Chapter 7

Edmond was helping the men construct the slaughterhouse for their business when his cell rang. Again. He was, like his brothers, still getting used to having the sucker notify him of getting a message or a phone call. Today, his had been ringing all morning, and when he’d gotten here to the construction site, he turned it off in favor of letting his mind rest for a bit. It was too overwhelming to be constantly bombarded. Now that lunch was over, he’d turned it on and was ready to turn it off again.

“Hello.” He knew that he snapped. And he wasn’t the least bit sorry for it. Caroline, through the station house, had called him several times already, leaving messages about calling back to speak to Caroline, and he was frankly sick to death of her. It was Capshaw that was on the other end, laughing. “Look. I’ve told the office that I have no desire to speak to her. I’m not bailing her out, and I’m not—”

“She passed away in her sleep. I’m sorry, Edmond, you were supposed to be told about it earlier this morning by an officer coming out to your place. I guess he just missed you.” He was going to ask why he thought that was funny, but he didn’t get the chance. “There’s a note here. It’s addressed to ‘The ungrateful granddaughter and her bitch of a daughter.’ I was just handed this when you answered. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to let you think that I thought it was funny. But you couldn’t have asked for a funnier heading for this. Last night at lights out, she was fit to be tied, I tell you. Spitting mad, as my mom used to say.”

“What set her off? Or do I want to know?” He said more than likely not, but he’d tell him anyway. Then he did. “So she was mad because everyone was ignoring her, and she didn’t think that was right? Why the note? Did she know she was going to die or something?”

“I would think so. She kept complaining of chest pains last night. We had old doc Miller come in, and he listened to her complain, her heart, her complaining again, and then took her over to the hospital to run some tests. She didn’t want to go and said she had better things to do other than to have some sexual deviant looking at her breasts while supposedly examining her. But they didn’t find anything. Her heart, he told me was better than his was and that all the EKGs running had given him no such reading that she was going to pass on. She must have just decided that if no one was going to help her, then fuck you all. I don’t know what the note says for your wife and mother-in-law. The heading is written on the envelope. For all I know, she willed herself to die just to be mean.”

“That sounds like something she would do.” Capshaw agreed with him. “Who else knows? And I want to tell you how sorry I am that I snapped when I answered the phone. It’s been a hell of a morning so far.” He told him that it was just fine. “I’ve been rude, and I don’t want you to think that of me. I appreciate you letting me know about that. I’ll be more careful when I answer from now on.”

“It’s all right, Edmond. I hadn’t realized that she was given a cell to call you guys yesterday. I think that just gave her more ammo to be upset about.” He agreed with him. “You’re the only one who knows. I tried to reach out to her daughter, but like you, she more than likely thought it was Caroline calling again. To be honest, I thought for sure you’d not answer. According to the phone, she made over a hundred calls between your phone and the other two, Debra and your wife.”

“I think that Debra changed her phone number sometime yesterday to stop the calls. I’m not sure what Mac had done. But even the house phone we set up for calls from there was ringing nonstop for a few hours. Christ, it was like having a ringing bell next to your ear all the fucking time with her in jail.” Capshaw told him that the officers must have gotten sick of her wanting to call you guys. Since you weren’t answering that they went out and got her a burner phone she could use. She didn’t leave any messages, I bet. That way, she could say that she didn’t connect to any of you to keep calling. That woman sure isn’t like her daughter nor granddaughter.”

“You got that right, for sure.” He thought about something else. “Did anyone tell the grandsons? If you’ve not, I would be happy to do that for you. They’re afraid of me a bit, with good reason, and now that she’s out of their lives perhaps they can figure out a way to straighten out their lives and get right with people. Especially since they’re my family as well.”

“Are you sure you want to do that for me? Because I’d really love it if you were to take that job on. They’ve been, for the most part, good men. We finally put them all in one cell but for Cole. You might not be aware of this, but Cole is going to be tested for his mental capacity in the morning. The doctor has taken him to the hospital so that tests could be run on him beforehand.” He told him the doctor’s name as well as the tests that were being done on him. “His parents know this, of course. We had to get their permission to do anything for him. Even though he’s technically an adult, he needs care by the state so they had to approve it.”

