Unveiled A Novel

By Teri Davis

It's 1978 in the suburbs of western Ohio, and, with only a hazy memory of the violent killing which took place when she was four, thirteen-year-old Jodie has a nagging suspicion the version of the story she's been told all these years just doesn't add up. During a school day, whispers and glances from classmates set her on a path to solve the mystery. With the help of her best friend, wary Jodie searches for clues.

When a new neighbor, with ties to the event, moves in down the street, Jodie grapples with misgivings about his casual manner but is enticed by his access to additional clues. Guardedly, she accepts his help.

The gathered clues reveal bits and pieces, but also raise even more questions. The road blocks and obstacles frustrate Jodie until the night she attends her first boy-girl party where the full brunt of the memory is triggered, exposing the truth.

Only Jodie's mother, Grace, holds the key to unveil the circumstances and secrets, beginning in 1964, which led to the murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teri Davis
• Release date: Jul 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463971055

Teri Davis

Teri Davis is a first-time novelist, born and raised in the suburbs of west central Ohio but currently residing in Oregon. She is married 25 years to husband Scott and has two grown sons, Sean and Andrew. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travel, theater, music, cooking, and spending time with friends and family.

Book preview

BOOK I - 1978

CHAPTER 1

I was four when Daddy killed that man. The yellowed newspaper articles with the peeling tape plastered inside Grandma’s family scrapbook don’t call me by name, but they say I was four. They say that man tried to hurt me, and Daddy caught him and killed him. That he had a good reason to kill that man and not have to go to jail. That’s what they say.

That man lived down the street from us. He'd grown up in this neighborhood, same as Momma and Daddy, but Momma said she didn't know him all that well, they ran in different circles. Neighbors said after, they never did trust that boy. Daddy didn’t talk about that man at all.

Sometimes I can sort of remember that man. I think he looked at me funny when I would ride by his yard on my training-wheeled bike. Momma had told me I wasn’t allowed to ride down there, but I did anyway. He wore cut-off shorts in the summer. I'm pretty sure his hair was red, I remember it that way, anyhow. But hard to know for sure, I was only four.

I wish I could remember that day better. I wish I could make sense of the bits that do flash in my mind from time to time. Broken memories that sometimes wake me up at night. Pieces of a dream I can't quite remember but something about it nags at me all day. The dust in my eyes that made me tear up. Daddy breathing so heavily. The yelling and cursing. The jarring crack of a shovel against skull. The quick silence. The flashing police lights. Momma crying. But there's something else too. Something crouching in the corner, hidden. It's there, I feel it. That nagging dream.

After Daddy killed that man, I remember Momma and Daddy arguing, loud, violent arguments while I hid in my room, hands over my ears. When the arguing was done, the house filled with angry silence, a tense tip-toeing around each other, a keep-your-head-down caution, a constant tracking of weather conditions to predict the next storm. It's been that way ever since. It's our kind of normal, I guess.

My little sister, Holly, a year old when Daddy killed that man, looks a lot like Momma with blonde hair and ivory skin. Everyone says, what a sweet and pleasing child. Such an irresistible smile. She has Daddy’s chocolate colored eyes. She's the only person in our house Daddy never seems to be mad at. I used to try to fix it with him, but no matter what I did, I could never seem to make it up to him for causing him to kill that man. He just stays mad, giving me his dark, frightening looks, so I’ve learned to keep my distance, watching as he makes over Holly with pet names and butterfly kisses. Holly is easy to love, all sugary sweet, never cross, never argues. I know some kids don't get along with their brothers and sisters, but I like mine okay, love her even. And I don’t blame her for my troubles with Daddy. She didn't have anything to do with it.

I try not to think about Daddy too much. I just spend my days like most other kids I know, riding my green bike with the banana seat and the streamers on the handle bars, playing baseball in the street with the neighborhood kids, playing Barbies with my best friend Joyce who lives across the street, or watching Brady Bunch reruns or the After School Specials in the afternoons. Seems like Daddy and I both agree it's best to have as little to do with each other as we possibly can.

CHAPTER 2

Our dead frog is pinned to his operating table waiting for me or my lab partners to make the first cut. None of us want to do it. There is nervous giggling. The smell of formaldehyde is making us cover our noses. And even though we wear plastic lab goggles with scratched up lens, our eyes water a little bit.

