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.”

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 3

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 3

 

Freaky

 

When I left the room, Dave and Gary were nowhere to be seen.  Where were they?  I was tempted to ask but I didn’t want to talk to the cop.  I was already worried about how much I had said to him.  I just hoped Uncle Dave and Gary wouldn’t find out that I had said anything at all.

Since the cop had said I wasn’t going home, I was guessing I was about to see what a jail cell looked like.  I had heard all the guys talk about them a number of times.  None of them had seemed to think the cells were that bad.  I guessed I was about to see for myself.  At least I’d have a better idea of what they were whenever I heard them talking about them again.

The cop took me to a room where there were a bunch of other cops, most of them sitting at weird tables of some sort with stuff all over the top of them.  He called to one of them and I was surprised to see a female cop head in our direction.  A female cop!  Who knew?  But what surprised me the most was that she was wearing pants!  A woman wearing pants!  Girls were supposed to wear skirts and dresses, but this woman was wearing….

Okay, yes, I had seen women wearing pants before.  It seemed like half the women that the guys had ever brought to the house wore them, at least those that I had been allowed to see.  But the guys had always insisted that women…girls…were supposed to wear dresses and skirts, and they didn’t want me to even think about wearing anything else.  As if I would.  Besides, they gave me all the clothes I could wear.  I considered myself lucky every time they brought me something different to wear, which wasn’t very often.

“Oh my god!” the woman cop said as she came over.

She was looking me over a bit too closely.  Why?

“Wow,” she said.  “Your hair is so long.”

So?  Why wasn’t hers?  But I said nothing.

“When was the last time you brushed it?” she asked.

I pressed my lips together tightly.  Don’t talk to cops.  This was a woman, but her weird clothes told me she was still a cop.

“Turn around,” the first cop told me.  I looked at him, annoyed, until he grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to turn around.  I felt him pulling my hair out of the way and holding it there, then the two of them seemed to be very interested in the back of my dress.  Why?  What was their problem?

“I’m thinking a doctor might be a good idea to look her over a bit.  I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she has a few bullet holes in her,” I heard the first cop say.

“Yeah,” I the woman cop replied.  “We’re talking about the Jeskeys.  It certainly can’t hurt for someone to take a good look.  Not to mention…damn, she’s a mess!”

I forcefully turned around and leveled my most angry and annoyed look straight at her.

“Easy sister,” she told me.  “We’re just concerned.”

They were concerned?  I had wash on the line.  And where was Uncle Dave and Uncle Gary?  They would be expecting dinner before long.

The man cop talked to another of the cops, then he grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the building and to his car.  The woman cop stayed right with us.  Were they taking me home?  I could only hope.  But they didn’t take me home.  Instead, they took me to an even weirder building.  A much bigger building.  The man cop opened the car door for me and pulled me out, still never letting go of my arm.  At least he wasn’t hurting me this time.  The two cops led me into the building.  There were lots of people there, and I was quick to notice that most of the women were wearing pants.  What kind of place was this?  The woman cop led me over to some nice chairs and made me sit.  She sat right next to me.

The man cop had disappeared.  He came back a few minutes later though.  “They’ll get to us in a few minutes,” he told the woman cop.  Then he sat down on my other side.  I was still trying to get used to how weird everything was, especially the people.  I looked all around as much as I could from that seat.

“Sheriff?” a woman called.  “We’re ready for you now.”

The two cops stood up and the man cop grabbed my arm.  He led me toward the woman who had called them, then through some weird doors that were like two of them put together, and finally down to another door.  The woman gestured for them to take me inside.

“Don’t give them any trouble!” the man cop said to me, trying to make me think he was angry with me or something.  “I’ll be right out here.”  He wasn’t coming in with us?  Why?

The room was…weird.  Even weirder than the entire place.  I didn’t know what anything in there was.  There was a weird table that took up a lot of the room and the table had some kind of paper that covered the entire top of it.  Why?  The woman who led us to the room took out her pen and looked down at some paper in her hand.  “What’s your name honey?” she asked.

Why was everyone so worried about my name?  I had no problem remembering what I had been told all my life – don’t talk to anyone, especially don’t talk to cops.  And there was a cop right in the room with us, even though she was a woman.  As I saw it, a cop was a cop.

