Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

 

Today, Grace got her wish; about seeing Adrienne alone; without the prying eyes and ears of her Uncle Chris and Aunt Caroline. She had called the hospital that afternoon to check on her cousin’s condition. The nurse she spoke with told her that there had been a subtle change; in that the swelling inside her head, putting too much pressure on her brain, had begun to lessen. Adrienne was still in a coma, but now it actually appeared that she could possibly be on the road to recovery. It meant that her odds of coming out of the coma just increased drastically. Not exactly a miracle, thought Grace, though it did give her more hope; something she was sorely lacking in the last few days. The nurse told her something else as well…that her aunt and uncle had left to go to the police station with Detective Scheffield. She didn’t even stop to think about what the implications of that could be; all she could think about was getting to the hospital quickly.

Jesse had not gotten home from work yet, so she left him a note again; letting him know that she would be back by dinner time. It was impossible for her to move back into her grandmother’s house that night, so she would be sleeping at his house again. She had decided to heed the detective’s advice and hire a professional crew to come in and clean up the remaining blood – on the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and even the banister on the stairs; not a job that she wished to tackle. And that was only downstairs. After careful thought, she had realized that if she did attempt to take care of it herself then that blood, that is the first picture that would pop into her head every time she thought about Genevieve…and Adrienne, too, if she didn’t pull through.

She arrived at the hospital and followed the same path she had taken with the nurse, Julia, the last time she was here. Something about simply walking into the ICU unit made her a little uneasy; sometimes thinking about things like having to watch a dead body being removed from there to take to the morgue downstairs because the person had died while she was visiting. All sorts of morbid thoughts were running through her mind. She pushed open the door to her cousin’s room slowly, irrationally afraid she would see her family sitting there after all. But there was no one. No one except young, beautiful Adrienne; who at the moment didn’t look so beautiful.

Grace walked over to a chair that had been placed close to the head of the bed and sat down. The first thing she did was take her cousin’s hand in her own; having an idea that she knew was a long shot, but could possibly work. She planned to ask her yes or no questions only, then ask her to squeeze her hand once for yes and twice for no. In reality, she knew her plan probably wouldn’t work, but what was it hurting to try? she asked herself. There was nothing else she could do; no other way to know if she was still in there, if she could hear her when she spoke or if her cousin was already gone.

Tears began to stream down her pretty face as she started to speak, “Addie, it’s me. It’s Grace. So much has happened so fast and I’m not sure what the truth is anymore. I really need your help, Addie. I need you to come back to me now. Please.” she said, pausing for a moment to see if there was any change; any small thing that could provide a ray of hope. “I’m holding your hand and I want you to do something for me. Okay? I’m going to ask you some questions and I want you to squeeze my hand once for yes, or twice for no. Can you do that for me? she asked, looking at her face to see if she could see a hint of her cousin inside the shell that was her body. She also waited for a second to see if she could feel any pressure on her hand, yet she felt nothing at all; and Adrienne remained still, her eyes closed. “Do you know who did this to you?” she begged of her, but again there was nothing; no response, no change of expression in her facial features. “Addie, please. I need for you to hear me. I know you can hear me in there.” trying desperately to believe the last statement as she spoke it.

It was obvious she was getting nowhere with trying to get a response from her cousin, though she did believe there was a chance she could hear her. She wasn’t willing to give up on that; especially with no evidence to the contrary. So she simply kept talking; sometimes telling Adrienne what happened to Genevieve and what happened to her; sometimes asking her questions. It felt good just to get it all off her chest honestly. She hadn’t been talking to Jesse about her feelings very much; there being so much self-imposed stress and tension over his guilt or innocence.

