Chapter 83

LATE MONDAY NIGHT — SEPTEMBER 23

Just before Sheriff Tate, his wife and sister left, Jeff plowed out the driveway. Reaching the county road, he realized that there was at least six inches of the wet snow on it as well. Might as well go on down the mountain a way while the snow is still easy to plow, he thought, turning left and starting down.

When he got to the Sperman's driveway, the county road had already been plowed out as well as their driveway. He turned around in their drive, making sure that he didn't leave a hump of snow across it from the plow.

He saw the front porch light turn on and off, and he beeped his horn as he started back toward the retreat. At the base of his driveway, he turned around so that he could back up the drive. That spot of ice put my heart in my throat as I came down, even with the load on the truck. I'll spread another layer of salt on it as I backed across.

As he backed onto the strip of ice, in much better shape now with the salt and sand on it, he put another layer down for his tires to grip. Going back over it, he didn't slip this time as he retraced his route to the bottom of the drive, turned around and went back up. This time, he had no problem, but he knew there would be a new coating of ice soon, particularly as hard as it was snowing and as much mist that the splashing waterfall was causing.

When he walked back into the living room, the Sheriff said, "I didn't realize where you had gone. I want to go with you the next time. We watched you back up the drive so you could put the salt down before your wheels hit the ice. We were beginning to wonder if you were going to get past that patch of ice. And by the way, I like your security system. Watching your truck on that slope was entertaining."

Jeff wasn't sure whether the Sheriff was pulling his leg a little or not.

Dave spoke up before Jeff had time to answer. "What's causing the ice, Boss? I keep a constant watch on the ditches and drains. They're all open."

"Ah, I think it's mostly a fluke. All that tremendously hard rain started a waterfall coming down the side of the cliff just above that section of the drive. So much water tumbling over the rocks is causing a spray that the wind blows over the road. Most of the water is going into the ditch, then crossing under the road just like it is supposed to. But that spray is freezing as fast as it hits the road. What's going to be truly interesting is the freezing of that waterfall if it gets cold enough. I guess it's a tossup as to whether the source of the water slows soon enough or not."

"Well, now that it's snowing, there isn't that deluge of rain that was feeding the waterfall before, so maybe it will quit before we have a giant icicle hanging over the road," Dave said, laughing.

Tate stood. "Since our host has been so gracious to clear the road for us, we had better go before the snow covers it up again."

After the goodbyes, everyone watched Sheriff Tate's Explorer make its way down the drive without incident.

A few minutes later, Dave, Evie and Linda left. The Matthews, Joyce and Caitlin sat watching the snow coming down, and chatting.

Jesse Goodman walked into the living room, then just stood looking lost. "What's wrong, Jesse?" Helen said, taking one look at his face and standing to go to him.

"I ... I need to talk to Mrs ... uh, Diana alone," he quietly said.

Caitlin grabbed Joyce's hand. "We need to get some sleep. Joyce has a big day tomorrow." Unashamedly kissing Jeff in front of Jesse, they left holding hands, though Goodman hardly reacted to them, his mind obviously elsewhere.

The others, including Jeff, filed out of the living room, although Jeff did stop to quickly hug Diana before hurrying to catch up with the others.

Diana poured a cup of black coffee from the big thermos on the serving cart, "Sit," she simply said, pointing to a nearby couch.

Jesse sat without a word. When Diana handed him the cup and sat beside him, he absently took a sip, then just stared at the cup when he returned his hand to his lap.

When he almost spilled the coffee, Diana gently took the cup from his hand and set it on a nearby coffee table.

"What on earth has upset you? Did you and Alesha have a fight or something? Remember, she's had a terribly upsetting experience..."

"We didn't have a fight," the young deputy broke in. "She's upset. Hell, that isn't even close. I don't know what to do. She won't listen to me. I've never seen a woman cry like that. She won't listen to me," he repeated.

"Okay," Diana said grabbing his hand. "Snap out of it. Look at me."

