Second Cousin, Once Removed

By K Toppell

Henry Atkinson was a patent attorney. Divorced many years ago, he has settled into a bachelor's life. He had time to make a Fam ily Tree. He even found a cousin he never knew he had.
Carolyn Trellis was an editorial assistant referred to Henry by a dead man. Who was she really. When Henry looked over his shoulder, he saw her. Why was she there?
Shelley Garçon was Henry's cousin, a man with a strong sense of right and wrong. He brought that moral sense to work with him. Shelley was a serial killer, but only of people he judged to be rif-raf.
Shelley was looking for them. That wasn't a good thing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K Toppell
• Release date: Nov 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998726793

K Toppell

Dr. Toppell was graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1963 with a degree in History and Political Science and from Emory University School of Medicine in 1968. He then enjoyed 48 years of practice in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine in Houston, Tx. with some time out for lectures in American History. He now lives in Plano, Tx. where he reads, writes and enjoys life with his wife of fifty-one years.

Book preview

Chapter One – Henry

Putting together a family tree is a daunting project. If you’re the oldest child or grandchild, you usually know the most people just because you’re the oldest child. If any parents, uncles or aunts are still alive, they can help immeasurably. Sometimes however, they can’t even remember their own children and that is a problem. That’s why occasionally you have to reach out to your cousins, and beyond. You know, the mishpocha. (The greater family, including your parents’ cousins or when you’re really stretching to add that missing relative on the left side of the chart, the cousins by marriages that you hadn’t know about). That’s how I heard about Shelley, a second cousin, once removed. I got to know him. He can be a son-of-a-bitch.

Shelley Garçon kills people. He is also Ira Thomas’s nephew. It wasn’t until I started compiling a family tree that I even knew he existed. I want you to know this about him because he is still out there.

After I used up my own family memories I went to various online resources – Ancestry.com, My Heritage.com and the Mormon Church, which maintains the world’s largest genealogy archive. I was searching for more information about my dad’s cousin Ira, the one from Belladonna, New York. He had one brother, Mike, and one sister, Rebecca. I was checking out their spouses and family members when Shelley’s name popped up. Apparently, Ira had a nephew, Shelley, Rebecca’s son. I was able to dig up Shelley’s parents, nieces and nephews, but I couldn’t find out anything else about him. No spouse or children, no address, no military data, no birth or death dates: nothing. And at that time, I never knew anything about Shelley in the first place.

I double-checked on all three sites but, the results were the same. There was this name associated with Ira’s family, Shelley, about whom no other information could be found.

Then after several more hours of hunting, I finally found, in an old Belladonna Bulletin, a birth announcement, Ralph and Rebecca Garçon are proud to announce the birth of their son, Shelley Garçon, November 13, 1941. Not Sheldon, but Shelley, a name almost always female. I never could get how they spelled their last name. Now they named their son Shelley.

I knew Ira Thomas though. I met the others from the New York side of the family when I was a kid. He was the closest to my age. I had even spent some time with him, most recently at a funeral.

I called him to find out something about Shelley. We chatted for a while, the catching up one does in lieu of conversation. I told him of my project, the Atkinson-Thomas family tree. He was politely interested until I asked about his nephew Shelley. Ira hemmed and hawed a bit, but in essence said he knew almost nothing about his ephemeral nephew.

You know, Shelley's my sister Rebecca's son, and she was 10 years older than me. Rebecca’s funeral was when I had last spoken with Ira.

Was Shelley there? I thought I knew everyone there from our side.

No. He doesn’t show up very often. Ralph told me he had flown in and out the night before. Ira was clearly uncomfortable talking about Shelley.

I asked him where this wayward nephew lived. There was only silence on the other end of the line. Ira. Are you still there? It was so quiet I thought the connection had gone dead.

After several more seconds, he said, Don't go looking for Shelley. He's unmarried, so there is no one to add. Just leave him alone.

What do you mean 'just leave him alone.' All I wanted to do was put him in the tree. What? Is he gay? So, what. Remember Elliott, Tilda's son?... No, that was on the other side of the family. Anyway, who cares? I didn't put sexual orientation in the family tree. At least it wasn't covered in genealogy class and I didn't think it was anybody's business.

Look Henry. He isn’t gay. Just leave him alone. He hung up.

Ira was odd. He was from Dad's mother's side. Actually, Dad’s mother’s side by marriage. So, I didn’t really need to follow that line in the tree, but now it bugged me.

Why was Shelley a secret? How could he fly in and out of town on the same night? Was it a long connection, or was it his own plane? What did he do? Where did he live? Where the hell do I start to look?

I started with online search sites. All I found was that article in the Belladonna newspaper. There were many other citations for people with similar names, but none for Shelley Garçon. I went back to my genealogy sources and only found the one mention of him that I found before.

Rebecca Thomas was always a non-conformist. She just didn’t like Texas, big city or rural. She went to college in New York, at one of the upstate campuses. That’s where she met and fell in love with Ralph Garçon. My father always liked the Thomas family and tried to keep up the relationship. It was a chance to visit upstate New York, Niagara Falls, Cooperstown and vineyards, years before Texas had any. By now the bonds were tenuous. Hell, Shelley was the grand-nephew of my great-uncle’s wife. What did I need to follow up on him? Most of the family in my generation of Atkinsons had no interest in the Thomas family anyway.

