Evangeline Page 11

  They’d just fucked with the wrong psycho bitch.

  Chapter seven

  The ride back to Willowdale was silent and uncomfortable. Caleb wasn’t speaking to me and I felt like a big sack of smashed assholes. The Special K was wearing off now and I was drowsy and sick to my stomach. I desperately wanted to sleep, but didn’t dare risk waking Angeline. Better I tucked the girl into bed and let her sleep it off. By the time morning rolled around the entire nightmare at the Mohr’s would be forgotten.

  I directed Caleb down the side-street where Sister’s F-100 was parked. He pulled in beside the truck then shunned eye contact while he waited for me to climb out.

  “Guess we can forget the goodnight kiss, huh?” I said dryly, then reached for the door handle.

  Apparently the kid didn’t appreciate sarcasm. “Is this a fuckin’ joke to you?” he snapped. “Who the fuck are you anyway? What happened to the girl I brought to the party?”

  “Don’t worry, sweetie,” I said, opening the door. “I’ll take two aspirin and you can call her in the morning.”

  “I don’t know you,” said Caleb as I stepped from the El Camino.

  “You got that right, brother,” I answered, then slammed the door.

  It was past midnight now, the hour when my POP license became invalid and I turned into a pumpkin. At that late hour the roads from Willowdale Township to Hainesville seemed clear enough, and I was beginning to think I was home free, until I got within a few miles of the farm. That’s when a set of headlights appeared coming the opposite direction. The vehicle sped past, then I watched in the rearview as it swung around and charged back after me.

  On came the flashing blues.

  Oh, shit.

  I was in trouble, boys and girls. Or, rather, Sister was in trouble. Only one lazy-ass lawman would patrol that close to the farm. For the first time since our romantic trysts in the storm cellar, I was about to go face-to-face with my old pal Stumpy. Only not as Evangeline. No way. The deputy was a fool to be sure, but he was also a fool with a badge on his chest. I didn’t want him suspecting his stepdaughter was anything more than the wretched mouse he’d come to know and despise.

  I pulled off the road and parked with the cruiser tucked in behind me. In the side view mirror I watched the lawman step from his car, take a moment to adjust his campaign hat, then begin a slow walk toward the truck-- a stubby silhouette against the cruiser’s flashing wig wags.

  It was time to channel my other self.

  There was a tap on the glass and I turned to find Deputy Gottschalk staring in at me. The man mimed cranking down the window and I followed his order, just as Sister would have done. Me, I wanted to slug that bastard right in his stupid puss.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” he snarled, training his flashlight beam in my eyes.

  “Dra-dra-driving home,” I stammered in classic Angeline fashion.

  “It’s almost one a.m.!” the deputy exploded. “You’re supposed to be off the goddamn road!”

  “I forgot.”

  “You for--” He stopped, leaned close and sniffed the air. “What’s that I smell?”

  “Wa-wa-what?”

  Stumpy ripped the door open. “Get out of that truck!”

  I did as the law commanded. He pushed me brusquely aside and leaned into the cab, aiming his flashlight all through it, then running his hand under the bench seat. When he was through he jerked the keys from the ignition, straightened up and turned on me. “You’ve been drinking,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “No, sir.”

  “Don’t lie to me, goddammit. You stink of booze.” He grabbed me by the upper arm and hauled me to the back of the pickup. “Walk nine steps, heal to toe, got it? Nine steps in a straight line, then turn and come back.”

  The Jose Cuervo and Special K had mostly worn off by this time, so I was able to maintain pretty good balance as I executed the lawman’s instructions. Except for one minor misstep, I passed that sobriety test with flying colors. Stumpy blinded me with his flashlight again, checked both eyes then clicked off.

  “You’re not fooling me,” he growled. “I know you’ve been drinking.” He looked up the road one way then down the other before dangling the truck keys in my face. “Get your ass back to the farm. Straight home, you got that?”

  I took the keys and said, “Yes, sir,” then climbed back into the cab. Deputy Gottschalk slammed the door and snarled at me through the open window. “And you can forget about going to any more football games. After tonight you’re grounded. No more football. No more goddamn nothin’. You go to school, you come home and that’s all you’re gonna do, understand?”

