The Wedding Gift (32 page)

I asked Jess if she was
hungry, and she looked real surprised and said “
Yeah, it feels horrible to say it, though, but I am hungry. I
didn’t eat this morning ‘cause I figured we’d all get plenty of
food at the wake afterwards. But I’m kinda guessing that we are off
the invite list now
.”

I felt terrible that I was
hungry. It made me sick at myself to want to eat after what I had
seen today, but that’s just what we did … went into the kitchen and
hauled out Mama’s cold ham and pie, and just took our forks to
them.

Right then, Randy and Donny
both burst into the house without knocking. I guess Sarah Beth had
gotten about fifty calls at home after the funeral and she had
reached Randy at work. He had picked up Donny on the way over. They
were both shouting and yelling about Miz Bethany, and was I all
right, was Jessie? Where were Mama and Daddy? Jessie told them to
shut up, sit down, have a beer, and she would “
recap today’s high points for them.”

Well Randy sat down with a
beer. He always was scared of Jessie, but Donny came over to where
I was, just picked me up, and then he sat back down with me on his
lap. He picked the funeral flowers out of my hair while he listened
to Jessie talk. He didn’t interrupt her story but he did ask me in
a whisper if I thought the baby got shook up in the
fall?

I stroked his cheek and
whispered back that I thought our baby was just fine. Donny looked
about twenty years younger from relief when I said that. When
Jessie finished talking, Randy said he didn’t know who was worse …
that cheap piece of crap undertaker or Bethany Willets. He said
that he thought in a week or so Judge Sayer would get our request
for the jewelry, and then we could get me a first rate attorney,
and “
put this shit to an
end
.” Randy seemed to notice for the first
time that I was on Donny’s lap. He gestured at us with his beer,
and said “
When did this start
up?
” I told him when I was about seven, I
guessed.

Donny tightened his arms
around me and said to Randy, man to man like, “
Randy, you know that you have always been like a brother to
me and I know that you know I would never just mess around with
Leeann. I’m working right now to make this right. Carlene is
heading to Texas tomorrow and I’ve already talked to a lawyer. As
soon as I’m divorced, well I’m fixing to marry Miss Leeann here,
and I hope that you’ll be happy for us
.”

Jessie had to ruin it of
course by saying with her mouth still full of ham
“
Well Donny, my boy, you sure do have some
nice timing here. Why poor Leeann’s old husband ain’t only not cold
in his grave yet, he probably don’t even have his arms sewn back on
yet and, shoot, we haven’t even discussed the shocking adulterous
aspects of the situation
.”

Donny broke up laughing
hard at that and so did Randy, even though I could see that he was
a little shocked himself. Me? Well I was just real glad Mama was
napping right then.

Randy took a long swallow
from his beer and said “
Don Boy, I love
you like a brother and I guess it’s all right with me, but I think
that it might be a real fine idea if we all keep our mouths shut
about this until after Leeann is up and cleared. ‘Cause, Son, you
got to admit in the wrong hands this could sure as shit look like a
motive for killing poor George, God rest his
soul
.”

Donny nodded and said that
we had already figured that out. Jess couldn’t take all this
sweetness one more second. She said “
I
sure hope Leeann goes to trial in a hurry, then, because I don’t
think her little pregnant widow look is going to go over real big
with a jury
.”

At that Randy looked real
disturbed and asked how the hell I could be pregnant and, if I was,
how the hell it could be Donny’s, and maybe somebody better fill
him in around here. Jessie loved that, so then she told him the
entire story, including Donny and Charlie’s story. While she was
saying that, I felt Donny stiffen up underneath me, so I looked at
him real pitiful, whispering “
Baby, it’s
Jessie, I had to tell her.”
He looked
pissed still, but then he couldn’t hold it, and he just whispered
back asking did I tell Jessie everything, all the time? I made a
sexy pout and then grinned and nodded. He turned red and, God, he
was so damn cute I had to kiss him right then.

Meantime I saw that Randy
looked like he was going to die of shock at the story of Charlie’s
death. I got up off Donny’s lap and went behind his chair and put
my arms around Randy’s neck. He turned and hugged me. I could feel
he was crying, and we stood like that for a minute, till he pulled
himself together. He stood up and he looked so much like Daddy for
a minute. He looked at Donny and said he figured that they had best
burn “
that hell’s house to the ground and
not a minute too soon.”
He asked Donny what
he was doing later tonight. Jess shot me a look of panic. I shot
her one right back.

Lucky or not, depending on
how you look at it, Donny told Randy that he agreed completely, but
he said “
I’m with you, Randy, but it’s got
to wait until Leeann is cleared because that fucking hellhole might
still have evidence in it that her new lawyer will need. Besides,
Son, there ain’t no way to get into the house now because of the
guards Miz Willets has hired. Me and Captain Crazy here (he
gestured at Jess who stuck her tongue out at him), we already tried
it. They got that place sealed off tighter than old Tutankhamen’s
tomb
.”

Thank God that Randy agreed
with him because, if he and Donny were over setting fire to the
place, then how the hell would Jessie and I get in? We had to get
in, so that I could see Robina’s pictures and then probably be
murdered by her. No, I sure wouldn’t want to miss that. Jess was
looking at me all bug-eyed now, like she thought I just might be
stupid enough to mention this. But I was sharply aware that Randy
and Donny, especially, would never let us go through with it. And
even though I did want an out, I knew we had to do this, so I kept
my mouth shut.

The vibrating of Jessie’s
cell phone woke us up at ten that night. She had told Mark she was
staying with me to be of comfort in my bereavement but to call her
at ten. We had gone to bed about four that afternoon, beat up by
the day, and knowing we would have a hell of a long night ahead of
us so we might as well get some sleep.

