Evangeline (12 page)

“Put your clothes back on,” Caleb said tersely.  “I’m driving you back to your truck.”  Then he spun angrily on his brother.  “Why’d you come here tonight, Billy?”

The Asshole took a casual drag on his cigarette.  “Just having a few laughs with the boys, bro.”

Caleb dug in his pocket and held up his cell phone.  “That why you called me?  Huh?  Why you got me out here?  To see this?”  He was gesturing my direction as I struggled to pull on the dress.  “Did you get what you wanted?” 

The Asshole exhaled a stream of tobacco smoke.  “Hey, is it my fault your girlfriend’s a ho?  I did you a favor, little brother.  You should--.”

Caleb swung hard, catching Billy flush in the face and snapping his head back.  The Asshole licked blood from his lip then wiped it clear with the back of his hand. 

“I’ll give you that one, little brother,” he said, barely containing his anger.  “But you ever hit me again and I swear I’ll break your fuckin’ neck.  Now get away from me… and take that skank with you.”

Caleb extended his hand to me and said harshly, “Let’s go,” which I suppose confirmed my skank status.  I was trying to slip on the coat when he grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the van.

“Bye bye, baby,” hooted Danny as I was led stumbling across the property toward the El Camino.  “Thanks for the blow job!  Let’s do it again sometime!”

“Fuck yeah!” hollered Kyle.  “We’ll be here!  Your boyfriend can come to!”

When I looked back over my shoulder, Kyle mimed humping me in the ass, then fist bumped his laughing cousin.  I kept my mouth shut and let the Browers have their moment… because I knew something those boys didn’t.

They’d just fucked with the wrong psycho bitch.

Chapter seven

The ride back to Willowdal
e
was silent and uncomfortable.  Caleb wasn’t speaking to me and I felt like a big sack of smashed assholes.  The Special K was wearing off now and I was drowsy and sick to my stomach.  I desperately wanted to sleep, but didn’t dare risk waking Angeline. Better I tucked the girl into bed and let her sleep it off.  By the time morning rolled around the entire nightmare at the Mohr’s would be forgotten.

I directed Caleb down the side-street where Sister’s F-100 was parked.  He pulled in beside the truck then shunned eye contact while he waited for me to climb out.  

“Guess we can forget the goodnight kiss, huh?” I said dryly, then reached for the door handle.

Apparently the kid didn’t appreciate sarcasm.  “Is this a fuckin’ joke to you?” he snapped.  “Who the fuck are you anyway?  What happened to the girl I brought to the party?”

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” I said, opening the door.  “I’ll take two aspirin and you can call her in the morning.”

“I don’t know you,” said Caleb as I stepped from the El Camino.

“You got that right, brother,” I answered, then slammed the door.

It was past midnigh
t
now, the hour when my POP license became invalid and I turned into a pumpkin.  At that late hour the roads from Willowdale Township to Hainesville seemed clear enough, and I was beginning to think I was home free, until I got within a few miles of the farm.  That’s when a set of headlights appeared coming the opposite direction.  The vehicle sped past, then I watched in the rearview as it swung around and charged back after me.  

On came the flashing blues.

Oh, shit.

I was in trouble, boys and girls.  Or, rather, Sister was in trouble.  Only one lazy-ass lawman would patrol that close to the farm.  For the first time since our romantic trysts in the storm cellar, I was about to go face-to-face with my old pal Stumpy.  Only not as Evangeline.  No way.  The deputy was a fool to be sure, but he was also a fool with a badge on his chest.  I didn’t want him suspecting his stepdaughter was anything more than the wretched mouse he’d come to know and despise. 

I pulled off the road and parked with the cruiser tucked in behind me.  In the side view mirror I watched the lawman step from his car, take a moment to adjust his campaign hat, then begin a slow walk toward the truck-- a stubby silhouette against the cruiser’s flashing wig wags. 

It was time to channel my other self.

There was a tap on the glass and I turned to find Deputy Gottschalk staring in at me.  The man mimed cranking down the window and I followed his order, just as Sister would have done.  Me, I wanted to slug that bastard right in his stupid puss. 

“What the hell are you doing out here?” he snarled, training his flashlight beam in my eyes. 

“Dra-dra-driving home,” I stammered in classic Angeline fashion.

“It’s almost one a.m.!” the deputy exploded.  “You’re supposed to be off the goddamn road!” 

“I forgot.”

“You for--” He stopped, leaned close and sniffed the air.  “What’s that I smell?”

“Wa-wa-what?”

Stumpy ripped the door open.  “Get out of that truck!”

