Murder thy neighbor, p.13
Murder Thy Neighbor, page 13
Now that Billy and Billie Jean have their brand-new baby to focus on, Jenelle had hoped the group would dial back their cruelty. Instead, their constant online harassment and real-life intimidation seems to have only gotten worse. By Jenelle’s count, they’re posting more cruel things about her on social media from fake accounts than ever. She also believes they’ve been driving by her home late at night more often.
Jenelle’s patience—and sanity—are wearing thin.
But at least for the next few hours, she vows to do her best to keep all of that out of her mind. She and Jamie are out for an afternoon hike, and all she wants is for them to have a pleasant, enjoyable afternoon together.
Except Jamie isn’t making that easy. The hike was his idea in the first place, but ever since he picked her up, he’s seemed more quiet than usual. Distracted, even.
“Think we’ll see any deer out here?” Jenelle asks brightly.
“Huh? Oh. Maybe.”
After traipsing along the trail for a while longer, Jenelle sees a large boulder up ahead. “Let’s take a break and sit down for a minute,” she suggests.
“Uh, sure. Okay.”
And so they do. Passing her water bottle to him, Jenelle asks, “Jamie…is there somethin’ on your mind? You’ve been actin’ weird this whole time.”
Jamie takes a long drink, then stares off into space, troubled.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you, Jen. There is. It might sound crazy. It sure sounded that way to me the first time I heard it. But I got proof.”
Jamie takes out a few sheets of paper from his jeans pocket and unfolds them.
“I’ve been gettin’ these emails, Jen. From some guy named Chris. Says he’s with the CIA. Really. And he says he’s been watchin’ that online fight you got goin’ on with Billy and all of ’em.”
Jenelle scrunches her face. “The CIA? Like, spies and secret agents and stuff? They know about Billy and Billie Jean hacking my Facebook and throwing rocks at my house?”
Jamie nods. “It gets worse. This Chris fellow says they got intel that Billy is in some kinda drug gang. Chris is workin’ out a way to protect you…’cause he says Billy and the others…they’re fixin’ to murder you and your parents.”
Jenelle’s jaw drops. She can only stammer, flabbergasted. “M-m-murder me?!”
Jamie bites his fist, emotional. “Is it true, Jen?”
“Is what true?”
Jamie shuffles the printed emails until he finds the one he wants. He reads aloud: “Chris also wrote, ‘Jenelle really loves you, man. She has never loved anyone like she loves you. I see it all over her.’”
Shyly, Jenelle answers, “Yeah, that’s true.”
“I meant this next part. ‘You have a great girl. I hope she don’t think about killing herself. She has you to live for.’” Jamie looks at Jenelle, his eyes moist. “Is that true, Jen? Are you really so upset about all this that…you might actually…?”
Jenelle tries to stay strong, but she collapses into her boyfriend’s arms.
“Oh, Jamie! I…I…I just feel so awful all the time! So angry. So helpless. They’re all so mean to me and I don’t know why! I’m ashamed to say it, but…sometimes…ending my life is the only way I can think to make the pain stop.”
Overcome, Jamie wraps Jenelle in his arms, squeezing her tight.
“Promise me you’ll quit talkin’ like that, Jenelle! And quit thinkin’ it! All of this crap between you and Billy and Billie Jean…promise me you’ll quit that, too!”
“But…”
“Whatever they’re saying to you, I know it hurts. I know it’s scary. I know it’s gotten bad. Hell, the frickin’ CIA is payin’ attention! But you just gotta ignore ’em, Jen. Make ’em lose interest in you or somethin’. This ain’t worth nobody dyin’ over.”
Jenelle sniffles. “I promise that…I’ll try.”
Jamie finally releases his hug. Then he reaches into his other jeans pocket and takes out a small black velvet box.
“I wanna make you a promise, too.”
He opens the box. Inside is a simple gold band.
“Oh, my God! Jamie, are you askin’ me to marry you?”
“Not yet. But someday. When we’re ready. Until then, I want you to have this. To remind you how much I love you. I always will. I’d do anything for you.”
