Page 9 of August
“So, tell us about yourself. We know about your parents, of course, but we know very little about you.” She told them about her family and how they weren’t the best of people. “That’s all water under the bridge. We want to know about you.”
“Nothing much to tell. I’m the youngest of three kids. I have a degree in architectural landscaping and design. I’m currently unemployed but happier than I’ve been in a very long time. I have a good relationship with my mom—She gets on my nerves at times, but I’m sure that I do hers as well—However, not so much with my dad or brothers. I’ve been selected to design the buildings in the downtown area, but once the tornado came though, their budget didn’t cover it.” Demitrius asked her if she meant the Carter project. “Yes, that’s the one. It would have been a great feather in my hat but for the storm that came through.”
“I heard about that project when we first moved here, then in the middle of negotiations things went sour. I wasn’t even aware of the tornado, but that makes sense.” She told them how she’d gone to night school when she could, as her father told her that it was a waste of time and money to go to college. “He sounds a great deal like our father. A bastard.”
“Pretty much.” They all talked to and over each other, and she loved every second of it. The next time they got together, it was going to be at the Warehouse, a place that Demitrius was getting set to open soon. “That sounds amazing. There aren’t a lot of good places to eat around here. I can’t wait to try it.”
When they all left, making fun of each other because there was one egg roll left as well as a serving of pasta salad. Shaking her head at them as they wrestled to get to take the last bits home. It was an easy clean-up with all their help as well. Jack couldn’t wait for them all to get together again soon.
~*~
August woke up to someone talking close to where he was. Just as he was able to figure it out, he realized that it was Jacklynn who was on her cell phone, and she sounded very upset. Pulling on his jeans, he watched as tears flowed down her cheeks while he waited for her to tell him what was going on. That was then she tossed the phone to him. And ran to the bathroom. He could hear her being sick.
“Where is my sister? This is all her fault. I want to talk to her. You tell her I said to get back on the phone before it’s too late.” August knew it was one of her brothers, but he didn’t know which one until he asked. David sounded very upset about whatever he was babbling about. “It’s her fault, and I want to hear her saying so. It’s the least that she can do for me since she made it so that they’re all gone. I hope she remembers this for the rest of her life. It was all her fault.” Trying to make sense of what he was saying was difficult. There was one thing that David seemed to be certain of was that it was Jacklynn’s fault.
“What did you do, David? You’ll have to start over if you want me to understand you.” Jacklynn got up to go to the bathroom and he could hear her throwing up again. Not understanding what was going on, it took getting David to calm down enough to tell him. The man went between anger and sobbing too quickly for him to understand. “Tell me what you told your sister, and I’ll try to help you.”
“It’s all her fault for making Mom arrest us. Now, I have no job, and my family is gone. I’ve got nothing because of her. Nothing, do you hear me?” The hair on his arms prickled up as he explained to him between crying that he’d killed them all. “She made me do it. I don’t have any money. I don’t have any place to live. What was I supposed to do? Answer me that.”
“What do you mean that your family is all gone? Aren’t they with you? Where are they, David?” He told him that they were in the house. “And are you in the house with them?”
“Stop asking stupid questions. Where else would I be than with them? It’s all Jack’s fault. If she’d just kept her nose out of our business, then things would have been all right. But I don’t have any money or a job. What was I supposed to do? Tell me that? What was I supposed to do now?” He asked where his children were. “I couldn’t have them going through the shame that I did. I made it quick for them. I didn’t want them to suffer, so I killed them quickly, not for Mary. She kept harping and harping on me to get with my mother to have her change her mind. So I shut her up.”
“Did you kill your family?” Jacklynn came out of the bathroom, and he handed her his cell. Going into the bathroom again, he could hear her talking to a dispatcher at the police station and telling them what David had said to her. David had killed his children and his wife. “David, did you kill your kids?”
“Yes.” That made him sick and he was nearly ready to go to the bathroom himself. “They couldn’t go back to school after knowing what Jacklynn did to us. Mother too. She’s never been a good mother to any of us but Jacklynn. She was always her favorite. I thought that I could find her, but she’s not at the main house. But I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to take care that my family didn’t have any shame like I did.”
