Betrayed: Powerful Stories of Kick-Ass Crime Survivors Page 13

  Something formed in her gut, an urge to make Ronnie pay for everything he’d ever done to her. “Fuck you, Ronnie. You clean it up.”

  Beth searched the house for places where Ronnie usually stashed the money he’d gotten when he cashed his paycheck. She pocketed some loose bills on the nightstand where he dumped them the night before, but it was far from enough. Ronnie must have kept the cash on him, so he’d look like the big man down at the bar. But he wouldn’t have taken it to work with him. Beth scoured the place for anything she could take and sell for a quick buck. Ronnie wasn’t into jewelry, watches, or electronics. A survey of the house confirmed there was little there she could sell for an instant score.

  In the garage, she found all of Ronnie’s power tools. She could take them, but they were too bulky and heavy. She grabbed a pair of sharp wire cutters and snipped off the plugs on all the tool power cords. She would have loved to see his face when he saw this little present. But then again, she’d seen where that anger led.

  Beth went back into the house and tore apart the closets, drawers, and shelves for the hidden cash. Thirty minutes of fruitless searching left her exhausted and frustrated. She parked on the sofa and contemplated giving up and what that would mean—living penniless on the street, but that was still safer than living with him.

  She wanted to toss an ashtray through Ronnie’s precious big screen television, but something stopped her. Beth had seen the VCR player a million times, but never really looked at it. Ronnie warned her to stay away from it, which, of itself wasn’t so unusual. But, Beth couldn’t recall a single time when he’d played a VCR tape—ever.

  Beth knelt in front of the television and pushed the power button on the VCR. Nothing happened, not a light, not the whirring of components inside the box—nothing. She reached around the back of the VCR housing and discovered there wasn’t a power cord coming from the box. The top cover came off in her hands when she ran them around the edges of the VCR. The guts—all the electronics and gizmos that should have been inside a VCR were gone. In their place, Ronnie had stashed cash, pills, and a half dozen credit cards in other people’s names.

  She grabbed the cash and a quick, rough count told her there was more than ten thousand dollars in rubber-banded rolls. Beth shoved the cash in her duffle, poured the pills in the toilet, and flushed them away. She took the credit cards to the sink. As she cut the first card with a pair of scissors, Beth heard a noise from the front of the house. Heavy footfalls sounded on the front porch.

  Beth parted the blinds in the living room and spotted Ronnie’s truck parked in the drive.

  She started to run to the back door, but the front lock was already turning. She’d never make it. She was trapped. Beth ran for the bedroom and pulled the closet door closed as Ronnie opened the front door.

  “Shit,” she whispered to herself. Her duffel bag was in the living room.

  “What the fuck?” Ronnie’s voice carried through the entire house.

  She heard his footsteps in the kitchen, crunching on broken glass.

  “Where are you? I know you’re still here.”

  Beth pushed back in the closet as far as she could. She spotted him entering the bedroom, holding the butcher knife ahead as he pressed into the room.

  He looked under the bed. “You can’t hide from me, you worthless whore. I want my shit back.”

  Beth’s arm brushed against a cold, metallic object in the back of the closet. Immediately, she knew it was Ronnie’s shotgun.

  She watched Ronnie through a crack in the door as he soft-stepped to the bathroom. He raised the knife blade overhead and with his free hand, ripped the shower curtain aside. He started to plunge the knife downward, but realized Beth wasn’t hiding there.

  He intended to kill her. It was clear. It was final. She was going to die today.

  While the shower curtain was still in Ronnie’s hand, Beth rushed from the closet. It didn’t even register that she held the shotgun in her hands until she raised the barrel.

  Ronnie turned. “What do you think you’re gonna do?” The knife twitched in Ronnie’s hand while he spoke.

  Beth froze, the barrel pointed at Ronnie.

  “The broken glass, your prescription abuse, and threatening me with a gun—the cops won’t question why I had to kill you.”

