Bitch Factor (39 page)

A.
Look at those poor little dead things
, Aunt Alice said.
Kid, you got a mean streak like your daddy
. My daddy was a gray photograph in my bureau drawer… a blue button Mama ripped from his coat the day he walked out—Mama screaming at him not to go. Don’t
say anything bad about my daddy
, I told Aunt Alice.
He’s coming back
. She laughed, her bathing suit all pink and shining like a freshcut
watermelon.
Think your mamad take him back?
she said.
Him walking out, leaving her with no money and a snot-nose brat to raise?
I tried to squirm out of her grasp.
Daddy’s coming to take me with him
, I told her.

Rebecca abruptly stopped talking. She looked away from Rashly.

Q. He didn’t come back, did he?

A. Mama cried… the day Daddy left.
You’re the reason he’s gone
, she yelled at me.
We did fine till you were due to be born. Then I lost my figure and your daddy started slipping around with that Cindy Lou from the dime store
. Cindy Lou looked like the women in the magazines at the bottom of Daddy’s closet. Mama looked like Aunt Alice.

Q. Mrs. Payne, your youngest daughter, Ellie—

A. I’ll tell this my way, or I won’t tell it.

Rashly nodded, reassuringly.

Q. You go right ahead, ma’am. You were saying…?

A. Aunt Alice made me carry the kittens to the garden. The ground was hard-packed. Digging in it, even with the sharp-edged shovel, blistered my hands. The blisters burst and stung.
Make them holes deeper
, Aunt Alice said.
Don’t want no mongrel sniffing around, raking ’em back up
. I scooped out another layer of dirt. Then Aunt Alice laid a kitten in the hole… its mouth sagging… the pink tip of its tongue hanging out.
What good were they?
I asked, hating her for what she’d said about Daddy.
They couldn’t eat or play or anything
. Her fingers struck, like a snapping turtle, pinching.
You heartless little snipe. Someone ought to drown you like you drowned those helpless little kittens
. I hated Aunt Alice for being there, for taking Mama’s side about everything and taking Daddy’s chair at the table. I jammed the pointed shovel into her fat leg, gouging blood.
Jesus Christ! You little shit!
The blood bubbled up and oozed over her knee.

Dixie felt a chill roll down her back. Rebecca’s face had flushed with rage. The veins in her neck bulged out in the harsh overhead light.

When she didn’t speak for a moment, Rashly prompted her gently.

Q. And then…?

A. I threw down the shovel and ran. Aunt Alice pushed herself to her feet. She looked like a big pink slug, fat rippling on her arms and neck… blood running down her leg. I stumbled over the kitten box and fell, striking the hard plastic pool with my nose and splashing facedown in the shallow water. Tried to get up, but Aunt Alice held my shoulders. I coughed and choked and looked up through water that was turning red with the blood from my nose. Aunt Alice’s face was there above the pool… all flushed and grinning like an evil jack-o’-lantern.
You want to make things dead, brat? Kill helpless creatures? I’ll show you how it feels to be helpless
. She pushed me down fighting back was useless. Then the pressure let up. I shot out of the water, gulping air.
You gonna kill any more kittens, brat?
Her eyes bulged… then suddenly she tumbled into the pool, on top of me. At first I didn’t know what had happened, thought she was still trying to hold me down. My lungs were on fire, my head ringing. I managed to crawl from under her weight and got my head above the water. Once I could breathe, I realized she wasn’t moving. The blood had stopped pouring from her leg. Her wheezing had stopped. I climbed out of the pool, scooted into the shadows near the back porch, and sat watching her for a long time… afraid she was dead. And afraid she wasn’t.

Ben Rashly rubbed a hand over his face as if to wipe away the grisly image. He glanced toward the one-way glass.

“Jesus,” Belle said. “Can you imagine how alone and frightened that child must have felt?”

“Not half as alone and frightened as her own daughter when she was pulled to the bottom of that lake.” Dixie frowned at Belle. “You’re
not
saying you’d represent her?”

“You know I can’t, after hearing this confession. What I’m saying is if I were her attorney, I’d never let her answer these questions.”

Q. Mrs. Payne, can I get you anything? Some water?

Rebecca shook her head, but Rashly nodded at the one-way glass, and someone behind Dixie left the room.