  Do you understand statutory rape you fat fuck? was the response I was dying to give. But instead my reply was a very courteous, “Yes, sir.”

  Angeline awoke Saturday morning with a splitting headache and only a partial memory of what had happened the night before. As much as she would have liked to forget the Mohr’s, the girl’s memory was intact right up until she met Billy Quinn and the Brower boys. After that the hard drive was wiped clean. Next thing Angeline knew, the morning sun was blasting though the blinds and stabbing her in the eyes, making Sister’s first hangover one for the ages.

  Shortly after Stepfather entered the bathroom for his morning constitutional, Angeline slipped out of the bedroom and headed downstairs to the kitchen, taking each step gingerly along the way. The girl’s butt was saddle-sore; chafed and tender as though she’d crossed the Great Plains on horseback. Of course it was Sister, herself, who’d been ridden hard by Kyle Brower, an unpleasant memory already deleted.

  Mother was busy at the stove when Angeline sat down at the table. As she eased into her chair, her eyes caught Ted’s campaign hat and gun belt hanging near the front door. For some odd reason this gave her pause. She wasn’t sure why. No time to think it through, though. Ted was upstairs getting ready to flush and Sister had an important question to ask before he returned.

  She gathered her courage as the bacon sizzled, then leaned forward and said under her breath, “Muh-momma, I need to ask you something.”

  Mother cocked her head slightly but continued cooking.

  “I mmm-met this b-boy at school,” Angeline continued. “His name is Caleb. Caleb Quinn. Last night he told mmme something about D-Daddy… but I don’t know if it’s true.”

  The pork sizzled in the skillet. Angeline paused to take a breath.

  “Caleb said that D-D-Daddy’s his father.”

  The toilet flushed upstairs. Mother looked that direction then went back to turning bacon.

  “Did you hear wha-what I said, mmmomma?”

  “I heard you.”

  “Do you think it’s true?”

  The bathroom door opened upstairs and footsteps could be heard creaking on the staircase. Mother paused then said, “I think when judgment comes, Abby Quinn will be cast down like Jezebel.”

  Stumpy entered the kitchen wrapped in a robe and holding a rolled newspaper. “Well, look who decided to join us.” He took his seat at the table and immediately said to Angeline, “You tell your mother what you did last night?”

  Puzzled, Angeline glanced toward Mother.

  “Go ahead,” the man said with a smug look. “Tell her.”

  “Tell her wah-wwwhat?”

  “Tell her wah-wwwhat?” mocked Stumpy before turning to his wife. “Last night I pulled your daughter over for driving past curfew.”

  Mother tossed a curious glance at Angeline.

  “Not only that, but I smelled liquor on her breath,” he said, then smirked at Sister. “Ain’t that right Miss Goody-Two-Shoes?

  Angeline just blinked at him.

  “You’re goddamn lucky I didn’t arrest your ass,” the man huffed, then shook the newspaper at her. “And don’t forget what I told you. You’re grounded. You don’t step foot outside this house without my say-so.”

  He snapped the newspaper open. The headline blared, STATE FORMS L3K TASK FORCE. Stepfather rea
d briefly then lowered the paper again as his wife shuffled to the table with a platter of flapjacks. “Oh, and as for you,” he said to Mother. “My lawyer friend is stopping by here on Monday with those mortgage papers.”

  Mother froze as she was slipping flapjacks onto Angeline’s plate.

  “Yeah, you heard me right,” Stumpy told her with a gloating smile. “He’s coming to the house.” He hoisted the newspaper back in front of his face. “If Moohammet won’t come to the mountain, I’ll bring the goddamn mountain to her.”

  Angeline had experienced blackouts before, especially back when Stepfather was wearing out a path to the storm cellar, but never anything like this. How was it possible, she wondered, to have traveled from the Mohr’s to Willowdale, retrieve her truck, get stopped by Deputy Gottschalk, then drive back to the farm and climb into bed without any recollection of those events whatsoever?

  It seemed implausible, and yet it had happened.

