The Last Jeskey - Chapter 40

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 40

 

(Day 9 – Friday)

 

Pamela

 

If I didn’t get a break from having to do so much for Freaky, I was never going to be able to keep up with my other work.  Once again I was going to be spending most of the day dealing with a Freaky issue, but there was no help for it.  Life just works out that way sometimes.

Detective Benson from Knoxville had gotten back to me yesterday.  “We couldn’t find any more relatives on Clive’s side of the family,” Benson told me, “but his wife, Hailey, has plenty.  I’ll go out tomorrow to let Hailey’s mother and father know that we found Hailey’s killer.”

“Not without me,” I told him.  “When are you going?”

“Tomorrow.  Probably late morning sometime.”

“Won’t they be working?” I asked.

“Maybe.  If so, I’ll go back later.”

“Hold off till at least midafternoon,” I told him.  “Give me a chance to get there.”

“I’m just going to be delivering the news,” he told me.

“But I’ve got some other business with them.  I need to see them.”

“What business?”

“A trust fund for Freaky that has to be managed,” I explained.

“Money?”

“So far, fifty-thousand dollars,” I told him.

“That safe would have held a lot more than that.”

“The sheriff here thinks that money is just a drop in the bucket.  He called it a getaway batch since it was found with some guns.”

“Could be,” Benson agreed.  “Okay, I’ll hold off till you get here.  We’ll go out and see them together.”

“That was my plan,” I told him.

So now I was making that long drive all the way down to Knoxville.  The big city.  Tennessee had a few of them, and this was one.  Give me the hills any day!

Finding the police station wasn’t difficult.  Finding Benson was even easier.  Some nice cop escorted me right up to his desk.  Benson was busy talking to someone else, but he stopped as soon as he saw me.

“Have a good trip?” he asked.

“Good enough,” I told him.  “What’s happening?”

“I called the Harpers and let them know we’re coming,” he told me.

“Harpers?  Clive’s wife’s family?”

“Right.  The wife was Hailey.”

“Got it,” I replied.

A minute later we were walking out of there.  I got into his car with him and let him drive.  Knoxville is a big place.  Very big and very spread out.  It took us a little while to get there, and when we did, utter suburbia!  Nice looking houses.  Not overly rich looking, just…real nice.

Benson knocked on the door.  Since he was the cop, I let him take the lead.  The door opened and an elderly man stood there.  Elderly, but not too old.  I placed him in his early to mid sixties.

“Mister Harper?” Benson asked.

Harper nodded.  He looked nervous.  “That’s me,” he said.  “Are you the one who called?”

“Yes,” Benson replied.  “I’m Detective Benson.”  He turned to me.  “And this is Pamela McGregor, an attorney?”

Mr. Harper appeared surprised.  “An attorney?  What’s this about?”

“May we come in?” Benson asked.

Harper held the door open, and we went inside.  There was a woman hovering right behind the man.  His wife, obviously.  She led us into the living room where we all took seats.”

“An attorney?” Mr. Harper asked.  “What’s the problem?”

“Not actually a problem,” Benson told him.

“But an attorney?  That’s legal trouble.”

“No.  Not really,” I assured him.  “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why?” Mr. Harper asked.

I nodded toward Benson.  “I’ll let you get your business out of the way first.”

Benson leaned forward to speak.  “Your daughter, Hailey, was murdered fifteen years ago,” he said.  I heard Mrs. Harper gasp.  “We recently found her murderer.”

“No!” Mrs. Harper exclaimed in surprise as she stood up.

“Who?” Mr. Haper asked.

“Clive’s brother Bo.” Benson told them.  “From what I was told, it was him and some of his sons that did it, and it was them that took the safe they were transporting.”

“And Brian?” Mrs. Harper asked.

“Brian…” Benson started to say, but I stopped him quickly.

“Wait!” I told him.  “Mrs. Harper,” I said.  “I’m afraid that Brain is another issue.  And that’s why I’m here.”

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Harper said.  “Is he alive?  They told us he was presumed dead.  And after all this time….  We’ve never had one single word.”

