FEATURE: “Chester” by Elizabeth Powers
Dead things hang from every wall, in almost every room. They even stare down from the walls of the dining room, where we eat other dead things beneath their tormented gazes. Perhaps we are eating parts of the animals now hanging above us. I don’t think I could ever go vegan, but this house makes me consider it.
“These are all shoulder mounts of creatures I actually killed myself,” my father-in-law Gary said years ago, when we first came to their house. He said it so proudly I thought he’d pop a button. His son, my husband John, stood next to him beaming with complete disregard for my grimace.
John and I have now been married for seven years and his father is continuously adding more carcasses to his home. My mother-in-law Rose is content enough to ignore them all completely, but I know this décor would never have been her choice.
One day I asked her if she ever wanted to hang some of her things on the walls and she took me to see her tiny crafting room where she said, without a hint of irony, “Gary lets me have complete control over how I decorate in here!”
What was in that room was the complete opposite of death. All pastel colors and soft textures.
On the drive home, I said to John, “If you ever tell me that I can have just one room in our house, the first things I’ll hang on the wall in there is your testicles!”
John had chuckled good naturedly and said, “Duly noted.”
Since that day I have called my in-laws’ home, “Gary’s house,” as a small reminder that any part of Rose has essentially been eradicated.
A few months ago, we had gone to “Gary’s house” for dinner. As we sat and ate meat that never felt cooked enough for me, Gary asked if he had ever shared the story about the large bear whose head was hanging in the front hall.
I wasn’t sure that I could bear another hunting story, but my husband spoke up excitedly and said, “Chester! That’s what we named him. The bear I mean. Go on, tell it again, Dad!”
“Well, I had a hunting guide take me out, of course,” Gary started, “But I shot the thing myself. I’ll never forget it. That bear stood up across the stream from us and I shot that thing square in the chest.” He pauses so we can appreciate this detail about his marksmanship.
“Mary,” he says to me directly, “That bear kept standing and started rubbing its paw over that wound over and over again. Just standing there, wailing, and pawing at its chest. It was the most human-looking thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”
Then, he laughs.
He laughs and then adds, “It was just the damndest thing!”
When I launched myself from the table to vomit into the kitchen sink, they had all chuckled nervously.
“Mary can be a bit squeamish,” my husband said awkwardly and I probably should have been grateful for the out, but I was just appalled.
A month after this memorable meal, the breaking news was that a third woman had been found murdered in the area. All three had been shot in the chest and decapitated. Federal agents were now involved and police were begging for anyone who might know anything to call their tip line.
As soon as the news clip was over, I looked at my husband with wide eyes. Visions of “shoulder mounts” danced through my head. The image of a half woman, half bear clutching at her chest played on repeat behind my eyelids.
My husband was completely unaware, and his only reaction was to ask me what was for dinner.
Over the next few days, as the story garnered more and more media attention, I watched him for any signs of recognition, but none came.
One evening, after the latest news coverage, I had even gone so far as saying, “Last night I had a nightmare that someone was mounting those women’s heads on their walls! Isn’t it terrifying to think that this serial killer could be someone we know? Someone we see all the time?!”
My husband chuckled and said, “You watch too much True Crime, honey.”
When another woman’s body was found and the police still had no leads, I ask you reader, what would you have done?
I can tell you what I did. I assumed those tip lines were anonymous. I thought the police were so desperate for any information that they wouldn’t even check the caller ID if someone called in.
I was wrong.
I should have guessed that half the local police department went hunting with my father-in-law on a regular basis. That they went shooting with Gary at the range when it wasn’t hunting season. I should have known that they would immediately call him and tell him, laugh about it, and ask if his daughter-in-law needed a psych eval.
All because I cared, all because I wanted to give the police someone to quietly look into, that’s why my husband left me in this house alone a few days ago.
He had screamed so loud I winced, “My DAD?! MY DAD?! What were you thinking?! That he’s some psychopathic killer?!” I refrained from answering, but John had already grabbed a bag and was storming out of the house.
I’m assuming this isn’t a marriage faux pas that many couples can recover from, especially since I can’t say I no longer suspect Gary. I’m assuming that I’ll be receiving divorce papers at any moment. In fact, I’m assuming that is why my father-in-law is knocking on my front door right now. So, I guess I’ll let him in and accept the papers like an adult, but I will not say I’m sorry.
Elizabeth Powers is a neurospicy author who lives in Ohio with her amazing husband, brilliant daughter, and two incredibly odd cats.