Читать книгу Buried Memories - Irene Pence - Страница 13

SEVEN

Shirley laid in bed unable to sleep. She didn’t dare tell her boyfriend, Larry, about her mother’s plans. She wished she had someone she could trust to discuss her mother’s intentions. Were her sisters also involved? Had Mama talked to them about killing Wayne? Her curiosity consumed her until she finally decided to find out.

She pulled back the covers, tiptoed out of the bedroom, and headed toward her apartment’s small kitchen to call her oldest sister, Faye.

The phone rang several times before Faye’s groggy voice answered.

“What’s going on?” Faye asked, yawning.

“Have you heard from Mama lately?”

“Gosh no, not for weeks. Three at least. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why did you wake me at two in the morning to ask?”

Shirley could visualize her sister’s blue eyes widening in disbelief, but she resisted divulging anything about the murder in case her mother had been only bourbon sodden and later changed her mind. “Forget it,” she told Faye. “I just had a bad dream about Mama. I dreamt something awful happened to her.”

Faye asked, “Since when do you hold any stock in dreams?”

“You’re right,” Shirley said, “dreams don’t mean anything.” She hung up, not surprised that her mother hadn’t confided in Faye, who was known as the stalwart of the family and had never done drugs. Faye always generously opened her Mesquite home to siblings in need of a bed or a home-cooked meal.

Shirley dialed her other sisters. Connie grumbled because Shirley had called so late, but Phyllis hadn’t gone to bed. All three sisters gave identical replies. None of them had talked with their mother in weeks.

The fact that her mother had brought over her brother Bobby, now sleeping in the next bedroom, made Shirley realize that Betty wanted him out of the house so he wouldn’t be present when she murdered his stepfather. Her brother Robby lived with their father and Shirley knew better than to involve that household with her problem.

It worried her to realize that her mother had confided to no one but her, and she had to ask herself, “Why?”

Betty Barker’s nightgown clung like Saran Wrap as sweat and Wayne’s blood ran down her body. She lacked remorse or guilt over Wayne’s murder. In fact, she felt relieved to be rid of him. Now, no one could take her trailer.

Crawling out of bed, she turned on the light. The entire room glistened blood red. The sheets were crimson, blood had splashed on the walls, dribbled down the headboard creating ruby stripes, then puddled onto the floor. The back of Wayne’s head held matted hair, but blood poured though the open star-shaped wounds of burst skin.

She went to the bathroom, eager to wash the smell of Wayne’s blood from her hands. Gun powder smudged her right hand. Hiking up her nightgown, she took it off and stuffed it in the basin of cold water to soak, then threw on an old T-shirt.

Back in her bedroom, she headed for the closet. Pulling out two sheets of green plastic that a new chair had come wrapped in, she tried to tuck the plastic over and under Wayne’s body until the blood stopped seeping through onto the sheets. Then she hauled out a blue canvas sleeping bag and fully unzipped it. Little by little she rolled Wayne’s body onto it. His weight made everything take much longer than she had anticipated. Once his body lay encased in the bag, she zipped it and slowly rolled him to the edge of the bed. It was like moving a massive chunk of blue granite. She inhaled deeply to give herself strength, then gave him a healthy push. He tumbled off the bed and landed with a thud.

Nervous energy fueled her. She tossed clothes and shoes out of her closet, then inch by inch dragged him inside. She pushed and shoved, sticking him back far enough so she could slide the door shut.

She took another look at the room and groaned, then began spraying Lysol generously on the headboard, walls, and floor. Not wanting the blood to set, she scrubbed all the surfaces quickly and thoroughly. She spent much of the night washing sheets, towels, and night clothes. Repeatedly, she rinsed blood out of towels until the water ran pink, then threw them into the washing machine. With everything finally cleaned, she stood under a steaming hot shower, trying to scrub away every last trace of Barker. Now both mentally and physically exhausted, she went to bed and fell soundly asleep.

After making all the late phone calls, Shirley slept until noon. She awoke to find a note on her pillow from Larry telling her that on his way to work, he would drop Bobby off at a friend’s house to spend the night.

She strolled into the living room and was shocked to see her mother lying on the living room sofa.

Without moving, Betty said, “It’s over. I did what I told you I was going to do.”

