Burnington Gaol

T W E N T Y | Billy

Billy looked across the cracked asphalt, the cars flying by in streaks of red and blue. The rundown shack of a house, just past the road, stared back at him, and he looked left and right before weaving between lanes. Cars beeped and braked and screamed all sorts of colourful language at him, and he shrugged it off, never minding a single word. When he got to the other side, he took a long drag of his cigarette, before letting it fall from his mouth. He crushed it into the sidewalk and jogged up the drive, minding the broken-down car with the smashed windows.

He stepped into the yard, the overgrown weeds tangling around his ankles as he looked up at the leaf-filled gutters. He reached the porch steps, skipped the middle one which had snapped downwards; a frayed mess of splinters. He knocked loudly on the door, the broken screen giving way. He waited for a long moment, breathed in the thick scent of mould, decay, and what he could only assume was cat urine. He wrinkled his nose.

"Hello?" He called, knocking loudly again.

The door creaked open and a frail old woman stood there.

"Hold your damn horses. I'm not as fast as I used to be."

The old lady looked up at Billy, confusion fixed in her wrinkled features.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Uh, hello ma'am. My name is Billy – "

"What do you want?"

"Uh..." Billy stuttered, blinked hard. "I'm here to talk to you about the murder of Kathleen Maynard. The great niece of Ida Abbott. Is that you?"

The woman's grumpy expression slowly drained, replaced by something deeper.

"Kathy," she said, a touch of pain in her tone. "What do you want with her?"

"I'm opening some cold cases for a magazine article. Trying to help find justice for those who weren't fortunate enough to get it the first time around."

The lady paused for a long moment, sighed.

"You'd better come in."

She pushed open the screen door and Billy entered the rickety old house. The first thing that hit him was the smell – dust and mould and stale water, floating through the thick air. Mountains of junk were piled up in the living room, creating a maze to the kitchen. She led him through, and he tried to squeeze through all her worthless belongings without knocking anything over. When he rounded the last mountain, he saw the frail old lady shoving a pile of things off a kitchen seat and onto the floor, where she pushed them under the table with her cane.

"What was your name again?"

"Billy, ma'am."

"Ida," she said. "Sit down. I'll make tea.

"Oh, that's okay, Mrs Abbott. I don't drink tea."

"Suit yourself," she said, pottering up to the counter. "So what do you want to know about Kathy?"

"Well," he said. "So far, I've heard that she was murdered alongside her husband some twelve years ago."

"That no-good piece of shit Vinnie Maynard, no doubt." She snapped, pulling a teacup out of her cupboard.

Billy cleared his throat, unsure how to react.

"Their daughter... she also went missing that night."

"Little Susie," Ida pondered. "She was a beautiful baby. Never found her, though. The cops kept telling me that she must've been killed too, but there was no evidence. No body."

"And what about that no-good piece of shit husband?" Billy asked. "Did they ever find his body?"

"Well, of course they did. It was right there, next to my Kathy's. I always said that he did it. There was something always wrong with him, you know. But then again, Kathy wasn't all there either. The whole family were a bunch of wrongin's."

"Wait, what? They found her husband's body?"

Ida came wandering back over, teacup in hand. There was just enough room to put it down on the table.

"Yes, it was right there. Dead as a doornail, next to hers. You calling me a liar?"

"No, no." Billy said, correcting himself. "It's just, the reports said he was missing."

"Nope," she said. "He's buried in the graveyard in town. Right next to Kathy."

Billy, now more confused than ever, sat there frozen for a few long seconds. The inconsistency hung in his mind, suspended in the air, waiting for the snap that would make him understand.

"Thank you, Mrs Abbott." He said slowly, before rising from his seat and making his way to the front door. "I appreciate your time."

© A.G. Travers 2018