Chapter Last

Every good story must come to an end, and even sad stories, too. I ought not keep grinding away on hearts of stone. Eventually they will find some lawyer loophole in the First Amendment through which to cause us ever more harm.

Hell, they've already done that...

I mean, you saw it. I don't think it's any more debatable than 2+2=4. But that doesn't matter to bureaucrats who are appointed and shielded by carpetbagger county commissioners, always grasping for the next rung anyway.

We followed all the proper procedures to get the Medical Examiner to change the determination on Charlie's death certificate. She should want to do that, since the reasons she used to make that call are faulty (by her own admission).

But she doesn't want to. And when Joyce doesn't want to do something, nobody can make her... Well, the Commission could. But the County says no, and "our" court system automatically defers to them, no matter what.

That's it. That's how stories end.

That's how it ended for Carisa Ashe, left sterilized as part of her Alford plea after being prosecuted for the death of her baby. That's how it ended for David Ferris, thrown in jail for 3 months and subjected to death threats after being prosecuted for the death of his girlfriend's child - before the prosecutor dropped the case.

If you think about it, We actually got off lucky. Most people who tangle with Joyce don't.

Now, with a plague having descended upon humanity, nobody knows what is going to happen (a feeling I got used to years ago). That kind of uncertainty can put a huge strain on most people... Medical Examiners in particular.

This is as good a time as any to walk away from it. Like Web Guy said, I can have peace. Not the same thing as victory, but at least something.

Charlie would obviously agree. Here's to you kid. I wrote a book after you, the truth, and it will remain. Because the Internet is forever, your story will always be told, ostensibly even after I'm dead...

I done tolled it.

pH 3.21.2o

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4,441

The Prodigal Son came up from Phoenix in late January of '11. The worst time of the year. Welcomed home by a sunset snowstorm, the cold air felt good in the lungs, on the sunburnt skin. Slept with the window open that first night, eager to forget the long road behind.

It occurs to me now that I have spent more time without Charlie than I got to spend with him. He died in late July of '15, four and a half years after my frozen homecoming. Now it's March of '20. Do the math.

In the entirety of his lifetime, my nephew was on Earth for 4,441 days. Less time than Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent in the White House. Less time than it took us to lose the Vietnam War.

By late '27, Charlie Wolf's deathspan will have eclipsed his lifespan, and the human stain known as Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner Joyce deJong will still not have admitted that she was wrong when she fraudulently mislabeled his death a suicide.

And I'll still be here, telling you the truth about that... Why? Because I swore to the soul of a lost little boy that I would. Because that's what Uncles do.

Because The Prodigal Son didn't come up from Phoenix for nothing. Here at home, under the milk-white sky, the sunburn has long since faded. My determination will not.

pH 3.1o.2o

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