Grace talked to her cousin for at least an hour straight; telling her everything. She told her about her uncertainty about her best friend, how awful it felt losing their grandmother, and regarding her fears surrounding moving back into Genevieve’s house…alone for the first time. Anything that popped into her head within that hour, she told Adrienne. For the entire hour, she noticed no change in her whatsoever; she hadn’t squeezed her hand, or made a facial expression, or opened her eyes. Then, just as she was beginning to give up hope, she felt something. She had asked again if she knew who did this to her and began to notice movement under the white sheet covering her; a slight stirring. So she asked once more and she could swear she felt her cousin put a very slight amount of pressure on her hand one time; so lightly she almost didn’t feel it. Excitement started to mount in her and her adrenaline started pumping; happily thinking that it was possible that she could hear people speaking to her after all; and that maybe there was a chance her soul was still in there; just waiting for her body to catch up with her mind.

Running into the hallway like a crazed person, she went looking for anyone; the first nurse or orderly or anyone she could find to tell about Adrienne. She was stopped by a male nurse coming out of the room next to her cousin’s; him looking at her like she was insane.

“Addie…my cousin…room 214!” she squealed, “She squeezed my hand! I asked her to answer me and she squeezed my hand!” she practically screamed at the poor man.

                                  

He pulled out a small two-way radio and called the doctor to tell him of her claims so he could come up and examine Adrienne, explaining what Grace had told him. Then he walked swiftly over to her room and in to see for himself what was happening; if anything at all. He examined her limp body; opening her eyelids with his fingers and shining a light on them to see if her pupils responded, checking all her vital signs and going through the normal process of elimination to see if any significant change had taken place. After a couple of minutes, the doctor arrived; basically doing all the same things the nurse had done. The only test he performed that the nurse didn’t was to test her reflexes, which appeared to be getting better, according to the doctor. He tried as well to get her to squeeze his hand, but there was no stirring this time. He felt no pressure on his hand the way Grace had.

The excitement was wearing off and she was beginning to feel somewhat disappointed; thinking maybe she had just imagined the whole thing; that her unconscious cousin hadn’t really squeezed her hand after all. Then she stopped herself; told herself to stop questioning what she knew she had experienced. She did squeeze my hand! she yelled at herself silently; chastising herself for not trusting her own intuition, which is rarely wrong. So she decided that, until someone could prove otherwise, she was going to believe that Adrienne heard her and squeezed her hand to let Grace know she was still in there; and that she was coming back to her soon.

Over at the police station, Detective Scheffield was just ushering Chris Devereaux into one interrogation room, and Caroline Devereax into a separate one across the hall; both rooms having locks on their doors; insuring that they would remain there until the detective told them they could leave. He decided he would have a go at Chris first; letting his wife stew for a while; causing her nervousness to increase; almost insuring she wouldn’t be able to do it successfully if she needed or wanted to lie about something. He was going to take a swing at Chris quickly; not giving him any time to get his story straight – if that were the case.

“My name is Matt Scheffield. I’m the detective handling the case. How are you today Mr. Devereaux?” he asked a bit sarcastically as he walked through the door; closing it behind him and knocking twice for the officer planted outside to lock them in together. He wanted this man to feel the heat.

“Fine. And you?” answered Chris with a rather arrogant air about him that the detective picked up on immediately. That only angered him further. Not a smart move for Chris, but he was never the sharpest tool in the shed…though he stupidly thought otherwise.

“I was wondering if you could help me out a little. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” he asked slyly, “I was hoping you could clear up a few things for me.”

“I’m willing to cooperate fully; whatever you need from me.” Chris responded; the detective a bit surprised that it actually sounded genuine; though he wasn’t going to let that deter him from carrying out his original plan.

“Could you tell me why we found your gun in the pond behind your mother’s house?” he tossed at him; switching gears, “We tested it, Chris. It’s the same gun that killed your mother and put your daughter in that hospital bed!” he told him angrily, raising his voice a few notches, “Where were you between 8:00 and 9:00 Saturday morning?

“I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about! I was home that morning!” he answered; fear quite evident in his voice, “I don’t know! I don’t even know what gun you’re talking about!”

“Come on, Chris! Give it up! We’ve got your prints on the gun!” the detective practically shouted at the petrified man sitting across from him with his head in his hands, “And let me guess, the only person who can attest to your whereabouts is your wife, Caroline? Am I right?

