The Last Jeskey - Chapter 13

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 13

 

(Day 2 – Friday)

 

Freaky

 

How much trouble was I going to be in when Gary found out that the cops had taken all their stuff?  When Gary found out?  More like Gary and Dave both.  Maybe I better just start eating dog food from the floor right now.  But I hated doing that, and so far, they didn’t know.  But the guys often disappeared for a few days.  They would be back though.  Both of them.  I had no doubt at all.

I continued around the house, trying to pick up from where the cops had made such a big mess of everything.  Why had they done that?  Was that just something that cops did all the time?  Made a mess of things?  No wonder all the guys hated cops.  I hated them now too, and that didn’t count them taking me away from here and putting me though so much weird stuff the day before.  That little room with the warm rain had been nice though.

It was dark and getting late when I heard a truck pulling in out front.  Were any of the guys back yet?  I went out to the front porch to see.  It was dark, but I could still see that it was Dave’s pickup that had pulled into the yard, and right behind him was more lights.  Gary’s truck.  They would be wanting dinner!  I hurried back inside to get something started.

“Hell only knows what they found,” Dave said as he and Gary came into the house.

“Hopefully, nothing,” Gary replied.  “Hell, they’ve never found anything before.”

I saw them notice me in the kitchen, beginning to fix a late dinner for them.  Gary stopped dead in his tracks and shook his head.

“I told you,” Dave said with a laugh.  “She looks great, but go take a better look at her hair.  Look how long it is.”

Gary came around the table and stared at me.  “Damn!  It’s dragging on the ground.”

“Yeah,” Dave said.

“Ben would have had a fit.”

“True,” Dave replied with another laugh.

“Don’t bother with dinner,” Gary told me.  “We ate.”

“What did the cops do?” Dave asked me.

“Made a big mess of things,” I told him angrily.  “You should have seen the mess I had to pick up.  I got most of it though.  And now I know why you all hate them so much.  Damn cops!”

“True,” Gary agreed as he opened the beer fridge and pulled out two cans.  He handed one to Dave.”

“Do you know if they looked in the barn?” Gary asked me.

“They looked in the barn.  They looked in the house.  They looked in the root cellar.  They looked everywhere there is and then some…and made a big mess everywhere.”

“That’s cops,” Dave agreed.  “Come on,” he said to Gary.  “We better check the barn, and everywhere else.”

The two men went out and I breathed a small sigh of relief.  But I knew they’d be back.  Probably soon.  The only question now was, how badly would they punish me?”  I could only stand there in the kitchen and wait, but yeah, I knew I deserved whatever punishment I got from them.  I had talked to the cops.

It was a while before the boys came back.  Longer than I thought, but not long enough for my frightened stomach.

“There she is!” Gary exclaimed angrily the moment he laid eyes on me.

My fear went crazy as I saw the two of them head directly for me.

“Did you show those cops any of our secret places?” Dave demanded.

I was a bit confused.  “But he said, you told him to tell me you wanted me to show him where they were.”

“He said I wanted you to show him?” Dave asked.

“Yes!  He said you would punish me if I didn’t.”

“Shit!” he swore loudly.  “How the hell did you know where those places were?  That’s men’s business.”

“But feeding the chickens and pigs isn’t,” I told him.  “And when we had some, we kept them in the barn.  I’ve seen where you go.  I just never went near those places myself.”

Gary opened up one of the doors under the counter and pulled out my bowl.  He grabbed some dog food and poured it in, then he set it on the floor in the corner.  The message was clear, I’d be eating dog food for the foreseeable future.  “That’s on top of whatever way we decide to punish you for talking,” Gary told me.

Now I was really scared.  But…I knew I deserved it.

“Any ideas on what we should do about our stock?” Gary asked Dave as they headed into the living room.

“Not yet, except get some more,” Dave replied.  He pulled out his cellphone.  “In fact, I’ll start working on that right away.  They didn’t find any of the money, so we’re good with that much.  We can easily cover our losses with the drugs, and fortunately the guns were all paid for.  We were just looking for buyers.”

“Good!” Gary told him.  “And while you’re doing that, I know what I’m gonna do.”  He grabbed his hat.  “I’m gonna kill me a cop.  I just gotta find someone who can tell me where he lives.  And when I get there, I’m gonna kill him, and his whole family too.”  He grinned.  “It’s the least I can do for payback.  We gotta have some revenge!”

“Got that right,” Dave agreed.  “Want some help?”

“Let me figure out how to find him first,” Gary told him.  “You handle the business stuff.  You’re the one who’s good at that.”  With a nod of his head, he added, “Don’t wait up.”

Dave laughed.  “Yeah right!  Good luck!  And watch your back.”

Gary wasn’t around, and Dave didn’t say a single word to me all night.  He mostly talked to people on his cellphone.  Eventually, I laid down on the floor near the back door.  As always, I wrapped my hair around me and used part of it to lay my head on.  I went to sleep in total fear.  They were going to punish me.  They were going to punish me bad, even though I didn’t know I had done anything wrong…except to talk to the cops in the first place.

As I laid on the floor, memories of past punishments ran through my mind.  Memories that scared the daylights out of me.  The ones that scared me the most were the ones where they had dragged me deep into those woods.  They always whipped the daylights out of me when they did that, then they always left me some horrible way for a few days, reminding me about the bears, the lions, and the tigers that lived in the woods, and that they would probably come and eat me.  I’d seen bears a lot of times when they came too close to the house and there were always lots of them out where they punished me, but I’ve never seen a lion or a tiger.  The guys had described them to me though as being absolute monsters and the most dangerous things imaginable.  It was hard to imagine anything more dangerous than a bear.  Especially after a few days of being punished and having them all around me.  After a few days of that, I was always amazed that I was still alive.