When he turned his face to her, she continued, "I assume you came to me for help. I can't help until you tell me what's going on..."

"She told me she was a whore," Jesse broke in.

"She what?" Diana interjected. "We both know that's bullshit. Now talk to me."

After a moment, Jesse quietly started, "We went through that night together. I don't know whether I could have kept Joyce from bleeding to death without Alesha, and I only vaguely realized at the time that there was something wrong with her. I just kept praying that she wouldn't pass out on me while she was holding pressure. She later told me that the reason she had been kneeling on the porch when I got there was because she had just gotten through vomiting. Yet, she never complained. She just did what I told her to do. Constantly putting pressure on Joyce's injury at the angle Alesha was forced to must have been extremely tiring for her."

"And..." Diana prompted when it seemed like he wasn't going on.

"When I visited Alesha in the hospital, we just seemed to ... click, I guess. I've heard that before, and never did realize what people really meant. But even with her hearing problem, we seemed to get along well with each other. I didn't want to leave the hospital.

"Then last night, it was the same. I couldn't seem to shut my mouth, and she was the same way. We sat on the couch and held hands like two kids. That's all we did. I never even tried to kiss her until tonight. But when I did, she just moved her head aside and it changed into a hug. Heck, I even enjoyed that out of all proportion to what we actually did."

Noticing that Jesse wasn't shaking any longer, Diana handed his coffee back to him for another sip. To be safe, she put the cup back on the table afterward. Sitting beside him, turned to face him, she put her hand on his shoulder. "Keep going."

"Tonight, after we got back to her suite, she seemed ... depressed, maybe apprehensive, I guess. Anyway, she told me about her boyfriends — she told me that I could tell you — and..."

Diana took his hand. "Just start at the beginning. We have all night."

Jesse sighed. "Okay, good point. I'm acting like an upset civilian. I know how to relate things. It's a big part of my job, for crying out loud, and here I am acting like an idiot." Taking a breath, he began.

"Alesha said that her mother was a drunk, and her stepfather was little better. High school was hell on her. She wore Goodwill clothes and of course because of it was definitely not part of the 'in crowd.' She dated a few times, then went out with this guy four or five times over a couple of weeks. They ... went parking near the end of their last date, and well ... he took her virginity. By the next afternoon, practically everybody in her class was aware of it, and a bunch of guys asked her for a date, some a whole lot less than politely.

"It really messed with her head. He had told her he loved her, and I guess from the gist of the conversation, she was a little desperate to believe that someone cared for her. She didn't date any more after that, and spent the rest of the month scared to death that she was pregnant, since the asshole didn't use a condom.

"But the real goody happened on graduation night. Her mother was supposed to come to the school later, since Alesha had to be there thirty minutes early so everyone could get their gowns on and get ready. She didn't see her mother in the audience. When she walked into the house after the graduation ceremony, boiling mad because her mother hadn't even shown enough interest to come to her only daughter's graduation, the house was empty.

"Not only was her mother not there, she had packed her things and left. Alesha hadn't seen her stepfather in over a month, and her mother wouldn't talk to her about him. A few days later, she opened an official-looking letter addressed to her mother. In short, their rent was three months past due and there would be a set-out crew there in two weeks to clean the house out.

"Things rocked on for a few months. She had received a small grant that covered her tuition to a local college, but it didn't cover anything else. She had planned to live at home, work a part-time job and go to school. So, now she was in college okay, but had been forced to move what little she had into an apartment that was little more than a dump. She did everything she could to save what little money she was making at the college bookstore, but it just wasn't enough.

"She had used what she had saved from part-time jobs during her last year in high school to have power and water turned on in her tiny apartment. But with the little she was making now, she had practically nothing left after paying her rent. Eventually, the utilities were turned off, but she had her first year in at school."