I did as the law commanded.   He pushed me brusquely aside and leaned into the cab, aiming his flashlight all through it, then running his hand under the bench seat.  When he was through he jerked the keys from the ignition, straightened up and turned on me.  “You’ve been drinking,” he said matter-of-factly.

“No, sir.”

“Don’t lie to me, goddammit.  You stink of booze.”  He grabbed me by the upper arm and hauled me to the back of the pickup.  “Walk nine steps, heal to toe, got it?  Nine steps in a straight line, then turn and come back.”

The Jose Cuervo and Special K had mostly worn off by this time, so I was able to maintain pretty good balance as I executed the lawman’s instructions.  Except for one minor misstep, I passed that sobriety test with flying colors.  Stumpy blinded me with his flashlight again, checked both eyes then clicked off.  

“You’re not fooling me,” he growled.  “I know you’ve been drinking.”  He looked up the road one way then down the other before dangling the truck keys in my face.  “Get your ass back to the farm.  Straight home, you got that?”

I took the keys and said, “Yes, sir,” then climbed back into the cab.  Deputy Gottschalk slammed the door and snarled at me through the open window.  “And you can forget about going to any more football games.  After tonight you’re grounded.   No more football.  No more goddamn nothin’.  You go to school, you come home and that’s all you’re gonna do, understand?”

Do you understand statutory rape you fat fuck?
was the response I was dying to give.  But instead my reply was a very courteous, “Yes, sir.”

Angeline awoke Saturday mornin
g
with a splitting headache and only a partial memory of what had happened the night before.  As much as she would have liked to forget the Mohr’s, the girl’s memory was intact right up until she met Billy Quinn and the Brower boys.  After that the hard drive was wiped clean.  Next thing Angeline knew, the morning sun was blasting though the blinds and stabbing her in the eyes, making Sister’s first hangover one for the ages. 

Shortly after Stepfather entered the bathroom for his morning constitutional, Angeline slipped out of the bedroom and headed downstairs to the kitchen, taking each step gingerly along the way.  The girl’s butt was saddle-sore; chafed and tender as though she’d crossed the Great Plains on horseback.  Of course it was Sister, herself, who’d been ridden hard by Kyle Brower, an unpleasant memory already deleted.

Mother was busy at the stove when Angeline sat down at the table.  As she eased into her chair, her eyes caught Ted’s campaign hat and gun belt hanging near the front door.  For some odd reason this gave her pause.  She wasn’t sure why.  No time to think it through, though.  Ted was upstairs getting ready to flush and Sister had an important question to ask before he returned.  

She gathered her courage as the bacon sizzled, then leaned forward and said under her breath, “Muh-momma, I need to ask you something.”  

Mother cocked her head slightly but continued cooking.   

“I mmm-met this b-boy at school,” Angeline continued.  “His name is Caleb.  Caleb Quinn.  Last night he told mmme something about D-Daddy… but I don’t know if it’s true.”

The pork sizzled in the skillet.  Angeline paused to take a breath. 

“Caleb said that D-D-Daddy’s his father.” 

The toilet flushed upstairs.  Mother looked that direction then went back to turning bacon.

“Did you hear wha-what I said, mmmomma?”

“I heard you.”

“Do you think it’s true?”

The bathroom door opened upstairs and footsteps could be heard creaking on the staircase.  Mother paused then said, “I think when judgment comes, Abby Quinn will be cast down like Jezebel.”

Stumpy entered the kitchen wrapped in a robe and holding a rolled newspaper.  “Well, look who decided to join us.”  He took his seat at the table and immediately said to Angeline, “You tell your mother what you did last night?” 

Puzzled, Angeline glanced toward Mother. 

“Go ahead,” the man said with a smug look.  “Tell her.”

“Tell her wah-wwwhat?”

“Tell her wah-wwwhat?” mocked Stumpy before turning to his wife.  “Last night I pulled your daughter over for driving past curfew.” 

Mother tossed a curious glance at Angeline. 

“Not only that, but I smelled liquor on her breath,” he said, then smirked at Sister.  “Ain’t that right Miss Goody-Two-Shoes?

Angeline just blinked at him. 

“You’re goddamn lucky I didn’t arrest your ass,” the man huffed, then shook the newspaper at her.  “And don’t forget what I told you.  You’re grounded.  You don’t step foot outside this house without my say-so.”

He snapped the newspaper open.  The headline blared, STATE FORMS L3K TASK FORCE.   Stepfather  read briefly then lowered the paper again as his wife shuffled to the table with a platter of flapjacks.  “Oh, and as for you,” he said to Mother.  “My lawyer friend is stopping by here on Monday with those mortgage papers.”