Then there was the punishment where they took me once when they were all drunk and….  I didn’t want to think about that one.  It had been too horrible.  I had nightmares about it a lot.

I had done wrong.  I had messed with men’s business.  I had talked to the cops.  And because of that, I deserved whatever I was going to get.

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 12

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 12

 

(Day 2 – Friday)

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

My deputies finally finished inside the house.  The haul of guns we had found in there seemed to be huge, but the reality of it was that there were five men who lived in that house, and they all hunted.  I didn’t want to think about what they did with all the handguns, but no doubt they used them for murder.  They probably used most, or all of those rifles for murder too.  No proof though, except maybe the clothes I had gotten from Freak.  And if we didn’t find any bodies or proof of other crimes, more than likely all those guns from the house would have to be returned to Dave and Gary Jeskey.

Amanda came back into the house after putting Freak’s bloody things in the car.  We were just waiting now for one of my men to bring back something big enough to cut the locks on those false-wall hiding places in the barn.

“What now Sheriff?” Amanda asked.

“Other than waiting for those bolt cutters, nothing.  I’d send a bunch of you out into the woods to start searching for anything else, but somehow I think that’s going to be a much bigger effort.  Too much for right now.  My first priority is getting into the places we found in the barn.”

“What about her?” Amanda asked.  “Not to mention, I just carried practically every stitch of clothing she owns out to the car.  What are you going to do with her?”

What was I going to do with her.  That was my big problem.  “I still don’t know,” I told her.  “We’ve got nothing to hold her on, and I get the impression she doesn’t exactly want to leave.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Amanda agreed.  “But how’s she going to take care of herself?”

I shrugged.  “Dave and Gary are still around.  Although I can tell you that Dave is going to jail for a bit just as soon as we can find him since he attacked Lowrey and ran off.  Still, I guess it will be up to Gary to take care of her now.  According to Dave, Gary disappeared last night some time and hasn’t been back.  He doesn’t have a clue where he is, and he didn’t seem to care.  Said Gary is a grown man.  He can take care of himself.”

“So she stays,” Amanda realized, she sounded sad about that, and I couldn’t blame her.

“For now,” I agreed.  “But someone’s going to have to drag that girl into the real world, and something tells me it isn’t going to be easy.”

“No,” Amanda agreed.  “She’s too…set in her ways.”

“Brainwashed!” I told her.  “That’s how I’m looking at it.  My wife thinks so too.”  Amanda nodded and walked away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I kept a watch on Freak as she went around picking things up from where my deputies had made such a mess of the place.  I kept one deputy out front on Gary watch, just in case he showed up.  I wanted to know as soon as possible.

The deputy finally showed up with the biggest pair of bolt cutters I had ever seen, and most of my deputies followed me into the barn.  The deputy had to struggle like crazy with those cutters since the lock and chain were so big, but he finally got it cut.  The chain was pulled free and the deputy turned the handle and pulled.  A three-foot section of the wall at the back of the horse stall swung open.  Someone had done an awfully good job of disguising that door.  If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.  I led the way inside.  It was dark just inside the door, but my flashlight noticed a light switch against the wall.  I flipped it and a row of lights lit up that went from one end of the barn where we were to the very back.  And inside that space…the mother-load!

Shelves seemed to stretch along the outer wall from one end all the way back.  And those shelves were loaded with things.  There were stacks on those shelves of drugs of all sorts.  And further back, what I could only guess were stolen items.  Everything from jewelry to paintings.  It looked like the Jeskeys had been busy.

“I’m guessing this is enough to arrest Gary Jeskey?” Deputy Russ said.

I looked up and down the inside of that hidden space.  “Yup!  All the drugs pretty much cements it for Gary and Dave both.”

“And what about Freak?” Amanda asked.

That of course, was another problem.  I didn’t answer.

When we finished on that side, we all trooped over to the other side of the barn to another horse stall and found the little hidden door there.  Once we got inside, it was like being hit over the head with a lack of reality.  Guns!  Lots of guns.  All kinds of guns.  Enough to start a small war.  Maybe a big war.  I found boxes of explosives too.

“Leave it all!” I told my guys.  “With this much, I’m calling in the state crime scene people.  It’s too much for us to handle now.”

I walked out of there.  Once out of the barn I pulled my phone out and made a call to a number I had programmed in, but had figured I’d never call.  I told them what we found and tried to imprint in the guy’s tiny imagination just how much we had found.  The guy laughed but said he’d pass on the message to someone.

My next call went to the D.A.  Dale didn’t seem to completely believe me either.  He wasn’t exactly happy about the fact that I had called in the state crime guys.  I suggested that maybe we could get them to pay for all the DNA we needed to have tested.  Suddenly he seemed to be a lot happier.  He authorized the arrest of both Dave and Gary Jeskey right on the spot, not that I figured I needed any authorization for it.

I sent half my men back to the station to tend to business, but I hung around with five others that included Amanda, just because Freak was there.  Dave never came back.  Gary never showed up either, but the state crime scene guys rolled in halfway through the afternoon.  I showed them the side of the barn with the drugs.  They didn’t seem all that surprised by any of it.  But when I showed them the side with the guns, the lead guy walked out cursing.  He turned to me and told me that I was going to be considered a hero for finding all that stuff.  Shit!  I wasn’t even going to get a thank you from anyone, and I knew it.  I stood there and listened as he called his boss and told him they needed another truck to hold all the evidence.

It was nearly seven o’clock at night before they all cleared out.  It was time for us, including me, to leave.

“And Freak?” Amanda asked.

Yeah, she would have to remind me.  I headed back into the house and found Freak sitting in a chair hugging her long hair.  “We’re going,” I told her.  Then I decided to give her the option.  “Do you want to go with us?”

