Family Ties

When he died, Carol and Edward’s father had an unexpected final request. The urgent call summoned them to the office of their deceased father’s lawyer and executor of his estate, Malcolm DeVenny.

Edward picked Carol up from the hotel where she had been staying for the duration of the funeral planning and drove to DeVenny’s office. She claimed she wanted space to grieve during the process. He was a little hurt by her decision not to stay with him. However, still a bachelor, he was also relieved he didn’t have to put any effort into accommodating her at his place.

At the office, Carol and Edward sat in front of DeVenny’s desk and watched him pull out a stack of manilla envelopes from a deep drawer. He set aside a white letter-sized envelope from the stack. DeVenny was tall and impeccably dressed, but even his expensive suit couldn’t conceal his gangly stature. The rich black material of his jacket only highlighted his sallow skin and cheekbones so prominent that they looked like they could slice through a tin can. He gently picked up the white envelope with two bony fingers and extended it to Carol. 

“As you know, your father and I have been friends for many years. Not once did he require my council. The day before he committed suicide, he disclosed a secret he had been keeping for most of his life and asked for my help.” The velvety baritone of his voice was a striking contradiction to his physical appearance. “I was instructed to give this letter to the both of you five days after your father was in the ground.”

Carol took the white envelope. She and Edward stared at it, their excitement suddenly tinged with trepidation.

“Inside that envelope,” DeVenny continued, “contains your father’s last requests.” He then offered Edward three of the manilla envelopes.

Carol’s eyes flickered between the stack in front of DeVenny and the ones in Edward’s hands. “What’s in those,” she asked, nodding her chin toward the envelopes still on his desk.

“They will be opened in accordance with your completion or noncompliance of his requests,” DeVenny said matter-of-factly. “At this time, I have no other details to give you,” he said, returning the remaining envelopes to a desk drawer.

“Yeah,” scoffed Edward. “That sounds like dad.”

“Fine.” Carol hastily yet neatly pried the white envelope flap from its seal and removed a sheet of ruled notebook paper.

DeVenny stood, “I’m going to step out into the hall.”

Carol and Edward stared at him questioningly as he glided out from behind the desk and closed the door behind him. Carol brushed wisps of brown hair from her face as her eyes quickly scanned the hand-written page.  

“What the hell are these? Maps?” Edward said, pulling a single sheet of slightly yellowed notebook paper from each of the envelopes. He turned them in different directions to figure out the top from the bottom of the crude hand-drawn diagrams.

Carol looked horrified. “This has got to be a joke.”

“Let me see,” Edward snatched the paper from Carol’s hand, an action which, typically, irritated her but this time barely registered. His eyes scanned the black ink written words. By mid-page, he shared the same horrified expression as his sister. “What the actual fuck?” He looked on the backs of the papers and on the envelopes for more writing, but they were blank.

“Did I read that right?” Carol stared at the letter in Edward’s hands with disbelief. “He wants us to cut off his hands? From his dead body?”

Edward shook his head as he stared at the words. “I know these are unconventional requests,” he read aloud from the paper. “But it is of the utmost importance that, on the day you read this letter, the two of you retrieve the three lockboxes and my hands and bring them to Mr. DeVenny before midnight. He has the key to the lockboxes and will know what to do. All your questions will be answered after.”

“Jesus Christ,” Carol muttered.

“Unconventional,” Edward laughed. “Uh, more like unethical. Unlawful. Unbelievable. He can’t be serious.” He looked at his watch. “It’s already four p.m.”

Carol took the map with the number One written at the top of it from Edward and examined it. “175 Old Ranch Road. I know where this is. It’s not too far from here. It’s mom and dad’s first house. Mom had pictures of me when I was little on the tree swing in the backyard.” Carol tapped the X on the map with her finger.

“I don’t remember that house.”

“You wouldn’t. We moved shortly after you were born.”

Edward got up from the chair, dropped the remaining papers onto the seat, and stepped to the door. “DeVenny knows more than he’s telling us.” He pulled the door open and stepped into the corridor.

