Birthright – Part 3

An Anatomy of Typewriters Story / 4,008 words / 16min Read Time

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I don’t know how long I was sitting there, in the corner at the bottom of the stairs, in the basement, staring at twelve graves. Twelve bodies buried by my birthmother? How could this be? I tried to stand up but my hands couldn’t seem to hold my weight when I tried to lift myself up onto my knees so I fell back down. I’ll try again later. For now I willed myself to look around the rest of the basement. Take my eyes off the graves for a moment. That might help me get my energy back.

There were at least three shovels hanging on a large peg board against the wall nearest where I sat. Around them were other, more sinister tools that I feel I’ve only ever seen in horror films and didn’t know their technical names. Nor did I particularly want to know them.

A long table stretched from the middle of the wall with the shovels and stopped at the furthest away wall. On it were neat stacks of notebooks. One common trait I could see right away, that I noticed when I first walked into this house, was how neat and tidy everything seemed to be. I fully expected a mess but instead I was met with order even in a room that felt like chaos.

I wanted to see what was in the notebooks even though I had an inkling what I would find. But I used that motivation to get me to my feet and walked over to the wooden table that I noticed was bolted to the wall and floor. I found a swivel chair pushed under and pulled it out so I could sit, thankful for it as my knees were still a bit unsteady.

I pulled down the first notebook and read the cover:

I gulped, suddenly my mouth was totally dry, and opened to the first page. A picture of a middle aged man smiling. I could tell it was cut out of a larger photo as there was a shoulder in the bottom corner. I couldn’t be sure but I guessed it was a woman. His wife, perhaps? And judging by the size of the picture I also guessed this might’ve been a picture he kept in his wallet.

Under it was a picture of the same man, only his eyes were closed now as if asleep. But I knew better. He wasn’t asleep. He was dead. I could see redness around his mouth and I’d read enough mystery books to know this could mean poison. I turned the page, noticing a slight yellowing of the pages. This book was clearly very old by several years. Information about the man who was buried in grave #1. I didn’t really read what it said as I wanted to know as little about him just in case I was asked by police or anyone. The less I knew, the better. I flipped through and saw journal entries with dates going back nearly forty years, before I was born. It seems she had been following this man, learning his daily routine, before she was finally able to get him, poison him, and bury him down here.

For a brief moment I admired the process she had created for herself. I had a feeling this wasn’t her first time doing this but it clearly was her first time thinking of disposing of the body in her home. Probably less likely to get caught.

I closed the book and pulled more towards me to confirm they were similar. Each grave had at least two notebooks worth of notes. Then I pulled a most interesting stack. By now I was way more invested than I’m sure I should’ve been and the sick feeling I had knowing there were twelve dead bodies, complete strangers to me, buried just behind me, had completely disappeared. I felt…at home…

Notes on Poison
How to Dispose of the Body
Read First

Each book read like an instruction manual but a personal one. I quickly realized she was writing all of this…to me…

She must’ve known from the moment she had me that all of this would be a part of me and not wanting to leave me to figure it out on my own, she wrote all of this. Catalogued everything. I pushed the books away. This was wrong. Wasn’t it? Why was she doing this? There had to be some sort of reason. Something to justify murdering all of these people and possibly more that just aren’t buried down here under her house (my house…).

I had to find out. I had to read all of this in the hopes that I could find something to justify why my birthmother was, by definition, a serial killer.

I grabbed the notebooks belonging to the first two graves and a few of the instruction notebooks before making my way back upstairs. Once out of the basement I felt a sense of relief. Being down there had done quite a number on me. I looked at the stairs leading up and fear crept back in. What if another bedroom had someone else inside, waiting for me to open it just before they killed themselves as well? I couldn’t take that chance. I wouldn’t take that chance.

“If someone else is up there, I’m not coming up. If you kill yourself it won’t be because of me!” I shouted up to anyone or no one. I didn’t hear anything.

I entered what must be the living room, an oversized couch and matching loveseat with a rectangular mahogany coffee table in the middle. A rug that covered almost the entire floor underneath. I plopped down on the couch and spread out the notebooks on the table. I was about to open the first notebook and stopped. This was clearly going to be a long night and I could still smell the delivery I had ordered earlier. I decided to grab it along with pouring myself a large glass of red wine from the bottle I found on the kitchen island, almost as if waiting for me. I honestly couldn’t recall if I’d noticed that bottle there earlier.