One of my lab partners, Rodney, is a boy who tries to be a hood. By wearing black rock and roll concert t-shirts and keeping his hair shaggy, he tries to be like the truly hoody boys who smoke and curse and get in trouble in every class. But Rodney is only kind of a hood, dipping his toe in the water, but never diving in, like he's scared of going under, I guess. Just the same, I sure wasn't happy when he got assigned as one of my lab partners. I worried he'd probably get us all in trouble.

We look at each other, me, Rodney, Beth, and Karen, stalling and waiting for each other to pick up the knife and cut, hoping someone else will volunteer.

Fine, you sissy girls, Rodney gripes, grabbing the tool. I'll do it.

Poor little bastard, Rodney snickers as he pokes the knife at the frog's belly, causing its arms and legs to pulse against their pins.

The hairs on my arms standing up, I flinch. Is it the disgusting squirming the frog is doing or is it something about that word?

Karen and Beth groan and tell Rodney to stop it, that's gross. Karen adds, and you shouldn't use that word.

Where have I heard that word before?

Why shouldn't I? Rodney asks. We don't know who his father is.

Karen scrunches her eyebrows at Rodney like she's trying to tell him something. I'm not sure, but it almost seems like she's pointing her head at me as she does it.

It's no big deal, Rodney shrugs. Bastards walk among us.

Rodney Martin, stop saying that, or I'll tell Mrs. Walker, Karen warns.

Rocking his head and shoulders back and forth, Rodney makes a face that says oooh, you're so tough, but he doesn't say anything else. Turning the knife in his hand, looking at Karen the whole time, he slices that frog's belly.

***

I open the case that holds all my Barbies while Joyce gets hers. She also pulls out the Barbie camper and the dream house. Joyce is in eighth grade, only one year ahead of me, but she's almost two years older because she has a late birthday and had to wait an extra year to start kindergarten. We both know we're getting too old to play with Barbies, but we haven't stopped yet. We would, for sure, never admit it to any of our junior high friends.

This year, Joyce started reading a lot of Harlequin romances, so our Barbie playing has turned into teenage love stories. We even cut the hair of one of the Skipper dolls to turn it into a teenage boy. The boy Skipper is usually sort of a bad guy. He wears a jean jacket, and he even rides an Evil Knievel motorcycle we borrowed from Joyce's little brother Tommy.

Usually, in our Barbie stories, the Skippers fall in love, get the parents (Ken and Barbie) all upset, have sex and get pregnant. At first, we were sort of embarrassed to let the dolls have sex, but then we got used to it. Now it's no big deal.

As we sit cross-legged on the floor, Joyce picking out new clothes for the girl Skipper, I ask, Do you know the word 'bastard'?

Her head jerks up, eyes wide and face turning red, and she peeks at the bedroom door, open a crack. You shouldn't say that word, she whispers.

But it reminds me of something.

Why, what does it mean? I ask.

Still whispering, she answers, It's a bad word. It means...it's...it's like illegitimate.

Ill-a-what? I reply.

Illegitimate...a person who doesn't know who their father is, she explains.

I think maybe some kids at school think I'm il..le..gitimate, I mutter.

That's ridiculous. Joyce shakes her head of brown hair. You know who your father is.

I know but… I look down thinking of how to explain it. Rodney Martin used that word today, and Karen Shank told him to stop it.

Okay? Joyce waits for the rest of the explanation.

She made a face at him, you know, like when you're trying to tell somebody something without saying it right out? I scrunch my lips, widen my eyes and raise my eyebrows trying to show her how the face looked.

Nose wrinkling and eyebrows arching down, Joyce shrugs and shakes her head, smirking with high cheeks that look like a ventriloquist dummy.

Then she tilted her head at me...kind of...I think. I finish, again trying to imitate how Karen did it.

I think you just misunderstood it, she argues. I bet Karen was just worried about getting in trouble is all.

I nod, agreeing she's probably right, but I'm still not so sure.

Joyce and her family moved in across the street two years after Daddy killed that man. We became friends right away, having sleep-overs and playing pretend games, like I Dream of Jeannie or The Flying Nun. When we got a little older, we both fell in love with Donny Osmond, I mean, who wouldn't?

What do you want our story to be today? she asks ready to move on to playing. The book I read last night had an orphan girl falling in love with a rich older man who just thinks of her sort of like a daughter, but then there's this young man who she dislikes at –

Do you know my Daddy killed a man when I was four? I blurt out.

fir... Joyce stops in the middle of her word. What?

