Short story derived from the photo below.
————————-
Detective John Raven pulled his rental car up to the massive gates of the Sutton estate and felt a pain in the pit of his stomach that screamed you never should have come here. He was out of his league and he should have made the Carson County Sheriff’s department deal with this and been done with it. The entire property was surrounded by 10-foot high stone walls and the gates in front of him were even taller. Every inch was covered in a swirling ornate pewter pattern that formed the letter “S” directly in the middle. John was intimidated by the thought that he could probably pay off his mortgage with that letter “S” and maybe his car too. After a few moments he rolled down his window and pushed the button on the intercom.

“Yes? May I help you?” asked a voice with a hint of a German accent and a giant helping of pretentious attitude.

“Detective Raven. I have an appointment to speak with Mrs. Sutton.”

“One moment” the voice finally sighed after waiting almost a full minute.

He stared beyond the gates at the mansion he was to enter and was amazed that this lady came from his town, White Deer, Texas. Back then she was Rosetta Marsh the waitress and one of the two daughters of local floozy Dixie Marsh. John didn’t know this first hand since he was only 6 years old when Rosetta ditched their poor town back in the early 70s, but he heard about it plenty over the years. Now she was Etta Sutton the famous movie star.

Of course she lived in this magnificent home before she was ever in the movies. In fact she was initially famous for just that: living in this mansion. Although she had never spoken publicly about her origins, the story John had heard was that when Rosetta was twenty years old she split town with her younger sister, Elaine, and a few boys from town. It was told that she always had men around her from a very young age. Rosetta was the most beautiful thing anyone in White Deer, Texas had ever seen. John had seen pictures of her that locals hung in their restaurants and stores, claiming they had known her, but he would have seen her pictures either way since her face was well known across the world. Those pictures were mostly from the 70s when she was one of the most photographed faces of the decade. Her long hair was a striking strawberry blonde and was mostly straight except for one soft wave that pushed her hair over the left side of her face.  She had porcelain skin with the perfect amount of make-up to accentuate her smoky brooding eyes and pouty lips.

After a few days, Dixie reported her daughters missing. Some of her daughter’s things were missing and most people assumed they had run away. After asking around a little it was discovered that the girls and had been seen hanging out at the restaurant where Rosetta worked with the three boys. There was no investigation even though Dixie and the parents of one of the boys were convinced something was wrong. Only 6 months later Rosetta’s face was in the national news and everyone knew they really had run away.

The news reports were about 87-year-old oil billionaire Stanley Sutton and his new 21-year-old wife, Etta Sutton. He apparently met her in a strip club a few months earlier and went back every day to see her until she agreed to marry him. She lavished in the attention of the media. Instead of shying away she posed for pictures on her husbands lap and stood outside the gates of their home to talk to reporters. Sutton’s children were furious. All three of them were old enough to be Etta’s grandparents, but Stanley did not care. He loved Etta and she told everyone she loved him right back and she continued to love him until the day he died, which was a little over a year later. He left more than half of his estate to Etta, including the house that his children had been raised in. They battled it out for a bigger share tying things up in court for a few years, but Etta remained in the house. In the end she was a 24-year-old multi-millionaire and that is what Etta considered her beginning. All the interviews she did were missing mention of her past. She never discussed her battles with her sexagenarian stepchildren, her brief stripping career or her hometown of White Deer, Texas. But people from town did, so most of the world knew even if Etta never confirmed. Dixie was interviewed once right in font of the Addison grain elevator, where she worked. She told the reporter that her daughter left town without a word and had never called or come to visit. Apparently, a few years after that interview, Etta came to see her mother once. She paid off the land that Dixie was struggling to keep and made some minor improvements on the property. Dixie had inherited 30 acres when her parent’s died. She didn’t work the land; in fact she probably could have sold it at any time. Apparently the taxes on the property were piling up and Dixie was in-between boyfriends to help pay the bills. That is when Etta showed up.   . The land was owned by Etta and sat empty even though the taxes always stayed current. People around town were randomly interviewed over the years, but it didn’t exactly put White Deer on the map.

Through the 70s and 80s Etta appeared in dozens of movies including some leading roles in hit movies. She was never a shining star when it came to acting, but she was gorgeous and knew how to land a role and work a crowd. The media loved her and Hollywood men loved her as well. Her reputation for dating her leading men co-stars started with Jack Nicholson and ended only when she quit acting in the early 90s. John Raven was a teenager in the late 70s and early 80s and he was quite familiar with her acting career and her famous posters that every teenage boy in America had hanging in his room.

And now here he was in Los Angeles, California, parked at her gates waiting to ask her about three dead bodies that he was sure she knew nothing about. This is ridiculous. What the hell am I doing here? He initially thought she would refuse to see him, but he was sure she was going to throw him out as soon as he brought it up.

