The second patrolman who arrived smiled and said, "Thank you for that, sir. I do believe you're right about needing a restraining order. Your attorney has already asked for our report with the intent of filing one.'
By the following day, when Roger dropped into the small town's busier cafe, word of the altercation, if you could call it that, was almost the sole topic of conversation. After he sat and sipped his coffee, one of his old friends asked, "I heard you were the owner of Roland's place now. Is that right?"
"Yes and no. According to his attorney, he set the place to transfer to me upon his death, but we haven't recorded the deed yet because we don't have the paperwork completed."
"Ok, so you own the place. Are you going to develop it like your old man planned, farm it, or what?"
"I haven't given it much thought yet. I won't build houses on it, but I can't say more. Roland and I always talked about turning it into a resort again, redoing the hotel, and making some spots to pitch tents and set campers. There's still some trout in the springs and pond, so we could have charged for fishing if we did. We wanted to rent canoes for floaters on the stream too. I don't know. I might still do that. I'll have to see after we get things transferred."
"Well, most of us are glad to hear that. We don't want a bunch of damn houses on postage stamp lots over there. If you wanted to rent the farmland, I'd like first dibs on it, Rog."
Roland's services were scheduled for the upcoming Saturday and quickly became a full-blown military affair. It isn't every day you bury someone that had been awarded the Medal of Honor, especially in such a small town. No one locally, including Roger, even knew Roland had the Medal until after he died. The chapel was filled with very senior officers and enlisted men. The military put on an impressive affair, then most of the guests adjourned to the local VFW for a loud wake and outrageous war stories and stories of Roland's career.
It took three weeks for everything Roland owned to be transferred to Roger. During that time, he only had to enforce the restraining order twice before his father got the message and, at least overtly, gave up his quest to wrest the land from Roger. Rumor had it he was out a substantial amount of money from his failed bribes and initial outlay for the survey and preliminary development work.
After all the immediate problems were solved, Roger looked over his new property and decided what he wanted to do with it. To his surprise, funding would not be a significant problem. In addition to inheriting the property, both personal, including vehicles and machinery, and real, he came into, for him, a substantial bank account and a hoard of gold. That was explained in a letter that the attorney handed Roger from Roland at their final meeting.
The letter said, in part, "I have no relatives to leave my belongings to when I pass. I certainly don't want the damn government to have everything I've worked for in my life, and I damn sure don't want your asshole father to get his hands on my land like he's been trying to do for years. You and I became close while you were living here with me, and I believe you'll ensure your father doesn't get his mitts on the land, so it's all yours, boy. I appreciated you staying in contact with me after you left. It almost felt like you were my son, and I liked that.
"I hope you decide to build the fishing camp as we discussed. If you do, you'll have funding to do that. I don't know how much will be left in my bank accountsβthey contain shy of $100,000 todayβbut you'll find something to make life much easier if you remember our talks when you asked questions about the renovations you wanted to make to the hotel dining room."
Roger sat and thought about that last statement for a moment before he continued reading. He had several ideas about the old hotel, and Roland nixed many of them. He wondered what any of them had to do with making life easier. He finished reading the last paragraphs of the letter, and only one other comment was memorable. Roland said, "A new family moved to town after you left. I'm sure I told you about them. I told a couple of the kids they were welcome to fish and run around the place whenever they wanted. I'd appreciate it if you continued letting them do so. You might even find you enjoy having them around. Sam is a real spitfire and is so much like you that it isn't funny. You'll do well together when you meet. So long, my young friend."
Roger re-read Roland's letter several times during the week after he received it. He sat in the hotel's front yard and lobby, stared at the ivy-covered limestone building for hours, and thought about the strange reference to his remodel suggestion. Roland had lived in two ground-floor rooms just down the hallway from the lobby, dining room, and bar, and Roger moved into them when he took possession. The old sign over the bar entrance showed 'Liars Den', and the dining room was the 'Chez Pisces'. His gaze kept keying in on the names when he sat in the lobby, thinking about his problem.