I then returned to the couch with food and wine in hand. I ate voraciously, drank liberally, and read all night, refusing to sleep until I had gone through every book I brought up, cover to cover.

DING-DONG.

DING-DONG.

My eyes shot open. I could see the ceiling. A crystal chandelier hung down, ominously. Where was I? My head throbbed. I went to touch my forehead and found an empty wine glass was still in my hand. I lazily placed it on the coffee table before forcing myself to sit up. A notebook was opened on my chest and fell to the floor. There were notebooks everywhere on the table and floor.

DING-DONG.

Shit! The doorbell. When had I fallen asleep? What time was it now? I looked towards the curtained windows in the living room and could just make out sunlight creeping through around the edges. That didn’t really tell me much. A clock on the mantel over the fireplace showed it was half past eleven o’clock. 

DING-DONG.

Who the hell was that at my door and why hadn’t they left? After ringing a doorbell twice with no answer I would assume the person wasn’t home. Then again my car was in the driveway. Kind of hard to pretend you’re not at home.

I shook my head to try force myself to wake up and be alert much faster than I wanted. Before I could answer the door I needed to do something about these notebooks. I quickly put them all into a tall stack and carried them to the kitchen. The island had cupboards all around it. I pulled one open and managed to place them inside on a shelf beside a bunch of baking ingredients.

I then stopped at the kitchen sink and turned on the cold water, splashing my face.

DING DONG.

I grabbed a dish towel to dry my hands as I walked slowly to the front door and yanked it open. A man fresh out of college, perfectly combed black hair, slick back and shining in the morning sun. He wore a short sleeved sky blue polo shirt that fit him perfectly, ironed white khaki pants that hugged him just right, and low-top Converse that matched his polo shirt. If not for the pencil tucked behind his ear, his square framed glasses, and a black leather portfolio tucked under one arm, I would’ve thought he was going to ask me if I wanted a relationship with God. Instead, I knew exactly what he was; a reporter.

“Can I help you?” I asked impatiently. He seemed to just stare. More surprised to see me than I was to see him.

“Oh, yes. So sorry,” he said, fumbling in his back pocket to pull out a business card and handed it to me. I glanced down at it.

“How can I help you, James?”

“Jimmy, please. I’m here to see Delphine Patterson,” he said, pulling out a small spiral notebook. 

“Why?” I asked, folding my arms defiantly.

“Well,” he started, and looked around behind him to make sure none of the neighbors in the surrounding houses were outside watching him. “Do you mind if I come in? I’m sure what I have to say you don’t want someone else to overhear.”

My eyes may have given me away as they widened. I didn’t want to let him inside. I hadn’t exactly checked behind every door in the house to see if there were other dead bodies I needed to worry about but something about what he said made me curious. I stepped aside and let him in. He smelled of a fresh spring shower and a cologne familiar to me that I couldn’t quite place.

I led him to the living room where my empty wine glass and the empty bottle were still on the coffee table.

“Long night?” He asked, looking down at them. I scooped them up and took them to the kitchen. When I returned he had made himself at home, sitting on the couch. I at on the loveseat and folded my legs casually. Or as casually as I could be with thirteen dead bodies in the house. “Ms. Patterson, let me be honest. This house is quite a mystery to the town. You may not know this but it’s been the center of many investigations and rumored missing persons cases.” He leaned forward and put his portfolio case on the coffee table. He unzipped it all the way around and opened it to reveal a mass of papers. Most of it was newspaper clippings. He took some of them from the top and handed them to me. I just glanced at the headlines, trying not to act unfazed by their words:

I handed them back to him. “I don’t see what this has to do with me or this house. I only just arrived last night. How did you even know—”

“That’s just it. I received this letter from your mother. I’d been investigating these cases, and others just like it—”

“I’m going to stop you there. She’s my birthmother. I never even knew her,” I said argumentatively, but he ignored me and kept right on talking.

“I’m sure they were all last seen on Juniper Street. The house this street is on—”

“As are others,” I said.

“Yes, but they all let me search their houses. All except this house. I could never get past the doorstep. This is the first time I’ve even been let inside the house. And this letter. It says that you’ll be here and that you’ll let me in to finally have a look around. Unless, you think there’s something to hide?”

