Page 4 of Lica

The courthouse was packed when they were shown inside. Ivan was there early, saying that the interview went better than he had thought it would. He was hoping to work with the vet in town and then buy out his practice when the older man was ready to retire.

The others, all dressed in their nicest jeans and shirts and ties, were sitting in the row behind the attorney who was hoping to keep their mother in prison for another fifteen years. Lica hoped that they’d dispense with the fifteen-year parole hearings and just throw away the key. When the judge came in, a new one, they all stood up and listened to what was being said.

“My name is the honorable Jane Sabot. I’m here to listen to the two parties today to settle if Mrs. Paula Frazier is eligible for parole or will be imprisoned for—where did this come from? Did we ever find out?” The bailiff leaned into her ear and spoke to the judge. She nodded a couple of times, then rolled her eyes before she thanked him. “All right. This is the hearing for Paula Frazier to be eligible for parole after only serving a fifteen-year sentence of two life terms for killing her husband, Fred Frazier, and Officer Joey Lipscomb. Officer Lipscomb succumbed to his wounds eighteen months after Mrs. Paula Fraizer shot him. Is there anything else I should know before I have Paula Fraizer brought in here? By the way, I will have this room in order no matter what happens with the offender. I’m to understand that she’s having a hissy fit today and might cause a ruckus. Anything?”

Grannie Frazier was let in from the back, and she walked up to the dais. Once she was there, she handed over what looked to him like about a dozen colorful folders and some other items before she spoke to the judge. When they were finished, about twenty minutes after Grannie made her way up there, she came to sit with the six of them. As much as he wanted to get some hugs from their Grannie, they were asked to have a seat first.

“I need me a minute or two to read over this. I have copies of it already, and so does the attorney for Paula, correct?” The man stood up and nodded like his head wasn’t connected as tightly to his shoulders as it should have been. “You have to use your words. I told you this the other day. The woman recording this for us can’t make head signs.” He said he had the paperwork. “Good. And you’ve spoken to Mrs. Fraizer, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am, I have. She’s none too happy with it, but she is aware of the information.” The judge said she didn’t care and asked him to have a seat. After about ten minutes, the courtroom was called to order, and their mom was brought out of the back of the room.

“Christ.” Lica agreed with his brother Ayden’s assessment of the situation. Their mother had aged about fifty years, it looked like. Her hair, usually dyed to a dark red, was as white as Grannie’s was but without any style to it whatsoever. Just a stringy mess with a big childlike bow in the back that was as pink as he’d ever seen the color displayed.

Her lips, usually what Grannie called her lip paint whores red, was devoid of any color, and the nothingness bled into her skin so well that it looked like she had no mouth at all when it was closed. She was wearing a prison jumpsuit of blue and green. Two colors that he’d always liked together but never again. It made her look sickly and washed out. Shaking his head, he felt the others sitting in his row sit up straighter when she turned to look at them after being chained to the table that was in front of her.

“There they are. My sons. Never once have they been to see their poor old mother since they made it so that she’d been taken away from them.” Mother turned to the judge when she told her to hush. “I’ll do nothing of the sort. They killed their daddy like he was nothing to them. Then they go and say that I did the killing so that I’d not see them all grown up. Just look at them there. Acting like I don’t mean nothing to them.”

“You don’t.” When Guy stood up after speaking, the rest of them did as well. “A jury of your peers said that you murdered the man who fathered us and another man, too. A police officer who was on duty that day. So, no, you don’t mean a thing to us.”

No one moved but the six of them standing. Grannie stood up with them, and that set their mother off to cursing up a storm of name calling that had him snicker a little. Her vocabulary had gotten much better at spewing curse words than it did before she left, and he thought it was funny. When the judge, pounding on her desk with a wooden hammer, told them to sit, the six of them sat down as if they’d been pushed. Grannie just stood there staring at their mother without saying a word.

“What are you doing here, bitch? Thinking to keep me in prison, do you? Well, it won’t work. I’m getting out and seeing to their deaths like it should have been done all those years ago.” The judge had Mother taken out of the room. She was screaming that she had every right to be there, but Grannie just stood there watching. All the while, the judge pounded on her table and asked for order to be made.

Standing up, he put his arm around his Grannie, and she looked at him. She was dazed looking, like for a few seconds there she didn’t know where she was or even perhaps who she was. When she put her hand on his cheek, he kissed her fingers and asked her to have a seat. As soon as she did, he did as well. The judge let out a long breath and had mother taken back to the jail.

~*~

Brogan looked at the headstone of her son. Fredrick Allen Fraizer, her only son, had been in his late thirties when he was killed. If she’d known half of what she did now about him, she’d not had any children. Then he’d married that woman, Paula Snow, and he’d become the worst person she’d ever known. Even to her and her late husband had suffered at his hands and that of Paula before her husband died of their abuse, and she got out of there as fast as she could. It was the only way that she could save those boys.

“You were a cruel and mean person, Fredrick. Even from birth, there was nothing redeeming about you. If not for those boys you sired, I’d think that your life was a total waste of what it took to make you.” She looked around the pretty cemetery and then back to where he was laid to rest. “They did right by you even though I don’t know why they did. I’d of put you nearest to the trash dumb and that would have been the last visiting anyone would have done for you. Not that I think those boys have set foot in here since you took your last breath. No, they’d not come here if for only to make sure you’re dead. They’ll do the same for their mother, too. Make sure that the witch is gone forever.”

