Mysterious Men & Thanksgiving Turkey

“Pass the potatoes please!” My sister called.

I reached across the table to grab the warm bowl filled with mashed potatoes. It was Thanksgiving evening. My family was gathered around the table enjoying our Thanksgiving feast when we heard a soft knock at the door. My father looked to my mother quizzically as if to silently ask if she had invited anyone. She shook her head slightly in response. We all sat there quietly as she got up from the table to answer the door. Our curiosity was piqued. Who could it possibly be? We heard two voices as the door opened.

The first we recognized as the welcoming voice of our mother, the second, was an unfamiliar sound that was deeper, like that of an older gentleman. Suddenly, the voices stopped, and our mother came back to the table. She looked slightly concerned but was trying her best to hide it behind a smile. Her eyes found mine.“Jared, there is someone at the door to see you.” My mother said.

My younger brother elbowed me playfully in my side and whispered in a teasing sing-song voice, “someone’s in trouble" I rolled my eyes and followed my mother to the door. As I got closer, I began to see the man's figure at the door. He looked well-built, between five feet, ten inches tall, and six-foot. He was wearing a dark suit, which meant he was either rich or here on business. His voice made me believe his age was in his late forties, that, or he was a smoker. My mother got to the door first and opened it so I could see the man completely. The first thing I noticed was the gun sitting inside the holster hanging from his belt. I looked at my mother, but she was looking at the man waiting for him to speak.

“Are you Jared Butler?” The stranger asked me.

“Yes,” I responded dubiously.

“Hello there Jared. My name is Detective Aaron Fielding from NCPD. I need you to come down to the station with me to answer a few questions about a case I am working on.” Det. Fielding said.

“Am I a suspect or something?” I asked.

“As far as we are concerned, you are not. We just need you to answer some questions. Your mother or father will join you due to you being under the age of eighteen.” Det. Fielding responded, without hesitation.

I looked back at my family sitting around the dining room table. All of their expressions were blank as they just stared at the officer standing in the doorway. My younger brother’s face had gone pale white. I laughed slightly to myself despite feeling intimidated and scared. He probably thinks he jinxed me with his teasing, I thought. I turned back to the detective.

“Ok, I’ll come down to the station, but I’m bringing some food with me,” I stated. I turned away from the door and walked towards the table. The detective just stood in the doorway, surprised by my demand. My family’s eyes never left me as I came towards them. I reached across the table to grab two rolls and bent to be level with my younger brother’s ear. “This isn’t your fault. Don’t worry”, I whispered into his ear. As I got up to walk back towards the door, my brother grabbed my wrist and looked at me. I just smiled and winked as I turned away to leave. Don’t show that you’re scared, or else your siblings will think something is wrong, I thought to myself repeatedly. My mother grabbed her coat and joined the officer and me as we got into his car and drove to the police station.

______________

After arriving at the station, I was placed in an eight-by-ten room without any windows and a single two-way mirror that covered nearly an entire wall. The furniture consisted of a single metal table and three metal chairs positioned in the center of the room. I sat in the chair facing the mirror, alongside my mother. We had been sitting there for about ten minutes before the detective came in and sat down across from us.

“Will my son be needing a lawyer?” My mother asked.

“Your rights allow you to have a lawyer present if that is what you want, but we are not under the assumption that your son is a suspect. We simply want to ask him a few questions.” Det. Fielding replied.

“Mom, it’ll be fine,” I said reassuringly.

At least, I think it will be. I thought.

“Great. Let’s get started.” Said Det. Fielding. He seemed unusually excited.

“Jared Butler, have you ever heard of a man by the name of Mr. Frederick Wilson?”

“No sir,” I answered.

“So, am I right to assume that you had no knowledge of Mr. Wilson’s passing seven months ago?” Det. Fielding asked.

“What kind of questions are these?” My mother exclaimed. “Do you think my son had something to do with the death of a man he’s never met?”

“We are not looking into whether or not your son had any part in the passing of Mr. Wilson.” The detective reassured. “Mr. Wilson had been in a coma for the past five years and died due to health-related issues.”

“So, what is the purpose of these questions?” My mother challenged.

The detective looked slightly annoyed as he explained.

“During the reading of Mr. Wilson’s will, he requested that a select few inherit a portion of his fortune. To be precise, he left $20,000 for those he had written down in his notebook.” He placed a small black notebook on the table. “This is that notebook.”

I looked at the notebook. It didn’t look like anything special. The binding and pages looked as if they had been sewn together. There was an elastic band that held the book closed. The front had hand-written gold letters that read, immortales quinque. I recognized the language as Latin, but I couldn’t translate it.

“What does this have to do with me?” I finally asked.

Det. Fielding looked at me for a second or two in silence and then spoke, “you are one of the individuals that were written in the notebook, making you one of the inheritors of $20,000.”

Neither my mother nor I spoke for some time.

“How- how do you know? Maybe it’s someone else.” My mother quietly said.

Detective Fielding simply responded by opening the book and stopping on a page that had my name written in black bold letters, Jared William Butler. Underneath my name was my birthdate and birthplace, address, and a photo that must’ve been taken within the last year. I stared at the book, dumbfounded.

My thoughts started flooding my mind. ‘How is this possible? I don’t even know who this man is! And yet, somehow, he has all of this information about me and left me part of his fortune.’

“This is crazy!” My mother shouted. “How could this man know all of this about my son?”

Detective Fielding said, “It is possible for someone to gather all of this information from the internet, but our main concern is how your son could possibly be involved due to the timeline of the events.”

My mother and I just sat there waiting for him to explain.

He sighed. “This book was written nearly twenty years ago, and if I am not mistaken, that means Jared was not even born when Mr. Wilson compiled all of this information.”