Shirley couldn’t believe her mother’s nonchalance. They might as well have been exchanging recipes. Shirley stood frozen, and unable to speak.

Betty stoically related every detail of the murder from her problem with the pillow to stuffing his body into her closet.

Shirley’s mind dashed back to the recently dug hole in her mother’s backyard. She had actually noticed it a week before her mother had told her about it. At the time, she wondered why it had been dug, but wouldn’t have imagined Betty’s reason for its being there. Somehow an unwritten rule hung over the family that you didn’t question Mama. Betty had the knack of giving a look that said, “You better obey.” She loved her mother, but she feared asking questions that would make her angry. Lately, it didn’t take much to set Betty off into one of her strange moods.

Shirley tried to rationalize Betty’s actions by remembering her mother’s stories about Wayne Barker abusing her. Maybe a judge would consider killing a wife abuser self-defense. But what if he didn’t? What if Betty got arrested and went to prison? Shirley couldn’t consider such horror. If I don’t help her bury the body, wouldn’t Mama be more apt to get arrested? she thought.

In a small voice, Shirley asked, “Have you figured out what you’re going to do?”

“Somehow I’ve got to get his body into the barbecue pit,” Betty said wryly, with no humor in her voice.

“By yourself?” Shirley asked.

“How else? He’d be awful heavy for me to carry, but I suppose I can drag him. I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry about it. It’s not your problem.”

Shirley already felt tangled in her mother’s web and worried how the petite woman would get Wayne’s big, heavy body out to the grave by herself.

“Mama, I’ll help,” she said, suggesting the last thing she wanted to do.

Betty sat up and turned around to look at her. “You don’t have to, you know. In fact, I’m not sure I want you to.”

“I couldn’t stand for anything to happen to you.”

Betty smiled affectionately at Shirley and reached out to take her hand. With little hesitation, she said, “Okay, but we have to do it like this. You can never tell a soul. Got that? Not Larry, not your sisters, not anybody.”

“I won’t,” Shirley said. “No one will ever find out. I’d be too afraid for anyone to know. What’s next?”

“Tell Larry that Wayne and I got into a big brouhaha and I’m scared shitless of him. Say I don’t want to be home alone tonight in case he comes back and wants to hurt me again. Then you come over after dinner and we’ll wait ’til dark before we stick him in the ground.”

Shirley leaned against the wall and nodded sadly. She wanted the whole matter to disappear. How could her own mother involve her in a murder? Worse yet, what would her mother do to her if she didn’t help? She already knew what had happened to Wayne.

For the rest of the day, Betty lingered at Shirley’s house and talked. She couldn’t stop rambling on about shooting Wayne. While Shirley wanted to forget, her mother continued talking as if needing the discussion as a catharsis.

“If someone saw what looked like a grave it might attract attention,” Betty said. “And I don’t want any of those damn dogs in the neighborhood comin’ over and digging him up. Tomorrow, we’ll go to Seven Points and get some cinder blocks. We can build a patio over him and no one will ever know he’s there.”

A nearly full moon rose in the darkening October sky when Betty unlocked the front door of her trailer and pushed it open. She motioned for Shirley to go inside.

“No, you first,” Shirley said, breathing deeply to calm her jitters. Her teeth involuntarily chattered, and she thought she might throw up. Cemeteries scared her silly, let alone walking into a house that hid a dead body.

Betty went directly to the kitchen and opened the pantry where her white poodle lived while she was away from home. As the dog hopped out into the room, Betty picked him up and said, “Hello, sweetkins, have you missed your mommy? You’re my good baby aren’t you?” She reached into the pantry and retrieved a small dog biscuit. “Here, you deserve a treat. You’re such a good little boy.”

Then the smile fell from Betty’s face, and she said dispassionately, “He’s back here.”

Hesitantly, Shirley followed her mother down the hall. Betty flipped on the bedroom light, then slid back the closet door. Shirley wanted to shut her eyes, but curiosity made her look. She could see a big blue mound crouched inside. It looked like Wayne was in a sitting position.

“We need to wait until it’s so dark that we can’t see our hands in front of our faces.”

Shirley nodded, knowing it was already dark, but they first needed to bolster their determination to get through this task. “We don’t have to stay here in the house, do we?” Shirley asked. “Can’t we build a bonfire outside like we did the other night?”

