Only the Truth (18 page)

I was trying to follow what he was saying but I was losing where he was at.

He glanced at me again. "Do you know what that means, Hutchins?"

I figured he was going to tell me.

"You, Billy Ray, are the only one outside Kristen with a connection to
the murders in both Jenkins and
Whitfeld
Glen. And
that picture of Rubin Covey with your names on it connects you to both crimes
and Covey and Kristen."

"So, how is it," he asked me, "that you expect me to believe
you just innocently got stuck in the middle?"

I shrugged my shoulders and stared out the window.

"I tell you what I think. I think, Billy Ray, you are about the most
honest man I have ever met." He grinned at me in the mirror.

"I've been going over this ever since we left Jenkins and all I can
come up with is that you really had no idea what was heading your way when
Kristen showed up. I am on your side now, Billy Ray, which is why I am going to
give you a little advice."

Chief Williams turned off the highway into the service area and pulled into
a parking space next to some picnic tables.

"Come out and sit with me for a minute, Billy Ray."

I was worried that we shouldn't leave Mrs. Covey sleeping in the car.

"She'll be fine. We'll just sit here at the picnic table. Let her get
some more rest."

We sat down on opposite sides on the pine benches. Chief Williams looked
real serious. I didn't think I liked where this conversation was going to go. Each
mile nearer we got to
Whitfeld
Glen, the more my
feelings for Charlene came back. I was starting to feel guilty that I ever
thought of just staying in Jenkins, leaving her all alone with no one to look
in on her. Once I believed in Charlene and our love and I thought that there
must be something in her that made me not give up on her.

Of course, when I was in Jenkins, the people I met made me see that the
Charlene I loved stopped existing at thirteen-years-old. She became selfish and
cruel and violent and a coldblooded killer.

But, now that I was half way home, I was half way in between loving Charlene
and hating her.

"Billy Ray," began Chief Williams, "I don't know how you are
feeling about Kristen now. I think you are probably confused about her. You
have heard the bad things, and some good things...well, mostly bad things, but
you are probably remembering your good times with her."

He must have been reading my mind.

"Now when you walk back into that jail in
Whitfeld
Glen, you are likely going to forget everything you heard in Jenkins because
you will just see Kristen, the only girl you have ever loved."

I studied a knot in the pine table and started tracing it with my thumb.

"Billy Ray, look at me."

I made myself look up.

"Billy Ray, Kristen has committed crimes in two death penalty states.
If one state doesn't kill her, the other will. Murdering three little children,
her mother, Rubin Covey, and her father in such a horrible ways won't exactly
inspire juries to go easy on her. One of the things the Sheriff and I are going
to be discussing is where she should be tried first and in which state she
should be imprisoned. Either way it ends up, Kristen is going to be on death
row and, one day, the state will do what is required and Kristen will be executed."

I flinched. I never really thought of Charlene as not coming home, even when
I was in the middle of being angry with her and not trusting her. Now Chief
Williams was telling me it didn't matter if I loved her or not. She was going
to be taken away from me.

"Guard your heart, Billy Ray. Walk away now. Go to your home when we
get to town. Don't come to the jail. Then, when we're finished, let us come and
get you and bring you back to Jenkins. When Kristen has the baby, I will work
with the courts to see that the baby is brought to you and we will find some
way, and someone, to help you raise it."

"Why can't I stay with Charlene until the baby comes?"

The Chief spoke very clearly and
slowly,
like he
thought I wasn't going to understand.

"If you stay with her, Billy Ray, when the baby comes, the courts are
going to deem that you are not fit to be a father, even with help, because you
chose to support a woman who murdered her last three children. You can have
your ‘Charlene’ or you can have your baby, but you can't have both."

He reached out and grabbed my arm.

"Once she's convicted, there is not a thing you can do for her. You
will essentially be on death row with her. But, your baby, you can give a life
to, Billy Ray, a life. Don't make a mistake with this."

