“Are you gonna investigate the Fitches? Then you’ll see. They got something to do with this, you’ll see.”
“I probably will give them a call, if it becomes warranted. I do have your word, right, that none of you will go out there and make accusations and stir up trouble, right?”
They all nodded and maintained similar serious expressions on their similar serious faces.
“You do understand that we are investigating this murder, and I do promise to keep you apprised of our progress.”
“How’d those Fitches kill him?” That was Phillip, now with tears filling his eyes.
Claire didn’t want to tell him. It came out reluctantly. “Let me remind you again that I have no proof linking the Fitches to your brother’s murder. But to answer your question, Paulie Parker was beaten to death.”
That caused the brothers to jerk looks at one another with lots of nodding heads and I-told-you-so expressions.
Patrick was still the major spokesman. “That pretty much wraps it up, now don’t it? They love beatin’ on people with baseball bats. Carry big clubs around everywhere.”
Well, that was truly interesting, and probably a good reason to visit some unpleasant Fitches. “Have any of you been attacked by them with a baseball bat?”
They all nodded in tandem.
“Does that indicate that you fight with them a lot?”
“Yes, ma’am. We been fightin’ with ’em since we was little bitty kids. Our pa and their pa used to make us fight each other.”
Now it was Claire’s turn to flinch. Okay, now they were getting somewhere. “Then I need to talk to your pa.”
“He’s dead, been gone for a long time now. Ma, even before that.”
“How old were you when they made you fight?”
“Five years old, sometimes six. They started us out early so we’d be real good by middle school.”
“This still going on around here?”
“Not at our place anymore. We ain’t got no kids amongst us.”
“What about the Fitch family?”
“Probably not. We heard their men put a stop to the fights. But they still is nuts, the whole lot of ’em.”
“That’s against the law, you know. Kids fighting each other.”
“We figured it was, but nobody ever came around to make ’em stop fightin’ us.”
“Well, spread the word. I’m around now, and I’m gonna stop it. Understand me, guys? That’s child abuse and there are laws against child abuse. If the Fitches are still doing it, I’m gonna arrest them.”
The Parker brothers all broke out in ecstatic smiles, happy as proverbial clams to hear such glad tidings.
“I guess that’s all I need right now. I may be back as the investigation proceeds. You might want to get in touch with Blythe Parker and find out about Paulie’s funeral arrangements.”
“Yeah, we wanna plant ’im up in our cemetery.”
Claire and McKay stood up. “You do have hunting licenses for all those weapons over there in the corner, right?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. I sell ’em right here, and I get ’em for the boys every year.”
“Good. Well, thank you for your cooperation. I’ll be in touch.”
Claire gave Patrick her card, figuring he’d share it, if necessary, and she and McKay walked outside, relieved as all get out. “Well, you weren’t much help in there, Joe.”
“I never interfere in police business. I never take on four or five big guys at once either.”
“So I noticed.”
“Hey, I don’t have one of those shiny badges that lets me do whatever I want, like you do.” They got inside his truck, and he leaned on the steering wheel and looked over at her. “But, if any of them had laid a finger on you, my dear detective, I would’ve taken care of it.” He pulled back his jacket and let her see the .45 handgun stuck in his back waistband. “And yes, officer, I do have a conceal-carry license. Just so you know.”
“Well, that makes me feel a little better, sort of. In an after-the-fact kinda way.”
McKay nodded, and they headed back toward town. Claire sat silently as he concentrated on maneuvering the car around all the curves and icy patches on the hills and dales and wondered how everything fit together. She was picking up pieces of the puzzle right and left. Problem was, none of them were connected up into a nice clear 3-D picture of the perpetrator. Not yet, anyway. Well, maybe Bud had come up with a doozy of a lead in Kansas City. She hoped to hell that he had good news. She was still sitting on empty.
