Published: 6 Jul 2020

The boys were excited to see Officer Brenda, and she asked them to show her their bedroom here at my house. They each took one of her hands and led her to their bedroom on the second floor. Sam came to me and knelt down with his arms around my shoulders as I wept into his shoulder, which had him weeping as well. The chief followed his nose into the kitchen and I vaguely remember hearing him preparing himself a cup of coffee. Five minutes later we three were seated in the kitchen at the table and the chief was filling us in on what was known at this point, some seven hours after the accident that took Josh and Sarah’s lives.

When their car crashed onto the lower highway and was struck by the truck it was thought that Josh had fallen asleep and drove through the guardrail, but the state troopers who investigated the crash found the rotating skid marks from one side of the upper highway to the other, culminating at the severed guardrail. Further investigation revealed fresh tire prints on the dirt maintenance road and a body was found under the brush near the copse of trees on the median. The man was alive, but he had been so drugged up they hadn’t been able to question him as yet, but his ID showed he was a Police Detective from Ames Iowa. When the Ames Police Department was called they could only tell the State Police Investigator that the detective was on vacation in New England, but they would send their own investigators to his residence to search for any clues to his purpose in being in the area. They were not too sure when that could happen, though, as they had just last week discovered the remains of three missing male students in a disused storage room under their sports complex at the University in Ames.

The Chief then went on to say that several drivers on the upper highway reported seeing a car clip Josh and Sarah’s car and that had set off the events that set off the accident. Investigators were trying to interview all those that had come forward already, and were hoping for more to come forward, after news reports of the incident were broadcast and released to the media. Forensics examiners were going to be going over the wreckage of Josh’s car to try and find evidence of what type of car had clipped them and set off the horrific accident. It was so quiet in the house that we could hear the boys crying upstairs and it wrenched my heart, and I guessed Sam’s, too for we both stood at the same time to make our way to our little buddies who were hurting even more that we were right now.

It took some time, but eventually, two days later, I heard from a lawyer who had represented both Josh and Sarah. She explained that after speaking with the boys’ great grandmother in Arizona she had some things to go over with us and she’d like to do so as soon as possible. Our chiefs had conferred and both Sam and I were given compassionate leave to take care of the boys and to make any arrangements we could for the funerals of Josh and Sarah. I wasn’t too surprised when no relative showed up to claim the boys. With the exception of the great grandmother in Arizona there were no close relatives left. Josh had joked many times that I was the closest thing to a relative either he or Sarah had. The lawyer met with Sam and me at her office, where one of her secretaries took the boys into their break room and I’m sure had some fun with the boys and a package of graham crackers and a bottle of milk.

Attorney Rebecca Bennett, she asked us right off to call her Becca, commiserated with us and since she had represented them for a long time she had a lot of the same stunned response to Josh and Sarah’s untimely deaths as we did. She told us why she had to see us so soon after their deaths were known, and that was to inform us that should we be agreeable, Josh and Sarah had named us as the guardians of Jay and Ray, and they had added Sam to the document only two weeks before their deaths. Their will provided for the four of us to live in the house they had owned outright, and that any funds left in their accounts be put at our disposal to facilitate the raising of their sons. A totally separate account had been set up as a trust for the boys for their use when they turned 21 or for their further education after they successfully completed high school. A further account had been set up as an unconditional bequest to us as a couple. She said the entire estate was valued at 14 million, the boys would both receive 3 million when they reached 21, and the separate account as a personal bequest for Sam and me was valued at 3 million also. She told us that left five million to use for raising the boys in their home, which would be deeded over to us when we agreed to raise the boys. The money could be used for all expenses related to their upbringing and the upkeep and expenses of the house and property, like taxes and utilities, even vehicles used to shop for the household or transport of the boys or ourselves.

Sam and I looked at each other, communicating with our eyes and our hearts, and it was a foregone conclusion, we were going to raise our nephews. Neither one of us had any close family left and those boys had become very special to us, plus it was what their parents wanted. The fact that there was a lot of money involved didn’t really enter into our decision, in fact it was a few days after that that we had to call Becca and ask for her advice about us all moving into the house, as the boys were asking about it and their toys, and stuff that was in their rooms, when were we going swimming, when could they see their friends that lived on the street and the cul de sac, were they still going to school with their friends.

