Chapter 1
Abby Rogers tried to live a worry free quiet retired life at the beach, but it was not to be. She had lived in a big city for 40 years (the last 20 of which she came to hate the place) and retired after working 28 stressful years. She was constantly haunted by the death of her best friend Robert Hampton, who had died years earlier. Abby had moved to her paradise in a small beach town after divorcing her narcissistic husband of 24 years. Abby had been told many times when she visited psychics that she had her own psychic ability. She knew she had good intuition, at least most of the time. She wasn’t very intuitive when it came to picking her love interests, however. She’d had three failed marriages, and the last one nearly killed her emotionally. It took her 15 years to realize that what she thought was her soul mate and the love of her life was a narcissist. For the first 15 years she convinced herself that Dick Rogers was just trying to help her make the right decisions. That’s what he always told her anyway when she complained that he was too controlling. He told her how to cook, what to cook, when to cook, what to watch on TV, how she shouldn’t go out with her friends, how they shouldn’t go on vacations, how staying at home and not going out to eat was the best, how often they should have sex, why she was last in the pecking order in his will after 24 years (she had a pension, she didn’t need his money, his children should get it (even though they had great jobs, made great money, and were middle aged)) and on and on. Dick came to the marriage as a trust fund baby who’d spent almost all of it when he met Abby. He needed to marry so he could cut his expenses (not that he ever said that of course). Abby had been at his house when the mortgage company had called on a number of occasions asking for the monthly mortgage payment. Instead of working hard, he hardly worked. He’d been a musician before meeting Abby, and fancied himself always a musician, even though he was composing music for aerobics videos when they met and selling solar panels by night. The night they met he asked Abby what her favorite song was. Imagine how Abby felt when the song just so happened to be a song he’d played/sang many times as the keyboardist for a 60s band Abby worshipped! He tried selling real estate. Then he tried flipping houses (with Abby foolishly agreeing to co-sign on the mortgages). When they almost wound up with an extra house and mortgage because one of his houses wouldn’t sell, Abby finally wised up and refused to co-sign on any future houses, so Dick had to change careers, again. For a very long time after that he simply sat in front of the TV watching CNBC (the stock market channel). He then decided he wanted to be a stockbroker since he proclaimed to know more about investing than any of the highly paid financial analysts on CNBC. He was a true narcissist in every way; the original smartest guy in the room, just ask him! Abby knew nothing about investing, but she knew a lot of financial analysts and that that job is not all glory. Financial firms don’t hire fresh from stockbroker’s school stockbrokers and hook them up with clients with million dollars plus portfolios. They put them at a desk with a phone and a phone book, or, if they’re lucky, a list of potential clients. Let the cold calling begin. He quit after one day. He’d met all her friends and liked none of them. Especially Robert, who she’d told him about as soon as they started dating. Robert was Abby’s best friend. It was strictly platonic, but Dick had to know that she valued Robert greatly and that she would remain Robert’s friend forever. Dick seemed to accept this at first, but there was always a change in his attitude if Abby spoke of Robert. As the years passed, Dick began to put Robert down and refer to him as Abby’s boyfriend, which irritated Abby. If she was going out to a group lunch or happy hour and Robert was there, a fight ensued when Abby mentioned it. He constantly jabbed at her since their marriage in 1995 (Dick said he was kidding but Abby knew differently) about her close relationship with Robert. Abby had been close friends with Robert since 1981 and when she began dating her husband, she told him all about Robert. Dick hadn’t really worked since his day stint as a stockbroker and was running out of money again. Abby and Dick had agreed to keep their finances separate during their now eight years of marriage, but this did not deter Abby from retiring. She would have enough money to continue to contribute her half to their expenses with her pension and Dick said he had no problem with providing his half either. Suddenly, however, Dick went back to work as a timeshare salesman, the same year Abby retired. He seemed to be saying no to vacations, anything new for the house; he didn’t want to spend any money. Since retiring Abby began to spend more time with her friends from work. Robert was always with her group of friends. This incensed Dick so much he started verbalizing how much he hated Robert and that he wanted Abby to stop seeing him completely. Abby was flabbergasted. She had known Robert much longer than she had known Dick and had explained their relationship from the very start. He also started asking if he could delay paying his share of their monthly expenses. Robert and Abby were true best friends, sharing all of the details of their lives that would usually be reserved for a friendship between women, or a marriage.
