1
Regarding
Rebecca
By:
Jerry
L.
Harvey
Jr.
2018
For:
Jenn Corbin
And
Cassandra Hubbell
I wish I had been there.
None of the events described, or the people herein are real.
New Year’s Day
Andrew Smitts carefully took the money out of his office safe and packed it into the duffel bag. He always followed the same routine on Thursday. The money had been in the office since Tuesday this week. It mattered little to him which day his drop meeting was. If there was no money in the safe he went through his routine, even if it was a holiday like today.
At two minutes after three he left his office and informed his secretary he was heading down to the gym in the basement of the building. It was a wonderful convenience. Everyone knew he ran thirty minutes on the treadmill each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at lunch and worked out Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. He often received compliments on his consistency and the thirty pounds he had dropped in the last year. No one knew the coke and meth contributed as much to it as anything he did in the gym.
He finished his workout, shower, and shave at a few minutes before five. He filed out of the main doors with everyone else a few minutes later, and then made his way through the traffic to a restaurant. It was the only detail in his Thursday that changed. He never ate at the same place two weeks in a row, but even that was planned.
Once he made his drop tonight it would be time to party! There would be plenty of women looking for a good time. He wished he could find another girl like the auburn-haired beauty he had been with for the past couple of months, but she had not answered his calls for over a week now.
After dinner he made several circuits around town to make sure no one was following him. There was no reason for anyone to, but it was a game he played with himself. It was just like the game he played with the money. Every couple of months he would take a trip to Atlantic City or Las Vegas to gamble. The next trip was nine days away. The money was deposited with the casino and he went to a poker table where he would “lose” the money to one of the other players, or several players over the course of the weekend. A packet was delivered that gave him the details of the casino, table he was to sit at, and who his contact would be. When he left, the money was clean, and he was allowed to keep, or win, his percentage for the trip. In two years he had only met the same player one time. His IRS forms for the casinos always left him with positive winnings at the end of the year, although his deposits into the casino vaults were only a small percentage of what he actually delivered.
After forty-five minutes of driving he went to the self-storage business where this quarter’s deposits were stored in laundry bags and moving boxes. He changed the storage site every four months. Last week he had simply sat in the car for twenty minutes because there had been no money in his bag, and he never unlocked the unit unless he had to.
He waited five minutes to assure himself no one else was around, then went and dialed the combination into the lock, then inserted a key into a second unit lock and slowly raised the door. He checked the aisle again and turned the light switch on for its maximum fifteen-minute time. It was gone! The unit was empty. Over four million dollars had disappeared from the unit. Andy had eight days to find that money, or he would die. He had no doubts about that!
He put the gym bag into the trunk of his car and carefully closed the door and locks. He would have to change everything tomorrow to ensure this money didn’t join the missing funds, and he would have to know who had been here. He would have to know it soon.
Jason looked around Charles’ office with some surprise. It seemed many things in his life were ending. He had followed his friends’ rise in Florida politics from Mayor to State Representative and now to Congressman from a distance while he and Amber lived their life quietly tucked away in the north-east corner of Alabama. Charles had been elected in November and was getting ready to head to his new offices in the capitol.
It had been four months since they had all seen each other. Jason and Amber had spent a week in Saint Augustine at the end of the summer and Charles and his wife Tig had come for the last couple of days. It was the last weekend all of them would spend together. They had come for Amber’s funeral in Alabama six weeks past.
Charles stepped through the door, breaking his thoughts. His friend had given up the shoulder length dark curls of his youth and dropped most of the excess weight off his six-foot frame. In high school they had been an odd pair. Jason was on the weightlifting and football teams. His five-foot eleven body tanned from weekends on the sands of Daytona and Saint Augustine and working in the fields. Charles had been pushing two hundred fifty pounds then. He had dropped maybe thirty of those pounds and his dark unruly curls were cut conservatively. Between military service and work on his own farm, Jason was a solid man of about two hundred. His once flowing golden locks cut hi and tight as they thinned. They had come a long way in the twenty-five years since they left their white trash childhoods behind. He stood to shake his old friend’s hand.
