All in the Family (12 page)

Outside, he saw the metal trash cans sitting next to a small storage building. A small chain-link fence lined the back edge of the yard. Some of the fence appeared to be missing and maybe a pole or two. Who knew, Herman probably ran out of money and never finished the fence. Beyond the property was a small field and beyond that, a dark mass of foliage, the treetops silhouetted against the purple of the autumn sky. He liked fall and winter, they were his favorite times of the year. He never voiced that to anyone, but he really liked them. Ten years behind bars and behind block walls with very little time out in the open world changed the way you viewed some things. It didn’t change the man inside; he was still Roy. He still needed his young girls, drugs and cash, lots of cash. Some of the neighbors looked like they had money, maybe even a little too much. Don’t worry; Mister Roy Lawrence will take that extra money off your hands, and Jessica, that girl needed it bad. Roy shook his head to get back into character. “In due time,” he muttered quietly.

Chapter Nine

Several uneventful nights passed, and things around the house were slowly getting back to normal despite the new addition to the family. Roy spent a lot of time in his room, which worried Loretta. Herman took extra time off work to make phone calls. Bobby eagerly awaited Christmas, and Jessica had been spending a lot of time at her teacher’s house for
tutoring
.

“Yes, yes,” Herman stated insistently on the phone. “This is Frank Adams. Look, I know that this is very spur of the moment, but I’m ready to take an extended leave from the business. What? Yes, I will be leaving my brother, Herman, in charge of my accounts while I’m gone. When will I be coming back? I’ve not actually decided. I’m in discussions right now with Herman about taking over permanently. Yes, yes, I understand. I’ll be in touch. Thanks again, Heather. Goodbye.”

Herman hung up the phone. A bead of sweat ran down his cheek. He was glad that was over for now, but he still had to set up a transfer of the money into his own possession. That may or may not be as easy as it sounded. Frank was notorious for getting into gambling and money trouble, but he always had the money to cover it. He was just not the kind of person to want to pay for his addictions.

Roy passed by the office room where Herman sat at the desk. He smirked as he passed and continued down the hall. Had Roy overheard him? What if he had? That bastard wouldn’t say anything; he’d just demand a portion of the money to blow on drugs and hookers.

In the den, Jessica sat on the couch, reading a magazine. It was a typical teenybopper magazine, but she enjoyed it thoroughly. Roy stopped as he entered the room. Jessica’s back was to him, and they were alone in the room. It was the first time they had been alone in the same room since he had been there. He debated on his next move. Every time she walked past him, she would give him a look that begged for his attention. He had watched her get into the car with the older, male teacher. He even saw her kiss him. He knew what she was up to at
tutoring
. What now? He was alone with her, possibly for next few minutes. He could try to confirm his suspicions about what she intended to do with him, or he could nonchalantly have a seat near her and see what she did.
Fuck it,
he thought as he stepped quietly up behind her.

“You know,” he started, with his face next to her ear. Her hair smelled fruity, no doubt the scent of her shampoo. She jumped to the side a little, until she realized it was him. She then returned to her original position, or did she move a little closer?

“You shouldn’t scare people,” said Jessica as she flipped to the next page.

“Oh, I’m sorry honey, did I scare you,” he whispered, more in her ear than out in the open. “I was just going to say, you know that Uncle Roy was in a magazine one time, right?”

“No.” She continued to flip through the magazine. He knew that now she was just giving the appearance to read.

“Yeah, I was in a magazine, but I don’t think you want to read about that.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked.

“Because Uncle Roy has done some bad, bad things,” he said, still whispering. She was leaning a little closer now; she enjoyed the feel of his breath on her ear. It aroused her.

“I’ve killed people,” he said coldly. “The girls, oh, they like Uncle Roy.” He lightly flicked her ear with his tongue. Her panties became moist, and she squirmed a little, that same squirm she had the other night. She wanted him, there was no doubt about that in her mind, but he was her uncle.

Roy heard footsteps approaching, and he leaned back up. He could feel the strain against his pants, so he kept his back to the doorway.

“That’s why you should always say no if someone offers you drugs,” Roy said, trying to cover his reasoning for being in the den. When the pressure had eased, he turned and saw Bobby making his way down the hall. A moment later, Loretta entered the room.

“Jessica,” Loretta pause, “oh, hello Roy. Jessica?”

Jessica turned.

“Listen honey, your father and Bobby are going to be taking some trash to the incinerator to burn; do you need a ride to tutoring?”

“No, he’ll be here at the same time as usual.”

“Alright, well, I’ve got a dinner date this evening with some lady friends. You be careful with that teacher, sometimes men will try to take advantage of you.” She turned to Roy. “Roy, we have the movie channels on the cable or there is pay-per-view if you feel that you must. Please don’t order more than one movie though, they do get costly.”

Roy nodded. “I’ll probably just kick it here and maybe catch up on my reading, but thanks. I haven’t seen a good movie in ten years.” Gently nudging Jessica in the shoulder, he said, “I’ll catch ya’ later kid.” She looked up and smiled at him, her teeth glistening white outlined by near crimson, plump lips. He couldn’t help but to think of her lips as she moaned in ecstasy or agony, depending on what position she was in. He returned her smile. His smile nearly made her melt.

Roy left the room, and Loretta glared at Jessica; she could see the lust in her eyes.

“What?”

