House of Secrets (4 page)

of her sister’s son. Teresa tried to find middle ground. “You need to live your own life for a while,” she said. “Then, later, you can think about marriage and a family.” But he continued seeing her, spending more evenings at the house on Caroline Street. “He became head over heels with this girl,” she later recalled. “And there is just no reasoning with a teenager in love.” Then one day in September, Joey announced that he wanted to move to Montana. “Montana?” she asked.

“With who?”

“Pixie. And Mr. and Mrs. Sexton. The whole family is going to move out west.” He explained that the Sextons were buying a big ranch there. It was located on top of a mountain, a millionaire’s mansion with hundreds of acres. There were guest quarters and a guard house.

Mr. Sexton had shown him a video of the spread. “They want me to work in the guard station,” Joey said. That evening, Teresa Boron drove to the house on Caroline, Joey tagging along. The man who introduced himself as Pixie’s father met her at the front door. Ed Sexton was a tall, thin man with a pronounced widow’s peak. She told Ed Sexton she needed to talk about Joey. Ed Sexton smiled, inviting her to sit on the deck. His wife Estella emerged, but Sexton turned to her and said, “Go inside and get some iced tea.” It was an order. The wife silently complied. As she settled into her chair, Teresa noticed a couple of girls and a young boy, ages maybe 8 to 12, quietly come outside. Soon eight or nine Sexton children came out, taking positions, all of them absolutely silent. They stood looking at her with their chins lowered, their dark eyes peering up at her, as if she were some new, strange species they’d never seen before. When Estella handed her the tea and returned inside, Joey took Dawn for a walk down by the pond, Pixie and several other of the children following. Ed Sexton looked as relaxed and cordial as a southern gentleman sipping a mint julep on a plantation porch. You know, Joey IS just terrific with little Dawn,”

Sexton drawled. Sexton began asking the questions. He wanted to know the fate of Joey’s mother and dad. She gave him the brief version.

His father died unexpectedly of a sudden heart attack three years before his mother, she said. Neither lived past the age of 35. “Did the parents have insurance?” he asked. “I mean, to take care of the boy?” She thought, That’s a nosey question, but answered anyway.

“They didn’t have a lot of insurance. He gets Social Security.”

“Do you invest the money?” Sexton asked. He got $450 a month, she thought.

They gave him money for allowance and expenses. They put the balance in CDs and a savings account. But she didn’t tell Sexton that. She skirted the question. It’s none of your business, she thought.

Already, Teresa Boron didn’t like this man. “Joey says you want him to move to Montana with you,” she began. “And I don’t think that’s good.”

She pled his case. He had a younger brother who needed him. He needed to get established in a good job. If they wanted to be together, perhaps Pixie could remain behind while they dated. “After his brother Danny graduates from school, maybe then they could go out and join you,” she said. She thought, at the very least she could buy time, until her nephew’s infatuation passed. She told Sexton, Joey needed to be able to support himself before he could support a wife and a child. “Well, Pixie did make a mistake,” Sexton said of the baby.

“But I still love her.” Sexton said he had it all worked out. He talked about the scenario as if it were a done deal. They were buying a place called the Skytop Ranch, he said. It was on I,200 acres, on a mountaintop just south of Helena, Montana. Later, she’d learn he’d found the place through an advertisement in The Robb Report, a magazine for millionaires. Sexton had a brochure. It read, “More than a home, Skytop Ranch, Montana is a lifestyle … Expansive views of Montana’s beloved big sky are rivaled only by the mountain peaks, pine forests and wildflowers that are visible from every window of this three-story mansion. Here, the nearest neighbors are deer and elk, coyote and cougar. Here, the distractions are subtle, the rustle of the wind, the laughter of a trout stream, the soft morning whistle of a mountain bluebird.” The brochure showed a sun-drenched family room with a huge circular leather couch and a telescope aimed at the nearest mountain peak. In the formal living room, a black grand piano stood across from a large fireplace, its walls adorned with modern art. There were many rooms, “cozy niches for reading, playing and being,” the brochure said.

Skytop had sophisticated fire and security systems. It had a helicopter hangar and a red, two-man chopper. Sexton also said he had a video of the property. He offered to send the tape home with Joey someday. Joey would be working for him, handling security, he said.

