by John Sullins
About half way down the page he lowered the Will to the table and stared back at her.
“Is this real?”
Joni raised her eye brows as an indication “Your guess is as good as mine,” but said nothing.
He looked back at the page and continued reading. He flipped to page six, which was only a half-page before putting the Will down on the table in front of him.
“Jesus Joni.”
“I told you it might require some serious thinking.”
“Can I get in trouble with this?”
“Absolutely not. If anyone finds out, there could be some serious implications and possibly law suits. But because of the length of time since it all happened, I doubt any judge would entertain a law suit, But, you never know what a judge might decide.”
“How many others know about this?”
“Other than you and I, no one that is still alive. That is assuming my father never told anyone. I feel reasonably safe in saying he never did, but no one knows for sure.”
“Do you have any details about what she is referring to?”
“None, but if you read it again, near the bottom of page four, there may be details here in the house. I have re-read that paragraph many times over the years but was never sure I understood the meaning.”
He picked up the Will again and flipped to page four, and re-read the paragraph in question. He waited a long minute and flipped back to the first page and re-read all six pages again.
Joni stayed quiet and poured herself another cup of coffee. She was about to sit back down at the table when the electricity went off and the all house generator kicked on. When the lights blinked Keith looked up.
Joni said, “The house has a generator which runs on propane. There are two large propane tanks on the edge of the yard. Ed Roy must have set the system to come on this morning when the power was scheduled to shut off. He normally uses it only for the really cold days to keep the water pipes in the house from freezing. You need to keep the propane levels in mind if you run the generator.”
“Yes, he turned it on for me earlier. What do most people do for heat if they don’t have a generator?”
“Some heat with wood, some use propane heaters, this house has propane heaters in addition to the electric heat. Those who have none of these drain their pipes during the cold months and haul water by hand.”
“That’s tough.”
“A lot of people have moved south because of the winters. Without full time electricity a lot of homes were ruined when pipes froze. Then when they thawed, houses were flooded.”
The lights blinked again and he looked back down at the Will.
“I don’t need to think about it, I’m all in.”
Ok, then. Let me show you this.” She opened the metal box.
Chapter 39
She reached into the box and took out a key ring containing at least two dozen keys. She pushed them across the table to Keith.
“Here are keys which were given to my father by your great grandmother before she died.”
She took a faded piece of folded paper from the box.
“My father said she gave him this hand written note along with the keys. They have been kept in a safe since that day.”
“Here are keys to everything I own that needs to be secure. No one other than my beneficiaries are to get control of these keys.”
Keith put down the note and picked up the keys. There were no labels or markers indicating what any of the keys unlocked. He immediately looked for one that might fit the locked file cabinets in the room upstairs. He found a small brass key with a round head and another silver key with a round head that looked similar to keys to files cabinets he had seen while in the Army. He did not say anything to Joni about the file cabinets.
Joni then removed a smaller metal box, about the size of a paperback book, from the first box and handed it to Keith. This smaller box had a keyway lock on the front. Keith shook the box and heard a soft thud from whatever was inside. He looked at the keyway and then at the keys on the keyring.
He found the smallest key on the ring, slid it into the keyway, and twisted it. The box popped open. He and Joni both leaned forward, looked inside, and saw what appeared to be a small fabric covered accounting ledger. The word CONFIDENTIAL was hand printed in a thick black marker across the front of the ledger.
As Keith opened the ledger Joni leaned back to give him privacy. He quickly flipped from one page to another only skimming the words on the pages. What he saw appeared to be a listing of numbered videos and a brief description of the topic or the name of a person involved with each video. The list started with video number one.
Video #1: Hospital 2012, Jim Massey- Cincinnati, Ron Jones Rapist- Oreno, Thomas Parker- Chicago.
Video #2: Candi Watkins –Colorado, Terrorist Al York – N. Carolina, serial killer Francis Fagan – Mississippi, Andy Sailor murderer, Gus Winters baby killer, Dean Ramsey molester.
Video #3: Dick Pickers cop killer – Kentucky, terrorists- Wyoming
Video #4 Morgan’s father’s killer: Florida, mother and child abducted in Vermont, multiple terrorists- Wyoming
He understood what he was seeing only enough to know to keep it to himself. He closed the ledger and held it tight to the table with his left hand. “I am going to have to take my time with this.”
“I understand, do you want to go to my office and the court house now to sign and file the papers or wait until you have had time to read what is in that ledger?”
“Is there anything else in there?” He stood up and looked inside the larger metal box. He was surprised to see a lone bullet. He picked it up and rotated it in his fingers. The case was necked down like a rifle cartridge but it seemed too small to be for a rifle. The tip was copper coated with a blue ballistic tip. He turned it over and squinted to read the tiny numbers and letters stamped into the case around the primer. He read aloud, “FNB, 57x28, 14. I don’t know guns well and I’ve never seen a bullet like this.”