“Your name please?” the woman asked.

“Please give the nurse your name,” the woman cop told me.  But I knew better.  I said nothing.

The woman cop sighed.  “She won’t say a word to us about anything.  Can we just move on to the examination?”

“I guess we may have to, the other woman replied.”

Just then, the door opened, and a man walked in.  He was wearing a weird white coat.  “Now then,” he said as he closed the door behind him.  “I hear we need to do a quick exam.  Is that right?”

“Yes please,” the woman cop told him.

“I haven’t had a chance to check her pressure yet,” the woman told him.

“No problem,” the man said.  “I’ll do it myself.”

I noticed he was looking me over carefully, from my head to my feet.  “What’s your name?” he asked.

I was going to start hitting people if they kept asking me that.  I would, but I had no doubt that would get me in serious trouble.  Still, I kept my lips pressed tightly together.  The man seemed confused or something for a moment, then he grabbed this…weird thing.  Yeah, I know, everything around me was weird, and so was this…whatever it was.  He wrapped it around my arm, then started squeezing this ball that was attached to it, and the crazy thing started to get tighter and tighter.  “What?” I screamed.  “Don’t hurt me!  Please don’t hurt me!”

The man seemed very concerned.  “Does that hurt?” he asked quickly.

“No, but it’s tight.  Real tight.”

“It’s supposed to be,” he said.  “Just relax, it will be all over in a moment.”

He did something with it and then I felt the thing stop squeezing my arm so tight.  A moment later he removed it.  He went over and whispered something to the woman from the place.  I was just glad that thing was gone.

But then the man turned back to me again and said, “Okay then.  Nurse, would you please help her with her dress.”

Help me with my dress?  What was he talking about?

“Come on sweetie,” the woman said.  “Let me help you get that dress off.”

Get my dress off?  I looked at the man, and it finally dawned on me.  “Oh,” I said, finally understanding.  “You want me naked.”

“Yes please.  It would help,” the man told me.

“No problem,” I replied.  I was surprised to feel the woman pulling down the zipper on the back of my dress.  When it was down, I stepped out of it.  “Do I need to remove my boots too?” I asked.

The man was staring at my naked body.  He seemed surprised about something.  “Do you want me to remove my boots too?” I asked.

“Uh…only if you want,” he said, still staring at my body.

I left my boots on and walked up to him.  “Do you want to get undressed too, or do you want me to do it for you?  Or do you just want a blowjob?” I asked him.

He seemed further shocked.  “A blowjob?”

“Yeah.  Of course,” I replied.  “Isn’t that why you want me naked?  Usually though, when the guys just want a blowjob, they don’t bother asking me to get completely undressed, but sometimes they do.”

“What guys?” the man asked.

“My uncles,” I told him.

“Your uncles?”  He seemed shocked.  Why?

“Yeah.  Of course,” I replied.

“Tell me,” the man said.  “Do they ever want you to do more than just give them…blowjobs?”

“More?  What do you mean?”

“Actual sex.  Do you ever have sex with them?”

“Oh that,” I said.  “All the time.”

“And you do it?  Willingly?”

“Of course.  Why not?”

“Why not…” he repeated.

“Now do you want a blowjob, or do you want to have sex with me instead?”

“I don’t want either!” the man told me.

“Then why did you want me naked?”

“So I can examine you,” he said.  “I’m a doctor!”

“A doctor?” I replied totally interested.  “I’ve heard of doctors, but I’ve never seen one.”

“You’ve never seen a doctor?”

“No.  Why would I?”

“Don’t you ever get sick, or hurt?”

“Sure.  Doesn’t everybody?”

“And nobody takes you to a doctor?”

“Why would they?  I’m not allowed to leave the farm.  This is the first time I’ve ever been anywhere.”

He was looking at me like I was the strangest thing he’d ever seen.  As I looked around, they were all looking at me that way.

It was the woman cop who spoke to me next.  “How often do you have sex with…your uncles as you called them?”

“All the time of course.  Whenever they want.”

“And how long has this been going on?” she asked.

I looked at her strangely.  “They’ve always done that.”

“What do you mean, always?  How long?”

“I don’t know.  As long as I can remember.”