I wasn’t sure that letting them know he was alive would be a good thing, but then, that was why I was there in the first place.  They would have to know.  “Yes,” I told them.  “He’s alive, and he’s been found.”

I watched as both the Harpers quickly hugged each other joyously.  “We were told he was dead,” Mr. Harper said, “but we didn’t want to believe it.  Where is he?”

“When can we see him?” Mrs. Harper asked.

I shook my head.  “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a drive from here,” I told them.

“I don’t care!” Mrs. Harper insisted.

“We’ll go there,” Mr. Harper said.

“There are some things about…Brian,” I said, “that you’re going to need to understand.”

The two of them stopped hugging each other, but they still held hands as they sat next to each other, staring at me, waiting desperately.

I tried to find a way to tell them.  I tried to find a place to start.  So I started at the beginning.  “Fifteen years ago, Clive’s brother and two of his sons murdered Clive and your daughter.”

“I think Clive mentioned once that he had a brother, but he never saw him,” Mrs. Harper told me.  “I got the impression from what he said that he and his brother didn’t exactly get along.  In fact, they hated each other.  And Clive’s father felt exactly the same way.  Clive mentioned once that things got so bad between his brother and their father that his father threw his brother out of the house and told him to never come back.  I think Clive said that he moved up to north Tennessee somewhere, but he didn’t know exactly where.”

“And now you say you’ve found Brian?” Mr. Harper said.  “That’s the best news we’ve ever had.”

“Well, it may not be,” I told them.

“But it is!  When can we see him?” Mrs. Harper asked again.

“That’s just it.  I’m not sure you should.  It may be far better if you just know that he’s been found, and leave it at that.  We just really wanted to let you know that your daughter’s killer has been found, and he’s now dead.”

“He’s dead!” Mr. Harper said.  “But you know for a fact that he murdered Hailey.”

“Yes, we do,” Benson told him.  “I can’t go into the whys and hows, but we know for certain.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to see him?” Mrs. Harper asked.  “He’s my grandson.  I can’t wait to see him.”

I looked over at Benson before I answered, and saw him shrug.  He was right, this woman, these people, would never settle for no explanation.  “First of all, Brian is no longer a little boy,” I told them.  “It’s been about fifteen years.  He’s nineteen years old now, practically a grownup.”

“All the more reason for us to see him as soon as possible.”

I continued.  “From what we understand, Bo Jeskey had an ax to grind against both his father and his brother.  Because of that, when he kidnapped Brian, he did it as a way to get back against both his brother and his father.  For the past fifteen years, Brian has been forced to live the most horrible life possible, including often being subjected to horrendous torture, whipping, and worse.  They basically turned him into a slave.  He knows nothing at all about the real world.  And I mean nothing!  Not only can he not read, he can’t even count.”

“My God!” Mrs. Harper breathed.  She sat up straight.  “I still want to see him!  Now!”

I shook my head.  “And then there’s the other thing,” I said.

“What?” Mr. Harper asked.

“Shortly after they kidnapped him, Bo started turning Brian into a girl, including hormones for the past fifteen years, and having him mutilated.  Between all the torturing and everything else, Brian doesn’t even remember ever being a boy.  He identifies completely as a woman now, and of course, not one who’s entirely in touch with reality.  Brian is now known by the name Freaky.  And that’s only because Bo and his sons usually simply called him the freak.”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Harper were staring at me.  Unmoving.  Not even blinking.  They were both in total disbelief.  Total incomprehension.

“We’re trying to deal with the problem now,” I told them softly.

They both continued to just stare in disbelief for a few moments more, then Mrs. Harper broke out of it and stood up.  “Coffee?” she asked.

“Sure,” I told her.

The coffee was made already since they knew we were coming, so we all moved to the kitchen table.

“A girl,” Mrs. Harper said as she clutched her coffee mug desperately.

“Believe it or not, yes.”

“I just don’t know what to make of that,” she replied.