A. Old Mr. Belsen from next door called an ambulance. He took me in his house and wiped the dried blood off my nose. The men in the ambulance said Aunt Alice must have suffered a heart attack while digging in the hot sun. Injured herself with the shovel and passed out in the pool. Nobody noticed the blisters on my hands. After a while… when the police didn’t come to take me away… I realized they might not know I killed Aunt Alice… that I plunged the shovel into her leg and caused a heart attack. I was glad she was dead.

“Textbook classic,” Dixie told Belle. “Early abuse, cruelty to animals.”

“Dixie, at nine years old, she believed she was a murderer.”

“She
was
a murderer. She murdered the kittens.”

Q. Who took care of you after… your aunt died?

A. Mama paid the old couple next door, the Belsens, to let me stay with them after school. Mr. Belsen knew my father. A
fine man, good with his hands
, Mr. Belsen told me, while he sawed pieces of wood to build birdhouses and window planters he sold in town.
Your father used to come over, bring a big jug of iced tea, and we’d talk into the night A dreamer, your daddy. Always scheming to make a dollar
. I sanded the pieces when Mr. Belsen finished cutting them…. Sometimes I imagined my daddy and I were building things together. But
Mrs
. Belsen didn’t like me. White hair, broomstick legs… she spent a lot of time in bed—because of her bad hip. Said her walker was too slow. She’d just push a buzzer and yell.
What are you doing out there?
Her bedroom window opened right beside the workshop… and she had this loud, whiny voice.
Doesn’t that child have homework or something? Bring me a Coke
.

She could think of a thousand reasons to ring that buzzer.

The detective who had left the room came back in carrying
a tray with a pitcher of water and two glasses. He opened the door to the interrogation room carefully and set the tray on the table. Instead of leaving, he checked the camera, then leaned against a wall, just out of Rebecca’s line of sight. She seemed not to notice.

Rashly poured two glasses of water.

Q. You and Mr. Belsen, though, you got along okay?

Rebecca nodded.

A. Three days a week, he took his birdhouses and planters to a store in town. He said I should answer the buzzer—for a skinny lady, Mrs. Belsen could put away a lot of Coke and snacks—but while Mr. Belsen went to town she always took a nap. She didn’t like Mr. Belsen spending time with me…. He could do a lot more woodworking, I thought, without her pushing that buzzer. One night, I got an idea from a movie on TV. An old lady was in the hospital. She had a buzzer like Mrs. Belsen’s, and the nurses hated her. While she was sleeping, someone put a pillow over her head until she stopped moving. A few days after I saw the movie… I was screwing mailboxes together for a big order. Mr. Belsen couldn’t finish even one birdhouse for having to run inside to his wife. As I fitted a shiny brass screw into a hole and tightened it down, I thought about that movie. When Mr. Belsen left for town, I stood outside his wife’s doorway. She’d fallen asleep with her reading glasses on… a line of drool down to her chin, and a soft whistling coming from her nose….” I crept in carrying a pillow from the spare bedroom… took off her glasses—she didn’t even flinch—and straddled her, quickly pinning her arms so she couldn’t move… the pillow over her face. She twitched and tried to throw me off… but she wasn’t very strong. I held the pillow for a long time after she quit moving.

Rebecca paused, after the long rush of words.

“She was just a child,” Belle whispered. “With all that anger inside her.”

Dixie shook her head. She couldn’t share Belle’s sympathy.
“Lots of kids have parents walk out on them. They don’t all start killing.”

Rashly tossed another glance at the camera. At any moment, Rebecca could decide to ask for a lawyer, and the interview would be over.

Q. Did you continue to stay with Mr. Belsen after his wife died?

Rebecca frowned and glanced away.

A. For a while. He had a lot more time, without her around. He didn’t talk as much, though… and sometimes he’d build too many birdhouses when the store wanted more planters. He’d forget to eat. Then he got sick, and his daughter took him to live with her. Mama never noticed the Belsens were gone until a real estate sign appeared in the yard.

Rebecca stared into the distance.