Blood Brothers
As it turned out, Punk moved into his maternal grandfather’s house, where he was treated like an absolute king. Or maybe more like a prince. Yeah, all he needed was a gold crown with big rubies and emeralds on it. As patriarch of the family, his grandfather was highly revered and therefore so was his grandson, whether he deserved it or not. And living within walking distance of his true love was just about everything he had ever dreamed of. He got to see her every day, and they would steal off and kiss and touch and whisper how much they loved each other. And they were very careful not to be found out. Grandfather considered what they were doing to be the great and terrible sin of all unholy sins, but it wasn’t. It was just the opposite. She was heaven-sent, just for him, and he knew it.
Despite himself, he did begin to miss Brother Bones after a while and wished he could see him sometimes. But that was out of the question, at least for now. Little Banjo had found her way through the fence and tracked Punk all the way to his new house, and Punk had been so glad to see her. He had been worried that nobody was taking care of her. Sometimes, he thought about his other brothers, too, but not as often as he wondered about Bones. Bones was his twin, after all. And he was curious about what happened to all the dead bodies and what his older brothers had said about their pa being dead and gone forever. They might like it, or maybe not. He wasn’t sure what they’d think. Bones probably put his corpses in the hog pen and let the sows eat them up. But Punk didn’t really care. With his true love nearby, he soon forgot all that stuff and finally didn’t really care about anything or anybody else. He had stopped his fighting, stopped getting so angry so quickly, stopped hunting, stopped worrying about his twin killing people. He didn’t care about anything but his girlfriend. So he set about learning her family’s ways and their strict religious rules and was getting ready to be baptized into his mother’s family, so he could be a true believer.
Even better, the two of them had found a really cool place where they could be all alone. She would steal like a phantom out of her upstairs bedroom and climb down the big rose trellis and find her way through the woods to the back acres that edged the neighbor’s farm and the river that led to the lake. He would pretend he was napping or studying his new religious books, and when Grandfather was asleep or counseling his flock, Punk would go out behind the big house and run through the woods until he found the little ramshackle cabin that they had made into their warm and cozy love nest. It was high on the hill near a big limestone cave that they liked to explore with flashlights and a picnic basket. Sometimes they made love inside the cavern depths in the cool, damp quiet, snuggling inside his sleeping bag together with her vanilla candle flickering on a low rocky ledge.
One day he found that she was already at the cabin waiting for him, and she threw open the door and then she was in his arms and he spun around with her, his heart thundering with desire. He took her down quickly to the soft blue blanket that she had spread out on the floor. They stripped off each other’s clothes as fast as they could and then lay tightly together, naked and turned on. He loved the pure white skin of her body, so pale against his own dark tan. Then they made sweet love, slowly and gently, and it was as good and fine as it always had been, even better, because it had been three whole days since they’d last met. He needed her so much, all the time. She was like the weed that his pa used to smoke in order to get high. She was Punk’s illegal drug and always would be.
Afterward, she snuggled in closer against him and kissed him on his chest. “Your grandfather told my papa that we can’t ever be together. I heard him. His word is law hereabouts. Papa will never let me marry you. What are we going to do? I want to marry you.”
“We’re just gonna run away, that’s what we’re gonna do. It’s time now. I can get me a job. I can find us a good place to live at. I can fight some more. I’m good at it, and stuff. I can win us lots of money in that cage. I got some brothers already doin’ it. Good money, too, real good.”
“No, no, please don’t. I hate all that fightin’ that goes on over at your place. Sometimes in the summertime, we can hear the cheering and see the car lights on Saturday nights. I don’t want you to get yourself beat up. I don’t wanna see you come home all bruised up and sore and bleeding, like you was the day I met up with you. I can’t bear to think of you getting hurt.”
“Nah, I’m gonna be all right, I promise. But let’s just do it. Now. We gotta get our things together, tonight, and then we gotta just get outta here for good—”
When the door was suddenly thrown open, they both jerked upright and she screamed in horror. There stood his grandfather and her father, and many of the other men who were the church elders. The men all stared down in disgust at their nakedness, their faces hard and cold and unforgiving.