  “Leave, Ronnie.”

  “Bitch, who are you to tell me to leave my own house?”

  “I mean it,” Beth said.

  “So do I,” he said and lunged at her with the blade.

  Beth pulled the trigger and the sound was deafening in the small bathroom. Ronnie flew backward from the blast. An orchid of blood covered the tile wall behind him.

  She stepped to where he fell, pointed the gun at him again and pulled the trigger. The shotgun clicked on an empty chamber. He was dead, his soul already claimed in hell. She felt nothing.

  Beth moved in a numb, practiced routine. She needed to clean up her mess. She’d taken care of her blood before. This was little different. Ronnie’s body was wrapped up in the shower curtain. The blood-soaked towels she used to clean the bathroom went in with him before she duct taped the curtain tight around his warm body.

  With some effort, she dragged Ronnie to the back door, through the broken glass, and onto the back porch. The glass shards tore the plastic curtain and left streaks of blood behind.

  Beth pulled his truck as close as she could and muscled the body into the bed. She covered it with a tarp she found in the garage. She gathered all of her cleaning supplies and went about eliminating obvious signs of Ronnie’s death. By dusk, she was done. All visible evidence of a shotgun sendoff was erased, along with any indication that she’d broken into the place and ransacked it looking for his cash.

  After dark, Beth still felt numb—no remorse, no sadness, and no regret for what she’d done. She drove Ronnie’s truck out past Pine Lake, a remote wooded area of National Forest land. She drove for about a mile on a dirt fire road until she found a wide turnout on the shoulder.

  Beth walked to the back of the truck, lowered the tailgate, and pulled Ronnie’s body to the ground. It landed with a loud thump that made Beth jump. She half feared Ronnie would still be alive under all that plastic curtain and tape. She kicked the body over the embankment and it rolled a few feet down the incline before it came to rest against a tree. She looked at his remains one last time before she drove back home.

  Entering the house felt different. Beth knew Ronnie wasn’t going to hurt her ever again; she was safe—safe in her own home.

  Beth unpacked her duffle bag, put her things away, and placed the music box on the living room shelf. It wasn’t going to be stuffed away in a tiny bedroom closet anymore. Even if it were broken, like her, it would never be hidden again.

  Two days later, Beth was arrested. Ronnie’s body was found by a Forest Service employee, blood in the back of the truck, and trace fibers on the body led investigators directly back to Beth. She never once denied what she’d done. She recounted the ordeal a dozen times for the detectives. And here she was.

  Flash bulbs popped and shook Beth from her memory.

  “Mrs. Wallace?” Detective Hall asked.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “If it was self-defense, as you claim, why didn’t call us right away? Why did you clean up all the evidence and hide his body?”

  Beth shook her head. “I don’t know—I was afraid. Ronnie always told me no one would believe anything I ever said. He said I didn’t matter. I did the only thing I could think of. I got him out of the house so he couldn’t hurt me anymore.”

  Detective Hall leaned forward. “You came back here and hid with the intention of killing him, didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You could have run.”

  “I have nowhere to run to.”

  “So you shot him?”

  “Yes—yes I did.”

  The detective sat back, looked at the recent scar on her arm, the fresh bruises
on her face, and closed his notebook.

  “Mrs. Walker, I believe you. But you’re going to be asked, in front of a jury—why you felt you had to kill him?”

  “I was tired of running, of hiding and lying for him. I was supposed to be the one who died. No one would be asking those questions if Ronnie was the one sitting here. I don’t have to run anymore.”

  Without being touched, the music box started to play. The music never sounded so rich, so vibrant and clear.

  Beth was escorted out of the home, in handcuffs, but she’d never felt as free. The music told her it would be okay.

