Eddy's Current (24 page)

The Montana State University baseball team was on their way back to Montana from Phoenix. They had won a five–game series against Arizona State University, four games to one. Montana State was in first place in their division. They were also ranked number one in the national ranking. All these achievements were unprecedented for a new college baseball team, especially a team from a cold weather state. The team’s sterling play and unique story brought them to the attention of the national media. They were exposed for being college baseball’s surprise powerhouse team.

James Winston was also exposed to the national media. His exposure made his whereabouts known to people who didn’t appreciate his father. Ashton realized that the Arizona State baseball team was receiving a great deal of exposure, so he got the bright idea to change James Winston’s name. The problem was that he changed James’ name after a series of widely distributed sports articles were written about Montana State’s baseball team and their star player, James Winston.

James had been the hero of the series against Arizona State. He had performed as he usually did—outstanding defense, no errors, nine for nineteen batting average, including two home runs. He also had four walks, four stolen bases, and on and on. His was a sterling performance.

James’ personality and leadership shined as well. His teammates deserved all the credit, he said after the series, and he was “fortunate to be able to play with such a high level of talent around him.”

And now he was dead.

Winston was alone in his new home. He heard the knock, walked calmly to the door to answer it, paused at the door for what seemed like a long time, but was really only ten seconds or so, fearful of what might be on the other side. No one was there. On the welcome mat was a piece of paper with a picture of a burning SUV stapled to the corner. The note — scribbled erratically in large printed letters — read simply, “Unfortunate Accident.” Winston recognized the SUV as belonging to coach Orlanzo, but didn’t immediately realize all that had happened.

Just then Winston’s USFIA–issue cell phone rang. It was River. “Winston, Winston, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. They got James. They got James. Ashton had no protection for him because he was away. Only a handful of people knew who he was. He died in the crash, Winston. He died. I’m so, so sorry. Ashton protected you and your daughters. That was easy. You all were contained in and around your home, but James was off and Ashton believed that no one knew. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Winston fell to the floor, his body folding awkwardly as gravity pulled him down without resistance. He dropped his phone, breaking it into pieces. He staggered to the bathroom, slammed his head on the side of the door frame on his way in, and vomited again and again in and around the toilet. His son, his only son, was gone, and Winston blamed himself. Things were closing in on him now. How could he tell his daughters? What about them? Were they next?

River committed Winston to an asylum. Winston needed shock treatment for his deep depression, and he had suffered a nervous breakdown. River allowed for the possibility that Winston might ramble on about things he shouldn’t talk about. He had to take that chance. Any rambling about Style & Shores would sound so bizarre that attendants at the asylum would write it off as a sign of Winston’s troubled mind. River and Eddy took Winston’s two daughters into their home to care for them until Winston improved.

Winston was distressed, even beyond the point of being able to mourn James’ death. He would not schedule a memorial service for James for another six months.

26 FEBRUARY 2024

Montana State Highway Patrol trooper, Sargent Mark Briggs, did not like the vast majority of the people he met throughout his lifetime. He was convinced that most of them did not like him either, and he could not have cared less. Briggs expected only that the people he encountered in life have sufficient good character and backbone to fight off life’s challenges with courage and stamina, and without ever giving up or even whining during the fight.

The standard against which Briggs measured the character and backbone of others was set by his baby sister. She set the bar high decades ago. Briggs considered it an offense to her memory to accept people if they couldn’t measure up. He feared that he would either hurt his baby sister’s feelings or be subjected to God’s wrath, or both, if he ever offended her memory, so he decided that he would play it safe and allow no one to measure up to her.

Briggs began this day as he began all his days—in a bad mood, once again highly agitated at having to deal with overly–educated stupid people, and more than slightly peeved at himself that God always seemed to be angry with him for one reason or another. Briggs was convinced that God punished him regularly for his sins by bringing into his life at least one weirdo or stupid person each day to irritate the living hell out of him. He could tell early on that today was to be no different.

