Marredbury Episode 12
Technical Difficulties
Marredbury is a serial anthology. Episodes include the found digital artifacts of Carla Bird in New Town Marredbury. followed by the files encrypted by her grandmother in Old Town Marredbury. See a full description and start from the beginning here if you are new to the series.
I can’t believe we are approaching the end! We have only ONE MORE episode left. Today, you are getting a clearer look at the lore of Old Town Marredbury, while Carla is finding herself having some trouble with her ColbyStream.
The short story in the episode, “Take Twice a Day with Bourbon” is an older favorite of mine. I really enjoyed writing characters who hang out in the gray area of right and wrong.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US. Today is also my Dad’s birthday. Happy birthday, Dad!!
I am so grateful to all my readers, the support and excitement they bring to my work. Connecting with readers is by far my favorite part of publishing. To show my gratitude, I am bringing the audio of this story to my free and paid readers. This is the last audio I will have for this first season of Marredbury. The last episode is not ready for audio yet. John Evans did a great job with his reading.
Thank you for those who have stuck around for twelve episodes of Marredbury. Thank you for those who have been supporting me since I published my first novel. I appreciate the time you have given to my work and I look forward to continue building a community here with all my readers :)
Alright, enough chatter. Let’s get to Marredbury!
Episode 12
Take Twice a Day With Bourbon
Henry always hated family gatherings, but not this one. In the office of Tomas Avilar, his daughter, Paloma, sat in an over-sized armchair upholstered with fabric the color of pea soup. The only one crying, she squeezed a damp tissue in her lap.
His ex-wife, Natalia, stood behind her. She entered the room with her eyebrow raised and her lip turned up like she smelled something rotten. Dressed all in black, she could fool someone into thinking she was mourning.
Almost. Calling the dead a rat bastard didn’t typically make a person appear to be grieving.
The two other people invited were Henry’s brother, Carl, and sister-in-law, Chloe. They stood behind Natalia, Carl practically perched in the doorway. He’d make a break for it the second the lawyer finished.
Henry sat in the back corner of the room in a matching armchair. A glass bar cart stood on one side of him and a lamp on the table on the other, a reading nook by design, but the lamp was switched off. No one seemed to want the chair. Henry didn’t need it either, being dead and all. But he wanted a front row seat to this event.
Tomas Avilar, the baby-faced attorney Henry hired to write up his will two weeks before his death, cleared his throat.
“Guess we’re ready to get started, huh?” Tomas grinned at the group, but quickly dropped the smile when it wasn’t returned.
“Don’t know why we have to be here in the first place,” Natalia muttered. “Who reads wills now?”
“Why are you even here?” Chloe asked. “You and Henry divorced five years ago.”
“I’m here to support, my daughter.” Natalia rested a hand on Paloma’s shoulder. Paloma leaned into her mother’s touch.
“Mr. Fromm requested the will to be read this way.” Tomas intervened.
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Let’s just get this over with.”
The lawyer straightened his tie. He eyed each person in the room and cleared his throat.
Henry shook his head and chuckled. He’d known the kid would be uncomfortable. He almost felt sorry for him. Tomas Avilar ended up stuck in the middle of this all because his last name started with an “A.” He’d been listed first in an online directory.
The will sat in front of the young lawyer, his hands resting on either side of the document. Natalia stretched her neck longer than Henry thought humanly possible to get a peek. She’d never read it, though, blind as a bat and refusing to allow glasses to conceal her striking blue eyes.
Henry looked beyond his ex-wife to his brother. Carl’s gaze darted around the room. Sweat collected on his forehead. When he began shuffling his feet, his wife wrapped her arm around his, giving him a quick squeeze of reassurance.
Henry wished he had a glass of bourbon and maybe even some popcorn for the show. A crystal decanter filled with golden nectar sat on the cart beside him. He reached for it, but his hand waved through. After a couple more swipes he slumped back in the chair.
Paloma sniffled and she brought a tissue to her nose. Henry rolled his eyes. His baby girl thrived in drama. She cried just as much when her Willow Whisper pants went through the dryer. The damn spandex cost him two hundred bucks and they tumbled into shreds after one wash. If he had his bourbon, he would take a sip, a toast to those pants. May they rot in Hell.
“I’m just going to read it through once. Then we’ll go through it piece by piece to make sure everyone understands.” Tomas leaned forward, his nose diving into the will.
Henry felt a giddy shiver in his stomach. Those bastards were expecting a fortune. They didn’t know that his fortune no longer existed. A little had been spared for his daughter, but no one would mind what Paloma got. She’d barely care, more disappointed that her check would be missing several zeros.
Served them right for killing him.
At least one of them did. Maybe two. Maybe all of them. He didn’t know who before it happened, so they all would be punished.
“‘I, Henry Fromm, resident in the City of Huntington Beach, Orange County, California, being of sound mind, not acting under duress or undue influence, and fully understand the nature-”
“Can we skip this part?” Natalia cut him off.
Henry had to admit that he felt the same. Should’ve known the reading would get boring. \ Couldn’t the kid jump to the good stuff?