Turning to stare at Diana for a moment, he continued, "Things got worse. Since the apartment was all electric, she had no way to cook with the power off. She solved that when she found a bunch of rejected candles in a corner at the Goodwill. They took pity on her and sold her the lot for a dollar. With a tiny aluminum boiler, she could cook rice with the pan suspended over the flame of a couple candles. When she managed to have any money left, she would buy several cans of the cheapest canned beans she could find. They, of course, only had to be warmed up, and the rice would cook in thirty minutes or so. It took too many candles to try to cook dried beans.

"Although she thought her neighbors would probably give her a couple of buckets of water a day, she was ashamed to ask, so late at night, she stole the water from their outside hydrant. She could flush her commode by pouring the water in from the bucket, and the other bucket she used for cooking and drinking water.

"Then came really cold weather. She had been careful to put the insulation back just as she found it on her neighbor's hydrant, but they apparently turned it off in their basement, for there was no more water. She talked to the clerk two blocks away at the twenty-four-hour convenience store and was given permission to get water there. Late at night, she trudged the two blocks with two full buckets of water. She was ashamed to do it in the daytime.

"There was snow and patches of ice one night and she fell, spilling most of her water. When she got back up, her right shoe full of water and her pants leg soaked, she just stood there for a moment, shivering. Her light coat did practically nothing to stop the icy wind.

"A guy stopped his car and walked over to her. Shortly, she found herself in his apartment, not far from hers, being groped by someone she didn't even know. But she was warm. She insisted that he use a rubber, and told him flat out that she would not give him oral sex. She now had food and a warm place to stay. She gave him all the sex he wanted, although he usually had to use lubricant because she remained dry. She said that she usually went over her classwork in her mind while he took her."

Goodman sighed, then continued, "Alesha said she became a whore for a little food and a warm place to stay. After a while, he became abusive, eventually demanding that she quit school. Depressed, she did just that at the end of the next quarter.

"Although her grades during her last year of high school weren't that good, basically because she was working so many hours at her job, she maintained a four point oh with her college classes. A few months after she quit school and lost her grant, his abuse escalated. One day, she heard Lennie talking to the owner of a nearby car lot. He needed a bookkeeper for his lot in Winter Park. She talked her way into the job.

"He was nice to her; told her he could get her into a small house that a buddy of his owned. With her few things in his SUV, she was on her way to the house where, eventually, her next boyfriend would try to kill her. Anyway, she had been getting by on her new, halfway decent salary. Crawford kept coming around to see her, and she eventually went out with him. After a while, she went to bed with him, but quickly found out that the only one he was interested in pleasing was himself. After a while, she broke it off with him, or tried. He had other ideas. When she continued to rebuke him, he became enraged.

"The rest of the story, you know, and obviously I've condensed her story immensely. But she insists she's a whore. A whore of the cheapest kind. She even considers screwing Crawford as being a whore, because she was doing it just to have someone in her life. Just for companionship. She was so lonely and depressed that she decided to screw him just to keep him around.

"Now, she's lost the job at the car lot. She's become so depressed that even asking me to help her find a job has made her feel useless because she thinks she couldn't find one on her own. She doesn't have much in the way of clothing, and is afraid that the car lot owner will try to come get her car back now that he's fired her.

"She's a mess and the more I say, the more she seems to cry. I tried to loan her the money to pay her rent, but she wouldn't even talk to me about it. She's also afraid that if I do get her the desk job at the hotel, that her clothes won't pass muster there. I told her that I would be glad to buy her enough clothes to last for a while, but that set her off again. I'm lost in this. I finally got her to bed, and she fell asleep almost instantly. She's making this little snuffling sound. I swear that she's crying in her sleep. What can I do?" he finished, desperately.

Diana turned to pick up the phone. She dialed, then spoke to her husband. "Baby, Alesha has told Jesse about her life, and from what he's told me, ours was a fairytale in comparison. You guys go on to bed. I'm going to spend a while with Alesha, maybe even spend the night. She doesn't need to be alone right now, and she won't let Jesse stay with her ... Okay ... I love you, too."