I laid there petting
Muffin, listening to Jessie talk to Mark. To my shock she told him
where we were going and told him that if she didn’t call him by
three a.m., to get his white ass over to the house and try to save
us if he could.

When she got off the phone,
I was pissed. I asked her just what the hell was she doing telling
Mark, when the deal had been that I couldn’t even tell Donny. She
just rolled her eyes and told me to shut the hell up.

She said
“
Leeann, Mark isn’t going to try to stop
us and Donny would have
.”

I guess she me had there
but I had to ask her why Mark wasn’t going to try to stop us. Jess
just laughed and said “
My man knows what
the hell to ask for and what not to. To my mind that makes him
smarter than the average bear. Besides, Mark thinks it’s cool. That
crazy S.O.B is still hoping that you and me is gonna let him write
a script about this when it is all over
.”

I had to laugh - that Mark
sure was determined to be the next Wes Craven.

Jess told me that we could
discuss this shit later; right now we needed to get into some black
clothes and get on over to the house.

Both Jess and I couldn’t
believe our luck about the ankle bracelet. I guess Billy Rose just
clean forgot to come over and reset it after the excitement of the
funeral as he had dismantled it so I could go. Now it was still
around my ankle but just as useless as tits on a boar. Jess and I
both put on old pairs of my black sweats and t-shirts. My clothes
hung on her which, of course, she had to mention, saying that she
figured, big as I was getting, that after nine kids or so I could
give old Audrey Steppes a run for her money, fat as I already
was.

I had to remind Jess that a
size four was not exactly huge and that she, being a dwarf as she
was, didn’t know crap about regular human sizes. I said
“
You know, Jess, normally I am too polite
to mention your freakishly small size and maybe that’s why you
can’t be expected to know stuff like this
.”

She laughed but then, hell,
the shove she gave me out my bedroom window was a little rough.
Jess was not a dwarf but, at five foot nothing, she tended to be
sensitive to height jokes.

We knew we couldn’t drive
over there because of sounds, so we made the mile walk, ducking
behind trees and shrubs anytime a car drove by, which fortunately
wasn’t too often as Dalton tends to shut down for the night as soon
as darkness falls. Long before I wanted to be there, we were …
standing in front of that big white beautiful death house, my
wedding gift.

Chapter
48

Seeing it made my teeth
chatter and I started to say something to Jess, but she just
clapped her hand over my mouth. She pointed at a guard walking
around with a flashlight just inside the wrought iron
gates.

I nodded to show her I saw
and she took her hand away. We both stood there watching him for a
minute. I noticed that he was walking only around the front of the
house and that he was staying as far away from the actual structure
as he could. I wondered if there was another guy around the back,
but I noticed that this one kept right up to the front of the
gates, glancing back at the house like it might jump on
him.

I figured that cheap old
Miz Willets would have more guards during the day for show than she
had at night because, from the looks of this guy, he was alone and
not liking it one bit. After about a minute, Jess gestured to me to
follow her and we backtracked to the service alley that ran behind
the house.

When we got there she
whispered “
Okay, I think he’s it for
tonight and I don’t think he’s leaving those front gates for
nothing. He looks like a pussy to me, so hike me up here,
Leeann
.” She pointed at the back fence.
“
Once I’m over, I’ll help pull your fat
ass up, okay?
”

I just nodded, way too
scared now to worry about Jessie calling me fat. I gave her a hoist
and she shimmied up like a little monkey and then, leaning over the
top, she gave me her hand. It was harder for me, but in a minute we
were both over and down. We were standing inside the fence now,
facing the huge white back of Willets House with the swimming pool
gleaming at us in the moonlight. I couldn’t help but think that,
with the moon so bright tonight, it must be just like it was the
night Charlie and Donny came here. Jess grabbed my hand and real
quietly we stole across the grass to the back door. She whispered
to me, asking where the spare key was and, just as she said it, the
door opened.

It opened quietly, but all
the way, not like a door just falling open, but much more like a
door was opened all the way by a hostess eager for your company. I
heard Jess draw her breath in and I fell back a little in shock
but, Jess, well she just nodded like okay, bring it on, and walked
inside, so I had to follow her on in.

The house looked just like
it had when I had stalked out angrily a week before. My God, only
one week; that took poor Mama’s “
what a
difference a day makes
” pretty far. The
moonlight lit every surface around us, and it was still beautiful,
that is until we got to the front parlor. Jesus and Mary help me in
my hour of need, because in here every surface had yellow crime
tape. But that was not the worst of it, not by a long shot. Every
inch of ivory wall was stained in dark blots; the carpet looked
black with it, and there were handprints all over the front
door.

I think I knew then that he
almost made it out before she cut his arms off. You could see it
almost like it was happening in the huge dried pools right in front
of the door. Stains that were separated by just the right amount of
space that a man’s body would make. I must have made a sound
because Jess was right there. She grabbed my hand, her little face
dead white. She shook her head and pulled me towards the
stairs.

As we went up that grand
curving staircase, she was there, everywhere. You could smell a
pretty light perfume with a filthy rot lying just underneath the
scent, a vile sick smell that made the dumpsters at the Piggly seem
sweet. Jessie and I covered our noses, gagging all the way, and
somehow we got up to my old bedroom. The door was closed. I said a
prayer, opened it and walked in. This room had no smell, no mess or
tape. It was just the same, a grand beautiful room, elegant in the
moonlight, and I thought I might not ever leave it
alive.

Jess closed the door behind
her and came over to stand beside me. “
Okay, Leeann, this is it. I don’t know how you are gonna do
it, but I need you to lie down on that bed and try to fall asleep.
I’ll be right beside you and, if it gets too bad…if I can, I’ll
wake you up, and we’ll make a run for it, okay?
”