She advised us to go slowly, don’t do everything all at once, but maybe take the boys over to the house and their neighborhood and let them play with their friends and for us to get to know the house better and decide what changes we needed to make to make it feel like we lived there too. She said she had sent a cleaning crew over just the other day and all the perishables had been taken out of the fridge and the parent’s bedroom had been stripped and every personal item had been packed and inventoried and stored in the basement level in the house, in storage bins in the closet under the cellar stairs, their clothing had all been sent to a charity and their ashes were now ready for internment in a family mausoleum where Sarah’s family was interred. Did we want her to handle that for us? We told her that would be welcomed, but we wanted a funeral mass said at the MCC church we all attended. She said she would arrange all that for the following Monday, three days from now.

We settled the boys into the car seats in my car and we drove over to the boys’ house and we weren’t even all out of the car and there were three of the neighbors and their kids there to welcome the boys’ home and to give us their condolences. These were neighbors that we had met either here at the house or pool, or at the church so there was some familiarity already, and we explained the current circumstances, minus any of the private details like the financial arrangements. We told them about the funeral mass on Monday and the urns being placed in the family crypt. We explained how we were going to slowly, over the course of the next week, re-introduce the boys to their house and hopefully we’d all be moved in by then. The boys had gone into the fenced in play yard with three of their friends and one of the women, Carla, volunteered to watch them while Sam and I looked over the house, we took her up on her offer and we then unlocked the door and made our way inside.

We had both seen the downstairs dozens of times and we thought our living room furniture would be more us, rather than the fussy print that Sarah had told us was so far reduced in price she couldn’t not buy it, but she had always said she would replace it as soon as the boys were a little older. There were some pictures on the walls we were not fans of and the family pictures we thought we might move to the den. We didn’t want the boys to forget their parents, but we also didn’t want them growing up in some kind of shrine to them either. The den was a more private space, a space for a family to relax and watch TV together or get some work done at the big desk at the end of the room. It was there we would feel more comfortable, we thought, with the bookcases and the built-in cabinets it was a more masculine room, even with all the white woodwork.

We went upstairs and looked into each bedroom. We found the boys’ bedroom right off the bat. It was a boys’ room, with racing car and sports posters on the walls . There were two twin beds and two dressers, each bed had a nightstand and the boys shared a walk-in closet and a bathroom. There were two other bedrooms furnished and they had obviously been used as guest rooms and I myself had once used one of these generic rooms when I had had too many brews to drive home safely. There were two other bathrooms and a big linen closet off the hall, and at the end of the hall was what could be called the bonus room, built over the huge garage. Josh and Sarah had used some serious money to have it made into a master suite.

The bed/sitting room was easily thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. It had dark hardwood floors like the rest of the house and a fireplace that a small overstuffed couch sat in front of with matching wing chairs at either side. There was a pair of beautiful Shaker style armoires on one long wall, one of which had a built-in desk and the other had a big screen TV built in which could be positioned to be viewed from either the sitting area or the bed. There was a video disc player attached and there was quite a selection of porn discs that Josh had once told me about hidden in a secret compartment below the TV shelf.

There were three other doorways on the side wall shared with the house, one was to a big master bath complete with two wash basins on a marble countered vanity and a separate jetted tub and a very big walk-in glass shower. The other two doors were for the two walk-in closets, now empty of shoes and clothing. Each one had built in drawers and shelves with shoe racks underneath. Sam was looking slightly uneasy, but I told him we could use our mattress on the huge plantation four poster bed, put our own linens on the bed and in the bathroom, and put some of our combined artwork around and we could make it ours. He brightened a bit and said he would just have to think of it as a home we were buying, someone would have more than likely have lived there before us, and at least here the people before us had been extremely good people who had wanted us to live here.