Her hands are shaking, but Jenelle manages to take the ring and slip it on. She admires it as if it were a two-karat diamond.
“Thank you, Jamie. I love it. And I love you, too.”
They embrace, then pull away.
“The CIA,” Jenelle says, still in disbelief. “Think they’re watchin’ us right now?”
Before Jamie can respond, they hear a rustling in some nearby trees.
They jump. They turn. They look.
It’s a mother doe and her fawn, slinking through the brush.
Chapter 15
Billy Payne had no misconceptions that fatherhood would be easy. He was ready for the sleepless nights, the constant crying, the stinky diapers. He was even prepared for the inevitable tension a new baby would bring to his relationship with Billie Jean.
What Billy wasn’t counting on was still having to deal with drama from Jenelle Potter.
Despite all his efforts to make her stop, Jenelle has continued inundating them with paranoid, delusional Facebook messages and posting truly reprehensible Topix threads about them—lately, ones criticizing them for being bad parents.
Since Tyler was born a few months ago, they’ve both done their best to stay focused on taking care of their child and not obsess about every new, petty thing written about them on the internet, hurtful as it might be. Which is easy enough for Billy. He’s still working full-time at the plant. Between his job and childcare duties, he barely has time to sleep, let alone scour social media.
But Billie Jean is on maternity leave. Though Billy has asked her—begged her—to cut back, virtually every time she puts Tyler down for a nap, she picks up her cell phone and goes online. Which invariably whips her up into a rage.
Tonight, however, Billie Jean is even more upset than usual. Billy has scarcely stepped through the front door when he hears sobbing—from both mother and child.
He hurries into the living room. Billie Jean is bottle-feeding Tyler with one hand, while furiously banging on her laptop keyboard with the other.
“Baby, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“I can’t take it anymore!” she exclaims. “Look! Just look what she wrote now!”
With dread, Billy moves next to Billie Jean and reads the screen.
Someone named “Mike” has written: “Billie Jean, why don’t you shut your damn mouth, you bitch. One day, you are going to get beat up really good and left for dead. And your bastard baby. You won’t leave here alive! I hope you die die die!”
Billy’s eyes stay glued to the monitor. But he feels his hands balling into fists.
Insults, name-calling, slander—that’s one thing.
But actual death threats?!
Jenelle has just crossed a bright red line. Something has to be done. Now.
“Baby,” Billy says quietly, “take Tyler into the bedroom. I’ll handle this.”
Without questioning him, Billie Jean disappears into the bedroom with the baby. Billy grabs the cordless phone from the kitchen, looks up a number, and angrily dials.
After a few rings, an older man answers.
“Buddy Potter? Name’s Billy Payne. I used to be friends with your daughter—until she started harassing the hell outta me and my family. We’ve tried to be patient with her. We know she has some issues. But now she’s started sayin’ stuff like she wishes my baby and my fiancée were dead! We’re sick of it. We’ve had enough!”
“Now hold on there,” Buddy sputters. “Whoever this is, you got some real nerve callin’ me up and sayin’ those things about my little—”
“Your daughter is making our lives hell! We don’t want any trouble, but you’ve got to get her under control—or else!”
Buddy just grunts. Billy hears some rustling on the other end, followed by some garbled chatter. Then an older woman gets on the line.
“Hello? This is Jenelle’s mother. What’s this about her harassing someone?”
“Mrs. Potter, this is Billy Payne. I was tellin’ your husband, I used to be friends with your daughter, until she started—”
“Did you say Billy Payne? Oh, yes. I know exactly who you are.”
That’s a bit of a strange answer. But Billy presses on.
“Like I was sayin’, we don’t want no trouble. We just want Jenelle to stop. Hell, I’d come up there and mow your damned yard for you if your daughter would stop calling me a bad father on the damned internet every three or four days!”
“Billy, I’m sorry…but I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Jenelle is as sweet as can be. She’s never done nothin’ to nobody. I have it on good authority that y’all are the ones who have been harassing her. Making fake Facebook accounts, hacking into hers, posting all kinds of awful things about her. That’s the truth.”
