Messenger 14

We spent the next two nights at a fairly anonymous hotel to the south of the city while decisions were made by the powers that be, about what to do with me.

I began to get the feeling that now that I’d testified before the Grand Jury that I was yesterday's news and therefore disposable, just like a take-out Pizza box when the contents have been consumed. That didn’t bother me too much. All that I hoped was that I could be taken somewhere a long way from DC and left to find my own way. Then I felt guilty. My feelings about Sylvie had to be taken into consideration. I had to admit to myself that she was fast becoming more than a guardian, more than just a friend. That in itself was worrying. All of this personal relationship stuff was very new to me. The only other person I’d been close to was my mom and that was a long, long time ago.

On the third morning, we woke to some stupendous news. The Grand Jury had issued a Felony Murder 1 indictment on my father for the murder of my mother. The story said that he being arraigned at the jail where he was being held in custody. This one and a slew of other new charges meant that there were now some 67 federal and more than 100 civil cases, all working their way towards a trial.

I fully expected his lawyers to start their delaying tactics but in at least one case, the evidence is what the TV news was calling a 'slam dunk' guilty verdict. I swapped to a different cable news station and they speculated that the 'slam dunk' case was the murder of my mom. Rumors were circulating that the Feds had video evidence of him in the act of killing my mom. That pleased me yet, at the same time, it disturbed me. Someone had leaked that bit of information.

I felt a huge amount of relief at the next step in the painfully slow application of justice on him for that crime had been made. That was the upside. The downside was that I knew that my father would employ every legal tactic possible including trying to get the video evidence tossed out. That was probably why the ADA had spent more than an hour, questioning me about everything to do with the video. This included where I'd gotten the money for the camera, and where the recording had been since that fateful day.

The first battle was over, but the war was far from done, of that I was very clear.

That wasn’t all the surprises that arrived that morning.
“We have clearance to go to Maine tomorrow first thing. We’ll fly to Boston with a connection to Portland. A car will be waiting for us there,” said Sylvie.
“The tickets will be delivered later along with some new ID.”

“New ID?”

Sylvie smiled.
“The powers that be don’t want us travelling under our current names just in case someone is on the lookout for us.”

I breathed a sigh of relief but it was only temporary.

"Then we are on our own, I suppose?"

Sylvie smiled.
"Not quite. I never told you what my family does for a living, did I?"

Sylvie was right. She’d had been very circumspect about that.

“No, you didn’t.”

“My older brother is County Sheriff for that part of the state. I'm sure that I don't need to spell out what that means do I?"

She didn't need to elaborate, but I still had this ever-increasing feeling that I was just a small and insignificant pawn in the game of chess that was being waged against my father. Part of me rejoiced at the thought but a bigger part just wanted him to pay for everything he did to mom and me.

Some unexpected news came late that afternoon concerning the legal teams who had been representing my father. They had all quit citing the small but not insignificant fact that they hadn't been paid for months, and the latest set of charges was the final straw. As they quit, they filed suit against him for the monies owed which according to the TV news reports ranged from $500,000 to close on $4M. They’d have to take their place in the queue of people wanting money from him and his estate.

I dared myself to use the word, 'karma' for once in my life. The news outlets were going crazy over the ever-increasing web of crime and corruption that was being exposed for all to see on an almost daily basis. It soon turned out that, I had not been the only one to record his phone calls. His secretary from around the time he murdered my mom had been sexually assaulted by him. That was not big news to me. He'd been doing it for years. Her revenge was to record his calls, and archive all his emails and texts. She'd supplied them to the feds when he'd fired her after winning the Governor's election. Now she had written a book, and by all accounts, it was going to be a hum-dinger.

For a while, I felt a bit put out by her usurping me in the evidence stakes, but Sylvie soon rectified that by reminding me that I was the one who had the evidence of him murdering my mom and that murder tops rape in the league of crime severity.

---

Maine proved to be just like the travel brochures described it… well, it was when it wasn’t raining, snowing, blowing a gale or covered in fog. Sylvie just beamed at being home and close to her family.

I was introduced to them as her ‘witness in keeping’. After a bit, I understood that this was a family joke. ‘Keeping‘ turned out to mean that I was to be kept safe, but not wrapped in cotton wool. That pleased me because I had come to hate being mollycoddled as I had been by the Marshal's Service. They had good reason to do it then, but not now.

