Chapter 6

Carrie thought that the entire town had turned out for the trial for her brother. It was just as well, she thought. Carrie thought that there wasn't a single person in town who hadn't been hurt by some of the actions of her brother. Some of them more than she had. Once the judge, the honorable Judge Harold J. Cutthroat, was seated, a very fitting name from what she'd heard, things were called to order. Since this was the only thing he had on his calendar today, he told everyone in the room he was willing, if they were to not read the charges against Douglas, to forego the reading of the list of charges that had been brought before the courts concerning Douglas. Of course, he stood up and disagreed.

"You want to know what you're being tried for, young man? I would have thought that with you requesting an attorney at the last minute, you would have had a pretty good idea why the state is wanting a piece of you about. By the way, Mr. Lockheart had been calling me every hour, trying to get out of representing you. What have you been doing to him?" He said that she was a girl, not a man. "According to my paperwork, Mr. Terry Lockheart is a transgender male. Remember that in the future. What have you done to him?"

"Why isn't anyone just what they seem to be?" Douglas waved his hands in dismissal. "Regardless. I don't want whatever it is to be working for me. She…it wants me to plead guilty to all the charges. Saying something about a lesser sentence. I don't know what you have on me, and frankly, I don't care, but it's not enough for me to have to go to prison for. Just tell me what my bail is going to be so my sister can pay it off. Then, I'd like to get to the real reason that I agreed to come here today. She told me that everything from my parents was left to her. She's a liar. There isn't any way that my parents would have done that to me. I'm their son and the firstborn. That's the way things work."

"All right. I'm willing to address your concerns first. I have nothing to do today, so let's get right to that. I've seen your parents will. Your sister's attorney was kind enough to make sure I had a copy. There is no mention of you at all in their will. A couple of charities, a perpetual grant for their graves, and your sister. Mrs. Sheppard was to get everything, including any and all insurance policies that were in their names as well as any and all properties that they owned." He put down the will and looked at Douglas. "There you see? Nothing for you. Not even a mention that you were even their son. I do know, too, that there was a letter that was given to you a few days after the funeral from your parents. I have a copy of that as well. Did you read it?"

"I don't remember a letter of any kind. I told you that she was a liar. It's probably saying that it was all a joke and that Carrie doesn't get shit." He was told to watch his language. "Whatever. If I have to pay a fine or whatever, just keep track of it, and my sister will pay. It's the least that she can do since she kept me from having any kind of fun after they passed away. Also, she needs to put that old broad back in the nursing home."

"You mean your grandmother." Douglas told the judge that she was telling lies on him, too, and he wasn't going to have it. "Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, Douglas, but you have no say over where your grandmother lives. From what I'm to understand, she's going to be staying with your sister to live out her life. Again, nothing to do with you."

"You're not listening to me. Is there someone else that can be in your spot? You're only acting on things that are in favor of Carrie. That's not going to get me out of here and the money that she owes me." Jameson handed the judge a file, and she waited for Douglas to get mad again. "What's that? Something that I need to know about?"

"It says here that you were given the letter from your parents twenty-four hours after they were buried. You signed for it. Before you tell me that you didn't, I have a picture of you being handed it and your signature you put to the paperwork to verify that you received it. If you read it, then you know as well as I do that they didn't leave you anything because they'd been bailing you out for years. Also, and this one I find terribly disturbing, they'd been paying people off that you hurt so that they'd not sue you as they wanted to do. It says here in their letter to you that it was well over several million dollars they paid out. What do you have to say about that?"

"So? It's not as if they didn't have it. So, I don't understand what their beef is. I'm their son, and they had to know that one day, I'd take over their money. And as for paying people not to sue me, that's their job. As their son, they're responsible for me and my actions." Carrie laughed and had the judge and Douglas turning to her. "What the hell do you find so funny? You took my money, and I'm going to get it back. Also, you're going to pay me once a month too so that I can live the life that I want to. We never got to finalize that when you came to see me the other day."