They met when Robert moved from Indiana to work at the same office as Abby in 1981, long before she married Dick. They were both arbitration specialists for a small firm in Lake Worth, Florida, where they were together most days, sitting in an open office area, across from each other when they were not arbitrating. Theirs was a laughing, gossiping, lunching, philosophical discussions and happy hour relationship, that was all. Robert was a bachelor and Abby was married to her second husband and their relationship was platonic by choice, yet they could have been a perfect pair for marriage if not for their huge personality differences as well as a lack of attraction on both sides. The term office husband and wife fit their friendship. Robert had met Dick and later told Abby he was an asshole, but Abby wouldn’t listen. Little did she know at the time, but that was going to become one of many reasons why Abby divorced Dick. Abby found Robert’s sense of humor to be very much like her own and often at the expense of anyone in government service, whether it be city, state, county or federal. In Robert Abby found someone she could be completely honest with without fear of judgment. They also both had extremely sarcastic, cynical, pessimistic and skeptical views of life, which bode well for their friendship. Robert didn’t date much. He was attractive but too introverted and suspicious of the motives of most women he met and chose to stay alone except for the occasional women he would date from time to time. Those relationships never seemed to work out and he always returned to his solitary life. He was a very philosophical man, always reading deep poignant literature like Moby Dick. Their work was tedious, stressful and their friendship provided a welcome respite. He was a true loner. Abby was a complete extrovert and had a quick wit. She never met a person she couldn’t immediately strike up a serious or humorous conversation with. This Dick loved about her in the beginning and began to hate in the end. People liked to be around her since she always made them feel at ease. She was, however, extremely judgmental, of everyone except Robert. While she kept her judgments mostly to herself (except with Robert), she occasionally could no longer stand not telling the emperor of the moment (usually supervisors) they were wearing no clothes. She was smart, however, and often did make very good points, so most supervisors would entertain her “devil’s advocate” positions. She was extremely critical of fellow employees that didn’t pull their share of the workload, to no avail. Sometimes this ire was even directed at Robert, who was capable of doing anything, yet sometimes took the easy way around many tasks. This was one of their personality differences. Also, Abby being an extrovert and Robert being an introvert caused Abby much grief. She wanted to go to new places for lunch, or fix Robert up with women. It never happened, except once, and Abby had nothing to do with it.
Her name was Raquel Fontaine, and she was a beauty. When Robert first spotted her walking down the hall, he was smitten. She had long, black, straight hair, large brown expressive eyes and a beautiful face that was the result of her mother being French and her father being Japanese. Robert, however, being an introvert, never pursued her, but he did ask me who she was. Abby only knew she worked in another section and was married to a Japanese man (like father like daughter). Robert dismissed her from his mind, unless of course he happened to see her. Robert was always trying to get Abby to read Marcus Aurelius Meditations. He was the Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 before turning wholly to philosophy. His philosophy is amazingly still relevant to this day. Common sense mainly; like “If it is not right, do not do it. If it not true do not say it.” Robert lived his life by the philosophies of Marcus Aurelius. Somewhere around 15 years after Abby met Robert, she finally asked him if she could borrow the book. He gave her a marked up copy where he had highlighted portions that meant something to him. She only got a few pages into it and got bored. She asked him if he wanted her to give it back. He said no, he knew one day she would read and appreciate it. She wouldn’t pick it up again until after Robert died, and this time, she devoured it. As mentioned throughout the book Robert had highlighted all is favorite philosophies. It made Abby very sad that she’d not tried to read it while he was alive. She already knew Robert well and was not surprised by his favorite philosophies, but not one person, other than me, that she knew of anyway, had any idea just how deep Robert was. Certainly not Raquel. Raquel was college educated, book smart, but had no depth to her personality, certainly not like Robert or Abby.
