Docs codicil, p.17
Doc's Codicil, page 17
Sam, the driver behind Fred’s car, was on autopilot, absently following the taillights of Fred’s car. Sam was driving home from his job flipping burgers. He had worked up the courage to ask Marcy for a date the following night, and she had accepted. Tonight, his attention was on the next day’s possibilities.
He’d never kissed a girl, but Sam was an optimist. His mind was on an imaginary amorous wrestling match in the back seat. There is nothing like complete ignorance of a subject coupled to a fertile imagination to produce riveting dreams. Hollywood and political campaigns depend on it.
Sam’s libido was in overdrive when he followed Fred’s car into the ditch and rear-ended it. Fortunately, as his dream became more and more absorbing, Sam reduced the pressure on the accelerator. The crash didn’t cause injuries and barely registered on Sam’s mind.
Williams turned to follow the screech of tires, splintering glass, and metallic crunch as sheet metal greeted bumpers. He stood openmouthed as the decibel level soared. Stunned, he staggered backward into the pickup and turned to face Charles. Well, not face him, really. Charles was still standing in the back of the pickup, as startled as Williams by the chaos.
Williams was repulsed by the view of curly white hair and . . . other things that nearly hit him in the nose when he whirled around. It was a mental picture Williams was sure would take years of therapy to shed. He’d been in therapy a few times and had a feel for this kind of thing. It would be years.
In a paroxysm of righteous indignation, Williams barked, “Jesus Christ, you God-damned fool, sit down. Sit down now!”
Charles, finally aware that he was stark naked, was mortified and sat quickly.
Recovering a few shreds of his composure, Williams asked Bill and George, “If you guys are the wise men, where the hell are your camels and where is Jesus?”
Through chattering teeth, Bill said “I ho-hope I n-never see those miserable G-god- damned camels again,” and ended in a mighty sneeze.
“I hope they f-find J-J-Jesus soon. The last I saw of him, he was ascending, and, then he was flying. It w-was so beautiful.” The innocence and feeling with which George said this gave it the ring of truth, although hypothermia had more to do with it.
Williams assumed this was freaking nonsense.
An ambulance tore past, siren blaring and emergency lights whirling, headed in the direction of the amphitheater. Recovering from his embarrassment, Charles watched the receding lights. “I b-bet they f-found Jesus in the trees. I hope he’s o-okay.”
Williams called for backup. Turning to Tom, still in the driver’s seat, he said, “And you, very slowly, hand me your driver’s license.” After a cursory exam of the license, he asked, “What’s your story?”
Tom was nervous. He had indulged in a beer, maybe three, with his buddies in the parking lot when Elaine wasn’t looking. One more DUI and his license was toast.
That was nothing compared to what Elaine was likely to do to him when she found out. He attempted to think, an exercise he always found difficult under pressure. Pictures of a furious Elaine paralyzed his mind. Apprehension, followed by panic, shouldered rational thought aside every time he tried to formulate an explanation. Nothing he could think of sounded credible.
Tom released a long sigh and rested his forehead on the steering wheel before turning to face Williams. “It’s just like they said, officer. They are the three wise men; they got caught in a camel fight, and Jesus bungeed to the trees.”
Williams felt as though he was in an asylum. Hoping to find a rational explanation for this fiasco, he announced, “Listen up. Each of you will take a breathalyzer test, one at a time. I’ll give each of ya one ‘ah these.” He handed Tom a breathalyzer. “Ya’ll will blow into it, when I tell ya, and slowly hand it back to me.”
Even Tom passed the test. The men in the pickup were either on the worst smelling street drug of all time or were a group of psychos and deviants. Williams thought “deviant” seemed a good description for three semi-naked men huddling—or was it snuggling—together in the back of a pickup.
Williams turned pale. His minister had warned him of pagans and Satanists who mixed blasphemous versions of Christian rites with deviant sexual practices in their worship. His heart raced, and his mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow. Keeping an eye on the four in the pickup, he backed toward his cruiser and called his dispatcher. “I’ve discovered a satanic cult. It has all the earmarks: naked perverts, the works.”
“Another satanic cult, Earl? That will be three you’ve uncovered this fall. The other two were a fraternity party and a Boy Scout troop exploring a cave,” replied the dispatcher. “Let’s complete the investigation before we draw conclusions, shall we, Earl?”
The sarcasm and lack of professional courtesy made Williams indignant, but events were moving too fast for him to dwell on it. The backup arrived, and conferring with Williams, one of the newly arrived officers covered his nose. “What in God’s name are these guys on? Have they all been rolling in crap? Jesus, it stinks.”
George heard the reference to Christ and corrected the officer. “No, Jesus bungeed out, maybe to the trees.”