But why was Ira so evasive about his nephew? Was he being protective? If so, why? Now I was interested. It must be a damn personality disorder.

I went to social media—no luck. Then I tried the phone number sites. I usually use them to find deadbeats, scofflaws and other shirkers I need to find in my legal work. I felt foolish that I hadn’t tried them before, but this was just a family tree, right?

Anyway, there he was on Whitepages.com, along with addresses, last known phone numbers, aliases and criminal record. I didn’t need to look any further.

Alias Sheldon Garson, addresses in New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. He had multiple phone numbers and a long criminal record. Christ, no wonder Ira didn’t want to talk about him.

That’s when I said enough. I didn’t need to follow Shelley. I didn’t know anything else about Rebecca’s family. I said, no mas to myself and went on to research the rest of the family.

Over the next few weeks I added to the clan on Ancestry. Uncle Phil, my mother’s brother, was my favorite uncle, but he posed a bit of a problem as he had been married four times. He had children with three of the women. I didn't know how to get all the children aligned with the correct mothers on the tree.

I was very careful to add photos when I could. I had pictures of all my nieces and nephews alongside of my kids. No one was helping me out, but God forbid if I left someone's pictures out. When I was looking for pictures of more distant, younger relatives I used Facebook. It's a site that old farts don't usually use, but I found it to be a great source for photos.

That's also how I got myself tangled up with Shelley. No one can find out if you are looking for them on Facebook. That’s not true with Whitepages.com. I thought I was through with him after I received the report from them. I stopped looking for him after that. But, somehow, he saw that I had looked for him on Whitepages.com.

How does someone find a search? In all the searches in all the world, how did he find this one?

But then I didn’t know Shelley. All I know is that I got an e-mail telling me that I had a message on Facebook from a close friend. Ha. Relatives I’ve got, not close friends. So, I clicked on the link.

Hello Henry. It’s me Shelley. You’ve been looking for me. Why?

That’s all he said. Eleven words that scared me. He found me through Facebook. I knew he could find my email. He could find me.

I’m Henry Atkinson, a semi-retired lawyer. Most of my time now is spent with old black and white movies or baseball. I did good work, but I didn’t always tell people that I was an attorney. Lawyer jokes are one step below Polack and Aggie jokes. I don’t care for Polack and Aggie jokes.

Furthermore, I didn’t like to apologize for doing a good job. I didn’t sue anyone. I’m a senior partner with Foxglove Associates, LLP, a research firm. In other words, we didn’t make anything, but with excellent clerical workers who could find anything on the internet, and and legal resources for our clients. We look up things like old patents, copyrights, and deeds. In other words, we help companies check on ownership issues in their businesses.

That was really the impetus for my trying to put together a family tree. If I can find things for others, why not for my family. After all, I wasn't married and my children had stayed with my Ex-Wife, so one branch of the family could be ending with me. I ought to be able to contribute in some way. Thus, the family tree.

I was getting in touch with some relatives I know, some I barely knew and some I found through research into family lives. Nothing I found made me react like this one line in a message on my office email.

Hello Henry. It’s me, Shelley. You’ve been looking for me. Why?

Maybe it was the knowledge that he was an ex-con with a foot-long rap sheet. Maybe it was Ira’s advice to leave him alone. Maybe it was because he knew my office email. Maybe it wasn’t advice, but a warning. A frisson of fear ran through me, a shiver previously unknown to me.

I didn’t know if I should answer. He would know I saw his post. I felt like hiding, but knew I couldn’t. I tried to be upbeat as I wrote, Hi Shelley. We’ve never met, but your name came up as I was creating a family tree. Your Uncle Ira confirmed who you were. Thanks for getting in touch, but I have what I need now.

Did that sound as sophomoric as I thought?

Ira’s dead.

Son of a bitch. I read that over and over again. Ira’s dead. I had just talked to him a few days ago. Now that scared me. Yes, I was now sincerely anxious. Did Shelley kill him? This wasn’t some bizarre coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidences. Coincidences are just situations that we can’t figure out or connect. I knew I had to figure this one out fast.

Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. Is everyone else OK? He sounded so good when we talked. Was it an accident? I knew I was rambling, but I was trying to think of what to do next, not how to respond.

It wasn’t an accident, Henry. He wrote with a menacing flatness to each line. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. I had no desire to hold any kind of conversation with him. I wanted to run

I closed my laptop, grabbed my jacket and left. Moving with as much dignity as a terrified child, I almost knocked over a visitor to the office in my rush to leave.

I knocked over a chair on my way to the open door. Why wasn’t the door closed? We don’t leave doors open at Foxglove Associates, LLP. There was a woman in a tailored suit with a pencil skirt, an open collar blouse, and a rather pleasant smile watching me. She was leaning in doorway. We’re talking Lauren Bacall leaning. I just gawked at her.

Curiosity replaced fear, at least for a moment. She didn’t work for us. She wasn’t an attorney for one of our clients. I knew almost