“Your…uncles…have had actual sex with you, for as long as you can remember?” she asked.

“Sure.  Why not?  I’m a girl.  That’s what girls are for.”  And then I remembered something.  Something important.  “Oh shit!” I mumbled.  I pressed my lips together.  I prayed that Dave and Gary wouldn’t find out that I had been talking.  Especially when there was a cop in the room.

The doctor seemed to gather himself a bit.  “Will you please sit up on the table for me.”

I couldn’t see any problem with that, so I climbed up.

“Do you ever wear any underwear?” the woman cop asked me.

Underwear?  I barely owned any, and most of the time it was simply in my way, so I couldn’t see any reason to bother with it.  But I had already said too much.  I kept my lips pressed firmly together.  I saw the woman cop shake her head.

The doctor seemed to look all over every inch of my body.  He spent a long time looking at my back.  “Whip marks,” I heard him say softly before moving around to my front side.  But the one thing he seemed to look at the most was my clit.  That was the part of me that the two women seemed to be the most interested in too.  The doctor poked and prodded at every part of it as he examined me.

“Is it a birth defect?” I heard the doctor wonder, then he shook his head.  “No.  I think it’s deliberate.  Who did this to you?” the doctor asked me.

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I was done talking.  I had already talked too much.

“When was the last time you had your period?” he asked me.

Period?  What the hell was he talking about?  I didn’t have a clue, but I also wasn’t talking anymore.

The doctor shook his head.  He looked at the woman cop.  “I’ll write all this up of course, but, to be honest, I’m not completely sure what we’ve seen.  I’ll tell the sheriff, but I think she should be looked over by someone more knowledgeable in that area than myself.  Perhaps a gynecologist.”

I saw the woman cop nod her head.  “That might be a good idea.”

“Um…do you have any idea at all what her name is?” the doctor asked.  “We’ve got to call her something.”

“We’ve got nothing on her at all,” the cop replied.

“A Jane Doe then,” the doctor replied.

“For now anyway,” the cop told him.

The doctor guy looked at me and said, “You can get dressed now.”

I got down off the table.  I was glad the man hadn’t wanted sex with me or even a blowjob.  As far as I was concerned, sex was just one of those pain in the neck things that women had to put up with.  I was glad he wasn’t interested.  I certainly wasn’t!

I slipped my dress on and the woman zipped it up in back for me.  That was nice.  “Can I go home now?” I asked the woman cop.

She said nothing at all to me about that.  Instead, she just said, “Let’s go.”

I was put into the back of that cop car again, and the woman cop talked quietly to the man cop as he drove.  A few times I heard the man cop say, “She what?” like he couldn’t believe it.  What was his problem?

Unfortunately, they didn’t take me home.  They took me back to that same weird building where all the other cops were.  The man cop said something to the woman cop, and she led me to another little room where she made me stand next to a wall.  She picked something up from the table and put it to her face.  “What’s that?” I chanced asking.

“Camera,” she said.

“Like the guys have on their cellphones?”

“Like that, only better.  Hold still,” she told me.

I heard a bunch of clicking sounds and she asked me to turn sideways, then the other way and then completely around while that thing kept making those sounds.  When she was done, she took me out of there and stuck me back into that same weird little room with the table in it where I had been before.  And she left me there.

I tried to open the door and discovered it was locked.  Was this one of those jail cells that the guys talked about?  I guessed it was.  I looked around.  Huh!  No wonder the guys seemed to think that jail wasn’t much of a problem.  It didn’t look so bad at all.  I just couldn’t get out.

I was…locked up.

And I had clothes on the line and dinner that needed to be made!

 

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!”

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 1

 Hold on to your hats, because here we go.

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 1

 

Freaky

 

Disbelief!  That’s the only way I could describe what I felt.  About everything!  Especially about what I had just seen.  When it happened, I was standing by the kitchen counter staring at everything and not believing any of it.  Uncle Dave’s friend Roxie had just grabbed Uncle Steve’s gun and shot Uncle Steve, then Uncle Bo, and then Uncle Ben.  Then she turned the gun on Uncle Dave and Uncle Gary and told them to sit down while she kept aiming that gun at them.  When I saw Roxie glance briefly at me after that, I nearly wet myself.  Fortunately, she looked away, back toward Gary and Dave in the living room part of the house, and had kept that gun aimed at them.