I knew he was right, but I didn't know if I would have the strength to turn
away from her.

********************

Mrs. Covey was still asleep when we got back in the car and she stayed that
way all the way to
Whitfeld
Glen. The sun was just
setting as we arrived and the town already looked like it was ready to get into
bed. We were parked across from the jail and I could see the Sheriff was
waiting for us, his cruiser parked directly in front of the building. I noticed
for the first time how small and dull Main Street looked when I compared it to
Jenkins. It seemed almost like some old shoes that you didn't realize was so
tore up until someone gave you a new pair.

"We here?" asked Mrs. Covey picking her head up from her chest.

"Yes, Ma'am, we are," said Chief Williams, "but, before we go
in to meet with the Sheriff, I want to know if you would like a ride up to your
house, Billy Ray." He nodded ‘yes’ to me and waited for me to accept his
offer.

I started to say something, but instead I reached for the door handle and
jumped out of the car.

"Shit!" I heard from the window as I ran across the street and
into the jail before the Chief could stop me.

"Go on into my office, Billy Ray," Sheriff Hathaway told me and he
ordered his deputy to take me there. I had been there the time I got arrested
for killing the old man. A few minutes later, the Chief and Mrs. Covey came in
and the Sheriff pulled a third chair in from the room next door. He closed the
door behind him.

"Well, Billy Ray," he said, "
you
have become quite the traveling man, a knight in shining armor fighting dragons
for his lady."

I knew he was making fun of me.

Then, Chief Williams spoke up.

"Can I see that skull picture you have from the crime scene?" he
asked the Sheriff.

"Sure." Sheriff Hathaway passed over the photo. The Chief compared
the two pictures, the one from the crime and the one with the picture of Rubin.

"I wanted to see this for myself, Sheriff. It's a definite match."

Mrs. Covey leaned over and looked at the pictures herself. She took in a
sharp breath when her eyes shifted over to the picture of the burned up skull
with her husband's dentures in it.

Chief Williams looked over at Sheriff Hathaway.

"You know, the change of victim here rather throws a wrench into the
motives we assigned up until now. We always thought, back in Jenkins, that
Rubin Covey got caught up with a promiscuous girl who was tired of her parents'
attempts to control her and sick of being forced to take care of her children
day in and day out. We theorized that Rubin and Kristen planned to run away
together. He had bought a car just a few days prior and he drove over to the
property that night. We thought he was trying to sneak out with her, leaving
the children to be cared for by their grandparents, and taking off for parts
unknown.

The Sheriff asked, "Did you figure it was more Rubin or more Kristen
who hatched this escape plan?"

Mrs. Covey interrupted. "I always thought Kristen had to have been
pulling the strings. I never could have children and Rubin always wanted some.
I guarantee if the girl came with kids, he would have been fine with it."

"I tend to agree with Mrs. Covey," said the Chief. "It was
often said by the Stoddard neighbors that Kristen didn't talk positively about
her pregnancies or show off the children as most mothers would."

"Billy Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"Did Kristen ever talk to you about having children during the time you
were together?"

I had to think about it for a minute but I don't remember her ever bringing
up the subject.

"No.
Never."
I felt like a traitor to
Charlene, telling them this.

The Chief went on. "So, we figured Rubin met with Kristen, drove her
back over to her house and he thought Kristen would just run in the house, grab
her stuff, and bolt out the door, but then her parents tried to stop her. The
Stoddards
were the type to keep a loaded shotgun in the
closet and Kristen knew that. We were able to get a couple prints off the
shotgun that luckily had been tossed onto the lawn and they were both Kristen's."

I felt my chest tighten. I hadn't known that. I always figured Rubin killed
them because he was the bad guy, well, except he wasn't quite so bad any more.

"Then," said the Chief, "in a panic, they looked for a way to
cover up the crime. They grabbed a can of gasoline and started throwing gas
over the bodies of the adults and all over the furniture."