“For shame, for shame, you Jezebel. And you, my only grandson! You have ruined this poor girl that you profess to love.” Grandfather’s voice started out harsh, and then began to tremble with his burgeoning rage. “You cover yourself, girl, and get yourself home with your father. You are doin’ the devil’s handiwork out here with this sinner.”
Punk’s true love burst into tears and quickly tried to pull her dress over her head, only to be jerked up roughly by her father and dragged out of the shack, struggling and screaming her lover’s name. Punk tried to get up and stop them, but a couple of the men grabbed him and tried to tie his hands behind his back. He struggled desperately and then fought like a demon, harder than he had ever fought in his life, landing powerful blows, knocking them down, breaking their bones, and this time without Bones coming to his rescue. Enraged, he put three of them on the floor, before one of them grabbed a piece of firewood and clubbed him senseless.
When Punk awoke again, he was back inside his bedroom in his grandfather’s house. Rousing up, his head was thudding hard and steadily and he felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. Then he realized that his right wrist was handcuffed to the bed, and his grandfather sat in the spindle rocking chair beside the window. The old man stood up but he didn’t approach the bed. “You have greatly dishonored me and that poor innocent young girl. You will have to repent and ask God’s mercy and forgiveness.”
“Where is she? What’d you do to her? Is she okay? You better not of hurt her, I’m warnin’ you.”
“It doesn’t concern you where she is or what’s been done to her. She has already repented and asked forgiveness for her sins. She is being dealt with.”
“She’s not sinful, you old bastard. She’s perfect and beautiful and she’s mine. We’re gettin’ married and you cain’t stop us. No matter what it takes, we’re gonna get married.”
“No, you are not. Thanks to your reckless behavior, she is to be married to the man her father has chosen for her, something decided long before you came here and led her to ruin. Despite her deflowering and wanton behavior, her chosen husband has agreed to marry her.”
“No! No! I won’t let her do that! She won’t do that to me!”
“She will do it, and she will do it tomorrow morning at the church across the way. You may watch out your window and see that her disgrace will be corrected and forgiven by her loving family. Then you will leave this place and never come back. You will forget she exists and never try to speak to her again. I never want to see you after this day.”
Sick at heart, horrified at what he’d been told, Punk stared at him, mute and destroyed. He felt as if he were dying inside. He could not let that wedding happen. He could not let them take her away from him, no matter what he had to do. He would kill them. That’s what he would do. He would kill them all, every single one of them, before he would let them take her away from him.
When the morning light finally grayed the sky and dawn crept up over the trees that crowned the hills, he pulled the long chain that tethered him to the bed so that he could stand at the window and watch for her. He had already tried to get out the door but it was bolted tight from the outside. The windows were, too, and very high, with a sheer drop to the ground. He had given up hope. There was nothing else he could do. Then he saw three people walking down the deserted dirt street toward the little church. His true love and her father, and another man, a very old man with a white beard, who looked old enough to be her grandfather. She had her head down and her hands held prayerfully together. He could see the bruises on her face. He pounded on the glass, hysterical, screaming her name, but she couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him, didn’t even know he was there. Horrified that the wedding was really going to happen and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it, he pulled the chain over to the door and beat his fists on it, kicking it and screaming for them to let him out. Nothing happened. Not a sound, no one came, and he finally sank down onto the carpet in a distraught heap and wept hard and anguished tears of helplessness.
Hours passed, and he just lay there, alone and miserable. Then the night came and went. It wasn’t until the next morning that he heard the door open, and the man who stood guard outside his door stepped inside. The older guy still had bruises on his face and a black eye from when Punk had struck him in the shack. He was holding a breakfast tray in one hand, and a sturdy wood club in the other.
“Be calm, sonny,” he said warily. “Don’t make any sudden moves. You understand me? I don’t want to hurt you.”