Carol grabbed the other two maps and examined them, her eyes filled with recognition.

“He’s gone. No, this isn’t sketchy at all,” Edward said sarcastically as he re-entered the room.

“I recognize these places, too.” Carol held up the drawings. “This one is where we lived until Mom left,” she stated, referring to the second paper, numbered Two. “And this is the house we moved into after that one, where dad lived until…,” she trailed off as she stared at the third paper, numbered Three. “The maps are numbered in the order we lived in the houses.”  

Edward took one of the maps and sat down, taking a better look at it.

“Getting the boxes should be easy enough,” Carol pondered aloud.

“You’re not seriously considering going on this twisted scavenger hunt, are you?” Edward refused to mask his disgust.

“Aren’t we kinda obligated?”

“This doesn’t sound like something dad would do. Okay, yeah, he could be secretive and cryptic at times, but….” Edward threw his hands up, “This is weird, even for him.”

“Yeah, cutting off his hands is a disturbing request, but…,” the sides of Carol’s lips curled slightly, and her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you want to know what’s in the boxes?”

Twenty minutes later, Edward’s Honda Civic turned onto Old Ranch Road. Carol sat in the passenger’s seat, reading and rereading their father’s letter, trying to make sense of it. 

“This was our old neighborhood?” Edward frowned at the passing small Cape Cod-style homes, most of which were weather-worn and ill-maintained.

 “I don’t know how long Mom and Dad lived here before I was born. I guess they bought it in the 80s. I think I was three years old in the photo Mom had. If I’m remembering it correctly, the date on the back of it was 1992.”

“Did he plan this that far back?” Edward’s mind continued to spin. “Do you think Mom knew about the boxes?”

“If we knew where she was, we could ask her,” Carol said, a hint of everlasting bitterness from their mother’s unexpected abandonment. A thought raced into Carol’s mind as she stared at Edward’s profile, “What are we going to say to the people who live there now? Hi, our dead father buried something in your backyard a few decades ago. Mind if we go get it?”

Edward’s brows furrowed as he fixated on an approaching house. “I don’t think we’re going to have a problem.”

“Why?” Picking up on his sudden change in mood, she looked forward. “Is that it?” She, too, stared at the approaching house as the car rolled to a stop in front of it.

The numbers on the dirty tin mailbox, 175, matched the numbers on their father’s map. The charred shell of the house was similar in size to the others on the street. The lingering pungent odor of sour smoke hinted the catastrophic fire happened somewhat recently. Carol and Edward wrinkled their noses as they got out of the car.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Edward said as they stood at the mouth of the driveway.

“Doomsday, Edweird,” Carol playfully mocked.

“That’s not funny.” Edward felt his childhood neurosis flare. 

Blackened skeletons of incinerated foliage lined the foundation of the house, leading around to the backyard. Brittle leaves clung to the marred branches of the large tree in the front yard and loudly scratched and scraped against one another in the breeze.

The siblings stared at the house. Without a word, Carol boldly padded up the empty driveway toward the back of the house with the map in her hand and the inherent defiance of a firstborn child.

Edward opened his mouth to protest but decided against it. It wouldn’t have stopped her. He glanced around at the neighboring houses, expecting to see side-swept curtains and peering faces in windows. But no one was looking, which added to his unease.  

Edward rounded the corner of the house to the backyard as Carol circled the old Burr oak tree, glancing between the map and the scorched ground surrounding it. The tree trunk was massive, with branches the circumference of car tires. The ones facing the back of the house had suffered minor damage from the inferno.

“This is the tree,” Carol held up the map for Edward to see. She looked up at the lowest branch. “The swing was on this one,” she took a few paces away from the trunk and looked down at her feet. “According to the map, the box should be here.”

“Okay,” Edward said, glancing around. “I’ll look for a shovel.” Before he could step away, Carol was on her knees, raking the dirt with her hands. “Carol, stop. I’ll find a shovel.” 