Billy can’t believe this. Jenelle’s manipulation even extends to her own mother!
“Mrs. Potter, your daughter is lying to y’all!”
“I’m not lying! I only use Facebook to post dog pictures, that’s it!” Billy hears Jenelle’s girlish voice in the background. Has she been listening in? If that’s the case, he’ll address her directly.
“Jenelle, you know that ain’t true! What about all the shit you write on Topix about us? What about—”
Jenelle suddenly breaks down into shrill, exaggerated wailing.
“Now look what you did to her!” exclaims Barbara. “I know you all want Jenelle dead. I know you all do!”
“What?” Billy is stunned by such a ridiculous accusation. “I do not!” he fires back. “I just want her to quit it! And maybe she’d know how to act like a normal person if you didn’t keep her so sheltered in that house like a—”
“Leave us alone!” Barbara interrupts. “If you call here again, I’m gonna do something about it!”
“Not if I do something about it first!”
Click. The line goes dead.
Billy fumes. He had hoped the call to Jenelle’s parents would make things better.
Instead, he has a terrible feeling he’s just made his problems worse.
Chapter 16
Barbara Potter only has one biological child. But over the past few months, she’s come to think of CIA agent Chris as a surrogate son.
The two have started emailing frequently, exchanging all the latest details about Jenelle’s situation. Barbara still thinks of Buddy and herself as Jenelle’s primary protectors, but knowing she has a powerful outside ally keeping such close tabs on her precious daughter has been an enormous source of comfort and relief.
Especially after Billy Payne’s hostile, threatening phone call. It really rattled her, but Chris helped Barbara keep the incident in perspective. The call, he explained, was just part of Billy’s plan to frighten them and drive a wedge between her and Jenelle.
Luckily, his plan backfired. Barbara is now even more convinced of her daughter’s absolute innocence—and more concerned about her health and safety—than ever.
Which is why the CIA agent’s latest email makes her literally scream with terror.
Sipping her coffee that December morning, Barbara sits down at the family computer and clicks on Chris’s newest message. Subject line: “Urgent update!!!”
Chris tells Barbara that he’s recently come across new digital intercepts suggesting Billy and Billie Jean are ramping up their harassment of Jenelle and setting their sights on harming Buddy and Barbara as well.
Even worse, he writes, he can now say definitively that Billy Payne not only “wants to hurt Jenelle,” but that “he is trying to take Jenelle’s life.”
Barbara literally leaps up from her chair and shouts at the computer, “No, no, no! Y’all ain’t gonna do that to my baby!”
After taking a few moments to compose herself, Barbara sits back down—and fires off an impassioned email in response.
“Billy and Billie Jean need to back off!” she frantically types. “We want peace, and no one here wants to kill anyone, but we will! We are ready to take care of this ourselves.” Like a mother lion, Barbara concludes, “I’ll do whatever it takes to save my young. I will kill if I have to. Not just hurt but kill!”
Barbara sends the email, then rises to her feet again.
Almost numb with outrage and fear, she starts to pace around the living room, praying for some kind of divine guidance.
Moments later, her inbox dings. Chris has already emailed back.
He writes that he greatly admires Barbara’s desire to protect her family at any cost. And apparently, she isn’t the only one who feels that way.
Chris reveals to Barbara that he’s also been emailing with Jamie Curd, who is “just as mad about how Billy and Billie Jean are treating you and Jenelle. He would kill too if he had someone to help him.” Chris ends his email with “I think if he and Buddy would meet, it would be a good thing.”
Barbara rereads that final sentence. Letting the suggestion sink in.
Buddy has met Jamie plenty of times before, but he doesn’t know him particularly well. As Jamie and Jenelle’s relationship has continued, however, Buddy seems to have warmed up to him, at least as much as her gruff husband can warm up to anybody.
When Buddy enters the living room from the kitchen, Barbara breathlessly decides to tell her husband everything. She prints out and shows him every email she and Chris have ever exchanged, well over a hundred pages. She shares every lurid detail about the violent threats the entire family is facing. She reveals Chris’s latest suggestion that Buddy and Jamie get together.
