110. Interview with Francine Bella
Francine Bella is the manager at Palm Trails Motel, where Anthony Stephens lived during the year preceding his death. Ms. Bella is a portly, aged woman transplanted from Montgomery, Alabama, in possession of an extremely commanding aura which she uses to control the conversation for pretty much the entirety of the interview conducted in the main office of Palm Trails.
21 August 2011
– Hard to forget a boy like Palmer. Come up in here one day looking like somebody done dragged him through hell.
– No driver’s license, no car from what I could tell. Just walked on in to town on his own two feet in the dead a night, sweating and tired. Thought he was just another bum looking for some change ‘til he showed me some money and asked me, real polite, if he could set for a while, right where you setting. Asked if he could set a little ‘fore I gave him a room to stay. Depressing, watching that boy Palmer. Young man like that, obvious that things was troubling him bad.
– Don’t rightly know. Probably got hisself into drugs or legal problems or what have you. But he weren’t all put out, just needed a little support.
– You gotta help ‘em out in them situations. If you see they’s trying to help theyselves, you got a obligation to help ‘em.
– Cut him a little deal on the weekly for that room he had out back. If I’da known he was goin’ mess it up the way he did, I’da maybe thought twice about it. Maybe not. Can’t be too mad at him noways; barely heard a peep outta the boy otherwise. He was here for a long while before he kilt hisself. Wouldn’t a known it though; saw him all but once or twice throughout.
– Used to open up Saturday mornings and there’d be his envelope slipped through the mail slot, lying on that mat right over there [Mrs. Bella indicates the welcome mat near the front door] with a couple greasy twenties tucked in. Boy was punctual, I give him that. Never missed a weekly the whole time he was here. [Mrs. Bella shakes her head] Still don’t account for what he done to that room back there.
– Lawd, if Corey coulda seen it, his heart woulda kilt him all over again.[1] Can’t even much talk ‘bout it now. People ask me why’s the building out back look newer’n all the others and I tell ‘em there was a accident, and leave it at that. Don’t wanna harp on people’s good will when they’s just trying to live happily.
– But you still liable to go back there and get a whiff a cooked skin, catch sight a patch a grass that ain’t never growed back from getting burnt up.
– Reckon I found him that night. Had just finished clearing out the office—gots to check in ‘fore eleven you want a room ‘round here, I can’t be out all hours a the night—and I was heading out to where I stay at in that building up front. I’m locking up the front door right there and I smelt the smoke right ‘fore I heard the shot loud as you’s hearing me right now. Came from the back a the complex, so’s I step over and people’s creeping out they rooms and I reach Palmer’s door and try to open it, but the knob’s hotter‘n July, smoke coming out from underneath. So I had to call over this fella from the room ‘cross the way and he come round and kicked the door in, but was too late by then. Could see through the flames, but he was already gone.
– Palmer right there, on the bed, burnt up with half his senses covering the wall behind him, fire eating him up like he done sacrificed hisself to Satan.
– Murder? Uh uh, no sir. I don’t believe that. Wasn’t no way nobody coulda got in and out that room time enough to set that mess up, less they went out the back window.
– Somebody woulda seen them run into the woods out there. No, I reckon Palmer aimed to kill hisself, and he made a mighty show outta it.
– You ever smelt cooked human meat? Worst thing I ever smelt or seen to this day. And I was there day Corey’s heart cut out, watched his face turn gray as dirty snow while he holding his chest. Thought I’d never see nothin’ that disturbin’ again. [Ms. Bella chuckles] Reckon Les Palmer proved me wrong.
[1] Mrs. Bella reveals later that Corey Bella, her late-husband, was the original owner of Palm Trails Motel. Mr. Bella died of a heart attack in September of 2005.
Who Is Anthony Stephens? 
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