Chapter 40 The Summary
FORTY
The Summary
Mabel
As you could probably tell, small town or no, things were always hopping in Misted Pines.
Since there’s a lot, allow me to sum it up.
The specialist surgeon from Seattle prevailed, and Lars Enstrom did not lose his leg.
However, there was quite a bit of muscle and tendon that couldn’t be saved.
He walked again, though the journey to that in a prison hospital I was sure wasn’t all that fun.
But forevermore, he’d ambulate with a significantly pronounced limp.
This did not bother me.
He shot our dog.
He got what was coming.
He, Heath Burress and their boys got slapped with drug trafficking, criminal trespass, attempted murder, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, forgery, criminal conspiracy, fraud, lumber poaching and animal cruelty charges.
All of them tried to cop pleas to reduce their sentences.
The evidence was so strong, neither prosecutor dealing with their cases were having it.
Thus, they had trials in both federal and local courts.
Hutch nor I went to even a day of either of them, except the ones where we were called as witnesses (and we only did our thing, then we left).
But two different juries found them guilty of everything, except kidnapping.
As such, they were going to spend a very long time first in federal prison, then they’d be transferred to do their time in a state prison.
After learning the results, Hutch nor I kept in touch with any of that.
Because really…
Once we knew they got what they deserved, they weren’t worth the headspace.
So we didn’t give it to them.
Taylor Martin and Samantha Schrier were also charged with drug trafficking, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, forgery, criminal conspiracy and fraud.
They had a better result with their plea bargaining, seeing as both women chucked loyalty to their men to save their own asses (and give their children at least one parent who wasn’t in prison for decades), and sat as witnesses for the prosecution.
They pled guilty to conspiracy to the drug trafficking and unlawful imprisonment charges.
They both did time.
But not nearly as much of it.
Nor, going along with that wicked game, as much as they deserved.
The True Believers of the mission of The Lion and The Lamb didn’t fare so well either.
It seemed they all came to grips with the elaborate scam that had been perpetrated on them, and for whatever their reasons—contrition, hope their women would soften to them and return, or the fact it was the godly thing to do—they all pled guilty to unlawful imprisonment and lumber poaching.
Regardless that they took responsibility for their stupidity and saved the court time and resources, on the day of their sentencing, the judge wasn’t feeling all that generous.
Or perhaps it was the length of time this went on and the result of the depth of these men’s stupidity on the women who loved and trusted them.
He threw out what was agreed during plea bargaining and sentenced them all to the maximum of five years and a ten-thousand-dollar fine each.
So, for the same amount of time they kept those women there (give or take), they, too, were going to enjoy their years without liberty (as the judge explained).
We learned about what the judge said from Harry. Hutch nor I went to that either.
For the same reasons.
Lars Enstrom and Heath Burress never explained why they came after Hutch that night.
Though, I noted it that way because Cade Bohannan had a few things to say about it, and part of those things was that it wasn’t me they were after.
It was Hutch.
That “thrill” my man had been talking about was that Cade theorized Enstrom, along with Burress, was some kind of adrenaline junkie, except one who walked on the dark side.
Once Hutch got on their radar, Cade figured who he was, how he was, and what he was started digging under their skin. It was bound to come to a head-to-head battle because the challenge of taking on a Navy SEAL was something they simply couldn’t walk away from.
It wasn’t anger, hurt, revenge or anything like that.
They led their three minions into that mess, fully intending to harm Hutch in some way to best him, just for shits and grins.
That was it.
For shits and grins.
Obviously, both men had mental illnesses.
But that wasn’t for me to worry about.
Perhaps the therapists in prison could sort their crap.
Mr. Flannery’s fraudulent will was overturned, the one he’d commissioned under his own steam was reinstated, and Lacey Diever and her family took rightful possession of their land.
She was reportedly very happy about this, but the win was bittersweet, considering Enstrom, Buress and their men leveled a cabin that had been on that patch for over a hundred years, and they sold or discarded everything in it, including pictures, diaries and family heirlooms.
Nevertheless, the Flannery family had their land back. The feds had seized then cleared it of everything portable, namely the houses, equipment, ATVs and the shed, and they auctioned those off.