When the weather cleared, Maine in the fall was beautiful and the seafood? Heavenly. Sylvie took great delight in showing me the sights. For a while, I wondered if she was subtly asking me if I wanted to stay when this was all over. OTOH, it gave us something to do that was outside the cabin.

The words 'all over' was still like the dot of light at the end of a tunnel. Is it the exit into the daylight, or is it an oncoming train that would smash you to a pulp without a second thought or hesitation? I had to think that it was the latter. I didn’t know what had happened to my half-brother. As far as I knew, he'd been silent since that day in Spokane. That was unusual for him as he'd appointed himself as the main mouthpiece for my father's business dealings since he'd been elected Governor. He'd been the one who posted his missives on Social Media and ran the all too infrequent press conferences. He had the charisma to handle the press whereas, my dear father was socially inept when the questions took him off script so my half-brother took over all that sort of stuff. As far as I knew, none of the news media had reported on his presence or the legal cases against him since June.

I guessed that with the charges against my father increasing in both number and severity, he was out on bail and hunkered down somewhere keeping very quiet. The only good thing he’d done in all his life was to not get on the plane our father as he tried to flee the country. That he was not fleeing with him had caused a lot of comment in the media. The words ‘Daddy’s boy out of favor’ was used more than once.

That thought made me happy because of all the bad-mouthing he'd given both me and Mom after her death. He’d all but called her a working whore. She wasn’t anything other than a woman who had an affair with the wrong man.

Little did I know that assumption was about as far from the truth as it could be.

---

After we’d been in Maine for a week, I began to get itchy feet. I put most of that down to not having something to do with my time. By now, I’d read all the books in the cabin which surprised Sylvie. I explained that I’d learned to speed read when I was in 2nd grade. I could already read, write and do what Mom called ‘Life Sums’ before I started 1st grade. i.e., the maths that I'd need to get by in daily life. Mom had taken me for a Happy Meal as a reward for learning something so cool. Those were great days. I felt on top of the world when Mom treated me like that. School had been very boring because of the start that mom had given me. I ended up helping the teacher with a few of those who were struggling with their alphabet.

Just thinking about those times when it was just me and mom against the world made me both happy and sad. She’d been taken from me far too early. She was my mom! I wanted to get my hands on him and give him a good beating.

“Penny for them?” said a voice that brought me back to reality.
It was Sylvie.

“Oh sorry. I was thinking about the days when it was just me and mom against the world or that’s what it seemed like to me at the time.”

“Well, I have some more news for you.”

“Good I hope?”

“Very good.”

“I’d better sit down then.”

She laughed and sat opposite me.

"There are two bits of news. Do you remember that your father's lawyers upped and quit because they'd not been paid?"

“Yes. Rats deserting the sinking ship, I think one Cable News station called them for about a week.”

“They did, didn't they. Well, it appears that the new team has told him very clearly that his goose is well and truly cooked. He's changed his plea to guilty on the charger of murdering your mom. He's taken a deal on all the other cases. The report I just received says that he's going down for 99 years rather than facing the death penalty for your mom's murder. His son, your half-brother quickly followed suit once he saw the deal that his father had accepted in writing. He accepted a 25 to 40-year sentence for six counts of 1st Degree Manslaughter, including that of the Judge.”

I tried to stop myself, but I failed miserably and broke down in tears. The tears were joyful tears but with a few sad ones for Mom's death thrown in.

Sylvie came around the table and gave me a big hug. It felt good, and as always, she smelt good.

Thanks, Sylvie. I'm sorry for blabbing like that."

“Bollocks. Sorry but the pressure you have been under recently, it amazes me how well you have coped with everything.”

"Thanks, but I don't think that I'd finally accept that it is all over until they give their admission statements to the court and the judge passes sentence, and it becomes official."

"It is good that you thought about a point of closure."

I nodded.
“And the second bit of news?”

“The deal that your brother took to get the charges reduced to manslaughter was dependent upon him ratting your father out, as well as his corrupt associates. From what I've been told he's been singing like a canary for weeks including detailing some very nasty sex crimes, and for once the sieve that is DC has managed to keep it quiet. His sentencing has already been delayed by three months, and the DOJ may well be applying for another delay. That tells me that he has dirt and lots of it on a lot of other people, and that those people may well be getting a bit nervous, if you know what I mean?”