“Yes, but I’m telling you the truth! I’m telling you I don’t know how it got there! I haven’t even fired that gun in years! That’s the truth!” retorted Chris; whom anyone could see was growing more frightened by the minute, “I don’t know what you want me to say!”

“I want you to tell me the truth!” Detective Scheffield threw back at him instinctively.

“I’m telling you the truth! I swear it!” he returned pathetically; throwing his hands up in the air as if to say “What do you want from me?”

“You know, things will go a lot smoother for you if you just tell me the truth. You gotta get it off your chest sometime.” he told him; taking another tack, “I can understand how things just happen sometimes. You get into an argument that starts to turn physical…and you just lose it; you can’t control yourself. Everybody gets mad like that sometimes, Chris. I get mad like that sometimes. It could happen to anyone.” said the detective; trying a little reverse psychology on him; seeing if he would take the bait.

“I’m telling you I don’t know anything!” Chris answered emphatically; crossing his arms – body language that his interrogator knew was a defensive move. He felt threatened so he closed himself off from the detective; literally and figuratively.

“I’m going to give you one more chance to confess before I have you tossed in a holding cell.” he threatened calmly.

“You can give me a hundred chances and I’m still not gonna confess to something I didn’t do!” yelled Chris defiantly, “I want a lawyer!” he demanded.

“You got it.” answered the detective, “Can you stand up for me please?” he asked politely as he rose from his chair and walked around the metal table separating them. Chris stood up. “Christopher Devereaux, you’re under arrest for the murder of Genevieve Devereaux and the attempted murder of Adrienne Devereaux.” he explained as he handcuffed his hands behind his back and read him his rights.

Detective Scheffield walked the dazed man to the door of the interrogation room and stopped him for a second while he knocked on the locked door to be let out. When the officer outside unlocked the door and the pair came walking out, he took over for the detective and walked Chris to one of the hard, cold, concrete holding cells and locked him safely inside. He gave him a sarcastic grin as he slammed the cell door shut – the officer knowing the details of the case and feeling sickened by the fact that the man in custody could shoot his own mother and daughter. He should consider himself lucky that he’s in a cell alone, thought the officer to himself. He undoubtedly was not going to be treated well by the other prisoners, so for now he would remain separated.

The detective would normally have felt victorious in such a situation, but that was not the case this time. He hadn’t wanted to do what he just did; arrest Chris Devereaux for the crime. That word had come down from his boss, Brady, and it was an order he had to follow, regardless of how he felt about it. The decision was made when the fingerprint analysis came back and the only prints they could pull off the gun, its case, or the bag in which it was enclosed…belonged to Christopher Devereaux. And of course the gun was registered to him as well. One thing was certain, that gun came from Chris’s house and it was covered in his fingerprints. Yet Matt Scheffield couldn’t help but feel something was still off; amiss with the entire situation. He was not the man they were looking for; he just knew it. There was something or someone they were overlooking; he simply couldn’t prove it…yet.

As for Caroline, she was questioned basically in the same manner; and professed her innocence the exact same way her husband had done. She told him they had both been home that morning. She said she had no idea why the gun would even be missing from their house; and informed the officer questioning her that she had never even held the gun, much less fired it. And since her fingerprints were not found on any of the items, she was cut loose, but warned not to venture far from home; that they would be needing to speak with her again in the near future and it would be in her best interest to acquiesce to whatever they asked of her. That was more than enough to sufficiently scare her; she decided then and there to cooperate to the absolute best of her ability.  

Grace could hardly wait to tell Jesse about Adrienne squeezing her hand. For the moment, she forgot all about distrusting him and the reason why; elated about the wonderful thing that she had just experienced. He seemed genuinely happy for her; and even a little relieved himself…that there was hope Adrienne could get better. Though he didn’t admit it to Grace, he hadn’t been able to sleep very well either; being just as worried as she was about her cousin.