She seemed suddenly afraid.  “No!” she said.  “Please no.  I can’t take any more of that!  I want to stay here.”

I nodded.  “I don’t know where Gary and Dave are.  I don’t know if they’ll be back.  Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she assured me.  “Sometimes all the guys go away for days at a time.  I don’t want to leave!”

“Fine.  Tell you what though, I’ll have someone check on you tomorrow.”

“I’m fine,” she told me.

I touched the brim of my hat and lightly pushed it down.  “Bye then.  And good luck.”

“Was that wise?” Amanda asked as we headed back to the car.

“She wants to stay, and according to the D.A. we can’t hold her,” I replied.

That night, I filled Natalie in on everything that happened that day.  Naturally, she was more interested in Freak than in all the contraband we had found.  “If we can ever get our hands on Dave and Gary,” I told her, “she’s going to be all alone out there.”

“Will,” Nat said.  “She’ll have no way to get any food or anything.  Not to mention, you left her with practically no clothes to wear at all.  What’s she going to do?”

“I don’t know I admitted.  “And before you say anything else, yes, I am concerned about it.”

It was almost five minutes later before Nat said anything else.  “Will.  What if I checked with some of the women’s shelters.  There’s none here in this county, but maybe I can get her into another one.”

I considered that.  “Do it!” I told her.  “That sounds like about the best idea I could imagine.”

“Of course, it would only be temporary,” she said, “but maybe it will do until we can find something better for her.”

“Nat,” I said, “do it.  I’d much rather see her in one of those places than anywhere else, and I’m getting tired of worrying about her.  I’ve got bigger issues to deal with right now, but she’s taking up all my time.”

“I’ll talk to my boss tomorrow,” she agreed.  “I’ll let you know what I can set up.  If, I can find any place to take her.”

“Yeah.  And if I can get her off that property again.  She didn’t seem too fond of modern life.”

“No,” Amanda agreed.  She didn’t.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 11

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 11

 

(Day 2 – Friday)

 

Freaky

 

That cop had left me stuck in a room where I was surrounded by more cops.  They were everywhere around me.  Oh, they gave me a chair to sit in, but the whole time I sat there, I could see them all turning their heads to stare at me, even when I figured they were supposed to be doing something else.

Don’t talk to cops!  It kept running through my head.  But I had already talked to a cop yesterday.  In fact, I had talked too much.  And now look where it got me.  Dave and Gary were going to kill me when they saw what I was wearing, and I still didn’t know what I was going to tell them about my hair.  Would they believe that the cops had made me do it?  I remembered that nice warm rainwater room that was inside their bathroom.  That had certainly been nice.  The only nice thing I could remember about yesterday.

Where was that cop?  When was he coming back?  And more importantly, when was he going to take me home?  I was stuck in a room, surrounded by cops.  What if they asked me a question?  Should I answer?  Don’t talk to cops!

Will, the cop, finally came back.  “You doin’ okay?” he asked me.  He had to be kidding.  I was surrounded by cops.  “Can I go home now?” I asked.

“Not quite yet,” he told me.  “I gotta talk to a judge about a search warrant first.”

I had no idea what a search warrant was.  I  really didn’t care.  I just wanted to get out of there and go home!  Since my laundry had been out on the line all night, I figured the morning dew would be all over it.  Had the sun been up long enough to dry it again?  I hoped so.  I planned on checking it just as soon as I could.  If…they ever let me out of that place.

Will, the cop, finally came back.  He had some paper in his hand.  “Everyone!” he shouted to get all those cops to pay attention to him.  “As soon as I get back, be prepared to head out to the Jeskey place.  All of us!  And I don’t have to tell you what you’ll be doing out there.”

I stood up.  “I can go home now?” I asked hopefully?

“Just as soon as I get back,” he told me.  “Got to pick up the warrant first.”

I sat back down, fuming.  They were never going to let me go home!

It seemed like forever before he got back.  “Load ‘em up!” he yelled as he walked past the room.  “Amanda, you better ride with me and Freak.”  Everyone around me jumped up and started leaving.  Will, the cop, was back a few minutes later.  “Freak,” he said from the doorway.  “Let’s go.”

Yes, yes, yes!  I hurried out the door after him.  Home!  I got into the back of his car again and he helped me get all my hair in there too.  Amanda got in the front seat with him.

Through the entire long ride in the car, I anxiously watched out the window, hoping to see the farm, but like everything the day before, all I saw was strange places and weird things.  Eventually, I realized that we had been passing nothing but empty fields and woods.  Not long after, the road turned to dirt.  Still, we kept going.  Then suddenly I saw it.  The farm!  The road passed through the opening in the fence, and I wanted to shriek with joy.  I was home, and I never wanted to leave there again.  It was still a few moments before the house came in sight.  Home!

As we pulled to a stop, well back from the house, my eyes checked the trucks in the yard.  Bo’s, Steve’s, Ben’s, and Daves.  Gary wasn’t there.

“Amanda,” the cop said.  “You stick close to her while we’re here.  I don’t care where she goes, just as long as she’s not in the way.  And I’m for sure going to need her as soon as we’re done with the house.”

“Got it,” Amanda replied.

The cop got out of the car with some paper and walked towards the house.  I pushed against the car door and tried to open it, but as always, I couldn’t.  Amanda thankfully opened the door for me.

“Try using the handle next time to open it,” she said.

Handle?  What handle?  For what?

I noticed Dave standing on the front porch now as the cop headed toward him.  “Uncle Dave!” I said as I hurried in that direction.  By the time I got there, Dave and the cop where talking about something.  Men’s business.  I didn’t care about that.  But I did care that Dave was staring daggers at me.

“What happened to you?” he asked, sounding way to angry for the fear in my stomach.

