.

“I was going to give her a bath next.  I was planning on doing it then, but her neck can’t take much more of that weight.”

I watched while Natalie quickly got dressed.  She wore underwear, including a bra.  I hated that bra I had tried to wear once.  She pulled some pants up her legs then a real pretty top.  She slipped her feet into a pair of shoes, and she seemed to be done.  I looked around for my dress, but I didn’t see it.  “Can I get dressed now?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Natalie told me.  “We’ll wait till after Lila helps with your hair.”

“What’s she going to do to it?” I asked.

“Not nearly what I’d like her to,” she replied.  “But maybe someday.”

I heard a bell ring somewhere in the house.  “What was that?” I asked as I saw Natalie hurry out of the room.

“Doorbell,” Amanda told me.

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 6

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 6

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

Deputy Amanda and I spent a long time talking with Roxie about what she had discussed with…Freaky.  We had to get a real name for that girl, or at least a better one.  For the time being though, she might be stuck with it.  Everything Roxie told us sounded unbelievable.  On the one hand, I was sure Roxie was making everything up.  But on the other hand, I had already been through the pee hole thing with Freaky, and I knew for a fact that it was all true.  But as to the rest of it?  I remembered how filthy and unkempt the girl was.  Not to mention how cruel I was sure that Bo Jeskey could be.  But that cruel?  Unbelievable!

When we were done with Roxie, I thanked her for her efforts and promised I’d put in a good word with the D.A. on her behalf.  She said she didn’t care.  She had just wanted to kill Bo Jeskey for what he had done to her brother, and she didn’t care what happened to her.  She might not care, but I did.  And killing the Jeskeys was in reality a very good thing.  Maybe more so than I ever imagined.

“Sheriff,” Amanda said as we were heading back to the offices.  “It’s getting late.  What are you going to do with her?”

Good question.  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Maybe protective custody in the cells?” she suggested.

“Maybe,” I agreed.  “Maybe.”

“I’ve got another suggestion too,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Ask you wife.  Maybe she’ll have an idea.”

“Natalie?”

“She’s a social worker, isn’t she?”

“Maybe,” I said again and turned into my office.

Amanda had been right about one other thing too.  It was getting late.  As soon as I got back to my desk, I picked up the phone and called my wife.

“Hi Will,” she said as soon as she picked up.  “How’s it going?”

“Hey Nat,” I replied.  “It’s been…a day,” I told her.

“I hear you had a big murder case,” she said.  “Bo Jeskey.”

“Bo, and his two oldest sons, Steve and Ben.”

“So you’ve been busy.”

“Huh!  The murders were easy.  We know who did it and why, and she’s cooperating better than anyone could expect.”

“She?”

“Yeah.  Roxie Simmons did it.  I can’t tell you more than that, and I probably shouldn’t have said even that much.”

“Will, how long have you known me?”

“Point taken.  Listen Nat, are you home yet?”

“Five minutes ago,” she replied.  “I take it you’re going to be very late?”

“Nope.  Not if I can help it.  In fact, I’d like to leave here in a little while.  I just need to have a little conversation with the D.A. first.”

“Didn’t you talk to him yet?”

“There hasn’t been time.  “Listen Nat, I really hate to ask this but, is there any chance you can swing by here as soon as possible?  Since your job is social stuff, I’d like to ask your advice on…something.”

“You can’t ask me at home?”

“Maybe it would be better if I do it here.  I’ve got the darndest situation here, and it’s not only boggling my mind, it’s pretty much got everyone stumped.”

“Situation?  What?”

“Just…can you come here?  I’ll fill you in on it then.”

I heard her sigh.  “I’m on my way Will.”

“Thanks,” I told her.  “And maybe we’ll stop for pizza on the way home.”

“Depending on what you’re about to tell me, I might want something better than pizza.”

After talking to my wife, I made another call.  This time to the one person I should have talked to right after I had taken care of rounding up the dead bodies out at the Jeskey farm.  The local District Attorney, Dale Murphy.  I had to call his cellphone to finally get in touch with him.

“Will,” he greeted me once he had connected.  “Rumor has it that you’ve had a busy day.”