Williams glared at George while more backup arrived. These officers began checking the condition of people in the ditched cars and worked the traffic to keep it moving.
Williams heard his name on the radio he wore on his shoulder. That radio’s reception along this stretch of road was poor, but he heard the department’s dispatcher say, “Car 223 . . . identified . . . pick . . . stopped, over”
“Go ahead.”
“They . . . Magi . . . camel . . . Jesus found . . . trees. Tell them . . . found . . . pine trees . . . take . . . hospital. All okay. Repeat . . . and Jesus . . . hospital.”
The dispatcher had confirmed an impossible alibi. Williams, a man who took everything literally, was shaken to his core. He was already in a delicate mental balance. Aware he was unqualified for his job and with no friends in the department, he had become withdrawn and depressed. Few things are as corrosive to a man’s self-esteem as knowing he’s incompetent, but Williams found solace in his religion, and he clung to it, ferociously. He looked at his radio as though it were trying to bite him.
Williams gave the shivering Magi a final glance, slowly walked back to his cruiser, and sat in the driver’s seat. He didn’t look at the other officers or acknowledge them when they spoke. He focused on a distant bend in the highway and began humming, then singing, Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem.
The two officers watched Williams. He didn’t respond to them, but he didn’t appear to be a danger to himself or others. The senior officer asked Williams if he could hold his side arm for him, just to keep it safe. Williams handed it to him without comment, never taking his eyes off the distant road or missing a word of the old carol. The officers turned and walked back to the pickup and the suspects, occasionally looking back at Williams and shaking their heads.
As they walked, the officer who arrived first made his position clear. “I am not putting these stinkers in my cruiser.”
“Me neither,” said the other, “but you heard the radio. Whatever it was, their story checked out. They seem harmless; we have the license plate number, the driver’s ID, and the three old guys look cold enough to go into hypothermia if we don’t get ’em warm.”
They approached the pickup. Tom spoke for the group. He had time to compose an answer, and these officers seemed willing to listen. “We were at the Living Nativity Pageant. These guys played the wise men. The camels got into a fight and spit smelly stuff all over. These three stunk so bad we had to hose ’em off. I was headed back to the church to get them into hot showers when we were stopped.”
“How far to the church?”
“Another mile and we’ll be there.”
Turning to the men in the back of the pickup, the officer said, “You guys look pretty cold. I’ll get a blanket from my cruiser, and you,” he added, pointing at Tom, “get these guys in a hot shower when we get to the church. I’ll lead in the squad car. We can take them to the hospital if they seem incoherent, but let’s get ’em to a hot shower first.” The officer took a breath and nearly gagged. “It might take two or three showers to get ’em clean.”
That settled the matter, and the sad little caravan headed up the highway.
The officers working the traffic jam and minor accidents soon had traffic moving. As they all wanted to get home at a reasonable hour, they elected not to hand out citations. Sam was the exception.
An officer made sure Fred and his family were not injured before talking to Sam. “Are you okay, son?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if you were all right. Have you been injured?”
“Injured? How?” Sam’s mind was only partially in the present. Part of it was still in the future, burying itself in the sweet tresses of Marcy’s long black hair. Or was it brown? Sam tried to remember. And it wasn’t really long, maybe “medium length” would describe it better, but she did have hair. Sam was sure of that.
“Let me ask the questions, son,” the officer said. “Do you have anything against Fred Wilson?”
“No. Who’s he?”
“He’s the gentleman driving the car you rear-ended.”
“Oh.” Sam had a sinking feeling this had something to do with why his car was in the ditch.
“If you didn’t have anything against him, can you tell me why you left the highway, drove into the ditch, and hit the rear of his car?”
Sam looked at the officer blankly for a moment before moaning, “Dad’s going to kill me.” He buried his head in his hands, as he realized that tomorrow’s date was not going to happen. He wondered if he would die of boredom or virginity first. So far, it looked like a toss-up.
The officer satisfied himself that Sam wasn’t drunk or on drugs. Trying to speed the process up, he asked, “Were you distracted by the old guy in the pickup truck that was stopped over there?” He pointed toward the spot where Tom’s pickup had been.
“Old guy?” asked Sam.
“Yes, the naked old guy in the pickup.”
“You mean somebody didn’t have any clothes on?”
“That’s usually what the word ‘naked’ means.”
“Where was that?” asked Sam.
It dawned on the officer that, wherever Sam had been physically, he hadn’t been anywhere near the highway mentally. Another teenager daydreaming behind the wheel, he concluded, and gave Sam a ticket for inattentive driving.