“Roy is not your type,” she said, “and he’s your uncle.”

“Oh, Mom, like I would actually do that.”

Loretta left the room, the back of her mind wondering if letting Roy stay in the first place was ever a good idea.

* * * *

In the basement, a rank odor of damp earth hung in the air. There had a been a root cellar off in the back corner, and Herman had once taken the time to halfheartedly board up the entrance to keep snakes and other vermin from entering the house, though he never finished the project. Now, an old rusted metal shelf system sat in one corner of the room; homemade canned goods were stacked there, collecting dust. No one was quite sure how long the goods had been there, only that there were never used and probably would be conducive to a school science project.

A dim fluorescent shop light hung from the wooden floor joists just overhead. The bulb flickered as electricity passed through; the bulb was old and far outdated. Herman just never saw the sense in changing a bulb until it burned out. He was that kind of man, old-fashioned and a money saver. Growing up, his family had never really had much; the dead were not the booming business that they were today. People just didn’t pay hordes of money to see their lost ones off in the grand and luxurious ways they did today.

Bobby neared the bottom of the stairs and half held his breath as his foot touched the concrete floor.

Herman stood near the freezer.

“Alright, Bobby, I helped you clean up your mess. Now you have to help me clean up mine.”

Bobby nodded.

“This freezer is getting pretty full. There are some things that we have to dispose of. The best way I know of to do that is in the incinerator at the mortuary. We have to start being more careful. I know that boy really made you angry, but if you had gotten caught, I couldn’t have helped you out of it. They would take you away from me, and I don’t want that to happen. If anything like that happens again, you come and tell me right away, and you make sure that we can take the body away without being seen. We’ll store them here until the frenzy dies down, and then we’ll dispose of them. Do you understand?” Herman looked stone-faced.

Bobby nodded.

“Uncle Frank tried to destroy our lives, and I couldn’t let that happen. I had to do something about it.”

“I know that Uncle Frank was a bad man,” Bobby said.

“I got lucky that no one caught me,” Herman continued. “You got really lucky that those boys didn’t tell on you for what you did.”

“Yeah, Tommy has been acting really funny since that night.”

“We’ll have a talk with him one day. Now, help me get these bodies into the bags,” said Herman as he motioned Bobby toward the freezer.

Bobby turned and walked solemnly toward the freezer, a cold and impassive demeanor about him. He was merely a boy doing as he was told, or was he becoming something more? Time would tell, but Herman couldn’t help but to be proud of him. It was the first time in a long time that Bobby had been so well behaved at home.

Herman opened the freezer, and Bobby peered inside. A fully intact corpse lay neatly on top. Bobby recognized the windbreaker jacket the corpse wore. Above the left breast pocket was the logo for one of the local pizza parlors.

“Who is he?” asked Bobby.

“It doesn’t matter,” Herman replied, his tone ice cold.

“Why is he in here?”

“He tried to hurt your mother.”

“Oh.” Bobby’s expression was clear and straight-faced. He understood that family members protected each other. They taught him about that in school. The teacher had said that it was in human nature to defend oneself and one’s family. It was more a history lesson on prehistoric man and how they survived, but the teacher had pointed out that it was still an underlying factor in aggressive human behavior today.
What an asshole,
Bobby thought.
Why would he come in here and try to hurt mom? What did she ever do to deserve it?

Herman had a rope in his hand; it ran to a brand new pulley that was installed just above the freezer. He tied the rope in a slipknot, opened it out wide, slipped it around the frozen torso and pulled the knot tight. “Grab the end of this rope and help me pull.”

Together they hoisted the carcass out of the freezer, and Herman pushed it out of the way to shut the freezer lid.

“Put that open bag on top of the freezer,” Herman grunted.

“Like this?” Bobby laid the bag out open on the freezer.

“Perfect!” Herman lowered the body onto the bag. It’s bent knees touching first. Then he quickly zipped the bag shut after removing the rope.

Uncle Frank was much easier to load, piece by piece rather than the whole corpse all at once.

When both corpses were zipped up and ready to go, Herman carried the bags one at a time over to a large window. Because of the slope of the driveway outside, there was a large window on the far wall. A shelf had been built right below it, though it was never used. Herman opened the window and fed the bags out into the cool evening air. He shivered. It was more the feeling one gets from out of nowhere rather than from the cold itself.

“Now let’s go load the car,” Herman said, looking at Bobby.

As Herman passed the bathroom, he saw Loretta, and he couldn’t help but to notice how strikingly gorgeous she looked. Her dress, though it ended below the knee, was a midnight black with a little lace up around the bosom. Her cleavage smiled at him as she twisted to one side to acknowledge him, and then she turned back to finish applying makeup in the mirror. Her hair glistened in the bright light. Her lips, too, sparkled.

Herman placed his hand on her bottom, and he felt her flinch a little.

“Ooh, honey, you know I’m ticklish.”

Herman smiled. “Yes, I know. Where are you going looking like that?”

“Looking like what?” she asked.

“Like you could light up the town,” he replied, catching her gaze in the mirror.

She giggled. “I look like this every time I go out. You just don’t bother to notice.”

Herman flushed, was it a little self anger or just annoyance from what she said? Either way, he didn’t like it.

“I will do better to notice more often,” he said.

“Let’s hope so,” she said. “Now, off with you,” she flung her hand out, “your man-cicles are melting.”