The marker for her son was also made for Paula to rest beside him someday. There was nothing much on the marker to mark his passing but the dates of their births and then his death. No fancy script to say their names, just block letters of their first and last name. It didn’t even say ‘mother’ or ‘wife’ just the dates and their names.

“I’ve come to talk to you about what your dad and I did for your boys. I wish I could have done so to your face, but I didn’t know that you were dead all these years. After I left here long ago, I went to a place that—well, after your dad died, you killing him off, I mean, I had to go and get myself healed from the beatings that you laid upon me. Nearly died myself, thanks to you, but when I heard that you were dead, I did myself a little dance and had a bottle of champagne too. I’ll never think of you again after I leave here today, Fredrick. Only to tell them boys what your father and I did in spite of having you around. As I said, you were a cruel and mean man, and I will never forgive you nor that wife of yours for what you did to your father and I.”

After spilling her heart of all the things that she wanted to say to her son, she made her way to her daughter’s grave. No one knew that she’d birthed her little girl but her husband. And he took his knowledge of her to his grave, as he promised that he would. Laying the dozen white roses on the infant’s headstone, she kissed her fingers and laid them upon the small stone that was Lillies. Telling her little girl, who only lived for a few hours, that she loved and missed her, Brogan made her way to her car and sat under the steering wheel to sob out her misery. And that was the worst kind of misery for her, to lose her daughter so close to her being born to them.

On her way home, she stopped at the store and picked up some flowers that she was going to have on the table, as well as a couple of pies for dessert. Brogan had put a huge pot roast on when she’d left this morning and knew by the time the boys got home, the entire house would smell delicious. The potatoes were all ready to go, and there were fresh green beans simmering on the stove, too. Bread, three loaves that she’d made that very morning was ready to put into the oven then she was going to have a meal with her grandsons. The first of many, she hoped.

Changing into her comfy clothing, she heard a knock at the door. Going to the front of the house, she was surprised to see an older man and woman standing there. She knew right away they were wolves, but she didn’t mention that when she let them into the house. Whatever they wanted, she’d take care of it for her grandsons.

“Hello, Mrs. Frazier.” Brogan told him to call her by her given name. “Thank you for that. I don’t suppose the men are home, are they? I’ve been missing them about daily, and I need to have a word with Lica.”

“He’s in the barn. Something about breeding going on. I don’t know my way around a cattle ranch, but I can cook one of them up if it’s given to me.” Both the man and woman laughed. “What is it I can do for you? They’re not late on dues or anything, are they? I’ve come to live with them for a spell, and I have some things to talk over with them.”

“No. They’re never late with anything.” The man laughed a little. “I don’t know that they’ve ever been late for work either but they learned the hard way that they need to be where they’re supposed to be and to be there on time, too.”

“My son taught them that. The hard way, I’m afraid. What is it that you need from Lica? He’s a good boy, all of them are. If you’ve got something to say to them, I’m going to tell you right now that I might not be a wolf, but I’m meaner than a snake when it comes to the six of them.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ve no doubt that you’re very fond of them. So are my wife and I. In fact, I think the town is about as fond of those boys you call them as they are of their own children. I’ve come to talk to Lica, him being the oldest, about taking over the pack for me. I’m getting too old to manage it, what with having nineteen grandchildren now and I’d like to retire.” She didn’t doubt that having grandchildren would take up a lot of time, and she was looking forward to that being a problem for her, too, but she told him that the boys were working. Then she invited them to dinner. “You have no idea how much we were hoping for an invite. As soon as my missus and me stepped on the land here, we could smell that dinner. My goodness, it smells like heaven around here. If you don’t mind, we’d love to join you and the boys.”

“Good. That’s good. I think they’ll enjoy that as well. But I have a rule. No business at the table. Not that they have any, but no phones either. It’s family time and I take that very seriously when I’m around. These boys of mine are all I have left in the world, and I want to spend as much time as I can with them before I join my husband. You are all right with that. Then I’d love to have you sit with us.” It was his wife that said she had the same rule at their home. “Good. Then we’ll have a nice dinner and have some nice conversations too. But I will tell you this: Lica isn’t going to take that job without some convincing on your part. Not that he’d not be good at it, but he would feel that he isn’t good enough. And he’s not much on liking people either. None of them are, but Lica is especially no good around humans.”

“I’ve noticed that about all of them. While they’ll go to pack meetings, they tend to stand alone, and when it’s over, they go home. They’re not rude to the others, but they don’t have much to do with them. I can understand that, I can but I think this might well be the perfect job for him. And it pays well enough to get them out of debt. They have quite a bit of it, I’ve heard.”

“I’m taking care of that.” He smiled at her, and she didn’t know what to think about that. “You know something?”

“Yes, ma’am. I don’t think that they’re going to take anything you have to give them because they feel like they don’t want to be beholden to anyone. Even if you’re family. They’re what you might call afraid of owing anyone.”

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