Police Tape

 

 

She kept a small wooden box on her dresser.  It had a simple latch and tiny gold lock hanging on it.  No one assumed it had anything valuable because anyone could have just picked up the whole thing and slipped it into their pocket.  Therefore, it had always been ignored.

Then came the reading of her will.  Everyone assembled was there simply out of respect and sadness at her passing and they filled the room.  No one ever thought she left anything behind, as her life had been a simple one and never had there been anything flashy or showy about her.

It was, however, the way the will had been written that caught everyone’s attention.  The small wooden box seemed to be the focus of her entire estate.  Each word of the will had been specifically chosen.  Sentences were constructed in such a way that there could be no mistake as to her intent.

The bulk of her holdings would be going to Lacy McConnel, her granddaughter.  This included the house, any and all remaining investments and her automobile.  She was also to be the recipient of the tiny gold key, but not the box.  The wooden box had been willed to Ryan Newcastle, with instructions that it was never to be opened.

Ryan, the grandson of Hamilton Newcastle, the retired custodian of the local middle school, had always been a favorite of Bess.  In her will she spelled out that if the box was ever opened, all remaining proceeds of her estate would be sold at auction, with the money donated to the humane society. The key and the wooden box were to never be in the possession of the same person.  This was to help insure it was never opened.

For several months after the funeral of Bess Miller, townspeople were still talking about the small wooden box, speculating as to its contents.  People wanted to hold it to feel how much it weighed.  They wanted to shake it, to see if it rattled, but Ryan never let that happen.  He had placed the wooden box in his safety deposit box at his bank.  He didn’t want anyone to be tempted to steal it or to break it open, so there it stayed.

As far as I know, it still remains locked away inside that bank security box, and Lacy, some years ago, lost the little gold key.  It has never been found.  For those of you who had hoped the contents of the wooden box would be revealed by the end of this story, I’m sorry.  Even I do not know what was so darn important that caused Bess to go to such great lengths to insure it remain a secret.  I do know, however, that Ryan has made that safety deposit box a part of his trust with money set aside to pay the bank fees for years to come.

 

Here's the thing, I wrote this story believing all along that even I didn’t care what was in the box.  Well guess what?  I was wrong.  I want to know, but I just can’t go back a rewrite parts of the story to satisfy my curiosity. That would be extremely unprofessional, and besides, I’d be the one writing down what I discovered in the box, and I’d just be making it up.  How the heck do I know what to write down?  

What do you mean, make something up?  Look, this isn’t easy for me either.  I’ve only got so many words to pick from.  If I keep using small, short words, you’ll think I’m a hack and you’ll lose interest.  If I all of a sudden use $10.00 words, you’ll think I’m just showing off and your opinion of me will become debakafided.  I don’t think I could live with that.

Okay, now it’s all a moot point.  A special news bulletin just flashed on the television, so I walked over and turned up the sound.  It seems a giant sinkhole developed beneath the bank that held the small, wooden box.  The entire bank has been swallowed up.  The building and all its contents are now rubble.  The perimeter of the sinkhole has been lined with police tape, to keep people away from the edge.  The only item to pop free of the event was a black, ballpoint pen attached to a small chain.

Kelly Clarkston, from channel 4, along with her cameraman are interviewing the various owners of the surrounding structures that remain close to the hole yet appear unaffected by it.  It was during one of those interviews that Kelly happened to notice a poorly disguised Ryan Newcastle trying hard to blend in with the crowd.  Unfortunately, Kelly also happened to spot the massive ring of janitor keys hanging from his belt.

Sunlight was glinting off one key in particular.  It was a small, gold key, the same key in fact that had been shown in the paper so many years ago.  The look on Kelly’s face told Ryan immediately that she had seen the key dangling from his jumble of work keys.  He looked at her and she knew instantly that he now knew what she had noticed. 

Kelly grabbed the arm of her cameraman to drag him towards Ryan.  Ryan, however, was on the opposite side of the sinkhole and in Kelly’s excitement, she inadvertently tripped over the police tape, plunging herself and the cameraman to their doom.  The only thing on the television now was a sign that announced technical difficulties.  PLEASE STAND BY.

The picture on the TV stayed that way for so long that I lost interest in the whole thing.  I shut the television off and am now sitting here writing this.

                       The End