Jameson spoke up, saying that he had a transcript about their conversation at the jail. Again, Douglas objected to someone doing something that he'd not allowed but was ignored for the most part. The judge said that he'd read it over and knew exactly what had been said between the two of them. Douglas was red hot in his anger. He asked him why he was just now getting around to reading it.

"I'm just now being informed about it. Shut your trap and sit down. The longer you keep yapping at me the longer this is going to take for me to read. Mrs. Sheppard? Can you verify that this is correct that your brother threatened you?" Carrie said it wasn't the first time he'd done that. "I have no doubt about that whatsoever." He turned to Douglas. "You don't have a single cell in your body that makes me think that you're the least bit nice. No wonder your parents didn't leave you anything. I would have been hard-pressed to do that too if I were in their boots."

"Then I guess it's a good thing that you're not." Douglas huffed. "Okay, so I got the letter and read it. So? It's not like I believed it. Or, for that matter, thought about how it was going to affect me. The stupid thing said that as soon as I was given that letter, then the will would be read. I wasn't notified, so I didn't believe that it had been. It didn't count if I wasn't there. I also didn't want to believe that my sister and parents would cut me off so violently. To leave me nothing is not the way things are supposed to be done. I was their son, their oldest, and I should have been left everything. I might well have been all right with splitting it with Carrie, but no more. I want it all, and I plan on getting it even if I have to take her out of the picture."

"So you've said. You're willing to murder your sister and her husband because of money, is that right?" Douglas told the judge that it would be totally up to them if he had to murder them, as well as their fault if he ended up having to do it. "You're very entitled, aren't you, Douglas? You think that everything should be handed to you on a silver platter, no doubt as well."

"No. I'd rather have gold, but no, a platter isn't necessary at all. Small bills would be better than—no strike that. I'd rather have large ones. A bunch of small ones would clutter up my wallet. Or even an endless spending credit card. As I told my sister, since I have no idea what my needs will be, now that I think on it, a credit card would be much better. Wouldn't you agree?" Judge Cutthroat looked at her before asking Douglas if he had anything else that he wanted to share with the courtroom. "Of course. I don't know where Carrie is living with her ‘supposed' husband but they'll need to make sure that my home is better, bigger too. Also, I'm going to need a staff. That's not entitlement, just something that I'm used to having and have been missing from my life recently. Just because she's a liar doesn't mean that I should be doing without."

"No, we couldn't have that, could we?" Judge Cutthroat asked him again what his demands were. Douglas assured him that they weren't demands but things that he was supposed to have had all along. "Even though you weren't left anything by your parents, you still feel that you should have gotten their estate. Is that what you're saying?"

"It's not my fault that they're not here to make things right. I mean, I didn't kill them off. Had I known their plans for me or their supposed plans for me, I would have made them see reason. I would never have allowed them to get away with cutting me out of everything. Never." She stood up and asked him what he meant by that. All rules, it seemed, had gone out the window a long time ago today and she wanted answers too. "Carrie, Carrie, Carrie. What do you think that I meant? I would have forced their hand and made sure that I was left with everything. Then I would have had to dispose of them, not kill, just would have gotten rid of them so that they'd have no chance of going behind my back—much like they did now and change the will to be in your favor. Then I would have taken care that you weren't able to collect. That might have been easier in the first place, but I didn't think they had it in them to leave me out of the will. I should have known that beforehand so that I could have stopped it from happening."

"That sounds like you would have killed them. I don't know your definition of dispose of, but it does sound to me like you would have ended their lives." He shrugged at her. When Jameson told her to keep talking to her brother through their link, talking about what his plans were, she realized something she'd not before. Douglas was confessing to a great many things that needed to be put out there. "And you would have killed me as well. You said that to me. That you would kill myself and my husband when you got out. Is that still something that you wish to do."

