The Dead and the Dying (28 page)

Florence Madison

The knife goes in easily, perforating the skin and sinking deep into the flesh. I pause for a moment before pulling the blade back out, and there's a hint of blood smeared on the cold metal. Done. Easy.

Except, this is just a leg of lamb from the supermarket. Next time, in theory, it'll be a human abdomen.

Having finally packed Abe and Milly back off to their homes, I'm standing in my kitchen. I've been using the internet to research the best ways to deal with an opponent, and a knife wound to the belly seems like the most appropriate method. There'll be a lot of blood, of course, but there are two main benefits to this choice: first, so long as she doesn't get immediate medical help, she'll have no chance of survival; and second, it'll hurt. A lot. She'll die in agony, just as my poor son died in agony five years ago. I just hope she'll understand, as her life drains away, that she deserves such a wretched fate.

Putting the knife down, I realize that my hands are shaking. Damn it, if I get like this when I stab a leg of lamb, what am I going to be like when I kill Cassie Briggs? There's a part of me that thinks I should practice a little more and maybe hone my skills, but there's another part of me that insists I'll be able to do the job when the time comes. Just because I'm a 57-year-old woman, there's no reason why I can't summon all my anger and rage and use it to teach that little bitch a lesson. People kill every day; children kill, women kill, men kill... I'm not some fragile little thing. The thought of paying Cassie Briggs back for what she did, and making her die in agony, fills me with passion. Since Bobby died, I've been on auto-pilot, waiting for the police to do their jobs and bring that whore to justice. Now that they've dropped the ball, it's my turn. I have no choice.

As I place the leg of lamb in the oven, I hear someone knocking on the screen door. I wipe my hands before going over to answer, and to my surprise I find Sheriff Mulcahy waiting on the porch.

"How can I help you?" I ask, trying to stay calm as I open the door.

"I was just driving past," he replies, taking off his hat, "and I saw your light on. Figured I'd pop by and see how you're doing."

"I'm fine," I reply. "Just preparing a little slow-cooking for tomorrow's lunch."

"That's good," he says. "Good to see you're keeping busy." He pauses. "I'm guessing you heard the news, Florence. We've got an unwelcome element back in town. Now, I want you to know that I lobbied hard to stop this from happening. I wrote the governor of the jail several times, warning him that the girl isn't wanted back here, but I never got a reply. I guess it's a free country and she can go wherever she wants." He glances past me, and he seems to have spotted something over on the counter.

Following his gaze, I spot the large knife that I used to slice into the leg of lamb just a few minutes ago.

"Making something nice?" he asks.

"Abe and Milly are coming over," I say, turning back to him. "As usual. I like to keep them well-fed. They don't have anyone else."

"That's very charitable of you, Florence." He pauses, and it's clear that something's on his mind. "I can't run her out of town," he says eventually. "If she's determined to stay here, there's nothing I can do about it unless she breaks the law again. I'd imagine she'll be pretty smart and keep a low profile for a while. I'm gonna keep an eye on her, so if she so much as sneezes in the wrong place, I'll be all over her, but I just wanted you to know that even if it seems like nothing's being done, I'm on the case."

"I appreciate that," I reply, keen to get rid of him as quickly as possible.

"It must be hard for you to deal with all of this," he continues. "If you want to talk about it, Florence -"

"I don't see what good that would do," I say. "As far as she's concerned, she's got away with it all. She was always a very self-centered young woman, so I imagine she intends to just saunter around and act as if nothing happened."

"She won't be allowed to do that," Mulcahy says. "People have long memories, Florence. They know what she did, even if the law couldn't pin her down. She'll find that most doors in this town are shut to her, and I'll see to it that she can't get a job. There's nothing for her here. Even her family aren't gonna want anything to do with her. I guess what I'm saying is that you just need to be patient. Maybe it looks right now like she's got away with murder, literally, but her chickens are gonna come home to roost, I promise you that. She'll be run out of town one way or the other."

"There's really no need," I reply. "What will be will be."

He nods. "You want me to come in for a while? If you need some company..."

"I'll be fine," I tell him. "Really. Sometimes it can be very therapeutic just to be alone. It can get so tiring, having people around all the time. I just got off the phone with Becky, which was tiring enough."

"Okay," he replies, looking a little disappointed. "Well, if you change your mind, you know where I am. Any time, day or night, I'm here for you." He pauses, and for a moment I'm worried that he might say something inappropriate, but finally he turns and makes his way back toward his patrol car.