We went down to the basement and I showed him the nicely finished laundry room that I thought we could fit our own washer and dryer in with the set that was already there. With two boys and both of us and all the towels and sheets and stuff we’d be using it could cut down on the amount of time we’d have to spend doing wash if we could get twice as much done in the time it would take to do one load. Sam agreed, and we went to the boiler room and Sam looked it over like he was shopping for a used car. He told me it was a very efficient unit and it provided both heat and hot water for the house and that in the bathrooms and the kitchen there were hot water coils to heat the tile floors and the rooms. He called it radiant floor heating and he had spent some time with a friend of his father’s one high school summer helping the man install units like this one.

With that we moved up to the kitchen and Sam looked in the freezer and sure enough there were some Popsicles there and we grabbed some paper napkins and went out to give the boys and their friends some treats. The kids were happy with the treats and wanted to jump in the pool, but it was getting late and as Carla said, it was too close to dinnertime . We told them we’d be back the next day and we’d come earlier, probably around 1 PM so that if anyone wanted to swim then we’d be here to supervise.

I couldn’t believe the fuss on the news and the in the papers about the fucking accident. They were asking anyone who had seen it happening to get in touch with the authorities, and then the fuss about that lucky bastard who I had to abandon before having any fun at all. The news said that he had just gotten off a bus at the bus terminal and had started walking and took a wrong side street and had been approached by someone, he couldn’t remember who, and the next thing he knew he was in a hospital there in Springfield.

The paper said that he showed signs of being drugged and a blood analysis was being conducted. They also reported that the police were on the lookout for a 2002 Toyota Camry, dark blue with possibly front passenger side damages to the fender and the corner of the front bumper. Christ on a stick, now I’d have to go check out the fucking car before I used it again, I certainly couldn’t remember any damage the other night, and on top it all the dead driver was a cop and his passenger was his wife. They had been driving home from the airport. SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, he had been a cop right here in Amherst!!

The next day, Saturday we stocked up on more icy treats before heading out to the house. It was a scorcher and we wanted to make sure we had enough if more kids showed up than had yesterday. We actually arrived just after 1:30PM and just like yesterday the neighborhood kids descended on us. The cul de sac itself had just the three houses, but the street leading to it had about 20. All the other houses were nice, but not as big or as imposing as the one at the middle of the circle at the end of the street. Josh had told me once that the rest of the houses had half acre lots so his was the largest property in the neighborhood, and he nor Sarah had to pay a penny for it. It had been a wedding present from her Mom and Dad, who had been the developers of the whole neighborhood.

There were about 12 kids running over in their swimsuits, ranging from about 5 to 17. Thank god they each had a towel with them. Sam went in the house and put the frozen Popsicles in the kitchen fridge and by the time he came back out I had unlocked the gate to the pool and had the children all place their towels on one of the chairs there. At that point Carla and her husband Jason, came to the pool. We had met Jason some months ago. He was a principal at the local elementary school and Carla was a stay at home mom, at least until her kids were a bit older and then she’d go back to teaching 4^th grade after taking a few refresher courses. I noticed they had on swim suits so I asked if they were alright with the kids in the pool while we got our outer clothes off in the guest house, they told us to go right ahead so Sam and I gathered up the twin’s outer clothing and took it with us to the pool house/ guest house and slipped off our shorts, tees and our sneakers and went right back to do our lifeguard duty with Carla and Jason. Jason reminded us to get over to the boys’ school and show the staff the papers from the family court, officially naming us as the guardians of the twins. He didn’t want there to be any hassle especially as things get kind of crazy at the beginning of the school year and we only had a week before that would happen. I told him that we hadn’t gotten the final paperwork yet, but it was due in the coming week and one or both of us would get them in to his office staff before the following week.

They invited us four to join them for dinner, but we begged off, telling them we had a ton of boxes that we wanted to start packing and we only had a week to do it, now that we knew that school would be starting a week from Monday, and we had the wake tomorrow night and the funeral on Monday. We thanked them for the offer and we told them we’d collect on the rain check another time. We all went in the pool and tried to tire out the half we could toss into the water, the two oldest too big for most to toss around, and after an hour of that we enticed them all out of the pool with the Popsicles and by the time each had two, the twins were dry enough to get in their clothes and Carla and Jason said their goodbyes and herded the rest of the kids toward their homes. We agreed to make sure we saw them at the two-and-a-half-hour wake being held at a local funeral parlor the next evening and they said they’d attend the funeral service the following day.