Q. Mrs. Payne, your youngest daughter, Ellie—

A. I’ll get to that! In good time.

She sat another few moments without speaking. This time Rashly didn’t coax her, and after a moment the words started flowing again, like a roll of toilet paper unwinding across a slick floor.

A. I tracked down my father the year I graduated high school. He’d moved to the city and, as Mr. Belsen predicted, was a successful businessman. I met his new wife, before she disappeared into the kitchen… slim, pretty… younger than my father. He sat in a wide blue recliner, a plump cat curled up beside him.
I thought you’d come back for
me, I told him.
Well, now
, he said,
looks like you did fine. All grown-up, going off to college
. Two children ran in, yelling,
Daddy! Daddy!
… the oldest, a blond replica of her mother. The boy, about four years old, crawled up on my father’s lap…. Before I left for college, I took an ax and chopped up the wooden frame I’d made for that gray photograph of my daddy.

Rebecca paused long enough to drink a glass of water in one long swallow. Rashly refilled the glass, and she held it,
staring down at the liquid as if at a crystal ball. Several moments passed before Rashly ventured a question.

Q. You married while still in college, is that correct?

She smiled, glancing up at him, almost flirting.

A. I met Charles my second year… he was pre-med, tall, striking. We spent a weekend in Dallas… scarcely leaving the hotel room. A week later I moved into his apartment complex… after six months we were married. Charles was interning by then, and never seemed to have any time at home—even though I kept myself pretty for him…. One night he didn’t come home at all—sent a letter saying he could no longer live with my “smothering.” Since when is it
bad to care deeply
for someone?

For the first time since the interview started, Rebecca looked ready to cry.

Q. But you married again?

She slid another coy smile at Rashly.

A. When I met Randy, I knew what had gone wrong with Charles and how to keep it from happening again—I got
pregnant
before the end of our first year…. Randy was so sweet… bringing me flowers, like when we were dating. After Betsy was born, I tried to explain it’s bad to spend too much time with a child—parents need time alone. I sent her to stay with Mama for a month, so we could have some time together. Randy flew into a rage…. I took a job, put Betsy in day school. At night, she’d be tired from playing all day and fall asleep early, so Randy and I got some time alone…. Then he started going out at night with his friends…. I could see him drifting away, just like Charles, so I got pregnant again. He did stay home more at night… sweet, attentive… but there was always Betsy.

“Jesus Christ,” Belle whispered. “She did it for attention.”

“Ric,” Dixie said. “I think we’ve finally met the Queen Bitch of the Universe.”

Rashly’s face mirrored their own horror. When he urged Rebecca to continue, his voice sounded weary.

Q. Then Courtney was born… Rebecca’s eyes brightened.

A. And we bought a new house! I stayed home to make it perfect for us. We had a perfect life, perfect!… Rebecca paused, and her features hardened.

A. Until the day Randy never came home. This time I didn’t even get a letter, just a divorce notice…. But it was
because
of the girls that I met Jon Keyes. He was running in the park and stopped to say what a beautiful family I had… pushed the girls on the swings… treated us to ice cream cones. We married three months later. To keep the girls busy, I enrolled them in music, ballet, summer camp. And planned romantic vacations for Jon and me…. But he wanted every moment to be family time. He brought the girls gifts from his frequent business trips…. Brought me candy—which I threw out, knowing how easily I could begin to look like Mama. One day I looked in Jon’s eyes and knew he was going to leave. I told him I was pregnant—I wasn’t, but I soon got that way with all the extra attention he gave me. After Ellie came, Jon spent every spare minute with them—with his
girls—
Ellie, Courtney, and Betsy. We couldn’t do anything, go anywhere, without three stones dragging us down…. When Jon left me, he tried to take them—and they’d have Daddy all to themselves, wouldn’t they? I put a stop to that!… Then I met Travis. He gets upset when his business doesn’t go well, but… someday everything will be perfect…. I can always have more children, if he wants them. The important thing is that Travis loves me. He won’t leave. I know he won’t.

Dixie pushed through the mahogany doors of Richards, Blackmon & Drake tugging at the yellow scarf covering her neck bandage. She was wearing the blouse from her yellow silk pants suit, with a brown tweed jacket she’d found in the depths of her closet, a skirt the color of dark chocolate, plain brown pumps, and her camel’s hair overcoat.