Chewing on my left thumb, I look down at the doll in my right hand. Why did I just say that?

Joyce's mouth is open and she's not saying anything. My head is still down, but I can see her face if I just raise my eyes.

Jodie Elizabeth Jensen, she steams finally, putting all her Barbies back in the case. Either you're a liar or you're not my best friend. If it's a true story, then a real best friend would have told a story like that a long time ago. So I think I don't want to play anymore today. She snaps her case shut and crosses her arms.

I pick up my dolls, put them in their case, and stand up to go.

Just before I get to the door, my embarrassment becomes anger. I spin around to look at her, still sitting with arms folded and a hateful look on her face.

I'll tell you something. I shake my Barbie case at her to make my point. "A real best friend would understand how a story like that would be hard to tell. A real best friend wouldn't be kicking me out of her house when I'm feeling bad."

I stomp down the hallway and out the door, not giving her a chance to answer.

CHAPTER 3

Most days, Joyce and I walk to the bus stop together, but not today. She's walking on the other side of the street ahead of me. She won't even look at me.

I hate it when I have to walk alone to the bus stop because I have to pass that man's house where his nasty mother still lives.

Passing the house in the mornings is usually okay, but by the afternoon, on days when the weather is nice, the old lady sometimes sits rocking on her front porch. There have been days when I'm walking by, her eyes narrow and she takes a big puff on her cigarette. So I walk a little faster.

That's right, you just keep steppin', little miss. Smoke pours out of her mouth and nose.

There's been other times too, when she's had a shiny metal bottle in one hand and the cigarette in the other, and she's said stuff I can't quite make out, confusing things. I think one time she called me big trees. And another when she said something about an egg hunt. I think she's drunk and I'm pretty sure she's crazy, so I try not to let it bother me too much. I suppose she's probably sad and mad too about my Daddy killing her son. She probably blames it on me like Daddy does.

This morning, thank goodness, she's not on the porch, so I'm glad about that but still fuming about Joyce up ahead. The fight keeps running over and over in my head. I'm thinking, too, about how my stomach hurts a little bit, when all of a sudden the front door of that man's house bursts open and a scrawny boy, with hair the color of fire, barrels out, slamming the door shut behind him. I stop short, my mouth hanging open, and I hear the crazy old lady from somewhere inside the house yell, You hear what I say?

The boy jumps from the porch to the ground completely skipping over the stairs, cuts crossways through the front yard, hops over the picket fence, and walks down the sidewalk ahead of me, never looking at me once. I'm still standing there stunned. After a moment, it occurs to me I'm in front of that man's house, which is a dangerous place to be, so I hustle to the bus stop.

With me and Joyce not speaking, and this complete stranger standing with us who won't even look us in the eye, the bus stop seems to have no air. Suffocating. I fidget, not sure what to do.

If one of you is Jodie Jensen, I ain't supposed to talk to you, he mumbles finally, still looking down at the ground.

What the…?

Rattled and having no idea what to say, I stare at him. There's something about him that reminds me of that missing part of my dream. He looks a lot like that man, only younger.

The angry I was already feeling is getting bigger by the minute, a boiling river of heat floods through my whole body.

Who the hell are you? I bark.

Joyce's eyes widen, two bad words in two days, I know she's thinking.

The bus rumbles the next street over. I take a step toward him. Who are you? I repeat slower this time, almost snarling.

He doesn't look up, he scuffs the toe of his white, fake Chuck Taylor high top on the sidewalk. My name is Doug MacFadden.

MacFadden, MacFadden, MacFadden. James MacFadden.

Why are you here? I lean in waiting for an answer.

I'm living with my grandma. The freckles on his cheeks darkening, he finally looks me in the eye. My mom can't take care of me no more, so she dumped me here.

Grandma? Is he that man's, I mean James MacFadden's, son?

Is James MacFadden your daddy? I ask.

Nah, he was my uncle, Doug shakes his head. Then his eyes narrow, kind of like his grandma's do, he leans toward me and points his bony finger in my face. But I don't remember much about him since your daddy killed him when I was five.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Joyce jerk, mouth wide open.

I slam the school books I'm carrying to the ground. I'll punch you so hard, I scream and move at him.

Doug flinches backward.

The school bus turns the corner.

Tearing, Joyce grabs my arms to hold me back. Jodie stop it! The bus is here. She helps me pick up my strewn books while Doug hurries to climb on ahead of us.

We choose a seat where we can sit together.