Bleeding Smile

FOUR

_______

Scouring the Hatchet Killer forum, there wasn't anything new beyond Mrs. Young's disappearance and a detailed report with every relevant quote from The Elk Point Bulletin, all of which I'd already read first-hand.

For a moment, I thought of posing a simple question with my newly created account:
Do you believe Arch Teller is innocent?.

But then I thought better of it, closing my laptop and readying myself for bed.

His written words were already engraved in my head, and before I laid down to rest that night, I picked up the funeral invitation from my nightstand, on the verge of throwing it away when Dad's no-nonsense headshot challenged me to act differently, to act less impetuously as I considered having the ability to physically revisit Teller's note.

Tucked between the sliding track on the left hand side of my nightstand drawer was the small silver key to my trunk. As expected, it was still there when I pulled the drawer out to its limit, the metal coated with a bit of dust. This specific drawer had been it's hiding spot ever since I was nine.

I plucked the key and closed the drawer.

On the opposite side of my bedroom, I kneeled in front of the rhino trunk, the forest green, embossed leather vinyl as smooth and shiny as the day Dad brought it home from Mayor Prescott's. It was originally intended to be auctioned prior to ending up at the yard sale; an overlooked stroke of luck that Dad would tease Prescott about whenever they were in the same room.

As far as I knew, I owned one of the town's historical relics. For only fifty bucks.

"It made me think of the forest, and you always loved the forest," Dad had said plainly when I came home from school and found it in my room that day.

I unlocked and opened the heavy lid of the trunk. Inside the 36 x 24 space was an assortment of cherished books and magazines that inspired my marketing career, all neatly stacked on one end. There were incomplete ceramics, framed artwork and picture albums, cheer medals and hair ribbons and small keepsakes. Nestled in the middle of the clutter was Gran's wooden jewelry box with ballerina engravings and intricately drawn fuchsia flowers.

Dad had always taught me the value in keeping important things, things like the jewelry box that I'd inherited from his mother; a woman I'd never met but an heirloom Dad had always kept; a small yet meaningful consideration of the future, of what would be, at best, and a "just in case", at worst.

As he predicted, he had a daughter, and the chestnut box became repurposed as the vessel of most of what I held dear to my heart.

I opened the third layer, the same one that held every reiteration of Teller's number as we grew up, and placed the funeral invitation there.

__________

Father O'Malley wore his usual clerical collar and draping white alb, though his outer garments; his smooth-pressed stole and chasuble of choice, were a matching black uniformly appropriate for the man who would be officiating Dad's funeral.

When Mom said it'd be a busy day, I'd underestimated how preoccupied we'd be as early as six this morning. Aunt Edith and Marshall, the funeral director, were the first ones at our doorstep as we reviewed the reception's arrangements before coordinating the finger food and refreshments with Mrs. Sinclair and Karl Miller, the owner of Miller's, the local diner Dad frequented during his breaks at work.

Karl apparently owed Dad a favor for letting his nephew off with a warning for a misdemeanor that should've resulted in a suspended license and an overnight in the cell, so he'd volunteered to do the catering and have his staff set up our house while we attended the main Service and burial.