“Drive on through the gates, Mrs. Sutton will see you now.” Finally. It had been at least 10 minutes. He hated these people; even the servants thought they were better than you. In reality they probably did make more money at this than his measly 20K a year as the only police detective in a podunk Texas town. Technically this was a Carson County case; all the big problems were theirs. But no one cared about the remains that were found, because they were easily more than 30 years old. There were no missing persons or open cases that could have possibly matched up. John had nothing better to do, so he was trying to unravel the mystery. He had exhausted any leads he could back home and was close to shutting this whole thing down.

John drove through the colossal entrance and was surprised that the fortress was much further away than it appeared and as he got closer it grew. By the time he pulled his car where the gentleman was pointing John was positive this was a mistake and again resisted the temptation to turn around and leave. As he got out and followed his guide he noticed that every part of the mansion’s exterior was white – a monstrous white home on a plush green perfectly trimmed grass lawn. There were statues throughout the grounds that were all white. About the same height as Jon’s shoulders was a detailed garland carved into the wall that carried throughout the entire perimeter of the building and it was also white. It was probably because everything was so white that John’s attention was immediately drawn to a small round window on the right side of the house in the middle of a balcony that had a pink flowering vine growing along the side. The window seemed out of place because it was the only circle window on the otherwise perfectly balanced house full of right angles. Squares and rectangles dominated except this one round window. Even the style and color did not match the home as it was a stained glass window in bright vivid colors that detailed a parrot grabbing onto a branch with wings spread for a landing.

He was led into the home and down a long cold hallway with white marble floors. Everything hanging on the walls or on display oozed with wealth. Painting frames dripped with gold leaves and other embellishments. There were enormous vases and aged rugs that he was sure came from old money, but meant nothing to him. It did make him question his choice in clothes though. His idea of dressing up without his uniform was his cleanest pair of jeans, ostrich boots that his wife bought him last year and a button up short sleeve shirt. These were his nicest clothes and in this house he felt like a hillbilly. Luckily he had remembered to shave and he had a hair cut last week.

When he entered the room at the end of the hall everything changed. The room was warm and the floor was hardwood with colorful Indian rugs covering most of the room. The walls screamed with red and yellow stripes and the couches where covered in zebra stripes that hollered back at the walls. Everything in this room was loud and warm. It reminded John of what he imagined the inside of a tent on a luxurious safari would look like. Tapestries hung in random patterns that divided the room between a sitting area and a reading area. And right in the middle of the room stood Etta Sutton.

She held her hands together at her waistline and had a sweet smile on her face. Even though she was about 15 years older than John, from this distance she looked the same age as him and his friends. Even at 62, she was a striking beauty. She wore her hair shorter than the last photos he had seen, but it was still bright strawberry blonde. Her figure was the same as the poster he used to own. She wasn’t a tiny woman, but more curvy and sexy. “Welcome, Detective, join me if you will, over here.” Even her voice was sexy.

The tour guide made his exit and John walked over to introduce himself. “Thank you for seeing me Mrs. Sutton. My name is John Raven, I promise not to take up too much of your time, but I wanted to ask you a few questions if I could.” He didn’t understand why he was breathing so hard and sweating – this lady was much nicer than any of her staff. He shook her hand and took a seat where she directed him. She offered him a drink; he declined.

“So what’s going on in the small town of White Deer that brings you all the way to LA?” Etta was direct, but still nice.

“Well, about six weeks ago some hunters wandered onto Dixie’s, I mean, your property. They didn’t realize it was private property. They discovered an area that looked like it had been disturbed a long time ago and found a human skull and some other bones. When we got out there and poked around, it turned out there were actually 3 human bodies in the same little section of land.”

“Yes, I know all this, I received or signed something through my lawyer that informed me of the digging.” Etta interjected.

“But, we have no idea who these bodies belong to. Your Mom is gone . . . as you know . . . and I wanted to check and see if you had any information. These bodies are not recently deceased, Ma’am, they’ve been dead over 30 years. It could’ve been from when you lived there and I was hoping. Well, can you think of anything that could help us?”

She seemed to be processing the information, but she didn’t seem to be trying to think back for any clues. John knew that people made a certain facial expression when they were trying to remember something and this wasn’t the expression she had. “I don’t know how much help I can be detective, that was quite some time ago. I have lived a whole life since then.” He knew she was lying and he was shocked. Reading people was John’s specialty. It helped with his job and it definitely helped with his kids, but he didn’t expect it to help him today and he was caught off guard.

John paused for some time waiting to see if she had anything to add, but she simply looked down at her hands. The age lines around her eyes and mouth were much more apparent now that he sat close to her. They didn’t make her unattractive; they seemed to belong there and were all perfectly placed unlike some women who denied the aging process with chemicals and injections. “Mrs. Sutton, can you tell me about why you left White Deer?” He thought if he got her to speak about herself he could get a better gauge on when she was being honest. “Do you mind telling me?”

Her lips pursed up for a brief moment. It was a flash of an instant, but he caught it. “I don’t really like to discuss my background, Mr. Raven. It’s no one’s business but my own.” But she seemed to reconsider right away. “There really isn’t much to tell, I hated that town and I always planned to leave. So I did it the first chance I got.”