She had no idea of what had just happened at the police station; thinking Detective Scheffield had only called her aunt and uncle down there to verify their alibis and have them sign statements the same as she had done. She didn’t know that her Uncle Chris had just been arrested for the murder of his own mother and the attempted murder of his own daughter. Not that this would surprise her; she was fairly convinced that he was the guilty party and not Jesse. Still, she didn’t think the police would be able to arrest someone so quickly; guessing that she didn’t know everything they knew and then some after all.

Actually, Grace was the first person the detective called to deliver news of the arrest. He felt she deserved to know, with all that she had been through since she arrived in town. Plus, he may have had an ulterior motive; a personal one.

“Grace, good evening. I hope I’m not disturbing you.” he began when she answered his call, “I just wanted to call to give you the news. We’ve arrested your Uncle Christopher and charged him with the murder and attempted murder. I’m afraid I can’t give you all the details as it’s still an ongoing investigation, but I can tell you that we found enough proof of his involvement to charge him. Now the prosecution successfully making a case against him; I don’t know. This is the point at which I hand it over to them. I just thought you would like to know.” the detective told her.

“Well, thank you very much for calling. I appreciate it.” she responded; a bit surprised that she did feel shocked after all. 

“You’re welcome. I know it’s getting late, so I’ll let you get back to your night.” he answered.

“Thank you detective. And thank you again for calling.” she said slowly, in a monotone; stuck to the spot in which she stood, “Good night.”

“Good night.” he returned; hanging up the phone.

Grace hung up her phone, but remained standing in the exact spot she had been; Jesse noticing the change in her demeanor. “Are you okay?” he inquired with a concerned look on his face.

“Um…what? Oh…yeah I’m all right. I think.” was her reply; speaking to him, but her eyes remaining fixed on the same spot.

“Grace, what? Tell me.” he begged of her; actually beginning to get a little worried.

Still without shifting her gaze, she blurted out, “They’ve arrested Uncle Chris for the murder and attempted murder.”

“What?!?” he exclaimed with disbelief, “How did they know…what did…how did this happen? Do you think he did it?”

“Yeah…I mean I’m not sure. Do you think he’s truly capable of killing his own mother in cold blood? And trying to kill his own daughter? I know they never really got along, but that’s a far cry away from actually trying to take out your own daughter.” stated Grace.

 “You know, I can almost believe he would kill Genevieve – just for her land and the house alone. That always seemed to be a sore spot for him. Remember that fight he and your mother had about it that one time? The one that had to be physically broken up? That’s what he was so angry about; the land going to your mother before him…right?” he inquired of her; testing her recall.

“Yes. I remember like it was yesterday. He thought she didn’t deserve the land; that she would only sell it off piece by piece to fund her drug habit. I know my mother would never have won any ‘Mother of the Year’ awards, but she wouldn’t have done that.” stated Grace emphatically. “Uncle Chris always hated her for taking up too much of Grandpa’s time and attention; jealous that he seemed to love her more.”

“I never could understand that. Your grandfather was good to him. It’s not like he treated your mother like gold and your uncle like crap.” said Jesse. “He was afforded every opportunity in life that your mother was.”

“I always got the feeling that there was more to it than that. I know her father did treat her like she could do no wrong…and we both know that was never the case. So I can kind of see where that would piss the good kid off. It’s not that, though. They were always fighting about something else; something they only fought about behind closed doors, so I could never make out what they were saying.” she explained to him. “It was also something they never let Gram hear them arguing about either. It was just strange, that’s all. Normally they couldn’t have cared less who heard them fighting, but this was something different. That’s why I have to get in Gram’s house and find my mother’s chest. Her journals have to be in there and I know she would have written about it; whatever it was. She wrote everything in those damn books.” she told Jesse; just now realizing that the unease she had felt around him the night before had begun to dissipate.

