Chapter 13

Time passed as it has a way of doing. Not always for the best, but life keeps on going regardless. I’m not sure how much we can change the course of the river we call time.

For instance, how much did my outing Ray, my asshole son in law, change history? The answer was not a lot. It did cause them to get a divorce. That was inevitable though. It would have happened no matter what I did. It took just over a year before they settled it.

Thia decided during that year that the Lawyer Chic was fun, and a lot more stable, but she just drifted away. According to Thia she was not about commitment, so she moved on to an even younger emerging bisexual woman.

Thia and Jon came to grips with her Bisexual nature, so the world kept turning. Thia kept her house and the mortgage, she also paid Ray half the equity in the house just to be rid of him. Fortunately as leader of her ER shift she made a bucket load of cash.

I didn’t have a boat load of money, but I did have more than I needed to keep the car wash going, so I made her the ten grand loan she needed to finish buying Ray out. She put up most of their joint savings account to pay the balance of his equity share. The ten grand loan had an automatic two year payoff. That was Thia’s idea and she insisted on it. I wanted to call it her inheritance, but she and lawyer chic made it happen another way.

Rose decided to move on to a new town, but not too far away. She took her little company to Greensboro, a much larger town than Triboro. I went to visit her, but nothing much had change in Greensboro. The traffic was even worse than I remembered, and the air was filled with even more tension. I couldn’t wait to leave and get back home.

All that change convinced me early on in that first year that I needed to get used to the new facts of life. I was probably going to spend my life alone. Honestly ‘The Haven’ began to look better all the time.

My business, or hobby as Thia called it, kept on growing and evolving. My clients were mostly from the producers from either the Wilmington Film Studio, or the Durham County Film Co-op. I also found a new revenue stream. One that I had at least a little control over. It was however a bit of a gambol.

I did the first one as a favor for Thia’s Lawyer chic. She needed to find a client in order to settle an estate. The estate wasn’t huge by her standards, but it was in the low six figures. We agreed on a fee of ten grand and I pick up the tab for my expenses. The project could prove to be a loser for sure, since it paid nothing if I failed. She didn’t want to put boots on the ground at her expense, since there was a less than 30% chance statistcally of a positive outcome.

She did give me copies of all her research. Even with all the electronic research the last known address was a nursing home for the sister of the man who left the estate with no named beneficiary.

I rented a car for a couple of days and went asking questions. It took me two day and a couple of hundred dollars in expenses, but I got the name of a child of the sister. The sister past with no known estate. Her only heir was a son name Jerry. I managed to track him down. I found him and made a claim against the estate. I had certified documents signed, which the Lawyer chic drew up for me.

I cleared nine grand for a week’s work some of it from home and some on the road. Not bad but of course it could have gone much worse. I could have lost a grand just as easily.

I was between jobs when Rose called and invited herself to dinner. We agreed to meet in the Sirloin Steak house in Triboro. I spent the day cleaning the Car Wash just in case she wanted to stay the night.

It turned out that she wanted to introduce me to the new man in her life. It was a little uncomfortable meeting Eddie. Eddie started out as a driver for her company. It took her a while before she trusted him to deal with the clients. I had helped her install the systems of checks and balances for her company’s new hires. If she did it right, the chances of a single employee doing any damage was small.

Rose had worked with people who were relatives of customers at first. That wasn’t always a guarantee, but it was a start. In less than a year she had gone through several drivers and she had hired a sales clerk. Rose and the sales clerk were the only ones who had access to the customer’s accounts.

I saw the younger man hold the door for Rose and I knew that it was going to be a less than cordial dinner with a friend. I knew what was coming when they walked into the dining room.

“You are looking good Rose,” I said to her.

“Thanks Ed,” she replied. Then she went on to say, “I want you to meet Michael Edwards.”

“Michael, it’s nice to meet any friend of Rose’s,” I said. “She is usually pretty secretive.”

The meeting was very superficial, so it was also harmless. The kid was a few years younger than Rose and I was sure a life time younger in experiences.

Rose walked to the cashier with me while Michael went to the men’s room. “So what do you think?” she asked.

“Before you do anything long term let me check him out,” I demanded.

“Hell no. No one would ever pass your background check,” she said with a laugh. “Besides you taught me how to check him out, and we are moving slowly.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

Even though it sounds like I was making lots of money, I wasn’t. I had weeks when I didn’t earn enough money from the research business to buy lunch at McDonalds. My home life was even worse. Thia was exploring her new found freedom with a vengeance. I saw her from time to time, but I came second or third to her lover dejour.

It was thirteen months and a few days since the death of the Angel brothers. I considered that case closed. The state police never closed an unsolved homicide. I knew it, but it didn’t really hit home until the knock on my door came that day.