Evangeline Page 5

  Night had fallen when I drove back to Middle Branch, my butt propped on a floor mat to keep from getting bloody. I dumped Harland’s Cutlass on a backstreet near Pete’s Canteen then fetched the truck from the bar’s parking lot and headed for home.

  Everything had gone according to plan, and your humble servant was feeling mighty pleased as I drove to the farm. After returning the Smith & Wesson to its place in Stumpy’s gun cabinet and Elvira’s costume to the trunk in the attic, I headed for Sister’s room to get some much needed shuteye. But before slipping into bed, I couldn’t resist adding a little cherry on top of that perfectly memorable day. From under the knickknacks in Angeline’s keepsake box--the dried flower, some old coins and a torn picture of Father--I pulled the list of Holt County pervies she’d jotted down in her nervous scratch and, with one bold stroke of the pen, crossed out the name at the top.

  Ah, Harland Lee Wade. You never forget your first.

  Chapter FOUR

  In Holt County, where the biggest news was the weekly crop report, the murder of Harland Lee Wade struck like an F5 tornado. Homicides are rare in that corner of Nebraska, and each one is cause for banner headlines and the lead story on radio and television newscasts. But out at the Gottschalk farm, my sister was insulated from all that. Angeline had yet to make the connection between the dead man in the cornfield and Harland Lee Wade when she sat for breakfast on Monday morning before school.

  “Sheriff’s got us all running around like a bunch of goddamn chickens with our heads cut off,” groused Deputy Ted as he took his seat at the table following the overnight shift. “Gonna put in some overtime on this one. Guaranteed.”

  Beside his plate lay a copy of the Holt County Independent, the local newspaper out of O’Neill delivered each morning to the mailbox at the end of the drive. The boldface headline trumpeted, MURDER IN MIDDLE BRANCH.

  “Whoever did the killing made a real mess of it, too,” said the deputy as he shoved a thick slab of bacon into his maw. “Heard this guy’s brains were blown all over the place. And the crows did a real number. Pecked out his eyes and whatever else they could-- ”

  “Can we not discuss this at the table?” Mother interrupted, keeping her eyes lowered.

  “Well, listen to you,” Stumpy harrumphed. “Let me tell you something, woman. I’ll say whatever I damn well please at this table. And if you don’t like it you can just go up to your goddamn room where you belong.”

  Having been put off her feed, Mother decided to do just that. Without another word she stood and began clearing her plate.

  “Before you go,” said her husband, wagging his fork at her, “you should know we’re driving down to O’Neill this afternoon to meet with my lawyer friend. Gonna get those papers signed.”

  Already drained by the gory details of Harland Lee Wade’s grisly demise, Mother now went a whiter shade of pale at the prospect of meeting that attorney. From the day she and Ted got hitched, the man had been angling to add his signature to the property deed. The old farmhouse was falling apart but the land it sat on was worth a small fortune and Stumpy was hungry for a slice of the family pie. Thus far Mother had sidestepped his every attempt to have her meet with the lawyer. But her husband would not be put off any longer. This time he was determined to pin her down.

  “Meeting’s at four,” Stepfather continued as Mother crossed the kitchen with an unsteady gait. “I want you downstairs and ready to go by three, understand?”

  The woman dropped her plate, shattering it on the floor, then tottered and gripped the sink.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you,” barked Ted.

  “You okay, m-m-m-momma?” said Angeline, lifting from her seat.

  “Sit down,” he snarled at her. “Ain’t none of your goddamn business.”

  In a moment Mother had regrouped and was kneeling to gather the broken pieces.

  “Leave it,” Ted commanded. “Your daughter can clean it up.”

  Mother stood and shuffled out of the kitchen.

  “Three o’clock,” her husband bellowed in her wake. “And no excuses this time. You’re signing those papers and that’s all there is to it.” He pushed another strip of bacon into his mouth and noticed his stepdaughter watching him. “What the hell you waitin’ for, Butt Ugly? Go clean up that mess.”