“Yeah,” I replied.  “Sorry I didn’t call you earlier.  I know I should have.  So I’m calling you now.”

“Don’t bother,” he told me.  I’m in Knoxville still.  I’ve been here all day.  I’ll get the details from you tomorrow.  I’ve already heard though that we’ve got a few dead Jeskeys on our hands.”

“Yeah,” I replied.  “Three of them.  And the perpetrator is in custody and has been more than willing to tell us everything…and then some.”

“Good!” he replied.  “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

After that, I left my office and found Amanda getting ready to go home for the night.  I asked if she could stick around for a bit to give me…moral support while I talked to my wife.  She just rolled her eyes and agreed.

Natalie showed up ten minutes later.  I led her into my office and had Amanda join us.  I could see Nat wasn’t overly happy to have Amanda there.  She was going to have to put up with it though.  Now I just had to figure out where to start to explain my problem.

“Roxie Simmons murdered Bo Jeskey, Steve Jeskey, and Ben Jeskey today,” I started.

“You told me that on the phone,” Natalie replied.

“Yeah.  But what I didn’t tell you was that when we got there, there was another girl in the house.  Someone a bit more…surprising.”

“That’s an understatement,” Amanda muttered.

Natalie looked briefly toward Amanda, then back to me.  “What’s that mean?”

Where to start?  “First of all,” I said, “there’s her name.  We haven’t been able to get two words out of her all day, and especially not her name.  And when I asked Dave and Gary Jeskey about her, all they did was laugh about the fact that we don’t know.  And neither of them would tell me either.  When I talked to Roxie about her, Roxie said the only name she ever heard anyone call her is Freak.”

“Freak?” Natalie asked, surprised by the name.

“Freak!” I confirmed.

“Roxie calls her Freaky though,” Amanda threw in.

Natalie shrugged.  “So?”

“The girl is…” I started to say but my wife interrupted me.

“You said girl.  How old is she?”

I considered it.  “I don’t know.  We can’t even get her name.”

“Is she a young kid or is she older, in her teens?”

“I would think…maybe teens, maybe early twenties.  It’s hard to tell since she’s so filthy.”

“Filthy?”

“Filthy!” Amanda confirmed.

“What happened that she got that way?”

I shook my head.  “Let’s not go there yet.”  I looked to Amanda.  “You want to tell her about your little visit with the doctor.”

“Since she had a bullet hole and dried blood on the back of her dress,” Amanda started.

“Bullet hole!” Natalie exclaimed, coming half out of her seat.

“Bullet hole,” Amanda confirmed.  “We figured it might be a good idea to see if she had been actually shot anywhere, so we took her to the hospital and arranged for a doctor to look her over.  What a shock!”

“Shock?” Natalie asked.

“First of all, as soon as we got her naked, she suddenly came alive and started talking.  But it was to ask the doctor if he wanted to have sex with her, or just give him a blowjob.”

“Prostitution,” Natilie murmured.

“Maybe,” I said.  “Just maybe.  But I doubt it.”

“According to what we found out from her, she’s been having sex with her…uncles, as she called them, for as long as she can remember.”

I saw Natalie’s face suddenly look sick.  “Her uncles?”

“We’re guessing Bo and his boys,” I supplied.

“Was she?”

I shrugged.  “Sounds like it.  But trust me, that’s all a lot of nothing on top of a whole mountain of other things.”

“Like what?”

Between Amanda and I, we explained as much as we had heard about everything, all of it sending Natalie into a world of total disbelief.

“It can’t be!” Natalie finally said when we were done.  “It just can’t be!”

“That’s what I want to believe too,” I told her.  “The problem is, all the evidence we have so far, backs it up.”

She looked at the ceiling for a while, then finally looked back at me.  “Where is she now?”

“Right now?” in our interview room.  Before I leave tonight, I’ll be locking her downstairs in one of the cells.  Protective custody.”

“I should think!” Natalie agreed.  “Um…damn, I hate to ask this, but…can I see her?  I am a social worker.  She sounds just like someone I should be talking to.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” I replied.

“Which is why you wanted me to come here in the first place,” my wife realized.

“True.”

