The Hayes Family Trap

My oldest brother's rich fiance the one in the wheelchair drank a cup of the calming herbal tea I'd brewed, then died in the guest room with blood seeping from her eyes, nose, and mouth.

The medical examiner found a high concentration of poison residue in the tea leaves, and the police pinned me down hard against the cold tile floor.

I thought my parents, who'd always doted on me, would fight to defend me.

Instead, my mom stared down at the body on the floor, let out a long breath, and burst into tears of joy. Thank God! Officer, well done! Lock this lunatic up right now!

My dad was even worse shaking all over with excitement, his face wild with glee as he rushed over and screamed, It was her! She did it! Take her away!

Six feet away, Claire my brother's bride-to-be lay under a white sheet.

Black blood seeped out from the edges, mixing with the spilled calming tea, giving off a sharp, rotten stench.

A cop had my arms twisted behind my back, the side of my face pressed hard against the cold tile. I strained my neck, looking toward my parents standing a short distance away.

Dad, Mom have you lost your minds? What are you talking about?

I twisted toward my mom. Mom, explain it to the police! You mixed that herbal tea yourself. I was out in the yard chopping wood the whole time I never even set foot in the kitchen!

I thought she would clear my name.

Instead, she suddenly dropped to her knees with a thud, kneeling bolt upright in front of the officer in charge.

Oh God, oh God! What a disgrace to this family, what a disgrace!

My mom slapped both hands against her thighs, sobbing until her voice went hoarse, snot and tears running down her face. She beat her chest and clawed at the cop's pant leg. Officer, it's my fault! Every bit of it is my fault, as her mother! Arrest me instead I didn't keep an eye on this crazy girl, and now she's killed my poor daughter-in-law!

I froze completely.

Before my brain could catch up, the woman who'd been wailing on the floor a second ago shot to her feet and crossed to me in two strides.

Crack!

A hard slap landed full across my face.

My head snapped sideways, the corner of my mouth split open, my whole mouth filling with the taste of iron.

You little wretch! Still lying with death staring you in the face! My mom jabbed a finger at my nose, spit flying across my face. Yes, I brewed the tea but I went out back to take in the laundry, and you took your chance to dump poison into the pot! Claire couldn't walk well, but she was always generous with you. No matter how sick in the head you are, how could you do something this vicious?

My ears were ringing.

That tea had been simmering on the stove for two full hours. She'd been sitting on a little stool right in front of it the whole time, peeling garlic she never moved an inch!

Mom, why are you lying? My voice was shaking, the tears breaking loose. You poured that tea out yourself and handed it straight to me!

You dare talk back!

My dad rushed over and kicked me hard in the shoulder.

I sucked in a sharp breath of pain and curled up on the floor, dry-heaving.

Before I could recover, my dad pulled a folded sheet of paper from an inner pocket against his chest and handed it respectfully to the officer in charge.

Officer, don't listen to her nonsense. This girl had a breakdown when she was fifteen, and her head's been wrong ever since severe mania and persecution delusions.

He pointed at me, grinding his teeth, as if I weren't his daughter but some mortal enemy. She's been off her meds for half a month. Almost thirty and no boyfriend, sitting at home all day glaring at everyone. Yesterday Claire just said the floor wasn't swept clean, and today the madness took her and she poisoned somebody!

My mouth hung open. I forgot to argue back.

I'd worked an honest job at the packaging plant in this town for eight years, clocking out on time every day to go home, cook, and do the housework. When had I ever taken psychiatric medication?

I'm not sick! I'm not sick at all! I knelt on the floor, shouting at the police. That paper is fake! Go ask the packaging plant go check! I never touched any poison!

The officer in charge ignored me. He took the paper from my dad, glanced at it, and his face darkened further.

Jane Hayes, save your breath. We go by evidence. He cut me off coldly.

He turned aside, and a younger officer behind him stepped forward holding a clear evidence bag. Inside was a torn-open pink packet.

Five minutes ago, we found this empty packet in a shoebox under your bed. The officer looked down at me. Your fingerprints are the only ones on it.

I stared at the bag, stunned. Impossible that's impossible

And there's this. The officer pointed at my right pocket. Initial testing shows a high concentration of poison residue around the edge of your right jacket pocket. We have witnesses, we have evidence. Take her away.

Two officers grabbed my arms and hauled me up off the floor.

I looked down at my pocket.

