Page 21 of Bastain

Tilly secretly didn’t want to sell any of her things. She’d worked hard on finding each piece and cleaning it up. People wanted her to give it away after she’d done all the hard work for it. So what if she only paid five bucks for something at an auction? They wanted her to work on it, put it together after spending hours cleaning it, only to sell it for fifty bucks. It was worth more than that any day of the week. She had to mark it up for nearly seven grand because that was what she wanted for it. Fifty bucks wouldn’t even pay for her nails to get done after she’d ruined them by cleaning the furniture up.

The little stuff was harder to clean than the bigger pieces, and the customers wanted her to sell it for a buck. She had more in the piece than that, and when she put a thousand dollars on something, that’s what she expected to get. Not five dollars like she was offered. Her place wasn’t a bargain shop. It was a place to buy beautiful antiques and put them into expensive homes. She then thought of her own home.

She’d been informed that her house had sold. She’d not been informed that it was on the market and was pissed off at Mark for doing it without her permission. She’d put a lot of work into their home, and she expected to be compensated for all that work. Tilly was going to demand half of whatever he sold it for, and then there were the contents. And half of what he’d actually sold it for, and not what he’d told her.

She’d put love into each piece that was in the place so that it would be the showcase that it was. If he was going to have an auction to sell off the pieces, she was going to put a minimum price on each piece so she’d get her money back. And all her hard work. It wasn’t fair that she had to be in here when events were going on around her home. Damn it all to fuck and back, this was all Trinity’s fault, and the sooner she could get out and take care of her, the better.

It was bad enough that she’d been saddled with a sister named Doris. Who named their kids something like that? And just like her name, Doris was a fuddy-duddy who didn’t want to do anything fun with her. She would complain about going to auctions with her simply because she didn’t like the way that she bullied people there.

“How was I supposed to get a good deal if I didn’t make the others around me know that I was going to get it, no matter what I had to do to them?” She thought of the threats that she’d threatened people with when they would be looking at her pieces. It would get to the point where auctioneers would ask her to leave if she didn’t get what she wanted. And that only happened the one time when someone had the nerve to outbid her on something. She surely showed them.

Having knocked the shit out of them when they were loading things in their car had gotten around that she wasn’t one to mess with. Nor did they tell on her. That would get you so messed up that you’d have to be in the hospital for months after she’d finish with them. Smiling to herself, she could still see the face that Trin was making when she beat her with the bat. It had been fun for her to do that. Of course, she’d ended up in here, so that wasn’t all that good, but she’d get out, and Trin would learn like her mother did.

Tilly had knocked Doris around since they’d been children together. Her parents, too, but they would punish her in other ways to get back at her. They’d take away her supper and her toys, and that would be wrong. Tilly would never get by with beating her parents up because they’d sent her away to boarding school. Well, it wasn’t a boarding school so much as a place for children like her. Ones that would hurt people for what she wanted. Tilly had spent ten years there with the Sisters, and she’d regretted it every day. Her parents did as well when she finally turned eighteen and was able to get out.

No one understood that she was going to get what she wanted. Nor did they understand that she didn’t care that she’d have to beat them to get it. It didn’t bother her, all the blood that would be around when she’d have to take care of someone. Nor did their being hurt bother her. She wanted something, no matter what it was, and she was going to get it, by god.

As she got older, she had learned that she needed to be better at getting around the law. If not, she’d be in jail all the time. It got to the point where she was in jail more than she was out. And that wouldn’t work.

She’d only just got out of jail when she’d met Mark. Making him fall in love with her had been the smartest move she’d ever made. The dumbest move she’d ever made was signing the prenup. Thinking that she could get him to forget about it as she was around him didn’t work out either. When she’d been served with divorce papers, it had said that the prenup was in force and that she’d get nothing from him. She’d just see about that.

When dinner was called, she found her table. None of the other inmates would sit with her anymore because she’d been so mean. Imagine that. Her being mean to a bunch of women killers and child abusers. But she liked being alone at her table. There were plenty enough to go around that she really didn’t have to share, but she liked it. They were afraid of her for good reason, too.

She thought that one of the inmates was still recovering from when she’d taken a seat at her table. It made her laugh that all she’d had to do was knock her around in the laundry department, and she was sitting alone. No one had ever caught her either.

“Inmate 75489, you have a call. It’s from your ex-husband, Mark Shafer.” She was excited to hear from him. Maybe he’d gotten it in his head that she wasn’t going to go away easy and that he’d better straighten up. She didn’t know where he was living in that little town, but she’d surely find him. She answered the phone when it was connected.

“Just shut up and listen to me. I have something to say to you, and I won’t be interrupted by you. I’ve been granted a full divorce from you. Which to me means that you get nothing. I’ve sold the house and the contents for whatever he had in his pocket. Cost him a whole forty-three cents to buy it from me.” She started to speak, but he cut her off. “I said to shut up. The prenup stands, and you get nothing. Not that I’d want you to have anything but, you can’t even have the clothing that I bought and paid for. Speaking of paying for, the shop is sold as well. Same deal with the building and the contents.”