There was only one thing Robert ever did that truly upset Abby. He didn’t have a lot to do with his family, a brother and sister on the west coast, but when he learned his aunt that he hardly knew was living within a couple hours from him, he started visiting her regularly. This aunt’s husband had passed, and they had no children. Abby found out later that this aunt had a lot of money. Robert knew she had no one, and he wanted that money when she died; and he got it. He ingratiated himself so completely into her life that she left everything to him when she died. Now, you could say Robert was a godsend to her because she had no one else and I guess that was so. But it somehow went against what Abby thought she knew about Robert that he would calculatedly become close to her for her money. Neither his brother nor sister even tried to become close to her. Abby truly believed only Robert knew about the money. Abby doubted Robert ever spent any of that money. He invested it. By the time he died, that money had probably grown from $300,000 to $3,000,000. Our friendship only deepened as the years flew past.
We went from being young to old. Somewhere around 20 years after Abby met Robert, Raquel started working in Robert’s section. By now she had been married for 10 years and had a 4-year-old son. She was in the process of going through a divorce. She started talking more and more to Robert. She sought his advice at every turn. She was still just as beautiful; she hadn’t aged as we had. Soon, they became friends, and when her divorce was settled, Robert came out of his shell and asked her out. Raquel seemed to fall in love deeply and quickly with Robert, although Abby thought Raquel might be a bit of a gold digger. She became a constant member of our little work clique, joining us for lunch every day, going to happy hour and promotion parties and becoming friends with all of us too. There was one problem, however. Abby knew Raquel wanted to marry Robert, and have another child with him, but Abby also knew it was never to be. He loved her, in his way, but did not want to marry or father a child. He didn’t even want to move in with her. He kept his house, and she kept hers, and they simply saw each other and always spent the night at his house, because she didn’t want to have him sleep over at her house because of her son. Robert would never marry her, and Abby told Raquel that. She didn’t believe Abby. She thought she could change his mind, as women so often do. Raquel continued to live blissfully unaware that her plans were never going to come to fruition. The other thing about Robert was that he was an alcoholic and did drugs. That was one of the first things Abby learned about him. Abby didn’t recall how long he stayed sober, but when he met Raquel, he was drinking and drugging again. As the years past, he drank more and more. Abby believed this was because he could feel the pressure building to marry Raquel. In addition to everything else, Robert did not want to be a father to her son entering puberty. Raquel was still young enough to have another child, so her biological clock was ticking around him all the time too. Nevertheless, their relationship continued status quo. He did spend some of the money he inherited on Raquel. He always paid for fancy dinners out, he even enjoyed dining out himself. He wasn’t a big gift giver, although she did receive some pretty baubles along the way. Not enough to decrease his investments though. He made a great salary too, and never had to dip into his investments. He was very frugal, except when it came to tipping. He believed in leaving big tips. The one thing that ruffled Raquel’s feathers is that he wasn’t the kind of boyfriend who wanted to help her when things broke around her house. As the pressure built up on him, however, he did start doing things like use his truck to go and pick up furniture she bought, etc. The tension between Robert and Raquel was becoming palpable. Robert started drinking more and more until one night Raquel called him and he wasn’t home. He was still at the bar. When he finally returned her call, he had decided their relationship was over and told her so. She could not, would not, accept it. She continued to call him, go to the bars he frequented, until one day Robert threatened to get a restraining order against her. It took Raquel three years to even start acting like herself again after the breakup with Robert. She came to work looking haggard, and she hardly spoke to anyone. She eventually started to come out of her depression and joined a local ballroom dancing group. Robert seemed relieved. He could now drink, drug and stay out as late as he wanted with no one to hound him. Abby knew, of course, that Robert breaking up with Raquel was planned. They’d been together seven years, the itch he’d been scratching for the last few years was bleeding. Now it had stopped bleeding. Robert was very strategic. Raquel was devastated, having no idea what had happened. She’d apologized and promised never to insist he quit drinking, drugging and staying out late but to no avail. Abby knew that was just a convenient reason for Robert to end what had become an albatross around his neck.
