Chapter 18

It was a minor miracle, but the robber who had been shot and run over lived. He lost a leg, a finger, and a testicle, but he was alive. Knowing he would most likely face life in prison, as soon as he was able he got a lawyer and offered to sell his compatriots out, for immunity. That proposal was rejected out of hand, and they bargained back and forth until they reached an agreement. Looking at life, the prosecution offered him a deal. Tell everything and he would get ten to twenty-five years, and be eligible for parole in nine years. He was thirty, and he jumped all over the deal.

Their leader was an escaped convict, breaking out of a prison three states over, killing a guard as he went. Manson Franks was number nine on the FBI most wanted list. He had killed two more people on his way here, gathered a group almost as vicious as he was and like minded in their quest for easy money. He talked about Gwen like she was dirt under his feet. “The bitch is crazy. She screws all of us, but swears she loves some guy named Scooby or something like that. She’s mainlining like crazy, I expect to wake up every morning and find her dead. She’s a gold mine though, when it comes to information about high dollar houses and how easy they are to rob. Manson loves her though, he even gave her the shotgun. It scares the shit out of me to see her waving it around, wondering how high she is.

She keeps talking about the ultimate score, a house filled with all sorts of shit, with a giant safe in the basement. It’s locked up like Fort Knox, and she swears it’s protected by some crazy ghost, and doesn’t want to go near it. Manson wants to, he just grins and says ‘I ain’t afraid of no ghost.’ It’s supposed to be our next job.”

It wasn’t. The whole group disappeared off the face of the earth for four months, no one knew where the rest of the group, four men and Gwen, were. Rewards were offered, tips were followed up on. The gang member in the hospital suddenly had a seizure and passed, quite painfully, from what I heard. He was without a doubt poisoned, but no one could be sure how, and the video systen somehow went down for two hours.

Jim kept up the security for another three months until he decided just spot checks would do. The police eased back, and we were back to living in a quiet neighborhood. Christy finally retired, and joined Jim, and she and the girls planned a wedding, to be paid for by me, apparently.

It was a very nice wedding, and I got to walk Christy down the aisle. There was a pretty good crowd, their old friends from the agency, his new friends among the local cops, a few scattered lawyers, mostly ADA’s, with a few defense attorneys thrown in to make it interesting. Jen was matron of honor, Lindsey and Sandy were bridesmaids, and Grace was flower girl. The ring bearer was the son of the local Chief of Police. Shaggy was a groomsman, and Jim’s brother was best man. Lindsey caught the bouquet, and her date for the event was one of the young patrolmen she had met when we had all the trouble.

Miss Agnes was very taken with Shaggy’s daughters, especially the youngest one. I was surprised one day to see a new teddy bear on her bed. “Gram gave it to me. She had to show me where it was, though. Wanna see?”

Of course I did, she led me to her closet, reached inside and pulled. A false wall swung open, and the shelves were lined with dolls and toys suitable for a young girl. “Gram said I could have more if I was good to Teddy.”

I smiled. Later on I checked. Teddy was one of the very first teddy bears ever made, and was worth quite a bit to a collector. It meant more to a little girl who was forced to deal with the loss of her mother, though, and deserved to be played with.

“Well, Gram, you’ve made another conquest. Are you going to adopt all the girls that come into this house?”

The words floated through my mind. “Yes, especially yours. Get busy.”

“We’re trying Mom.”

Jim and Christy came home from their honeymoon tanned and relaxed, and seemed in no hurry to move out of the apartment. The had confiscated the tack room, using it as an office. Our documentary on the Merchant and Monroe families, concluding with the opening of the vault, was very well received. It got us more than attention and profit, it got us sued.

The long lost Merchant saw the video and was enraged, so he sued us for the contents of the vault. it made good press but little sense, because he was very clear, in writing, that I bought the house, the buildings, and the grounds, ‘as is’. His lawyer was sharp, but had no legal basis to pursue the suit. The press had a field day, and one tabloid featured a shot of me, and one of him, side by side. The resemblance was eerie. He looked like me in twenty years, if I took up drinking and stopped exercizing. The made up headline was “Cousin vs Cousin”.

Jen couldn’t get over how much we resembled each other. “It’s so weird,” she kept saying. Lindsey and the rest of the family agreed.

Personally, I didn’t like the man. He called once, demanding to be let in the house to do ‘inventory’, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Mom didn’t seem to like her descendant much. “Relax,” I told her. “It would take a court order for him to walk through those doors, and no judge alive would give him one.” I politely declined, and hung up on him. He called several more times, getting more abusive every time. I was about to change numbers when Jim advised against it. “Record him,” he said, get your lawyer to take it to the judge, and get a restraining order.”

I recorded the next three calls, each more abusive as he ordered me to turn his ‘heritage’ over to him. When the judge heard the recordings, he granted the restraining order. Except for court, he was to stay at least a thousand feet away from my property, me, or my family, and was allowed no communication at all except through lawyers. I got a screaming rant when he was served, gave it to my legal team, and four hours later he was in jail for the weekend, going before a Judge on Monday who explained in clear terms that the next incident and he would be held for the duration of the trial, except for when court was in session.

Jim and Christy, doing their job, investigated the man. Seems he had squandered quite a bit of money over his forty-five years, the sale of the house was the only thing that kept him solvent. Faced with the thought of selling his penthouse condo and vacation home, he came up with the idea of suing me after watching the documentary, in the wild hope of getting something from me.

He lost the suit, and almost lost his vacation home to the lawyers for legal bills. I offered him some memoriabilia of his anscestors, and he shook with anger. “Screw those snobby people. They’re why I’m living in Califoria. They threw my Dad out, banished him to California, and threatened to cut off his inheritance if he ever came back. I never knew any of them, and I don’t want to be reminded now.”