The Housekeeper
By Karen Singer
Chapter 44
Roger arrived at Rebecca Adkins’ daughter’s house extra early…
as he had pre-arranged the day before.
He was hoping to completely finish the job for her today. But that was only one of the major things on his
mind as he knocked on her door. The
other major thing was his new boots. He
was glad when the door was opened quickly and he was able to slip inside. But getting inside put his new boots on
direct display to both her and her husband.
And he was barely through the door before they were noticed.
“New boots, Mr. Brinkley?” she asked the moment he got through the
door.
Roger looked down at his feet.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“They’re… very… nice,” she finally
finished. “Interesting, but very nice.”
Roger wasn’t sure how to reply to
that so he just said, “Thanks,” and changed the subject. “Hopefully, I should be able to finish up
today.”
“That would be so good!” she
exclaimed. “Then I can get on with
finishing the decorating. It’s been
awfully tiresome having my house in such a mess for so long.”
“I’m sure it has,” Roger
agreed. “If I wasn’t still teaching
school, it would have been done a long time ago. But… well, right now, finishing with my
classes has to come first.”
Fifteen minutes later, Roger’s clothes
were covered by his painter’s coveralls and his boots were covered by the
plastic bags. It was hot and a bit
cumbersome to work in, but he felt the trade-off was worth the effort – no
clean up to his clothes, and especially to his boots. And there was no way that any of it even came
close to how uncomfortable that damn corset was that Carol was tying him into
every night. That thing was simply a
nightmare!
Agent Ted Jacobs stared at his
personal copy of the Janice Stokley file.
He was stuck. Badly stuck. But this wasn’t the first time he had been in
this situation on this case. He needed
way to get more information. He needed a
lead! But from where? All of Brinkley’s friends had turned out to
be no help at all… and from what they had told him, Brinkley himself was a
total flake! He wasn’t sure if he was
surprised by that bit of news or not.
But no matter, flake or not, he had no doubt that Brinkley knew more
than he was telling… or had told when they had met with him at the high school.
Maybe it was time to visit with
Brinkley again. Push him a bit
harder. Yeah, as far as he could see,
that might be his best bet for now.
With nothing better to do, he
opened the file folder and started at the beginning, carefully going through
every scrap of paper and every note he had ever made. The answer was in there somewhere – it had to
be! She was connected to all three banks
that had been robbed. The first had been
robbed by her own husband! If that
wasn’t a big red flag then he didn’t know what was. But her husband was now lying flat in a
special hospital from a brain aneurism.
All but dead. No use to anyone at
all.
The second bank had been in
Mobile. They were pretty sure that the
bank had been robbed by one of the managers, but right afterwards, the guy had
gone off the deep end and had been in a mental institute ever since. Totally non-communicative. Almost as if he didn’t understand what was
being said to him anymore. Jacobs remembered visiting with him a couple of
times. It had been creepy the way the
guy had looked at him… and didn’t appear to even see him.
And then there was the bank
president from Birmingham. And he was
another nut case now. Jacobs remembered
visiting the mental institute that he was in too. And while the first guy had been creepy, this
one was even worse! Jacobs would never
forget the way the guy had just kind of crouched on top of his bed, never
moving a muscle… except for his eyes… his eyes that would dart from spot to
spot around the room as if watching for something. His arms had been bent up at the elbows and
his wrists bent down, his fingers all closed together as if his hands were
giant pincers. And as far as anyone could
tell, he never noticed anyone speaking to him – ever! And he certainly never said anything at
all. But just before he walked out, he
had seen those weird pincer-like hands suddenly dart out at lightning speed as
if catching something in midair. He had
watched in horror as he had quickly brought a fly up to his mouth and ate
it! No, there was no way that guy was
connected with the real world anymore!
And to tell the truth, the guy had reminded Jacobs of nothing but a
giant praying mantis! It had to be the
ultimate in creepy!
