The Night Monster_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [105]
“You mean they purposely amputated their limbs?”
“Yeah. One guy sawed off his hand at work; another shot off his foot while protecting his chickens. One dumb ass cut off his hand and his foot with his tractor because he thought it would get him more money. In two years, a hundred people filed claims for accidents.”
“Didn’t the insurance companies catch on?”
“Not right away. The people were smart about it. Some went into the next county and had their accidents, while others did it on vacation. It took the heat off the town. I heard they collected twenty million dollars.”
“And no one caught on,” Linderman said.
“Not right away,” Seppi said. “Then two years ago, a couple of the big insurance companies in Jacksonville merged, and their books got audited. Some smart accountant saw all these claims that had been paid to Chatham. The company got suspicious, and hired a pair of investigators to snoop around.”
“Did they find anything?”
“Three people in town tried to talk, but they got silenced. Travis Bledsoe and his four sons did the dirty work. They burned Kaplan’s barn, and killed his horses. They also paid a visit to an old couple named Webber who used to be missionaries. The Webbers refused to shut up, and they disappeared.”
“What was the sheriff’s involvement?” Linderman asked.
“Sheriff Morcroft figured out what was going on twenty years ago. He extorted the people who’d cut off their limbs, and got them to pay him protection money.”
“How many people in town know about this?”
“Most of them, I guess.”
“Explain to me how Mouse and Lonnie fit into this scenario,” Linderman said.
Seppi grew silent and crushed a cigarette in an ashtray. I stood across from her, watching her facial expressions. She’d been composed up until now. But I knew from past experience that this was going to be the hard part. Mouse and Lonnie had kept her prisoner for a long time. Getting her to talk about it was not going to be easy.
The suite had a minibar. I pulled out a bottle of overpriced spring water, and filled up a glass. I brought it to Seppi, and suggested that she drink it. She smiled at me with her eyes, and drank the glass until it was empty.
“Mouse and Lonnie showed up in Chatham in the early 1990s,” Seppi said. “They lived on a dairy farm that Mouse’s uncle owned. People in town knew they were up to no good, but didn’t say anything.”
“Why not?” Linderman asked.
“Mouse knew about the insurance scam. He was part of the club.”
“So Sheriff Morcroft left them alone.”
“That’s right. Sometimes Mouse came into town to buy things. Outside of that, nobody saw them much.”
“Did the townspeople know that Mouse and Lonnie were keeping young women in the compound against their will?” Linderman asked.
Seppi grew silent. I refilled her glass and earned another smile. I mouthed the words Take your time. She nodded, and lit up a fresh cigarette.
“People knew they had girls,” Seppi finally said. “Mouse would buy tampons at the CVS and make jokes about it. But the people in town discounted it.”
Linderman drew back in his chair. “How did they discount it?”
“A gang of Hells Angels once lived in Chatham. Their girlfriends would wear patches that said ‘Property of Big Frank’ or ‘Property of Crazy Al.’ The girls were slaves, but they went along with it. People in town treated Mouse and Lonnie’s girls the same way. They assumed the girls were there because they wanted to be.”
“How did you end up with them?” Linderman asked.
Seppi’s eyes grew distant. “I was a cashier at the supermarket one summer. Mouse came in one day, and saw my schoolbooks. He asked me what I was going to college for. I told him I was studying to be a nurse.
“Two weeks later, I was back in school in Daytona, hanging around my dorm room one weekend. There was a knock on my door, and I opened it. Lonnie rushed in and knocked me out. I didn’t remember very much, except how that giant son-of-a-bitch kept smiling at me.
“I woke up inside their farm. Mouse had soldered metal bracelets around my ankles. The