Briggs’ consternation today was caused by a new guy in the office, a consultant, he said, from a California consulting firm, who was there at the request of Montana’s governor to improve things at the Montana State Highway Patrol. Briggs placed all consultants into a category he called, “Stupid, And Not Likely To Realize It.” Consultants had no hope for gaining the redemption necessary to get out of their category. The only people who irritated him more were the people he placed in the category he named, “Stupid People Who Act Even Dumber When They Get Into Trouble.” There also seemed to be a great number of those people in the world for Briggs to put up with.

Today’s consultant was both weird and stupid which provided double proof for Briggs that God was not going to let up anytime soon. The consultant held a two–hour meeting in the morning with a group of troopers, lecturing them on the importance of proper dress when representing the state of Montana while at work as a trooper.

Today’s lesson included two bonus sessions as well. The first was on the only acceptable way to tie a tie, which should be worn while on duty, the consultant said, even though it was optional to do so. The second bonus session covered proper dress for troopers while off duty. Proper dress for off–duty troopers called for dress shoes and a full suit and tie. Jeans, cowboy hats, flannel shirts and jean jackets are out, Briggs heard the genius say.

The previous Friday’s lecture was on sensitivity. The session the day before that covered the importance of using politically–correct wording when writing reports on vehicle crashes involving animal transport trucks. Offensive words used by troopers in their reports on crashes involving animal transport trucks are easily overlooked unless the troopers are completely sensitive to the rights of animals, the consultant said. In preparation for his presentation, he had spent many hours consulting with animal rights advocates, he reported to the troopers, so he was well aware of how to word vehicle accident reports in such a way as to avoid hurting the feelings of the affected animals or their human advocates.

Briggs got himself into trouble toward the end of that rack session when he burst from the pain of listening to the idiot, and finally blurted out, “What in the hell difference does it make what you say to an animal who’s involved in a vehicle crash if he’s on his way to the slaughterhouse! Or, are we not supposed to tell him that either?”

The other troopers laughed a prolonged group laugh, but Briggs didn’t laugh. The consultant didn’t laugh either. He was too busy trying to figure out what should be told to an animal who has been traumatized in an accident on his way to the slaughterhouse. He made meticulous notes that he would bring to the attention of the animal psychiatrist he consulted with back in California.

Tomorrow’s session would provide more torture for Briggs by requiring attendance at a lecture by the consultant on manners and etiquette. Briggs could hardly wait to sit through the additional torment for several hours, hoping to appease God, and then be relieved of His wrath for several months until Montana’s governor brought in another genius to lecture Briggs and the others.

God decided that Briggs had received sufficient punishment for his sins at the hands of the consultant, though, or so Briggs allowed himself to believe, because God arranged for Briggs to be the lead investigator for James Winston’s SUV crash. Briggs would spend the next few days on the investigation instead of listening to the genius.

Briggs was grateful for what he believed was God’s mercy until he saw the initial results of the crash investigation. Then he realized that God was not through punishing him this week. The investigation work itself was not the problem. The problem was that, in order to conduct the investigation, Briggs would be required to engage with more stupid people. Worse yet, he had to work side by side each day with several of them.

Briggs questioned the first investigator, a recent college graduate—a class of people Briggs automatically placed into a category he called, “Stupid, And Won’t Realize It For At Least Twenty Years.”

“Why is the hot spot under the left front fender? How is that ever a hot spot? I can understand if the left front tire blew out and caused them to slam into the overpass’ concrete support beam, which then caused the SUV to explode into flames. That would make sense,” Briggs said to the young investigator.

“But it makes no sense that your test results show a hot spot in that location. I want you to call in the FBI to test for the presence of a hot spot on the left front fender, above the left tire. I want them to test for explosives. I’m sure I’m right, but I want them to confirm it. Tell them that we’re not calling them out because this is a suspected crime under their authority to investigate. Just tell them that we need their technical help.”