  #

  Author’s Note:

  While Beth’s ordeal is a fictional tale of surviving spousal abuse, it is, unfortunately, based on three real accounts of domestic violence. For over twenty years, I worked in the correctional system—probation, prison and parole in California. During that time, there were several women who ended up behind bars, partially due to the failure of the system to protect them. The women I most vividly recall were failed by health care professionals, who were too busy to notice or question obvious signs of abuse. They were again failed by law enforcement, who were quick to find an easier answer and shift the blame. Finally, the social service network and the lack of available services to assist women in crisis failed them. Like Beth, they felt they had no other avenue but to take matters into their own hands with a final, deadly response.

  I hope Beth’s story, along with the other stories in this anthology, will bring added attention to the helplessness of the victims and scarcity of resources available to those touched by personal violence. If one person in Beth’s timeline stepped forward, the cycle of abuse and trauma could have been stopped. Beth could have avoided entanglement in the criminal justice system and stepped out of an abusive environment. Look for the signs, listen to what’s being said—and maybe someone’s music will continue to play.

  # # #

  The Sound of a Wound

  By D.V. Bennett

  The way it rains in a seaside town makes wipers almost useless, but I have a little trick. In warmer weather, I rub a thin coat of wax on the windshield. The water runs off at times like these to give me an unobstructed view, and we would need one when Maybelle Jarreau walked out of the bar.

  Barry’s Bullpen is a one-hundred-year-old dive. No one knows who “Barry” was anymore, and none of the bar’s patrons care. It smells like stale cigarette smoke, urine, and unguarded perspiration from at least forty feet away. If I owned the place, the first thing I’d invest in is an ozone machine.

  “May” isn’t like anyone else who works there. She’s a gem, but she’s raising two kids by herself and she needs the money. What she doesn’t need is the stress.

  I’ve tried to help her find gainful employment elsewhere, but times are tough in Brinks Harbor, Maine. The Brinks is a fishing community as old as the nation. It’s full of tough men and women doing tough work.

  If it sounds like a blast from the Neanderthal past, it might be in some ways, but it’s a still a decent place to live, and right after high school graduation, May met a man and fell in love with him there.

  * * *

  An only child, Carson Francois Brinks was a young man of local lineage and small celebrity, something he desperately wished to change. The great-great-great-great-grandson of the town founder and his personal namesake, Carson was always looking for something better and grander than what he had and who he was.

  May was satisfied with making Carson happy. She came from a humble family south of the harbor. One of six siblings and the daughter of a carpenter and a seamstress, she gave up a good scholarship to a school in Maryland to stay in the Brinks and live near Carson, much to her parents’ dismay.

  When she told her boyfriend a possible Carson Jr. had appeared in her belly, May invited him to move in with her, but Carson had already mapped out his future and having a runny-nosed little kid bearing his name didn’t fit into his plans.

  May cried. She pleaded, but Carson maintained the argument that since he didn’t know if he was the father, he couldn’t lay any claim to the child and forbade her to call the baby by his name. If May’s heart had been crushed at first, his final words had torn it from her chest.

  Four months after giving birth to a healthy baby boy, she honored Carson’s wishes and named her son Marcelle, after her favorite uncle. For the next eleven months, she raised the baby on her own, until she bumped into Carson one day while shopping at The Harbor Market.

  Their conversation was awkward at first. Stilted. She remarked about the weather and congratulated him on his latest business venture. He congratulated himself on his latest business venture. When their conversation turned to the baby food and box of disposable diapers in her shopping cart, they both became quiet.

  He moved closer to take her hand in his. Something within her prevented her from withdrawing it. She left it on the handle of the cart and he caressed the back of her hand with his thumb.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  The resonance of his voice bathed her in the past, in the memory of when she had time to sleep, make breakfast and do the dishes. She remembered those lazy Sunday mornings when she had the man in front of her to curl up with in a warm bed.

  “Thank you” was the only reply she could push past the lump in her throat.

  “It’s time for our lives to change.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to be close to you again, May.”