As if Joey knows anything about security, she thought. Teresa Boron eyed the weathered deck and Ed Sexton’s worn blue jeans. She couldn’t help but notice the simple clothes the kids were wearing. She thought, where was this guy going to get the money for a mountaintop mansion?

She thought this even before she learned the asking price for Skytop.

The owner wanted $1.9 million for the ranch. Sexton brought the subject up.

He said he was making a multimillion-dollar deal with the Wendy’s and Burger King franchises to do a nationwide promotion. “Promotion of what?” she asked. “The Futuretrons,” Sexton said. She asked him to repeat the word. “Futuretrons,” he said. “You see, my daughter and I are Futuretrons.” Teresa said she didn’t understand. Ed Sexton held out his left hand, showing her his palm. He pointed to what looked like normal lines in the skin. He said his second youngest daughter, Lana, had the same lines. “If some of these Satanic cults knew she had this mark, they’d hunt her down,” he said. “If they knew of her, or her whereabouts, she’d be in grave danger.” Teresa wondered, what kind of danger? “They’d want to sacrifice her. The mark on her hand makes her so powerful, she could destroy them. The power can wipe em out. I mean, wipe em out.” The girl Lana looked hardly 10 years old, but Ed Sexton was serious. “Okay,” Teresa said, humoring him. He talked about markings on his other children. He said his 6year-old Kimberly had the mark of a Christmas tree on her leg. When his wife was pregnant with Kimberly, he said, the family tree fell down and the baby jumped in her tummy. When the child was born, it bore the mark of the tree.

“Really,” Teresa said. But she was thinking, Joey isn’t going anywhere with these people. God, it was we. The Sextons were into cults.

Pixie and Joey returned to the deck. “Pixie, why don’t you stay here instead of going to Montana?” Teresa asked. “My dad says it’s best I go,” she said quietly. “Joey will eventually be getting an apartment.

You guys can still see each other.”

“My dad says it’s best if we were out there,” Pixie said. Dad plays a big part in this girl’s life, Teresa thought. She looked back at Sexton. He was staring at her now. His eyes had a penetrating, dark quality. Now he’s trying to intimidate me, she thought. She’d dealt with men like that before. She’d had a lot of practice in the steel business. Teresa stared right back. “Well, it’s not going to happen,”

she said firmly. “Joey is not going to Montana. His main obligation right now is to take care of his brother. It is not to follow you guys out west.” She remained cordial saying goodbye. But couldn’t wait to get off that deck. A few weeks later, Joey came home from work depressed. “It’s off,” he said. Teresa wondered, the trip to Montana?

“Me and Pixie,” he said. She didn’t want to see him anymore. Teresa Boron thought, Thank God Joel found a job at a local nut and bolt manufacturer. Teresa Boron helped him find his own apartment on Sixth Street, a one bedroom with a kitchen, living room, and bath. Her older sister Velva also pitched in for the move. Teresa gave him an old couch. Velva bought him new towels. They both equipped him with dishes and kitchen utensils. Velva could practically see his apartment from her two bedroom home on Park Avenue. “You’re moving him close to me because you know I’m close enough to watch him,”

Velva said. The whole family worried about him, not only Teresa and Velva, but their parents Lewis and Gladys and their brother Sam.

They’d all had a hand in raising him. They all wanted to see him find independence, but they were concerned about his trusting nature. “You would have to know Joey to understand,” Velva would later say. “He was a good, gentle person. But he was also very naive.” Velva was as close to Joey as Teresa. She, too, thought of him as a son. Joey and his brother Danny had spent weekends with Velva when his mother was dying. When Linda passed, her will gave Velva custody of her sons.

They stayed with her and her husband for two years on their 40-acre farm in Mineral City, 20 minutes south of Canton. Then, when Velva’s marriage failed, the boys moved in with their parents. Joey had finished high school at Teresa’s while Velva got her life back on track. Velva did watch Joey. She was working the day shift putting together baby strollers and car seats at Century Products. But she found time to drop by to see him, bringing food or items he might need for the apartment. He didn’t have a telephone. So every time she heard an ambulance, she’d find herself going outside to look down the street, making sure it hadn’t stopped at his apartment complex. Velva couldn’t help but admire his tenacity. He nursed his Datsun to the bolt factory. On days it wouldn’t start, he’d mount his bike, thinking nothing of pedalling five miles to work. The company was using him everywhere in the plant, boxing, sorting, and shipping. Soon he was running a production machine. He’d qualified for health care benefits and was earning vacation time. With his paychecks, he bought his own stereo, then a TV and VCR. Then, after New Years 1991, Pixie Sexton showed up again in Joel Good’s life. Velva had just come home from work. She found them all sitting on her living room couch. Not only Joey and Pixie, but two children, a 3-year-old hanging onto her knee, the other an infant, cradled in a baby seat. The older girl was Dawn.