“We don’t need a shovel. Look,” she said, moving mounds of soil with ease. The earth was still soft and pliable from the fire’s runoff water, allowing her to quickly dig deep into the earth.

“You’re going to get dirty! I’ll find a shovel!”

“Jesus, it’s just dirt.” Carol ignored him and continued to dig.

Edward supervised with annoyance but turned his thoughts toward the house. “What do you think caused the fire?”

“An act of God.”

“That’s not funny.”

Carol chuckled at how easy it was to provoke him. As she continued to rake the dirt, her face suddenly brightened with surprise. “I feel something!” She rapped her knuckles against the surface of something hard under a layer of moist dirt and accelerated her digging. “It’s a box,” she declared after expanding the hole on all sides. “Help me lift it out!”

Edward slipped his hands down the sides, and together, they excavated a deep, 10 x 11 metal box. Setting it down on the loose mound of soil, they stared at it. Corrosion had settled into the seams, and pools of rust ate away at the mat finish on the lid. The number one was drawn on the lid.

“Well, ain’t this a kick,” Carol said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.  

“It definitely looks like it’s been there for thirty years.”

“What do you think is in it?” Carol’s eyes were wide with excitement. The silver plating on the lock, blemished with black mold, flaked off onto her thumb as she brushed away the dirt. 

“I don’t know,” Edward said, taking hold of the box and shaking it. Something inside shifted with a THUNK. It’s heavy-ish. “It could be anything.”

“Maybe it’s money.”

“Yeah, maybe. It could also be a couple of books or photo albums.” Edward turned the box around in his hands.

“But why bury books or pictures? And why wait until after he died to let us know about it?” Carol stared hard at the box as if trying to see inside it.

For once, Edward didn’t have an answer and tried to pry open the lid with his fingers. He was unsuccessful and put it down on the ground. “Okay, what if it is money?” he asked, brushing the dirt off his clothes. “Why bury it? Why not leave it to us in his will with the rest of his stuff?” Edward was stumped by his own questions.

Carol thought for a moment. “Maybe it was stolen.”

“Like dad was a bank robber or something?” The concept seemed ridiculous until Edward verbalized it.

“Think about it,” Carol’s excitement began to effervesce. “Dad was disciplined and strict. He was smart but also antisocial. I don’t ever remember him having friends over or going out with the guys.”

“Dad was a lot of things,” Edward reminded.

“Okay, yeah, but back then? That was the classic profile for a bank robber.”

“I think you watch too much crime TV.”

“Come on! Didn’t he travel a lot for work?” Carol emphasized work with air quotes.

“He did pay for everything with cash,” Edward reluctantly admitted.

They gazed at each other in silence as their minds raced. Imagination and memories collided and conflated until the theory became a possibility.

Edward hit the brakes. “Wait a minute,” he said. “If this is a stash of money, why the hell do we have to cut off his hands?”

Carol stood up and pondered for a moment. She gasped. “Fingerprints!”

“Huh?”

“Back then, they didn’t use DNA yet. They caught people by fingerprints.” Carol’s revelation gushed like a wild river. “The money in this box could be well over thirty years old. We can’t just spend it! We’d have to take it to the bank. It could throw up red flags, and somebody might investigate. Maybe he anticipated the money or whatever is in these boxes could be traced back to him by his fingerprints. And if they exhumed his body to get them, and he doesn’t have his hands, they wouldn’t be able to prove it!”

Edward stared at Carol in disbelief.

“Of course, I’m assuming that, because he didn’t need DeVenny before this, Dad was never arrested. They have thousands of unidentified fingerprints in the system linked to unsolved crimes all over the country!” Carol grinned, content with her theory.

“Um, yeah, you definitely watch too much crime TV. But,” Edward mused, “It seems we didn’t know Dad as well as we thought we did.”

“Let’s get the other boxes and then pay a visit to the cemetery.”

Edward shook his head slightly. “We’re definitely going to need a shovel for that.”