"Why would they have killed the kids?" asked Sheriff Hathaway

"Hell if I know. I don't know how anyone can kill children. First we
thought the fire just got out of control and the children got trapped in the
room where they stayed with Kristen, all three of them in
there
together. But then our fire expert said that the gasoline was poured on the
beds and the crib and splashed on the walls and that the door was bolted shut
from the outside."

"Bolted shut?" Mrs. Covey cried out. "Oh, no, there is no way
Rubin could ever have done such a thing!"

There was a silence in the room.

"No, you are right," said the Chief slowly. "We know now that
Rubin wasn't involved in the crime and, if he were running off with Kristen, it
doesn't make sense she would shoot him unless it was an accident."

"The bolts on the doors," the Sheriff repeated. "Who puts
bolts on the outside of a door in the first place?"

I looked over at the Chief and he had a strange expression on his face.

"I heard a rumor once that Mr. Stoddard put a bolt on Kristen's door to
keep her from sneaking out of the house and getting herself knocked up. They
have real high doors in the house with flat woodwork and the bolt we
found," he stopped and thought, "was put on the top of the door, not
the side, and it bolted down so you had to be pretty tall to pull the bolt into
place. I always thought it was a pretty dangerous idea, locking someone in the
room. How would you get out in case of fire?"

Someone knocked on the office door.

"Yeah, what is it?" yelled the Sheriff.

"There is a phone call for you on Line 2," the deputy said through
the door.

"Tell them to call back."

"I think you may want to take this one, Sheriff. Some guy named Devon
Covey says he has something to tell you about Rubin."

My mouth dropped open.
Another Covey?
Mrs. Covey
waved her hand at the Sheriff. "Take the damn call!"

"Got it," he yelled back through the door. He looked at all of us.
"I am going to put this on speaker phone."

He took the phone receiver off the hook, pressed the second button and an
orange one to the right.

"Mr. Covey? This is Sheriff Hathaway. You wanted to tell me
something?"

We heard a lot of static and then this Devon Covey's voice came out of the
speaker.

"Yeah, well, I heard through a cousin of mine who heard from a friend
of his about some crime Rubin was supposed to be involved in. I heard he was
said to be
catting
around with some young girl and
got himself into a jam and then nobody heard from him again. I was told you
were having some meeting to discuss what he did and I just wanted to tell you
what I heard, because what I heard was a different story."

"Go ahead," said the Sheriff.

"Well," the voice said, "What I heard was from my friend's
friend - his name was Rodney - who worked with Rubin at the hospital. He said
he warned Rubin not to get involved in other people's business but Rubin didn't
listen to him and tried to help some girl out. Rodney said Rubin even went so
far as to get the girl a car so she could take her children and skip town. One
night he got in trouble with the boss because he left the hospital in the
middle of the shift to meet the girl. Rodney thought he was just going out to
get something on the side, but when Rubin came back he was freaked out. He was
ranting and raving about how sick people were, how could they do things like
that to a girl, and then he took a bunch of supplies - bandages and ointments
and stuff - and left the hospital again. He got wrote up for stealing by the
floor manager, but he never got in trouble for it because he never came back to
the hospital again. Rodney didn't tell me all the rest of what happened, but I
guess that's when Rubin disappeared. Rodney said he didn't even know for years
because he had his own problems and he had gotten fired himself the next day
and caught a bus to California where he was from."

I could hear Mrs. Covey sniffling besides me and wiping her eyes with both hands.

"Anything else, Mr. Covey?" asked the Sheriff.

"No, that's all I know."

"We thank you for making the call, Mr. Covey." The Sheriff looked
over at Chief Williams.

"Oh, yeah, uh, Mr. Covey," said the Chief leaning toward the
speaker. "I just have one question for you. Have you ever heard of a man
by the name of Billy Ray Hutchins?"

"No."

"Okay, thank you, Mr. Covey."

The Sheriff hung up the phone.