"Not wish to do. I have to do it. Once I get this all cleared up, I don't want you going behind my back and having me arrested again. You did that, didn't you? They told me that Shelly had spoken to you before she died. She hated you, why would she go to you without my permission. That's just it. She wouldn't have. Never. I knocked her around, sure. But I didn't kill her. Mores the pity. However, she's thankfully dead, so I don't have to worry about her sharing what I'm going to be making any longer." She told him he was cold. "No, I'm not. I'm a realist. I have a plan and I know that in order to make my plans come out the way that I want them to, I have to knock a few heads around. If they end up dying, great. One less thing that I have to worry about. You have your will made out, sister? When your husband is dead and gone along with you, you know who will inherit your estate, if I don't have it all already, it will be me."

Douglas laughed. It didn't sound maniacal. His face took on a look that looked serine to her. Normal. Like this was the man that she'd been around her entire life. She didn't know if he was insane or not. But she'd bet right now that there was something wrong with her brother. It caused her to shiver and the hairs on her neck and arms to stand up. When he turned back to the judge to speak to him about being freed as he'd had things to take care of, Carrie looked around the room.

There were at least a dozen ghosts there and they'd all had their heads bashed in. She knew at that moment that Douglas had killed each and every one of them by doing just what he'd done to Shelly. She now believed every entry in the other woman's diary that told of the people that had disappeared, and she knew too that it really had been by her brother's hand. She wondered for the first time if her brother had been killing people all his life. That would explain why these ghosts weren't in the diary that Shelly had kept. Walking to Jameson, she picked up his pen and using his pad of paper, began writing down the names of each of the people in the room. They also gave her their date of death, along with the reason that Douglas had killed them.

Sixteen people. Sixteen men and women that had been murdered because they'd denied Douglas something that he'd wanted. A haircut that hadn't been right. Dry cleaning that had left a stain of blood on a shirt that he'd dropped off bloodied and dirty. A ticket for his parking in a no-parking zone. All of them small in comparison to them dying for them. When the last of them had given her their name and date of death, Carrie began reading their names, telling everyone in the room what they'd done in order to have their lives taken from them and their families.

"George Ridgeway, seventy-eight, died in April fifteen years ago because he'd accidentally fallen against Douglas's car when he tripped over a bad place in the sidewalk. He had his head bashed in by a piece of concrete that Douglas picked up from the sidewalk. Sharon James, twenty-two, died that same month when her baby cried out in its stroller, startling Douglas enough to make him jump. Douglas killed her because she didn't say she was sorry to him quickly enough. She was comforting her baby instead of comforting a grown assed man." She named them all, ending with the death of a little boy from down the street. "Bill Warner, seven, had tossed a ball at Douglas when he'd asked him to. Then he laughed when Douglas had missed it. The boy had not just his head smashed in, but Douglas had stripped him naked before tossing him into the lake behind the boy's home. Age nor the reason made any difference to Douglas. If you were in his way, did something he found offensive, or just laughed, he would kill you if the mood struck him. And I'm sure, as the weeks go on, there will be more deaths that we find that their deaths are somehow, petty no doubt killed by Douglas."

"You can't be bringing those up now, dumbass. They were when I was a kid and those records had been sealed. Christ, you're a dumbass." The judge turned to his bailiff and whispered something to him. "I demand that you tell me what you're talking about. I won't have you keeping secrets from me. If this, whatever you're saying, pertains to me, then I deserve to know it."

"I'm having your records unsealed and brought to me. I'd like to see what sort of things that someone thought shouldn't be out in the open about your personality. Also, since you brought it up, I want to have them for today. Thank you for that." Douglas complained about having his records unearthed, saying it was a breach in contract—whatever the hell that meant and that it would hurt him if someone were to read them over. "Well, now, this might turn out better than I thought. Yes, I can't wait to read about things that a younger Douglas would do then sealed away."

When the bailiff returned, he wasn't alone. Not only did two more men follow him into the courtroom, but the three of them were carrying two boxes, each filled with what appeared to be files. Judge Cutthroat looked about as shocked as Carrie felt. Six boxes of deeds that had been committed by her brother before he'd turned eighteen. This couldn't be good, she thought. It was too much.