Carla was very helpful the next day. She had called the next afternoon after we had been to church and volunteered to have us leave the boys with her two who were being babysat during the wake and the funeral by a couple of high school girls who lived down the street and had volunteered to watch all four boys while the adults attended the wake. Carla then stood by us as the wake progressed and both she and her husband Jason introduced us to many of the neighbors who attended. We in turn introduced them to the police force that all showed up and many of the firefighters who showed up out of respect for Josh and his wife, but also to show they were behind Sam and me. The Chief of Police informed us they would form a color guard at the funeral mass as well. He told me that both chiefs had decided that Sam’s and my compassionate leave would be extended until the end of September, to give us all a chance to get settled in the house and to gel as a family unit. He told me that if we needed more time to let the them know.

The funeral mass the next day was really tough to get through, but Sam and I, along with the funeral director and Becca (the lawyer) had a secret. Although there were two urns reverenced on a small table in front of the altar, we knew that the ashes of both Josh and Sarah had been combined into just one of the urns and the other was weighed down with sand in it. Becca had brought the matter up with us on Saturday and explained it was another item mentioned in their wills and it was something she felt should be carried out as part of their last wishes. The funeral director was very understanding when Sam and I met with him during the wake the night before and he told us that this sort of request was really quite common.

The internment of the urns in the family crypt went smoothly and we were soon back to pick up the boys and return to our house to get more boxes to take out to the boys’ house, our new family home. We were putting some of the boxes into the trunk of my car and also prepared to load Sam’s with more when two off duty officers came and volunteered to get whatever we needed moved over to the “new” house for us. They each had big pick-ups and each had another helper with them. With two trips each we all had everything we wanted to move into the big house Josh and Sarah had left us by the evening Monday. We had ordered pizza for our moving crew and one of the guys helping asked if we were selling or renting the townhouse, and if the gym equipment in the big family room was going to be included. We told him that the gym was being moved professionally on Wednesday and would be reset up in the basement of the big house, but we were open to selling or renting, we hadn’t settled on that yet.

He told us that he had a friend who was a Realtor locally and he thought the guy would do a good job for us and he gave us one of his friend’s cards. We called and made an appointment to meet the Realtor later in the week.

The boys were excited about moving back into the house and they actually had opinions about the pictures and paintings we were hanging around the house, and they made their opinions known. If they didn’t like a certain spot for a particular item they would let us know and then we’d ask them where it should go. Often their choice was the one we went with, they really had a good eye for 6-year-olds. When it came to the furniture, they totally approved of putting the old living room set down in the basement where we had created a sort of play room for them down there in the half left over from where we were putting our gym equipment in. We had originally planned on only using half the basement, but Sam had suggested using the other half for the boys, so they’d be near while we were working out, that way we could work out together and the boys would be right there, on the other side of the folding screens we had bought to separate the two spaces. The screens didn’t totally block the two areas apart, but we made sure some of our favorite machines were isolated from the boys so the possibility of them coming to us as we acted out various gym fantasies were lessened a whole lot and when we added the wall mirrors later we’d be able to see them approaching long before they could realize what we were actually doing. If worse came to worst, we could always hire a sitter for the boys and then they could stay upstairs while we had our workouts.

The move all worked out beautifully and by the end of Tuesday we were basically all settled in and the boys were thrilled to be next door to their friends, and Carla had set us up with some great casseroles and almost every neighbor had sent something to eat over to the house and those that hadn’t had sent or brought over brownies or cookies. It seemed the neighbors were all trying to welcome us as neighbors. The boys started school the next Monday, so we threw a back to school cookout for the neighbors on Sunday and since it was a nice warm late August day the pool got a lot of action. There were the couple of high school girls who seemed to appreciate the male form and when Sam and I showed up in what we thought were discrete boxer style swim suits many of the teen boys were also totally appreciative also and the bathroom in the pool house got several visits that afternoon. About 3:30 Sam asked me if I had seen the new arrival, I told him no and he indicated a tall man surrounded by many of the neighbors and as they moved I noticed he was as built as Sam and I were, and his swim trunks looked like they were painted on. Neither of us knew who he was, but we were about to find out.

