by David Archer
“Beauregard?”
“Oh, God, yes,” Grace said. “He said Sam has to keep Harry alive, and he’s got to play poker to save other lives!”
Kim blinked a couple of times. “Poker?”
“Metaphorically, I’m sure,” Harry said. “As for keeping me alive, Sam, that could have many meanings. At my age, it could simply mean keeping your phone ready to call 911 if I’m overwhelmed.”
“Or it could mean your old pal Michael is still dangerous,” Sam shot back. “After all, Harry, we’re talking about a man who stole your wife and kids right out from under your nose, in a way. He made each of you believe the other was dead for decades, and he’s been enjoying them as if they were his own family for all these years. He may put up a fight.”
Harry looked at Sam with a sadness that made him look even older for a moment. “He won’t have anything to fight, Sam,” he said at last. “The evidence of his sins will be standing before him. I can’t imagine that Kathy will accept what he’s done without shock and anger. Even if she loves him today, this will mean a betrayal of the deepest kind, and women don’t handle betrayal well.”
“But it could be,” Kim said softly, “if she does love him, she might see your sudden return as a danger to the life she’s lived all these years, too. She might not want to put the kids through it, Harry.”
“I’ve considered that possibility,” Harry said. “I’m afraid I’m not going to leave that choice to her, for that reason. I may be willing to refrain from taking any action against Michael, if that is what she wishes, but I want at the very least to come to know my children, and for them to come to know me, if they’re willing.”
Sam sighed. “Okay,” he said. “I’m with you. How do you want to handle it, Harry?”
Harry grinned, and looked a bit more like his old self. “Well, I need a little bit of time to process this,” he said, “and I think it might be wise to at least look into the legal ramifications, but I expect we’ll leave tonight sometime for Florida.”
“Okay, that sounds good,” Sam said, “but I meant, how do you want to handle letting Kathleen know that you’re still alive, and that she was lied to all these years. That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you do on a phone call, but it might be too much of a shock to her if you just ring her doorbell, don’t you think?”
“He’s got a good point,” Grace said. “She’s how old now?”
“She’s sixty.”
“I’m getting close to that, and I can tell you it’s no picnic! Doctors are always talking about slowing down, watching your heart, all that stuff. She answers the door to find a ghost standing there, it could be too much for her.”
“She’s strong,” Harry said. “And I need to see her face when she realizes it’s me, I’m afraid. As much as it appears she didn’t know I was alive, I have to see her face to be certain. Can you understand that? I have to know.”
There was silence at the table for several seconds, and then Indie laid a hand on his shoulder. “Of course we do,” she said softly. “And we’re with you, Harry.”
The conversation turned then to the legal ramifications Harry had mentioned, and he took out his phone. He scrolled through the contacts for a moment until he found the number he wanted, then hit the send button. He waited a moment, and then grinned.
“Jared, you old goat,” he said. “Harry Winslow…Fine, but I got kicked out, you know. Seems they got upset about me fudging my date of birth to remain on active duty longer than allowed. Yeah, but I know where too many bodies are buried, they’re not about to try to prosecute me. Listen, I’ve got a situation, and I need the kind of legal advice I can only get from someone as despicable as you. Well, it’s like this...”
Harry told Jared, who was a lawyer used by Homeland Security when their actions appeared to overstep the bounds of the law and their authority, about what they had uncovered, and how convoluted it seemed to be. When he was finished, the lawyer asked several questions, then said he’d call back in an hour. Harry thanked him and ended the call.
“Now I wait,” he said. “Hey, did I hear something about lunch?”
Indie laughed. “I’m working on it,” she said. “Leftover roast beef from Sunday’s dinner, okay? Mashed potatoes and gravy, and I’m heating up some corn to go along with it. Mom, you want to make some tea, please?”
Kim got up to help her daughter, and Grace reached across the table and put a hand on one of Harry’s. “Listen, Harry, I know you’re going through a rough time,” she said, “but if there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”
“Why, thank you, Grace,” Harry replied. “I do appreciate it. At this point, though, I’m still just trying to come to grips with the fact I’ve been a fool all these years. I recall at the funeral, something was telling me that it wasn’t right, that my family wasn’t dead, but I didn’t listen. If I had, maybe things would have gone a different way.”
“Yeah,” Sam growled, “you’d have ended up dead!”
“Dead? How do you figure that, Sam?”
“Simple. You had Michael telling you that your entire family had died in a house fire, right? Thing is, he knew it wasn’t true because he already had them stashed away somewhere safe in Brazil or someplace. He couldn’t run the risk of Kathleen finding out what he’d done, that would mean full exposure and probably get him a long term in prison, so if you had refused to accept what he told you, he would have been forced to kill you to protect himself. And if you’d gotten to Kathleen before he could stop you, he probably would have killed her and the kids, too.”
Harry’s eyes took on a sadness again. “I don’t want to believe that, Sam, boy,” he said slowly, “but you’re probably right. Good Lord, he could be just as dangerous today. Perhaps that’s what Beauregard meant about you keeping me alive.”
“Could be, and I’m going with that for the moment. I’m your bodyguard for the next few days, 'til we see how the dust is going to settle on this mess. Agreed? You’ll duck when I yell?”
