Authors: Nancy Bush
“You going to tell me what that means?”
She took a long sip, then tilted her head. “I don’t know yet. Maybe. If I’m liquored up enough.”
“Maybe I will have a glass,” he said, changing his mind. “I have a confession to make about the pain pills. . . .”
The two stoners in the interrogation room said they were in their late-twenties, but they had the tired, used-up look of chronic drug abusers. If September had needed to peg their ages, she would have thought closer to forty, maybe more.
The man had a scruffy beard that he couldn’t stop scratching. The woman was just hangdog limp, nearly falling out of the chair she’d been shepherded into by a stern-faced deputy who uttered no words at all.
Gretchen said, “Are you ready to explain the bones?”
The woman looked at the man, who scratched even more furiously, as if the motion itself would help him concoct a story.
“Uhhhhh . . .” she said, like a record on stall.
The man answered, “Fairy, there, it’s her grandparents, I think.”
“Fairy?” Gretchen questioned, eyeing the lank-haired woman with the slight overbite.
“It’s Frances, and I hate it,” she admitted grudgingly. “Everyone calls me Fairy.”
“So, what happened to your grandparents?” Gretchen asked her.
“Well, Gramps and Gran didn’t really like each other anymore. It happens. My parents didn’t last five years. And then, after what happened with Daniel, everything went to hell.” She choked a bit and her eyes shone wetly.
September was about to ask her what had happened, but Gretchen was in interrogation mode and didn’t want to be sidetracked. Her laser-eyed glare made Fairy shrink back a little, however, and she turned to September. “They really couldn’t stand each other,” she revealed. “Gramps and Gran. They were dead when we found them. I think she poisoned him, or maybe he poisoned her. We just didn’t tell anybody.”
“When was this?” Gretchen inquired.
“Oh . . . I dunno.” She looked over at Mr. Beard Scratcher, who shrugged and scratched some more.”
“How did you find them?” September asked.
Fairy looked to the man and said, “You tell ’em, Craig.”
“They were just sitting at the table, kinda slumped over. Like they ate their meal and just died,” he revealed.
Gretchen said coolly, “If you don’t stop scratching, I’m going to handcuff you.” He immediately dropped his hands to the table. To Fairy, she said, “Was this a year ago? Or, two? Those bones have been there a while.”
“Umm, maybe three?” she said uncertainly.
“You found the bodies at the kitchen table?” Gretchen queried, and to her quick nod, asked, “And you did what?”
“Huh?” She gazed at Gretchen warily.
September could tell her partner was becoming frustrated, so she clarified, “What did you do after you found them?”
Craig and Fairy shared a look, and he said, “We put ’em in the closet.”
“Jesus,” Gretchen expelled. “And then what?”
“We said a prayer,” Fairy said, her eyes swiveling from Gretchen to September and back again. “Or, two . . . ?”
“The house is owned by Phillip and Jan Singleton,” Gretchen said.
“That’s them,” Fairy said, nodding.
“Did they live with anyone else?” Gretchen pressed.
“Uh . . . just me?” Fairy asked, as if looking for the right answer.
“What if I told you there might be more than the bones of two people in the closet?” Gretchen asked.
Both Craig and Fairy blinked at them blankly.
“Okay, so after you found them, and put the bodies in the closet, and said one or two prayers, what then?” Gretchen asked.
Fairy said, “Umm, Craig moved back in. Gran didn’t really want us to be together, on account of the drugs and stuff, but we’re married.”
“So, Craig moved back in and the two of you stayed there and didn’t tell anyone that your grandparents died.”
Fairy nodded. “That’s right.”
“What about the smell?” she asked.
“What?” Fairy asked, and Craig’s hands jumped to his beard and began digging again in earnest.
“When those bodies decomposed, it
smelled
,” Gretchen explained with extreme patience.
“It sure as hell did!” Craig burst out. “Gagged me all the time! Fuckin’ dead bodies! Shoulda buried ’em in the backyard.”
“Shoulda called the authorities,” September pointed out.
“Yeah, yeah we shoulda,” he muttered, shooting a glance at Fairy before looking away.
“Social Security,” September said when there was a long moment of silence, and both Fairy and Craig looked stricken. “That’s why you didn’t report their deaths. For your grandparents’ Social Security checks.”