Her mother nodded, and Shirley went into the fastidiously clean compact kitchen and collected milk, vodka, Kahlua, a metal pitcher, and two plastic glasses to take outside.

Once in the yard, both women used flashlights to gather branches that strong winds from the lake had blown from Betty’s trees.

Shirley glanced up at the velvety black sky. With fewer city lights to compete with their intensity, the stars glittered brightly and looked close enough to touch.

Betty scooped up several armfuls of leaves and scattered them over the dry wood. Her match ignited the leaves, and they flamed instantly. Now they had a fire that warmed their bodies and distracted their minds from what waited inside the closet.

A car roared by with a loud muffler, and Betty turned to look.

Shirley watched her mother’s silhouette against the fire, then shifted her attention to the flickering sparks until they rose above the trees and the wind swept them away. She tried to focus on the fire’s glowing red ashes and curling gray smoke, but her mother wanted to talk about Wayne’s last five minutes. Shirley had already heard too much, but she let her mother get it off her chest while she slipped into an illusion of listening. She inhaled the smoke and thought of happier family times—going on family vacations, taking off for an afternoon of shopping at one of the Dallas malls, and having Christmas dinners with her big family sitting around a white clothed table.

Shirley mixed the ingredients she brought and made a pitcher of white Russians. The women sipped and talked and soon both of them could feel the intoxicating fumes of the sweet Kahlua. After a couple hours, Betty glanced at her watch. “Almost midnight,” she said. “It’s time.”

Staggering, Shirley slowly stood up, extended a hand to her mother, and looked into her eyes. Betty had that “business as usual” demeanor that Shirley found impossibly hard to accept under the circumstances. It seemed ludicrous to be disposing of a body with the woman who always reminded her to wash her hands before dinner.

They trudged back inside the trailer and swayed down the hall. Once in the bedroom, Betty opened the closet door and tugged on the sleeping bag. Wayne’s body felt as heavy as concrete, so they began dragging him. Shirley grabbed what felt like feet while Betty labored with the upper torso. Shirley saw an outline of a head through the heavy canvas as her mother took hold of it. Both women bent over at the waist and panted hard while they slowly slid the body across the carpeted floor. Then they dragged it down the hall and out through the trailer’s rear exit.

When they first went outside with the sleeping bag, the moonlight shined impossibly bright. Shirley glanced at the road, worried that someone would come driving down their street, or have Ray Price come by, the security officer who made routine drive-throughs of the area. All noises seemed magnified. Cicadas buzzed loudly and waves from Cedar Creek Lake slapped against brick and stone retaining walls as the women bounced Wayne Barker down the three back steps. Then they jostled him over ground that held thin, sparse grass because of the ever-present shade. While he lay by the side of the grave, the women cleared out the loosely crumbled soil with shovels Betty had hidden under the trailer. They rolled him into the four-foot-deep opening and tried to flatten him as best they could. Then unceremoniously, they picked up their shovels and blanketed him with dirt, one spadeful at a time. As Barker became more concealed, moonlight shined on the mound that grew disturbingly high, forcing them to scoop the rest of the soil into flower beds and pots—anywhere to camouflage the existence of a grave.

“Cinder blocks will hide all that,” Betty said, slurring her words.

After they finished their chore, they went back into the house and got very drunk.

Shirley lay awake all night in the spare bedroom at her mother’s. With Bobby at a friend’s house for the night, she had access to the trailer’s only other bedroom. Every time she thought of her mother sleeping in the next room, the room where she’d killed Wayne Barker the night before, chills bounced up and down her spine.

The next morning, Shirley sluggishly pulled herself out of bed and went over to the window. Sunshine walked across the lawn, mottled by trees, but enhanced the mound of dirt she had hoped was only a bad dream. She rubbed her pounding head, feeling much older than her twenty-four years. Then she jumped as music blared from her mother’s room.

In no time her mother stood at Shirley’s bedroom door. Shirley squinted in disbelief. Betty looked pretty. She wore a pair of freshly pressed jeans, a soft turquoise sweater, and perennially perfect makeup. “Time to rise and shine,” Betty said pertly. “I’ll go put on the coffee and make some toast. We’ve got to get to Seven Points and pick up those blocks we talked about.”