Tomas explained that in order for the process to be legal, he had to go through all the paperwork. Henry and Natalia rolled their sighed in unison. Now he really wanted that drink. It would help pass the time. He reached again for the decanter, just needing a taste. His hand waved, like moving through air.
The lawyer resumed his reading. After minutes of droning, Tomas finally uttered the word beneficiary. Paloma sat up. Her mother adjusted her weight off her right hip. Carl and Chloe took the smallest step away from the doorway.
Henry first suspected ill intentions a month ago. At a family get together, they celebrated Paloma’s engagement to her freeloader boyfriend. Henry fumed as he flung his tie around his neck. He watched his fingers work from muscle memory in front of the full length mirror, a mirror Natalia had insisted they needed with the redesign of their two point four million dollar home. The mirror remained after she left. Though nice to have around to double check his zipper and shirt buttons, he could’ve done without the custom gold frame. His ex always had insufferable tastes.
The bedroom window opened to let in the cool seaside breeze. The mild weather of Huntington Beach drew Henry to the overpriced town in the first place.
Their voices carried in on that breeze. Could’ve been the third drink he nursed on the nightstand, or the hoarse whisper of the voices, but he couldn’t place them. It aggravated him that he couldn’t identify the voices of his killers. Someone he called family plotted in the yard below him and when it mattered the most, his familiarity failed him.
“....sneak it into his drink,” a woman’s whisper floated through his open window.
“How? That glass is glued to his palm. He’d notice,” the deeper whisper of a man snapped back.
“I’ll figure out something. If only he didn’t keep his bottles under lock and key.”
If Henry had any doubt that they conspired against him, it disappeared after the mention of his liquor cabinet. He installed a padlock after discovering his bottle of Old Rip Van Wrinkle depleted. He could have blamed himself for having a glass or two too many one night and not remembering he drained the bottle, but he’d just returned from a week long business trip. The bottle had been full when he left.
Paloma blamed the hired help. His ex agreed. His brother was being dragged around somewhere in Europe by Chloe, so Carl was off the hook. He suspected his daughter. The college dropout wouldn’t hesitate to throw a party while Daddy was away. His liquid gold probably went down the gullet of some twenty-five year old beach bum.
So Henry kept his liquor locked up and someone wanted to sneak something into his drink. He edged his way to the window and peered down, but could only identify the tops of two dark heads. Every person in his family had dark hair.
Ensuring that his tumbler was in fact glued to his hand, he attended the party, watching everyone over the rim of the glass.
Then he got sick. Vomiting, diarrhea, the whole mess. While struggling to stay out of the bathroom, he studied the faces of his “well-meaning” family. The shifty eyes of his sister-in-law. The lifted corners of Natalia’s lips. The sweaty brow of Carl, and the wrinkled nose of Paloma.
With her nose still scrunched up, Paloma suggested Henry move up his doctor’s appointment. Originally scheduled for the following week, she dialed before he could shrug off her suggestion. The doctor wasn’t treating him for poison, so what good could he do?
On the car ride there, though, Henry saw the good in the situation. Doctor James was an unbiased third party. He’d help him identify the poison. Might even have an antidote.
First he had to get through the doctor talk. His voice became garbled speech like the adults in Charlie Brown episodes. Wa wa wa, wa. Wa waaaa.
The doctor sat in a chair on wheels while Henry propped himself up, perched on a bed covered in thin tissue paper. The chilly room ensured a sprinkle of goosebumps down Henry’s legs. Why’d they have Henry strip down to his underwear just to tell him about treatment options?
“Doc,” Henry waved a hand at the man in the white coat, brushing his words away. “I’m being poisoned.” A wave a nausea had him searching for the nearest garbage can. The biohazard sticker on the side of the covered trash can in front of him would be appropriate.
Doctor James wrote Henry another prescription for Keytruda. Bastard shrugged him off like a child whining about monsters under their bed. He just blamed the cancer and pushed the pills on him.
That’s when Henry knew his fate.
“Incompetent bastard.” He crossed his arms and sank into the passenger seat on the way home.
They all wanted his money. They wanted to reap the benefits of Henry’s hard work. Natalia would love the home she picked out. Carl, jealous of his success, would revel in defeating him. Was it Henry’s fault that he bested him in business? And Paloma. They spoiled her rotten. Trust fund baby at her finest, coasting through life on the beautiful face her mother gave her and Daddy’s credit card. Henry didn’t have enough money in the world to buy her a decent education.
His killer struck again and again. Every family dinner. Every party. At outdoor bbqs. At the most expensive restaurants. Henry couldn’t stop his unknown poisoners. He had no clue where they put the poison, but he grew sicker and weaker. And his family watched, feigned concern worn like a mask, but he could see the glee underneath, the anticipation of their final pay out. By the end, he wondered how many of them worked together, if not all, a reveal like that Agatha Christie book, each one taking a stab at him one at a time.
If Henry couldn’t beat them by living, he could at least spoil their plan. Wouldn’t be as satisfying killing the billionaire if he had no money. The question became: How to get rid of his fortune?