I’d heard the guys shooting guns lots of times outside, but hearing the gunshot in the house had been unbelievably loud, and it frightened the daylights out of me.  But that fright was only the first of more frights than I could count that day.

“I’m trying to find a reason not to shoot you two,” Roxie said to Gary and Dave.

 “I know it would be a lot safer for me if I kill you than let you live.  In fact, I know that keeping you alive is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.  So give me one tiny reason to kill you and I’ll be more than glad to leave you both just as dead as your father and your brothers.”

She stood there staring at them for a few moments, then carefully pulled her cellphone from her pocket.  Still aiming the gun at Gary and Dave, she carefully called someone.  “This is Roxie Simmons,” I heard her say into her phone while she kept the gun aimed at them.  “I’m at Bo Jeskey’s place right now, and I just killed Bo, Steve, and Ben.  I’m holding a gun on Gary and Dave right now, so I suggest you send someone out here as fast as possible, because I’m already regretting not killing these other two as well.”  With that, she ended her call and set the phone down on the table.

I noticed that Dave and Gary were staring at her in disbelief, just like I was.  “You called the cops?” Dave asked, clearly surprised.

“Yeah,” Roxie said calmly.  “The only question is, what’s going to happen first?  Will they get here, or will I shoot you two before they get here.”

“Don’t!” Dave had said quickly.

“Don’t what?” Roxie yelled back at him.  “Damn it!  You guys are all just too dangerous to let live, so why the hell shouldn’t I just kill you now like I did with them?”

She got no reply from either Uncle Dave or Uncle Gary.  I just kept standing where I had been in disbelief.  Were Uncle Bo, Steve, and Ben really dead?  I had no way of knowing, and there was no way I was going over there to look.

Roxie turned briefly toward me again.  “Freaky, you okay?”

I didn’t know how to answer.  Not to mention, was I supposed to answer?  So I said nothing.  She looked away, back at my remaining two uncles and ignored me again.

A little while later, I heard it.  The sound that I had always been told to listen for.  Police sirens.  “It’s the cops!” I said, scared out of my wits.  “I’ve got to hide!”

I took off quickly toward the back of the house, but Roxie called me first.  “Freaky!  Where you goin’?  Get back here!”

“I’ve got to hide,” I said, the panic increasing along with how loud the sirens were getting.

“Hide?” she asked.

“Yes!”

“Why?”

But it was Dave who answered from his chair in the living room.  “Nobody is supposed to know she’s here.  Especially cops!”

By the sound of the sirens, the cop cars were practically in front of the house.  “I’ve got to go!” I said, the panic in me probably worse than I had ever felt.

“You stay here!” Roxie commanded as she turned her gun on me again.  She pointed back toward the kitchen.  “Get back by the counter where you were.”

That wasn’t the first time a gun had been pointed at me.  It was something that happened fairly often.  Mostly from Uncle Bo pressing his gun against my head and telling me he couldn’t see any reason why he should keep me alive.  But for some reason, Roxie pointing that gun at me scared me just as much…or worse.  I moved slowly back toward the kitchen counter where I had been.  As soon as I got there, she turned the gun back toward Dave and Gary.

“Nobody knows she’s supposed to be here?” Roxie asked them.

Uncle Dave shrugged, but didn’t say anything else.

“This is the sheriff!” a voice yelled from the other side of the front door.  “Drop your gun and come out with your hands up.”

“Just come in sheriff,” Roxie yelled back.  “The door is open.  I’m not going to shoot you or any of your men, but I still might shoot these other two before it’s all over.”

I saw the door open slowly and a gun appear in the opening.  The gun was followed by a man pointing that gun at Roxie.  “Drop the weapon.  Now!” the man ordered.

Roxie turned her head toward him and smiled.  “No problem.”  With that, she set the gun on the table and raised her hands in the air.

The sheriff rushed in, quickly followed by more men than I could count.  He grabbed Roxie, turned her around and did something to her hands behind her back.  After that, Roxie kept her hands behind her back all the time.  I was guessing the man had used something the guys had called handcuffs on her, but I couldn’t see them or what they looked like.