“We cleaned her up some,” the cop told him.  “Had to!  My wife donated the clothes.”

And then I saw Dave’s face screw up into the weirdest look, just before he started laughing out loud.  I felt embarrassed.  Did these clothes make me look funny?

“Her hair touches the ground,” Dave said.  “Her hair actually touches the ground!  Ha!”  He looked up into the air and shouted.  “Hear that Ben?  I won.  Her hair hits the ground!”

“What’s that about?” the cop asked.

Dave was still laughing.  “Me and Ben had this running bet going over whether or not her hair was long enough to hit the ground yet.  I won!”

And then it hit me.  “Laundry!” I exclaimed.  I rushed towards the front door.  “I gotta check my laundry.”

I went in and Amanda stayed right behind me.  I was about to rush to the back door of the house, but I detoured into the kitchen instead.  I pulled open a drawer and grabbed a small jar.  I opened it and shook out a pill, and swallowed it.

“What’s that?” Amanda asked.

“Vitamins,” I told her.  “Bo makes sure I take one every day to keep me healthy.  See?” I said as I held the little jar out so she could see the label.  I traced the big black word with my finger.  “Vi-ta-mins.”  I laughed.  “Don’t tell Bo, but I figured that word out all by myself.”

“Freak,” Amanda said.  “That doesn’t say vitamins.”

I was so disappointed.  “It doesn’t?”

“No.  It says Estrogen.  What kind of vitamins are estrogen?”

I shrugged.  “The kind that keeps me healthy.  I stuck the little jar down in the box in the drawer with all the other jars of vitamins like it and closed the drawer.  “The wash!” I said as I continued hurrying through the house.  “This way,” I said.

I grabbed a plastic laundry basket from the floor near the back door and pushed the door open.  I was relieved to see all my wash hanging neatly on the line.  I grabbed parts of it here and there to feel if any of it was wet.  Nope!  All dry.  All good!  I was relieved.  Happy to be back to doing the things I knew and the things I was supposed to be doing, I started removing the clothespins and folding everything up.  A minute later, Amanda was helping me.  That was nice of her.

“Those…vitamins,” she said as we folded clothes.  “How long have you been taking them?”

That was a strange question.  “All my life.”

She seemed to stare at me as she folded one of Steve’s shirts.  “Yeah, but why?” she muttered softly.

We were just folding the last of it when that cop, Will, came out through the back door, and he had two more cops with him.  “Whatever you’re doing,” Will said, “I need you now Freak.”

Whatever I was doing?  Was he blind?  I was taking down the wash.  “I gotta put this in the house first,” I told him.  Amanda stuck the last shirt in the basket, and I picked it up and carried it into the house.  I just set it down on the floor by the door though.  “What do you need?” I asked.  Getting that wash off the line and in the house was a big relief.  I should have gotten to it yesterday.

“You said you knew where all those hiding places are,” the cop said.  “I need you to show them to me.”

“I don’t know about all of them,” I told him.  “I just know the ones I’ve seen.”

“Then point them out for me.”

“You know that’s men’s business, not mine,” I told him.

“And I’m a man,” he countered.

He did have a point with that.  “Why can’t Dave show them to you?  He and the others are the ones who use them?”

“Dave is a bit…occupied at the moment,” he told me.  “Men’s business.  Important men’s business.  He wants you to show us where those places are instead of him.”

“He does?”  That didn’t sound right to me.  Besides, what if Dave saw that I was talking to a cop again?

“He certainly does,” the cop told me.  “He’s just too busy right now to show us himself.”

I stared at him, and he stared at me.  “It doesn’t sound right,” I said.  “I’m not even sure I’m supposed to know where those places are.”

“But you do know,” he countered.

“I think so anyway.  I’ve never opened them or even seen inside.  That’s all men’s business.”

“And like I said, I’m a man.”

I searched for another way to get out of showing him.

“Besides he finally said.  “If you don’t show me, all of them, and right now, I’ll make sure Dave and Gary put you in so much trouble you won’t know what hit you.”

“Sheriff!” Amanda exclaimed softly.

But the cop just kept staring at me.  The last thing I needed was to be in trouble with Gary and Dave.  “Okay,” I said.

I turned and headed toward the barn.  Everyone followed me.  The inside of the place was dim and filled with junk.  I turned to the left and walked into one of the small little room-like things that the guys had called stalls.  At the very back of it, I looked at the wall and said, “This is one.”

“Where?” the cop asked, sounding confused.

I had never even tried to open that door before and when it was closed it was almost invisible.  I had to fuss around with it a bit before a small piece of the wall opened.  The cop pulled me away and took a look.  He turned back to the others.  “There’s a latch in here, but it’s got a real thick chain and padlock going through it.  Shit, if she hadn’t shown us that, I would have never known it was there.  This whole stall must be built against a false wall.  “Good work Freak.  Thanks.  “How about some others?”

I shrugged.  “There’s one on the other side like this,” I told him.  “There may be some in the woods somewhere, but I don’t go there unless I’m being punished.  I hate the woods!”

Shouting of someone yelling, “Sheriff!  Sheriff!” came from outside the barn.  The cop turned and hurried back to the big barn door.  “What’s the problem?”

“Dave attacked Lowrey and took off.  He’s gone!”

The cop started running.  “How’s Lowrey?”

I didn’t hear anymore, but all the other cops started running too.  All except Amanda, and I could see she wanted to go.

“Go!” I told her.  “Why not?”

“Cause the sheriff told me to stick with you, and something tells me I better do just that.”

I shrugged.  “If they’re done with me, I gotta start thinking about getting lunch ready for the guys.  I couldn’t feed them dinner last night or breakfast this morning.  I don’t want them madder at me than they’re already gonna be.”

