Nine Minutes by Beth Flynn
It was hard for me at first. I couldn’t close my eyes. I had to have them open the whole time, and I needed the light on. I had to see it was Grizz. It took me a long time to let him kiss my body. I tensed, waiting for the painful bite. Knowing that I was still struggling with it only fueled his anger. He started picking on Moe again.
I wish I’d noticed the change in her. I was just too wrapped up in what had happened to me; too wrapped up in my own recovery. Looking back, I should’ve called Grunt and asked him to come back to the motel and spend time with her. I am ashamed to say I didn’t notice the depths of her despair and loneliness until it was too late.
It was 1979, and around the fourth anniversary of my abduction. A few months shy of the one-year anniversary of my attack. After my attack, Grizz purposely kept Damien and Lucifer away from Moe. I think this hurt her more than anything, and I felt horrible about it. Horrible enough to defy him and let her see them when I knew Grizz wasn’t going to be around.
That’s how Chowder found her. Grizz was gone, and I let her take Damien in her room one night. I kept Lucifer with me. Chowder heard Damien crying the next morning, and he let himself into Moe’s room.
He found Moe peacefully lying in her bed with an empty bottle of pills next to her.
Dead.
I cannot tell you the extent of my devastation. I felt every emotion possible: grief, anger, despair, depression, guilt. Lots of guilt. I’d always thought of myself as a caring person. How was it I didn’t notice how bad Moe’s depression had been?
I remembered little things then. I remembered when Grizz would take me for rides to look for land for our future home. Moe was never included. What would have happened to her if we moved out of the motel? Was she expected to stay there indefinitely? I was horrified that I’d not given her future a second thought. I remembered my complaints and gripes about being dissatisfied with my life. What did Moe think about her life? What kind of life had she actually led? Not much of one, really.
Chowder made the necessary calls, and before long Grunt, Blue and Grizz showed up at the motel.
Grizz found me sitting on the edge of the couch staring at the blank TV. I got up and lunged at him. He thought I was coming in for a hug and never expected me to go ballistic on him. I beat on him with every ounce of strength I had in me, and he stood there and took it.
Exhaustion eventually overcame me, and I fell into his arms. He caught me and tried to hug me, but I shoved him away. I sat back down on the couch.
“What are you going to do with her?” My voice was cold. Distant.
“Same as everyone else.”
“No.” Heat flashed through me and I stood up. “No! Absolutely no way is Moe going to be thrown away and become alligator food. No way, Grizz.”
“I suppose we could take her farther out and bury her. If that’s what you want, Kit.”
I thought a minute. “No. That’s not good enough. I know a place. Not until tonight, though. And I need some time alone in her room.”
He followed me outside. I walked toward her room. Grunt was sitting on a lawn chair on the motel sidewalk. He had his head in his hands. When he looked up at me, I could see he’d been crying. I went straight to him and threw myself into his arms as he stood up. I don’t know how long we stood there crying in each other’s arms, but Grizz left us alone.
I asked Grunt to come into her room with me. I wanted to find something personal to bury her with. When we walked in, Moe was still lying in her bed. Nobody had bothered to cover her face. Looking back now, I’m glad I got to see her.
Moe looked more beautiful and peaceful than I’d ever seen her before. She wasn’t wearing her heavy makeup. She was lying on top of her motel bedspread wearing a white T-shirt that was several sizes too big for her. It was the only time I ever saw Moe wearing something besides black. I wondered if she’d planned it.
I went through her drawers and found there really wasn’t much to Moe’s life. Other than her black clothes, makeup, drawing tools and doggie treats, there was nothing there. Grunt and I were getting ready to leave when I thought to look under the bed. There was some sort of metal box. I couldn’t get to it. Grunt knelt down next to me and was able to reach it. He pulled it out.
We opened it. There were two items in it. One was a plastic food container. Grunt popped the top off and we noticed what looked like a small piece of old meat wrapped in cellophane. It was Moe’s tongue.
The other item I recognized immediately. It was my wallet.
____________
Grunt and I looked at each other with the same expression. We both could understand why Moe had saved her tongue. It was personal. If this had been a few years earlier, I probably would’ve thrown up. But I guess living at the motel had hardened me somewhat. I’d seen people murdered, so a shriveled tongue wasn’t anything to be upset about.
But my wallet? She’d defied a direct order from Grizz. Why?
We guessed she’d saved it for me. Her life and identity had been taken from her. Maybe she didn’t have the heart to destroy my identity like Grizz had commanded her to do that night.
“Thank you, Moe,” I whispered.
I took the wallet and put it in my back pocket. I knew without asking that Grunt would never tell.
When I got back to number four I found the bag I was carrying the night Monster abducted me. I no longer used it. It was wadded up in a corner shelf in my closet. I put my wallet inside and forgot about it.
Later that night, Chowder and Blue carefully wrapped Moe in her bedspread and carried her out to the bed of Blue’s pickup truck. I rode in front with Blue and Grizz, and Grunt rode in the back with Chowder, Moe and the shovels.