The Woodland Hills cemetery was already closed when Edward and Carol arrived several hours later. To their surprise and good luck, the gate at the back entrance was unlocked. Edward’s Honda slowly crawled along the narrow road as the light of the rising full moon cast an eerie glow across the tombstones.

“Is David going to fly out here at some point,” Edward asked, testing the waters. He didn’t know if Carol’s relationship was on again or off again since David was absent during the entire funeral process. 

“I told him not to come. And, if this turns out to be a bunch of money, he doesn’t need to know about any of this,” Carol smirked.

Off again, he concluded. “There it is,” he announced, pointing at the large, idyllic limestone angel that, from a distance, seemed to float above the gravestones. They used the angel as a designated marker to help locate their father’s headstone. Edward pulled the car to a stop and stared out the windshield.

“Why do you think he killed himself?” Carol asked, breaking the silence.

Edward shrugged, “I dunno.”

“Clearly, he wanted to be found since he left the garage door open. But why didn’t he leave a note?”

Edward shrugged again, “DeVenny probably has it in one of those other envelopes. This whole thing seems to have been well planned.”

“Yeah, like he’s orchestrating it from beyond, you know?” Carol stared at the headstones.

“Exactly. Dad wasn’t impulsive. Well, unless he was angry.”

Flickers of unpleasant memories returned, and Carol nodded her head.

“After college, you left. You didn’t see how detached he became. He wasn’t easy to be around. I’m pretty sure that’s how he was with everyone.”

Carol agreed, “Yeah, you’re right. Look at his wake. It was you, me, and DeVenny. No friends. No co-workers. Dad was an only child, there’s no one left on his side of the family.”

“For a second, I thought maybe Mom might show up,” Edward admitted sheepishly.

“Yeah, me too, wearing that giant marcasite butterfly pendant she never left the house without,” Carol lamented. “There was some old guy at the funeral with long gray hair. I saw him talking to DeVenny, but he left before I could talk to him.”

“Yeah, I think he might have been the cemetery caretaker.”

Carol sucked in a breath, “Maybe he was Dad’s partner in crime, and Dad was holding out on him.” She was only half joking but continued with, “Oh, my God!” She threw her head back, mouth agape with delight. “That’s probably why DeVenny had to wait five days after the funeral to tell us about the boxes!”

Edward’s confused expression prompted Carol to elaborate.

“If that was Dad’s partner, and Dad owed him money, maybe he was surveilling us. If we went after the money right away….” Carol roll swept her hand, encouraging Edward to follow her train of thought.      

 “He’d know we had the boxes and might try to take them,” Edward concluded with heavy skepticism.

“Yes!” Carol’s hearty laugh filled the car. “And that’s why we had to do all this so quickly. It wouldn’t give him time to do anything about it!”

“You realize how ludicrous all this sounds, right?” Edward threw a glance at Carol but couldn’t suppress his smile.

“You just wait. It’ll all come together tonight when we bring everything to DeVenny,” Carol relished. “Dad being a professional criminal would explain a lot.”

“True.” Edward’s smile quickly faded. “We still have to get his hands, though.”

Carol’s mood also shifted. “This would have been a hell of a lot easier if we had known about this part before he was put in the ground,” she put her hand on the door handle and pulled. The interior light illuminated.

“Wait,” Edward held up his hand to stop her. “You stay here. I’ll do it.” He pulled a lever below his seat, and the trunk popped open.

“No, I’ll help you.”

“I can do it faster if I’m by myself. Stay here, keep a lookout.” Edward exited the car. He grabbed a shovel, a flashlight, and a plastic grocery bag from the trunk before lowering the hatch. He slipped between two headstones, disappearing into the darkness.

While surprised by Edward’s sudden ambition, Carol, for once, had no intention of arguing with him. She adjusted the rearview mirror to gaze at the three metal boxes, sitting in numerical order on the backseat.

Carol was disappointed the second location didn’t present them with nearly as ominous conditions as the first. The box was buried alongside a 10” fieldstone wall that served as a property line deep into the woods. She and Edward reminisced about teetering on the rutted top of it as kids, pretending to traverse a sea of lava. They tracked it a quarter of a mile before finding the marker they were looking for, a red brick incorporated into the wall, and unearthed the second box easily. It was half the size of the first. The contents rattled and clanged when shaken.