“What do they think they’ll find?” Capshaw told him that he wasn’t sure, but they were happy to have him tested, his parents he told him. “I guess we’ll find out. I’ve never spoken to the man myself. And, of course, Mac barely knows him. I think that had a great deal to do with their grandmother. For whatever reason, she kept them isolated from their family.”

“To do her bidding is what I figured out. Those boys, however, are different. We can’t hear what they’re plotting when they have their heads together. But since they’re not causing anyone any trouble, we just let it go. I haven’t any idea how they’re going to take the death of their grannie, to be honest. She’d not asked to see them, so I’m not at all sure what they might think of her being gone.” He thought perhaps they’d be upset. That she’d been such a big part of their lives, they might not take it so well. “When can I expect you? I don’t want them finding out from someone else that she’s gone. It might not set well with them.”

“I’m leaving now. I wasn’t doing much other than getting in the way, I think. I was also asking too many questions and I think the company hired will be glad for me to be gone.” Capshaw laughed. “Yes, that is funny. But all right. I’m leaving here now.”

He was at the station house in less time than he thought he’d be. Just before he got onto the main street, Capshaw called him again. This time, he wanted him to pick up an order at the deli shop for a few of the prisoners as well as some of his men. The cook was out sick, and he was going to have it picked up some time, but his officers were on calls.

“Yes, I can do that.” Capshaw told him that he’d ordered him one as well. “Thanks. I was just thinking that I was hungry. Now that I have an excuse to do so, I’m going to suggest that I talk to the men while eating. They might be in a better mood to talk to me if I’m sort of feeding them.”

“Good idea. The best way to get to someone is through their stomach. I’ve heard that several times, I think.” He told him the real way the saying went. “Well, don’t be getting them into trouble with that, Edmond. You come on, and we’ll have them set up for things when you arrive. Thanks for doing this, Edmond. You’re a good man.”

He tried, he thought to himself. But as he was pulling out of the deli parking lot, he thought perhaps he could be better. The next thing on his page for stuff to look into was what he’d been thinking about for a long time. Edmond thought that he really did want to see if he could get a garden going in the spring to supply fruits and vegetables to him and the rest of his family. He’s never tried it on a big scale before, but he was looking forward to it the more he thought about it.”

~*~

Alan knew something was up when the cops sat them at a picnic table just outside the station house doors. It was a pretty day in the lower seventies, so he and his brothers were enjoying the sun when the man, what they’d been calling Mac’s husband since they’d met him. Not one of them could remember his name, but Cole and he hadn’t been around for a few days.

He sat them down each a bag that smelled like heaven when he sat across from them. Their ankles were chained, but their hands were free. It didn’t matter to them how they had them locked up. It still grated on their nerves to know that they weren’t free to run around. After getting their sammiches set up the way they wanted, David having put his chips right on the thing, they started eating. Then Edmond, he told them his name then was eating. They were about finished off with their pops when they were given another one. This was just the way he liked to eat a sammich. Lots of pop and crispy chips. Edmond finished his off before they did, so when he sat back to enjoy the sun on his face like he did, he thought that he could kinda like the other man.

“There are some things that you need to be made aware of. I can tell you while you eat or later. It’s entirely up to you.” It was Alan who usually did most of the talking, so when Peter spoke up, it startled him a bit. He wasn’t mad, just startled that’s all. “Yes, it’s about your brother and your grandmother. She was upset a few days ago. Were you aware of that?”

“She wanted to be bailed out, and no one was doing what she wanted.” Edmond told him that was right. “She’s not a nice person in the event you didn’t get that.” Alan agreed with Peter when he said that. Then Edmond looked at him. “Well, she wasn’t. Always making us be around her. I missed Momma and Daddy. But she told us that they were evil. I don’t know how that was to come about. They were always nice to me when we was around them. And they took good care of Cole when he was having a time of it.”

“She’s gone now.” David asked where she’d gone, hopefully it was far away. “She’s gone to be with her maker, whoever that is.” The three of them put their heads together to talk. Alan couldn’t remember a time when they started doing this thing, but they could talk amongst themselves and better figure out what was going on than they could do on their own. They converted , he called it to see if they could trip Edmond up on telling them a falsehood. “She was powerfully pissed off and left a letter for your mom and sister. I’m going to take it to them when I leave here.”