Around the edge of the right pocket, there really was a faint trace of pink.

An image suddenly flashed through my head. That morning, my mom had carried the steaming bowl of medicine toward me, and as she pressed it into my hands she stumbled, her whole body bumping into me, her hand clawing hard at my right pocket.

She'd said over and over it was nothing, then hurried me along. Go on, take it to your sister-in-law while it's hot the medicine won't work as well once it cools.

Staring at that smear of pink, a wave of nausea rose in me.

Outside, tires screeched in the yard.

What's going on? What happened to Claire?

My oldest brother Leo's voice exploded from beyond the gate, and the yard door was shoved open. Leo, my aunt, my uncle, and my younger brother Max a whole crowd of them, eyes red, came pouring into the yard.

Leo, charging out in front, didn't even glance at the white sheet on the floor. He lunged straight at me.

The cop holding me didn't have time to stop him before Leo's leather-shoed foot slammed into my stomach. I toppled over, the handcuffs clanging against the floor with an ugly metallic clatter.

You poisonous bitch! Leo stood over me, finger jabbing down, the veins in his neck bulging. Claire was about to marry me! You give me my wife back!

I didn't poison her! Leo, you have to believe me! I lay on the floor, shaking my head desperately, ignoring the churning in my gut.

Still making excuses!

Max stepped up from behind, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and wrenched my upper body off the ground. Jane, fine, you sulk and snipe around the house but how could you actually kill someone? At dinner yesterday, Mom gave Claire an extra bowl of soup, and you were in the kitchen slamming things around, saying why does she get all the good stuff. I thought you were just grumbling. I never knew your heart was this black!

I didn't! I was in my room folding cardboard boxes all yesterday I never went near the kitchen! My mouth was full of the taste of blood, and I looked in despair at the relatives filing in behind. Auntie, you came by yesterday afternoon to borrow some sugar. You saw me in my room, didn't you?

My aunt shrank back and covered her mouth, her eyes darting away. I I'm old, my eyes aren't good. All I saw was you standing there staring blankly, holding a pair of scissors. Gave me a fright

My uncle clasped his hands behind his back and gave a cold snort. Never right in the head, even as a kid. Just like I always said an ungrateful thing you can never feed enough.

I lay on the cold tile, looking at these people the same relatives I brought armfuls of gifts to every holiday.

The cops dragged me up off the floor, twisted my arms behind me, and hauled me toward the squad car outside. The handcuffs cut into the bone of my wrists, but I didn't struggle anymore, and I didn't cry out that I was innocent.

At the gate, I stopped and turned my head.

In the yard, the relatives were crowding around to comfort my parents. Leo had already turned away and was murmuring something to the deputy sheriff who'd taken the money, his shoulders shaking slightly, as if he were laughing.

Max brushed the dust off his pants and walked into the kitchen.

My mom and dad stood under the eaves of the main house and didn't spare me a single glance.

The white sheet over Claire's body lay alone in the middle of the living room.

They put me in the squad car. The door shut, and the car started, rolling a long way down the muddy dirt road. Not one of my heartbroken family members turned to look toward the car.

Because of the psychiatric diagnosis my dad had handed over, I wasn't sent to the county jail. Instead I was held for the time being in an abandoned holding room at the town police station.

The single room had only one rusted iron bed. Two rough canvas straps fixed my hands to the rails on either side.

I stared at the blackened ceiling, listening to the thunderstorm outside, my mind strangely clear.

I wasn't going to run. I just had to hold on until morning, when the medical examiner from the city would do the formal assessment and pull the traces from the kitchen then I could prove I'd never touched the poison.

Two in the morning.

Someone cut the iron bars outside the room with bolt cutters. The old wooden window frame was forced open, and a figure climbed in with effort, dropping hard onto the concrete floor. Then a second one.

By the faint light spilling in from the hallway, I made out the two faces.

It was my mom and dad.

My mom's hair had come completely undone, and there was a gash split open on her forehead, dark red blood running down her brow and matting half her face.

One of my dad's legs dragged unnaturally along the ground, his clothes covered in muddy boot prints from being kicked.

My mom stumbled to the bedside and reached out with trembling hands to undo the straps.

Jane, hurry, go, she whispered, coughing bloody spit.

I froze. Looking at the hands reaching toward me, I instinctively pressed myself back hard against the wall, watching them warily.