“Sorry you had to wait. Beth said she told you to make yourself comfortable. I always wondered how you do that in someone else’s office. Hell, when I was still practicing I had to play a part for my clients, and as a politician you always have to be on guard,” he said only half joking. He poured a cup of coffee and sat down at his desk.
“Surely you don’t miss the good old days settling property disputes and corporate fights. Politics is much more of an action sport,” Jason commented, drinking from his own hot cup. “Besides, you’re coming up on your fortieth birthday, being elected to congress isn’t half bad my friend.”
“No I guess not. I’ve got a lot to do, but one of the reasons I asked you to come down is because I don’t know what you’re doing now.”
“As far as what,” Jason asked.
“Everything, Amber’s accident has had to radically change things in your life. I know it’s only been a month and a half, but do you have any idea what you’re going to do?”
“Not really. I’ve kind of wrapped up everything at the farm. I don’t think I can stay there right now. There’s too much of her everywhere I look. When Beth called and asked if I could come down and help you with something I was glad to leave. I didn’t even ask her what it was. I don’t know what you would have for me to do though. Hell, you’re a Congressman, and you’re way too young for me to be writing your memoirs.”
“You did some great speeches for me during the election. I wish you would have come and campaigned with us, but now I’m glad you didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Jason inquired
“You know, just with Amber being taken away so suddenly, I’m glad you were with her during the last year and not running all over north Florida with me.”
“Thanks, I hadn’t really thought of it.”
“Insurance and all that stuff taken care of,” Charles checked.
“Yeah, we didn’t have life insurance, but the auto policies paid.”
“Why no life insurance? That seems kind of odd.”
“No reason for it. The money from my books and then the movie rights made having life insurance a waste of money. If something happened, we would be okay.”
“Are you?”
“The money part of it anyway. Amber owned half of the vet practice and I’ve got a lawyer and agent dealing with that, but it’s not like our livelihood depended on it.”
“No, I guess not. Have you ever thought about writing a mystery?”
“Not really. I’ve read some I quite enjoyed, but I’ve been fairly happy with the column I write. The first two books were about my relationships with Colleen and Julia, and then Amber Lynn was about my discovery of her and who I was. I haven’t ventured far from those areas.”
“I asked you to come down because I’ve kind of got a mystery, and I hope you can help me with it.”
“I’m sure you have people who can do that sort of thing,” Jason observed.
“Not this. This is very sensitive and kind of special. I can’t be officially involved in it.”
“But you are,” Jason stated looking around the office. “So, is it political scandal or something that could be?”
“Actually, this only concerns me in a peripheral sense. I have a client, and let’s see, how do I explain this?” Charles rose from his chair and went to get another cup of coffee. He came and sat on the front edge of his desk, searching the room with his eyes. “Okay, you remember Rachael Watson from high school?” he asked.
“Yeah, I remember her quite well. I even dated her right after I got out of the military. I wasn’t ready to settle down then, and there was always something…” he trailed off searching for words. “There was always this belief we could be something together, but there was always something else that wasn’t right somehow, you know, timing or something. I always thought I could be in love with her. We had much different goals and attitudes then. She came close to ending my relationship with Amber with some of the stuff she pulled a few months later. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want anything to do with me. The feeling is mutual.”
“She’s disappeared.”
Jason looked at his old friend for a moment trying to figure out what it meant. “Why does that concern you?” he finally asked.
“One of my clients had helped subsidize her life for the past few years.”
“I thought you didn’t deal with anything like that anymore,” Jason observed.
“I usually didn’t deal with things like that. This was a special circumstance. It was old business. We’ve known Rachael since high school. I think you dated her then, too didn’t you?”
“Not exactly but go on.”
“She has a daughter who is twelve or thirteen and I handled some arrangements to make sure they were, ah, provided for.”
“I still don’t see what this has to do with you calling me.”
“Rebecca, Rachael’s daughter, doesn’t know who her father is. I’m not at liberty to give the information if I wanted to, and right now I’m not sure I would if it was possible.”