She walked with me back towards the house and said, “It doesn’t sound like you’ve got anyone left to cook for.”

I considered that.  “Maybe.  Maybe not.  What if Dave and Gary come back?  I need to be prepared if they do.”  She must have gotten my point because she kept walking with me.

The cop came back out of the house before we even got there.  “How’s Lowrey?” Amanda asked.

“Hurting a bit, but he’ll be fine,” the cop told her.  He didn’t sound happy.  He turned to me.  “Freak, where’s all your clothes?  Taking a look at them is next on my list.  I can’t do anything about those hiding places they had until we get a real good pair of bolt cutters.”

I had no idea what bolt cutters were, and I didn’t care.  Men’s business.  “My clothes?”

“Please.”

He had said please, but I got the impression he wasn’t giving me a choice.  I continued on toward the house with him and Amanda following me.  The little room just inside the back door had a small closet in it.  I opened the closet and pulled out my plastic bag that held all my things.  I knelt down on the floor and opened it.

“Wait!” the cop said.  He reached down and pulled me to my feet.  “We’ll do it.  Amanda, just dump it out, then go through it.  And watch your hands.  No telling what’s in there.”

The cop held me by my arm as Amanda dumped out my clothes bag.  She knelt down and started going through it all, piece by piece.  It took her no time to find my one and only other dress, along with the slit in the front of it.  She looked up at Will.  “There’s blood here,” she said.

“I was afraid of that,” the cop told her.  “Keep going.”

Amanda set my dress aside and picked up one of my skirts.  She seemed to look over every inch of the thing.  “Nothing,” she said and set it aside.  She grabbed one of my shirts and immediately found the little hole in the middle of it.  She held the shirt up so the cop could see it.  “Another hole, more blood.”

The cop said nothing as she set it on top of my dress.  She grabbed my nightgown and spent a long time looking it over carefully.  “Nothing,” she said as she set it with my skirt.  She picked up my other shirt and searched it, then stuck her finger through the slit in the side of it.  She looked closely at that little slit, then turned my shirt inside out.  “Blood,” she said before she set that shirt with my other shirt and the dress.  She pulled out the two pairs of panties I owned, but never wore.  She looked at them, then tossed them aside.  She grabbed my one remaining skirt and looked it over as thoroughly as she had my first one.  “Nothing,” she said as she tossed it on top of my nightgown.  She picked up my bra that I never wore.  She searched through it, then held it up so the cop could see the bit of red on it.  “More blood,” she said.

She grabbed one of my two sweaters and immediately found the little hole in the back along with more blood.  My other sweater had a hole and blood in a different place.

Amanda tossed the sweaters onto the pile with my dress.  “This is all the clothes you have?”

“I’ve got a coat, but I don’t keep it in the bag,” I told her.

“Where?” the cop asked me.  I went back into the floor of the closet and pulled it out.  Amanda searched it, but not for long, she showed the cop the hole in the back, but didn’t say anything about it.  She looked to me.  “Anything else?”

“No.  Of course not” I replied.  “Why would I need any more?”

She shook her head and stood up.  The sheriff kicked my two skirts into the closet, then stuffed everything else into my clothes bag, including my coat.  He handed the bag to Amanda.  “Stick this in the car.  The D.A. is going to have a fit when we tell him how much DNA testing he’s going to need to approve.”

“Do you care?” Amanda asked as she took the bag from him.

“Not a bit.”

I followed the cop out to the main room of the house where the kitchen was.  I saw other cops doing things all over the house, but I didn’t have a clue what they were doing.  Men’s business, but it looked like I was going to have a big mess to pick up.  Why couldn’t men be a bit neater?

When we got to the kitchen there were a lot of guns laid out on the table.  A saw a bunch of what the guys had called rifles that I knew they used when they went hunting, and a bunch of what they called handguns that they used for…well, they just always had them.  Men’s business.  Not mine.

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 10

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 10

 

(Day 2 – Friday)

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

“What are we going to do with her?”  They were the first words my wife spoke when we had woken up that morning.

“Don’t know yet,” I replied.  It was something that had been haunting me as well.  “She’s not under arrest.  We’ve got no reason to hold her.”

“But we can’t send her back home!” she insisted.  “Not if they’ve been treating her like that, not to mention raping her left and right.”

“No,” I agreed.  “She can’t go home.  Not to stay anyway.  It certainly wouldn’t be safe.”

“Can we arrest Dave and Gary on slavery charges?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.  “Was it Bo who was really behind it all, or did his boys have anything to do with it too?  Like with everything else with that bunch, we’ve got no real evidence.  I’m planning on talking to the D.A. about the case this morning.  Let’s see what he says.”

“There’s got to be something we can arrest those other two Jeskeys for,” she pressed.

“Probably,” I replied.  “After the D.A., I have no doubt I’ll be applying for a search warrant.  From what we heard from her last night, we need to find where they’re hiding their drugs and those guns.”

“And anything else you can dig up as well.”

“If we can find anything at all,” I agreed.

“Just don’t take her home!” she argued.

“I may not have a choice,” I told her.  “Besides, I’m hoping she can point out those hiding places the Jeskeys have.  That would be a major victory for us.  But as to what happens to Freak, it may all depend on what evidence we actually find out there.  In the past, we’ve never found anything at all when it comes to that family.  We suspect they’re behind a major portion of all the bad stuff that’s happened in this county.  We’ve just never once gotten any decent evidence for any of it.  Bo and his boys have always been masters of hiding what they’ve done.”

“Like they’ve been hiding that girl.”

“Yeah.  Pretty much.”

