A Life Rescued

The Penultimate

Monday afternoon, Judy Burke drove the kids into Baxley so they could drop off Mr. Boone's papers with the County Clerk, and hopefully find out what sort of service he desired. (Jesse and Leslie had been distracted all day by thoughts of doing something special for their friend without a family, to the point where both had to be reminded they were still in school by more than one teacher.) The County Clerk's office was in an old bluestone building in the center of town, next to the courthouse. Bluestone was indigenous to the east coast and highly sought after in the Shenandoah and Roanoke Valleys; many of Virginia's municipal buildings, colleges, and universities were built with the attractive blue-gray rock. Walking into the structure felt like entering a mausoleum with its odors of stone, paper, and decay, all infused with a damp chill you would expect to find in a cavern.

The building showed little activity when Judy, her daughter, and Jesse entered at about three-thirty. They explained to the receptionist their business, and asked about checking for their friend's burial wishes. The woman behind the desk queried them about relatives, and Jesse assured her that Mr. Boone had said he had none. Writing a note on a Post-It, the receptionist affixed it to the envelope and took it into another room, returning a few seconds later with an invitation for them to have a seat while the papers were given a cursory examination by her boss. About fifteen minutes later, a plump, middle-aged man, looking much the part of a county clerk with his spectacles, vested suit and a gold watch on a long chain, approached them and asked that they come into his office.

After verifying who each of them were, and that they had signed the papers the day before, the clerk, Mr. Theodore Jolly – a name certain to have brought the rotund man much aggravation over the years – sat back and appeared to eye Jesse and Leslie suspiciously. Before speaking again, he cleared his throat, blew his nose, and scratched some unseen part of his anatomy that made his guests wary about shaking his hand when they left.

"Mrs. Burke, we have a little problem here, actually, you have a little problem." Judy, Leslie and Jesse sat up straighter and wondered what could be wrong. "Let me see. Jesse? What did Mr. Boone say you were signing?"

"Um, he said it was a gift deed, or something like that, to the county. His land, I mean, he was leaving it to the county."

Mr. Jolly's eyebrows rose at the answer. Judy, always wary of lawyers, and having been present at enough legal proceedings over the years to know there was some sort of problem, took out her cell phone to call her husband. As she did, the clerk eyed her suspiciously and asked Leslie the same question. She gave an identical answer.

"Very well," the Clerk said tiredly. "This first document you signed was the will." He held up a few stapled pages. "This one is called a Deed of Gift. It's a legal document, like the will, usually witnessed and signed by adults in the presence of a Notary Public; that's just a fancy name we give to people who verify the signers of legal documents are who they say they are. Obviously that was not done here and..."

"Mr. Boone," Jesse interrupted, "said that he was too sick to go into town to do it proper. He died a little while later so I guess he was right. And he also said that there might be a problem with Les and me witnessing it, because of our age."

"Yes, he was right...technically. In fact, technically two of these documents are in fault and I'll have to decide how to handle them."

By this time Judy was off the phone and back into the conversation. The clerk, clearly not interested in Judy's apparent call for advice, continued.

"The third document is not a binding legal contract, or anything like that. I'll take care of that for you, if you wish. But I believe what you asked about was Mr. Boone's desire for the disposition of his remains. Apparently he addressed the directions only to you, Jesse, and had it in an addressed envelope. It was not sealed so I took the liberty of reviewing it. Here you are."