“Still doesn’t involve me, what’s her dad doing about it?”
“I need someone who can find her,” Charles dismissed the question. “I can’t call in a private investigator or anything because it would eventually come back to me. If you decide to go that route I will work it out so you’re compensated for it through consulting fees or speech writing or something, but this has to stay clean. I can’t have fingerprints on it.”
“Come on man! You have to know somebody much better qualified than me for this. Besides, after what she pulled at the Foundation and what she told Amber, I’m not sure I want to help.”
“I don’t know exactly what you did while you were in the military, but I know you have some background for this. You know how to talk to people and learn things. Besides, I trust you. That’s something you can’t buy here, and certainly not when I get to Washington. And, you know Rachael. If you do this and can find her she might listen to you when she won’t listen to anyone else.”
Jason took another drink of coffee and leaned back in his chair. “What about the police?”
“A missing person’s report has been filed and they have asked a few questions here and there. The thing is; she has a history. She’s been busted a few times over the last few years, nothing really big. She’s disappeared before for a few days here and there, so they say they’re looking for her, but they aren’t really looking for her.”
“And you think she’ll listen to me and come back,” Jason asked with surprise. “We didn’t exactly part on good terms. Are there mental issues?”
“Nothing has been documented. I want to see if you can track her down and see if she is stoned or strung out and get her back home and in treatment.”
Jason was only a little surprised to hear the girl he once knew could have travelled that path. Her drinking and occasional drug use was one of the reasons he had left in the first place. He would help try to track her down if he could though. Not so much for her, but for her family. “Where’s the kid,” he asked.
Charles walked back around his desk and pulled out a manila folder. “She’s staying with her grandmother in Williston. She’s been there for the better part of four years. Rachael was a teacher up in Pensacola a few years ago and she got busted with Meth in the school parking lot. She got three years’ probation and rehab for six months. Her last contact with her parole officer was in August.”
“What else do I need to know? Where do you suggest I start?”
“Williston I guess. Her mom and daughter are still there.”
“How long has she been missing?” Jason questioned.
“Ten days, she disappeared the day after Christmas. She was working as a receptionist in an office downtown. She left at the end of the day, called her mom to say she was getting a drink with friends and no one has heard from her since.”
“Does anyone know where she was going or who she was meeting?”
Charles shook his head and looked out the office window. “Her mom called me from a card she found in Rachael’s room. I’ve had to be very circumspect in this. My office can’t look into it because it wouldn’t look right. Like I said; it’s old business.”
“Does Tig know?”
Charles shook his head again. “No, not about this, it’s was a personal favor for an old friend. I didn’t talk to her about this. Tig didn’t care for Rachael much either after what happened here when you came back with Amber.”
“And your client doesn’t know anything? Who’s paying the bills? Who is the kid’s father?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. But, if he knew anything, I would know, and you would know. She hasn’t contacted the girl’s father.”
“Don’t I need some kind of license or something for this?” Jason wondered out loud. “I’ve got a gun in the truck that’s legal, but perhaps it should stay there.”
“I just want you to find out what you can. If you can come up with something let me know. I’ve got a full agenda trying to figure out what needs to go to Washington and what has to stay here. We just got back from looking at townhouses up there.”
“Still, why me?”
“You’re not doing anything else are you?”
“No.”
“And you said you needed to get off the farm for a little while?”
“Yeah,” Jason admitted.
“Consider it a favor for a couple of old friends. If you find her, maybe she can explain her reasons for what she did all those years ago. Go over to the Chance Foundation and say hi to everybody. Go to Williston and check on Rebecca and Tara. You haven’t been around for most of the last twenty years besides showing up to do your charity fundraiser every year. People won’t think too much of you checking up on Rachael, asking questions.”
“They might if they know our history. Nobody at the Foundation even knows who I am these days it seems, and that’s okay with me. I’ve been nothing more than a name on the building. I think I might like to keep it that way.”
“Hey, the Foundation is your baby. The trust fund you set up pays out over a hundred thousand a year to them. They receive twice that in donations. It might do some good for the founder to show up again.”
