Relentless (Elisabeth Reinhardt Book 1) (40 page)

They sat cross-legged on the bedroom floor packing boxes. Once the decision had been made to sell, packing up their parents’ belongings had been a looming task. Everything that happened still felt unreal. The Raines kids were on auto-pilot. They could hardly absorb it all. It was odd, but it happened, just like people say it does, tragedies bring people closer together. The tragedies they had endured had done just that. Now the crises were over and the secrets were out. Their Papa was in the ground, their Mama was being evaluated for rehab and the family was closer than ever. The good news was that Reggie was alive and well and back in touch with her family and now they were in constant contact. Reggie was back in Chicago, but the siblings called, texted or emailed every day. They had made decisions jointly, split up the tasks fairly. It was as if they had always been this way. Clint and Dale, Pattie Sue, Betty Jo and Reggie Lee who had lived much of their lives separately were becoming the best of friends. Jake had been caught and would be punished and that was a blessing. Reggie was back and that was a miracle.

It felt odd to be in their parents’ room packing up their things. Th
eir room had been off limits when they were children. It was the nicest room in the house with a carpet on the floor and curtains on the windows. It was a good size room that took up half of the second floor. There was a large hand-carved bed and two matching dressers, one for him, one for her and there was a big desk in the far corner of the room with a curved light on top and three locked drawers. That’s where Papa had kept all his important papers. Mama had given them strict instructions about how she wanted her clothing and such to be handled. She wanted to go through everything herself. They were to pack her things up in boxes and let her decide about all that when she felt up to it. As to Earl’s things, well, Hattie wasn’t sure about those things. She washed and folded his clothes, but he looked after his nick-nacks and papers. Hattie had never even seen the deed to their property or title to their car or truck. Earl handled all that. She thought of it as ‘man’s work’ and never bothered to look at any of it. Earl paid all the bills and handled all the family’s legal papers, like their marriage license and the children’s birth certificates. Hattie really had no idea what was in the desk, so she had no instructions about what to do with those things.

The Raines children had decided that the girls would take care of the inside of the house and the boys would handle everything outside, the vehicles, livestock, produce and equipment. They had gone through the house and divvied up what they wanted. Anything that none of them wanted would be left for the buyers or given away to the Welfare Agency up in Hurricane. Reggie Lee had said she wanted nothing from the farm, but the girls packed up some kitchen platters and a framed needlepoint their grandmother made that said
‘
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You’
along with an assortment of Mama’s homemade jellies and jams. The kitchen was filled with cooking utensils, plates and silverware from the last several generations. It had taken the better part of two days and several trips to the Welfare Agency to complete the kitchen, but they had gotten it done.

Most of the house had been packed by the time they got upstairs. The biggest challenge, they agreed, would be Papa’s desk. They dealt with the closet and dressers in no time, but the desk, now, that was going to be a challenge. They had come prepared with dozens of file folders and large storage boxes. Their idea was to go through
everything quickly and take what they thought was important back to Patty Sue’s house where they could sort through more closely what they had. This old house was getting on their nerves. It was cold and empty and felt oh so sad. The first problem they had was finding the key to the desk drawers. They’d searched the house, the bedroom, looked in their father’s clothes pockets, checked with the police and the coroner’s office, but there was no key to be found. It didn’t make any sense to them, why would he hide a key to his own desk in his own house? Really, why had he locked the desk drawers to begin with?  After all, no one was here but Mama, and she’d never think to look in this desk.

Clint and Dale had driven off early that morning with a truck filled with cattle so there was no one to help with the desk. The girls
sat on the floor and tried to jimmy the locks with knives, scissors and a screw driver. Nothing worked. They were just about to give up when they noticed a small locked box under the bed. It was a carved wooden box that looked very old. Breaking into it was easy. They found $5,000 cash, several boxes of bullets, two old wallets and key ring from which 5 keys hung. They also found an antique belt buckle inscribed with an ornate letter
R
. It was made of brass, silver and inlaid red stones. It was a large piece. It had several moving parts and a hidden compartment which held a tiny rolled map inked on yellowed parchment and with elaborate ‘Old English’ script. It was interesting but meaningless to the girls. They had never seen their father wear the belt buckle and assumed this family heirloom had belonged to great, great, great grandfather Alcott Earl Raines.