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 5

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 5

 

Freaky

 

I was in jail.  Just like all the guys had been a bunch of times.  The fact that I was in jail didn’t worry me.  The guys were always gone a day, sometimes a bit more, then they always came home.  It was just a matter of time until I could get back where I belonged.  But…the wash was still hung on the line, and what about fixing dinner?  I really hoped that Dave and Gary would understand that I had been in jail and I couldn’t get there to fix them something to eat.

But worrying about being in jail, or the wash still hung on the line, or even fixing dinner wasn’t my main worry now.  It had been a long day already.  A day filled with new things that boggled my mind and that I couldn’t begin to understand.  But now I was starting to need something, and I knew that I was going to need it very bad before long.

The door finally opened, and that man cop walked in.  He barely came into the room though.  He really just stood  in the doorway.  I stood up.  I was going to have to talk to him to tell him my problem, and it couldn’t wait.

“I hear they call you Freak…or Freaky,” he said.

That was my name.  I wondered who had told him.  But I had a bigger problem now.  “I’ve got a problem,” I told him quickly.

He seemed concerned.  “Oh?  What?”

“I need to pee.  It’s been a real long day, and I’ve got to go real bad.”

He seemed surprised.  “Sorry,” he said quickly as he moved out of the doorway.  “I should have thought of that.  You’ve got no bathroom in here.  You could’ve just knocked on the door though.  Come on,” he said.

I hurried out the door and turned.  “Where’s your pee hole?” I asked quickly as I turned to head toward where they had brought me into this weird building.

“Ladies’ room is this direction,” he said, pointing the other way.

I stopped, not understanding.  “Ladies’ room?”

“Right back there,” he said.  “Come on.”

“You mean, it’s inside?”

“Yeah.  Of course.  What, you’ve got an outhouse at home?”

“No.  Of course not.  We’ve got a nice bathroom in the house.”

“Oh.  Well, the ladies’ bathroom is right back here.”

“But it’s inside,” I asked again, not believing it.  “You dug a hole right through the floor?”

He seemed surprised.  “What are you talking about?”

I was really having to pee now.  “Look,” I said.  “I’ve got to get outside where I can pee.  Which direction is your girl’s pee hole?”

He really seemed confused.  “We ain’t got no hole outside anywhere, for anything.  The ladies’ bathroom is right here.  If you’ve got to pee, use it.”

Now I was confused.  “It’s…okay?  You won’t…punish me?”

“Of course not.  That’s what it’s for.”  He cocked his head in the other direction.  “Come on.  I’ll show you where it is.”

I followed, but hesitantly.  A bathroom.  Inside.  That girls could use?  It just didn’t sound right.

He pushed on a door and it opened.  “Right here,” he said.

I wasn’t sure about anything, but I walked inside.  The door closed behind me all by itself, and he stayed out there.  I took a step in and looked around.  It was…a bathroom.  Sort of.  It had three sinks all next to each other along one of the walls.  Across from him were all these…places.  I saw toilets in each of them.  I needed to pee like crazy though, so punished or not, I pulled my dress up, stood over top of one of them, and let loose.  Ah!  Relief!

I dropped my skirt and walked away.  I stood there for a moment and stared at the toilet I had just peed in.  It was so shiny I couldn’t believe it.  In fact, as I looked around the room, everything in it was shiny.  How did they get it all that clean?  I scrubbed the bathroom in the house every single day, sometimes twice, and I couldn’t get it to look like that.

I remembered that the guys always seemed to get angry with each other when one of them used the bathroom and didn’t flush the toilet when they were done, so I went back to it and pushed down on the little silver lever, hoping that it would work.  The toilet seemed to explode with water inside, but it was over with really fast, and everything looked like it was okay.  I hoped I hadn’t broken anything.

I looked around one more time, then headed for the door.  I pushed on it, but it wouldn’t open.  Locked!  I pushed again, and the door scared me when it suddenly opened inwards towards me.  I moved out of the way and saw the cop pushing it open.  I guessed I was pushing it the wrong way.  Weird door.  Just like everything else in this place.

“Any problems?” the cop asked me as we walked back towards my jail cell.