Three bank robberies, three mental
institutes, and the last two perpetrators were so far off the deep end that
they couldn’t even be totally connected with humanity anymore! He had no doubt that there was a pattern
there, but it was impossible to prove anything.
As far as he knew, neither one had said a single word to anyone since
the banks had been robbed. Guilty… but
no way to convict them or get a confession out of them.
And either way, how was Janice
involved in the second two cases? She
had worked for both banks, but that was the extent of her connection to both
cases. As far as they were able to
discern, she wasn’t strongly connected to either guy. Yet she had been there, working at the banks,
just as she had when her husband had robbed his bank… and in all three cases,
the perpetrators were now unable to communicate – anything at all! Totally maddening!
There wasn’t one shred of proof
against Janice Stokley at all! But
Jacob’s gut told him that Janice was at the bottom of all of it. He just hadn’t been able to prove it
yet. But he would! That was one thing he knew for sure, someday
he would! It was only a matter of time…
and finding all that damn money of course!
It was all out there somewhere.
But where? Millions and millions
of dollars… just sitting there unused!
Oh how he’d like to get his hands on that money! It would change everything!
He looked again at the information
on the two nutso guys. It had been a
while now since he had called either of the looney bins where they were now
permanent residents. It couldn’t hurt to
make a few more follow-up calls… just to see if there had been any improvements
since the last time. He made a note for
himself to phone the institutes first thing Monday morning… and also to figure
out when he could go out to talk with Roger Brinkley again! The damn guy was nutso too… just in a
different way. But he had no doubt at
all that Roger Brinkley knew more than what he had told them last time.
Roger stood in the doorway and
carefully looked over the room he had just finished painting. It looked good and he felt nothing but
satisfied – and ready to get out of the extra protective clothing he was
wearing. With the weather starting to
turn warmer, yet still with too much rain, it was becoming hot and humid and he
had been sweating for the last few hours.
His new boots had his feet hurting more than a bit as well, but pressing
on as he had done was worth it. He was
done now… except for moving some of the furniture back into place. He pulled the plastic coverings off of his
boots and gratefully peeled out of the coveralls he was wearing. The cooler air felt good, even though his new
boots with their higher heels were now fully on display.
Most of the furniture and
decorations that had been in the bedroom had been moved out of it. Roger wasn’t going to worry about moving any
of that back in again. But there were
also a few of the bigger pieces that had been set in the middle of the room
where he had draped a protective tarp over them while he had been
painting. Since he had moved those
pieces to where they were before he started painting, he decided he should at
least get them somewhat back into place.
Bracing himself as best he could in
his new boots, he started shoving at the bottom of one of the dressers. It was very heavy – even with much of the
clothing that had been in it removed. His
old boots had been bad enough to do that kind of work in, but his new boots
were making the job all that much more difficult. He had even less traction in them to push
with… and that didn’t even take into consideration the fact that after standing
and working in the boots all day, his toes were totally killing him! It was only through sheer perseverance that
he managed to move the heavy dresser, somewhat back to where it belonged.
He noticed right away after moving
it, that his back ached a little bit.
For that kind of work, he knew he should have been wearing his back
brace – that he all too often did without.
But that thought reminded him all too well of his “new” back brace that
Janice had said he would be wearing to work in all too soon – his stupid
corset! Right now, he was more than glad
to put up with the little bit of aching in his back from the heavy
lifting. His corset would be ten times
worse! And of course, he knew that as
soon as he got home in a little while, Carol would be lacing him into it right
away. The damn thing was just simply –
uncomfortable! Not to mention, a
nuisance too!
Bracing what little of his feet
that he could, he put his back to work on moving the other dresser. He needed to get the job done and get out of
there before Janice made him eat his dinner from his dog bowl on the floor
again!
While Janice ate, she did her best
to look Roger over while they all sat at the dinner table together, without it
being obvious as to what she was doing. As
usual now, he was dressed completely as Candy… even though it was in some
rather plain looking work jeans. His top
that he had been working in all day wasn’t too bad, although it looked like he
had been sweating in it a bit. But she
was sure that the kind of work that he did would cause him to sweat somewhat…
even though summer wasn’t even here yet.