Jason was surprised. “Well, it looks like the baby has grown up! I don’t think I need to go poking my nose in around over there. Johnathan Foster seemed to have things well in hand last April when I was here.”
“Johnathan resigned in August. Tony’s running the place now. He’s the first person who walked through the doors when they opened. He’s the reason you opened the foundation. Surely you want to talk to him.”
“I’ll think about it. On the other hand, if I started talking to folks around there in any official way it would make it a lot harder for me to be anonymous and ask questions. I’m sure Tony is running things well. He’s been there since the beginning.”
“Whatever, so, will you check on Rachael for me, see if you can find her?”
“Yeah, I’ll figure something out. I’m still not sure she wants me in any part of her life though. The way things ended was not great.”
“You can figure that part out when you find her. Where are you going to stay?”
“I don’t know. My luggage is my truck downstairs.”
“You drove down? I figured you’d caught a flight.”
“Well, the trip is only eight hours. I drove part of it last night and got a hotel south of Macon.”
“Have you got a room here?”
“No not yet.”
“I’ll have Beth book you a room. I can comp. it for your consulting.”
Jason looked down at his watch, it was almost four. “Okay, I’ll get settled and see if I can contact her mom tonight and maybe head out there tomorrow. Where did Rachael work?”
“All the info I have is in that folder.” Jason stood up and they shook hands. “I’m sorry about Amber,” Charles said.
Jason shrugged his shoulders. “Accidents happen. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. I don’t understand it. I just have to accept the change.” He turned and walked out the door.
The Watson home was much as Jason remembered it. It was a white frame cracker house like many others that littered Florida from the late eighteen hundreds through the early part of the twentieth century. It had been well kept up and was probably built around the same time as his farm house in Alabama. It was a few miles out of town, but even after twenty some odd years he was still able to drive right to it. His sense of space and direction had always been an asset. If he went somewhere once, he could always find his way back. The single-story ranch sat at the far end of a wooded drive amidst five acres of oak and pine trees.
Tara Watson, Rachael’s mother, met him at the door and ushered him inside. She was a small woman of about five four with silver hair and a light frame that she had kept in fair shape over her fifty-eight years. He looked around as he walked through the living room and saw scant sign of a teenage girl living there. Of course, all he had as a reference were ancient memories of his sister, and they had never been close. The five years separating them at birth had only grown over time. Since he had left home at seventeen he knew little of her from then until her death in a car crash six years later. She was buried somewhere in town.
Tara led him to the kitchen where she offered a chair and coffee, and he accepted both.
Rebecca slipped quietly into the hall to eavesdrop. She heard her grandmother speaking.
“When you called last night, I have to admit, I didn’t remember who you were. I went to Rachael’s room and found an old year book with your picture. I only remember meeting you a few times. If not for the picture to jog my memory I wouldn’t know you.”
“Rachael was a year younger than me, but two years behind in high school.”
“Why? She never failed a grade.”
“My birthday is to blame. And, my parents I guess. I’ll be forty in five days. My parents sent me to private school when I was four because the public schools wouldn’t take me. That put me a year ahead of most of the kids my age. I didn’t get my license ’til halfway through my junior year.”
“I don’t remember what happened with you two. Would you care to refresh my memory?” Tara asked.
“I liked Rachael, and it seems like her birthday was in March, I think.” Tara nodded, and he continued. “So, when I turned sixteen, she was still fourteen, and not allowed to date.”
“Her father’s rule, but I agreed completely,” Tara commented.
“I had met a girl in Bronson when I was fifteen and we dated for the better part of a year. Rachael and I were friends when things ended with the girl from Bronson and I was interested in her, but my friend Chris had liked her and had asked you and your husband if he could take her out.”
“I remember Chris, we told him no in no uncertain terms. He was welcome to visit her here, but she was going nowhere with him. He was two years older than her and drove a van with a bed in the back.”