The second child was called Shasta. Pixie had given birth in November, 1990. That was more than a year after Joel and Pixie had broken up.

They were dating again, Joey said. “I came right out with it and asked her,” Velva later recalled. “Do you know who the daddies are? Are they the same daddies or different daddies?”

“I don’t know.”

“Joey, do you know what you’re doing?” Velva asked. She looked at Pixie. “I can accept one mistake, but not two.” Pixie Sexton stared straight ahead with her dark, sleepy eyes. Velva called Teresa and put Joey on the phone. He told Teresa he was seeing Pixie again. He said he’d run into Willy Sexton at Canton Center Mall. The family hadn’t moved to Montana, he said. “Willie said things are all worked out,”

Joey said. “He said Pixie wants to see me and stuff.” Joey said he’d driven over to the house on Caroline Street and asked Pixie to go for a ride. He wanted her to see his new apartment, but Ed Sexton stopped them. “He said I couldn’t take her to my apartment,” Joey said. “He jumped all over me about it.” Teresa wondered why. She wanted to hear it from him, though Velva had already told her. “Pixie had another baby,” he said, shyly. “Is it yours?” she asked. “No, it’s that guy from the Navy.” The old boyfriend had returned, had a one night stand with Pixie, then disappeared again. “I thought he was dead,” Teresa said. “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s what they told me.” Make a mistake once, Teresa thought. Every kid was entitled to that. But twice, that’s a pattern. “Joey, you really need to find somebody else that doesn’t have kids,” she said. “Somebody you can have kids with.”

“But I love Pixie,” Joey said. His luck appeared to turn with Pixie Sexton’s first appearance. Both aunts noticed he was always short of money. He decided to let the sister of a former classmate move in to share his apartment expenses. He came home from work one day to find his stereo missing. Then his TV and VCR disappeared. He asked the girl to leave, but she refused. One night, he got up from his bed to go to the bathroom and found a man walking naked down his hallway.

“Get back in your bedroom,” the stranger said, “or you’re a dead man.”

A few days later, Joey showed up at Velva’s door. “I haven’t been able to do things right,” he said. “Can I come home, Aunt Velva?” She hugged him, saying, “Why sure.” They moved him into Velva’s upstairs bedroom and began seeing more of Pixie Sexton firsthand. Joey would go to Pixie’s house after work and bring her back to Velva’s, often without her kids.

When they arrived or left, Velva couldn’t help but notice the way Pixie always stood behind her nephew, peeking at her over his shoulder, as if she was trying to hide. She remained a girl of few words. The two of them would sit on her couch, Velva trying to pry a conversation from Joey, Pixie in silence, her eyes on the living room TV. ,

Velva told a friend one night, “God, she acts like I’m going to hurt her or something. The girl is very weird.” The family was weird, Velva thought, though she’d never met the parents. Joey always had to have her back by ten. “You’re how old?” Velva asked her one night.

“Twenty-one,” she said. The girl seemed oblivious to the point she was making. It just didn’t make sense, Velva thought. She’d had two children out of wedlock, but she couldn’t even stay out until midnight as a legal adult. Joey’s brother Danny moved in with Velva. She felt good about having the two brothers reunited, but it soon became clear that even his own brother wasn’t going to diminish Joey’s infatuation with Pixie Sexton. He began spending less time at home, leaving every night after work to go see Stella at the Sexton’s house. The hours became later. One night, Velva came home after midnight to find an infant’s car seat in her living room. The next morning she yelled up to his room. “You don’t have Pixie up there with you, do you?” No, he explained, his car had broken down on the freeway the night before.

He’d walked home. “Why do you have that car seat?” she asked. “I didn’t want anybody to steal it.” Velva thought, the girl is taking over his life. She wondered, what if she tries to get pregnant again?