“You can count on it, Sam,” Harry said. “After all, I came to you for help, didn’t I?”
Lunch was ready a few minutes later, and they all sat down to eat. Sam had to go to the garage and bring in the two extra chairs so there would be enough, and Harry was on the phone when he came back in.
“Yes, Jared,” Harry was saying. He listened for a moment, then interrupted the lawyer. “Jared, wait a minute,” he said. “I’m with a private investigator friend of mine who’ll be working with me on this, and I want him to hear what you’re saying. I’m going to put you on speaker.” He poked the speaker icon, and set the phone on the table. “All right, say that again, please.”
Jared seemed to take a deep breath. “I’ve been saying that there is no legal action that can be taken against Michael Watkins at this time, because the federal statute of limitations would apply. There is nothing about this case that would negate the statute. Harry can file a civil suit for being deprived of his family, but there are no criminal charges that can be brought against Watkins after so many years.”
“Wait,” Sam said, “what about kidnapping? He took Harry’s children completely out of the country, and kidnapping has no statute of limitations.”
“Actually, Watkins didn’t kidnap them. The children left the country in the company of their mother, who almost certainly would have thought she was taking them away for their own protection. Since she thought Harry was dead, we can’t even say that she wasn’t within her rights to do so. And since Watkins was not a beneficiary of any of the life insurance Harry collected, there isn’t any fraud charge that can be brought against him over faking their deaths.”
“Changing their names and faking his own death? What about that?”
“Watkins is a former field agent of the CIA,” Jared said. “As Harry can tell you, there are situations when such a person can change his or her identity with impunity, and it’s likely he’ll have set up one of those situations to cover his ass on this.”
&nb
sp; “Okay, then what about the remains found in the ashes?” Sam asked. “There were apparently some bodies there. Would there be any applicable charges from that?”
“Not unless there is evidence that Watkins actually murdered whoever they were in order to place them there. The only charge that might stick in this case would be a murder charge, but then only if we can prove he killed or arranged the killing of the people whose bodies were found. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.”
Sam shook his head, and Harry thanked Jared and said goodbye.
“Well, isn’t that just ducky,” Sam said. “I guess we just need to go and take this head on, Harry, but the way it looks so far, it stinks to high heaven.”
“Doesn’t it, though?” Harry asked.
6
Harry, it turned out, had flown in from DC late the night before, and had simply hung out at a coffee shop until he figured they’d be awake and caught a taxi to their home. By the time lunch was over, the lack of sleep was showing. Indie overruled his arguments and led him upstairs to their guest room, threatened to undress him herself if he didn’t cooperate, and then left him alone. When she checked on him ten minutes later, he was snoring peacefully.
She went back down to Sam and their mothers, who were all playing Old Maid with Kenzie. The little girl was winning, and all three adults swore she was cheating, which only made Kenzie laugh. Indie convinced her that they should all watch a movie instead, and they moved to the living room.
As Turbo played on the TV for the fiftieth time, Sam and Indie snuggled in his overstuffed recliner and talked about Harry’s problem.
“Sam,” Indie began, “I’m worried. As much as I know you hate Beauregard, he’s usually right and you know it. This thing about playing poker for people’s lives is scary.”
“I know,” Sam said. “The thing that frustrates me most about that old soldier is that he’s always so vague. If he’d say things clearly enough to make sense, it’d help a lot.” He sighed deeply, and Indie caressed his face in sympathy. “The only way I can take the first part, about keeping Harry alive, is to assume that Michael is gonna be a problem. Even if they can’t prosecute him for what he did back then, what’s to keep him from trying to blame it all on Harry?”
“On Harry? How could he, he’s the one who lied to Kathleen...”
“I’ve been thinking about it, trying to figure out how I’d handle it if I were in his shoes, and if I was that kind of liar. Seems to me the only move he could make would be to try to convince Kathleen that Harry put him up to it. If Harry had told him he wanted out of his life, for example, and gave Michael an outline of how to pull it off, then old Michael might claim he saw it as a chance to find his own happiness. All he’d have to do is swear up and down that Harry threatened him if he ever told the truth, and with Harry’s reputation back then, a threat like that would be one to take seriously. It’s possible Kathleen would believe him, and turn against Harry.”
“I guess that’s possible,” Indie said. “Or it could be even more subtle than that. We don’t know who put that letter in Harry’s apartment; what if Michael arranged it? Sent it to Harry to make him do exactly what he’s doing, then just follow him or lay in wait until he shows up and shoot him as a stalker or something?”
“The problem with that would be that Harry’s body would be identified, so Kathleen would find out. That would start the whole thing Michael wants to avoid...”
“Yes, but then he can use the scenario you came up with. Harry wanted out of his marriage, Harry gave me the whole plan, Harry convinced me I should be with you, et cetera. If Harry showed up after all these years and Michael said he was being threatening, she might fall for it, then. It’d be a lot easier to convince her with Harry dead and unable to deny it, right?”