All the men who had come in with the man were wearing weird clothes.  They were all dressed pretty much alike.  Weird!  I had never seen a cop before, but I somehow knew that these men were all cops.  And I wasn’t supposed to let any cops see me.  Ever!  Just like I wasn’t supposed to ever talk to anyone, especially cops.  If I ever did, the guys had told me more times than I could count that they would kill me.  I had no idea how many times they had pointed their guns at me just to make that point.  But now I was stuck here in the kitchen, and there were cops all over the house, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do…except not talk to them.  That was the only thing I knew for sure.

When two of them led Roxie out of the house, I got a brief glimpse of something metal connecting her wrists together.  I was guessing that was the handcuffs the guys had mentioned.  That was something I didn’t know anything about.  It was men’s business, not mine.

While the first man was looking at the dead bodies, I saw more of the cops talking to Uncle Dave and Gary.  But then one of them walked right over to me and stood in front of me.  He had some kind of thing in his hand and a pen like he was going to write something.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Don’t talk to cops!  Especially cops!  I kept my mouth shut and just stared at him.  The cop tried a number of times to get me to tell him my name.  He even asked me if I could speak, but I knew better than to say anything.  If I ever did, they guys would kill me.  And I knew that for a fact.

“Look!” the cop finally said as if he was angry with me.  “If you don’t answer my questions, I’m going to arrest you.”

Don’t talk to cops!  I continued to say nothing.  I was very glad when he walked away and went over to talk to another of the cops in the room.  I saw them both looking in my direction.  The second cop came over to me instead.

“What’s your problem?” he asked me.

I said nothing.

“Answer my question!” he yelled.

I still said nothing.

“At least tell me your name,” he said.

I kept my mouth shut like a good girl.

The cop looked around then spoke to another of the cops.  “Stick this one in a car and we’ll take her back to the station.”  He looked at Uncle Dave and Gary.  “In fact,” he said.  “Take them all back to the station.”

Before I knew it, there was another cop in front of me.  He reached out and grabbed my arm.  I tried to pull away, but he held me too tight as he dragged me to the front door and all the way outside.  Out the door, I was shocked to see not just so many cop cars, but the entire place seemed to be alive with flashing lights.  I still tried to pull away from the cop, but I got dragged over to one of the cars anyway.  He opened the back door and pushed me inside.  If I hadn’t grabbed my hair fast enough he would have closed it in the door!

I looked all around.  I had never been in a car before, and the only times I had ever ridden in the guy’s pickup trucks was when they drove me into the woods to punish me.  Were they really going to take me away from the house?  Away from the farm?  It looked like it.  Panic was setting in once again.  I wasn’t allowed off the property.  I wasn’t even allowed to go far from the house.  Not even into the woods.

I pushed desperately against the door, but it wouldn’t open.  I banged my hand against the glass, but it didn’t break.  I was trapped.  And worse, I was trapped inside a cop car.  How many times had they told me, you don’t talk to cops – ever!  I wasn’t even supposed to talk to anybody – ever!  Bo, Steve, and Ben were dead now, but if I talked to anyone at all, I had no doubt in the world that Gary or Dave would kill me just as soon as they got the chance.  Or maybe they would both kill me at the same time.

I was in that car for a long time.  Looking out through the windows was all I could do.  I saw Roxie sitting in another car.  I banged on the window, but she didn’t seem to notice me.  She just sat where she was with her head down.  I saw them putting Dave and Gary into another car together, then the cops seemed to all come out of the house and head for their cars.  The cop that had put me in that car came back and got in behind the wheel.  Another one got in the other side.  He looked back towards me.  “You okay back there?”

You don’t talk to cops.  Ever!

And then the car was moving…with me in it!  I panicked again.  I was leaving home.  They were taking me away from the farm.  I wasn’t allowed to leave the farm.  I wasn’t allowed to have anyone see me that the guys didn’t say was okay, especially cops.  I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody, not even when they were friends of the guys.  And I especially wasn’t allowed to talk to cops!