Through it all, Buddy stays silent. Stoic. Inscrutable.
“Say somethin’, Buddy!” Barbara pleads. “What do you think about all this?!”
Buddy’s eyes grow cold and hard.
“What I think is…I better call Jamie.”
As Buddy turns to leave, he and Barbara see Jenelle standing in the doorway.
Their daughter’s horrified expression tells them she’s overheard everything.
“Wait, Daddy,” she whimpers. “You and Jamie…y’all ain’t really gonna—”
“Of course not, honey!” insists Barbara, forcing a placating smile. “Nobody’s gonna hurt nobody. Daddy just wants to talk to him, that’s all.”
Jenelle nods, but it’s not clear if she’s convinced.
“Jamie told me that CIA guy was emailing him,” she offers. “I didn’t know he was writing to you, too, Mom. And I had no idea”—Jenelle’s bottom lip begins to quiver—“that Billy and them were planning to hurt y’all—or kill me.”
“Now you stop that!” booms Buddy. “Nobody’s layin’ a finger on my little girl! Not if I have anything to do with it—and I sure as hell do!”
Tearfully, Jenelle heads back upstairs to her room. Buddy exits as well, vowing to reach out to Jamie very soon.
Once she’s alone again, Barbara turns back to her computer. Still jittery and upset from the morning’s events, she navigates to a Christian theology blog she often likes to read for comfort and inspiration. Barbara clicks around for a bit, skimming articles and comments, until she finds a piece that resonates with her to an almost eerie degree. Guiltily, she copies the link and emails it to herself immediately.
The headline reads, CAN GOD FORGIVE MURDER?
Chapter 17
January 30, 2012
These chicken thighs are great, Mom. What recipe did you use?”
Jenelle Potter waits for a response. She knows how much effort her mother puts into making their family dinners, and how greatly she appreciates compliments.
But Barbara Potter says nothing. Her gaze is fixed downward. Her mind appears to be miles away. Jenelle turns to her father, but Buddy Potter looks similarly distracted. Neither of her parents seems to be eating much.
Jenelle clears her throat. Still no response. “Mom? Dad? Is everything okay?”
“Hmm?” Barbara says, suddenly snapping back to attention. “Just fine, honey. Have you tried the chicken yet? I used paprika. I hope you like it.”
After dinner, Jenelle is washing dishes at the sink, up to her elbows in sudsy water, when she overhears her mother making a phone call in the living room.
“Hi there, it’s Barb. I hate to call so late, but I got a credit card bill that needs payin’ by midnight to avoid a fee, and this dang computer is acting up again, freezin’ on me every five seconds. Would you mind…oh, thank you, Jamie, you’re a godsend!”
Some thirty minutes later, Jamie Curd is in the living room, tinkering with the Potter family’s desktop. Jenelle is sitting on the couch, happily watching him.
“What’s that weird-sounding word,” she asks, “that means the feeling you get like you’ve already done something before?”
Absorbed in troubleshooting the computer, Jamie shrugs. “Beats me, Jen.”
“Well, that’s what I got right now. Seein’ you here, workin’ away on the computer, makes me think of when we were first gettin’ together. Remember, Jamie?”
Jenelle smiles, fondly recalling those early days in their relationship.
“I know bein’ with me hasn’t always been easy,” she says, “thanks to Billy and Billie Jean. But you’ve always stuck by me. You’ve always had my back.”
Finally Jamie stops typing and turns to her.
“Of course I have, Jen. I love you. You know I’d do anything for you.”
Jenelle looks down at the gold “promise ring” she’s wearing, the one Jamie gave her last summer, and smiles even bigger.
“I do know that. And I love you, too.”
It’s nearly midnight when Jamie finally finishes updating the Potters’ computer. Standing by the front door, he hollers upstairs to Barbara that he’s finished and heading home.
It’s Buddy who comes down to say good-bye. Jenelle hovers nearby.
