Hell's Roundabout. Benjamin Vance
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that resulted in the roundabout being constructed. He was ever grateful, especially after she printed the articles for him to take home and read at his leisure. He didn’t realize he could print them, such was his lack of computer acumen.
After returning home, preparing a meal for two and cleaning up afterward, he spread out his cache of pages over the kitchen table and proceeded to staple related ones together. He attracted the attention of Charley, who asked if the papers were about accidents. Of course he knew, but Army swore him to secrecy and asked Charley if he would write down the date, day of the week, and any reference to weather on the days of the accidents.
Charley asked, “Dad, do you want me to write down what the weather was like on those days too?”
Army stopped what he was doing, looked at Charley and asked, “Can you do that?”
“Sure, Lucy showed me a site where we can find the exact weather on any day in history; hopefully. I guess you can trust it before computers came out. It’s put out by the weather service and we used it in a report in school, so … .”
“Super, Charley, go ahead and find the weather data and write it in the margins. You start first and give me one to read after you finish. Just write down whether it was raining, stormy, snowing, or sunny, you know. I’ll read one first to get all the details, but you take the rest and go to it Son.
Charley’s research took about 40 minutes, and then Army asked him to write down the months of the year and put a dot for each accident beside the month it happened. It didn’t take long and when he finished, there were five dots beside December, three at November and two at January. That seemed odd, because most severe storms occurred in the summer.
After some more machinations they decided to remove one of the December accidents because the fatality was due to a heart attack. Otherwise, they all fit the pattern of the one that occurred two weeks earlier; most of at least one vehicle was all but exploded and all passengers in at least one vehicle were mutilated beyond recognition. The only hiccup in their pattern was that they’d not all happened at the same place. One had occurred on county road 19, or Cabin Road as it was called unofficially, almost a quarter mile north of the horrendous accident of two weeks earlier. Although most of the accounts did specifically state the closest mile marker to which the accident occurred, the reports still allowed at least a half mile error in one or both directions.
Army and Charley gathered some valuable, enlightening and frightening data, but he didn’t know what to do with it. If something in the hill or the mountain behind it was causing the accidents, what was it? He thought of everything his imagination and experience would allow; geologic anomalies, time travel, magnetic forces, tornadoes, and even severe micro bursts of weather. He even entertained out-of-control military experiments from Area 51 or some other secret installation. However, he couldn’t imagine anything on our Earth allowing solid objects to be flung through solid rock.
If he could just determine what minerals were in the mountains around town, he might be able to draw some conclusions or at least develop some theories. For that information he would go to the bureau of mines. However, that would take at least a day off, so he put Charley onto it to check if the information was on line. That pretty much took up the whole day Saturday.
Sunday was sunny and beautiful and for some reason he woke up thinking of Chiara. He was fixing breakfast when his cell phone rattled. It was Les Gilbert and he said the Sheriff couldn’t be reached and he didn’t like Larry, so he called Army to let him know he’d faxed a DNA report to the Sheriff’s office. It looked like one could be about 85% certain that some of the body parts found were those of Mrs. Lois Peterson. A chill went up Army’s spine.
Up to that time he’d just been presuming. After the Coroner’s call, Army considered it a fact; something terrible had spread the body of Mrs. Lois Peterson from New York to California, probably at the speed of light, and it was no wonder her body and car came apart. His mind pondered how much of her and her car remained in the rock of that dark, clay-colored cliff. Still, it didn’t explain the destruction of the Davis’ and their vehicle. They’d been driving in California … or had they?
He knew what he had to do, so he called Chiara and left a message. He didn’t have to wait long though. He and Charley were cleaning up breakfast dishes when she called. As soon as he said hello, Chiara said, “The DNA says it was Lois, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, Chiara it’s about 85% certain, I guess it’s based on her brother’s and his son’s DNA. I don’t know how they do that, but I bet it’s almost a 100% certainty based on what we saw and Lois’ age. I’m sorry; I know you thought the world of her. Is there anything I can do?”
He heard Chiara try to choke back the tears, but it quickly evolved into a sob and an unsuccessful attempt to suppress it. He softly told her he was sorry and that a report would be sent to the St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office and the information would probably be formally delivered to Lois’ Nephew so he could order all the necessary death documents and arrange a funeral.
Between blowing her nose and gulping the sobs back, Chiara said, “We’ll have to arrange a memorial service at the church. Her nephew is unlikely to have one. He’s an agnostic, so he’s uncertain about what ‘God’ he should serve; he’s not a church kind of person in any case. We’ll make sure she has a beautiful service.” Then she broke down completely; sobbed goodbye and hung up. Army was left with a dead phone, his ears ringing and his pulse pumping. For some reason he wished he could hold her and tell her everything would be okay, even if he didn’t believe it completely.
He always attributed his paucity of geologic knowledge to the fact that almost every term for rock was so complicated as to stick on his tongue. He didn’t know, or care about, the difference between Igneous, Metamorphic or Sedimentary rock, especially if it came from the Cenozoic, Mesozoic and Paleozoic ages which he could never keep track of in his head and really had no reason to … until the accident. He needed to find someone with an open mind and lots of knowledge on the subject, perhaps an associate geo-whatever professor at U.C. Davis. He would attempt to reach someone the following day. Meanwhile he had a son who needed attention and he intended to give it.
After supper, he and Charley were watching some unreal, reality show they could both make fun of, when his cell phone rattled. Before he answered he thought he needed to change the ringtone to something less nerve-wracking. He noticed the New York area code and his heart leapt a second before he answered on the third ring. He said hello and thought for a second no one was there; then a soft, tentative whisper of a voice, “Hi, Army, I’m sorry I hung up on you today, but I just couldn’t talk; it was too much for me. I’m kind of over it now though and wanted to apologize and say thank you. I wish you could be at Lois’ memorial service. I talked to Pastor Shells and told him about her death and he agreed to have a memorial Friday, so we’re going ahead with it before the official notice. We’ll probably get the notice this week sometime anyway.”
“Yeah you probably will. I’ll make sure the Sheriff knows and he’s a pretty sensitive guy, so … .”
“Well, I’ll get out of your hair, I just wanted to say thanks again and apologize.”
“Don’t go Chiara, talk some more. I enjoy hearing your voice.” He didn’t know where the hell that came from, but Charley looked at him strangely as Army got off the couch and went into his own bedroom, leaving the door open to listen for his son.
“Thanks Army, I need to talk to someone right now, I think.”
They talked about her life and her one real love; pottery. She asked about his life, but he was superficial and brief. He wanted to learn more about her; wanted her to talk. She talked about her college years, employment years, engagement years, and no marriage years. She came right out and told him she was 30 years old. She could laugh at herself, and he sensed a couple of times she’d forgotten about Lois for the moment. He sought not to bring her back to the subject with every verbal maneuver possible. Then she asked about Charley. He was okay with the conversation revolving around his son, because he couldn’t have been prouder of him.
He told her about Charley’s love of fishing, his