FBI agents were placed into a category Briggs named, “Not Likely To Realize Their Problem Because No One Would Dare Tell Them,” but he left wiggle room for them out of respect for their attempt at law enforcement work. If a particular FBI agent proved himself worthy to Briggs, he would be moved into another, less restrictive compartment, usually one with a title that indicated that there was hope for him.

The FBI agent met Briggs at the Montana State Highway Patrol wreckage center to inspect the fender. “Wow. This fender does seem odd. It was adversely affected by something far more powerful than a blown tire,… and there are traces of… well, I need to check further into this,” the agent said, suddenly G–speaking in place of his initial attempt at regular talk. “I’ll return tomorrow with several experts in these areas of expertise. They’ll conduct exhaustive testing to determine the likely chain of events that transpired, that may or may not have contributed to the likely or unlikely cause of the central event that occurred—if, indeed, it occurred.”

“Please don’t waste my time. I need for you to return as soon as possible, early tomorrow morning. You should be able to give me something solid early tomorrow,” Briggs said.

“Not sure if I can or not. There’s something here. Probably. Maybe. I’m just not skilled enough in these specific areas of discipline to say for sure what, if anything, it is, if it is even anything at all. This will take the input and analysis of experts,” the agent replied with a dutiful G–answer. “We’ll meet you here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

Briggs was not able to contain himself any longer. He had already forgotten what he learned in sensitivity training, and he missed the lecture on manners and etiquette. He was tired, he had long ago lost his tolerance for G–speak, and he was exasperated because God was obviously using this agent to pummel him with stupidity and time–wasting nonsense.

“Do your eyes work?” Briggs exclaimed to the agent. “What do you plan to do? Bring on an avalanche of consultants? Just look at the damn fender. Please, just look at it. It’s blown up and out. There had to have been an explosion. You don’t need to bring in an entire contingent of experts or Ph.D’s to figure that out.”

The agent was not impressed. He proceeded to his car without responding to Briggs’ comments. “Probably had to go back to his luxury hotel room and write a eighteen–page report about me,” Briggs said to himself. Then Briggs realized that if the agent was in good standing with God, any report done by him about Briggs would likely get Briggs into deeper trouble with God than he was in already.

Briggs lapsed into a quick dream. It was a premonitory dream, he feared. A full calvary, thousands of dumb people, riding on dumb horses, charged at him while throwing deadly spears at him. The spears represented thousands of stupid questions, comments, and reasons to waste his time, all tormenting him as a direct result of his rude comments to the FBI agent. He suddenly snapped out of his trance. He hoped his premonition was wrong. Maybe the agent had done something recently to anger God, and God was, in fact, using Briggs to punish the agent. That would be a nice change, Briggs thought.

Just as Briggs was about to drive away, he remembered that his digital camera was in his car. He turned and pulled back into his parking space, got out, and took pictures of the SUV. He was thorough. He took pictures of every conceivable detail he could imagine, especially the left front fender, from all angles. He put the camera back in his car and drove off.

Briggs returned at ten o’clock the next morning to meet the FBI agent, but the agent was not there. Neither was the SUV. “What do you mean, ‘the SUV’s not here’?” Briggs said to the attendant, after the attendant informed Briggs that it was gone.

“I already told you, Sargent, the FBI called at five this morning and said that I was to release the SUV to them, so I did. Their tow truck showed up at six o’clock and took it away.”

Briggs called the FBI to talk to the agent he met the day before, to find out what was going on. “I need to speak with agent Benjamin Cottrell. He met me here at the Montana State Highway Patrol wreckage center to inspect a crashed SUV, to give me the FBI’s take on the cause of the crash. Can I speak to him, please?”

“Sir, that will not be possible. Agent Cottrell has been reassigned, and it is FBI policy that he is not allowed to speak with anyone regarding cases he was assigned to prior to his reassignment. I can put you through to a supervisor, agent Montel. Agent Montel has taken over all of agent Cottrell’s former cases until they can be given to other agents.”