Chapter 16

“Okay Mister, what’ve you got,” said Jennifer Connolly.

“Kinda simple,” said Frank Hofschneider. “Her brother’s a crook currently serving time for embezzlement. But, before, actually long before, he got his twenty-year vacation at the state’s expense he screwed over the family taking every cent their parents had saved and thereby indirectly forcing his sister, who had never held a job, to make some, uh, unsavory choices.

“The two of them have not spoken in years,” said Frank, “likely never will again, but you tell me.” Jennifer nodded.

“I see,” she said. “Frank, thanks a million. Not sure where this is going to go, but I guess we’ll soon know; that’s a very solid bet.”

The private detective nodded, tendered her his goodbye, and was on to his next assignment.

My woman is so tall, and I am so damn short. And, those two facts make for wonderful sex! Oh, fucking yeah!

“Honey it’s going to take me a little time to get to the bottom of things if we keep concentrating our efforts and attentions up here at the top of things,” I said.

“Whining are we?” she said, but she laughed.

“Maybe a little. But only a little,” I said. She snickered.

“Well, so you won’t feel too disappointed, you have my permission to move further south,” she said. I did not hesitate to take her up on her so generously granted opportunity.

We collapsed together. She pushed me off of her. “I need to breathe,” she sputtered. I lay beside her my chest heaving as I tried to recover my own breath.

“That was good,” she said. “That was very good.”

“Good? It was epic,” I said. I could feel her giggling, silently giggling.

“I stand corrected,” she said

I rolled over and cuddled her in my arms. We slept, napped, for maybe an hour and a half. We didn’t often have the same day off, but when we did we made the most of it.

I felt her stretch. My eyes fluttered open.

“I love you beautiful lady,” I said.

“I love you too,” she said.

“Henrietta, I need you. You make life worth living as far as I’m concerned. I mean it, girl; I mean I really mean it.”

“You are my man, John Michael Steele. Never doubt it. It will be my job to take care of you for as long as I live,” she said.

The big man leaned back on his throne and waited for the door to open. Jennifer Connolly had carte blanche anymore when it came to having access to the richest man in Phoenix, hell in the state. She rapped twice on the door and entered.

“Have a seat, lady lawyer,” said Nathan. She did so.

“So, you have news,” he said.

“I do,” she said.

Over the next half hour, she laid out in detail the situation and information that her man had been able to acquire. The big man had said hardly a word during the entire time. Now he did.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Well, that explains a lot, everything actually. You saying the man got twenty years,” said Nathan.

“Yes, he ripped off the company he worked for to the tune of almost a million dollars. The man sure as heck didn’t think small,” said Jennifer.

“And, as relates to his parents’ money, there’s nothing left then,” he said.

“No, not a dime, but it was small potatoes anyway compared to what he took from his work place,” she said, “maybe eighty or ninety thousand in total. But, the worst of it: he got his parents to take out a second on their house with promises to pay it off in short order, and of course that never happened. The parents thereafter ended up using most of their retirement monthly to rent a small apartment barely getting by in the process.”

“Parents still alive?” he said.

“No, both deceased. The girl, Henrietta, lived with them while they were living, but they were killed in a car accident leaving her with nothing and no one: hence, her career choice, I guess,” she said.

“Seems so,” he said. “Now, I have to figure out a way to make this all work for me, us,” he said, and he sighed.

“Your buddy the lieutenant governor will be in charge for the next few weeks. His boss is having that kidney operation at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota,” she said.

“Yes, I heard that,” he said. “I guess I’ll need to make the move now if I’m going to.” She nodded.

“He owes you. And the perp’s a nonviolent criminal. Shouldn’t be the hardest decision the lieutenant governor ever makes, but the company he ripped off...” she said.

“Yes, they’ll want reparations. Almost a million, you say,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. The man nodded. He had to make a decision, and it was a gamble if he decided to go the way he was thinking he’d need to.

“Okay, Jen, tell Frank thanks a lot for his hard work. I appreciate all the both you did on this one for sure,” he said.

She opened her briefcase and pulled out a folder. “Here’s the official info. The company’s particulars are in there. So are all of the documents of the state’s case relating to the man’s sins. If you need anything more, well, you know the number,” she said.

“I do, and thanks again, lady lawyer,” he said.

The big man was doing something he almost never did, he was doing the visiting. He was visiting Bradley and Fiske Investments. Well, he had a product to sell, and he had to be successful. He had to be able to bail his wife and his daughter out of the mess they had gotten themselves into having been overheard dissing a seriously good man and his chosen mate. Boy, and it was a mess!

“Yes, sir, you can go right in,” said the twenty-something receptionist. Nathan Grimes nodded.