Chapter 3 The Wyldewood's Family Meeting

Once the family meeting got going I really didn't have to wait too long to find out which way the wind was blowing. Hard and to the south ... a very cold wind from Valhalla. Nearly everyone was in favor of the more radical, but permanent solution to what now appeared to be an extremely significant problem ... and growing worse by the moment. Carrie had indeed been starting to run her mouth off to various state and federal governmental agencies, but no one so far was apparently taking an especially keen interest in what she had to say.

Trying to play every side to her own advantage, Ned's misguided ex was holding out on details to hopefully cash in as a federal paid informant, but no one was biting, yet.

Just as well then, and thank heaven for small favors.

It had been decided already that there would be no family buyout - her 'golden parachute', just wasn't going to happen. Sure, we were going to continue to string her along for awhile, but she was already starting to become rather impatient. We'd paid off a few other disgruntled ex's in the past, mostly with successful end results, but Carrie was just too unstable to the family to seriously consider this option. She'd just take the money, move out of the area and then try to sell her story for another quick payday. Bribery is a very useful tool, but only if the bribed party is honorable enough to stay bribed.

Performing a 'Clarke' solution to the problem of dealing with her was now much too likely, in my opinion (voiced loudly but distinctly) to validate her ravings and invite a much closer and unfriendly examination of our family than we would obviously prefer. I suggested a more subtle approach.

Slowly, the tide of opinion began to take my side. Once I felt I had a bit of support (and enough rope to figuratively hang myself), I laid forth my proposed battle plan of action, which was very much in the August Wilde philosophy of crisis management. "Think twice, but act once" as he would say. A very Wise man, August. His other favorite quote was "If you're shooting, then you're not thinking".

Carrie was clearly more than just a bit of a nutcase, and she was already dangerously self-medicating at the moment, according to most accounts. These were character flaws that could be easily exploited for maximum result with very little, if any chance for a blowback upon us. Shit happens though, but I kept those darker thoughts to myself.

My proposed plan of action was fourfold:

•First, get more hard facts via a phone tap on her landline to hear exactly what criminal activities she was reporting the Wilde clan to be involved with. Odds were, 95% of it would be pure crap. Another bug inside their hilltop cabin would also be good as well to hear what if any additional plans they were making amongst themselves in private. Carrie's current fellow houseguests appeared to also be similar sorts of kooks and fellow travelers, but were very much still an unknown quantity and we had to know which way they would jump if and when we shouted "Boo".

•Second, exploit her current chemical dependencies, with additional chemical additives as necessary, to make her just a bit more unstable and possibly prone to even more reckless behavior. Ideally we should try to ratchet up her already existing paranoia a few more notches, if possible. Dress up a few unemployed family or kin as 'government watchers' that are spying on her and don't even be subtle about it. Make them think every three letter agency in the book suddenly now has an interest in their activities. Odds are that she wouldn't like this at all and become jumpier than a spring hare or an Iraq desert camel spider. The worse worst case scenario would be an unfortunate but genuine self-inflicted accident that could be readily proven by the local Medical Examiner and one of the Deputy County Sheriffs as such. Our local ME and most of the senior Deputies were senior Wilde family members ... and present upstairs at this meeting. The Sheriff himself was an ignorant tool only vaguely related to us and hailing from a minor allied family, but that's a different rant.

•Thirdly, prime her information pipeline by covertly providing her with a steady stream of patently false (and easily provable as such) misinformation. After being burned a few times, even the most interested governmental agency will tire of her cries of "Wolf" and consign her ravings to the loony bin paperwork cabinet, assuming that anyone would even then continue to take her crank phone calls. Also, if possible, find another local lady with a voice similar to Carrie's to make numerous other additional 'raving and nonsensical' phone calls at all hours of the day and night. Jack up the noise-to-signal ratio so badly that even if Carrie did start to spout profane truths, her facts would be lost in a sea of utter looney twaddle.

Lastly, sit back, poke them regularly with a long pointed stick until they pop, then point them into a suitable direction and wait for the train to run off of the tracks. Ideally, get them good and paranoid, brains teeming with dangerous drugs, and send them off driving out of the County ready to be caught by some other law enforcement agency with a trunk of weapons and enough WildeWeed to ensure a lengthy stay in a state criminal facility for the extremely naughty. Worse case scenario would be that they'd run off the road and hit a tree in the process, saving everyone involved a whole lot of expense and paperwork. We could live with that ... and even replant another tree there afterwards if necessary.

There was surprisingly little debate to these suggestions and I was quite surprised. Usually when you get twenty people in one room you can't get even half of them to agree on pizza ingredients, let alone a way to rid themselves of a very troublesome in-law. Guys would be asking me for advice for dealing with their mother-in-law's next. The older gray haired heads were especially nodding in agreement and our discussions pretty much immediately migrated into more tactical, rather than strategic terms for the remainder of the evening. The remaining problems seemed minor, and were quickly resolved to nearly everyone's complete satisfaction.

Everyone liked the basic plan and the chances of a catastrophic blowback seemed extremely minimal. Murphy's Law was sure to screw something up, but the odds of this turning into an complete and utter ratfuck appeared to be really minimal. It looked to be a good low risk-high reward sort of operation.