"I see that you've been very busy, Douglas. My goodness." The judge, leaving his seat in favor of having the boxes set on the table that had been brought out too, pulled the lid off of one of the boxes and pulled out a random file. "This is the Bill Warner file. A seven-year-old boy had been playing kickball with some of his friends. Douglas was there too and asked young Bill if he would toss the ball to him. It says here that witnesses thought that Douglas was going to cut the ball, deflating it but he put the ball down on the ground and looked like he was going to kick it hard. But in his exuberance to kick it, he missed, falling onto the ground, and the ball laid where it was. All of the children laughed then Bill asked to have the ball back." He read the rest to himself. "It says here that you threatened each of the kids that you were going to kill them, but Bill didn't run as quickly as the others and was caught by him."

"He never laughed at me again, by god." Douglas sounded proud of the fact that he'd killed an innocent boy. "None of the others would hang around when I was in town either. I didn't get to play ball with them, but I believe I enjoyed them being afraid of me more. Come on, read another one. This is like a good walk down memory lane for me."

She could tell that the judge didn't want to read anything else from the file. It sort of sickened her, too, that he was acting like this mattered little to him. But the judge pulled another file out and handed it to Jameson. When he stood up, he looked at Douglas before opening the file.

"Douglas Hunter, age twelve, confessed to killing Ewing Gibson, age twenty. They had a disagreement over seating in the movie theater. Mr. Hunter wanted to sit in the very middle of the theater without anyone around him. He had wanted to have the row directly behind him, in front of him, and the one that he was seated in emptied so that he could enjoy the movie by spreading out. As the theater was full, a first showing of a brand new movie, Gibson had sat in the row in front of Hunter with his date, Margret Jane." Douglas laughed and told Jameson to go on. It was a delightful story. "When he wouldn't move away, Hunter broke the arm off the seat he was sitting next to and beat both Gibson and Jane to death."

Douglas laughed. "He thought that he should have had the seats that I wanted. I had to teach them both a lesson in crossing me. It's always been so that I got what I wanted. I have no idea why this man and his girlfriend thought that they'd be some kind of exception to the rules that I had." He shook his head and looked at her. "Carrie, you remember that, don't you? You weren't allowed to sit next to me because I needed what I wanted."

"No. I knew better than to be anywhere you were. Even at home, I wouldn't be in the same room as you were. You were dangerous to me even when I was just a toddler." He nodded again, laughing hard at some kind of joke that only he understood. "You've been a bastard all your life, haven't you? You killed for the sake of killing. You should be locked up."

"Locked up? Not unless they were to put me in a cell all to myself with only a hole to get my food from. I'd kill anything that came to me right away." He turned to the judge before speaking again. "She thinks I'm dangerous. That's not it at all. I'm a man that likes to have things my way. I don't believe I should ever have to compromise. Why should I? Things are there for me, and I should and will take them when I want them. Everyone should understand that about me. I mean, look how many times I had to teach someone that lesson."

Douglas pointed to the file boxes and then looked at her. Before he could speak, if that was what he was going to do, she didn't take her eyes off him when she told him that he needed to be dead rather than locked away. She thought that the world would be better off if he wasn't in it.

"Oh, Carrie. When will you learn that people like me don't die? We keep making rules that you have to follow all the time. And if you get in the way? Well, I guess that you'd end up in a file just like the other people who crossed me did."

Carrie left the courtroom. She could no longer stand to be in the same room as her brother. The very air around him stank. He was evil, and she was sure that if he ever got out, he'd test their immortality to the limit. Or he'd find someway of killing them that hadn't been made up as yet. Her brother was—

Running to the corner of the building, she threw up several times when she thought of the people who had been in the courtroom that he'd killed. People who had lives. Children that hadn't gotten to grow up. Her heart ached for everyone that he'd killed and wished that she could have done something about him when they'd been younger. Or, at the very least, her parents should have done something to have him examined so he'd be someplace safe for all humanity.

"Are you all right?" She told Archie that she wasn't and didn't think she would be ever again so long as Douglas was around. "The judge is taking a quick break, but he had Douglas chained to the floor before doing so. As you can imagine, he's not at all happy about it. An officer held a gun to his head while they chained his wrists. Then his legs, too. I don't think any of them wanted to be that close to him to do it."