The surprise came when Nat and Freak were finally ready to leave.  Freak looked so different wearing Nat’s skirt and top.  It was just those boots of hers that floored me.  And then Nat came over and dropped the bomb about all her clothes having blood on them.  It was another matter to put before the D.A. and another reason I was sure the judge would have no problem granting us the search warrant.

With Freak looking like a completely different person than yesterday, I put her in the back of my squad car and drove her back to the station.  You should have seen the reaction she got from literally everyone.  The two biggest things I heard talked about though were why was she wearing those dumb boots, and the fact that her hair was dragging on the ground behind her.  But overall, the general reaction was amazement.  Yeah, despite the crummy boots she was wearing, she looked like an entirely different person.  She smelled a whole lot better too.  Trust me!

I left her in the care of everyone in the squad room, got back in my car and headed over to have a little chat with the D.A.

D.A. Dale Murphy was one of those no-nonsense kind of guys.  It wasn’t that I particularly liked him.  It was more like I simply didn’t mind him.  He did his job.  Sometimes he made decisions I didn’t like, more often he sided with me.  That was good enough.

He sat patiently behind his desk while I laid out the facts about Roxie shooting Bo, Steve, and Ben.  And then I started telling Murphy about how accommodating Roxie had been afterwards, and I didn’t forget to include the little talk she had agreed to have with Freak.  Just saying the name Freak seemed to send Dale’s head into an almost imperceptible spin, but it was enough that I noticed it.

“Freak?,” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.  “Besides the murders, the biggest surprise of the day.”

“You make it sound like this is a person.”

“Without a doubt.  The question though is what kind of person is she?”

“What’s her name?” he asked.

“As far as we can tell, Freak.  Just…Freak.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Nope, and just getting that much information on her was almost impossible.  Roxie told us a little about her, what little she knows that is.”

“So what’s her problem that you had to arrest her?”

“I didn’t arrest her, we just hauled her out of that house and my wife decided to take her home with us last night to clean her up a bit.  She was…the filthiest woman I’ve ever seen in my life.  Not to mention, she has the longest hair of anyone I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He shrugged.  “Some women aren’t exactly a bundle of joy to be around.”

“Not like this, they’re not.”

“So the only name you found for her is Freak, and you haven’t been able to dig up anything different.”

“Not yet,” I told him.  “And according to what we got out of her last night, it’s Freak, and it’s always been Freak, and she doesn’t remember anything else.”

“Or not remembering is simply more convenient,” he pointed out.  “Can we get a DNA sample and have it tested?”

“Are you willing to foot the bill?” I asked.  “But before you answer, we may very well need it, for a number of reasons.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, according to my wife, she believes rather strongly that Freak has been living as a slave.  A real live slave to those Jeskey boys.  And let me tell you, everything we heard from her yesterday and last night was absolutely hair-raising.  Natalie wants me to ask you if we can arrest Dave and Gary on slavery charges.  To tell the truth though, slavery may be the least of the charges we can level at them.”

“Charges for the remaining Jeskeys?” he asked, his head perking up.  “Like what?”

“How about incest for a start.  Incest and pimping.”

“Incest!” he exclaimed.  “Really!”

“More than really,” I replied.  “In fact, pretty much absolutely!  For as long as she can remember, and Dean, she ain’t but nineteen or twenty.  Her age has been a bit hard to tell though because she was so filthy.”

“Did you ask her age?”

“Not yet.  We just found her yesterday, and most of that time she was pretty adamant about not opening her mouth at all.  Like I said, fortunately, Roxie helped us with that.  A lot!”

“So you said,” he replied.  “I’ll take it under advisement.  Look,” he said.  “We’re talking about the Jeskeys here.  We’ve never had one shred of evidence against them other than for things so minor we probably shouldn’t have even bothered serving them with it, but we’ve always known…sorry, suspected…that they were doing a lot more than just robbing candy stores.”

“They’ve been pretty darn good about hiding the evidence,” I pointed out.  “Like I said earlier, from what Roxie told me, I’m guessing they’ve got some kind of burial or disposal site for all their bodies.  We just need to find it.”

“Don’t I wish!” he agreed.

“We may have a few other angles on the Jeskeys now too,” I told him.

“Oh?”

“Freak mentioned during dinner last night that the guys talked a lot about not just drugs, but guns too.  We had no idea they were running guns.  But Freak mentioned automatics, and AKs, which I’m taking means AK-47s.  So those guns, along with the drugs, have to be stashed somewhere.”

“Yeah, but where?” he said.

“That’s always been the problem,” I conceded.  “A big problem.  But this morning my wife told me something else that she found out from Freak.  According to her, all of Freak’s clothes have blood stains on them.  And none of that blood belongs to her.”

It looked like he couldn’t understand that.  “How can that be?”

“The simplest answer?” I said.  “All her clothes are coming from their victims.  We may have DNA evidence for a few more murders there.  Hopefully.”

He considered that.  “Get her DNA,” he agreed.  “If nothing else, we better have it to eliminate any of that blood as being hers.  And Will, if you can find anything solid to arrest Dave and Gary Jeskey on, do it!”

“That was my plan,” I agreed.  “My biggest hangup right now is…what the hell do we do with Freak?  Neither my wife nor I have the slightest clue, especially if I don’t find enough evidence to arrest Dave and Gary.  But even if I do, that girl is so out of touch with reality that something needs to be done.  Despite that though, she really just wants to go home, where she understands her life.”

Dean considered that for a moment.  “Don’t ask me what we need to do with her.  It’s not my department.  As I see it, if we can’t legally hold her on anything, she can go where she wants.  Including home, back where she came from.”

That wasn’t an answer I wanted.

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 9

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 9

 

(Day 2 – Friday)

 

Freaky

 

In the morning, I laid there with my eyes closed, just smelling my hair.  It still smelled so nice, just like when I had gone to sleep.  I couldn’t sleep in that bed.  I wasn’t used to sleeping in beds.  They were too soft.  Especially that one.