My heart started pounding in my ears so loudly I thought he might hear it or at least see it through my shirt. “Can I see this letter?”

He leaned forward again and flipped through the articles and papers he had in his portfolio before pulling a letter from it and handing it to me. I could tell right away it was on the same typing paper as the letter Mr. Chisolm III gave me only yesterday.

“You expect me to take some typed up letter as proof of something? You could’ve typed this up yourself in some underhanded attempt to snoop around my house.” I knew it was authentic. I knew she typed it and mailed it. What was her reasoning? If he looked around he would discover the dead woman upstairs and the graves down in the basement. I could never let him look around. And yet she sent him to me. Then there were the notebooks in the cupboard in the kitchen. Suddenly I was remembering the one notebook about poisons. Where she kept them and how much to administer to kill someone instantly. It seemed so easy.

“Are you not going to let me look around, then?” He asked a second time. I snapped out of it and smiled at him.

“Of course, but, as you can see, I haven’t even had a chance to unpack,” I said, pointing to my suitcase that was in the foyer. “Would it be possible for you to come back, say, five ‘o clock tonight? I can cook you dinner and then we can have a full look around the house. Top to bottom. I promise,” I said, keeping the fake smile on my face. I could tell he couldn’t believe his luck.

“It’s a date,” he said, gathering up his papers to put back in his portfolio.

“Would you mind if I took a look at what you’ve been working on? I’m terribly interested in all that true crime stuff. I listen to the podcasts all the time. This sounds so fascinating,” I said, trying to sound as innocent as possible. “I promise it’ll all be here when you come back tonight.”

He hesitated, which told me this was all he had in this portfolio. He probably had a folder dedicated to this house in a folder on his computer at home but there was little I could do about that. Right now I just needed to see just how much he information he had gathered and if it was something he could take to the police that would be believed.

“No problem, you’ve got a trusting face. I’m sure there’s no truth to my hypothesis. I just need to be sure. You understand. It’s not like I think your mother has bodies buried in the basement!” He chuckled. I laughed to thought it might’ve been less believable.

I walked him to the front door, closed and locked it once he was gone. I leaned my back against it. My hands trembling from fear. I needed a plan and I had less than five hours to come up with something. I sniffed my pits and realized I also needed a shower. It meant going upstairs but right now I was less afraid of some dead corpse in a bedroom and more terrified of the possibility of police sirens closing in.

I took my suitcase and ran upstairs, found a bedroom that was empty of a person (alive or dead), with an ensuite attached.

The shower was exactly what I needed. I felt more refreshed and my mind was clear. I knew exactly what I needed to do and the time for second guessing the only option I had was over. I needed to get down to business. It was already three o’ clock and James—Jimmy, would be returning in a couple hours. 

I found tarp neatly folded right where the notebook told me it would be, in the hallway linen closet. I took it into the bedroom where the dead woman was, laying there with her eyes and mouth wide open, and got to work. I unfolded the tarp on the floor and pulled her onto it then rolled her up and used large pieces of rope that were already pre-cut to the perfect length to tie knots at either end before dragging her down the hall and letting gravity get her from the second floor to the first floor. This needed to be done today, one more day and the smell would be difficult to get out of the room, I learned.

Getting her down to the basement was easier than I thought it would be. When I got to the graves I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. It was probably because I hadn’t really looked closely at the area where the graves were. There were two holes dug already. Almost like she knew I would be needing it. I couldn’t remember if those holes were already there when I arrived last night, but they had have been…

I dragged the woman to one of the holes and took the next hour throwing dirt in her hole. It was only about half-full before I stopped from exhaustion. The rest would have to wait till later tonight.

I stupidly neglected to put on the overalls and boots that she used whenever this work needed to be done so I had to return to the shower, but this time I made it a much shorter visit.

With my hair back in a ponytail and my fanciest dress on, I sat at the kitchen island with his portfolio and the second notebook for the woman I just buried in front of me. I made myself a cup of coffee and got to work. First, I made an entry in the notebook about time of death, when I prepped her, and how for her final resting place. I also made note that I didn’t finish the burial and needed to return to the task later. I put the notebook with the others in the island cupboard and started to read the notes Jimmy had compiled.