“Yes, his father’s hand me down I believe,” Jason commented. He took a sip of coffee and continued. “I think that led to their breakup as the story was related to me. I did come out here to meet you guys and gave Rachael a ride home a few times. We didn’t have any classes together, but we were in English club and on the debate team. She kept her books in the trunk of my car at school and we had lunch together most days, but I knew it couldn’t go anywhere.”
“Because we wouldn’t let her date, and you weren’t willing to wait the year and couple of months until she turned sixteen,” Tara surmised.
“I might have,” Jason responded, “until the kiss.”
“What kiss?” Rebecca spoke before she realized it was out loud.
“Come on in and meet Mr. Garrot,” Tara said.
Rebecca walked into the room sheepishly and took a seat on one of the barstools. She nodded to Jason and took the cup of coffee her grandmother slid towards her. She studied her mom’s long lost ex-boyfriend, if you could call him that, for a moment or two. “What kiss?” she repeated before taking a drink.
Jason studied the young teen before him. He could see a lot of her mother in her, but something else seemed vaguely familiar. He just couldn’t put a finger on it. She stood close to five-foot-tall and had dark hair with a slight curl to it. Her skin was tanned, and freckles dotted her nose and face. He would bet he knew her father. “As I remember it, I had to leave school early one day, I don’t even remember what for exactly. I think my grandfather had passed away. He died sometime that year from cancer. Anyway, I went by and got your mom out of class in case there was anything she needed out of my car. I was sitting in the seat waiting for her to gather her things and when she was done she came and knelt beside me to ask what was wrong.
“We just had a moment, our eyes met, the look lingered, and we kissed for a little while.”
“You kissed my fourteen-year-old daughter?”
Jason nodded. “Yeah, well, it was a long time ago and she was almost fifteen. Anyway, I had been apprehensive about letting her know I liked her, but I was ready then. I didn’t have time that day but wanted to let her know the next.
“She found me before school and told me she wanted to talk. I thought it was great because I could reveal how I felt. Before I got the chance, she told me that ‘the kiss’ was a huge mistake and we should just forget about it, then she walked away.”
“Why?” Rebecca asked.
Jason looked from her to her grandmother and shrugged. “She was scared I would never love her the way I loved the girl in Bronson. I didn’t find that out until years later when we dated after I came back to town after leaving the Navy.”
“And that was the end of things?” Tara inquired. “I don’t know when the kiss was, but I do remember you coming around more than a couple of times.”
“We were still friends, still hung out some. I had a job and worked a lot when I wasn’t in school. Everything was cool until the Prom came up. I wasn’t going to go because your mom was the only girl I was interested in taking and from her reaction to our kiss, and your grandparent’s rules, I figured it wasn’t going to happen,” he said to Rebecca.
“So about three weeks before the Prom one of my female friends asked me about it, and when she found out I didn’t plan to go and didn’t have a date, she asked me to take her. As it turned out, your mom wanted me to ask her instead.”
“But you didn’t because you thought she couldn’t go,” Rebecca added.
“Which didn’t really matter,” Tara said, “because even if she couldn’t go, she wanted to be asked. And we might have let her go, but the question was never posed.”
“And,” Jason informed, “there was some sort of tiff between her and the girl I did take. She told me about it in a tear-filled rant a couple of days before the Prom.”
“So that was the end of things?” Rebecca asked.
“Sort of, I didn’t go to Williston my senior year. I virtually left town after my junior year. I lived here, but I never even ventured into town for anything. I started a job in Gainesville and started hanging out with the college students I worked with. And, when you’re sixteen and partying on weekends with a bunch of college kids your high school friends are soon forgotten.”
“Then why are you here now?” Tara asked.
“A couple of reasons; Rachael and I ran into each other right before I left for the military twenty or so years ago and she showed up at my house a time or two when she had been drinking, but nothing ever happened. She still didn’t know what she wanted me to be. Six years later I came back when I got out of the Navy and we dated for a few months, but I was a lost soul at that point and I think we both knew it. We never talked much about high school after our first couple of dates.
“As I told Charles yesterday, there was always a potential for something great between us, but it just never quite caught fire.”
“But, those aren’t enough for you to be here now,” Tara observed.
