Free May Cooler Heads Prevail by T. L. Dunnegan

five days off. She didn’t want it at first, but when I sweetened the pot bygiving her time off with pay, she finally agreed. So you and Freedom can bring Aaron back to the shop first thing in the morning. Now, what do you think we need to do next? Work on my memory or something like that?”
    I took a deep breath. “Aunt Connie, I don’t know why you’re having what we now call episodes. I’m pretty sure you can’t remember what happened because you were so traumatized. With time, the memory of that night will come back. But this afternoon, when you were up in the bedroom, you mentioned a blue note. Aunt Nissa had an idea that you might be referring to the note Aaron sent to you the day of the wedding, because it was written on blue paper. Do you still have it? I truly don’t mean to cause you any more pain, but we think it might be important.”
    Aunt Connie gave a sad sigh. “Yes, I kept the note. I know what it says by heart, but if you think it might be important, I’ll go get it and let you read it for yourself.”
    She went into her bedroom and came out a few minutes later with a yellowed envelope and handed it to me. I carefully took the note out of the envelope, opened the folded blue paper, and read what it said:
    I read the note once more, then carefully refolded it and put it back into its yellowed envelope. I handed it back to her and asked, “I know it’s none of my business really, but what are your thoughts about why he left town so suddenly?”
    Staring at the envelope, she said, “Certainly I’ve thought about it. I don’t think he met someone else, although that’s what most folks thought.” She stopped talking and I saw the tears forming in her eyes. How painful that must have been for her, not only to lose the love of her life, but also to bear the rumors that must have been going around at the time.
    She reached over to the side table where she had put her stash of tissues, grabbed one, and dabbed her eyes. “There was nothing I could ever think of that made any sense. Rudd always said Aaron seemed to be just fine at the bachelor party the night before.”
    This news about the bachelor party gave me the germ of an idea. If he wasn’t a reluctant bridegroom that night, then something happened after the party and before the wedding. That narrowed the time frame we were looking at considerably.
    I found myself asking Aunt Connie if I could use her phone to call Uncle Rudd. I only asked to be polite. I was already dialing the number by the time I finished asking.
    After a mumbled and sleepy hello from Uncle Rudd, I got right to the point and told him I had the blue note and what it said. By the time I finished, he was wide awake.
    Pressing on to the next point, I asked him, “Now, whatI need to know is, did anything funny, or out of place, or somehow different, happen at Aaron’s bachelor party?”
    “Not that I remember. It wasn’t whatcha call a wild party or anything like that. We rented one of those little cabins on the lake and did a little fishing off the bank. That evening we sat around, ate fish, and talked. That’s all.”
    “My, that was tame. You’re sure no one snuck in a few beers to wash down that fish?”
    “Dixie-gal, not a one of us had anything stronger than soda pop that night!” he boomed into the phone. “And you know good and well I don’t hold with no drinkin’. None of us Tanners do.”
    It’s true, the Tanner clan doesn’t drink. We run from mildly eccentric to outright insane, but none of us drink. Go figure.
    “Okay, but what about women? Any good-looking young girls jumping out of cakes?”
    “Of course not!” he boomed again. “I told you, it wasn’t one of those wild bachelor parties. Even if we had wanted to do that, which we didn’t, Nissa and Connie had already put the kibosh on any girlie stuff. Me, Otis, and Dennis Reager were already married, Latham Sheffield was engaged. The rest might have had steady girlfriends, I don’t remember.