Crimes in Southern Indiana Read Free

put more of her fair share in the coin jar. So I hocked her for cash to Pitchfork and Darnel to help pay for your meds. Let her work off the cash. Come home when all is square. Didn’t see no other way ’round it.”
    Josephine’s jaundiced eyes cleared. She pulled out the Ruger, fingered the trigger, and buried around in his belly.
    Should have done this long ago, she thought, could have protected her own. Her mind wondered about consequence for a split second, too late, and realized this was his and her consequence. Short of breath, propping up her old bones from the bed with the ping of joints and the lactic ache of muscle, Jo quipped, “No other way around it? Oh, they’s ways around it, only I waitedtoo long for direction.”
    Able tried to stand but hit the bedroom’s hardwood in shock. Stumbled to his feet. Josephine fired a round into his shoulder. Then his chest. Able fell into the dresser, screaming. “Crazy ol’ bitch!” He turned away with his hand pressed into the wet heat of his belly, the other steadying him into the next room.
    Josephine’s feet found her unlaced boots, disregarded thefolding wheelchair leaned against the wall. She wheeled her oxygen tank into the next room, where Able’s body fell into the living room wall. She lined the pistol up with his chest, her grip unsteady as her vision. She pulled the trigger. “Shit!” he squealed. Another circle of red pressed through his white T-shirt, with the wall guiding him into another room.
    Now she balanced herself on the silveroxygen tank’s wheeled frame. Inhaled air from the clear tube that forked into her nostrils from the fire-extinguisher-size tank and asked herself how Able could sell their fourteen-year-old granddaughter to the Hill Clan like livestock. Sell Knee High to the likes of those two cutthroats, Pitchfork and Darnel Crase.
    Able and she had just lost their two sons, Dodo and Uhl, Knee High’s daddy. They’drun off, always up to no good. Left the house late one evening months ago. Never returned. Neglecting responsibility. Leaving Able and her to raise Audry, who would now be forced to offer her teenage self with womanlike curves to wasted feed sacks of broken-down men for dirty wads of paper.
    Josephine steadied her sunken yellow eyes, squeezing the handgrip of the Ruger in her right hand, knowingin the back of her mind she needed to get out that damn door and end Able’s sickness before it ended her.
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    One of the shots bounced around inside Able till it severed a nerve, caused his legs to lose their flow.
    Behind him he heard the creak of the screen door. Lungs clawing for air. Wheels and boots scraping the ground. Josephine’s voice. “Hope you find the good Lord’s soil comfortin’, ’causethat’s the only comfort you gonna get.”
    Trying to contract his leg muscles, Able’s body throbbed cold. He gritted his teeth. Blinked tears from his eyes, “Dammit, Jo, hold on. We need that money. Once she’s worked it off we’d get her back.”
    Josephine’s movements grew in pitch till her syllables towered over Able. “Get her back? She’s our grandchild. A human bein’. Unlike yourself.” Able dugat the soil, twisted his neck, made out Josephine’s outline, and he begged, “Help me, Jo, can’t even feel—”
    Tiny flashes of fire erupted around what Able believed to be Josephine. His mouth moved but his words were unheard within his head. Cramps bounced up his back, into his neck just like the black that replaced feeling inside his body. Josephine stood with the gun empty, tiny brass scatteredaround her. Seeing no movement from Able, knowing he was dead, that she’d ended the sickness she’d ignored far too long, she’d no idea how to get Knee High back home.

All the Awful

    One of the man’s hands gripped Audry’s wrists above her head. Forced them to the