“You told us first, then.” It weren’t no question, but Peter didn’t seem to care. They were converting again when he decided that they didn’t need to trip him up. Why would he have to lie to them about her being dead? Then he spoke up.

“She isn’t just a bad person, but she don’t care much for people either. Why, just a few weeks ago, we heard her telling the Madison boy that he was going to give her the newspapers for free on account of her going to kill him if he didn’t. The boy didn’t leave her no papers anymore, then he turned up missing. By us.” Edmond asked him if he’d killed the boy. “No, we just relocated him and his momma so that he’d have a better home and will be able to live a bit longer. We did that all the time. She ain’t never catched us before.”

“Are there more people that she wanted the four of you to kill?” Alan told Edmond that they had a book of names and places they relocated people to. “You’ve kept track of all her misdeeds or just the ones where you were to kill someone for her? That might be a very helpful thing to find, I’m thinking.”

“If’n she really is dead, we can give it to you. But we’re not going to do that until you prove it. Like we said, she’s not a nice person. Not at all.” He asked him how he could prove it. “I don’t know, you’re the smart one of all of us? You tell us.”

“I’ll can swear it on the love that I have for your sister that your grannie is dead. Mac is about the most important thing in my life right now, and I’d never lie to her brothers if I didn’t have to. And in this, I don’t have to tell you anything, but she is dead. I promise.” They all agreed when they converted again. “I’d like to have the notes that you have, but I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to.”

“The book is near to my sister’s place, at the post office. There was a big old metal box that we got a long time ago to keep our money in. But we’d had trouble keeping it out of her vision. Now, it’s in one of them postal boxes at the mail station. We put the notes in it with the money so that nobody would ever find it. There’s a lot of money in there too. It’s for Cole. We knew that Grannie had taken all his money so that she could do what she wanted but when she paid us with it, we’d just put it in the box.” Edmond asked how big the box was. “Pretty good sized. We had us a little one, but it kept getting too full too fast, so we got us the biggest one that they got to hide things in. We make sure that it’s paid every month so that we can keep it for Cole’s medical stuff. He needs help.”

“They’re having him tested to see what, if anything, is wrong with him.” Alan nodded and just glanced at his brothers before he told him what he knew. “Your grannie tried to kill him when he was a baby? How did no one know anything about this?”

“We tried. But grannie beat us something terrible when we told our momma. Then we had to go back to her and tell her that we fibbed about it. We didn’t. She held him under the bath water for too long, and that’s what made him a simpleton. Him being a little baby back then, he didn’t have the strength that he does now. So she never bothered him again. But back then, we were all just little ones, and nobody believed us. They might well now, what with grannie being dead and gone so as not to countersink us, I think that’s the right word.” Edmond told him what the word was. “Oh, so she’d not contradict us. Like I said, she would beat us within a couple of inches to our deaths if we told on her. So we’d hide the people away and take her money to be put in the box.”

They didn’t know how much money was in the box. Never wanting to pull it out to count it, thinking that they’d be caught. And Grannie would surely kill them if they were caught. After giving him the information that was needed to get into their box, they decided that it was time to come to the truth about a lot of things that they’d done over the years, mostly in an effort to keep their baby sister safe.

“Grannie wanted Mac gone. She didn’t like that we loved her like a sister on account of her being our sister. So she’d make us do things to her. Like pinch her legs to make her cry all the time and stuff like that. We was to keep her from going out to see the movies with somebody, too. I don’t rightly understand that one, but we just made sure that Grannie never knew. One time, she wanted us to kill off our momma, but Cole told her no. And then he bounced his fist on the top of her head. I think it hurt her bad, but she never spoke about us killing Momma again. We think that she killed off Grandda and our other grandparents, but we can’t be sure. She’d of had to do that one on her own as Cole didn’t like that she wanted them dead. I don’t think that Cole liked Grannie all that much anyway.”