“Where are you, David? I’ll come to you, and we can talk about what you’ve done.” He told him it was too late. “No, it’s not. Tell me which house you’re at, and I’ll come there to get you.”
“I told you that it’s too late.” He could hear them now, the police that had been called by David’s sister. “See, Jacklynn can’t even do what she’s told even now. She’s called the police on me. But it’s too late for her to be some kind of hero now, damn it.”
He didn’t know what was going on, but he kept talking to David to see if he could tell himwhere the children were. He didn’t care so much for Mary, but the kids were only six, three, and an infant. Pulling on his shirt, he was rushing down the stairs after Jacklynn when David started blaming what had happened on his sister and mother again. Standing on the front porch of his home, he could see the flame rolling up from a house not too far from where he was.
The screaming started then. David was in the house, and he told him that the fire, he talked about it like it was a friend of his, was licking at the bottom of his feet so gently. When the screaming started, something that would haunt him for the rest of his life, he knew that the house that was going up in flames was David’s way of dealing with the loss of his job and family.
An officer pulled up in front of him as he was closing the phone. He had to be sick, thinking of the small children that had been left to burn in the home. Wondering how he’d gotten out of jail, he sat on the steps as he was being questioned. None of them knew the horrors that he did. Not even Jacklynn. Her brother had burnt himself alive with his three children and wife.
The sun was coming up when someone found the youngest. She’d been put into the shed out back and was screaming her head off. She’d not been burnt, he’d been told. Nor did she seem to have any markings on her body like he was sure that the other two had. The police took her to the hospital. August was waiting for someone to find the other two, who were surely as dead as David was.
Dedria joined them on the front stoop. He was so devasted that he threw up again when one of the officers asked him what David had said to him. It was all he could do to get through the conversation, crying for the loss of so many. He was worried about Jacklynn when she just sat there beside him and her mother, not saying a word to anyone.
When he tried to talk to her, she would tell him that she needed time. That she was all right but needed time. He believed that she was going to need time; it was a great deal to take in, but he was no less worried about her.
She no longer cried but sat rocking herself back and forth on the rocker. Even her mom couldn’t seem to get through to her, and his heart hurt with her pain. Just as he was going to go to her and make her look at him, two more police officers pulled into his driveway.
The officer looked bent. Like he was carrying the world on his shoulders. Putting out his hand, he shook it and told him that it was a nightmare. That there hadn’t been any reason for what had happened to happen.
“There was an infant that you were told about, correct?” He said that they’d found it bundled up in the shed. “Yes, that’s it. We’ve been able to find the other two children. They were…they were covered in gasoline. We’ll know soon if they were awake when the fire started. They have a…he must have shot them in the head. That’s what it looks like to me. Mary was in the bathtub. Again, an accelerant was used on her as well. You know, August, I can only pray that those little ones didn’t feel anything. With the fire being started with them—”
Office Doul started crying then. He was telling him how he himself had two little girls the same age as the ones that were murdered, and he could never think of a time when he’d kill them. August stood up and hugged the man, holding him upright while he sobbed at the mess of it all.
“Do you think that we’ll be able to raise Josephine?” It was the first time that Jacklynn had spoken to anyone but him in the last few hours. “I’d like to raise her as our own if that’s all right with you, August.”
“Yes, we can do that.” He was still worried but glad that she was interacting now. Her mother was still crying and blaming herself. August looked back at the officer. “Is she hurt any? I think you told me, but I can’t remember now.”
“Yes, she’s all right. I guess she goes by Joey. Had a devil of a time unwrapping her from her blankets. Poor little mite was tighter than a bug in a rug when we found her.” Jacklynn asked where she was. “They took her on to the hospital to check her over. There was a bottle out there with her but there wasn’t any way that she could have gotten to it. Do you know how old she is, by chance?”
“Four months old. She was born on the twenty-second of January. I’d like to go and see her with August and my mom. Would that—was my brother and father informed?” She was told that they hadnot been informed as they were still in jail. “It just occurred to me that David was in jail too. How was he out?”