I finally opened my eyes and was surprised to find a blanket thrown over me.  I was guessing that Natalie must have done that.  It struck me then that Natalie was a nice woman, and right or wrong, I liked her.  Was that good or bad?  I wasn’t supposed to be talking to anyone other than Bo and the guys, but I had talked and talked and talked last night.  Why couldn’t I have kept my big mouth shut?

The more I thought about it, the more I remembered saying lots of things I probably shouldn’t have.  But, I was just so confused by everything!  It was hard to tell what I should do and what I shouldn’t.  And now I was finding that I liked Natalie, the wife of a cop…who I really shouldn’t have talked to at all!  What was I going to do?

Not really knowing where I was or what I should do, I sat up against the wall, keeping that blanket over me.  I was supposed to be home just then, in my own house, making breakfast for the guys.  I remembered then that Bo, Steve, and Ben were dead.  But Dave and Gary would still need breakfast.  And I hadn’t been home to make them dinner last night.  Did they eat?  They were really going to kill me for not being there to cook for them.  I’d be eating dog food from the floor for a year!

Despite that, I still just wanted to go home.  I wanted to go back to the life I knew.  I didn’t know about anything that I had seen since I left there.  Life outside the farm was way too complicated for me.  Nothing made sense!

I looked up as the door quietly opened and Natalie stuck her head in.

“You’re awake,” she said.  “Good morning.”

I swallowed.  What would she want of me now?  “Good morning,” I replied

“I’m getting ready to make some breakfast,” she told me.  “Want to help?”

Breakfast.  I was supposed to be making breakfast for Gary and Dave just then.  “Sure,” I agreed.  I pulled myself up from the floor and dropped the blanket on the bed.

“Why don’t we put this robe on you again, so you won’t be cold,” she suggested.

A minute later, I was snuggly warm in that nice robe.  I appreciated it, and once again I considered her to be a nice woman.  Maybe I shouldn’t, I didn’t know, but I liked her.

I followed her out to the kitchen.  The kitchen that confused me so much because I didn’t know what anything in it was.  Well, not exactly.  As I studied everything in the room, it mostly seemed to orient itself in my head.  I knew what the sink was, and the refrigerator, and the stove.  So yeah, maybe I wasn’t totally lost in there.

“Eggs?  Bacon?” Natalie suggested as she opened the refrigerator door.

What I saw inside that refrigerator was unlike anything my refrigerator had ever looked like.  Not only was it packed with things, but it was so bright!  You could see everything.  Natalie pulled a carton of eggs out and a package of bacon.  Something about the refrigerator confused me though, and not just its size.  “You only have one?” I asked.

“One?” Natalie asked.  “One what?”

“Refrigerator.”

She seemed surprised.  “How many do you have?”

“Two of course,” I told her.

“Wow,” she said.  “That must be nice.  Do you buy that much food for everyone?”

“I don’t buy anything,” I told her.  “I’ve never left the farm before.  The guys buy everything.”

“So they buy lots of food?”

“Not really.  It’s just that…”

“What she asked.”

“Where’s your beer fridge?”

“Beer fridge?”

“Yeah.  We’ve got one just for beer.”

Natalie looked at me.  “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.  I’m guessing the guys where you live drink lots of beer.”

“What else would they drink?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  Coffee, tea, iced tea, water, soda, anything.”

“No,” I told her.  “None of that.  Just beer…oh and some other things that come in big bottles.  I don’t know what they are exactly.  They say whiskey a lot, but I know there’s other stuff too.”

“What do they drink with dinner?” Natalie asked.

“Beer of course, what else?”

“How about breakfast?”

“Beer.  I told you, that’s all they drink when they eat.

“Freak,” she said.  “How about you?  Is beer all you drink?”

“Oh no!  Of course not.  I’m a girl.  I drink water.”

“And I’m guessing that’s it.”

“What else is there?  What were those things you were talking about a minute ago?”

“What things?” she asked.  “You mean like coffee and soda?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t your guys ever drink coffee?”

“What is it?”

“I’m about to make some right now,” she said.  “You can have some with your breakfast.  In fact, I’m going to insist!”

I don’t know how she did it, but somehow Natalie made me feel at home as she found ways that both of us could cook together.  It amazed me how nice it was.  Once again, it struck me how much I liked her, even though her husband was a cop!  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do about that problem.

Will, her husband, the cop, came out all dressed in his weird clothes again.  He walked over to the machine that was making…coffee…and poured some into a mug.  Then he headed for the table.  This was more like I was used to.  The women cooking for the men.  The only thing that gave me some concern was that Natalie insisted that we should all sit down and eat at the same time he did.  I did it though.  Fortunately, Will didn’t appear to find anything wrong with that at all.  I vowed then and there not to mention it to Gary or Dave.  In fact, I was going to do my best to not mention anything I had gone through so far to them.  And then I remembered my hair.  How was I going to explain that?

I took two sips of that coffee stuff and didn’t touch it again.  No wonder the guys never talked about drinking it.  It was awful!

After we ate, I offered to wash the dishes, but Natalie said she’d take care of them.  I watched in total confusion as instead of washing them in the sink like I would do, she pulled down kind of a door under the counter and started sticking all the dishes and everything else onto racks inside it.  I couldn’t help myself.  “What’s that?” I asked.

“You’ve never seen a dishwasher?” she said.  “You don’t have one?”

“Have one?  What does it do?”

“It washes the dishes.”

“For real?”

“Yeah.  What did you think?”

“I think I don’t know anything about…anything!”  I was so frustrated I turned and hurried straight back to that bedroom I had slept in.

