The Last Jeskey - Chapter 6

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 6

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

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

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

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

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

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

“Maybe,” I agreed.  “Maybe.”

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

“Oh?”

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

“Natalie?”

“She’s a social worker, isn’t she?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So you’ve been busy.”

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

“She?”

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

“Will, how long have you known me?”

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

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

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

“Didn’t you talk to him yet?”

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

“You can’t ask me at home?”

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

“Situation?  What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s an understatement,” Amanda muttered.

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

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

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

“Freak!” I confirmed.

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

Natalie shrugged.  “So?”

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

“You said girl.  How old is she?”

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

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

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

“Filthy?”

“Filthy!” Amanda confirmed.

“What happened that she got that way?”

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

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

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

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

“Shock?” Natalie asked.

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

“Prostitution,” Natilie murmured.

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

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

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

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

“Was she?”

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

“Like what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“True.”