Mother froze as she was slipping flapjacks onto Angeline’s plate.

“Yeah, you heard me right,” Stumpy told her with a gloating smile.  “He’s coming to the house.”  He hoisted the newspaper back in front of his face.  “If Moohammet won’t come to the mountain, I’ll bring the goddamn mountain to her.”

Angeline had experienced blackout
s
before, especially back when Stepfather was wearing out a path to the storm cellar, but never anything like this.  How was it possible, she wondered, to have traveled from the Mohr’s to Willowdale, retrieve her truck, get stopped by Deputy Gottschalk, then drive back to the farm and climb into bed without any recollection of those events whatsoever? 

It seemed implausible, and yet it had happened. 

Following breakfast Angeline went to her room, where she sat on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands, rewinding the night over and over again.  I felt bad for the poor thing.  I really did.  But not bad enough to refresh her memory.  Hell no.  Better to forget that horror than relive it. 

My sister was at wits end, ready to fold the tent and quit, when her eyes inexplicably fell on the wastebasket.  My friends, I really can’t tell you what compelled Angeline to dump the contents of that basket in the middle of her bedroom floor, or had her sifting through its crumpled papers, wrappers and used snot rags.  I only know her futile search for the pervie list she’d torn to pieces would lead to disaster. 

I offer no excuses for what happened next.  I mean, what can I say?  The girl simply caught me with my pants down.  I suppose in hindsight the fiasco that followed was inevitable.  Angeline and I were roommates sharing the same apartment, only occupying different rooms with separate entrances.  Odds were always pretty good that one day we’d bump into each other.  I just didn’t expect it so soon. 

As she squatted on the floor in the middle of the mess she’d made, searching the back alleys of her mind for clues about those missing scraps of paper, the girl somehow chanced upon my door and stumbled through unannounced.  And when she did she snatched a memory right out of my pocket.  Just a single, solitary memory.   

But, holy muckle (as Father used to say) was it a doozy.

Her eyes instantly snapped to the bookshelf, scanning its length until landing on
Pride and Prejudice
. 

Oh, fuck a duck! 

You see, friends, after I’d Scotch Taped that pervie list back together, I’d hidden it between the pages of Jane Austen’s novel.  Knowing my sister, I figured it would be at least two to three months before she circled back for another read.  By then Doc Aldrich, camp counselor Morales and six more of Holt County’s finest citizens would be worm food.

Only I figured wrong.

Angeline plucked
Pride and Prejudice
from the shelf, then sat heavily on the edge of the bed with the book resting on her lap.  At first she was too frightened to peek inside, but gradually Sister summoned courage and grasped the edges of the hardcover. 

No!

It was a shout that made her hand draw back as if singed by a blowtorch, but the girl batted my warning aside, took a deep breath and shook the novel upside down by its covers… shook it until a single slip of paper jogged loose and fell on her lap. 

I swear to you, I felt the chill go up my sister’s spine.

Angeline lifted the list and, with eyes wide, studied the reassembled patchwork of torn paper and adhesive tape.  It was the same list of names she’d scrawled from the National Sex Offender Registry-- the list she’d ripped to pieces and tossed in the wastebasket a few weeks before.  And just to put a cherry on top of that total fucking fiasco, the two names below Harland Lee Wade had been crossed out with ballpoint pen.  Both were familiar to her; Walter Eugene Aldrich and Jose Miguel Morales, the second and third victims of the Holt Hacker.

Well, boys and girls, the cat, as they say, was now out of the bag.  And there would be no shoving pussy back in again.  All Angeline’s nagging suspicions had been confirmed, all her worst fears realized.  Someone was subletting space between her ears.  And if that wasn’t enough of a mind blower, the girl had a pretty good hunch that the quiet tenant in 2A (look out for those quiet ones) was none other than Nebraska’s resident serial killer, the infamous L3K.

Angeline wobbled, weak-kneed, from the bed and braced herself in front of the mirror, hands propped on the edge of the dresser.  She leaned close, staring hard into her eyes-- trying to look through them… and straight into mine.  Well, I wasn’t about to back down from any staring contest, let me tell you.  So I stared right back at her.  And then, just to mess with the girl’s head, I smiled and gave her a sly wink.  

Yeah, I know.  Not the smartest move.  But at the time I was pretty pissed off at my sister.  Problem was, that little wink really freaked her out.  The girl let out a terrified yelp, slapped a hand over her mouth and backed away from her reflection in horror.