Raquel became obsessed with ballroom dancing and her new circle of friends. Obviously, she removed herself from our work clique since Robert was always there. We still had lunch, just the two of us, and she seemed to be as happy as was possible. One lunch she told me she’d met a man named Diego Rivera, a sexy Puerto Rican who danced a mean tango. Soon, she was telling me Diego was a true romantic, totally unlike Robert had been. They would go for long, long walks in the woods, have picnics with wine and cheese and Diego would read powerful poetry to her. She was in love. Abby was skeptical, having been conned by Dick so many years ago. She asked Raquel about Diego’s background. Had he been married, what did he do for a living, etc. Raquel told Abby he was divorced and was a mortgage broker. Robert began to feel guilty for breaking up with Raquel. He was a dichotomy, giving, yet cold. He told Abby that he was rewriting his will to make sure Raquel was well taken care of. Since years had now passed since Robert and Raquel’s breakup, they had started talking again. They became friends. They started going out for lunch and the occasional dinner again. Robert told Raquel about the will. One lunch, Raquel told Abby that Diego had lied to her. He was actually married but had been so taken with her he knew she never would’ve gone out with him otherwise, so he lied. It got worse, far worse. He and his wife had agreed many years earlier to be in an open marriage. Apparently because Diego had asked for a divorce and Susan, his wife, had presented the open marriage as an option since she knew that would placate Diego’s wandering eye and allow them to stay married, at least for a while. Susan never really wanted to sleep with other men, but Diego jumped at the open marriage solution. Susan knew he’d strayed many times already; now he had carte blanche. There was one condition, however. Neither of them could fall in love with another person or start a relationship other than for pure sex and they could only see other people on a weekly basis, at a designated location and only long enough for sex. Diego had broken the rule. He was in over his head with Raquel and Susan found out. Diego had been spending many nights at Raquel’s house. Raquel’s son was now grown and out on his own, so this no longer presented the problem she’d had with Robert staying over. Raquel told Abby that Diego had taken her places sexually she’d never even known existed and she was hooked. They began visiting live sex shows where they enjoyed sex in front of audiences as well as group sex parties. Abby was now fearful for Raquel’s safety and told Robert. Robert was very upset and showed up at Raquel’s house to get his ladder that she had borrowed hoping he could get to meet Diego. When he got there, neither Raquel nor Diego were there, but his car, an old, beat to hell Nissan Datsun 280ZX was parked in the driveway. Robert thought this guy obviously wasn’t making a fortune in the mortgage business...if that was his business at all, more like a drug dealer. The word that Robert used when describing what kind of person Diego was, was gigolo. Diego’s wife started calling Raquel, harassing her, telling her she had to breakup with Diego, or she was going to ruin her life. Raquel ignored her and all the horrible things Susan told her about all the women Diego was still with besides them. Diego told Raquel they had to cool it for a while, which upset Raquel greatly. He told her if he divorced Susan she would get everything, and he’d have nothing. Weeks passed and Raquel had not heard from Diego, and she was sick at heart. Then one day, Diego called Raquel and said something terrible had happened. Susan had committed suicide. An overdose, or so he said. Raquel was strangely quiet about the details and refused to talk about it other than to tell Abby what happened. Abby was immediately suspicious. More weeks passed and Diego and Raquel resumed their relationship as if nothing had happened. Susan had left everything to Diego. He bought a new car; he was suddenly flush with money. Abby and Robert were beside themselves, but what could they do? Robert became more and more upset and tried to reason with Raquel. She became angry and told him she didn’t want to see him even occasionally anymore or talk to him. Robert started binge drinking and doing more and more drugs. He was positive that Diego had killed, or at least helped Susan commit suicide. So was Abby. By this time, however, both Abby and Robert were retired and saw each other only when the old clique got together for lunches, or happy hours. Robert stopped going to all get togethers so Abby emailed him, but he stopped returning her emails. He was drinking himself into a fast grave. He’d just bought a condo and was living a true hermit’s life. He didn’t know any of his neighbors. He was seen by some of their friends at a bar within walking distance of his condo looking very drunk, on many occasions. His sister, Evelyn Adams, lived in Washington state