I had never been off the farm before.  I had never ridden in a car before.  I had no idea where we were going, but I couldn’t help myself.  I looked all around at everything I could see.  It was all so strange.  Strange and weird.  Eventually the road wasn’t dirt anymore and there were places, and buildings, and other roads, and cars, and people, and…all kinds of things I never imagined seeing.  Who were all those people?  It was all too much.  I wanted to go home more than ever, but no matter how much I pushed against the door of the car, I couldn’t open it.

“Settle down!” one of the cops told me from the front seat.

Panicked, all I could do was sit there and stare at things I had no concept of, and keep pushing against the door that refused to open for me.  Eventually it all became too much, and I had to close my eyes.  It was a little while before I even realized I was crying.

I felt the car come to a stop.  I opened my eyes and saw a building.  Like all the buildings I had seen since they had put me into the car, this one was weird too.  The cops got out of the front of the car and one of them opened the door for me.  He grabbed my arm and pulled me out.  Before, I had only wanted to get out of the car.  Now I only wanted to stay in it…away from this cop.  Practically hurting my arm, he dragged me through some weird kind of door with glass in it.  Uncle Gary and Uncle Dave followed right behind me along with two more cops.

Talk about a weird place.  I didn’t see a living room, or even a kitchen.  Not even a bedroom.  What the hell kind of place was this?  The cop pulled me a long way into the building and right up to some weird chairs pushed up against the wall.  “Sit!” he commanded and pushed me down into one of the seats.  Uncle Gary and Uncle Dave sat down next to me.

“Wait here,” one of the cops said to Uncle Dave.”  Then all the cops walked away, leaving us alone.

I looked up at Uncle Dave sitting next to me.  “Should I run?” I whispered.

He looked at me.  “Don’t bother trying,” he told me softly.  “You won’t get anywhere.”

I wouldn’t?  Why not?

“Just stay here,” Uncle Dave told me.  “Eventually they’ll probably take us all home.”

That much sounded good to me.  Very good!

Then he added.  “You don’t talk to cops.  Ever!  About anything!  And trust me, I’ll kill you myself if you do.”

“I know,” I whispered back.  “I haven’t said anything to any of them yet.”

He nodded and looked away from me.

We sat there for a long time.  Long enough that I was worried about getting dinner ready for the guys on time.  Not to mention, I had wash hanging on the line.  What if it rained?  The guys would be furious at me, and I didn’t need that.

Sometime later, one of those cops came over to us.  “Dave.  You’re up first,” he said before he had even stopped.  Then he seemed to stand there looking us over, but his eyes landed on me and seemed to stay there for a long time.  “I have never, in my life, seen a girl as dirty as you!” he said.

I was shocked.  Dirty?  It rained just a few nights ago, and I had washed then.  Just a few nights ago!  What was he talking about, calling me dirty.  But I was a girl.  I knew better than to talk back.  Especially since he was a cop.  Don’t talk to cops!

Uncle Dave stood up.  “Come on,” the cop said, and Dave followed him away from the chairs, then through a door where they disappeared.

I wanted to ask Uncle Gary where they went or what they were doing, but I dared not.  I had a feeling that this was all men’s business, and girls should never get mixed up with what men did.  So I sat there and waited…forever!

The door they had gone through opened and the two of them came out.  “Gary,” the cop called while Uncle Dave headed back towards me.  “Your turn.  Let’s get this over with.”

Uncle Gary got up and headed toward the cop.  Was he really going to talk to a cop?  Uncle Bo would be furious with him.  Uncle Bo would probably kill him.  But then I remembered that Uncle Bo was dead.  But if Gary talked to a cop, somebody would probably kill him.  Uncle Dave sat down next to me.  Had he talked to the cop too?  Or did he not say anything?  I was guessing he probably didn’t say anything at all.  And most likely Uncle Gary wouldn’t say anything either.  That thought made me feel better.

Men’s business.  I was glad I knew nothing about it.  It was so confusing.  I just wanted to go home and get the clothes off the line and get dinner started.  That was my business.  And I didn’t want to get in trouble for not getting it done.

After a while, the door opened again, and Uncle Gary and the cop came out.  Uncle Gary headed back towards us.

“Okay little lady,” the cop called.  “Your turn.”

I looked up at Uncle Dave.  “No choice,” he whispered.  “Go.  But…”  He looked at me sternly and I knew what he didn’t have to say.

Don’t talk to cops!