“Oh, come on,” Gretchen said, disbelieving.
“Well, they just kept coming,” Fairy defended, going even limper. “Every month. The checks just kept coming. We didn’t know who to send ’em back to. And Harry’s, too.”
“Harry?” September asked.
Craig said grudgingly, “That’s kinda how we got the idea. Harry died a long time ago.”
“Harry was?” Gretchen asked.
“Gramps’s brother,” Fairy said. “He just had a heart attack and died one day, and then Gramps said it would be a shame to give up all that money Harry earned, so they just . . .”
“Put him in the closet?” September asked.
“Jesus,” Gretchen said again, pacing around the room and shaking her head in disgust.
“Well, they buried him first, but the dog kept digging up the bones.” Craig started to scratch, shot a glance at Gretchen, and clasped his hands together as if he were about to pray.
“And no one ever asked about Harry, or Gramps or Gran until Carol Jenkins showed up,” Gretchen said on a huge sigh.
“Well . . . yeah . . .” Fairy said.
Gretchen asked a few more questions, but Fairy and Craig were apparently tapped out. September followed her partner out of the county jail, and this time when they stepped outside, they were greeted by a light rain, which coalesced in Gretchen’s tightly curled black hair.
“This is what drugs do. Make everyone a criminal. And the fucking apathy, God help me!” Gretchen stalked through the rain to the Jeep with September ducking her head and hurrying after her. “I thought this was going to be a helluva lot more interesting,” she growled as she got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind her.
Sliding into her own side, September said, “The grandparents might have poisoned each other.” In the Jeep’s overhead light, raindrops glistened on her ring.
“Doesn’t say much for marriage, does it?” Gretchen observed, following September’s gaze.
“No . . . it doesn’t.”
“What are we gonna do with Fairy and Craig?” she muttered, but she really wasn’t looking for an answer.
September looked out the window as Gretchen turned around in the gravel. One of the wheels slipped into the mud, but Gretchen pressed her toe to the accelerator and the Jeep lurched back onto the road.
Doesn’t say much for marriage at all
, September thought.
Jordanna swallowed a healthy gulp of red wine that left her choking. Dance actually reached over and clapped her on the back. “I’m okay,” she managed to squeak out, trying to set down her glass on the bench. “Holy moly. I’m going to get some water.” She practically sprang to her feet to get one of the water bottles stacked on the kitchen counter, cracking it open and drinking it down between choking coughs.
Finally under control, she took a few more swallows of the water, then returned to the living room. Dance had taken a glass of wine but was drinking it far more slowly. A good idea, she thought ruefully, as she seated herself beside him once more. She topped off her glass and took a deep breath. She’d basically promised to tell him all about her father and her past, and she planned to, she really did . . . she just wasn’t sure what depth she wanted to go into.
He was waiting for her, and that annoyed her.
“There are about a million things I’d rather talk about than my history with my father,” she said testily. “I’d rather talk about the Saldanos, or the unidentified body with the branding, or the missing Fread girl, or pretty much anything else.”
“Fine,” Dance said, and she squinted at him, wondering if he was just humoring her.
“Okay, well, I’m planning to go over to Malone tomorrow and check with the ME. Find out what I can about that body. And I might go to the Green Pastures Church and ask Reverend Miles about Bernadette Fread’s relationship with her father, even though Chief Markum would rather cut out my tongue than have me interfere in any way with the good people of the church.”
“What did you mean, everyone’s afraid you’re just like your mother?” he asked when she wound down.
She clenched her teeth and half-smiled. “The Treadwell Curse. She had it, and maybe I have it, too.”
“And what’s that?” he asked carefully.
Jordanna took another gulp of wine and said, “My mother died of an unknown form of dementia that seems to run in her family, the Treadwells. It manifested when she was in her twenties and she died about ten years later. She had a number of relatives likewise afflicted. It’s sort of like Huntington’s without being Huntington’s. No cure. The victim slowly loses their mental capacity and the body shuts down and then they die. . . . That’s the Treadwell Curse. Fortunately, it only has affected a small part of the population, so far. Pretty well contained around here. Unfortunately, that means there hasn’t been a lot of testing on it. It’s genetic, that’s all we know for certain.