The scene from that afternoon was still vivid my dad yelling for the police to take me away, my mom slapping me across the face.

What are you doing here? My voice shook badly, thick with suspicion. Weren't you both dying to have the cops haul me off this afternoon?

Hearing that, my mom's hands stopped on the straps.

She wiped her tears with the back of a mud-caked hand, then suddenly covered her mouth and broke into stifled, wretched sobs.

Jane, this afternoon I was saving your life! She grabbed the hand I'd pulled back and clutched it tight, gasping through her tears. Leo came charging in with a whole gang of them they looked ready to tear you apart! If we hadn't played along and said you were crazy, gotten the cops to take you, Leo would've beaten you to death right there with a shovel! Even the town sheriff is on his side. Your dad and I had to give in to them first, just to keep you alive, so we'd have a chance to come for you tonight!

Looking at the blood smeared across half her face, and my dad's leg that couldn't even hold him straight, my throat tightened. Then how did you end up like this what happened to your head?

That animal Leo did it. My mom kept fumbling at the straps, hissing through the pain. He was afraid we'd come for you in the night, so he locked the main-house door with an iron lock. Your dad smashed the back window glass and pulled me out and Leo caught us. He swung a shovel at us. Your dad took the handle across his leg shielding me

Her voice grew hoarser, almost despairing. Jane, they mean to kill you! If you don't run now, you really won't make it!

I'm not running! Mom, if I run, that makes me a fugitive admitting guilt! I didn't kill anyone. When the city police come tomorrow

You won't live to see the city police!

My dad leaned against the wall, dragging his broken leg, panting hard and shaking. Leo did the poisoning. He secretly bought Claire a one-million-dollar accidental-death insurance policy, and the cop who took the bribe gets the biggest cut. The man escorting you tomorrow is his crony. Somewhere on the road, he'll just stage it psychiatric patient jumps from the car, suicide and you'll never even reach the city police station!

Outside, a low roll of thunder passed.

The storm had sealed off the hills; there was no getting out, not even down the dirt road.

In this village ringed by mountains on three sides, waiting for the people from the city really was no different from waiting to die.

Seeing me hesitate, my mom dropped to her knees beside the bed with a thud.

Big, heavy tears splashed onto the back of my hand.

Jane! Just go! If you won't, I'll smash my head open right here and let you watch me die in front of you!

I looked at the blood dripping from her forehead.

And suddenly I remembered the winter I was fifteen, when my hands were covered in chilblains, aching so badly I cried under the covers at night. She'd sat up with a coat over her shoulders, tucked my cold, oozing hands into her armpits to warm them, and hushed me to sleep, breathing warm air over them.

The tears came down without warning, blurring everything.

I stopped fighting it.

Mom, I'll go

I nodded, my voice ragged.

The straps came fully undone. My mom swiftly pulled a black waterproof bag from behind her and pushed it into my arms.

My dad gripped my arm and shoved me toward the window. There's five thousand dollars in the bag and my old phone. Follow the back hills south once you're clear of the mountains, call the police! Hurry!

What about you two? I clung to the bag's strap.

We'll hold them off! My mom pushed me out the window, her voice gone completely hoarse. Run! Don't look back, not even if it kills you!

In the pouring rain, I looked at my blood-soaked parents, bit my lip until it bled, and plunged into the dark of the back hills.

I stumbled all the way to an abandoned little hillside chapel halfway up the slope, shivering, hugging the waterproof bag tight.

This was the way out my parents had risked their lives to buy me. Leo had raised his hand against his own father if he found out I'd escaped, would my parents, left behind in that den of wolves, even survive?

I unzipped the bag and pulled out the chipped old phone, hoping to find evidence for the police or send a message that I was safe.

The photo album was empty. But in the Recently Deleted folder sat one unnamed video file.

The timestamp below it read: April 12, 8:00 PM.

That was the night Claire drank the poison three full days ago.

I tapped the video open.

The instant I saw what was on the screen, the color drained from my face.

The screen was dark, the picture grainy, the edges tinged with the green glow of an aging lens.

It opened on meaningless shaking, with the harsh hiss of fingers rubbing against the microphone.

This junk phone keeps freezing fine, the locator light's on, that's all we need.

Max's voice came through right against the mic, grating.

Then someone set the phone down to one side. The picture tilted, half a table coming into view.

Blurry as it was, I recognized the pink plastic packet on the table at a glance the poison.