I just couldn’t score a break. No matter how you looked at it my life was going down the tubes. Saturday afternoon I was walking around the neighborhood and my intention was to check out the fucking car and determine the amount of damage to the front corner as the press and the TV news had indicated there should be. I waited until just before sunset, so I wouldn’t be noticed crawling around in the dark in the backyard of the empty house for sale down the block from my apartment house. It was too early, and some neighbors would still be up and I didn’t really want to be seen, but I needed the daylight to see how bad the damage was. I saw, I saw that the corner of the front bumper was stove in and had cracked and the whole skirting under it had been torn and virtually shredded, either by the contact with the other car or by driving over the curb at the median. It had to be one or the other, because they had pieces to analyze and that must have been where they found it. I would have to come back much later when the neighbors were all asleep and drive it somewhere where I could remove more of the skirting and do something about the crunched fender corner. As I was leaving through the bushes separating the property from the street this really tall built guy in a suit was leading a young couple out of the back door of the house and he was telling them there was a quarter acre of land with the house which was unusually large for this neighborhood and that if all the brush was removed and a nice fence put in it would be safer for their kids and look even bigger. I thought he looked right at me, but he continued to show them around the house as I slipped out of the bushes and into the street behind the house.

We were introduced to Mr. Glenn Ford, a realtor, in fact the same realtor we had called and made an appointment to meet later in the week. He was introduced to us by one of the older teen boys who introduced him to us as his guardian and uncle. Brian Ford was a nice guy and he had shown a great deal of compassion to the twins and we found out why from his uncle. Glenn told us how sorry he had been to hear about Josh and Sarah and he told us that previous business arrangements had kept him from both the wake and the funeral mass, but he had made sure Brian had attended both, as Brian had gone through the same situation just five years earlier, when Glenn’s brother and sister in law were killed in a highway accident and he (Glenn) had become Brian’s sole caretaker and he had moved them both to the street our cul de sac was on.

Brian and a few friends from the neighborhood were taking care of the younger kids both in and out of the pool. We got to talking to the handsome man who seemed to be about to ask a few questions himself, but we told him about the townhouse and asked if he was interested in being our agent and he even offered to move up our appointment for us and we then told him if he and Brian were free, why didn’t they join us for dinner Wednesday night, by then all out gym equipment would have been moved here and the townhouse would then be free of the possessions we wouldn’t be selling with the townhouse. We thought we’d try to sell it mostly furnished.

He thanked us for our offer and said he’d check with Brian, but he said they’d plan on it. He asked how long we’d been together and we told him it had only been 6 months and by the way he was looking at us in our swimsuits I figured we had another thing in common with him, but then he asked us another question, was there a law or town ordinance about parking your car on a neighboring property when there wasn’t anyone to give permission for you to do that. I wondered why he would ask that and he told us that he had been showing a repossessed house in the downtown area yesterday late in the afternoon and he had seen a guy he knew lived in the neighborhood sneaking out of the yard of the house he had contracted with the local bank to sell.

He further told us that as he was showing the couple around the whole yard a little later he had seen a car parked in the back of the old garage of the property and he knew it hadn’t been there the last time he had shown the house. I told him that as the agent for the seller he had the right to call the police department and have the guy arrested for trespassing if he saw him again. I turned at a big splash in the pool and saw Brian tossing little kids, acting like Sam and I had the other day. He had a big smile on his face and dark blue trunks on. Dark blue.

I turned to Glenn and asked if he remembered the color of the car and he told us that at first, he had thought it was black, but he then realized it was dark blue as a shaft of the fading sunlight hit it. I excused myself from Sam and Glenn and made my way through the crowd to call my chief.

