Chapter 9

The following characters appear in this chapter:

Victoria

Victim, 5’-3’’ tall, 105 pounds, 13 years old, brown hair, gray eyes

Clare

Victoria’s cousin, 5’-8’’ tall, 130 pounds, 24C-22-24, 18 years old, blond hair, blue eyes

Leroy

Clare’s brother, 5’-11’’ tall, 165 pounds, 21 years old, light brown hair, dark eyes

The unnamed boyfriend, 5’-8’’ tall, 140 pounds, 18 years old, black hair, hazel eyes.

I started work the next day after the briefing. Seven months later, Carol returned to work. I had kept tabs on both of them and on how Angie was healing plus the counseling they were both receiving. The company’s medical insurance only covered a part of the counseling, and I stepped in to cover the remainder. It appeared to be doing a good job, and Angie seemed to have recovered from the shock and the trauma. They would both need to continue seeing the mental health professionals for a number of years, but not at the intense level that they had been.

The day that Carol took back sole responsibility for her job, I spoke to Hollie about what I had spent, and what we could do to help others in similar situations. I had already advised her of how much was spent each month.

“I’ve spent a lot of your money over the last seven months,” I said to start.

“It’s OUR money,” she said to correct me.

“Okay, our money. Still, I’ve spent quite a bit. It amounts to $30,000 for the seven months,” I told her.

“That’s not all that much,” she told me, but I could hear the reservation in her voice.

“The main problem is that you have been doing this as a private individual. No one but those effected know what you have done, and you don’t have the... , “ and here she stopped in search of the proper word.

“I’d like to say ‘clout’, but that isn’t the correct word and doesn’t convey the correct meaning,” she continued after a few seconds. “As a private individual, Jacob, you don’t have the power or the influence that a business entity would have,” she continued.

“You mean like a charity organization?” I asked to be sure of what she meant.

“Something like that, yes, but I was thinking more of a Private Foundation. I’ve been reading about them lately and believe that such an entity would allow us to continue the work that you have started and to broaden it to include more options,” she told me with a smile. “It would also give us a tax break on what we contributed,” she added.

“And just how is this to be accomplished?” I asked but had an idea of how it would be done.

“Oh, Mr. Albright’s people can take care of all of the paperwork to start it, and you can be in charge of keeping track of where the money goes. The accountants will take care of including it in our tax preparation,” she assured me.

“And what will be the name of this foundation?” I asked.

“Why, ‘The Jacob and Hollie Rust Foundation’ of course,” she told me with another smile and a big kiss. This was just before Little Hollie, our daughter, set up a real racket, and we, that is I, needed to go take care of her, as her mother was very pregnant with our second child.

While taking care of Little Hollie’s problem, I had time to think about what my wife had said and came to the conclusion that she, and maybe others, had spent considerable time on this idea. I wasn’t sure if the name was appropriate, but she, at least, seemed to be sure that it was.

Apparently, it didn’t take all that long to setup the Foundation, as shortly I needed to meet with the lawyers and the accounting firm that would be doing our taxes for us. I got read-in on all of the does-and-don’ts of Foundation life, plus my responsibility as the one in charge of it. Actually, Hollie was the one in charge, but I was the one doing most of the work as the chief of operations.

I continued to work on the things that I had been doing previously with helping those in the parish and now doing even more in the surrounding community. There was now money from the Foundation to hire drivers and other to help with what I had been doing.

Things went along smoothly for several months, but I had started to notice reports in the news of the number of attacks on young women and girls. Some of them were runaways, but many others weren’t. It turned out that many of them were in the care of Child Protective Services.

This was not a good thing, but I wasn’t sure what I, or at least the Foundation, could do about it. To learn more about what was happening, I started visiting the Emergency Rooms of the larger hospitals in the city.

Being a well-dressed and fairly good looking older man, I found it easy to strike up conversations with the nurses and a few of the doctors there when they weren’t overly busy.

Introducing myself as Jacob Rust from The Rust Foundation, I would start with general questions about their operations and how busy they were. It required a number of visits to each facility, but I soon got to know several people at each of them. I learned what their problems were, and what they needed. The needs were often personal but sometimes professional and involved equipment needed to do their jobs better.

As an example of personal needs, there was an older woman at one facility who had been a nurse for many years. We had talked a number of times, but on this particular day, she was having a problem.

“I spend too much time on my feet,” she told me during our conversation. I could see that she was in a bit of pain.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“It’s my feet. I’ve been to see a number of Podiatrists. I’ve even been to see a chiropractor. They all tell me that my feet are fine, but they really bother me, especially on long shifts, but there doesn’t appear to be anything that can be done about it,” she told me in a tried voice. I didn’t comment but said that I was sorry about her feet bothering her.

