Page 15 of Edmond

“Are there more people that she wanted the four of you to kill?” Alan told Edmond that they had a book of names and places they relocated people to. “You’ve kept track of all her misdeeds or just the ones where you were to kill someone for her? That might be a very helpful thing to find, I’m thinking.”

“If’n she really is dead, we can give it to you. But we’re not going to do that until you prove it. Like we said, she’s not a nice person. Not at all.” He asked him how he could prove it. “I don’t know, you’re the smart one of all of us? You tell us.”

“I’ll can swear it on the love that I have for your sister that your grannie is dead. Mac is about the most important thing in my life right now, and I’d never lie to her brothers if I didn’t have to. And in this, I don’t have to tell you anything, but she is dead. I promise.” They all agreed when they converted again. “I’d like to have the notes that you have, but I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to.”

“The book is near to my sister’s place, at the post office. There was a big old metal box that we got a long time ago to keep our money in. But we’d had trouble keeping it out of her vision. Now, it’s in one of them postal boxes at the mail station. We put the notes in it with the money so that nobody would ever find it. There’s a lot of money in there too. It’s for Cole. We knew that Grannie had taken all his money so that she could do what she wanted but when she paid us with it, we’d just put it in the box.” Edmond asked how big the box was. “Pretty good sized. We had us a little one, but it kept getting too full too fast, so we got us the biggest one that they got to hide things in. We make sure that it’s paid every month so that we can keep it for Cole’s medical stuff. He needs help.”

“They’re having him tested to see what, if anything, is wrong with him.” Alan nodded and just glanced at his brothers before he told him what he knew. “Your grannie tried to kill him when he was a baby? How did no one know anything about this?”

“We tried. But grannie beat us something terrible when we told our momma. Then we had to go back to her and tell her that we fibbed about it. We didn’t. She held him under the bath water for too long, and that’s what made him a simpleton. Him being a little baby back then, he didn’t have the strength that he does now. So she never bothered him again. But back then, we were all just little ones, and nobody believed us. They might well now, what with grannie being dead and gone so as not to countersink us, I think that’s the right word.” Edmond told him what the word was. “Oh, so she’d not contradict us. Like I said, she would beat us within a couple of inches to our deaths if we told on her. So we’d hide the people away and take her money to be put in the box.”

They didn’t know how much money was in the box. Never wanting to pull it out to count it, thinking that they’d be caught. And Grannie would surely kill them if they were caught. After giving him the information that was needed to get into their box, they decided that it was time to come to the truth about a lot of things that they’d done over the years, mostly in an effort to keep their baby sister safe.

“Grannie wanted Mac gone. She didn’t like that we loved her like a sister on account of her being our sister. So she’d make us do things to her. Like pinch her legs to make her cry all the time and stuff like that. We was to keep her from going out to see the movies with somebody, too. I don’t rightly understand that one, but we just made sure that Grannie never knew. One time, she wanted us to kill off our momma, but Cole told her no. And then he bounced his fist on the top of her head. I think it hurt her bad, but she never spoke about us killing Momma again. We think that she killed off Grandda and our other grandparents, but we can’t be sure. She’d of had to do that one on her own as Cole didn’t like that she wanted them dead. I don’t think that Cole liked Grannie all that much anyway.”

“Your sister took care of the other grandparents, didn’t she? And her grandpa Jacob died before she was born. Right?” Alan said he had them both right. “So how did she kill the three of them off? I don’t know that anyone ever told me how they died.”

“Grandpa Jacob, he was killed in an accident with his tractor. Grandpa didn’t drive the tractor as he was deathly afraid of it. But that’s how he died. Out in the middle of the field one day, he got off it to look around, and it ran over him. She did it. We seen her do it. Just ran over him like he were nothing at all to anybody. But we didn’t see her kill off the other two.” Alan had to think about it before continuing. He wasn’t going to have it sounding like he’d done the deed when he’d refused her. “Grandma Marlyn, she loved her tea and that was something that she would mail order from someone out in Ireland. I don’t know the person’s name but it would take forever and a day to come to her. We were to snitch the box when it arrived and give it to grannie. She told us that she wanted to try this special tea on her own. I don’t know that she ever did that, tried it nor did we snitch it. But it was what poisoned her, grannie told us. She even got to kill off Grandda Alan, too. She sent him some chocolates. They were poisoned, too, I guess. Like I said, we didn’t have nothing to do with that. We were grown up and out of the house by then, so we might have been in jail for something when they both keeled over. I know that I hurt Mac. She loved them very much.” Edmond said that they would have to tell the police now. “We talked it over when we were together in the cell, the three of us. We’d only do it when she was dead and that Cole was safe from her. She surely did hate him, too.”