Carol speculated that if the first box was buried around the time they moved, then the second one was probably buried when they left that house, laying undisturbed in the ground for about fifteen years.

Finding the third box was more unsettling than dramatic. The map led them to their father’s garage. They had yet to go through his belongings and found the metal box sitting pristine, under a tarp with a bunch of tools and small appliances, directly under the beam he hung himself from. It was identical in size to the second box, and there was no way to tell how old it was. Shaking it produced a muffled rumple of a sound. 

After retrieving the third box, Edward and Carol stopped at a diner to get a late supper before heading to the cemetery. Edward devoured a BLT and fries. Carol wasn’t hungry despite not having eaten all day. Feeling off-kilter since the funeral, the last thing she wanted to deal with was stomach issues. She stuck to a cup of tea and a few fries stolen from Edward’s plate.

Edward began hinting at blowing off going to the cemetery. “You know, digging up buried lockboxes is one thing. Desecration is completely different.”

“It’s not desecration if we have his permission,” Carol tried to sound convincing. “Besides,” she continued, “DeVenny has the keys to open the boxes.” Carol lowered her voice and leaned into the table. “What if not getting his hands means we automatically forfeit what’s inside?”

“We don’t have to go back to DeVenny. We can just pry them open ourselves,” Edward grumbled through a mouth filled with food.

“Yeah, but, what if there are further instructions only DeVenny can give us? You saw the other envelopes. Do you want to risk losing a small fortune?”

“We could go to jail.” Edward angrily bit into a French fry.

“It’s a class A misdemeanor. It’s a fine at worst.” For a moment, Carol thought maybe she did watch too much crime TV. Her mind left the conversation in the diner when a startling wave of nausea rushed through her. She regretted not agreeing to blow off the cemetery as she rested her head on the dash and dozed off.

A noise from the back of the car caused Carol to bolt up in her seat. She turned to look out the back window.

Edward had returned. He opened the trunk and laid down the shovel, the lumpy plastic bag, and the flashlight inside. Carol held her breath until Edward closed the hatch and got back into the car.

That was fast,” Carol assumed without knowing how long she had napped.

“Was it,” Edward asked dismissively. “It was easier than I thought. The ground hadn’t hardened yet,” he said, starting the engine. The car slowly rolled along the winding cemetery road toward the exit.

“You really got them?” Nausea washed over Carol again. 

“Yeah.” Edward continued to stare forward at the road.

“Was it hard? Getting them, I mean.”

“I used the blade of the shovel. It was a clean cut through the wrists.” Edward shook his head. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Carol faced forward, surprised he offered any details at all. “I’ll call DeVenny now and let him know we’re on our way back to his office.”

Thirty minutes later, Carol and Edward once again sat in front of DeVenny’s desk. Edward used a gym bag in the trunk of his car to carry the three boxes and their father’s hands into the office. He set it down on the floor between their chairs as they waited for DeVenny to arrive.

Carol’s stomach was still twisting. She hadn’t been sleeping well since the news of her father’s death, chalking it up to nerves and grief. Edward was also silent but seemed oddly twitchy. He jumped when the office door behind them opened with a metallic click.

DeVenny entered with the collection of manila envelopes in his hands and went behind his desk. He sat down and studied the siblings for a moment. “The boxes, if you don’t mind,” he said, gesturing to the gym bag.

DeVenny’s voice startled Edward into motion, “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

Edward stood and placed the canvas bag on his chair. It unzipped loudly. He reached into the bag with both hands and, one at a time, pulled out the boxes. Carol watched DeVenny take the two smaller boxes and stack them on top of the larger one to create a perfect cube. He stared at them as if he had been dreading this moment.       