Later, I got some help from one of Hollie’s research people, and she came up with an answer to the problem. A few days later, I saw the nurse again.

“How are your feet?” I asked.

“Still bothering me. I need to get off of them some,” she told me in a tried voice.

“Go to see these people on your next day off. Tell them that Jacob Rust sent you,” I told her, handing her a card with a name and an address on it.

A couple of weeks went by before I saw her again. She appeared to be in much better spirits and not tired at all.

“Oh Jacob, how can I ever thank you! The people who you sent me to see understood about my problem, and they had a solution. They fitted me with these new shoes,” she said pointing to the new shoes she was wearing.

“They are wonderful, but I was really worried about how much they would cost since they are more than regular shoes. I was shocked when the person waiting on me said that they had already been paid for and even included a second pair of shoes. How can I ever thank you?” she asked in a worried voice.

“The Rust Foundation was glad to help you. Just continue to do your job the best you can,” I told her to a smile.

“Oh yes, I can do it better than even, now that my feet aren’t bothering me all of the time,” she assured me with another smile.

There were gifts and other things that went to various hospital personnel to help them do their jobs. Some of it was equipment that replaced the worn-out equipment they had been using. Those who I had helped introduced me to others who worked with them, and I soon had a network of people who I knew. On gaining their confidence, I was soon able to ask them about those I was interested in but only in a general way. There were no names of patients given out, just generally how many cases they saw in a typical month, and the types of injuries they had.

After a time, they would talk to me about the cases of young women and girls who had been to their Emergency Room, and what had become of them whenever I came to see them. A number of their patients had been taken charge of by the local unit of Child Protective Services (CPS). Others had been assisted by some of the other local charity organizations. Too many of them had been released on their own with nowhere to go and were basically homeless. These had been the ones over 18 years of age.

I quickly came to see that what was needed was a place for these young women to stay while they recovered, as most of the local charities didn’t have places for them to stay for more than a day or two. I was sure that we could change that.

It required a bit of time to arrange, but we, that is the Foundation, eventually bought a building and had the interior modified to provide a number of bedrooms with each pair of rooms having a shared bathroom. There was a large common area, a kitchen, and a laundry area. A housemother or supervisor was hired as well as a cook. They lived on the premises. I would visit on a regular basis to talk to the young women and try to point them to productive lives.

There were a number of rules that had to be observed by those living there. There were no drugs allowed in the house other than those prescribed by the doctors at the hospital. The Foundation would pay for them from a local pharmacy. There were to be no male visitors other than me and no sex on the premises. Showers and cleanliness were required, and there were classes in the three Rs to ensure they could read, write, and do basic mathematics. Those who didn’t wish to abide by these rules were required to leave. Many of the young women eventually left to have productive lives. Years later, some of them returned to help others. We called our location Hollie House in honor of my wife.

While this was a good step forward, it did nothing to help the children and the young women who were less than 18 years old.

While I was trying to deal with this situation was when we ran afoul of CPS (Child Protective Services). The case involved a 4-year-old black girl. She had been brought to the Emergency Room by some neighbors. She had a broken arm and bruises and cuts all over her body. Her parents had disappeared leaving her alone in their rented house. She had no known local relatives. One of my contacts at the hospital called me about her.

“Jacob, they have brought in a 4-year-old girl. She is in bad shape and was abandoned by her parents. Some neighbors brought her in. There isn’t anyone to take care of her,” my contact told me.

I arrived in time to talk to the girl before she was released after I had paid the hospital bill. She was discharged to my care. I had the housemother with me, and we took the cute little girl to stay at Hollie House until we could either locate her relatives, or find a family to adopt her.

Apparently, not everyone at the hospital liked me or what we were trying to accomplish, or perhaps those from CPS tracked us down by learning who had paid the bill for her care. In any event, two days later representatives from CPS arrived at Hollie House with the police and a warrant to collect the young girl. She cried as they led her off, and CPS threatened to take us to court. I called Mr. Albright’s people to alert them to the possibility, but nothing ever came of the threat.

The ending to this case came some six months later when some hunters found the little girl’s broke and abused dead body in some woods. The story created a lot of front-page headlines as well as being featured on the evening news for several nights. It also created a lot of controversy.

Hollie was absolutely shocked by this, as I had told her about the little girl and CPS’s threats. She immediately called Mr. Albright himself.

“Samuel, are you aware of the murder of this little girl?” she asked.

“You mean the one that has been on the news? Yes, some of my people have been following it,” he replied.

“I want an immediate investigation begun of everything surrounding this case. She was removed from Jacob’s care by CPS, and six months later she is found dead. I want answers. Spare no expense as my firm and the Foundation will be paying the bills,” she told him. It was obvious that Hollie was as mad as a hornet. The investigation took some time, and anger from the incident had cooled down long before it was finished. It did bring to light a number of facts and evidence.