In a particular setting, we’re all peers.
Napa State Asylum
Here is some sketch I wrote. I left you blanks to fill in:
Who done it? [Murder of unnamed parents {i.e., Charlie Brown} in kidnapping extortion plot]
Daily Communicant [hereinafter DC] is implicated but Catholic priest heard his or her confession and invokes the priest-penitent privilege when questioned by Maxwell Hamilton. Fellow communicant and penitent with same confessor as DC a witness to DC’s attendance at mass. Does DC attend Protestant services too?
When on the battlefield… .
The Daily Communicant, a Roman Catholic, took communion from the chaplain on the battlefield whether the faith of the minister was Catholic or Protestant. Inspector Hamilton questions parishioners in Napa. Attends services and surveils every chapel and Christian church that provides a daily communion to attendees on a daily basis. Centers on two churches and three daily communicants. One communicant snitches on the culprit’s attendance at mass. Interviews two or three Catholic priests and one or two Protestant priests in Napa, California circa 1945-1960. During this time, Napa State Asylum for the Criminally Insane transforms into Napa State Hospital.
A Maxwell Hamilton Romance
Cast of Napa Setting:
Grandmother—Maria
Grandson—Gianni
Grandson’s brother-in-law—Marco
Lucia—Gianni’s sister, Marco’s ex-wife
MAXWELL HAMILTON: Detective from England on holiday touring the Wine Regions of California
Rich: Medical Insurance Salesman for the California region
Gregorio: Napa County District Attorney
Daily Communicant: The mystery culprit
Catholic Priest: Confessor to the Daily Communicant
HELENE: Maxwell’s new love interest
Setting: Napa
The boys, Gianni and Marco have been working the horse ranch after Marco’s divorce from Lucia, Gianni’s sister. They are in their mid-to-late forties.
Gianni and Lucia’s parents were murdered in a kidnapping/extortion plot in the 1920’s. It is now 1945 but the book has flashbacks to 1936 when grandmother went to the asylum.
Lucia is a winery owner after the property settlement with Marco. Gianni took on Marco as a ranchhand after the divorce and they both have bedrooms at the ranch. [Think Grandma Canobio’s Healdsburg rental on the Russian River].
Lucia, Gianni and Marco have mutual friends, relatives and acquaintances at the winery and we hear most of the gossip at the winery. Other than the asylum, the winery and the ranch are the staging areas for the setting and the advance of the plot line.
In the ranch house, Marco and Gianni become the main characters. Maybe they reach out to Maxwell during World War II or immediately thereafter at a rugby party where songs were sung late into the night. Perhaps rugby runs through the three men’s veins and bonds them in sport, song, groupies and drink.
DIALOGUE:
Bickering between brother-in-laws. Lucia chides them both.
Government Officials: Maxwell and Gregorio, the Napa County District Attorney
Plot goes to the Insane Asylum where Grandmother is lodged. She can be thinking to herself silently or out loud. Sometimes she thinks out loud and repeats herself consciously so that others will hear her. [Head games (does she know that we know she is thinking out loud and we can hear her?) (while grandmother is more completely in command of her faculties than others ever imagined. Perhaps she fools the medical staff at the Asylum too)].
“Happy Holidays…happy holidays…” she repeats, especially when her progeny and their spouses and ex-spouses are in earshot.
RICH can be selling medical insurance and stops by the asylum during it’s conversion to Napa State Hospital after WWII in 1945-1947. He can be in the scenes GREGORIO is in.
DAILY COMMUNICANT that did the dirty deed or knows information leading to the deaths of Lucia and Gianni’s parents in the 1920’s is the focus of Maxwell’s investigation. The communicant and the priest, who is also the communicant’s confessor, abide by the priest-penitent privilege. No one knows who the daily communicant is. There are several at the local Catholic churches in Napa. With agriculture, Napa has a large community of Catholic parishioners.
Somehow, Maxwell is able to narrow down the suspects to two or three. Maybe one daily communicant snitches on the other about attendance.
Denouement: Maxwell Saves Napa, moves to San Francisco where he goes into partnership with a fertility clinic and donates his own sperm for implantation and/or makes “test-tube babies” [there goes the neighborhood]. MAXWELL was just kidding. He retires in San Francisco with his long lost love or a new girlfriend named Helene. After all, Maxwell is a man of dignity and will continue to be worthy of the respect of his peers.
Moral: In a particular setting, we’re all peers. Especially in a jury trial.
CUT TO: Out-takes of “out of era” situations, e.g., surrogate mothers and test-tube babies.
Napa State Asylum becomes Napa State Hospital thanks to the kind and gentle folk of Napa.
Maxwell holds up new born baby—we wonder if it’s his? Test-tube or surrogate mom? No, it can’t be. Just a coincidence? Scotland Yard? MI-6?
copyright John Rubens
December 1, 2018
JOHN RUBENS is no Mother Teresa. 