and usually called Robert once a month. She was still friends with Raquel. She was the only one he ever communicated with according to Raquel. Abby tried talking to Raquel, telling her how sick Robert was, worried to death about her, but she didn’t want to hear it. Abby continued to try to call Robert many times, and he’d never return her calls and when Dick found out he flew into a rage and told Abby she could never call him or see him again or he would file for divorce. Abby felt horrible, stuck. Weeks passed, there was another happy hour to which the others invited Robert, he never responded. None of our friends did anything more. No one drove to where he lived. About four weeks later, Abby got a call from Raquel. Robert’s sister had called her and told her that after calling Robert several more times the next month and not hearing from him she had called the police. The police had broken down the door to Robert’s condo and found him dead on a cot, not a bed, his body liquified. The house was empty of basic furniture and food, other than beer and marijuana. They estimated he’d been dead six weeks. They talked to all the neighbors. No one claimed to smell the stench coming from the condo. No one claimed to ever have seen him or spoken to him. His truck was in the parking lot. An autopsy was impossible on just bones and liquid. There was no evidence of foul play. His sister flew to Florida and started making arrangements. She contacted Robert’s estate attorney, Phyllis Dickson, who contacted all the parties to the will. Raquel got half of what was now $5,000,000, with the remaining half split between Robert’s brother, sister-in-law, two nephews, a niece and Robert’s sister Evelyn. His sister got all remaining property. When I told Dick, there was a mixture of rage and glee. Glee at Robert being dead, rage at she knew not what. Abby was inconsolable. Dick raged on. Raquel and Evelyn went about arranging a memorial dinner at a local restaurant for only Robert’s closest friends. Dick said nothing when Abby left for the memorial. When it came time for each person to say a few words, Abby pulled out Robert’s marked up copy of Marcus Aurelius Meditations and read portions of the philosophies that Robert believed in. Everyone was speechless. His sister had told some lame story about when they were children together and how she had really raised him, things Robert had never, ever told Abby. Abby didn't believe a work of it. Others contributed very little. His sister admitted she’d never really known he was interested in Marcus Aurelius and asked Abby to buy the book and highlight the portions from my book and she would pay for them. In true fashion for this group, most people looked upon it as an opportunity to get drunk. Raquel avoided only Abby. Abby knew why. A month or so later, Raquel announced she was taking a new job in Mississippi and would be selling her house and moving. It seemed very odd to Abby since Raquel was extremely close to her family who only lived a short distance from Lake Worth, and she visited them often. She never spoke to Abby again, not even to say goodbye. Through the grapevine, Abby learned that none other than Diego Rivera was heavily involved in the sale of Raquel’s house and helped her pack and move to Mississippi. Abby talked to all their mutual friends, raising questions as to why there wasn’t more of an investigation into Robert’s death. They all looked at her like she had three heads. She called the estate attorney, looking for anything more. Oddly enough, the estate attorney had died unexpectedly one month after Robert. Abby was now more convinced than ever that Robert’s death had been the result of foul play, and perhaps even the estate attorney. A year later, Abby still wondered what happened to Robert. Raquel has never communicated with Abby. They are friends on Facebook, but Raquel never posts anything personal. Diego Rivera, who helped her move there isn’t even listed as her friend on Facebook and never has been. Abby believed this was a strategic decision on Raquel's part.
On the following annual trek to Cassadaga, Florida, a spirtualist camp located a few hours from Lake Worth, Abby visited a medium and asked to contact Robert. Abby asked the medium to ask Robert what happened when he died. Did he die from a heart attack as the coroner’s report stated or was it something else. Robert’s response was “It was a drug deal gone wrong.” Abby has put it all together now. Diego Rivera knew Raquel was going to inherit a lot of money. Diego Rivera wanted it. Diego Rivera knew Robert used drugs. Robert never met or saw Diego Rivera, though he tried. Raquel established a connection between Robert and Diego Rivera, for the purpose of Diego selling Robert drugs. Diego made arrangements to deliver the drugs to Robert’s condo. Robert arranged to have Diego come to his condo with the drugs and willingly opened his door to Diego. The rest is history, much as is the suicide of Susan Rivera.
Unless, of course, Dick killed Robert..