“Problems?” I said, and shook my head.  “I just can’t believe it.  It isn’t right!”

“What’s not right?”

“Girls aren’t supposed to use the bathroom inside.  That’s what pee holes outside are for.”

I could tell he was looking at me funny, but he didn’t say anything more about it.  We got back to the room and I went inside, knowing that I was about to be locked up again.

“Freaky,” he said.

I turned to look at him, wondering again who had talked and told him who I was.

“Do you know Roxie?”

Know her?  I shrugged.  Shrugging wasn’t talking, was it?

“If I bring her in here, will you talk to her?  Just you and her?”

I considered that.  I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone…period.  Not even the women that the guys brought home with them.  But Roxie wasn’t a cop, and I was so confused I didn’t know what to do.  I nodded my head.  Nodding wasn’t talking to cops either, was it?

“Sit tight,” he told me.  “I’ll have her brought up.”

The door closed and I was alone again.  I didn’t bother trying to open the door, I was sure it was locked.  Talk to Roxie?  Why?  But the truth was, I wanted to talk to her.  I wanted to talk to anyone who wasn’t a cop.  And more than that, I really wanted to talk to another woman.  I couldn’t remember ever talking to another girl, or woman, ever!  And I mean…ever!  And the funny thing was, I had no clue what I even would want to talk about.  But still.  I almost yearned to talk to someone else like me.

The door opened and Roxie came in.  I got a brief glimpse of the cop, but he didn’t come in.  He did close the door though.

“Hey Freaky,” Roxie said as she moved into the room.  She was holding her hands in front of her, and I noticed there was something metal holding her wrists together.  She sat down at the table across from me and set her hands on the table.

I stared at that metal contraption on her wrists.  “Is that what the guys call…handcuffs?”

“Yeah,” she replied.  “Of course.”

“How can you do anything with them on you like that?”

She seemed surprised by my question.  “I think that’s the point,” she said.  “I can’t.  I’m…stuck.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Mostly,” I guess, “so I can’t get away.”

“But you can still walk,” I noted.

“Yeah, but…”  She held her bound hands up a bit.  “I can’t do anything else.  Not easily anyway.”

“Can I…touch it?”

“Sure.  Go ahead.”

I reached out across the table with one finger and lightly touched it.  It was hard.  Steel.  What else should I have expected?  “It looks tight,” I noticed.

“Yeah.  It is.  It hurts a bit too.”

“It hurts?”

“Some.  Not too bad,” she told me.

I nodded, then looked up into her face.  “Roxie,” I said.  “I am so confused…about everything.  I’ve never been away from the farm before.  I’ve never been allowed to talk to anyone that comes to the house before.  And there are so many people who keep asking me things, especially the cops, but…tell Dave and Gary, I’m not talking!  I promise.  I’m not talking to any of them.  But…”  I shut up.  What was it that I was doing?  I was talking to someone, when I knew perfectly well that I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone at all.  Period!

“But what?” she asked.

Was it worth taking the chance to talk to another girl?  “Please don’t be mad,” I told her.  “And maybe, don’t tell Dave and Gary either, but…but…”

“But what?”

“But, I…I really just wanted to talk to another girl.”

She seemed shocked.  “Don’t you see other women once in a while?”

I shook my head.  “Never.  I’ve never talked to another girl in my life, just the guys.  When people come to the house, most of the time they make me hide.  It’s just a few that when they come they let me be seen.  As long as it’s not too much.”

“Geezus!” she muttered.

“Can I ask something?” I said.

“Of course.”

“Why do most of the women I’ve seen today wear pants?  Girls don’t wear pants.  Good girls only wear dresses and skirts.  If I even thought about wearing pants the guys would all kill me.  They’d really hurt me bad.”

“Freaky, what are you talking about?  It’s normal for women to wear pants.  I wear them all the time.  What kind of…uh, freaky fantasy have those guys been telling you?”

“Girls don’t wear pants!” I insisted.  Then added, “Besides, aren’t those pants…uncomfortable?”

“Uncomfortable?  Are you kidding?  No!  I’d much rather wear them than…dresses and skirts.  Geez!”