  Butt Ugly. That was Ted’s pet name for Angeline ever since I’d shortened his dick in the storm cellar. Apparently Sister no longer qualified as his fuckable “baby doll”, which was just fine with me. Way I saw it, Stumpy’s feeble attempt at a put-down meant he had nothing left to hurt her with. I’d take Butt Ugly from that impotent prick any day of the week.

  It wasn’t until Angeline was eavesdropping on another conversation chaired by Brianna Dresner that she connected the Middle Branch murder victim with the man who lived at 14 Meadowview Lane. Brianna was telling her cheerleader pals in the cafeteria that the sex maniac who unnerved her mom had been found dead in a cornfield. This immediately grabbed Sister’s attention and she listened for more details, but the girls had already segued into boy talk and that was the end of it.

  Slipping her half-eaten baloney sandwich back into its baggie, Angeline was preparing to sneak upstairs to the library to check the news on the Internet when Caleb Quinn plopped his lunch tray down opposite her.

  “This seat taken?”

  The boy was wearing a faded blue cotton work shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and an easy smile. Judging by the half-eaten plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, he’d started lunch at the jock’s table where he usually sat before coming over to join Angeline.

  There was a buzz going through the cafeteria now, and it was building as eyes turned toward Angeline Gottschalk’s table. She and Caleb had suddenly become the main attraction at a lunch room freak show. Everyone, it seemed, was eager to know what the dog-faced girl would do next. The boy took the attention in stride, seemingly immune to the spotlight that was shriveling Sister like an ant beneath a magnifying glass on a hot summer’s day.

  A burst of laughter erupted from the popular girls table and Angeline cast a furtive glance their direction. Brianna Dresner had both hands cupped over her mouth while Danielle’s head was on the table, face buried in the crook of her arm as she convulsed in laughter. The whole nest was obviously sharing some inside joke at Sister’s expense.

  “Just ignore ‘em. They’re idiots,” Caleb said as he forked mashed potatoes into his mouth. Then he added casually, “I’m Caleb by the way.”

  “P-P-Please go away,” Sister managed, her gaze buried in the table.

  “I just got here,” replied Caleb, gesturing to his tray. “Can I at least finish my lunch?” The boy lowered his head close to the table and tried to make eye contact. “That okay with you?”

  Angeline’s eyes remained downcast, her lips pursed. A prickly heat had spread over her face and she knew she was blushing.

  “You don’t talk much, do you?” said Caleb.

  Sister’s ears were burning now. With her stutter it was just too difficult and embarrassing to communicate the thoughts in her head, so she seldom tried.

  “What kind of cookies are those?” asked Caleb, trying a different tack.

  Angeline barely lifted her eyes and found the boy nodding toward her baggie of cookies.

  “Shortbread,” came her clipped response.

  “Man, I love shortbread. Mind if I steal one?”

  She slipped a cookie from the baggie, placed it on a napkin and slid it across the table saying, “Now puh-please go.”

  Instead, Caleb took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Oh, man,” he mumbled after a moment. “This is really good.” He held the remaining half before him, examining it like a holy relic. “Swear to God, this might be the best shortbread cookie I’ve ever tasted.” He popped the remainder into his maw and chewed happily. “Where’d you get ‘em?”

  “Buh-bbbaked them,” managed Angeline, forcing the words out like a painful turd.

  “Seriously?” Caleb sai
d, genuinely impressed. “Man, you could sell these. No joke.”

  Gathering courage, Sister now leaned forward, lifted her head and looked straight into those beautiful blue eyes. “This isn’t f-f-f-f…” She swallowed hard then reloaded. “F-f-f-funny.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  Angeline’s voice rose in anger. “I don’t need your p-p-p-pity, Caleb Quinn.”

  The buzz in the cafeteria kicked up a notch.

  “Hey, you don’t know me, okay?” Caleb said under his breath. “Because if you did, you’d know that’s not who I am.”

  Angeline had begun stuffing the remainder of her lunch into the paper bag. “I know you’re Billy’s brother,” she answered, one of those rare moments when anger seemed to shit the words out perfectly. She pushed the baggie of cookies toward him then stormed from the cafeteria, leaving students buzzing and snickering in her wake.