“When I shot my father, a lot of people around town thought it was a first sign. I swear Chief Markum wanted to lock me up, but my father stepped in. They settled instead for sending me to a psychologist, Dr. Eggers.”
Dance stared into his wineglass. He was listening hard, so she decided to get it all out.
“So far, my sister, Kara, and I seem fine, but there’s no telling when that shoe will drop. It could happen anytime, or not at all. My Aunt Evelyn escaped it.”
“Who else has it?”
Jordanna considered, then said, “Well, no one, really. We’re the last of the Treadwells, so I guess it ends with us. There were some Benchleys that married Treadwells,” she remembered.
“Would your dad know?”
Her lips tightened. “Probably.”
“You should ask him. Get all the data you can. There might be something you don’t know about it.”
“Yes, yes . . .” The journalistic approach. Why did it make her feel so weary?
Because you don’t want to know. You don’t want it confirmed. Because if it’s true, you’re doomed.
She could feel tears burn at the back of her throat. She’d just told him her big secret, and it was a thousand times worse because it had effectively slammed, bolted, and sealed the door shut on anything lasting between them. Sure, he didn’t think of her that way. She understood that. But she’d allowed herself to dream, and now that dream was dust.
“I don’t visit Rock Springs all that often,” she said unevenly. “My mother’s gone, and so’s Emily. My other sister’s a vagabond, although she did say she would be in the area this weekend—I assume that means Portland—and I don’t get along with my father for all the reasons I’ve just named.”
“You brought me here,” he pointed out quietly.
She shivered. He was being understanding and that made things a thousand times worse. “I knew the house was empty. I didn’t know it was in such bad shape, though.” She looked around. “Anyway, now you know,” she added lightly.
“You mind a few questions?” he asked.
She laughed silently. “Fire away.”
“You said your sister died in a car accident?”
“On Summit Ridge Road, the switchback road that leads to Fool’s Falls. You can access it by driving farther south from here on Wilhoit about three or four miles. It leads into the mountains and cuts close to the back of our property.”
“Did you think your sister was exhibiting signs of this disease?”
“Emily? No. She was a sleepwalker, but she . . . wasn’t sick. She was beautiful. Everyone liked her.” Recalling Kara saying Emily was a “ho,” she added for honesty’s sake, “I think she had a few boyfriends, and there might have been some jealousy from other girls.”
“Mind if I play devil’s advocate for a minute?” He’d shifted position and she could see his jaw tighten.
“Okay . . .” she said carefully.
“You said your sister was a sleepwalker.”
“Yes. She walked into my father’s room without realizing it.”
“Did she blame your father?”
“No. She was angry with me for accusing him. And for shooting at him,” she admitted. “She was right on that, of course. I was reckless, and it was . . . out of control. The big reason people think I have the Treadwell Curse.”
“Is there any chance she was telling the truth?”
Another knife to the gut. Jordanna looked away. Why did she keep believing someone would actually hear her, for once? “She called out my father’s name when I walked in on them. Screamed it.
Dayton!
She was horrified by what was happening.” Something about that bothered Jordanna, just like it always did, some little kernel digging at her brain, but it slipped away before she could figure out what it was.
“She blamed the whole thing on sleepwalking,” he repeated.
“That’s right.”
“And everyone blamed you because you were a Treadwell and Treadwells are crazy.”
“Right again,” she said bitterly.
“What do you think now?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“If it happened the same way, would you do it again? Would you shoot him?”
“Of course not!”
“Why not?”
“Because it was a big mistake. I shouldn’t have done it. I should have reported him. I could have hit my sister!”
Jordanna drained her glass of wine and Dance took a long swallow, too. “Well, that sounds pretty sane to me,” he pointed out. “Whatever you think about your father, you were a kid and you reacted in the moment. You’d lost your mother and you thought your father was doing something terrible to your family. You wanted to protect your sister.”
Jordanna stared at him. It was the first time anyone had ever defended her.
“And I don’t know how much I believe in this Treadwell Curse,” he added. “Maybe there’s a rogue gene . . . something. What I would do if I were you, I’d research the hell out of it, find out every last detail. Don’t accept ideas and impressions from a terrible accident to color the truth.” His lips quirked. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”