“But what about when you have to pee?  With a skirt, you can just stand over the pee hole and let go.  But with pants, what do you do?”

She shook her head.  “Freaky, you’ve lost me.  What are you talking about?  What’s a pee hole?”

“The hole outside for girls to pee, of course.”

“What the hell?” she exclaimed.  “I’d never do anything like that.  That’s just stupid!”

“But…”

“I know there’s a perfectly good bathroom in your house.  I’ve seen it.  Don’t you go in there?”

“Just to clean,” I told her.  “Girls are supposed to use the pee hole outside.”

“You don’t pee in the bathroom?” she said as if she didn’t believe it.

“Or poop,” I told her.  “That’s what the holes outside are for.”

She shook her head.  “Freaky, nobody does that.  Except I guess you.  Why don’t you use the bathroom like everyone else?”

Dumb question.  “Because I’m a girl.  Girls aren’t supposed to use bathrooms.  Just guys.  They’d kill me if I didn’t do it right.”

“And knowing them, they really would kill you.”

I nodded and leaned across the table.  “You really pee…in a bathroom?”

“Every time,” she told me.

“Wow,” I said, amazed.  “You are so brave.”

“Freaky,” she said.  “What the hell kind of crap have those guys been feeding you?”

“Crap?” I said.  “They don’t feed me crap.  I eat the same thing they do.  Usually.”

“Usually?  What’s usually?”

“Well, sometimes if they’re real hungry or if they have guests over for dinner and there’s not enough, then I don’t get to eat.  Or if they’re mad at me for some reason, then Bo likes to put dog food down in my bowl for me to eat instead.  I hate that!  Especially since he usually makes me eat it for a long time, and I’m not allowed to use my hands.”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” she said.  “Freaky, nobody does that!”

“Bo does.”

“Bo is sick!”

“He’s not sick,” I said.  “He’s dead.  Besides, without him, I’d be dead too, and I should know.  He reminds me about it all the time.  Without him I’d have no place to live and no food at all.  I’d be dead.  And if I don’t be a good girl and behave like I should then he’ll have no problem killing me.  And a few times, I think he came close.  Real close.”

“He tried to kill you?”

“It seemed like it.  But I didn’t die.”

She shook her head.  She leaned forward across the table a bit.  “Freaky, you want my advice?”

“Sure,” I replied, then added.  “Yes…please?”

“Talk to the sheriff!  Tell him all of it.  Everything!”

“But I’m not supposed to talk to cops.  Isn’t he a cop?”

“Hell yes!  But this time Freaky, talk to him.  And any of his friends too.”

“Even that woman cop?”

“Hell yes!  Maybe, especially her.”

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “I’m not supposed to talk to anyone at all.  I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.”

She leaned towards me again.  “Can I ask you something now?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.  I love your hair.  I have for a long time.  It’s so long.  Incredibly long.  Have you ever straightened it out to see exactly how long it is?”

“Straightened it?  How?  What for?”

“To make it neater.  To take care of it.  To make it look nice.  Having that much hair has to be a lot of work.  How do you shampoo it?”

“Shampoo?”

“What kind do you use on it?”

“Shampoo?  What’s shampoo?”

“Don’t joke,” she said.  “I’m serious.  How do you take care of it?”

I was confused.  “I usually try to grab it before I sit down so it doesn’t pull on my head.”

“But how about when you wash it?  How long does it take you to brush all that hair out?”

“Brush?”

She looked at me for a moment.  “Freaky, don’t tell me you never brush your own hair.  Especially not since you’ve got so much.”

“I have a brush for the laundry,” I told her.

“The laundry,” she said.  “Why would you need a brush for the laundry?"

“To get the clothes clean of course.  Don’t act so stupid.  How else would you do it?”

“Uh…a washing machine?  Ever hear of that?”

I didn’t understand.  “A machine…to wash clothes?”

She looked at me strangely again, then shook her head.  “Girl, something is seriously wrong with you!”

“I feel fine.  I’d feel better if I could just go home where I belong and get dinner ready before Dave and Gary kill me for being late.  And besides, I’ve still got wash on the line.  What if it rains tonight?  It’ll get wet, and I won’t be there to get myself clean.”