“I don’t know, Grace. I do know that it is possible he’s the one who did this. I can believe it.” he replied; offering her his opinion. “I also know that it’s been a very upsetting and exhausting couple of days and I think you need some rest. Everything will seem clearer in the morning.” he promised her.

“You’re right. I am exhausted. Too exhausted to think any more tonight.” she said in agreement. “Good night, Jesse.”

“Good night Grace.” he replied; smiling at her.

 She retired to the bedroom and he to his couch; both falling asleep quickly. Again that night she had strange dreams about her grandmother. It was the exact same as before; her lips were moving, but there was no sound coming out. Genevieve simply kept looking toward the ceiling and mouthing “Look up, look up. It’s above you. It’s above you” over and over. And she felt even farther away in these dreams; seeming to have some sort of invisible force pulling her backwards against her will. In her previous dreams, her grandmother had appeared to be standing in a stark, grey room, but in these dreams Grace could swear that she had been in her house. She was at the top of a staircase; one with a low ceiling just like the one at her house. In the last dream, she kept trying to climb the steps to get to Genevieve before she disappeared again; before whoever or whatever pulled her away and she was gone, but for every step she climbed, another one appeared; she wasn’t getting any closer to the top. Then her Gram had simply vanished; like she had in every dream Grace had had for the last two nights.

That morning, like the previous morning, she had been awake long before the sun began to stream in through the bedroom windows. Only this morning, she felt completely different than she had the previous day. Yesterday, she had woken up with too many questions and not enough answers. She had woken up not sure if she could trust her best friend in the world. But this day, she had some answers. Today, she believed that her cousin could hear her; that she had squeezed her hand to say to Grace “Don’t give up on me”. Today, she believed that she didn’t have anything to fear from Jesse. She believed that she now knew who killed her grandmother and tried to kill her cousin; since her uncle was presently waking up in jail; having been arrested and charged with the crime. Today, she felt as if she could begin to move in a direction instead of feeling stagnant and confused.

This day, she waited for Jesse to wake up rather than sneaking past him and out of the house like the day before. They had breakfast together and afterwards they both took Casey for a walk through the woods; giving her a chance to run free; something her owner could not allow her to do for the last couple days. When they returned home, he helped her find a cleaning crew that specialized in cleaning bloody crime scenes; knowing how badly she wanted to get back into Genevieve’s house to find answers to questions that she had been plaguing her for years rather than days. Grace felt as if she may possibly soon have the answer to the biggest question of her life…why her mother killed herself. Then maybe, just maybe, she thought, her life could actually begin again.

She was quite surprised when she received a call two and a half hours later from the head of the cleaning crew saying that they were finished and the house was now habitable. Though she was glad that part of her ordeal was over, she couldn’t help but think about the fact that it took less than three hours to erase every trace of her grandmother that remained in the house. Now there were only memories; ones that thankfully didn’t have to be tainted by thoughts of her mopping up her Gram’s blood. For once in her life, she had made the right decision. She hoped it was the beginning of a new trend.

The anticipation was eating at her as she made the short drive from Jesse’s house over to her grandmother’s. How would she really feel when she put her key in the lock and walked over the threshold into Genevieve’s house? she asked herself. She knew one thing; she was not going to allow her fears to hold her back from something she had wanted and needed for so long. So she put her key in the lock and opened the front door of the house that – for all intents and purposes – belonged to her for the time being. The only person that would have argued that point had no say at the moment; her uncle presently being held in a locked cell with few comforts, she imagined.

Entering the house slowly, she stopped in the front hall and let her eyes be led to the bottom of the stairs; where her grandmother had been found already dead. She expected for it to feel strange, her being in the house again after what happened, but it actually felt oddly comforting to be in this house; like she was finally home. The same way it had always felt to her. At least her Uncle Chris had not been able to take that away from her as well as her Gram, she reasoned. She had lost more than her fair share in life and was so relieved that she didn’t have to lose the only real home she had ever had.