“Your sister took care of the other grandparents, didn’t she? And her grandpa Jacob died before she was born. Right?” Alan said he had them both right. “So how did she kill the three of them off? I don’t know that anyone ever told me how they died.”

“Grandpa Jacob, he was killed in an accident with his tractor. Grandpa didn’t drive the tractor as he was deathly afraid of it. But that’s how he died. Out in the middle of the field one day, he got off it to look around, and it ran over him. She did it. We seen her do it. Just ran over him like he were nothing at all to anybody. But we didn’t see her kill off the other two.” Alan had to think about it before continuing. He wasn’t going to have it sounding like he’d done the deed when he’d refused her. “Grandma Marlyn, she loved her tea and that was something that she would mail order from someone out in Ireland. I don’t know the person’s name but it would take forever and a day to come to her. We were to snitch the box when it arrived and give it to grannie. She told us that she wanted to try this special tea on her own. I don’t know that she ever did that, tried it nor did we snitch it. But it was what poisoned her, grannie told us. She even got to kill off Grandda Alan, too. She sent him some chocolates. They were poisoned, too, I guess. Like I said, we didn’t have nothing to do with that. We were grown up and out of the house by then, so we might have been in jail for something when they both keeled over. I know that I hurt Mac. She loved them very much.” Edmond said that they would have to tell the police now. “We talked it over when we were together in the cell, the three of us. We’d only do it when she was dead and that Cole was safe from her. She surely did hate him, too.”

Alan watched as Edmond took out a little notebook from his pocket then the littlest pencil he’d ever seen. As he’s writing things down, it was David that reminded him to not forget certain things as he was doing so.

After a lot of questions and some more pops, they were ready to go into the jail and gather their thoughts. Also, in secret like, they were going to make sure that Grannie was dead. Not that they didn’t believe Edmond; he seemed like a good man, but they weren’t going to be killed the first time she saw them. And she would, too, by golly.

When they were brought back in, the place feeling too warm for where they’d been now, they were put in their cell again and gathered around each other, sitting on the floor to convert. He asked the police person. He was sure that was what he was supposed to call them nowadays if their grannie really was dead. Just like he said, she had died in her sleep.

Just after the sun came up the next morning, they were being dressed up in real people clothing and ushered to a room. Since they’d not gotten nary a thing to eat, they were given big boxes of food in it that had all the things that they loved most. While his had grits in his, the other two were given fried apples. There was steak and eggs, too, for the three of them and the fluffiest biscuits he’d ever had the occasion to eat. By the time they were finished up, eating the leftovers they wanted off’n each other’s box they were told to stand up. That’s when the judge from yesterday came into the room and told them what they were there for.

He didn’t know what was going on, but with his belly filled up and his body clean, all Alan wanted to do was take him a powerful nap. Sometimes, when he ate too many eggs and biscuits, he would get that way. Sleepy as the day was long, and he just wanted to go on back to his cell and sleep it off. But he was also wondering what was going on in this here room. He hoped to goodness that he and his brothers weren’t going to be in trouble over what they’d told Mr. Edmond yesterday.

“We’re going to have to ask you a few questions. About all the things that you told Mr. Fraizer yesterday—” Peter asked who that was. “Okay, I can tell you that. It’s the man you spoke to yesterday. Edmond. He’s the one that set this up for the three of you. He and his family.”

“We’ll answer whatever you want, sir. That breakfast was so good. I’d be willing to talk to the devil himself if he was to come into this room, too.” That got a good round of laughter from everyone there. That was when he saw his sister and momma there and wanted a hug from them in the worst ways. But when he moved to see if he could get one, the officer with them stepped in front of him.

It hurt him to his toenails not being able to get close to his family. However, he knew too that in order to keep them safe, him and the others had to be as mean as a wolverine to them to be able to keep them alive. Grannie would have used their closeness against them if they’d tried that. As it was, now they’d made them be afeared of them. Now they had Edmond and Dad in the room with them, he knew that it would be near impossible to get a hug from either of them.

Alan got up to speak first. It was nice not to have to talk to anyone with chains on. It was Edmond that got them unchained for this, too, he’d been told. After being told several times that they needed to tell the truth, Alan said he’d do that. On account of Grannie being dead, they could say what needed to be said.