  Sister remained in a black mood as she climbed the stairwell to the library. Angeline despised Willowdale High. If tomorrow the building was flattened by a rogue asteroid, well, that would have suited her just fine.

  The library computer was available and she wasted no time pulling up a chair and punching in a search for Harland Lee Wade. A page of links appeared and she began devouring accounts of the homicide, including the “Murder in Middle Branch” article from the Holt County Independent. With elbows propped on the desk, she read how a farmer had stumbled upon Wade’s grisly remains the day after his blood-stained Chevy had turned up in Middle Branch, about three miles away. The Holt County Sheriff’s Department was investigating. Nowhere was it mentioned that the victim was a paroled sex offender.

  “I’m not my brother.”

  Startled by Caleb Quinn’s voice, Angeline clicked off the site and turned to find him standing behind her.

  “I’m not him, okay? So don’t treat me like I am.” The boy parked himself on the edge of the desk. “What’s your deal anyway? Can’t take a compliment?” He held up a half-eaten shortbread cookie. “I tell you how awesome these cookies are and basically you call me a shallow asshole.” He popped the rest into his mouth and brushed the crumbs from his hands. “What happened to ‘thank you’?”

  The school’s librarian appeared, looking like she’d bit into a lemon. “Mr. Quinn, if you want to chat, please do it elsewhere.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Phillips,” Caleb said. He waited until the woman was gone then grabbed a chair, turned it around and plopped down next to Angeline. “Listen to me,” he began in a hushed voice. “I’ve seen what Billy does to you--what he does to a lot of people in this school--and it’s not right. What I wanted to tell you in the cafeteria, if you’d given me the chance, was that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never spoke up before. I should have said something to my brother a long time ago.”

  “So wuh-why didn’t you?” said Angeline with a touch of anger.

  Caleb fidgeted. “No excuses. All I can tell you is it won’t happen again. Not if I can help it.” He proffered his hand. “Deal?”

  Sister considered the outstretched hand a moment before peering into Caleb’s striking eyes. The boy looked sincere enough, so she clasped it. A wide smile broke over his face. Angeline thought he had nice teeth.

  “Okay, then,” said Caleb. He stood to leave then paused with an afterthought. “Hey, listen. A bunch of us-- “

  “Mr. Quinn,” barked the librarian from across the room. “What did I just tell you?”

  “I’m leaving, Mrs. Phillips.” He dropped back into the chair and lowered his voice again. “A bunch of us are heading over to the Mohr’s after the game Friday tonight. You know where I’m talking about, right?”

  She did. The Mohr house was a derelict three story Victorian that stood rotting in an alfalfa field on the Holt-Knox County line. “Going to the Mohr’s” was an inside joke shared by every high-schooler at Willowdale-- except maybe Angeline. When kids told their parents they were hanging out at the Mohr’s, little did mom and dad know the Mohr family had been dead and buried for over one hundred years. Their crumbling gravestones stood behind the house, lost in alfalfa and forgotten to all but the teenagers who partied there on Friday nights in the fall.

  “You should join us,” prodded Caleb. “There’s good people there.”

  “Like B-B-Billy?”

  He smiled slightly and shook his head. “My brother doesn’t go there after games. He’s too busy screwing his girlfriends up at the reservoir.”

  Angeline’s cheeks reddened and she lowered her head to hide the blush. Thanks to Brianna Dresner, Sister knew all about Steel Creek Reservoir-- a wooded area about five miles north of Hainesville. The reservoir was a popular spot where local kids could fuck like bunnies without being hassled by the cops.

  “So what do you say?” asked Caleb. “Want to come?”

  For Angeline it would have been an easy ride to the Mohr’s. The house was just a few miles east of the Gottschalk farm. But Sister wasn’t one for socializing. Just thinking about it knotted her guts. She shook her head and said, “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, think about it some more, because I think you’d have a great time,” said Caleb, unwrapping another cookie from a napkin he’d stuffed into his shirt pocket. He took a bite then stood to leave. “I’m going now Mrs. Phillips,” he called out.