  She leaned forward, wanting it, but she also had a measure of pride left, and it shoved a wedge between her heart and her acquiescence.

  “Why don’t I make you dinner tomorrow night?” She rearranged a couple of items in the cart. “We can talk about it then.”

  His eyes narrowed. “We’re talking about it here, now. Isn’t that good enough for you?”

  “It’s a lot to consider is all.” Without realizing it, she pulled her hand away.

  Carson latched onto her upper arm. He didn’t squeeze it. He left his grip loose, but the muscles in his hand formed a hard ring around her slender bicep. He let her know she wouldn’t move until he wanted her to.

  She stared at his hand on her arm and then into his eyes.

  He let go of her, holding his palms up. “Alright, I didn’t mean anything. It’s only…”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to see my son.”

  Carson saw his son the next evening, and almost every weekday evening afterward for the next several months. When May found out she was expecting their second child, she found herself in a quandary. The last time she had told Carson she was pregnant, he had expressed indifference before abandoning her.

  Of course, things were different between them now, and she expected Carson to move in with her. He had practically moved in already, except for weekends. Every Friday he left on business trips. She worried about him being out on the road, covering so many miles alone.

  It was Monday, and on the way to pick up Marcelle from the daycare, she would go to the market and get what she needed to prepare a special dish, his favorite. Asian noodles with sautéed mushrooms, shrimp, and spring rolls.

  Carson enjoyed the meal, making a show of how full he was after eating. When May had cleared the dishes and they had moved to the sofa, Carson slipped an arm around her shoulders. While stroking her long, dark hair, he told her she would make some man a fine little wife.

  May laughed, and the timing seemed right to her, so she smiled and told him he was going to be a father again.

  Carson was silent for a few moments, and then the hard bones of his hand smashed against her nose, bouncing her head against the sofa back. Her eyes widened as she swam her way through a pool of unexpected emotions: shock, disbelief, recognition, fear.

  He stood, shook his head, looked down at the floor, and lashed out again, smacking the top of her head several times. She recoiled with one hand in the air above her head and one in front of her face, but the blows stopped and the ye
lling started.

  He berated her for not using protection, asking her if she had been taking “stupid pills” instead of birth control pills. How could she have been so careless? How could she have allowed this to happen when he was barely getting used to having a first child? Did she seriously believe having another kid was going to put chains on his hands and feet?

  “You stupid, stupid bitch.”

  She sat, stunned, covering up, hoping he wouldn’t hit her again, before she finally noticed he had already left. Reeling from the sting of pain, she pulled a Kleenex from the box on the coffee table and dabbed her nose. It wasn’t bleeding, but it hurt like hell. Stretching out on the cushions, she suppressed a sob, but it pushed back until it became a long, deep, undeniable wail.

  Late the next afternoon, a dozen roses with no card attached were delivered to May at the bookstore where she worked. Her co-workers laughed, teasing her about a mystery man, but she knew they were from Carson. She marched them out the back door as everyone watched and raised the dumpster lid.

  One woman a decade older than May called after her, “Don’t get flowers too many times in your life. Maybe you should wait a little bit before you toss them.”

  As she fed and bathed Marcelle and put him to bed, did laundry, nuked and nibbled at a frozen dinner, the roses colored everything in her home with resentment and confusion.

  She dropped her uneaten dinner in the garbage and cried herself to sleep.

  The next several days passed without a word from Carson, and when the roses wilted, her hopes of being part of a complete family withered with them. She laid them in the trash can and closed the lid, wishing she had done so in the first place.

  It was time to make changes, so she swallowed her pride and called her mother to ask for help.

  “Honey, your father and I love you, but you’ve made your bed, and you’re the one who has to lie in it.” She went on to say she and May’s father still had two other daughters who weren’t married or pregnant, and she wanted to encourage one act before the other. She was sorry, but perhaps their older sister’s example wouldn’t be the best one to have in a home with impressionable sisters.