  Following breakfast Angeline went to her room, where she sat on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands, rewinding the night over and over again. I felt bad for the poor thing. I really did. But not bad enough to refresh her memory. Hell no. Better to forget that horror than relive it.

  My sister was at wits end, ready to fold the tent and quit, when her eyes inexplicably fell on the wastebasket. My friends, I really can’t tell you what compelled Angeline to dump the contents of that basket in the middle of her bedroom floor, or had her sifting through its crumpled papers, wrappers and used snot rags. I only know her futile search for the pervie list she’d torn to pieces would lead to disaster.

  I offer no excuses for what happened next. I mean, what can I say? The girl simply caught me with my pants down. I suppose in hindsight the fiasco that followed was inevitable. Angeline and I were roommates sharing the same apartment, only occupying different rooms with separate entrances. Odds were always pretty good that one day we’d bump into each other. I just didn’t expect it so soon.

  As she squatted on the floor in the middle of the mess she’d made, searching the back alleys of her mind for clues about those missing scraps of paper, the girl somehow chanced upon my door and stumbled through unannounced. And when she did she snatched a memory right out of my pocket. Just a single, solitary memory.

  But, holy muckle (as Father used to say) was it a doozy.

  Her eyes instantly snapped to the bookshelf, scanning its length until landing on Pride and Prejudice.

  Oh, fuck a duck!

  You see, friends, after I’d Scotch Taped that pervie list back together, I’d hidden it between the pages of Jane Austen’s novel. Knowing my sister, I figured it would be at least two to three months before she circled back for another read. By then Doc Aldrich, camp counselor Morales and six more of Holt County’s finest citizens would be worm food.

  Only I figured wrong.

  Angeline plucked Pride and Prejudice from the shelf, then sat heavily on the edge of the bed with the book resting on her lap. At first she was too frightened to peek inside, but gradually Sister summoned courage and grasped the edges of the hardcover.

  No!

  It was a shout that made her hand draw back as if singed by a blowtorch, but the girl batted my warning aside, took a deep breath and shook the novel upside down by its covers… shook it until a single slip of paper jogged loose and fell on her lap.

  I swear to you, I felt the chill go up my sister’s spine.

  Angeline lifted the list and, with eyes wide, studied the reassembled patchwork of torn paper and adhesive tape. It was the same list of names she’d scrawled from the National Sex Offender Registry-- the list she’d ripped to pieces and tossed in the wastebasket a few weeks before. And just to put a cherry on top of that total fucking fiasco, the two names below Harland Lee Wade had been crossed out with ballpoint pen. Both were familiar to her; Walter Eugene Aldrich and Jose Miguel Morales, the second and third victims of the Holt Hacker.

  Well, boys and girls, the cat, as they say, was now out of the bag. And there would be no shoving pussy back in again. All Angeline’s nagging suspicions had been confirmed, all her worst fears realized. Someone was subletting space between her ears. And if that wasn’t enough of a mind blower, the girl had a pretty good hunch that the quiet tenant in 2A (look out for those quiet ones) was none other than Nebraska’s resident serial killer, the infamous L3K.

  Angeline wobbled, weak-kneed, from the bed and braced herself in front of the mirror, hands propped on the edge of the dresser. She leaned close, staring hard into her eyes-- trying to look through them… and straight into mine. Well, I wasn’t about to back down from any staring contest, let me tell you. So I stared right back at her. And then, just to mess with the girl’s head, I smiled and gave her a sly wink.

  Yeah, I know. Not the smartest move. But at the time I was pretty pissed off at my sister. Problem was, that little wink really freaked her out. The girl let out a terrified yelp, slapped a hand over her mouth and backed away from her reflection in horror.

  Yup, things were about to get complicated. With my cover blown like a fart in a Kansas tornado, there would be no more sneaking up on Sister… no more skullduggery. Our tactical situation was understood now-- the battle lines clearly drawn. Angeline’s head wasn’t big enough for the two of us. Someone had to go.

  And it sure as shit wasn’t going to be me.

  The moment Stepfather headed off to the Alley Cat Lanes for Saturday bowling, Angeline hurried downstairs to the kitchen, fired up the stove and torched my reassembled pervie list-- determined to be rid of it once-and-for-all. When it burned close to her fingers, she dropped it into the sink and ran the water.