"No, I don't think that I would have either." She looked at the Dari Twist, the ice cream and soda shop across from the courthouse. "I'm going to go and have a banana split for myself. Then I'm going to walk home. If you want to join me, I'm not sharing. I need this more than my next breath."

"I understand completely. I'm going to stay in here in the event that Jameson needs me. Also, I can keep an eye on him too. He's about as shell-shocked as anyone that I've ever seen. I have to admit, this is about the strangest court hearing that I've ever been to. Even if it had been my own mother, I wouldn't have believed it without being here ." They both laughed. "You enjoy your split and I'll talk to you again when things are settled up. I believe that the judge is going to put him away, but it's hard to tell right now. Poor man."

Carrie did enjoy her ice cream. Just as she was digging into the second scoop of chocolate-covered ice cream, Mikey came to sit with her. He smiled a huge smile and showed her his new shoes as well as the hat he'd gotten. It took his sister a little bit longer to get to them. She and their grandma were admiring the flowers in the barrel next to the small shop. Also, Sissy was in a wheelchair still and wasn't getting around as well as her brother.

"We came to have some ice cream, too. Grannie said that we've been so good that we all deserved a treat. I love her." Carrie gave him the rest of her ice cream, having had too much as it was, and he ate it while telling her everything that the three of them had been up to. "Grannie also told us that she's got nothing to go back to, so she's going to be looking for a house around here. I'm glad. The sloth is taking good care of us, and I like having my friends around. I've made so many of them now."

"I bet you have." Grannie, Ms. Granger sat down while Mikey went up and got their order for them. "How are you doing? The kids are all right, aren't they?"

"Oh yes. Oh my, they're the best little kids. I love having them around." She looked at them with so much love that Carrie felt it in her soul. "Mikey has been especially helpful with his sister. I sometimes…well, I wasn't in a good place before coming here. I missed my family. My daughter and I had very little to do with each other after she met that man. But these two have brought me back to life, it almost seems, and I am grateful for them every day."

They spoke about things that the sloth was giving them. Ms. Granger was a bear, too, and she was enjoying having a good leader over the one that she'd had before. Carrie mentioned that she and Archie were the leap leaders, and she seemed very happy about that. Ms. Granger asked if she knew anything about the local schools.

"Not too much, I'm afraid. Mikey and his sister would know more, I'm sure. We've been invited to allow our kids to go to the pack school when we have any. We're keeping our options open. We've only been together for a few weeks so far." She said that she noticed that the leap had a lot of things going on in town. "Yes. Improvements to help out the town. Taking care of a few things too that might bring in a few new businesses."

"My son. Oh, I'm so happy you brought that up. Larence Granger, he's my son had a huge car shop. He not only sells some used cars, but he has a lot of men who work for him that do repairs, too. He's looking for a place with a good deal of land. He wishes to sell some new cars too. Oh, what an enterprise he has for his family. He helps out with my bills, too, every month. He'd probably enjoy having to move here to be closer to myself and the kids." She asked a few questions, not really sure what it would take to have a business to move in. "I can have him give you a call if he's wanting to do that. Wouldn't that be really nice? I know that he employs quite a few people, over a dozen of them."

She didn't even know if that was a lot of people but it would be twelve more people with an income. If he sold cars, too, there is no telling how many more would be working. Talking to her and making notes, not wanting to bother the men just yet—she wanted them to be on their toes around Douglas—so she wrote down as much as she could about some of the questions that she, as well as Ms. Granger, had.

In her excitement, Carrie almost forgot all about her brother and the shit that he was pulling. It felt good, too, to think that she might help out the town by helping bring a business to town, too. If only that would be that easy.

After the older woman left, telling her that the kids had some chores to do, Carrie was happy to see that the kids didn't seem to mind at all about working for their meals. All they were doing today was snapping green beans for their dinner and shucking corn. That made her mouth water for both those foods, and wondered if their cook could make that for dinner one night. She especially loved fried green tomatoes, another treat that the kids were going to have for dinner, and wanted to beg to go home with them. But she didn't, as tempting as it had been.