"He always was a snitch. Mom always said, that he'd not thnk twice about turning in his own mom just to curry favor with dad. He does not have one innocent bone in his body."

“He sounds like a nasty piece of work.”

“He is and always will be. I hope the people working on his case understand that almost every word he says is a lie and that the only person he cares about is himself. He got that from his father and his father before him. That whole family only care about two things. Getting more and more ‘green’ and screwing over anyone who is not in the family. My dear father would have shoved my brother under the bus if it meant saving himself from justice. Thankfully, with the evidence I had there was no way that he could put his dear son in the frame for mom’s murder.”

“A true scumbag family then?” said Sylvie.

“Very much so. It took me a couple of years after the death of my mom to get the full picture of just how bad they were. I got lucky as the state has an open records law.”

Then she smiled at me.

Sylvie smiled. I’d gotten used to that particular smile.
“What else is there?”

“Just this…”
Sylvie gave me a long, long kiss. We were cool.

---

After dinner that night, I said to Sylvie,

“I think that it is time that I moved on. With my father and stepbrother locked up, I can start to think about what I am going to do with the rest of my life."

I saw Sylvie react with obvious displeasure.
“You have to get back to your job at the FBI, don’t you?”

"I'll probably be summoned to DC for a debriefing, any day now that the legal stuff is wrapping up.”

There was an awkward silence between us. I could tell that Sylvie wanted to say something, but I didn't want to say anything until I had decided what I was going to do with my life. Before all this had blown up legally, I had a purpose which was survival. Now that the threat was as far as I knew over, all I could see was a big black hole.

It was Sylvie who broke the silence.
"You don't have to go, you know?"

“And when you have to report back to Phoenix?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’d… I’ve got some responsibilities over there.”

I made a decision.
“I’ll stay until you get your summons. Then we can go to DC with you. The Bus connections from there are a lot better than from here?”

“Will you go and see Queenie?”

I shook my head.
"I want to get settled somewhere, and then I can invite her to stay, but I honestly don't know where that will be."

“What about that place in Washington? You spoke so fondly of it.”

"Yeah, but that's part of the Judge's estate. He only said that I could stay there. It was only a verbal contract, and now that he is dead and the place is a pile of ashes, even thinking about it all seems rather pointless, doesn’t it?”
There was a lot more that I wanted to say, but I was petrified. Sylvie saw something in my body language or whatever. She was trained in this sort of thing but that didn't worry me.

“But it is a lot more complicated now, isn't it?"

I nodded.
“That complication is me, isn’t it?” she said softly.

Again, I nodded.
"Things were so easy relatively speaking, when I was on the road. When we were…"

I looked at her again and tried to speak but failed. Sylvie came to my rescue.

“It is complicated for me as well. When I was detailed to prepare you for the legal stuff … never in my wildest dreams did I think that I’d fall for you. For weeks now, I have been telling myself that I’m too old for you and that you should be getting together with someone your own age. Then something happens and you show a maturity well beyond your age.”

I looked at Sylvie and smiled.
"We are both scared of what happens next, aren't we?"

It was her turn to nod her head.
“Both of us have been on our own for so long that having to rely on someone else in our life is not going to be easy.”

For a second, I thought that this was her way of letting me down gently.

"I'm going to have to resume my career in the FBI, at least for the time being. I think that having a little time apart might let both of us see a little clearer how we can go forward. I don't know if that is as a couple or not."

I nodded my head. There was a feeling of relief inside me. She had let me down gently but had left the door open should we want it to be.

"In the meantime, I think it is long past time that we got to know each other a little better romantically."

This time I understood what she was talking about.
"If it is going to be a problem for you given the past, then say so."

“No… it is not going to be a problem. If there is one person on this planet that I care about then that person is you…”

“Good,” she said as she led me into her bedroom.

---

Sylvie received the summons for her debrief in DC, three days later. She’d used the time in Maine, to write most of her report on the whole event from our meeting near Duluth to the present day including our encounter with the two rednecks. She omitted just a few details about how we’d left them and what my appearance was like right now.