One of the keys
inside the old wooden box unlocked the largest drawer. It was surprisingly well organized with clear labels written in their father’s choppy handwriting:
livestock
,
farm bills
and
important papers.
In the
important papers
folder the girls discovered some old family photographs. They laughed as they looked at old photos of their grandparents and great-grandparents, Earl and Hattie’s wedding pictures and many of their baby pictures. They found some more recent shots taken with a Polaroid camera of Christmases and holidays when the family was together celebrating. They couldn’t wait for Clint and Dale to get back so they could show them all the things they had found.

At the bottom of the family photos they found four small stacks of Polaroid prints
. Each stack of pictures was held together with a rubber band. One stack held pictures of an old shack up the hill in the woods. The floor was bare except for an old blanket and there were objects scattered about that looked like tools. The windows were broken and there were stains on the floor. Pattie Sue and Betty Jo stared at each other. A cold chill passed between them. On the back of each picture was a notation Reggie Lee – age 14.

In the second stack there were six pictures, three shots of Reggie Lee about age 15 taken in front of a two story white house with black shutters. In the first picture, their sister was walking down a sidewalk with another girl maybe a year younger than she was. In another picture, both girls were getting in a car on the driveway and in a third picture Reggie and an older woman were carrying groceries into the house. In that picture, a license plate was visible. It said ‘First in Flight’ North Carolina. The last three pictures were of a much older Reggie. In two, she was walking across a college campus and in the last one she was in a graduation cap and gown holding a diploma. The two sisters could hardly speak. They clutched each other’s hands as tears came to their eyes.
This was too weird. Eerie... What had their father been up to? Had he known where their sister was all along? Why hadn’t he told them?

The third stack contained just three pictures. The first was of an old bar, the sign outside said ‘THE SIT IN’. Jake stood in front shaking hands with a bi
g red-haired man. In the second shot, Jake was in handcuffs and leg-irons leaving a courthouse with other prisoners under armed guard. The last picture was of a prison. The sign read ‘Pennsylvania State Correctional Facility.’ Jake was in an outside area talking with a group of prisoners, including a red-haired man.

The fourth stack of pictures was taken in the woods not far from the farm.
The pictures were of a small road that had once been used by oil delivery trucks. According to the date scrawled on the backs, these pictures had been taken this past fall. Just a few months ago! The trees were bare and the leaves had been raked away.  Three long rectangular areas were clearly visible in the earth. On the back of that picture were the words
Jake William Gennett! Get ready to Meet Your Maker, Sinner! Alcott Earl Raines III is coming for you!

Betty Jo and Patty Sue were dumbstruck. They
stared at each other shaken to their core. Their father had been a man of few words. These pictures said it all.  He had known what happened to his lost daughter! He knew what Jake had done to her and he found the graves of the girls Jake had murdered. Furthermore, Alcott Earl Raines, III intended to kill Jake Gennett!

The sign said ‘Welcome to Tamms the First Supermax a Good Place to Live.’ He drove a rusty blue Chevy truck through heavily guarded double iron gates topped with razor wire. At each stop, he was asked to step out of the vehicle while it was thoroughly examined by special equipment and trained police dogs. At each gate, he was frisked and made to empty his pockets and walk through metal detectors. At each gate, he showed his identification papers, answered a number of routine questions and signed into a visitors log book. Under ‘reason for visit’ he wrote ‘defense attorney’ the time was noted as 3:30PM. In his briefcase, the guards found some official looking files and legal paperwork pertaining to lawyer-client privilege and a stack of court transcripts and police reports regarding the crimes for which the inmate was being charged. Lying on top of the paperwork were two yellow legal tablets, five ballpoint pens, two automatic pencils and his lunch, two ham sandwiches and a sliced apple all displayed in plastic bags. The guards confiscated his briefcase and the food, but he was permitted to carry the legal papers with him inside a large clear plastic bag. The man was a large, muscular outdoor type, but wore a business suit and carried himself in a restrained professional manner. He went politely through the examination process, did as he was told and said nothing unless asked. He showed no curiosity about the place or the people running it. He looked straight ahead making eye contact with no one.

