Chapter 10
Penrod was finding all kinds of things about Mrs. Jacobson that kind of made him a little ill.
She’d not only been using the girls in her class to clean her house after beating them up, but she’d also been having her lawn mowed by the boys for better grades.
And most of the time, when they were mowing her lawn, she made them pay for gasoline and didn’t give them anything to drink. She had a big yard, too.
“Are you sure you don’t mind looking into the Jacobson stuff?
I know you’re homicide, but right now we don’t have anything going on.
” He told his boss that he didn’t mind at all that he liked to stay busy.
“Good. Are you finding out anything that can be used to bring her in? I remember her from when I was in school. I would have thought that she would have retired by now. I guess if she’s doing her job, they don’t care what else she might be up to. ”
“She’s been doing this for years. I remember the rumors from when I was in seventh grade.
I was never any trouble, so she had no reason to pick me out but I had heard there were kids who were being singled out for lawn work.
” He asked him why he didn’t look into it.
“I was just glad that I didn’t have to mow her lawn too.
My dad made us take turns mowing the lawn all summer.
We had a riding mower, but all the trimming had to be done by a push mower.
I was a lazy kid like everyone else was back then. ”
“My sister said she knows of a couple of girls who had to do her housework. Bennie wasn’t a part of it, but she remembered these two girls from her class who had to stay over until the housework was finished up.
I wonder why no one reported her. Or do you think anyone would have listened to a bunch of kids?
” He told him that they’d probably not have listened to anyone back then.
And nowadays, with the threat of prison being hung over their heads, it would be a lot harder to get them to come forward.
“I’m just glad that she was able to talk to an officer who had a little knowledge about what was going on.
I guess she was beaten up pretty badly around her back and ribs. ”
“I saw the report. I guess we’ll have to run her in for abuse.
Or would you call it bullying? Either way, she’s going to be facing some jail time and probably lose her job.
” He said he hoped she lost her job. “I am as well. To think this has been going on for decades, and no one ever said a word about it. I’d do well in her class, even I’d heard the rumors.
Just so I’d not get the shit beaten out of me. ”
“I hear you.” Working on what he could about the case, he was worried that some of the parents were going to be pissed off because it had been going on for so long.
Without the help of Shelly, there is no telling how much longer it would have been happening.
As it was now, they were asking people around his age if they’d been a part of the crew that went to her house to clean or mow. That to him was just sad.
After putting away the file when he’d done all he could for the day, he pulled open one of the cold cases that had been on his desk for a few months.
It’s not as if he didn’t look at it sometimes, but it was so old he was having trouble finding people who even cared about it.
There had been a murder back in thirty-nine that killed two people and injured twenty-three others.
The murderer had been a man and his wife, who had been serving breakfast at the local—back then it had been a local restaurant—place that had served whoever came in with money.
A lot of people around town took exception to that, saying that it was a sin for them to serve anyone who wasn’t white.
The couple that ran the place had been killed one morning while they were serving breakfast, and the entire place had been shot up too while customers had been eating.
It was such a mess that it took them days to figure out that the man and woman who had been killed were the owners of the place.
They just lumped them into the group of eaters and wondered where the couple was.
Making notes on the page where the report had been filed, he read how the man had been shot in the head at close range, and the woman had been brutally murdered.
It didn’t say how she’d been murdered, and since there was no autopsy done, he had no way of knowing how either of them had died.
Had they been beaten? Was she raped as well as killed?
There was no way of telling after all this time, as most of the people who had been in there that morning had all died or had long since forgotten about it ever happening.
He’d had a lead of someone being there as a child, but all he could remember was his mom shoving him under the table until it was over, then carrying him out so that he’d not see all the blood.
“I tell you what. That place was so full of holes that you could have gotten a breeze wherever you sat.” He asked him if he had ever heard who had done it.
“Oh no, not me. I was just a kid. There had been rumors that the church had done it, and that’s why only the two people who were killed were done the way that they were. ”
“How did the old man die? It was said that he was shot in the head at close range.” He said he’d never heard that part of it, but he knew that the old woman had suffered.
“How? Did you ever figure that out? All it says in the file is that she was murdered, but nothing about it. There were no pictures of her either. But there was of the man.”
“Don’t know. There were some rumors like I told you, that the church did it to them.
They didn’t like that she’d serve the blacks like she did the white folks.
I don’t think she ever saw color when she was serving up her food.
She was just a nice old lady who happened to like to cook for people.
The old man, he’d run the register. My mom told my dad once that he gave away more than people paid for back then.
I don’t know any more than that. I remember it, like it was yesterday, but as far as details about what went on.
I didn’t see anything other than the backside of the table I was hiding under. ”
He had a feeling that this was going to be one of those unsolvable cases.
Anyone who might have had a grudge against the people had long since died.
There were no witnesses who were around anymore for the same reason.
And the one source that he had turned out to have been a six-year-old kid that had the sense to stay where his momma had shoved him so he’d not get shot at too.
When he’d gotten back to the office, he put it aside as he had with the other two files.
They were too old to be solved now, and he had a feeling that that was why they were on his desk; no one knew how to solve them.
At the end of his shift, he turned in all the paperwork he’d found on Jacobson.
They were going to arrest her in the morning for bullying kids.
He didn’t know how much time she’d get with it, but he knew that there were people around who didn’t much care for the older woman.
She’d been teaching classes at the middle school longer than he’d been around and was glad that he’d never been in trouble with her.
Like he’d told his captain, he had enough mowing going on without having to mow someone else’s yard for the heck of it.
Penrod hated his place. He’d been living there since he’d gotten out of the academy.
It was a condo like his other brothers had had, and he couldn’t stand to live with neighbors close by all the time.
Not to mention the kids who would use his part of the yard as a play yard.
He didn’t mind so much them using it, but when he was on night shift, and they played right outside his windows, it made him have difficulty falling asleep and staying that way.
He wanted his own home and yard so that he could own something more than a condo and not have much to show for it.
He also wanted to mow his own grass. He’d not tell anyone that, but he did want to smell the first season’s grass being mowed.
Then after that, he’d hire someone to do it.
He also wanted to plant a nice little vegetable patch so that he could grow his own tomatoes. His favorite snack.
He’d been looking, but he’d admit that he’d not been looking very hard.
He loved both of his brothers’ homes and the way they were set back off the road so they’d not be in traffic a great deal.
He also liked the fact that there were flowers around their homes that they took care of.
That was what he wanted, a yard that he could have some fun in, like they seemed to be doing.
Having his mom and dad over for dinner sometimes was something that he wanted as well.
He loved having a meal with them and was glad that they lived close enough that he could.
While they were busy with other things in their lives, they never turned down an opportunity to have a meal with one of their kids.
He was going to do the same thing when he had a family.
Always have time for his loved ones. He was just getting ready to have a bowl of cereal when his cell phone rang.
It was his brother, Stamos. He thought that of all his brothers, he was closest to him.