Her eyes seemed to grow twice their size.  “What does getting clean have to do with it raining?  Don’t tell me!” she said.  “Please don’t tell me that you shower in the rain.”

“Where else would I do it?”

She shook her head and got up.  “This is too much,” she said.  She hurried to the door, raised both her hands in front of her and pounded.  “Let me out!” she shouted.  “Let me out.  I can’t take anymore.”  The door quickly opened, and she turned back to me.  “Freaky.  Talk to someone.  Please!”  With that, she walked out.  I heard her say to the cop out there, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 4

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 4

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

With the girl safely stowed away in the interview room, I went back to my office and called in not just Amanda, but a few of my other deputies as well.  Then I had Amanda take it from the top and tell us all what had gone on in that hospital exam room.

“It’s just too unbelievable for any of it to be real,” Amanda started.  “But I swear, the girl actually seemed to think it was all normal for her.  And that’s not the most unbelievable thing of all.”

“What’s that?” one of the other deputies asked.

“Her…” Amanda started to say, then she stopped and looked around.  “Okay guys, I’m about to use a word that may be out of your kindergarten mentalities.  Get over it!  Vagina!  Woman parts.  Got it?”

Every man in the room, myself included, laughed.  So did she.

“But the truth is,” Amanda continued, it’s no laughing matter at all.  Someone…mutilated her down there.”

“They did what?” one of my deputies exclaimed.

“Mutilated!” Amanda told her.  “It was hard to tell exactly what they did to her, but her entire vagina…clit for those idiots here.  The entire thing looked like it had been somehow, I don’t know, fastened together in some way so that she can’t have sex.  It was just a thin slit that the doctor couldn’t even pull apart, then there was an opening at the bottom so she could pee.  That’s it!  The whole thing was strange looking.  The poor girl.  I didn’t get the impression that it hurts her though.  And then it got even weirder,” she said.

“Weirder?” one of the deputies asked.  “Someone mutilated her.  What could get weirder than that?”

“As soon as she was naked so the doctor could examine her, she asked him if he wanted to have sex with her, or if he just wanted a blowjob.  Get this.  She actually thought that was the reason he wanted her naked.  She had heard of doctors before, but she’s never actually seen one.  He was the first.”

“A prostitute?” one of the deputies threw out.  “From what we’ve heard about her, that could almost be reasonable…except for that mutilation thing.  You said her…vagina couldn’t be opened?”

“No,” Amanda replied.  “It was somehow sealed shut.  Permanently as far as I could tell.”

“But Bo Jeskey still had her servicing anyone he wanted?” the deputy replied.

“I’m guessing so,” Amanda agreed.  “But I really don’t know.  Except that the part that shocked me the most, was one of the few things she actually said.  As it turns out, she said she’s been having sex for as long as she can remember, with her uncles!”

I had heard it all in the car, but it still shocked me to hear it again.

“Her uncles?” one of the deputies in the room exclaimed.

“At least she was talking,” I mentioned, not wanting to get further into the incest thing without facts.  “Did you ask her name?”

“The nurse and the doctor both did,” Amanda told us.  “But like before, she refused to say.  In fact, I’m amazed she told us as much as she did.  Eventually though, she reached a point, and she stopped talking.  Period!”

“Okay,” I said.  “How about the reason I wanted her looked at in the first place.  Any signs that she had been shot?”

Amanda shook her head.  “Not that I noticed.  I’m pretty sure the doctor didn’t notice any either, but it was a bit hard to tell.  She’s just so dirty.  The doctor did mention whip marks all over her back though.  She’s also got more than a few scars and bruises all over her body.”  She looked at me.  “What are you going to do Sheriff?  Please don’t tell me you’re going to let her go home.  Not if they’re raping her all the time.”

I shook my head.  “I still don’t know what I’m going to do with her, but you’re right, sending her home is out, no matter how much she wants to go there.  If any of you lunkheads has a suggestion as to what to do with her, then please let me know.”

“Give her a bath…soon!” Amanda said.

I smiled.  Sounds like a good idea.  Somehow.

“Maybe Roxie!” Russ, my chief deputy threw out.