  Across the room, the librarian sat bolt upright at her desk. Angeline swallowed a grin as Caleb backed out the door, pushing the rest of the cookie into his mouth and giving her two thumbs up before disappearing down the hall.

  Friends, I swear I felt my sister’s heart leap… and stirring within it, the first blush of a schoolgirl crush.

  Angeline returned home at the end of the school day to a bizarre sight outside the farmhouse. Stepfather was trying to deliver his wife to that lawyer in O’Neill, but Mother had him in a death grip as he struggled to get her into the front seat of his Eldorado. He grabbed her from behind and tried lifting her through the open door, but the woman jammed both feet against the side of the car and would not be budged.

  “Goddammit!” Ted bellowed in frustration. “Get your ass in the car!”

  He changed tactics, dragging her the opposite way, and was having success when Mother collapsed in a dead faint and ended up in the dirt.

  “Oh, no you don’t, woman,” Ted growled at her. “Oh, no you don’t!” He scooped her up like an invalid, stuffed her into the front seat and emphatically slammed the door. “And nothing out of you,” he huffed at Angeline, pointing a warning finger as he ducked behind the wheel.

  Angeline stood outside her pickup and watched as the Caddy roared to life. The tires spit dirt and the car started up the long driveway past the irrigation pond. It seemed Mother was finally on her way to signing those papers, but just before making the turn onto County Line Road, the passenger’s door suddenly sprang open and the woman jumped out. She hit the ground hard, rolled twice, hopped to her feet and began a mad dash for the farmhouse with arms flailing wildly.

  Angeline watched this strange drama unfold in slack-jawed amazement. Mother had always been more of a shuffler, yet here she came at full gallop. Who knew the woman could move that fast? Certainly not her husband. Ted was after her now, head craned out the driver’s-side window as he backed down the driveway in hot pursuit.

  Mother blew past Angeline, her eyes wide with panic, and vanished into the house just as the Eldorado skidded to a stop. Ted slammed the car into park then bounded after her, yelling at Sister as he passed, “Your mother’s bat shit crazy, you know that?!”

  The moment Angeline stepped through the front door and into the kitchen she could hear Stepfather bellowing from the second floor landing, “Goddammit, woman! You will not do this to me! You will not do this!” When she moved to the foot of the staircase she could see him standing outside her bedroom, pounding the locked door and yanking at the knob in exasperation. “Get your scrawny ass out here! Do you hear me?!”

  When silence answered, Stumpy threw his shoulder against the door.
But all he did was hurt himself. “Jesus H…” the man cursed aloud.

  It was a standoff. Mother wasn’t coming out and Stepfather wasn’t getting in. She’d dodged that lawyer once again. Ted turned to march back downstairs then checked his step at the sight of Angeline standing at the foot of the staircase. He continued past her with a scathing look that dared her to open her mouth. Personally I wanted to laugh in the bastard’s face, but my sister was smarter than me. She knew Stepfather’s temper and had good reason to fear the man.

  Out the front door he went, slamming it in anger behind him. The house went quiet. After a moment Angeline ascended the stairs to Mother’s door. She heard a faint muttering from the other side and leaned closer to listen.

  “…restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee…”

  “He’s gone, muh-momma,” said Angeline.

  There was a brief silence before Mother answered, “Leave me be, child.”

  Sister lingered a moment longer then slipped into her bedroom and quietly pressed the door shut. Before that latch even clicked, I knew what she was after. The girl made a beeline for the keepsake box resting atop the dresser and flipped it open. Buried at the bottom was the hand-written list of Holt County pervies. She unfolded it, took one look… and her body went cold.

  The name Harland Lee Wade had been crossed out.

  Okay. I admit it. That was totally my bad. At the time, still flush with success, scratching that pervie’s name from the list had felt so fucking right. Now I realized I’d screwed up big time. Angeline stood at the dresser, wracking her brains, trying to recall when she’d run a pen through that name. But of course she had no memory of it. Not so much as a shard. As Sister was brooding over this, she caught sight of her reflection in the dresser mirror.