I was running away from the house for sale that I had hidden my car behind, when I tripped on the blasted curb and twisted my ankle. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but I was now only about 25 feet from the old house that was converted into apartments, where my crummy apartment was. So, I hobbled my way in and using the bannisters on the stairs made my way up to the third floor where my tiny unit was. I was really buggered now. The fucking car was stuck there until I could find a place to move it again. But first I had to take care of my rapidly swelling ankle. I dumped the two ice cube trays I had into a pot and ran cold water into it and then put the pot on the floor near the only chair in the place and stuck my now bare foot into it. It hurt like a bastard, but I knew I had to endure it to help diminish the swelling. Thank Christ there didn’t appear to be anything broken. I had endured worse pain in my life.

My call to the chief was short and to the point. When he was able to talk to me I bluntly asked him if the car that had hit Josh and Sarah’s had been found yet, and he told me no, that the search was still ongoing. I asked if the investigators were still sure it was an out of state license on it and he told me they were, that various people had reported it definitely was a plate from another state, and I asked if it could have been one from Iowa. He got really serious then and asked why the questions, and I told him that we had the neighbors over and one who was a realtor told us that while showing a property in the Amherst downtown area yesterday he had come across an illegally parked vehicle on the property, behind the garage. I explained that the realtor had told Sam and I that it was a sedan, a dark blue Toyota and he thought it belonged to someone in the neighborhood as he had seen the guy before walking on the street. He had mentioned that it had Iowa plates and that he had thought it might belong to a student who hadn’t gone home for the summer, or who had just gotten off campus housing and hadn’t found a place to park yet. The chief asked for the exact address and I gave him that and then he told me he’d call later if he had more questions.

I went back outside and told Sam and Glenn what I had done, and both said it sounded like the right thing to do. I admitted to them that I wish I could go and investigate myself, but being on leave, and only being a patrolman, not an investigator, I’d be in deep doo-doo if I stuck my nose in without being invited to either by the Chief or the lead investigator if one was to be named in our department for this case.

Two hours later the Chief and two State Troopers drove up to the house. The Chief and the troopers were all in uniform and asked if they could talk to the realtor and me for a few minutes, so Sam said he’d stay with our guests and Glenn and I went into the house with our three uniformed visitors, but not before the kids all got to see them, and the adults too. Sam later told me they were all impressed, especially when they were told why the men were here.

Glenn and I were introduced by the chief and we, in turn, were introduced to the lead investigator and his assistant for the State Police. Glenn was asked to repeat his story for the three men in uniform and then I was asked what I thought about it. I explained that as Josh had been my partner since I started with the local police force, as well as being his and his wife’s friend, I felt that even a seemingly small thing like spotting a car where it shouldn’t have been was justification enough to have it at least looked into. The three men nodded to each other and then the lead investigator told us my instincts were right on, that it was indeed the car they had been looking for, it was the car that had sent my friends plummeting to their deaths.

They went on to tell us that the car was registered by its owner in Iowa and he had been a custodian at the University of Iowa in the sports complex where only days before Josh and Sarah’s deaths the bodies of three missing male students had been found in a disused storage room beneath the sports pavilion on campus. He said two of the bodies were pretty decomposed, but the third showed signs of having been restrained and sexually abused repeatedly, probably since his disappearance four months ago. An officer who had been a junior member of the investigation team had been found drugged in the bushes on the median where parts from the Toyota had been found, and where Josh’s skid marks had started.

The recovering officer was insistent that the janitor was the killer and he had traced him from Iowa to our area and they now had had a department sketch artist sit with him and that sketch matched the photo ID for the janitor and the janitor’s driver’s license photo. What they wanted now was for Glenn to sit with the sketch artist and see if his description matched the other’s.

Glenn was eager to do so and asked when they wanted this to happen, and the assistant investigator for the state police said he’d like to get on it right away. He was staring at Glenn’s bare torso, and I thought I had caught him checking Glenn out several times during our briefing. I offered them the use of the den and the two got up and then I noticed the pad he had carried in was a bit bigger than a notepad. The two went into the den and I offered the other two something to eat or drink while those two were at it.

They accepted a coffee and burger each and by the time they were finished Glenn and Trooper Adams were finished. They both came out looking slightly flushed, but Adams got right to the point, showing us the completed sketch which we all concluded was a match for the pictures the chief investigator pulled out of his uniform jacket.

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