Natalie came into the room only moments later.  “Sorry Freak,” she said.  “I didn’t mean to upset you.  I never thought about you not knowing what a dishwasher is.”

“I don’t know what anything is since I left the farm,” I told her.  “I just want to go home!  I don’t care what the guys do to me.”

“It’s okay,” Natalie told me.  “We’ll talk about getting you home later this morning.  How about we get you dressed first though.”

I considered what I was wearing, her nightgown and a robe.  Nice things.  Pretty things.  Comfortable things.  But she was right.  I had to get dressed, and Dave and Gary would only ask more questions if they saw me in someone else’s clothes.  I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to explain my hair.

Natalie led me back to her bedroom.  I looked for my dress, but I didn’t see it.  I did see my boots though.  I slipped my feet into them.  “Where’s my dress?” I asked.

“Sorry Freak,” she told me.  “But Will said that because of the bullet hole and blood stains on it, that dress is now evidence.”

“It’s what?” I asked.

“Evidence,” she repeated.  Then she sighed.  “Kind of proof of a crime.  Do you understand that?”

“Not really.  It sounds like men’s stuff to me.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.  “It probably would.”

“But what am I going to wear?  I can’t go home in this.  If I’m not wearing my clothes, the guys will ask too many questions.  I’m already worried about what they’re going to say about my hair.”

“Freak, I’m afraid that like it or not, you’re just going to have to borrow something of mine.  But don’t worry, I’m sure I can find you something a lot prettier to wear than that dress that didn’t fit you.  Not to mention, it will be in much better shape.”

I was perturbed over the situation, but what was I going to do about it?  It didn’t sound like they were going to give me my dress back.  “Do I have a choice?” I asked.

“No, I’m afraid,” she replied.  “Hey!” she said excitedly as she opened her closet.  “How about a nice pair of slacks.  Since you live out in the country, they should probably work the best.”

“Slacks?” I asked.

She pulled out several hangers with clothes on them.  I immediately saw what slacks were.  “They’re pants!  No!  No way!  Girls don’t wear pants.  Pants are for guys only, and I’m a good girl.  No.  No pants!”

“But Freak, that’s not how things really are,” she argued.

But I wasn’t going to give in on the issue.  “No!  No way!” I told her.  “I don’t see how you can even cope wearing those things.”

“A lot better than wearing a dress!” she replied angrily.  “Okay.  No pants.  Geez!  We’ve got to bring you into the twenty-first century.”

I had no idea what she was talking about.  I was just glad she wasn’t going to try and make me wear pants.  I was a good girl.  I had already gone and done way too much that I shouldn’t.  Natalie had said something about me going home later this morning.  It was time to get back to behaving like I was supposed to.  Like I was comfortable with.

She laid out skirts and tops and a few dresses.  Every last one of them was nicer than anything I had ever worn.  “Are you sure I can’t wear my old dress?” I asked.

“Sorry,” she replied.  “Blood stains.  Evidence.”

“So what?” I argued.  “Most of my things have blood on them.”

She seemed startled.  “They do?  Your blood or someone else’s?”

“I don’t know.  Not mine.  I just can’t get it out when I wash them.”

She seemed to just look at me for the longest time before she muttered, “One problem after another.  Geez!”

At least she wasn’t yelling at me.

After trying on a few things, I finally agreed to wear one of her skirts and a top, but not before we argued over me refusing to wear underwear, especially the bra she tried to give me.  “I’ve got one at home,” I told her, “and the one time I tried to wear it, not only was it too difficult to get on, it was so uncomfortable I couldn’t stand it.  I threw it in the bottom of my clothes bag, and I haven’t touched it since.  No underwear.  There’s no sense in it.  Besides, what if one of the guys wants to have sex with me, like you know they will as soon as they see this hair.  Underwear will just be something else that I’ve got to take off.”  Why did she have to keep staring at me so much?

The skirt and top fit me just fine.  In fact, I rather liked them, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.  But the minute I started to put my boots on again, she had another fit.  What was wrong with her?  “There’s no blood on these,” I told her.  “That I know of.”

“They don’t go at all with what you’re wearing.  Don’t you want to wear something nicer?  I’ve got some sneakers here.  Why don’t we see if they’ll fit.”

“Sneakers?” I asked.

“Real comfortable shoes,” she said as she hurried to the closet and pulled a pair of weird looking shoes out.

I quickly shook my head.  “No way!” I told her.

She seemed surprised, not to mention disappointed.  “How about just a pair of flip-flops?” she asked.

I had no idea what flip-flops were.  “I don’t know what they are,” I said.  “These are a lot better for walking around the farm.”

She stared at me for only a second before she asked, “Is it muddy out there?”

“It gets pretty bad whenever it rains.”

“For that, maybe you’ve got a point then.”  She seemed to sigh.  “Okay.  I guess you’re as ready as you’re going to get.  Let’s go.”

I was ready to go…home!

“Are you sure you don’t want to try some of my shoes?” she asked as we walked out of the room.  “Or maybe just a pair of flip-flops?”

“No!  My boots are better.  It’s all just…too much!”

We found her husband, the cop, in the living room watching that T Fee thing.  “Ready,” Natalie told him.

He turned and looked me over.  His face seemed to go from looking very happy to confused.  “The boots are a little…” he started to say.

“Don’t!” Natalie said quickly.  “We’re lucky I got her to wear that much.”

I saw her husband shake his head, then pick up a plastic bag.

“Will,” Natalie said quickly.  She went over and talked to him, but she whispered everything so I couldn’t hear anything she said.

Her husband seemed to look at her like he was shocked or something.  He looked over at me, then back at her before he nodded.  “Thanks,” he said.  “We’ll check.  I’ve got to talk to the D.A. first,” he told her.  “I’ll mention it.”