Alan watched as Edmond took out a little notebook from his pocket then the littlest pencil he’d ever seen. As he’s writing things down, it was David that reminded him to not forget certain things as he was doing so.

After a lot of questions and some more pops, they were ready to go into the jail and gather their thoughts. Also, in secret like, they were going to make sure that Grannie was dead. Not that they didn’t believe Edmond; he seemed like a good man, but they weren’t going to be killed the first time she saw them. And she would, too, by golly.

When they were brought back in, the place feeling too warm for where they’d been now, they were put in their cell again and gathered around each other, sitting on the floor to convert. He asked the police person. He was sure that was what he was supposed to call them nowadays if their grannie really was dead. Just like he said, she had died in her sleep.

Just after the sun came up the next morning, they were being dressed up in real people clothing and ushered to a room. Since they’d not gotten nary a thing to eat, they were given big boxes of food in it that had all the things that they loved most. While his had grits in his, the other two were given fried apples. There was steak and eggs, too, for the three of them and the fluffiest biscuits he’d ever had the occasion to eat. By the time they were finished up, eating the leftovers they wanted off’n each other’s box they were told to stand up. That’s when the judge from yesterday came into the room and told them what they were there for.

He didn’t know what was going on, but with his belly filled up and his body clean, all Alan wanted to do was take him a powerful nap. Sometimes, when he ate too many eggs and biscuits, he would get that way. Sleepy as the day was long, and he just wanted to go on back to his cell and sleep it off. But he was also wondering what was going on in this here room. He hoped to goodness that he and his brothers weren’t going to be in trouble over what they’d told Mr. Edmond yesterday.

“We’re going to have to ask you a few questions. About all the things that you told Mr. Fraizer yesterday—” Peter asked who that was. “Okay, I can tell you that. It’s the man you spoke to yesterday. Edmond. He’s the one that set this up for the three of you. He and his family.”

“We’ll answer whatever you want, sir. That breakfast was so good. I’d be willing to talk to the devil himself if he was to come into this room, too.” That got a good round of laughter from everyone there. That was when he saw his sister and momma there and wanted a hug from them in the worst ways. But when he moved to see if he could get one, the officer with them stepped in front of him.

It hurt him to his toenails not being able to get close to his family. However, he knew too that in order to keep them safe, him and the others had to be as mean as a wolverine to them to be able to keep them alive. Grannie would have used their closeness against them if they’d tried that. As it was, now they’d made them be afeared of them. Now they had Edmond and Dad in the room with them, he knew that it would be near impossible to get a hug from either of them.

Alan got up to speak first. It was nice not to have to talk to anyone with chains on. It was Edmond that got them unchained for this, too, he’d been told. After being told several times that they needed to tell the truth, Alan said he’d do that. On account of Grannie being dead, they could say what needed to be said.

“I know we’re going to jail on what we did sometimes, but we surely did make it so that Mac was to be married up with Edmond, who we like, by the way, and that momma didn’t have her head bashed in all the times that grannie told us to do it. Mac was supposed to never meet nobody, but we just kept an eye on her and whoever she was out with instead of doing what we’d been told to do by Grannie. We couldn’t save our grandpa and grandparents, Pendleton. Grannie outsmarted us on those, but we worked hard to keep as many people to not be killed as much as we could.” Alan was asked what his part was in the death of the grandparents.