“Roxie?  What about her?” I asked.

“It sounds like the girl isn’t interested in telling us anything about herself, but does Roxie know anything about her?  The girl was there in the house when Roxie shot them.”

I nodded.  “I haven’t had a chance to do the formal interview with Roxie yet.  But asking if she knows anything about the girl sounds like a great idea.  Get Roxie out of that cell and set her up.  Somewhere that’s not with the girl.  Amanda, sorry, but you’re the only woman here, so you’re with me.  As soon as she’s ready, let’s go talk to Roxie.”

Fifteen minutes later, Amanda and I walked into our little conference room where they had stashed Roxie.  Her hands were cuffed, but not cuffed to any of the furniture.  Roxie was just sitting there as calm as can be, waiting for us.

“Roxie,” I greeted her as we entered the room.  “This is Deputy Amanda.”

“We’ve…met,” Roxie replied.  “It was a while ago though.”

“You were picked up for shoplifting,” Amanda said.  “I haven’t heard anything about you since.”

“It was just that one time,” Roxie said.  “And like I told you back then, I only did it because Jimmy Baker dared me to do it.  I was…stupid.  Sorry about that.  But I’m not sorry for killing the Jeskeys, except I should have killed them all.  I’m still trying to figure out why I didn’t shoot Dave and Gary too.  They would be two more dead men to my name, but what’s the difference?  And the entire world would be a better place.”

I was tempted to tell her the world would probably agree with her, but those ideas were strictly contrary to my position as sheriff in the county.

“Roxie,” I said.  “Back at the Jeskey place, you not only admitted to killing them, but you said something about you having proof that they killed your brother Tom.  You want to elaborate on that?”

She sat up straighter.  “Sure,” she replied.  “Do you know Wendel Cramp?  The guy who owns the junkyard?”

“I know him well.  Trust me,” I told her.

“Well, he said he saw the whole thing.”

“He did?  What did he say?”

“He flat out told me that Bo Jeskey shot Tommy, and that not only was Steve and Ben with him at the time, but after Bo killed him, both Steve and Ben put a bullet into Toms body too, probably just so they could shoot someone.”

“I’ll ask him about it,” I told her.  The truth was, knowing what I did about the Jeskeys, that was most likely the case.  There were rumors about them killing a number of people.  Just no evidence at all.  Not to mention, no bodies either.  That was the problem with the case of Roxie’s brother.  He had just disappeared.  We had no proof that anything had happened to him.

Did Wendel say anything about what they did with your brother’s body?”

“He said they threw him in the back of a pickup and drove off with him.”

“But he didn’t say where?”

“No.  I doubt he knows.”

More than likely, he didn’t.  Only the Jeskeys would know.  “And where did all this take place?” I asked.

“Out back behind his junkyard,” Roxie told me.  “I never asked Wendel what he was doing out there, but he said he saw it all, plain as day, and he was awfully sure about it.  He made me swear though that I wouldn’t tell anyone at all.  He just wanted me to know that Bo Jeskey had shot him.”

The problem with what she was telling me was that it was all perfectly believable.  I wasn’t completely sure about the reason Wendel would have been there, but I would follow up on that for sure.  But that brought up my next question.  “Why didn’t Wendel come to us in the first place?”

“And have Bo Jeskey go after him?  Are you kidding?”

She did have a point.

“So you decided to take matters into your own hands.  How did you do it?”

She grunted a laugh.  “It turned out to be easy.  You know Dave Jeskey has been grunting around me for years.  All I had to do was cozy up to him for a bit like I was interested again.  Dave and I have gotten together on and off for years, so it took nothing to get back together with him, and eventually he invited me out to his house for…a drink.”

“A drink,” I said, not believing that for a second.

“A drink!” she insisted.

I nodded.  “Go ahead.”

“You know the guys all carry guns, pretty much all the time, and it sort of just happened.  The guys were all there for once, including Bo, and we were all sitting around the living room drinking beer.  Steve pulled his gun out from the back of his pants so he could get more comfortable, and he set it on the end table next to the couch where he was sitting.  I got up to go to the beer fridge to get another one for me and Dave and I walked right by it.  Nobody paid me the least bit of attention.  I picked it up, aimed it at Steve and pulled the trigger.  As fast as I could, I aimed it at Bo and shot him too.  Ben was only a second behind.  End of story, just like them.  And like I said, I may spend the rest of my life in prison, but I don’t care.  I killed them, and I’m good with it.”