Once he's gone, I bolt the door and head back through to the kitchen. I don't know why I feel so nervous, but I need to get a grip. I've waited five years for Cassie Briggs to get what's coming to her, and I had faith that the justice system would deal with her. I'm she's very pleased with herself for beating the system and getting away with murder, but my son's death has to be avenged. It's a shame that in this day and age, an elderly woman has to do such things herself, but it seems that I have no choice. Finally, a strange and sudden sense of calm descends upon me. This time tomorrow, Cassie Briggs will be dead, and if I have to lose my liberty as a result, then so be it. I have no choice. A murder can't go unpunished. That little runt has to pay for what she did to my son.

Cassie Briggs

"So what's it like in jail?" asks Nate, my younger brother, as we sit at the dinner table.

"Nate, don't ask such things!" my mother hisses, before smiling at me. "You'll have to excuse him. He's not mature enough to ask sensible questions."

"It's fine," I mutter, glancing over at my father. Since he walked through the door a couple of hours ago, my father has been very quiet. He welcomed me home, but he did it in a very formal manner that makes me thing that he's not entirely happy to see me. I know he hated the attention that our family received after my very public, very high-profile arrest all those years ago, and I guess he's worried that - just as things seemed to have settled - it might all be starting up again now that I'm home. I swear, since we started eating, he hasn't looked up from his plate once. He's just staring at his food, eating slowly, and letting the rest of us carry the conversation.

"Did you stab anyone?" Nate asks.

Smiling, I shake my head.

"Did you
see
anyone get stabbed?"

Again, I shake my head.

"Were there, like, gang fights?"

"No gang fights," I say. At twenty-one, Nate's only a couple of years younger than me, but he still acts like a goddamn teenager. I don't know whether all the drama surrounding our family has somehow stunted his emotional development, or whether there might actually be something a little wrong in his head, but he's got this kind of playful, carefree enthusiasm that seems disarmingly simplistic.

"What the hell kind of jail did they send you to?" he asks, sounding a little disappointed. "Didn't you see anything fucked-up?"

"Language!" my mother says, reaching across and slapping his hand.

"I was just asking!" he tells her. "That's the kind of language they use in jail, Mom. They curse all the time, like sailors or soldiers."

"Not in a women's jail," my mother replies.

I can't help but smile at her willful naivety.

"It's okay," Nate whispers conspiratorially, leaning over to me. "You can tell me about all the blood and stuff later."

"It really wasn't like that," I reply, glancing first at my mother and then at my father. "I don't really wanna talk about it too much, but it wasn't like you see in movies. It was..." I pause for a moment, hoping in vain that my father might actually look at me. "It really wasn't the way people imagine," I continue, turning back to my brother. "Seriously, most of the people I met were kind of okay. It's like high school, really. You just have to learn to navigate the different social channels, work out what to do and what not to do, and occasionally watch your back. The key is to not have any ego. If you're willing to back down but be polite, people kinda leave you alone."

"That's nice," my mother says. "I went to Collinsville the other day," she adds, obviously trying to change the subject, "and I drove past the most beautiful field of -"

"Were there lesbians in jail?" Nate asks suddenly, interrupting her. "Like, all those women all held together, they've gotta start doing stuff."

"Nate!" my mother hisses.

"Were
you
a lesbian while you were in there?" he asks, his eyes as wide as saucers.

"Enough!" my father shouts suddenly.

We all turn to him.

"Go to your room," he says, staring at my brother with pure anger in his eyes.

"You can't tell me to go to my room," Nate replies nervously. "I'm twenty-one years old."

"Go to your goddamn room," my father says again.

Sighing, Nate gets to his feet, grabs his plate, and slopes off toward his bedroom, leaving the rest of us to sit in silence. Looking over at my mother, I can see that she's terrified.

"That boy needs to learn some manners," my father continues, clearly trying to contain his anger. "Where the hell did he learn to talk like that at the dinner table? If he wants to talk about jails and gangs and all that other stuff over dinner, he can go and get his own goddamn house and his own goddamn table." He pauses. "Sometimes I think that boy should get the hell out of here. He's too old to be living at home. Christ, it's embarrassing when a kid doesn't have the goddamn brains to strike out on his own. I left home when I was sixteen, for God's sake."

"So did I," I say, hoping to make him smile. "Not quite the same way, though. I was more... led out of home in handcuffs."

"You think this is funny?" he asks.

"No, Sir," I reply, looking down at my plate. My father never had much of a sense of humor, but I used to be able to make him smile occasionally. It seems the past five years have changed him.

"It's different with you," he continues. "You've got an excuse."

"I'm not sure that's quite the right word," I mutter.

"So what's your plan?" he asks, fixing me with a determined stare. It's clear that the question was meant more as a challenge than an inquiry. "Now you're out," he continues, "what are you planning to do with the rest of your life?"