CHAPTER 21
THE HEIRS’ STORY
Rockburg, 2013
If the wish to be a grandparent is a gentle form of revenge, Doc, Mary, Linda, and Mark would have loved watching their children cope as parents as the heirs and their families gathered at the Westphalia Inn on December 23. The private drive that brought the families to the Inn wound through a forty-acre woodlot of maple and pine. It was a miniature fairyland; green pines were interspersed between maples, black against the previous night’s snowfall. The maples’ hoarfrost-covered branches and twigs sparkled in the morning light. Even the adults half expected to see elves peeking from under the pine trees.
As they stood in line in the lobby to check in, Wally’s sister, Sophie, congratulated herself that her toddler, Betsy, was strapped firmly in a stroller, as was Julie’s daughter, Emma. At least these two, the youngest of the kids, were under parental control, or so the adults thought. They hadn’t counted on their older boys.
Sophie took her hands off the stroller to adjust the bags she was carrying and turned to ask her husband which room they were in. Julie did the same. Julie’s son Danny and Sophie’s son Rick each latched onto his sister’s stroller and raced down a wing of the Westphalia. Sophie, Julie, and their husbands didn’t see the toddlers again for half an hour, although they heard Betsy’s happy shrieks and Emma’s “faster Danny, faster” several times, always around the next corner in the motel’s hallways. The frantic adults caught up with the stroller grand prix at the entrance to the indoor water park.
After a few swats and firm lectures, Danny, Rick, and their cousins had pizza and movies in one of their motel rooms, while the adults recuperated over dinner and drinks at the Westphalia’s restaurant. Emma and Betsy were at their sides, strapped into booster seats on chairs without wheels. The group relaxed as Seth’s wife talked to the other women, and the word “benign” was whispered around the table.
Seth stood and rapped a fork on his water glass. “It’s Christmas. The kids are wired, and none of us are in a mood to work. How many of you have read Dad’s book?” He looked around the table. Only Josh and Julie raised their hands.
“How far did you get?” Seth asked.
“I’ve read through the Nativity, but the ‘Doofus’ character has me stumped,” Julie said.
Josh nodded. “Same here.”
Seth nodded. “Yeah, me, too. Would you tell the rest what you mean, in case some haven’t started reading the book?”
Josh explained the character of Doofus as best he could, but admitted it made no sense in the context of the codicil requirement. “I have no idea how to take Doofus anywhere,” he concluded.
“That’s where we’re at,” Seth said. “We have little to discuss, since none of us knows anything new. I suspect Dad and Linda arranged this vacation for us to visit and reinforce family ties, not to work. I vote we go to church Christmas Eve, like Dad and Linda wanted, have dinner at the house on Christmas, enjoy ourselves, and read the book when we get home.” He looked around the table. “Anyone have a better idea?”
“Nope,” Jed said. “As hyped as the kids are, somebody’s going to drown if all the kids aren’t supervised full time.”
“Al said there wasn’t a time limit,” Julie said. “Wally, Josh, is this okay with you?”
“Wally and I are going skiing tomorrow with some . . . new friends.” Josh blushed when he saw several of the women at the table smirking. They’d met Wally, Josh and friends in the lobby, and the friends wore spike heels and very tight sweaters.
As the party broke up, Julie whispered to Josh. “Can we talk?”
Josh nodded. “My room, now?”
Josh’s door was ajar and Julie walked in without knocking.
“What’s going on?” Josh asked.
Julie took a seat at a small table near the window and looked at Josh. “Was there anything odd about your copy of Dad’s book?”
“Yeah,” Josh grabbed a chair from a nearby desk and sat at the table, “It was a lot longer than I expected.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nope. It’s not the type of book I usually read. If there’s something odd for its genre—”
“No,” Julie shook her head, “nothing that subtle.” She leaned back in the chair, looked at the ceiling, and bit her lower lip. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding . . .” She leaned forward, put her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands.
Josh put a hand on her arm. “Just spit it out. I’ll believe anything after that smell at the bank.”
Julie sat upright and folded her arms across her chest. “When I was reading, when I reached the part about the odor, when I reached that part on the page, I smelled it.”
“Cow shit?”
“Yeah, ah, cow-flop. I thought it was my imagination. You know, the power of suggestion. I closed the book, and the smell disappeared. I opened it to another page, nothing. I opened it to the page where Dad described the smell, nothing. I read the paragraph about Dad smelling cow-flop, and I smelled it.”
Josh shrugged. “So, it was suggestion?”
“That’s what I thought, until . . .” Julie buried her face in her hands again.
“Until what?”
“I’d been reading in our living room. I heard laughter coming from the closet by the front door. It was soft, barely audible. Todd wasn’t home. I wouldn’t have had the courage to look in the closet, but the laugh sounded, well, happy. I can’t explain it.”
“So?” Josh asked. “What did you find?”