We passed out assignments:

•Rollie, who worked with the local baby Bell phone company, assured us that he could have both sets of wiretaps set up and operational by tomorrow morning. The voice recordings would all be digitally recorded and stored on a high security local server and would be immediately available for listening via an internet connection on a clean laptop that he would bring to me tomorrow. My plan, so I'd be the point guy for the operation (pending Elder approval). Not what I had in mind, but it wasn't unexpected. That's what I get for opening my mouth in the first place.

•Jacob, our main family facilitator locally at the Sheriff's office, would start obtaining more information on Carrie's semi-permanent houseguests right away and I would inform them of any pertinent information that was disclosed from the voice recordings. Two of the Deputy Sheriffs present remained silent on this but nodded their heads in approval.

•Wally would have a talk with his oldest son Walt, who was most likely Carrie's local drug procurement source, being the single largest area pot grower and most enterprising local distributer of narcotics in the area. He thought it highly likely that Walt would have something 'suitable' for additional chemical additives but if not they would consult with Randall, our local pharmacist (not present tonight but a well-trusted senior family member), for something guaranteed to turn her brain into quivering tapioca.

•Likewise, adding a strong amphetamine such as meth into Carrie's next jug of local home brew would certainly make her more emotionally unstable. There is nothing meaner than a drunk on uppers, ask any outlaw biker. Her jugs were most likely coming from old Gid Tucker (not present) but I was told that Joe would quickly get a message up into the mountains for him.

•Concerning our need to channel our flow of misinformation into Carrie's eager ears, it was discovered that a local widow named Marsha was already coming in to provide housekeeping for Carrie three days a week. I didn't know her, but several other folks did and vouched for her. She was 'good family' who could be trusted well enough to help provide any 'misinformation' and gossip for Carrie's ears that we desired to feed her. Arabelle Wilder, who ran the town laundromat and dry cleaners, saw Marsha daily (she lived upstairs in a small set

•Finally, it was proposed that Councilman Arthur Wilde had a niece Emile Emily that could probably mimic Carrie's voice (especially in a stoned or drunken slur) well enough in a pinch. Quite likely, from what I'd heard Emile Emily could easily get herself a good job working the professional comedy circuit, as she could perform virtually perfect (and hysterically funny) impersonations of actresses in movies and on TV. With a few drinks in her, she supposedly got even wilder. Sounds like just the sort of gal Ned should have married in the first place. Her mom said that she'd get her to start practicing a bit and inventing a few preposterous routines for her ranting act, until we were ready to start our campaign of harassing phonecallsphone calls.

With every minor issue now resolved, there was a unanimous voice vote to accept this plan for action, pending the final approval by the Elders, which could be expected possibly as early as tomorrow morning. With that we broke up the meeting for the night and left Joe's via separate doors and alone or in groups of two, as much as possible. For the moment I was everyone's best friend and probably wouldn't have needed to buy a pint for myself all night, but after giving Joe a goodnight nod, I made an early departure after just a single round of refreshment. I wanted to get some serious (and sober) thinking time in before things started to get 'interesting'.

That's Murphy's Paradox for you, "The more you plan, the more will go wrong. The less you plan, the more likely that you will fail." You learn very first thing in the Army that no plan of battle ever survives contact with the enemy ... and that according to O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law, "Murphy was an optimist". As the old poem goes:

I never had a slice of bread,

Particularly large and wide,

That did not fall upon the floor,

And always on the buttered side.

I spent the night carefully considering everything that could possible go wrong, and while I agreed with Murphy's Law of Combat #39 - "There is no such thing as a perfect plan", I tried to make this one as idiot-proof as possible. Easy to do, as long as I imagined my brother Ned being involved.

Mercifully, we'd all agreed to keep Ned totally out of the loop on this one. Just as well, the trouble with making things fool-proof is that fools are so darned ingenious.

Still I had that gut feeling that something weird was going to zap us from way out of left field on this operations, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. Oh well ... they teach you a lot about management by crisis in the armed services, and just like Murphy's Law of Combat #51 says - "Anything you do can get you shot-- including doing nothing", so just before sunrise I gave up worrying and submitted to getting a few hours of sleep.

I needn't have had any concerns over the Elders approving my plan. I certainly hadn't heard anything remotely resembling any other practical alternative solutions, so it was no surprise at all to find a note on the front door window of the hardware store the next morning saying:

"The "Boss" approves the expense to replace the faulty sink, start right away and go ahead and order any parts you think you might need, just have it done by March Madness - Joe".

This was Joe's way of adding that expenses were open for this one, spend whatever I needed to ensure a satisfactory outcome. Pretty much a 'sky's the limit' sort of project. Rumor was the Elders really didn't approve many of these, but on the other hand I couldn't think of much in the way of expenses that we were likely to entail. This was going to be mostly a pretty low-tech operation. The March Madness bit was the codename for the entire operation. Joe had probably not watched an NCAA basketball game in his entire life and certainly would never, ever allowed it to be broadcast in his saloon. -

Still, good to know someone had my back - although if I pulled a Ned and screwed this pooch I'd be unlikely to be welcomed to enjoy any future pints at Joe's. That would be the least of my worries. That's ok, I had a plan - and that's at least half of the battle right there. Now everything depended upon one crazy substance abusing woman and if we could push her buttons in just the right way to make her jump in exactly the direction we wanted her to go.

No worries. I was a Wilde ... this was going to be a piece of cake!