“Maybe not, so the other reason has to do with my friend Charles. He’s the lawyer you contacted. I guess our friend would be a better description. He asked me to see if I could find her. I know Rachael has had some problems in the past few years and the police aren’t being much help at the moment. We have a history, even though it is not the best.” He let the statement hang in the air.
“So, are you a private investigator or something?” Rebecca asked, breaking the silence. She took a sip of coffee and realized it had gone lukewarm.
“No, nothing of the sort,” Jason admitted, looking at the two of them. “I’m just an old friend. I needed to get out of Alabama for a little while and Charles thought this might help both of us.”
“What are you running from in Alabama?” Tara asked suspiciously.
“Memories,” Jason answered. “My wife was killed in a car accident six and one-half weeks ago. I see her everywhere I go around town. When Charles asked me to come and help with something here; I agreed it would be good for me to be anywhere else but there. I thought it was something with his office when the call came in. I’ve done some consulting work for him.”
“So, you might not be any help at all,” Tara commented.
“I might not,” Jason admitted. “Then again, if you can give me some place to start, who knows?”
Rebecca sat in her room after Jason left. Her grandmother had given him the directions and number to her mom’s job and the names of a couple of the girls she hung out with. She didn’t know if he could help them find her mom or not. The cops sure didn’t seem to be doing anything.
She began to wonder about Jason. She had gone to her mom’s room and found the yearbook with his picture. Her mom had never mentioned him, but there were a lot of things her mom didn’t mention. Like her father! Rebecca had hinted several times, trying to get some clue. Was she still in touch with him? Was he on drugs like she had been? Or maybe he was a guy like Jason and she had known him for years before she got pregnant. Yeah, that seemed good! It was better than thinking of him the other way, anyhow. Of course, her mom didn’t start using until after Johnny died, so it probably was a pretty good guy. But was it this guy? Why was he here looking for her mom after twenty years? Why did it matter to him? After all, the longest he had been with her was “a few months”. Suddenly Rebecca was angry. Why did it matter after all? What did this stranger think he could do to help? Didn’t he know they had tried? Family couldn’t help her. Professionals couldn’t help her. How could an old crush help her? She groaned. She had so many questions and no one to answer them. She seemed to have lost both her parents. One she had never known and now her mom was gone.
One of her memories was a scene between her mom and grandmother from three or four years ago. She didn’t remember when exactly, but she had the vivid picture of sneaking into the kitchen for a snack. On her way out (with a cookie in her hand) she heard her two guardians talking quietly in the living room.
“...so, you’re starting this again! It’s not right for you to do this Rachael. Rebecca’s still young. She need’s you!”
“She has you.” Rachael’s voice was wrong, even in the memory. It was slower and deeper.
“Rachael, she needs her mother. That’s you! You’re blood and skin. Look at you Rachael. If someone saw you with her they’d think you stole her. Don’t you put her through that! Don’t you put me through it!”
“Mom, it was only a couple of drinks, I swear.”
“A couple of drinks and what else, more drugs, more weed? You promised me you would change if I let you come back. You promised me, and you promised Rebecca. Do you remember that Rachael?”
“I’ll stop...”
But it hadn’t stopped. It had only gotten worse. Rebecca shuddered every time she thought of what her mother looked like most of the times when she came home back then. If she didn’t have work the next day she would be fumbling “quietly” with her keys late at night, trying to get in the house without waking anyone so they wouldn’t know how late she had been out. Tara was always the one that let her in and led her to her room. The next day Rachael wouldn’t be seen out of her room until very late when her hang over had passed. The last few months it had been much better, but now her mom was gone again. She could be stoned or drunk, or dead in a ditch.
Rebecca stood and paced by her bed. And now here was this man who had known her mom in high school, come back to his home-town to save her from the fierce cruelty of drugs and alcohol. Sure, he seemed okay, and he seemed to have the sense of someone who had been around
“Help can come from anywhere. Don’t be quick to turn it away,” was one of Tara’s favorite sayings. And who knew, maybe it would turn out okay after all. At least, Jason had her support for the moment. She would take any help she could get.