“I know we’re going to jail on what we did sometimes, but we surely did make it so that Mac was to be married up with Edmond, who we like, by the way, and that momma didn’t have her head bashed in all the times that grannie told us to do it. Mac was supposed to never meet nobody, but we just kept an eye on her and whoever she was out with instead of doing what we’d been told to do by Grannie. We couldn’t save our grandpa and grandparents, Pendleton. Grannie outsmarted us on those, but we worked hard to keep as many people to not be killed as much as we could.” Alan was asked what his part was in the death of the grandparents.

After explaining to everyone what Grannie had wanted and how it would have been done if she made them, the three of them seemed like they had an endless supply of words that kept sliding from their mouths. There were things that they told those people about that he’d not thought of in years and years. But it was out there now, and they had to clean themselves of the garbage so that when it came time for them to meet their maker, they could do it with their heads up and their hearts empty of causing pain. It was the way that they had wanted to do it for a long time.

By the time they were worded out, feeling like he’d been wrung out and then laid over a clothesline to dry even more, their box had been opened up, thanks to the police giving Edmond the key, and all their money was added up, too. Alan just wanted a nap and a good long one at that.

“Misters Pendleton, it’s come to my attention that you have helped a great many people for a while now. Is that true? Even using your own money to help them out.” He told the judge that they’d never had any money but was using the money that Grannie had given them to do the job. “And that money that you had left over, you put it away so that it could help you?”

“No, sir. We knew that Cole was going to have to have him a good place to live. We was fearful of him being put in one of those cheap places where he might not get the best of care. We also found out that Grannie had been stealing the money that had been put aside for him, so we just put it aside for him ourselves. The only time we used it for ourselves was when we were about to be starved to death, our bellies swearing up a storm by growling a bit. But you got it all there, with our notes. Oh, and we paid for the box to be saving our stuff in too. It was hard to keep a good job with Grannie, making us run all over the place and telling us to be murdering people so we’d have to be close to her so she’d not be able to get around us like she did our grandparents. I loved Grandpa Jacob. She had no right to kill him off with that tractor like she did.”

“You’re absolutely correct in that, Mr. Pendleton. But I have some news that is going to make your lives, the four of you, much better. If you stay on the right path. Or so help me. I’ll snatch you right back in here by your short hairs and have you in prison before you can figure out what had happened to you. As it is, your sister’s family that she’s married into has agreed to be responsible for the three of you. So long as, as I said, you stay out of trouble, Misters Pendleton, they’ll provide you with a furnished home, a good job, and…well, it’s been said that you don’t have a license between the lot of you. Is that correct?” Alan explained how they couldn’t afford a car, so having a license to drive one seemed silly to them. “Good thinking. All right then, there will be transportation for the three of you as well. And I can’t say this enough to you. But you have to be good men from now on and not be taking things that don’t belong to you or beating people up because you have gotten away with it before. As for your brother, Cole, he’s going to be put into a place where he can get the best of care and he’ll be able to see the lot of you when he’s settled into the place. Do you understand what it is I’m telling you?”

“No, sir. Yes, sir. What I mean is, we like Edmond and we’ll keep on his good side. Besides, he’s a might bigger than us and I think that he could do us some thumping and that it would hurt more than Cole’s hand did.” There were snickers in the room, but he, as best he could, ignored it. “We sure are happy that our little sister is with him, too. That family, they’ll make sure that nothing happens to her. And if they don’t keep her from being thumped or get thumped by him, well then, I’m sorry, but all bets are off. We’re going to go after him for it. I can’t help but think that he won’t, but I never thought that my grannie would be stealing from her on flesh and blood, either.”

They were to be spending the last night in jail until arrangements were finished up. He was about too excited to sleep thinking about the things that he’d been told. They’d have a job, a real one, and they’d have money in their pockets. He couldn’t help but think that they were going pretty far for them, but he was going to be the best man he could be. And he’d make sure that the others were too. Also, he couldn’t wait to go and see Cole. He’d do that, wait like they told him, but he was just tickled as pink as he could be to think that they were going to be able to be good men in the world.