There had been a fireplace between the bar and dining room when the hotel was built, but at a later date, the opening in the dining room was filled in. Roger wanted to reopen the fireplace in the dining room so a fire could be seen from both rooms again, but Roland wouldn't even discuss it. For some reason, that day, something clicked, and Roger began scrutinizing the fireplace closure.
The rocks on one side of the fireplace, just under the mantle on the dining room side, were discolored and slightly worn. Roger used a flashlight to see better and saw a very fine crack around a small stone. He began pushing and prying on it until he heard a muted click, and the face of the closed-off firebox jiggled. A very thin crack showed on the side of the fireplace where the facade had pulled away.
Roger stood in front of the fireplace, observing it closely before he noticed another smudge on the rocks on the side next to the wall where he'd found the latch. He grabbed the loose facade at the smudge, pulled, and the entire front opened, revealing a safe hidden behind it. That explained why Roland didn't want to open the fireplace to the dining room again, but it presented a problem. It was a key lock safe, but where was the key? The only hint was a short note taped to the safe door, "R. The solution to the problem is behind you, but I bet you go cuckoo before you discover it."
Roger went to the rooms he'd moved into and grabbed the key ring his attorney gave him. Naturally, none of those keys opened the safe. He returned the keys to his room and looked out the window while thinking about the problem. Occasionally he let his eyes wander around the room while he mulled the situation over. He was getting hungry and decided to go to the cafe for lunch when Roland's damn cuckoo clock began chirping, or whatever the hell it did. He had thought about unplugging the damn thing several times to stop the noise but hadn't done so. The racket was about to drive him cuckoo! The old clock was the only electric cuckoo clock he'd ever seen, and he still wondered if it had been converted or was made that way.
Roger was almost to the door when what he thought stopped him cold. Could it be that simple? He rushed to the clock and began laughing. Instead of just a freeking bird chirping, there was a good likeness of his body holding the cuckoo by the neck while it chirped. Roland knew Roger hated the cuckoo and modified his clock! Wait, the message said the problem's solution was behind him, and he'd go cuckoo before discovering it. He reached into the little opening and found a key stuck to the statue's back. When he took the key to the safe, it worked!
Roger pulled the safe door open and cursed. NOW he was faced with an electronic lock on a slightly smaller safe. Now, what could that combination be? A note taped to it said, "What day do you hear happy birthday from your friends?"
First, Roger thought, your birthday, of course, but what did that have to do with a combination...He grinned and input his birthday, but no dice. 061494 didn't work. Could he mean his birthday? No, the note said what date did Roger hear those words. Wait! The dude was an old military man. He tried 14061994 and heard the safe motor hum before the door opened.
Sweet Jesus! The damn safe was stuffed with banded 100-dollar bills and 100 Euro bills. Roger pulled another letter from the safe and read, "Hello, again, Roger. Or, at least, I hope it's Roger who found my little retirement account. Son, this isn't dirty money, or maybe it is. I don't know. I guess I'm a criminal, but what the hell? I found a bag with this cash inside it that had been blown out of a sedan that tried to run one of our roadblocks in Iraq. Like a good soldier, I turned it in after the battle. Well, maybe not all of it. This is what fit in my pack. I turned the rest in.
"I didn't have many needs not met by my retirement pension, but this stash helped meet them. I was afraid to go hog wild in my spending, but you could probably get by with it. You could say you inherited it from me and do ok, I think. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy and hoist one to me occasionally."
Roger pulled some bills out of a bundle, stuffed them into his pocket, and closed and locked the safe again. He was sure now he wouldn't work in town, at least for a while. The resort was getting a facelift! He had no idea how much money was in the safe and knew he needed to count it and figure out some way to insert it into his spending. He decided to check with the attorney about the possible consequences of depositing the funds. From the looks of the stash, there was about $500,000 just waiting on him to spend. In a rough guess, he could live on the interest alone from half that and use the remainder to upgrade the property. After the upgrades, he hoped his income would increase drastically from the revenue generated by the resort.