He could gamble it away. That could take too much time, though. Would also require Henry to be out of the house where he’d have to rush to a public restroom to spew his guts out in a urinal. Not ideal.
He could spend it. Plenty of lottery winners had shown him that a person can spend exorbitant amounts of cash in a short amount of time. Would his killer notice the purchases? Could they sell what he bought after he died?
That’s when Henry found Tomas. He didn’t need a good lawyer. Anybody would do.
“I’d like to leave it to charity.”
Tomas’s eyes shifted between the notes he scribbled on a notepad and Henry’s sunken face. The young attorney didn’t need to ask to know time was limited.
“That’s very noble of you Mr. Fromm. Which charity did you have in mind?”
Noble? The thought hadn’t occurred to him. How would he look to the world leaving his fortune to those less fortunate?
“The Critter Connection.”
Tomas raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t heard of that one.”
“They find for homeless guinea pigs, from my understanding.” Henry’s family had been acting like animals. The money would go to animals more in need.
Tomas smirked. “Do you have guinea pigs?”
“No.”
The lawyer waited a moment, as if anticipating more explanation. When Henry didn’t elaborate, he typed on the laptop sitting between him and Henry. “Sounds good. And how much do you want to leave to them?”
“All of it.”
The young lawyer frowned. “Everything? All your money?”
Henry pressed his lips together and stared Tomas in the eye. “Yes, all my money is going to charity.”
“But…” Tomas clasped his hands together and then unhooked the fingers to let them rest on the keyboard. “Your family?”
Henry waved his hand in the air. “They get nothing. Make sure of that.”
In Tomas’s office now, giddy with anticipation, Henry gave up on the decanter, and cupped the air, pretending to clink whiskey stones against a crystal tumbler before bringing the imaginary glass to his lips. He needed one more sip to enjoy the scene unfolding. In the end, it didn’t matter who poisoned him, they all deserved to suffer.
“I nominate and appoint Tomas Avilar, of Huntington Beach, Orange County, California as executor of my estate.”
Natalia gasped. Carl frowned.
“He appointed you?” Paloma pointed an accusing finger at the man only a couple years older than her, but much more grown up. “He can’t do that, can he, Mom?” She craned to face his wife.
Tomas’s shoulders bunched up to his ears like a turtle retreating in his shell. “He insisted.” When no one replied, he continued the reading. “I devise and bequeath, both real and personal and wherever situated, as follows: The Critter Connection, currently at Durham, Connecticut, with all of my worth and property.”
“Connecticut?!” Natalia gripped the back of the chair with white knuckles.
“Did you just say ‘all of his worth?’” Chloe couldn’t close her mouth.
“And property,” Carl needlessly added.
What the hell is The Critter Connection?” Paloma swung her head around to look up at his ex. Her eyes bulged out of her head. Did this mean she’d have to actually get a job?
Henry chuckled and took another sip of his imaginary drink. He could almost convince himself of the warm tingling feeling real bourbon gave him. Do they have liquor where he was going?
Tomas attempted to explain Henry’s wishes; he didn’t know the real reasons behind his donation, though. It didn’t matter either way. No one listened to the poor man.
“How could he do this to us?” Paloma whined.
“I don’t know, baby.” Natalia patted her shoulder. Her head began to swivel. Henry knew she was searching for a bar cart.
“That money could do a lot of good for the charity.” Carl raised a hand, as if he offered the positive spin to his family, but then lowered it when he was only met with glares.
“Vindictive. Selfish. He always was!” Chloe threw his hands in the air. “He just had to insult you one last time.” She gestured to her husband who stood with slumped shoulders and stared at the ground.
Henry sat back in the reading chair with his arms crossed. He grinned at the scene, wordlessly announcing to the cosmos his readiness to move on, his work done.
If he had to make a guess, he believed his brother killed him. The weak, sniveled man pushed to it by his harpy of a wife. She’d probably sucked him off real good and then proposed they’d kill his brother for the money they always believed he deserved. A small man and an evil soccer mom led to Henry’s demise.
“All that effort.” Natalia held her forehead. “Should’ve just let the bastard refuse his pills.”
“Call the lawyers, Mom.” Paloma’s voice screeched with panic.
“She’s right,” Chloe added. “He wasn’t in his right mind at the end. This will can’t hold.”
They whined and bickered, music to his ears. They could weave any story they wanted. They did it while he was alive, and now their words fall on dead ears. Henry laid his head on the back of the chair and closed his eyes. His heaven. He’d probably go to Hell, so he enjoyed all of this while he could. How he wished to watch them pick up the pieces of their lives.
The thought made him sit up. He scrambled to tell the cosmos.
“Wait. I take it back. I’m not ready.” He looked to the ceiling. “I want to stay. I want to see what happens next.”
He felt a pull, though. Time was up. His life on Earth done. Henry gripped the arms of the chair, but to no avail. His vision blurred, his family disappeared. The armchair slipped from existence under his hands. He shook his head back and forth.
Henry had exacted his revenge. He felt the cosmos speaking to him, not through words, but Henry understood.
You’re done.
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