After explaining to everyone what Grannie had wanted and how it would have been done if she made them, the three of them seemed like they had an endless supply of words that kept sliding from their mouths. There were things that they told those people about that he’d not thought of in years and years. But it was out there now, and they had to clean themselves of the garbage so that when it came time for them to meet their maker, they could do it with their heads up and their hearts empty of causing pain. It was the way that they had wanted to do it for a long time.

By the time they were worded out, feeling like he’d been wrung out and then laid over a clothesline to dry even more, their box had been opened up, thanks to the police giving Edmond the key, and all their money was added up, too. Alan just wanted a nap and a good long one at that.

“Misters Pendleton, it’s come to my attention that you have helped a great many people for a while now. Is that true? Even using your own money to help them out.” He told the judge that they’d never had any money but was using the money that Grannie had given them to do the job. “And that money that you had left over, you put it away so that it could help you?”

“No, sir. We knew that Cole was going to have to have him a good place to live. We was fearful of him being put in one of those cheap places where he might not get the best of care. We also found out that Grannie had been stealing the money that had been put aside for him, so we just put it aside for him ourselves. The only time we used it for ourselves was when we were about to be starved to death, our bellies swearing up a storm by growling a bit. But you got it all there, with our notes. Oh, and we paid for the box to be saving our stuff in too. It was hard to keep a good job with Grannie, making us run all over the place and telling us to be murdering people so we’d have to be close to her so she’d not be able to get around us like she did our grandparents. I loved Grandpa Jacob. She had no right to kill him off with that tractor like she did.”

“You’re absolutely correct in that, Mr. Pendleton. But I have some news that is going to make your lives, the four of you, much better. If you stay on the right path. Or so help me. I’ll snatch you right back in here by your short hairs and have you in prison before you can figure out what had happened to you. As it is, your sister’s family that she’s married into has agreed to be responsible for the three of you. So long as, as I said, you stay out of trouble, Misters Pendleton, they’ll provide you with a furnished home, a good job, and…well, it’s been said that you don’t have a license between the lot of you. Is that correct?” Alan explained how they couldn’t afford a car, so having a license to drive one seemed silly to them. “Good thinking. All right then, there will be transportation for the three of you as well. And I can’t say this enough to you. But you have to be good men from now on and not be taking things that don’t belong to you or beating people up because you have gotten away with it before. As for your brother, Cole, he’s going to be put into a place where he can get the best of care and he’ll be able to see the lot of you when he’s settled into the place. Do you understand what it is I’m telling you?”

“No, sir. Yes, sir. What I mean is, we like Edmond and we’ll keep on his good side. Besides, he’s a might bigger than us and I think that he could do us some thumping and that it would hurt more than Cole’s hand did.” There were snickers in the room, but he, as best he could, ignored it. “We sure are happy that our little sister is with him, too. That family, they’ll make sure that nothing happens to her. And if they don’t keep her from being thumped or get thumped by him, well then, I’m sorry, but all bets are off. We’re going to go after him for it. I can’t help but think that he won’t, but I never thought that my grannie would be stealing from her on flesh and blood, either.”

They were to be spending the last night in jail until arrangements were finished up. He was about too excited to sleep thinking about the things that he’d been told. They’d have a job, a real one, and they’d have money in their pockets. He couldn’t help but think that they were going pretty far for them, but he was going to be the best man he could be. And he’d make sure that the others were too. Also, he couldn’t wait to go and see Cole. He’d do that, wait like they told him, but he was just tickled as pink as he could be to think that they were going to be able to be good men in the world.

Chapter 8

Mac had read the letter from her grannie four times before she just laid it on her table and was finished with it. Her mom, sitting across from her at their dining room table, just stared out the window and didn’t say all that much. When her mom finally spoke, it wasn’t to her, she didn’t think, but speaking in general terms about what had been said about the family.

“Caroline was never one to pull back on things when she could just say whatever was on her mind at any given time.” Mom finally looked at her. “I remember our first Christmas with Cole. He was such a happy little baby. I know that he was all right then, but it took me years and years to get over the fact that I might have done something wrong. The doctors, of course, told me that it hadn’t been my fault but he was my son, and I thought that it had to be me. And to think all this time, she knew just what had happened to my little man.”

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