With a heavy sigh, DeVenny picked up a lumpy manila envelope and opened it. He removed a single folded sheet of notebook paper and dumped the rest of the contents onto the top box. A small commercial silver key tumbled out and hit the metal surface with a DINK. A white envelope, a large clutch of frayed twine, and a tarnished brass skeleton key followed. DeVenny set the twine, envelope, and paper aside and used the silver key to unlock the three boxes.  

Edward returned the duffel bag to the floor and sat down again. Both he and Carol pitched forward, eyes wide, lips parted, holding their breaths, eagerly waiting for the reveal like children watching another child open a birthday present. 

Instead of removing the lids, DeVenny handed the pristine box to Carol and its sullied twin to Edward. He nodded, giving the siblings permission to open them.

Edward struggled with the lid of his box; the hinges on the top seam were rusted. He dug his fingernails under the other edge to pry it open. The lid gave little by little as he worked his way around the sides.

“I don’t understand,” Carol said, staring into her open box, dumbfounded.

Edward paused his attempts to peer into Carol’s box. “What is that?” He looked to DeVenny for an answer. “What is that?”

DeVenny remained silent.

Edward hastened his attempts. The top finally gave with a scraping pop, and he found himself staring into his box with confusion.

Carol gently held a tuft of fine blond hair tied with thin elastic in her fingers.

Edward’s eyes darted between Carol’s box and his own, noting the contents were similar. He reached inside and pulled up clusters of hair, each tuft different in color and length, bound in a variety of ways, from rubber bands to ribbons and barrettes.

“Is this…doll hair?” Edward, still confused, rooted around in the box.

That was also Carol’s first thought. As she smoothed the strands between her thumb and index finger, she realized it was silky, not tacky like the synthetic hair of her childhood dolls. She reached into the box and held up a red heart pendant made of clay on a long string necklace. A flicker of nostalgia produced a smile on her lips as she remembered making one just like it in kindergarten for an art project. She gave it to her friend Sarah as a gift for her 5^th birthday. With her mother’s help, she wrote SARAH on the back with a silver paint pen.  

Carol slowly turned the pendant over. The air left her lungs when she saw the faded lettering. Sarah was wearing the pendant when she went missing a few months after her birthday. It was included in her MISSING description. Carol looked at DeVenny, his foreboding expression answered her question without her having to say the words.

“They’re mementos,” DeVenny said.

Tears welled in Carol’s eyes as she dropped the pendant into the lockbox and shoved it onto DeVenny’s desk.  

“What are they?” Edward asked, holding the hairs in one hand as he gathered the pieces of jewelry that had settled on the bottom of his box with the other. His mind was preoccupied with their possible collective value until he found himself staring at a marcasite butterfly pendant.

“They’re trophies taken from people your father killed,” DeVenny said.

Edward’s mouth twitched as he tried to process DeVenny’s words. “That’s absurd!” He forcefully dropped everything in his hands back into the box. “Why would you joke about something like that? Our Dad didn’t kill anyone!”

DeVenny opened the large metal lock box and removed a black-stained wooden box. The top was embossed with a red circle and hieroglyphic letters. Using the skeleton key, he unlocked it and lifted the hinged top, revealing more bundles of hair and trinkets.

“Oh, my God. I’m gonna be sick,” Carol leaned forward and put a hand on her clammy forehead.

“What’s wrong with you,” Edward snarled at Carol. “How can you believe this bullshit?”

“This will be difficult to hear, but you must know the truth. The day before your father committed suicide, he confessed to an indiscriminate killing spree that lasted more than forty years.” DeVenny’s words depleted the oxygen in the room. 

When Carol found her voice, it was scratchy and uneven. “Did he say why he did it?”

DeVenny gathered the mementos from the wooden box and placed them inside Carol’s lockbox. “He believed he needed to deliver souls to a demon to pay off an unsettled debt he accrued in another life.”

Edward burst into laughter. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”

DeVenny looked up from his desk. “Your box, please,” he said sternly to Edward and gestured to the box in Edward’s lap. He picked up the remaining three manila envelopes and offered them in exchange. They were also numbered.