I directed them to the only place that seemed appropriate. It was dark out, but there was a full moon. Enough for me to find the shady ficus tree on a lonely rural road in Davie.
I picked a spot, and Chowder and Grunt meticulously cut and rolled up the grass. Then they started digging. I told them to make sure it was deep. I didn’t want any chance of animals getting to her. Grizz gently handed her over the low fence to Blue, who carried her to the edge of the freshly dug grave. Before they lowered her in, I reached in under the bedspread and placed the plastic food container with her.
After they filled in the grave, they put the sod back. It barely looked like the ground had been disturbed. I was certain nobody would notice.
As we drove away I had to look back. He was there, and he was magnificent—Moe’s beautiful, brown horse. He was standing next to her grave.
Years later, as I was being interrogated by the police about my knowledge of the people who’d lived at the motel, I could never bring myself to give up Moe’s final resting place. I was able to tell them honestly how she died. Her family would at least have that closure. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell them she was actually buried on their property. I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t dig her up and move her to a cemetery, give her a proper burial. I knew in my heart this was the only burial Moe would want.
Grunt stopped at Fess’s on his way back home and told him what happened. Sarah Jo later told me her father cried like a baby that night. He was upset he didn’t get to say goodbye, but he also understood the less fuss, the better for everyone. He asked if he could pay his respects. Grizz wouldn’t tell him where she was buried, but I think Grunt may have.
I would drive by that ficus tree many times over the coming years just to say hello to my old friend Moe. The area was still undeveloped and there was never anyone around. But on a few occasions, I saw dried, dead flowers at the foot of the ficus tree. I was pretty sure Fess had been there.
Subconsciously, I blamed Grizz for Moe’s death. Heck, I might even have blamed myself. I struggled with my life as it now was. What right did I have to have a happy life when Moe was dead and would never have one?
I started to question my beliefs. Who was I? I reminded myself that I’d witnessed murders. Then I struggled with why I even had to remind myself. Wasn’t a murd
And perhaps worse, I was in love with a hardened criminal. At that point, I think I was starting to wake up from the illusion of my seemingly perfect life with Grizz. How could I convince myself our lifestyle was okay? Who had I let myself become? Did I see a future with him? Was I going to have his children?
I sunk deeper into depression, and it only got worse that summer when Grizz finally found the guy who attacked me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I can honestly say I never stopped loving Grizz, but after what he did to the man who attacked me, I became afraid of him like never before. Not of what he would do to me—I knew deep down Grizz would never hurt me. But I was very afraid of what Grizz was capable of doing to others.
It turned out it was very much a personal attack. The guy’s name was Darryl Hines. He was in love with a blonde hooker in Miami.
A blonde hooker named Willow.
Darryl Hines had heard so much from Willow about how Grizz had cast her out of the gang years earlier because of me. So he decided to do something about it. Darryl was crazy about Willow and wanted to show his love for her.
It was by pure coincidence that he picked a night to come to the motel when I was most vulnerable. He was high on drugs and wasn’t even sure if I would be in the room when he burst in. He had to know that if he came in and Grizz was there, he would have met certain death. But that night he was so high he just didn’t care. He took a chance and it paid off for him.
Well, it wasn’t paying off now.
I believed Darryl Hines needed to pay for what he did to me. But I will never be able to accept how Grizz dealt with him.
The day they brought him to the motel, I identified his voice immediately. It was a voice I’d never forget. I stayed in number four while Grizz marched him out to the pit. Chowder told me how he was kneeling in the pit and crying. He confessed to everything. He was more upset that Willow had dumped him after he told her what he did. She had used him to take vengeance on me, and once he accomplished that, she had no further use for him.
“Seems to me you should be more worried about what I’m going to do to you,” Grizz told him.
Darryl was sobbing. “You can’t do nothing to me that won’t hurt more than what Willow did.”
“We’ll see about that.”
It was July in South Florida. It was unbearably hot. That night, Grizz drove me over to Naples on the west coast. He set me up in an expensive hotel on the beach. He told me he was going to be dealing with Darryl and he didn’t want me around. He said I should relax and enjoy myself, not to worry. Like that was going to happen. He left me with a lot of cash and he returned to the motel.
Chicky showed up after two days and spent a day with me. I’d never really let myself get to know Chicky, and it was nice talking to her. We spent the day at an isolated spot on the beach. She told me about herself.
Chicky was forty-six years old. I was shocked. I thought she was much younger. Most of the women looked hardened and old from the drugs and the gang life. Not her. She told me she’d been with the gang for only a couple of years before I came along.
“Yes,” she answered without me having to ask. “I was in love with Grizz, too. Who wasn’t?”
Then she laughed and waved it off like it was nothing. She told me she had been waiting tables at a local bar popular for its hot wings. Grizz had approached her and asked her to work for him. She said she’d been a stripper in her younger years, so bartending topless wasn’t a stretch, and the money was great. Besides, she had a daughter to feed and put through school.
That shocked me. Her daughter was a senior in college. Chicky knew she surprised me.
“Just because I’ve lived hard and haven’t always made the right decisions doesn’t mean I don’t want better for my girl.”