We'd discussed that a bit, and this was a problem. My first act once I'd left Sylvie would be to get my hair cut into a more androgynous style. It wasn't that I didn't like how I was now. I’d dreamed about having long hair ever since mom caught me that first time. Sometimes when I was dressed as her daughter, she'd spent hours brushing my hair. She'd say,

“You are so lucky with your hair. It is naturally straight unlike mine…”

When times were tight, she'd have to forgo the straightening treatments, and within a few days, it had reverted almost to an 'afro' style, which she hated with a vengeance. She would protest that she wasn't a 1980s disco singer. Mom hated 'disco' music, so I'd try to do a few odd jobs around the stores on the block to help out just so that she could get her hair looking good again. Little things like that were important to her and now they were to me as well.

I wasn’t looking forward to going on the road again, but I had to go. Being on the move was the one place where I could think clearly. For one thing, I didn’t have anyone looking over my shoulder wanting to know what I was doing, what I was thinking where I’d been, who I’d been talking to. It had been that way even before mom was murdered. I did promise her that when I came to a decision, I would tell her to her face. That was the least that she deserved.

---

Returning to DC felt rather strange. I put it down to two reasons the easy one was that it was the place where my testimony to the Grand Jury helped send my father away for the rest of his life. The second was that I'd have to say goodbye to Sylvie. We'd hardly been apart for months. She'd become a lot more than an FBI agent assigned to look after me, but that was a good deal of why I had to say goodbye to her for the time being at least.

We travelled by car to Boston, where we took the train via NYC to DC. Sylvie laughed at my rejection of flying. I just didn't like being enclosed in a metal tube, even if it was for less than two hours, but we'd compromised and enjoyed the train ride.

We booked into the same Hotel near Quantico that we’d used before. At first, that pleased me because I’d already worked out an exit route should things go wrong. Then I scolded myself for still thinking that I was still on the run from my father and his goons, but old habits and that…

Sylvie had twisted my arm a lot, and I'd agreed to stay in DC until she was done with the debrief. She’d persuaded me by telling me all about the Smithsonian Museum. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that mom had taken me to it just a few short months before she died. Still, it was nice seeing it again and from a more adult perspective.

On our last evening together, we went out to a well-known diner. Sylvie knew that I liked down-to-earth food, and her place of choice wasperfect for that. Then, she surprised me by ordering Cheesy Grits with Black-eyed Peas.

We had a good time, but at the end, she asked,
“Is this it for us?”

I’d been expecting something like that but not her being as direct as that.

“I don’t know. That’s why I need some time on my own.”

“You could have stayed in Maine?”

I shook my head.
"There are reminders of you or your family everywhere. No disrespect to them, but your mother made it clear that not only was I too young for you, but… they had hoped that after some time away, you would return and marry Daniel Godfrey."

"Sometimes, I wish she'd stop interfering with my life. Danny is not a good man, but they are too blind to see it. Even my big brother knows that he is on the wrong side of the law. He started coming around and trying to date me. Mom was as pleased as punch, but I knew his little game, so I left home and went to stay with a friend in Boston, where I joined the Marines. When I was wounded, I came home, and like a bad penny, there he was again. When I'd recovered enough to pass the FBI physical, When I first signed up, it was just to get away from mom, and him, but that changed when I went to Quantico. The State Police have been trying to pin anything more than a few traffic tickets on him for years. He's just too slimy and careful to be caught red-handed. I won’t be going back to Maine to live as a single person if you get my meaning.”

“What about the age difference?”

She leaned over to me and whispered…
“Fuck that. I have never felt anything like what I feel for you.”

Before I could respond, she said,
"I know that you have to do your thing, and get your mind straight. When you have, let me know where you are, and I'll come to you."

“Even if I’m in the middle of nowhere?”

“Especially, if you are in the middle of nowhere. I want to see you tell me what you have decided in person. No ‘dear Sylvie’ texts or emails ok. Will you promise me that?”

I’d never had anyone talk to me like that.
I took her hand and looked her right in the eye.

“I promise you that I’ll do that. It is the least I can do, after all that you have done for me."

At the end of the evening, we kissed outside the door to my room. It was us saying goodbye for at least a while. Sylvie had to go into Quantico early the following day to renew her firearm certification, and then to attend the de-brief. It was a stark reminder that she had a career of her own while I had nothing but what little remained of the money, that I’d picked up when I last visited Queenie.

[to be continued]