Death Rehearsal: The dead-reckoning of Willis Staley

In the winter of 1940, the ferry Wallop lost a rudder and slammed into the pilings of the terminal at Winkler, Washington. The impact pitched two cars over the bow and into the icy waters of Puget Sound. One of them was unoccupied but the other was thought to hold the personage of a good man named Willis Staley. He was mourned by almost everyone - the exception being a smudge of a man who was pleased that Staley was dead. Weems was his name, and he rejoiced in his triumph until the car was finally raised. On that day, celebration turned into trepidation because there was no corpse.The mishap is not the start of the story, but it is where the telling begins. To some reckoning, it isn't a big story. It does not swagger with daring-do; there is no plot against the republic and no love triangle. Still, it is about the stuff that makes the best of stories; good people contending for the right thing. It is a tale of conscience, which when followed, usually leads to redemption - - that and the unraveling of a mystery and the solving of a murder or two.