So was I, but like I said, those thoughts went contrary to my position.  “How about Gary and Dave?” I asked.  “You didn’t shoot them.”

“No, but I should have.  They didn’t shoot Tommy.  I just held the gun on them in case they got any bad ideas.”

“And how about the other person in the room?” I asked.

She seemed confused.  “What other person?”

“The girl.”

“Oh, her.  Yeah, she was there.  She tried to run out when she heard the police sirens coming.  Said something about having to hide, but I don’t know why.  Dave, or Gary…one of them, said something about her not being allowed to be seen, but I have no idea what that was about or why.  I pointed the gun at her and told her to get back in the kitchen where she was.”

“I’m pretty sure you hinted that you had been at their house before,” I said.

“Yeah.  I’ve been there,” she admitted.  “A number of times actually.”

“Have you ever seen that girl before?”

“Sometimes, but not always.”

“Do you know who she is?  We can’t even get a name out of her, and both Dave and Gary think it’s funny that she won’t tell us, and neither will they.”

Roxie shook her head.  “The only thing I’ve ever heard her called is Freak.  Tell the freak to do this, or tell the freak to do that.  They all seemed to call her Freak.”  She smiled.  “I called her Freaky though, just because…I don’t know.  I liked it better.”

“Freak, or Freaky,” I said, not believing it.  No other name?”

“Nope.  Sorry,” she said.  Just that.”

“What’s she doing there?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but she cooks and cleans for them.  That’s about all I know.”

“Cooks and cleans,” I said.  That much I could believe.  “Like I said, we can’t get a word out of her about anything.”  I nodded toward Amanda.  “Except that there’s a possibility of a whole lot of incest going on.”

That seemed to surprise Roxie.  “Incest?” she asked.

“We had her looked over by a doctor.  When he asked her to get undressed she thought it was for sex, or at least to give him a blowjob.”

Roxie winced.  “I don’t know,” she admitted.  “But somehow I believe it.”

I nodded sadly.

Amanda leaned forward and looked at me.  I nodded at her, knowing she had a question for Roxie.  “Roxie,” she said.  “We can’t get anything useful out of her.”

“Freaky,” Roxie said.

“Yes.  Freaky,” Amanda replied.

“You’re cops,” Roxie said.  “She’s been around Bo’s place for as long as I can remember.  Do you really think that Bo wouldn’t have practically brainwashed her into knowing she doesn’t dare talk to you?”

Something told me that brainwashed might be closer to the truth for a number of things about her.

“Probably,” Amanda agreed.  “But if we get her together with you and have you talk to her, do you think there’s any chance that you can convince her to trust us and at least tell us what we need to know?”

I had to hand it to Amanda, that was a good idea.  I leaned forward a bit, anxious to know the answer.

Roxie sat and considered it, then finally said, “Maybe.  I don’t really know.  I’ve never been allowed to really speak with her.  She’s always just…around, you know?  I always had the impression she was shy around people.  But there’s a few things I’m dying to know about her myself.”

“There is?” Amanda asked.

“Yeah.  Like…have you seen how long her hair is?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “You can’t exactly miss it.  I guess she likes it like that, but the least she could do is brush it once in a while.  Not to mention, what’s she got against taking a bath?”

“I don’t know, Roxie said.  “But I seem to remember asking Dave about it once and he said that Bo wants her hair real long.  Don’t ask me why.  It’s so long now that I keep wondering, if anyone ever untangled it, if it would actually reach the ground.  It would be so pretty though.  And it would be amazing to see.”

“Reach the ground,” I said, trying to picture that.

“Can I at least ask her about it?” Roxie asked.

“Sure,” I told her.  “But you’ll have to let us come up with a list of questions we want to know about first, just in case she’ll talk to you and still not talk to us.  She’s seen you at home before.  And as you said, we’re…cops.”