I wiggled my toes in the sand. “How do you handle it, Chicky? How do you handle the awful stuff you’ve seen at the motel and other places?”
“Just do. As far as I can tell, I ain’t done nothing bad to nobody. Unless loving somebody is a bad thing.”
I looked over at her. Before I could voice it, she said, “No, not Grizz, honey. I stay around hoping Fess might take notice of me one day. I know he had eyes for Moe, but I think I could be real good with Fess.”
I smiled. “Yes, I think you could too, Chicky.” We both lay back in our beach chairs and closed our eyes.
After a minute, she said, “He really is in love with you, you know? Grizz. I’ve seen him with all kinds of women.” She stopped then and said, “Sorry, don’t mean it like that. Just that he could pretty much have any woman he wanted and he did, until you came along. I ain’t never seen nothing like it. A lot of the men put their women to work, share ’em with other guys. It’s a normal thing. But not where you’re concerned.”
I leaned up on my elbows and looked over at her. “Chicky, I love Grizz with all my heart. I really do. But you know, I don’t go to all the biker rallies and different meetings with him. He could be with anyone and I’d never know.”
“Yeah, except he isn’t.” She sat up and looked at me. “I’ve been to some of those rallies. Those meetings. I’ve seen women take their clothes off and stick their stuff in his face. He just pushes ’em away.”
“Really?” I was surprised. It was something I’d not let myself think too much about.
But now that I let myself think about it, I avoided the pit as often as possible for a few key reasons, one being the dirty looks I got from the other women. They were never mean or disrespectful to me. Grizz wouldn’t have allowed it. But I caught the occasional nasty glance. Was that because Grizz was loyal to me? I was a little shocked.
Then I remembered the night I caught him with Willow.
The words tumbled out before I could stop them. “I was pretty sure after I walked in on him and Willow that time that he did as he pleased, regardless of me.”
“Oh, I remember that night,” Chicky sighed. “You went to Grunt’s room to listen to records. Yep. I remember it well. He did it on purpose to make you jealous.”
This got my attention. “How could he have done it on purpose? The timing had to be exactly right for me to catch him.”
“He just gave Grunt the signal that he wanted to know a few minutes before you were leaving his room.”
“What?” I sat straight up in my beach chair.
“It’s a signal system they set up.” Chicky sat up, too, waved her hand absently. “I’m surprised you don’t know about it. They’d been using it awhile. Now that I think on it, haven’t seen him do it since then, but it was a regular thing.”
“What kind of system? For what purpose?”
“A while back, when someone would come to the motel that wasn’t familiar or known to be trusted, they’d be taken into one of the rooms and shown some hospitality, if you know what I mean. This would give the gang a chance to check them out. Go through their car or saddlebags if they were riding. Whoever was inside knew to flick the outside light twice to signal that the person was going to leave in a minute or two. That’s what Grunt did right before you left. Flicked his porch light. You should’ve seen Grizz drag Willow like a bat out of hell to your room.”
“Grunt was in on it?”
“Nah, he just saw Grizz give him the signal that, for whatever reason, meant Grizz wanted to know when you were gonna be leaving Grunt’s room. The kid didn’t know why.”
I laughed. I laughed hard. Grizz had been trying to make me jealous? Well, now that I think about it, it worked. As a matter of fact, if I’d peeked through the crack between the curtain and the window of number four instead of running back to Grunt’s room, I bet I would have seen Grizz shove Willow away from him, pull up his pants and tell her to get her ass out of his room.
All with a big, gigantic smile on his face.
I lay back on my beach chair. “Thanks, Chicky. Thanks for telling me.”
A day or so after Chicky left, I was visited by
I remember the first night I’d met Anthony. It was a year or two earlier, on one of our church trips to the west coast. We’d made a stop before getting on Alligator Alley to go home. I’m sure my mouth hung open as I gaped at one of the most handsome men I’d ever laid eyes on. Grizz was big and definitely handsome, in a rugged way. But where Grizz had light eyes and hair, Anthony was dark. He was a Native American and had chiseled, exotic good looks. He was living proof of that old saying—tall, dark and handsome. Black eyes, black hair and, on at least one occasion that I’d witnessed, black mood. He was bigger than Grizz, at least six foot six, muscular and tattooed. And he wore a single braid down his back that reached his waist.
Christy was a short, tanned, natural blonde with chin-length straight hair and big blue eyes. She wasn’t little, but had a traditional hourglass figure, filled out in all the right places. She’d been abducted, like me. I hadn’t met her until more recently, and when I did meet her she made it obvious she wasn’t happy with her situation. She’d even tried to convince me to help her escape.
The three of us spent a nice day together, relaxing on the beach. It was now the end of the day and we were back in my hotel room. Christy was using the bathroom.
“I’m sorry I haven’t let her come see you on her own. Things are still a little unsettled. I guess I’m still not completely comfortable letting her out of my sight,” Anthony said quietly.
“You don’t need to apologize. I understand. I remember how it was for me and Grizz in the beginning. I’m just glad I got to see you both today,” I answered.