“None of us do.  Trust me, it took us by surprise just as much as you when we found out that she wasn’t a girl…originally.”  I could see they both had questions, but they didn’t ask them.  I was glad.

And then Mr. Harper hesitantly opened his mouth and asked a question I hadn’t expected.  “H…how did you find out?”

I nodded.  “Bo Jeskey and his two oldest sons, the ones who were with him when he murdered your daughter, were all murdered themselves not long ago.  Shortly after that, the sheriff was chasing another of his sons when he had an accident.  While he was dying, he told the sheriff all about what Bo had done to Brian, including having him mutilated.  According to the sheriff, he seemed to think what they did to him was funny.  I can assure you though, that it’s not.”

“How many sons did Bo have?” Mr. Harper asked.

“Four,” I told him.  “There’s still one left.  Gary.  And the sheriff is trying hard right now to find him.  He’ll be spending the rest of his life in jail.”

“I should hope so!” Mrs. Harper exclaimed.

“You mentioned something about trying to help him?” Mr. Harper asked.

“Do you need money?” Mrs. Harper asked quickly.

 I shook my head.  But now that money had been mentioned, I had a decision to make.  The real reason I was there to begin with.  But these seemed to be good people.  Trustworthy.  It made my decision easier.  “Thank you,” I told Mrs. Harper, “but we don’t need money…right now.  Thanks to Freaky finding some of Bo’s money we have a budget for her care.  At least for a while.  We’re hopeful though that there will be more money available later.  Possibly much more.”  I took a breath.  “But that brings me to the real reason why I’m here with Detective Benson.”

I noticed both the Harpers look up at that one.  “After Freaky was found…”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him that!” Mrs. Harper said.

“I wish I had a better name for her.”

“For him!”

“No.  Trust me, not anymore.  Freaky identifies completely as a woman now.  She looks completely like a woman.  She’s been a girl since she was four.  She wouldn’t know the first thing about being male.”

Both the Harpers seemed to stare at me.  “I still don’t like that name,” Mrs. Harper said softly.

“Nobody does,” I told her.  “Although Freaky doesn’t seem to mind it at all.  In truth, I seriously doubt she has any idea what a freak actually is.”

“You could find her a better name,” Mrs. Harper said.

“There hasn’t been time.  All this just happened, and there’s been a lot happening.  More than we can tell you.”

“You said three murders if I counted correctly, plus another one who died,” Mr. Harper said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“That would be a lot happening.”

I was grateful to be able to leave it at that.  I didn’t want to get into the shelter and the behavioral center just then.  “As I was saying,” I said to them, “After Freaky was found, she was so far out of touch with reality that I decided to set myself up as her advocate to manage whatever needs she had.  In doing so, Judge Reinhart decided all of that was great, but since there was an outside chance that Freaky could come into a lot of money eventually, he wanted more than one person to manage that money for her.  He wanted all money put into a trust fund, with three people to manage it.  I’m one.  The sheriff’s wife, Natalie, is the second.  But the judge is insisting on there being three people.  I came here today to see if one of you might be willing to be that third person.”

“How much money?” Mr. Harper asked.

“Yesterday morning, we didn’t have a dime.  But by the end of the day we had fifty-thousand dollars.  But as I said, there’s a possibility that eventually there could be more.  Possibly much more!”

“From where?” Mr. Harper asked.

It was Benson who answered though.  “Clive had a big farm.  His father had another one.  Both of those farms were sold to a developer right after Clive was murdered.”

“I was a bit perturbed at the time that nobody mentioned any money coming to us from that farm after Hailey was murdered,” Mr. Harper said.

“I understand it’s being looked into,” I told him.  “But…you know how these things run.  It could take years…for nothing at all.”

“I see,” Mr. Harper replied.

“If you need a third person though,” Mrs. Harper said.  “Then one of us will be more than glad to do it.”

“You do it, Stell,” her husband said.  “You’ve got more time than me.”

I saw Mrs. Harper nod.  “I’ll be glad to do it.  But I have just one request…demand!”

“What’s that?”

“I want to see him.  Soon!  Tomorrow!”