“Didn’t you leave with your sister?” he asked. “I thought it was you and your sister and some friends that left town.”

Her face tightened further. He could tell she was telling the truth in that she hated that town and she obviously was angry to have to discuss it. He waited. Usually if he waited someone out long enough they would speak if only to fill the silence. John didn’t mind being silent. He never thought of silence as awkward, sometimes it was necessary. His eyes scanned the room amazed at how different it was from the rest of the house. In the far corner of the room, he saw the round window that he had noticed before. It helped him get his bearings as to where in this giant house he was located.

“She made that window, you know, my sister. She used to love to create stained glass projects. I found it in my mother’s shed years ago when I visited. It’s the only real change I’ve made to this damn house. This is my room and that’s Lanie’s window.” She rubbed her thin hands together as though she were freezing and stared at the window entranced in the memories. He was shocked when she reached up and put her hand behind her ear to straighten what he was now sure was a wig. Her whole head of hair moved at once to the center and she seemed unaware she had even done it. His eyes turned to the floor quickly, so that he would not be caught staring in disbelief. Beauty fades.

“Could I speak to your sister? Is she here in LA? Is it possible that should could have some information on this?”

A sinister laugh came from Etta and she seemed to be transforming before his eyes. Each time he looked at her she darkened. Her eyes were deeper in her head, her wrinkles were more apparent and now that he was aware of the wig he noticed it perched on her head with a small telling gap over her ears where she had tugged moments before.

“She’s long gone, sir. Long gone.”

Again he waited to see if she would continue and once more she surprised him.

“What the hell? What can you really do anyways? I’ll tell you what happened to those stupid sonsabitches.” Her accent had changed from sophisticated princess to a Texas grandmother. “There isn’t a day that I don’t think about it, not a day. They got what they deserved. I’ve never told nobody and I guarantee you I won’t tell it again. I killed all three of those shits. They followed me and Lanie home one night and drug us kicking and screaming into the woods on our land. That asshole, Jeremy somethingoranother, said I was a prick tease and he wanted to make sure my sister knew better. They beat us and had their way with us for hours and we fought them every minute.” She paused and tears began to drip from the outside corners of her eyes. She squeezed her hands together and continued as John sat frozen, afraid that speaking would break the spell and remind her of his presence. Upon closer inspection her hands revealed more age. In fact they appeared to belong to another woman, someone decades older than Etta Sutton.

“Eventually they were done with us and started talking like they were scared of us telling the police.” She glanced up at him briefly as if to remind him that she knew he was a lawman and she didn’t care.  “Before I could even realize what was going on the tall one smashed my sweet Lanie with a rock so big that her whole body twitched once and went still forever. They all looked so shocked and surprised like they didn’t believe it had happened and I took that moment to run. I ran as fast and hard as I could -it felt like it took me years to get to that barn and they were only seconds behind me, but it was enough time to grab the gun and force them all into the barn with me. I made them tie each other up and lie face down while I tied the third bastard up. I think they were talking to me and begging me, but I didn’t care and I shot the first two in the back of the head. The third one saw it coming and tried to struggle so I missed him at first, grazing his ear. The blood went everywhere and he began to thrash about. For a moment I think he thought there was a chance for escape, but I walked over to that dirty sonofabitch and shoved him onto his back with my foot on his chest. Then I looked him right in the eye and shot him in the face. It was the longest night of my life. It took all of my power to push those bodies one at a time in a wheelbarrow far enough into the woods to bury them, but I don’t even remember much of that. It was Lanie that broke my heart. Once I found her again, I could barely recognize her – there was not much left of her face, but I covered her with a blanket and carried her. I carried her with my own dirty, filthy hands to the other side of the property as close to the house as I could get without Momma finding her. Not that she would give a shit either way. I buried my sister. I cleaned up as much as I could and packed some things to leave. Momma wasn’t even home, she was out whoring herself to some married guy.”

After he was sure she was finished, John started the questions. “Why didn’t you go to the police? Why did you leave? Why . . . “ Before he could finish she cut him off.

“I told you I hated that town and I always wanted to leave. Aren’t you listening to me? I knew I was going to be famous and I didn’t want it to be for going to jail in White Deer, Texas. Let me tell you something else. You aren’t going to do a thing about this. It has been 40 years since I buried those assholes in the ground and they deserved what they got. I have more money than the damn panhandle and I won’t speak of this ever again. So do what you want, but my lawyers will make sure this story never sees the light of day. What? You didn’t expect this, did you? Grandma Etta tells you a sad story and then threatens you.” She laughed so hard she started coughing, “It’s over Mr. Raven. Go home and bury this story and bury those bones. You aren’t getting nothing from me. I don’t leave this room anymore let alone this house and you aren’t going to change a thing.” She stood up as she finished her lecture and this was his cue to leave.

It was a long drive back to the gate, even longer than when he arrived. This was different from in the movies – a big court battle with Etta Sutton with no proof beyond her off the record confession wasn’t likely to happen. He was probably going to have to bury this like she said. But that didn’t seem like something John Raven could do.