“You can’t do that!” He said that he’d already done it and was glad to have it finished. “You bastard. That was going to make me some money. You get it back for me right now, and I won’t have to finish you off.”

“Threats again, Tilly? My goodness, I do hope they’re recording this. It would do my heart good to have you in prison for the rest of your life. You’ve caused enough damage to people in your lifetime that it makes me think that you’ve been getting by with a lot of things. I’ve had you investigated to before you turned eighteen.” She said nothing; there was nothing for her to say because he was bluffing. “You’ve been a naughty little girl, haven’t you, Tilly? Or should I call you Martha? That’s your real name, and I’ve given it to the police and the attorney for the other side. Imagine my surprise when I found out that my wife of fifteen years was a murderer.”

“You weren’t supposed to find that out. Those records were sealed.” He said they had been, but with enough money, he got them opened. “You bastard. I should have killed you when I had the chance. You’re going to pay for that.”

“You’ll never get out of prison so long as I have something to say about it.” His voice had gone harsh, one of the things that she was most afraid of him about. “I’ve contacted everyone on your list and told them that you’re up for a prison term. You should have your ducks in a row because when I’m finished with you, you’ll be in prison forever.”

“You stay out of my things. You’re not supposed to find that list either.” He said he’d been using it to contact people to testify against her. “You’re going to pay Mark. See that you don’t. I’m not going to be in here very long, and when I get out, you’re the one who had better have their ducks in a row. I’m going to do to you what I should have done to Trin when I had her. She took my checks, and I’m going to get them back. You bastard.”

“You have a good life. You’ll never find me, Martha, because I know how you work now. I’ll just stay out of sight, and you’ll be in prison forever. I know that I’ve said it before, but that’s just where you belong.” She could still hear him laughing when she banged the receiver against the wall. He wasn’t getting away with finding her list of names, or she’d have to kill him. Damn it all to hell and back, why did he have to be snooping around in her private matters?

She’d been keeping a list since she’d been taken away when she’d been twelve by the police. The nuns had told her to write down her feelings every day, and that would give her something to work with. Instead of writing out her feelings, she began a list of people that she’d hurt. Not just their names, but dates and times that she’d done it. She even went so far as to keep up with them after they were hurt so that she could have something to write about their recovery time. It had gotten her so excited to read it that she’d kept several books over her lifetime and had kept them in a special place under her bed. Damn, Mark, for finding them.

If he turned them over to an attorney, she was going to be in so much trouble. All they had to do was contact any one of the people on the lists, and she’d be in trouble. Never had she threatened anyone in not saying anything. She just assumed, wrongly so she was afraid to admit that they’d tell on her whenever anyone asked. This was all Trin’s fault, and the sooner she was able to take care of her, the better things would be for her. Damn that girl for telling her no. She needed those checks.

Mark had told her that her shop wasn’t making any money and that she was either going to have to make some sales or just close up. She didn’t want to do either of those, and she told him that. That was the first huge argument that they’d had over her little shop, and she didn’t like that he told her that he was paying for everything and had every right to have her close up. As soon as next year was all he was giving her, and that wasn’t a great deal of time for her to plan out a way to make him pay.

With the money that Trin had stolen from her, she’d be able to make it look like the shop was selling things. She didn’t need the money, but she had to make it look as if the shop had sold something from now until next year to get Mark off her back. But now that was about bust. He knew that the money was coming to her, and now he’d divorced her. Like she was nothing to him. Damn, but had Trin done what she wanted, none of this would have been necessary.

~*~

Trin was trying to wrap her head around the fact that her aunt had murdered three people before she’d turned thirteen. Not only had she murdered them in cold blood, but she’d taken pictures as well and taped them into a notebook. There were a dozen notebooks that had been given to Bastain, and she’d only read the first one before her stomach had been upset.

“It says here that she was able to change her name when she got out of the Sisters Home for Wayward Children. Do you suppose they really called it that?” She looked at Bastain and tried to think what she’d been thinking. “You don’t have to read them all, darling. I just thought you’d like to know what Mark had been able to find out.”

“She beat my mother all the time. Even after she had me.” He wisely didn’t say anything, for which she was grateful. “She said the bruises were from the medication she was taking. I never knew. No wonder, towards the end of her life, she didn’t want her around. I was there to protect her.”

“According to the lists that she has, she’s been doing it since she was a child. Both of them.” Trin nodded, not understanding what to do about Tilly now. “The lists are long and brutal about the things that she’s done to other people. I don’t understand how she was able to get away with it at all. I mean, look at this list? There must be a hundred and fifty names in just these couple of pages.”