He handed it to her and she handled it gently as if it was a bomb and might explode. She shook her head indicating she knew nothing about it and handed it back to him.
“Let’s go into town and you can sign the papers to make it official.”
He picked up the key ring and tried several in the door knob of the kitchen door until he found one that operated the lock.
His heart was pounding on the ride to town knowing it was about to be official. Joni watched as he repeatedly squeezed his right wrist with his left hand and then reversed the process with his right hand twisting his left wrist.
In an effort to get his mind onto something else she told him about the big news of the day.
“We don’t have a lot of serious crime in our little town but last night there was a murder.”
“What happened?”
“So far, no one knows for sure. The police found a man along the edge of a road at the edge of town. He had been shot in the chest.”
Keith suddenly thought about the crazy man named Barry Brockman he shot in the chest and left in the ditch. His mind went into panic mode and he thought if it could be the same man.
Joni was telling him more details but he was not listening. He pictured Brockman collapsing to the ground and told himself it could not be the same guy. He re-lived the shooting and realized he had shot Brockman in Pennsylvania not Maine. He took a long slow breath trying to calm himself and did his best to smile and look relaxed.
“Do they know who the dead guy is?”
“Yes, he is a local mechanic. I defended him about a year ago after he got in a bar fight. He was a very big guy, he weighed over three hundred pounds.”
Keith thought about Brockman. He was a little guy, maybe a hundred and fifty pounds at the most. The more he thought about it the more he realized how un-rational he was being. It was the situation, about to inherit several properties and millions of dollars. He looked out the window away from Joni and silently motioned the words, “Calm down, you
’re fine.”
He was still a nervous wreck as they climbed the stairs to the county clerk’s office to sign and file the papers.
Chapter 40
When he signed his name to the document to make the estate settlement official, his hands were shaking so badly his signature was nearly illegible. He dropped the pen on the counter and took a step back and gasp for air.
Joni stepped close and grabbed his elbow, “Are you ok Keith?”
“Yea, just a little excited I guess. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
“Congratulations, you are now a wealthy man. Let’s go to my office and I’ll give you more details.”
His hand had stopped shaking when he sat across the desk from Joni in her office, but now his right knee was bouncing up and down. He put his right hand on the knee and pressed hard in an attempt to stop the bouncing.
Joni laughed and brushed the hair from her forehead. “I doubt there is anything I can say to calm you down except that it is official. You own it all now.”
Keith nodded in agreement.
She used a key to unlock her desk, slid open the bottom drawer on the right, and lifted out a large brown sealed envelope. She sat it on the desk in front of her and opened it with a letter opener.
“Ok then, here we go.”
She handed Keith a sheet of paper. “Here is a list of your bank accounts and the balances as of the date of your great grandmother’s death. I will personally contact each bank and provide the proper documentation that you are the new owner of the accounts. I suggest we visit each bank and introduce you to the bank manager. They will provide you with a current balance and get your signature.”
Keith looked at the list which indicated the accounts were in six different banks in three different cities. The smallest balance on the six accounts was just under a million dollars, the largest was almost four million.
“Ok.”
She then removed six account books from the envelope.
“Here are the account books, one for each account. They have not been updated since her death. I know this seems unusual, but her Will specifically states that other than the escrow account, which is not one of these six, no records or balances other than these were to be shared with anyone, not even the attorneys which was my father at the time, now me. I have to be honest, I have no idea why she set it up that way.”
Keith shook his head indicating he had no response.
“Then there is the escrow account which has been used to pay annual real-estate taxes, utility bills for the properties, maintenance expenses and Ed Roy Short’s salary. Here are the semi-annual bank statements listing every expense for the past twenty eight years.”
She handed him a stack of papers clipped together with a butterfly type paper clip.
Keith looked at only the first few pages before putting the stack on the desk.
Then she took out a smaller envelope and removed several photos. She handed them to Keith.
Keith took the pictures and studied them one at a time. The first one was of a young woman in a deputy uniform. She looked to be in her early twenties. She was wearing a baseball type cap with the word deputy over her blond hair. She was standing beside a small airplane. He assumed the picture was of his great grandmother.
The second picture was of the same woman and a young man of about the same age, again early twenties. Both were wearing backpacks and holding walking sticks. Her hair was hanging down her back in this picture.
“Who is the guy?” Keith turned the picture for Joni to see.
“I don’t know.”
Keith looked at the next picture and recognized the old red Jeep Cherokee with the same young woman sitting in the driver’s seat.
“This is the old Jeep in the barn at the house. I saw it yesterday.”
In the next picture she was standing in front of a stone fireplace with the same deer head and antlers that were over the fireplace in the house now.