Sam looked at his wife and, not for the first time, was thankful she hadn’t decided to go into a life of crime. With her brains, she’d have been a criminal mastermind unlike any the world had ever known. “You do have a point,” he said. “This is going to be a mess, I know that. I wish there was a way to know in advance what’s going to happen.” He cocked his head to one side and looked at her again. “What about Herman? Could he find anything that might give us some idea of what Michael is like nowadays?”
Indie blinked, then jumped off him and hurried to the kitchen. She grabbed her laptop off the counter and brought it back, crawled onto him again and started typing. “I’m just going to go after him for a full background check, the way we would any other suspect. We saw what Kathleen talks about on Facebook and such, so I’ll set Herman to look for any posts by Michael Reed, so we can see what kinds of things he puts out for the world to see. We should be able to track down his email address, and then Herman can hack his way into it. Between all of those, we should be able to get a picture of what kind of man he’s turned into.”
“Go for it,” Sam said, and Indie hit the enter key.
The computer program that was Herman began crunching data, and Sam let his attention be caught by the movie for a moment while they waited, and found himself laughing softly at “the White Shadow.” He returned his attention to the computer when it chimed a moment later.
“Sam,” Indie said, “this is weird.”
“What?” he asked, and she turned the computer so he could see the screen. There was a page from the National Security Agency website displayed, and it contained a warning that the person viewing it was not authorized to access the information requested.
“One of the things Herman always looks for is hidden links, because a lot of people—especially black hats and criminal types—try to hide things that way. He found a post Michael made to a message board about yachting,” she said, “and when I clicked it, this came up.”
Sam scowled. “That means he’s still connected to the government, and that link must be some sort of hidden access to something they use. What about other links?”
She clicked the back button and chose another one. It opened up to a website for Gulfwind Yachts, a company that sold luxury boats ranging from thirty-foot sailboats to five hundred million-dollar private ships that need a crew of fifty just to go from one place to another. Michael Reed was listed on the front page as the Sales Manager, and the bio with the photo said he’d been in the business for eight years. There was a whole list of awards he’d won for Sales Excellence.
She went back and clicked on another. This one led to a Facebook post, with a picture of Michael standing in front of a motorcycle. Harold was standing beside him, and they were both grinning at the camera.
Look what I got for my birthday, the post said. Harry found this old Indian rusting away in a barn and completely restored it for me. What an awesome kid!
“He obviously gets on well with them all,” Sam said. “This is going to come as a shock to the whole family, I’m sure.”
“Yeah,” Indie said, going back and clicking on another link.
This one led to a news story. There was a photo of Michael, as Michael Reed, standing in front of two policemen.
Michael Reed of Clearwater Beach was arrested early this morning after police were summoned to the home of his daughter, Elizabeth Reed Jacobs. Ms. Jacobs had called police after an altercation with her former husband, Daniel, but they arrived to find Daniel unconscious and Michael Reed standing over him. Paramedics were called, and Daniel told police that Reed had assaulted him while he was trying to talk to his ex-wife. Ms. Jacobs denied his version of events, saying that Daniel had threatened her with his fists as Reed arrived, and that her father had intervened. The resulting fight left Jacobs with non-life-threatening injuries. Reed was taken to the county jail, where he was released on his own recognizance.
Indie looked at Sam. “That sounds like he’s got a violent streak,” she said.
“Or a protective one,” Sam said. “I’d probably react the same way if I saw a man threatening my daughter. What else?”
The next link was to another blog post on a yachting site, but it wen
t directly to the actual page it was supposed to. The post was about his Beneteau Oceanis forty-six-foot sailboat, and was posted in answer to another person’s question about the vessels. Michael wrote that the boat was the best he’d ever owned, and that he’d sailed it throughout the Caribbean for the past seven years. It required far less maintenance than other boats he was familiar with, and was always comfortable for his family, including kids and grandkids.
“Hmpf,” Sam said. “He definitely loves boating, doesn’t he.”
“Well, he was Navy at one time or another. Makes sense, I guess.”
There were no other links that indicated any kind of violence in his nature, but Sam was bothered most by the link that had redirected to the NSA site. Indie suggested letting Herman try to find a way inside, to see what kind of thing Michael might be involved in with them, but Sam didn’t like the idea. “The last thing we need is for the NSA to spot you trying to get into their clandestine site,” he said. “That could get pretty ugly real fast.”
Indie rolled her eyes. “Sam, do you know how many times I’ve hacked the NSA? Herman won’t get caught, even if they see him trying to get in. I wrote some of the most comprehensive defensive subroutines that have ever existed; if he’s spotted, he starts backing out and leaving smokescreens all over the place, and since he goes through more than forty different ghost servers along the way, it’s impossible to track us back to here. Trust me, Sam, he can get in there! Whatever Michael’s up to with the government, Harry needs to know about it!”
Sam tried to get another word in, but Indie wasn’t having it, so he finally threw his hands into the air and gave in. She spent the next forty minutes typing, as Sam watched the conclusion of the movie that saw a snail become one of the fastest racers in the world.
“It’s gonna take a while,” Indie said when she finally finished, “but sometime tomorrow I’ll know what that back door leads to. If you and Harry leave tonight, I can call you as soon as I get it, okay?”