Grace made her way up the stairs; trying her best not to think about what happened on them. When she got to the top, she walked right past Adrienne’s room and her own; to Genevieve’s bedroom at the end of the hall. She had to keep reminding herself that it was no longer off limits to her; there were no more limits imposed on where she could go or what she could touch. And the article she had most wanted to touch for the last ten years…rested at the foot of her grandmother’s bed; her mother’s trunk.

She retrieved the key to the trunk’s lock from its resting place on the nightstand, put it in the lock, and turned; hardly being able to wait that long to view her mother’s things. As soon as she opened it, a smell hit her in the face instantly. It was the smell of old wood and maybe a little mildew – the same smell she had wondered about at the gas station! she realized. She knew it had seemed so familiar to her; and now she knew why. Another answered question, she noted happily.

 The trunk was filled with all sorts of items; her mother, Vivienne’s, christening gown and white baby shoes, items from her childhood that her mother had saved – a small, brown teddy bear and school papers that she had made good grades on – the normal things you would expect to find stashed away in a trunk or a closet and forgotten about as time went on. Grace knew exactly for what she was searching; finally finding one of them…one of her mother’s journals. She took the leather-bound book over to the chair beside the window and nervously took a seat. Taking a deep breath, she opened the cover and thumbed through the old, yellowed pages; just taking in the scent of the aging paper for a moment. Then she simply picked an entry at random and began to read.

July 23, 1979

15 year old girls can sometimes find themselves in a place they believe at the time cannot be escaped. In a situation that fear or shame keeps them from choosing the behavior that would spare them. The behavior that I should have chosen…because it would have saved my soul. My innocence.

The strange thing, in my opinion, was that this one time – after spending my time so supervised it was suffocating – my parents decided to loosen the reins. I guess I actually wish they hadn’t after all. I wish I hadn’t gone to the gathering of just an acquaintance; at his house in the middle of nowhere. With no adult supervision and no other sort of help available. But 15 year old girls are naïve and trusting. I trusted that people, for the most part, were good and kind. That decent people would never stand by and do nothing if something bad were happening.

You know, I struggle today to picture his face in my mind. I’m not sure how strange that is or isn’t. Maybe it’s normal sometimes. I can’t recall the reason I followed him into his bedroom alone, but I did. There was positively no physical attraction on my part and I was oblivious to the fact that he was dangerously attracted to me. I wonder how he knew I was a virgin because he knew. I have no doubt this realization took his fantasy from harmless and ordinary to somewhere different…somewhere dark.

He raped me right there in his bedroom; with 8 other people in the house. They weren’t that far away. I know they could hear me crying; had to hear me yelling for help. But nobody came. Nobody at all. Eventually, I just laid there crying and waited for him to finish. When he finally rolled off me, I looked up at him through my wet eyelashes and he had a smile on his face – a smile of total satisfaction. I could tell by his expression that he was happy he finally got to be with me; happy his conquest was won. Like it wasn’t even rape at all. And my virginity was gone. I would forever have to remember this as my first time.

Vivienne

Grace rested the aged book on her lap as she wiped away the tears that had flown freely as she read her mother’s own words in her mother’s own handwriting. She had wanted answers…and she may have just learned one of the most important answers to one of the most pressing questions she had ever had; what went wrong with her mother’s life. She had always wondered what terrible thing must have happened to her mother to make her so unhappy. So unhappy that she felt the only way to make the pain stop was to commit suicide; leaving her daughter behind. Was it possible that she had just uncovered the exact moment at which her mother’s life took a turn for the worse; the precise thing that had damaged her so badly? she wondered. She had wanted answers. And for the first time in her troubled life, she appeared to be finding them.

At this moment, she truly believed that God was up there; looking down on her. She could come up with no other explanation for the small miracle she had just witnessed. How else could she explain stopping on that exact page – at that particular entry – of all the entries she could have turned to and read, why else would she have stopped and began to read where she did? she asked herself over and over. Why else would answers have begun falling into her lap; when she had searched so hard for so many years for these exact answers? she couldn’t help but wonder. It had to be God finally, finally answering her prayers.