“Same deer too.”
The last picture was of five people. The same blond woman was standing to the left of a man who looked like a body builder who had his arm around her shoulder. To her left was a young woman with red hair. To that woman’s left was another gorgeous young woman, also with red hair, who was holding hands with a young man with very long straight dark hair.
Joni said, “There are names on the back of that one.”
He turned it over and read aloud, Buck, Sue, Vicki, Morgan, David.
Chapter 41
Joni stood up, “Now I want to take you to the local bank and personally introduce you to the manager. You can get your name on the account and have access to the funds. You told me yesterday you had only about $30 to your name. I assume you will want to get some cash.”
Keith shook his head, “I still can’t believe this.”
When they left the bank an hour later, Keith had more money in his pocket than at any time in his life. He repeatedly touched the wallet in his left rear pocket with his left hand to make sure his wallet was still there.
“Do you want to go get your minivan?”
“Yes, but first I’d like to take you to lunch.”
Joni turned to him and smiled, “Ok, but the choices are limited. There is only one place in town with a generator. There are others open later when the electricity in turned on, but for lunch, only one place.”
Joni parked the SUV at the side of a very old brick building with a sign over the front door, Manta’s Diner.
They seated themselves at a booth along the far wall and waited for a waitress. Keith looked around the room and saw dozens of antique items hanging from the ceiling and the walls. Most of the items were things such as rakes, hoes, metal pans, and other items from the same era.
“This place looks old. I don’t recognize some of the stuff hanging from the ceiling.”
Joni took a slow look around. “They say this is the oldest restaurant in the state. It was first built in the 1800s. It has always been owned and run by the same family.”
“I wonder if my great grandmother ever came in here.”
She smiled, “I’d say there is not much doubt about it. Everyone within fifty mile ate here at one time or another.”
A tall thin waitress with long straight black hair, in her mid-thirties, arrived with menus and took their drink orders. As Keith looked at the menu, he paid particular attention to the prices.
He looked at Joni and said, “For the first time in my life I don’t have worry about what something costs. This is gunna be great.”
She tilted her head and nodded but said nothing.
The conversation during lunch concerned the town. Keith asked her to tell him what she could about the town’s history. As he listened and ate he continued to look around the room. Joni was in mid-sentence telling him about the history of the towns two names, when Keith suddenly stood up and left the table.
He walked to the far back corner where there was a row of photos on the wall of a hall leading to the restrooms. He stopped and looked at the second picture on the wall and then turned to face Joni who was looking in his direction. He pointed to the picture and mouthed the words, “It’s her, my great grandmother.”
Joni got up and went to the picture. “Sheriff Sue Davis Lang” was written on the bottom of the photo. Beside the name was the date, “November 20, 2005.”
“She was a beautiful woman Keith.”
“Yes she was.”
He studied the photo a long minute. “This must have been taken when she was first elected sheriff. Elections are held in November, and 2005 was when she was elected.”
Joni glanced at the other pictures, “They are all police officers.”
Keith nodded but did not look at any of the others. His eyes stayed on the woman who had just made him a rich man.
Chapter 42
He thanked Joni for all of her help and agreed he would come to her office in a couple of days so they could discuss what needed to be done concerning taxes.
After
picking up the van, he stopped at two open convenience store stations before he found one that had gas available. There was a limit of only five gallons per purchase, but he was happy to get it. The store had a small selection of groceries so he walked the aisles looking at what was available. Looking at the cans, boxes and packages knowing he could buy anything he wanted was very strange for him. Never in his life had he felt so free of stress and tension.
He drove slowly on the snow covered roads back to the lake house. He turned into the long driveway and slowed to a stop. He sat behind the steering wheel and stared at the huge house, still trying to comprehend the fact that he was the owner. He asked himself again if this was really happening.
He took his foot off the brake and continued looking at the house until he parked and got out. He went through the kitchen door and put the groceries on the table along with the key ring which reminded him of the locked file cabinets upstairs. He picked up the keys and climbed the stairs two at a time.
He quickly found the key to unlock the first cabinet. He opened the top drawer and saw six matching thick leather binders. He lifted out two and carried them to a large desk on the end of the room and sat down. He opened the first binder and found it was full of photos. Page after page of various people and places. All were labeled with the names of the people, towns, and other locations of the photos.
He flipped from one page to another skimming the images but stopped when he saw a photo of a young woman with short blond hair. The name under that photo was Joan Warren. It was his mother when she was about twenty. It was the first picture he had ever seen of her. He gently moved the fingertips of his right hand over the photo as if trying to touch her face.
Next to that picture was one of a very large young man with short light colored hair. He was wearing a Boston Red Socks baseball hat and sun glasses. The name under it was Forest Hunter. It was his father. He was looking at pictures of his mother and father that was probably taken before they were married.