Lacey and her family razed the church and the fence, but kept the pole and cattle barns, pigsty and chicken coop because Lacey’s son and his wife were going to build on that land, and they wanted to raise animals there.
They also did a lot of replanting so they could grow back the trees that Enstrom’s crew had cleared.
So that, too, had a happy ending.
And there’d be decent neighbors for whoever rented Mrs. Matthews’s cabin next.
One thing did happen when the trials were on at the Fret County courthouse…
Harry got ahold of me.
He shared Paisley would be there to testify, and while she was, she wanted to meet me.
Since I didn’t want to ask her up to Stony Bluff (for obvious reasons), I asked Abigail and Brett if we could use her living room, and they agreed.
Paisley came in with her mom and dad. No old-fashioned nightdress, no Washington State zealots’ version of a Handmaid’s Tale gown. She was wearing a cute skirt, boots, sweater and makeup.
The first thing she did was hug me.
The next thing she did was whisper, “Thank you,” in my ear.
The last thing she did was start weeping softly.
I held on and joined her.
I really didn’t do much of anything.
But care.
Though I told her Hutch, Harry and Rus were the ones to thank, and she did that right then with Hutch being there with me. She’d already done her thing with Harry and Rus and the team.
We sat down and she told us she kept in touch with most of the other women.
There were ups and downs. Some were handling it better than others. Even if those who were handling it relatively well were getting on with things, there were dark times.
Just like life.
It would take a couple of years before we got the invitation to her wedding.
It was happening in Sonoma.
Doc, Ledger, Stormy and Jaeger looked after our dogs.
Because Hutch and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
And we didn’t.
Word from Orlando was, well…hilarious.
All my friends who had become acquaintance/friends with Bryce drifted away from him due to his constant bent to be so messy.
But God love my gal, Olivia.
She kept her ear to the ground.
Though, it wasn’t Olivia who called to tell me Tara was pregnant with her new hubby’s baby. It was Tara.
She sounded so happy on the phone, bright and free.
It was amazing.
Bryce, on the other hand, never ponged back to me, thankfully.
Instead, he married a woman who, six months in, went on a cruise with her girls, fucked the steel drum player in the ship’s band, came home, filed for divorce and moved to Curacao.
Olivia said he was crushed.
That wasn’t what I was feeling.
Abigail and I had our girls’ day, during which we took Jill’s history tour.
I’d read the whole book, returned it to the library, and got my library card. But Jill’s tour—which cost twenty bucks, lasted two hours, and you walked a lot further than a mile—was fascinating.
She knew her stuff, and she was correct.
There was a ton of fascinating history in Misted Pines.
After the tour, Jill went with Abigail and I to Aromacobana for coffee and treats, and we all talked about how great an idea the museum would be. We then started planning how we could get the town council to agree.
We were going to start with petitions while Jill and Abigail drew up a plan to present to the council.
Money was money, and although Misted Pines thrived, it wasn’t like it was populated by billionaires (not that any of them paid much tax anyway), so it was a long shot the council could find enough tax dollars to build a museum.
But we were going to try.
And we had hope.
Getting Hutch’s permission, later, I invited Jill up to see the Tate kitchen.
She was suitably enthralled.
Not long later, she came home to find that leather chair she wanted in my shop outside her door with a big bow on it and a thank-you note from me (though, Hutch delivered it for me).
She called, crying, asking how I knew she’d always wanted a reading chair just like that, but she could never afford it.
I told her shopkeepers had their ways.
Sure, refinishing that chair had taken a lot of time and energy.
But in the end, it found its way to where it was supposed to be.
The shop kept going strong under Abigail’s management, and we both took my cross-marketing thing with Kimmy and ran with it.
I found a big old wood-framed, school green chalkboard, and Hutch and Brett mounted it on the wall just inside the door to my shop.
Julie was really artistic, so once a week, she used colored chalk to prettily draw on the board a schedule of the happenings in Misted Pines: Jill’s tour times, Bob Wagoner’s trail rides, the farmer’s market, what was showing at the cinema, events and classes at the Art Center, deals the spa was having at the Pinetop, high school games, plays and concerts, performances in Frick Park, parades, all that kind of thing.
I noted more than once folks who came in took a picture of it.