"She's not
out
," my mother says. "She was exonerated."

"Same thing," he says firmly, still staring at me.

"She's got options," my mother adds.

"Job options?"

I take a deep breath. "I was thinking that maybe -"

"Maybe?" he says, as if the word offends him. "Maybe? You've had five years to sit around in a federal prison, with nothing to do all day, and when you get out, you don't have any definite plans for the future?"

"I need to work out where I stand," I tell him.

"What does that mean?"

"It means she's considering her options," my mother says firmly.

"Oh," he replies, sitting back in his chair. "And who's gonna support you while you're considering your options? Who's gonna feed you? Where are you gonna live?"

"I'm going to live here," I say, once again feeling a tightening sensation in my chest.

"Of course she is," my mother adds.

"For how long?" he asks.

"I don't know," I tell him. "Right now, everything seems crazy, and I'm not quite sure what's happening. I need to work out where I can get a job. I mean, when I went to jail, the economy was kinda sliding, and it sounds like things haven't got back to normal yet, so I need to..." I pause as I realize that he's staring at me with that cool, calm stare of unmitigated fury that I remember so well from my childhood. My father's never been a violent man, but the
threat
of violence has always been a very real thing in our house, as if we're supposed to feel lucky that he's never overstepped the line. "It's not easy to plan your way back into the world," I say eventually, "until you know what the world's like these days."

"She has options," my mother says again.

"Such as?" my father asks.

"She wants me to sign a book deal," I tell him, ignoring the look of shock on my mother's face now that I've blurted out her little secret. "There's a lot of money in it, enough for me to start again, but I haven't made a decision yet."

"Book deal, huh?" he replies sniffily. "How you gonna write a book? Wouldn't you have to, like, tell the truth?"

I take a deep breath, feeling as if someone just kicked me hard in the chest.

"Wouldn't you have to say what really happened with Bobby Madison on the day he died?" my father continues. "That's what people read books for, isn't it? The truth? I know you weren't interested in telling the truth to the police. You chose to sit around in jail for five years until they got sick of you, rather than telling anyone what really happened. But you can't write a book like that. You have to give the facts, nothing less. That's what people want." He pauses, fixing me with a determined stare. "Anyway, how the hell would
you
write a book? You gonna sit her with your Mom and type away?"

"I've already told the truth about what happened," I tell him, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

"With big holes in the middle of the story," he replies. "Chunks left out, that kind of thing. Seems like a strange thing for an innocent girl to do."

"Neil, please," my mother whispers, leaning over and putting a hand on his arm. "Let's not get into this now."

"The truth's easy," he continues, ignoring her appeal for calm. "The truth's the easiest thing in the world to tell. Ain't no shame in the truth. Ain't no reason to keep it from people."

"It's not as easy as that," I tell him.

"What's not as easy as that?" he replies. "Telling the truth? You find that hard, do you? How come? It's easy. Just sit down, and tell what happened, every step of the way. There's no goddamn reason why you can't just do that, but instead you act all strange and tell bits of the story and then you leave other bits out. I mean, goddamn it, girl, there's no wonder -"

I wait for him to finish. "No wonder what?" I ask.

"Never mind," he says, pushing his plate away. "I'm gonna work in the garage tonight. I've got a lot to do."

"Do you think I killed Bobby Madison?" I ask.

"Cassie!" my mother hisses.

"Do you think I killed Bobby Madison?" I ask again, staring at my father. As I wait for him to give me an answer, I can see the look of evasion in his eyes. "It's a simple question," I continue, determined not to let him off the hook. "The truth's easy, so tell me what you truly think. Do you believe that I killed Bobby Madison?"

He pauses. "You haven't been straight with people," he says eventually, getting to his feet. "You haven't told the truth, and people have a right to wonder what you're hiding."

"Do you think I killed Bobby Madison?" I ask yet again, struggling to hold back the tears.

"How can I answer that question," he replies after a moment, "when you won't tell anyone the truth about what really happened? How can anyone not have doubts, when you're not being straight?"

"But you know me," I say, my voice trembling. "I'm your daughter. You must know that I couldn't kill someone."

"I'll be in the garage," he replies, briefly putting a hand on my mother's shoulder as he heads to the door. "Don't wait up. I might be a while."

With tears in her eyes, my mother stares at me. Her bottom lip is trembling, and I can see that she's close to a goddamn nervous breakdown. I guess I should go over there and hug her, and tell her everything's going to be okay, but right now I've got this horrible aching feeling in my chest, as if my heart's about to burst open. Getting up from my chair, I hurry to the back door and out into the darkness of the garden. Right now, I just need to be alone. In fact, I wish I could curl up into a ball and disappear completely.