My mom sat with her back to the camera, a few paper insurance policies gathered in her hands.

We move the morning after tomorrow. I'll brew the herbal tea, she said, her heavy accent woven through the static. Once that crippled girl Claire stops breathing, we say Jane did it in one of her crazy fits. The fake diagnosis is already taken care of and dead, Claire can't testify against anyone.

Leo's face never appeared just a hand with a cigarette wedged between the fingers, drifting across the edge of the frame.

Good. Once she's locked in the holding room, you and Dad go in the middle of the night, smash your own heads open, play it pitiful, and slip her this junk phone. As long as she runs into the deep mountains carrying that locator then the insurance money is locked in.

The video was only fourteen seconds long.

The screen went black and cut off.

In the ruined chapel there was only the thunder outside.

I doubled over the dusty altar table and dry-heaved up the last sour dregs in my stomach, tears all over my face.

They didn't just want me to take the fall they wanted to wring the last drop of life out of me for money. Claire's death, the beating in the yard that afternoon, the gash on my mom's forehead tonight all of it was an elaborate chain of death they'd designed three days ago.

Just then, I noticed a tiny location sharing icon blinking at the very top of the screen. The battery in the corner showed only ten percent left.

Almost at the same moment, there came the snap of a dry branch breaking outside the chapel.

The locator says she's right around here. Move fast, don't let her get away.

It was Leo's voice.

A blinding flashlight beam swept across the cobwebbed wall through the gaps in the chapel's drafty wooden door.

Leo, I tied the rope into a good slipknot we'll just loop it around her neck. That was Max.

Less than thirty feet away.

I clamped a hand over my mouth, refusing to let out the faintest heavy breath.

There was no running. Leo and Max were right outside. To bolt now would be to throw myself onto a blade.

By a flash of lightning, I scanned the tiny chapel barely a hundred and fifty square feet.

No cabinet to hide in, no iron tool to defend myself with. The only way out was a half-collapsed hole in the wall behind the base of a statue.

I pulled the five thousand dollars from the bag and stuffed it tight against my body, inside my underclothes. Then I hurled the old phone with its blinking locator hard through the wall hole, into the bottomless weed-choked gully behind the chapel.

A heartbeat before the flashlight beam shoved the chapel's wooden door open with a bang, I bent low and scrambled out through the wall hole on my hands and feet.

Outside the hole was a brutally steep slope.

At the bottom of it was the pit the village used to use for dumping dead pigs, dead dogs, and stove ash.

These days of storms had turned that garbage pit into a reeking pool of rotten mud.

Without a second's hesitation, I slid straight down the slope into the muck.

The freezing, foul water swallowed me to the waist in an instant. I lay flat in the mud, frantically raking the rotting leaves and stinking dead branches around me up over my head and body, layer after layer.

Nobody in the chapel! Max's voice came from above.

Impossible the locator's still moving. She must've gone out the back. After her!

Heavy boots came pounding closer through the mud.

I buried myself fully in the muck, only my nostrils barely above the surface to breathe.

The stink of mud and rotting animal carcasses jammed up my nose, my eardrums swollen from the soaking rain. Some insect crawled across my eyelid, and I didn't dare so much as twitch a lash.

She's down there!

Leo's voice burst out, terrifyingly close.

My whole body went rigid.

Leo was standing right at the edge of the slope, less than two feet above my head.

The flashlight's ghastly white beam split the dark like a knife, falling straight onto the mud pool where I hid.

Rainwater dripped off the toe of Leo's shoe, tapping onto the rotten leaves I'd used to cover myself.

I kept my eyes shut tight, my lips pressed into a thin line, breathing with the greatest care.

If he poked down with the hatchet in his hand, or if the rain washed away a bit of that leaf cover, I was finished.

Leo, look over there! Max suddenly shouted.

The flashlight beam jerked away, swinging toward the weed-choked gully.

Damn it! The little wretch slid down toward the cliff! Leo swore.

That was where the old phone had tumbled.

That spot's steep as hell, and there's a fast current at the bottom. If she went down there, she's definitely dead. Max's voice wavered.

Living, we need a body; dead, we need a body! No corpse, no money. Get down there and find her!

The footsteps hurried off along the gully, until I couldn't hear them anymore.

I stayed in the mud, not moving.

Only once I was sure there was nothing but rain around me did I slowly lift my head out of that pile of stinking leaves.