He followed the two guards down long corridors through several sets of locked doors that required passwords to be unlocked. This was maximum security to the max. Around him the sights and sounds and smells of prison were mind numbing. It was clean and efficiently run but it
was
a prison. Men could be heard yelling and arguing, heavy metal gates slammed shut with finality. The further he walked the deeper he went into the maze of prison walls. Fear and depression settled around him. Finally, he was led into a square room set up with a table and four chairs. Everything was bolted to the floor. There were no windows just the one door. Cameras were mounted in every corner. He stood as the prisoner was led into the room and his hands and feet were chained to the table. He asked about the cameras and the guards said they would turn them off in deference to ‘attorney-client privilege.’ After the guards left and the door lock clicked loudly, the two men continued to stare wordlessly at each other waiting for the red lights on the cameras to go off indicating they were no longer under surveillance. Then slow grins appeared on their faces.

Jake said “Hey Cuz!” Clint grinned
back at him.

“It’s family reunion time!” Jake said expansively.

“Yep,” Clint said, “family reunion time, Cuz. You’ve sure had a wild time of it, had everyone in the damn country looking for you!”

“I’m one important bastard, ain’t I?” Jake bragged
, “And hey, I learned it all from you, didn’t I?” he added.

“Sure you did, Jake,” Clint said
, “You learned it all from me!”

“Did ya
bring me anything?” Jake asked, “it being a celebration and all.”

“Sure
, I brought you lunch, but your guards took it away from me. I did manage to get something else through though,” Clint said reaching toward his belt. He fiddled with the
R
on the antique buckle. “This was Pa’s belt,” he said by way of conversation, “ever see it before?”  Out of the tiny chamber that had once held the map, Clint slipped a small white and blue capsule out and slid it across the table. “I know you like a little picker-upper every now and then,” Clint said. “This should give you a bit of a lift, Cuz.  It’s all I could get past your guards today, I’ll bring more next time.”

Jake grinned his thanks and tucked the pill into the waistband of his underwear. “You come by to thank me for getting rid of
your old man? That Pa of yours was one nasty son of a bitch, wasn’t he?”

“Oh yea,” Clint replied, “He was a real SOB. I came
by to thank you for a job well done.” 

“
Well,” said Jake philosophically, “your Pa got what he deserved.”

“Yep,” said Clint calmly, “people usually do.”

They were eating pancakes at a Denny’s just off US 60E when BREAKING NEWS flashed across the huge TV screen mounted on the wall. Their attention was riveted to a dark-haired female anchor reporting
Breaking News
from the Illinois State Department of Corrections. “This is Jenna Ryan reporting from WSIL-TV. Good afternoon everyone we have a report just coming in from the Illinois State Department of Corrections. It appears that Jake William Gennett, age 40, one of the worst serial killers in US history was found dead in his cell at the Tamms Correctional Facility in Illinois this afternoon.” The anchor then detailed Gennett’s life story and various crimes. The segment ended with a film clip of the County Medical Examiner who declared “….the preliminary cause of death was most likely poisoning. We will have to wait for laboratory analysis before confirming that conclusion, but no external cause of death has been found,” he finished his statement. The TV commentator continued with a report from the Warden’s office. “…The guards at the prison agreed that the inmate had been in good health and spirits when he ate his dinner, chopped steak with A-1 sauce, spinach, fried potatoes and an apple. Gennett was reportedly found dead in his cell 15 minutes after eating his last meal. The prison’s warden, speaking from his office said “Following Department procedures, I immediately ordered a ‘lock down’ until an investigation of kitchen personnel could determine whether the inmate’s food had been poisoned.” The anchor continued, “The Illinois State Police and the FBI are searching for a male visitor who is being sought as a ‘person of interest’ in connection with Jake Gennett’s death.”

The
three men grinned at each other across the table. Raising their coffee mugs they toasted the successful completion of their year-long planning. Two hours earlier, they had met in the men’s room of a Shell station just off the highway. Dale brought his brother a change of clothes and Clint carefully disrobed cutting each piece of his disguise into pieces and depositing the pieces into three separate bags to be disposed of at different locations throughout several states. They had burned the ‘official’ documents in the rest room sink and flushed the ashes for good measure. The men then traveled in a three vehicle caravan, to a nearby lake, where they shoved the old Chevy truck, reported stolen 6 months earlier, over the edge. The truck had been registered to Alcott Earl Raines, III.

R
ed hair blowing in the wind, Teddy Ruff turned to the brothers and said, “Now, that’s what I call justice,” as the three men stood side by side and watched the weathered blue roof disappear from view.

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