What Olivia Saw

What Olivia Saw

My wife, my kids and I decided to take a drive one winter weekend. I had rented a small cabin at Wind Creek State Park in Alexander City, Alabama. It had snowed the previous night, but all in all the roads weren’t bad at all. I knew once we reached the mountain area it might get a little difficult to drive. No problem for my all four wheel drive Cherokee jeep.

I was in a hurry to get there because there were only so many bottles of Dr. Peppers on the wall that I could digest from singing. My wife who is a stern believer in controlling parental guidance as far as what the children could or could not hear. She actually changed the lyrics to that traditional riding in the car song. She even changed the lyrics to Old MacDonald had a condo E-I-E-I-O, because she didn’t like the way in which the farm animals were being portrayed.

The sorrowful part about this car ride is that the kids wanted no part of the sing along family thing. All they wanted to do is text their friends 63% of the time using their expensive cell phones. That was until they lost their signals. You would have thought that Armageddon was about to take place the way their faces looked doomed.

The cheerful always pleasant wife didn’t make matters any better when she went back in time. Telling the kids, she could remember growing up without a cell phone and that she had to walk to school that was over 3 miles away in her bare feet, because her parents couldn’t afford to buy her shoes or socks. All of it of course a lie. Her parents were  one of the riches country folks in our neighborhood and most times her mother’s Mexican maid drove her to that private school she attended.

If it wasn’t for her rebellious love to smoke pot. We might not have ever met. I was selling weed at the time on the corner of Main and Chestnut street. It was kismet. Love after we shared the first joint.  

I can recall that day as if it was yesterday, although we have been married for 11 years now. I still get that tingling feeling in my heart every time I gaze into her lovely blue eyes.

We even attended the same college and became Alabama Crimson Tides for life. She became a substitute English Teacher upon graduating with honors, while I struggle to maintain a 2.0 in Communications. I won’t say that we had a shot gun wedding, but there was no way I would still be on this earth if I hadn’t married her when she started showing our pregnancy.

In her spare time in which seemed she had a lot of it. She spent much of it writing crime novels and short stories that gave us more income than the two of us earned at our chosen careers. One of her books made over $100,000. It sold over 600,000 copies worldwide. I had a mechanic shop on the side and unbeknown to her I still sold weed. Our lives were complete I thought. Even though she had a brief affair with the cable guy. When you love someone as I loved Olivia you could easily forgive them for one transgression. I was either at work or at my garage all the time and pretty much neglected her. I won’t ever do that again.  

When we were about a half mile from the cabin. Olivia demanded that I pull over. I did as she requested, while she grabbed her Nikon Camera. I asked honey why did you ask me to stop? She said that she seen someone’s hand sticking out of the melting snowbank we just passed. I say that it’s probably just a black bear trying to hibernate. You would have thought I told the funniest insightful joke in the world as my two kids couldn’t stop laughing. Olivia hops out of the car before I could protest. I say kids I think Agatha Christie is about to get her first real crime scene. The three of us reluctantly get out of the jeep. My wife is shouting call 911. I calmly say we’ve lost signals on this mountain honey. She starts frantically digging in that melting snow. Suddenly an arm is revealed. Then we all started digging to remove all the snow from the nude woman’s body. I check her pulse and can feel a slight beat.

We pick the almost frozen body up and place her gently in the back seat. I turn the heater on full blast in the jeep. Olivia tells the kids to get back in the car before they tamper with the crime scene and for me to quickly drive the nude body to the ranger station. I did as she demanded as she started taking pictures of what she believed was a crime scene.

When the children and I got to the ranger station. I asked the ranger to call the paramedics, because I got a frozen body in the back seat of my car that is barely  holding on to life. They arrived in a matter of minutes as they administered her with oxygen and warm blankets. I heard a helicopter not far off as she was going to be air lifted to the close’s hospital.

The State Troopers arrived shortly after. I got into there cruiser and led them to the spot in which Olivia discovered the half frozen body. When they got out of the car. Olivia shouted don’t come any further. I don’t want you cops tampering with this crime scene. We should wait until the crime lab boys get here. She was in her crime story element. I never seen her more determined in all my life ever since I’ve known and fell madly in love with her.

The head police officer told her to get in the police car. She did as she was told cussing all the while how they messed up. The other officer told his partner to remove her far from the crime scene in which she insisted it was. He drove us back to the Jeep. The kids were sitting in the front.

Olivia commanded that we head back home so that she could develop the crime scene photos she had taken. I say honey shouldn’t we wait here so that the police can get our statement. Forget about them two morons. Get me back home immediately. I say they’ll see us driving by. She said that those two incompetent fools won’t recognize us from a can of alphabet soup, and she was right as one of the State Troopers waved us right by them.

When we got home she jump out of the car while it was still moving towards the garage entrance. I knew she would be in her dark room for a few hours, so I took the kids to Ihop.

When we got back I seen several police cars parked on our driveway. My son said dad could he go over to grandmas 12 bedroom mansion. I backed up and dropped the two kids off at their grandmothers’ home. They must have been thinking that it wasn’t a place that there mother would want them to be.

Once I got back I seen a lady cop escorting a handcuffed Olivia to the back seat of that police cruiser I rode in at the Camp site and the same two State Troopers. I asked them what is she being arrested for. They say for obstruction of justice. I didn’t know what that meant so I called our always on call attorney. The police wouldn’t give me anymore information as our neighbors were as excited to see my lovely wife being arrested. She had wrote a book about all the criminal elements that she believed our neighbor were involved in. Some of what she wrote was correct. They tried suing her for slander and defamation of character, but in the end they were all guilty of what she wrote. I should never have brought her that high powered Telescope for our 5^th anniversary.

The minute I got to the local police station Olivia was talking to the detectives uncuffed. She was explaining to them that she had taken photos of the tire tracks from the crime scene. They were from a 1971 Range Rover. The one detective asked her how did she know what kind of vehicle the tire track came from? She replied because she had watched that Movie My Cousin Vinnie over 100 times. That detective didn’t have a clue to what she was talking about.

Then she shouted arrest me or release me I know the law. They let her leave immediately. Getting into the Jeep she said, those detectives are all a bunch of clueless dupes.

Take me to the hospital so I can interview the older lady we rescued from that snowbank. I told her that I would do no such thing and drove her to her mothers’ home to pick up the kids.

In our bedroom that night she thanked me for not allowing the children to see her being handcuffed and arrested. I told her that I couldn’t take credit for that, because it was our son J. T. who’s idea was not to return home.

She kissed me passionately as we tenderly made love and eventually fell to sleep I thought.

In the morning Olivia was no where to be seen or heard from. I knew she probably went to that hospital. I looked into the garage and her Infinity car was gone.

She returned about 2 hours later excited as if she hit the lottery. She came over to me and laid her head on my shoulder and whispered why do you put up with me. I placed my cupped right hand under her soft chin and told her because your my girl and always will be.

Olivia headed straight towards her office. Three days later she had written her new book titled: The Hand that Revealed itself on the Side of the Road. The subtitled read: What Olivia Saw Beneath a Melting Snowbank.

She was giving a Certificate award from the city. Behind closed door she revealed to me that she didn’t see why she wasn’t given the key to the city or a ticker tape parade for her heroism.

The woman who had survived told the police that it was in fact her jealous husband who left her for dead and that he did own a 1971 Range Rover. He was sentenced to 20 years to life for attempted murder of a spouse.