  And that’s when Stumpy stepped back through the door.

  “What are you doing there?” he said to Angeline, smelling smoke right away. The man retrieved the wallet he’d left on the kitchen table and shoved it into his back pocket as he approached the sink. “What’s that?” he said when he spotted the charred paper. “What’d you burn?”

  When Sister was slow answering, he grabbed her brusquely by the nape of the neck. “I asked you a question, goddammit. What’d you burn?”

  “Nothing,” she told him.

  “Nothing, huh?”

  He tried removing the blackened scrap but it crumbled between his fingers.

  “I don’t like you, Butt Ugly,” he hissed at Angeline, still squeezing the back of her neck. “I don’t like the way you look, I don’t like your smart-ass attitude, and I don’t like the way you’ve been sneakin’ around this goddamn house at night. Now get your scrawny butt back upstairs where it belongs… and don’t let me catch you trying a stunt like this again. Because next time they’ll be hell to pay.”

  That night Angeline paced her bedroom, desperately trying to keep her eyes open and mind occupied. The two of us were now locked tooth-and-nail in a cage match for control, and Sister was convinced the only way to pin me down was to stay awake. Sleep, she believed, was the devil’s playground… with your devoted servant cast in the role of Satan.

  This feeble attempt at controlling me would have been laughable if it wasn’t so fucking annoying. Not only that, but it was an exercise in utter futility. That girl could have plunked her ass in a tub filled with ice water and kept her eyelids propped open with toothpicks and it still wouldn’t have mattered. Eventually she had to sleep… and once she was out, well, I’d be right behind her.

  By four a.m., while Stumpy was jerking off to Backdoor Sluts and I Love Juicy, Angeline was upstairs and barely functioning, reduced to sticking her head out the window into the brisk night air and applying cold water facials in the bathroom sink. Incredibly, the girl managed to hang on until morning, then spent all day Sunday ghosting about the house in a stuporous fog. Her head bobbed through breakfast and she went about her chores like the walking dead-- at one point nodding off while polishing Stumpy’s golden pin. The girl finally crashed around midnight as she sat slapping herself awake.

  Not until sunrise Monday mornin
g was Angeline jolted back to consciousness by Stepfather’s call to breakfast. Right away she felt heartsick wondering if the devil inside her had slipped out during the night and hacked off another weenie. Breakfast was consumed in a sleep-deprived haze while Stepfather harangued Mother, telling her his lawyer friend was dropping by in the afternoon with the reworked deed. That left the woman shaken and drove her straight to her bedroom for a snort of Kentucky bourbon.

  By the time Sister drove to Willowdale High School she was borderline catatonic. The commute was nerve-wracking; twice she nearly drifted off the road. When sleep finally did overcome her, it happened in the middle of first period chemistry class and Mr. Kincaid had to kick the desk to wake her up.

  It was after the second period bell rang that Angeline first noticed an unusual amount of attention being paid her in the school corridors. She was accustomed, of course, to abuse from The Asshole and his three ass-lickers (who performed a badly choreographed humpty dance whenever she passed by) but now other students seemed to be noticing her as well… and not in a good way.

  Angeline couldn’t fathom why, but she’d become the punch line to a cruel joke that everyone was in on but her; the unwitting target of behind-the-back whispers, smirking looks and crude asides. At one point Brianna Dresner strolled past and muttered “slut” loud enough for my sister to hear… which I thought was pretty funny coming from the biggest ho-bag at Willowdale High.

  Well, Angeline may have been clueless, but it was readily apparent to me where that vile joke had originated. Word travels fast in that tightknit corner of Nebraska, and the high school was no different. Thanks to Billy Quinn, every student knew by the end of the day that Angeline Gottschalk (yes, kids, that Angeline Gottschalk) was--in the immortal words of Kyle Brower--a “cock monster”.

  Meanwhile, Billy’s little brother shunned my sister altogether; ignoring her in the hallways and in the cafeteria, just like the old days before he discovered they shared DNA. Angeline finally ran the boy down as he headed for his locker after lunch.