My phone rang just a few minutes into reading his notes. I looked at the caller ID and recognized the number; Mr. Chisolm III.

“This is Delphie speaking.”

“Hello, Ms. Patt—er, Delphie. I was just checking to see how you’re settling in at the house?”

“Thank you for checking. The first night was…different than I’m used to. I’ve lived in an apartment most of my life. But I’m sure I’ll love it here.”

“So you’ve decided to stay?” He asked. I wasn’t aware there was an option? But the time for me to walk away had past. I knew too much already.

“I have. But, Mr. Chisolm, I wonder if you can answer something for me. Did my birthmother ever mention a journalist who was harassing her?”

Long pause. “No. I only handle her estate.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“If there’s nothing else?”

“Nope. I think that’s it.”

“Well, in that case. Enjoy the house, Delphie,” he said, and hung up. I had another question I wanted to ask him but part of me didn’t want to know the answer. I had a sinking feeling I knew the answer already…

At five o’ clock exactly the doorbell rang. Jimmy was definitely punctual. I took the liberty of ordering pizza delivery. I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression that my inviting him back for dinner was actually a date like he jokingly said. I figured pizza would be an easy way to rid him of any false ideas.

I took the liberty of pouring us each a glass of wine and brought his with me when I answered the door. He wore the same outfit from earlier and had his own bottle of red wine that he handed to me.

“My momma always taught me never to arrive at a woman’s home for dinner empty handed. Just good manners,” he said, taking the glass of wine from my hand and passing me the wine bottle.

“Thank you very much. I was looking over your notes. Pretty extensive work you’ve got there. How long have you been working on this story?” I wanted to put him as much at ease as possible. Ask him more questions than he could ask me.

“I started a few years ago when I was given an assignment about a missing dog, actually. I know, not that interesting, right?” We walked into the kitchen together and he saw the large pizza box on the island. “Ah, a working dinner,” he said. I furrowed my eyebrows, confused. “It’s what I eat whenever I’m working. Nothing like greasy pizza to help the mind work overtime.” He lifted the lid and seemed glad to see a half plain, half pepperoni pizza. “What did you make of my research so far?”

“Well, I was confused as to what you believe the connection is between this house and the missing people? Or what their connection might be to each other? The only common thread I see is that they’re missing—”

“And that they were all last seen in this town, on this specific street,” he added, pulling up a slice of pepperoni. He hadn’t taken a sip from his wine glass yet.

“What exactly are you implying?”

“Well, I know you never met the woman but she was weird. I hope you don’t mind me saying this to you. I mean no offense,” he said, taking a sip of his wine.

He meant offense. But I wasn’t offended. I was…excited.

“None taken,” I answered, picking up a plain slice and taking a bite. It was rather good.

“She immediately became guarded when I first came by. Showed no interest in the missing people she must’ve heard about on the radio. Even in the police report,” he said, putting his half eaten slice down and wiping his fingers before rifling through his portfolio which I left open for him on the table. I did promise he would get it back. And I keep my promises. “Here,” he said, turned a piece of paper towards me so I could read it. I had indeed already read it, “she was interviewed but you can tell by his wording here that even he felt something was off about her.”

“So why not take it up with him? If you feel so strongly that she’s behind all these missing people—which I think is hilarious, by the way—take it up with them. Are you a journalist or a wanna-be cop? Cause you’re doing pretty badly either way.”

He didn’t answer.

He loosened the top button of his polo shirt and his head started to sway from side to side. He looked down at the pizza then back at me. Then at his half empty glass of wine and his eyes widened with fear.

I walked over to the cupboard with my mother’s notebooks and pulled out one that looked the oldest. Pages crinkled. The cover was so faded I could barely make out what she wrote on it: My First Kill.

I plopped it down on the island, watching Jimmy out the corner of my eye, and opened it to the first page.

“Turns out my mother was rather efficient with her work. I’m sure she didn’t think she’d get caught and since she’s not here now then I suppose you could say she never did get caught.” Jimmy’s head dropped onto the island with a thud, his eyes open, staring at me, lifeless. “The real question is, do I bury you now or wait till after dinner?” 

I put the pizza box in the refrigerator and went upstairs to get another tarp from the linen closet. I’ve always wondered how delicious pizza might taste after my first murder.