As soon as he had gotten home today,
he had hurried to his room where he had donned his wig and done his
makeup. Sometime during that period,
Carol had evidently been in to see him too since she could tell that his corset
was once again in place. The corset seemed
to improve his figure… some, but it would look much better if Roger had bothered
to change the small bra he had been wearing all day for the larger ones he wore
at all other times now.
But that thought made her
pause. Why did he need those smaller
bras anymore? As far as she was
concerned – he didn’t! “Candy,” she
said, “I’d like you to do me a favor after dinner please.”
Roger looked up. Warily he asked, “What’s that?”
“Please remove that too-small
brazier that you are wearing and put one of your normal ones on instead.”
Roger looked at her for only a
moment before nodding his head. “No
problem,” he replied.
Janice turned to her daughter
next. “Carol dear, as soon as Candy here
had changed his bra, would you be so kind as to get it from him… along with all
the other ones that he has with the smaller cup size. I can’t see where he needs them anymore. They can all go into the trash now.”
Carol only laughed. “Glad to,
Momma!”
Roger felt like dying!
Susan heard that same faint whimper
coming out of Ben-ben again that she had heard from him many times on the way
home in the car. It seemed like every
time the “dog” fell asleep, or every time he was ignored for a while, he went
into that whimper mode. And Susan had no
doubt what the “dog’s” problem was.
Janice had made him feel nothing but remorse over what Halifax had done
to Leila. So except for the times when
someone was actively paying attention to the now dumb animal, he would always
feel that remorse. Obviously, that was
another bit of conditioning that Janice had put into him that seemed to be
working perfectly. She was still totally
amazed at how much like a real dog the former “man” now behaved.
Ben-ben had caused something of
minor disturbance among the estate staff the moment they arrived. Susan had explained to several of them
exactly what was going on – to the huge amazement of all of them. And at the same time, she had explained that
from now on, Ben-ben was nothing but a dog and therefore would be treated as
nothing but a dog – from now on! And she
didn’t want to catch anyone acting any differently towards the… animal!
Watching the “dog” sniffing the
tire of the car right after they had gotten home… and then peeing on it while
she was still explaining about him to the first batch of the staff, had pretty
much cemented his status into their minds.
From what she could see, the staff was now looking on Ben-ben with more
than a bit of humor. All the better!
Since then, Ben-ben had spent most
of the remainder of the day in her office with her. She had taken him out on his leash once to
walk him… and had one of her staff walk him two other times, as well as feed
him his dinner – that she specified would be nothing but dog food for the
former… “man.” She had no doubt that the
staff was getting quite a kick out of Ben-ben.
She heard that soft whimper again. She pushed her desk chair back away from her
desk a bit and leaned back. It was
getting late and she’d had a very long day.
Janice’s insistence on the early morning hour hadn’t helped matters any
at all. But thinking about Janice and
when they had met that morning caused her to also remember that one phone call
from Janice the week before. Janice had
called her – while in the middle of multiple orgasms!
Her eyes fell on Ben-ben who was
curled up on the rug right in front of her sofa. He was sound asleep and whimpering – as
usual. Curious, she called, “Ben-ben.” She watched as the “dog” immediately lifted
his head and looked around. “Ben-ben…
come!” she commanded. She was still
amazed at the way Halifax… now Ben-ben… acted so much like a real dog. She pushed her chair back further as he came
around the side of her desk to see her… his tongue out slightly and panting
happily since he was getting attention again.
She petted his head as he sat down in front of her. So amazingly like a real dog!
But her curiosity about that
something else was all too much on her mind.
She got up from her seat and removed her slacks and her panties… and
pulled her blouse up out of the way. She
sat down again as the dog seemed to watch her very intently. All it took was a single command from her and
Ben-ben’s tongue was hard at work in the very place that she wanted it to
be. And all she could think was that
Janice had been right – Ben-ben had a very remarkable tongue!