Edward scoffed as he handed over the box. He took the envelopes and opened one, pulling out a collection of newspaper clippings of missing men, women, and children dating back to nearly a decade before he was born. He opened the other two to find more clippings of different faces and names. Edward’s amusement vanished as he stared at a faded Polaroid picture of their mother. The marcasite butterfly pendant pinned to her blouse over her heart.

“Your father claimed the debt would be inherited by the next-born family member if he wasn’t able to fulfill the contract.”

“Inherited? How? Like, genetically?” Edward’s contempt had lessened.

“I believe it was something along those lines. He said the obligation was passed down to him from his father. But he claimed to have found a loophole that would end the legacy. It’s why he killed himself.”

“And you believe this load of crap,” Edward asked, his voice cracked with emotion.

“I believe your father believed it was true. Whether the demon was real or metaphoric is irrelevant.” DeVenny offered the white envelope to Edward. “Perhaps this will hold more answers.” Gesturing to the manila envelopes and clippings, “If it’s any comfort, your father kept a record of who his victims were. He took trophies so they could eventually be surrendered to the police and bring closure to the families.”

Edward stuffed the newspaper clippings back into the manila envelopes and exchanged them with DeVenny for the white one. Holding it in his hands, he couldn’t bring himself to open it. “Do you…,” he said, looking at Carol, unable to finish his sentence.

“I can’t. Not now.” Carol held up her hand as if to block the sight of the envelope as tears streamed down her face.

“Edward,” DeVenny paused until he had Edward’s attention. “His hands, please.”

Edward pulled in a sharp breath before surrendering the gym bag to DeVenny. “What are you going to do with them?” Before DeVenny could answer, Edward changed his mind. “You know what? I don’t want to know. I can’t listen to any more of this crap right now.”

“I understand,” DeVenny nodded sympathetically.

“Do you? Do you really understand any of this?” Edward’s voice quivered with anger.

DeVenny’s sympathetic eyes met Edward’s hard stare. “I’m certain the authorities will be in touch.”

“I need to get out of here,” Carol croaked, quickly standing up.

“Yeah, me too,” Edward declared, getting to his feet and darting toward the door.  

As Carol and Edward left his office in silence, DeVenny tucked the folded paper and twine inside the wooden box and replaced everything inside the duffel bag. He sighed heavily. His obligation to their father wasn’t quite complete.

Edward invited Carol to spend the night at his place, but she declined. At her request, he dropped her off at her hotel, promising to call her after he read the final letter. It took several hours and a few shots of bourbon to muster the nerve to open the envelope DeVenny had handed him. It surprised him to find a single piece of notebook paper with one handwritten block paragraph.   

“Here we go,” Edward mumbled and began to read.

If you’re reading this, then you brought my hands to DeVenny. Good. He will take them to a priest who will bind and consecrate them before incinerating them. The ashes will be locked inside the wooden box and buried in hallowed ground at midnight under the first full moon after my death. Killing myself was the only way out. I was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and wouldn’t be able to fulfill the contract. The debt would have been passed on to the next born of my lineage, my first grandchild, just as it had been passed on to me by my father who died before I was born. Thanks to you, this ritual will put an end to the killing.

Edward felt a shockey twinge at the base of his skull and a wave of panic in his gut as the glow of the rising full moon cascaded through his living room window and spilled across the floor.

At the hotel, Carol sat on the edge of the tub with a pregnancy test in her hand. She bought it earlier that day at a nearby drugstore but didn’t have time to take it before going to DeVenny’s office. Her emotions swirled as she watched a + sign develop on the pregnancy test pen.  

At that moment, across town, DeVenny walked down the aisle of an empty church with the wooden box and the plastic bag in his hands. He approached the lone priest with long gray hair waiting for him in the sanctuary and placed the items on the altar.

The priest opened the box and removed the paper and twine. DeVenny unrolled the plastic bag and opened it. Confusion washed over his face as he looked inside. He emptied the contents onto the altar. The pair of tennis sneakers Edward kept in the trunk of his car tumbled out.