“I feel really terrible about it, Daniel. Can you forgive us?” Melinda replied.
“Sure, Mom and Dad. I really didn’t want to have a family crisis. Things just kept cropping up that set us apart.”
“Daniel, I know there is a lot more to talk about,” Gary said in a lighter voice, “but let’s put that aside for the moment, and just have some fun together as a family. That is what we really have missed lately! I propose that we go out to dinner, and then catch the latest summer blockbuster movie. Let’s just have a good time and forget any differences or tensions that we had between us. I’m sure you must be exhausted after all that has gone on in your life lately and from your long bike ride today. We are tired from our trip back as well. Let’s relax for the next hour or so and then go out on the town!”
Daniel admitted that Gary’s plan sounded good. He went to his room and reclined on his bed. It felt really good to unwind and relax in his own room and lie down in his own bed. He didn’t have to worry about criminals chasing him, or trying to save Ethan, or even communicating with his parents. With all of the tension gone, he soon fell into a deep sleep for about an hour.
That evening the Holmes family had a great time together. First they went to their favorite Italian restaurant and had pizza with Caesar salads. Then the action-adventure film they had decided to see turned out to be really good, with great special effects and an engaging story. When the film was over, they walked out refreshed and excited about what they had just seen. On impulse they stopped at the ice cream store that was on the way to their parking place. After chocolate sundaes all around, everyone was feeling great as they drove back home.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I had a terrific time tonight!” Melinda said after they had gotten in the car.
“Me too,” Daniel said. “This evening was a lot of fun and a nice diversion.”
“We have to remember to do things like this more often,” Gary said. “There is no reason that we can’t!”
When they arrived back at their house, Daniel went to his room. Even though it was late, he decided to give Jason a quick call to let him know that things were a lot better between him and his parents. After he updated Jason on his evening with his parents, Jason told him that it sounded like things were starting to work themselves out. “I’m happy for you, Daniel. You didn’t need another thing to hassle you after all you have been through lately. Now relax and have a good night’s rest. You deserve it!”
Daniel booted up his computer to check emails, and realized that he hadn’t been in contact with any of his friends other than Jason since all of the weekend events. He sent a text message to Diana Miglione to see if she wanted to talk.
Within a few minutes, she had replied, “Please call. I’m dying to talk to you!” Daniel immediately called her, and they talked about his parents and all of the adventures that he had experienced over the past few days. Diana told him about her reactions and those of some of their friends. “I have been so worried about you, Daniel, because I was the one who gave you the information about Ethan Savage’s route. I had no idea that it would turn into such a whirlwind of events.”
“Diana, it was such a day of highs and lows, I still can’t believe it all happened. I got to meet Ethan Savage and he actually gave me a short guitar lesson. Then I saw the shocking sight of him drugged unconscious and being kidnapped, followed by my kidnapping by those two corrupt deputies. By the time they tied me up and left me in the barn loft, I began to really understand the horrors that Jason went through earlier in the summer. Later I was saved by the miracle of a cloudburst in August and the active imagination of a really neat kid who makes diving noises when he plays with his toy airplanes. To make things even stranger, my rescuers turned out to be our music teacher Mr. Molinari and his son Davey!”
They talked on for nearly forty minutes about all of Daniel’s experiences before it was time to hang up. “It is so great to talk to you, Diana. I’ve really missed you. Let’s get together soon!” Daniel disconnected with a smile on his face. Things seemed to be getting back to normal again. He got ready for bed and quickly fell asleep.
* * * * *
Daniel didn’t wake up until 9:30 the next morning. He felt great after his good night’s sleep. In the bathroom he noticed that the bump on his head was getting smaller. He took a nice long shower and got dressed. When he went downstairs, he looked for his parents, but they were both gone. Although it did happen from time to time, usually one of them was always home manning the office that they ran from the front of the house. Daniel made himself a bowl of cereal, poured a glass of juice, and decided to look at the paper to see if there were any new developments in the Ethan Savage case. There was coverage of Ethan’s press conference and a brief article saying that Oliver Samuels had been arrested as part of the investigation into the conspiracy against the rock star.
A little after 10:00 AM Daniel’s cell phone rang. When he answered it, Lieutenant Garcia was on the line. “Hello, Daniel. How are you doing today?” When Daniel replied that he was doing well, Garcia continued, “Listen, Daniel, there are some serious things that have come up in the investigation. I need for you to come down to the station. I’m going to send a police car for you. Sergeant Malone will pick you up.”
“All right, Lieutenant Garcia. I don’t have any plans this morning. My parents aren’t here, but I guess it is okay to go. I’ll leave them a note.”
“Don’t worry about that, Daniel. You’ll see when you get here,” Lieutenant Garcia rang off.
Daniel didn’t quite understand Lieutenant Garcia’s last comment until he arrived at the police station with Sergeant Malone. Lieutenant Garcia came up to him and said, “Daniel, I don’t know how to break this to you, but we have been questioning your parents about their involvement in the Ethan Savage case. It seems that they were doing a lot of accounting work for Dalton Fredericks.”
“What?” Daniel cried out with surprise and dismay. “You mean they were working with the kidnappers?”
“Nothing like that as far as I can tell. But they are implicated in the case, and I am not sure what the district attorney plans to do about their involvement. They have a pretty incredible story to tell which is why I wanted you here. There is a lot to sort through, and I thought it would be helpful if you participated since you have first hand knowledge of many of the events in this case.” Lieutenant Garcia brought Daniel into the interrogation room where Gary and Melinda Holmes were seated.
“Mom, Dad, what’s going on? How could you be involved with those horrible people?” Daniel said in a very hurt voice. “I thought we were going to trust each other, and now this!”
“Daniel, this is something that is not easy to explain and goes all the way back to when your mother and I were in our twenties,” Gary said. “We were trying to figure out how to tell you about it, but events got ahead of us.”
“Daniel, honey, you know that your father and I would never do anything to hurt you! Don’t think for a minute that we had anything to do with the violence done to you!” Melinda said in a very emotional voice.
“I don’t know what to think any more, Mom and Dad. I was really looking forward to more family activities like last night, having you be there for my concerts and things like graduation. How will that be possible now if you are going to jail?”
Lieutenant Garcia interceded. “Daniel, don’t get too worked up until you hear their story. Remember we are still investigating their role in this. Why don’t you go ahead and tell Daniel what you told me earlier, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes.”
“Back in the early 1980s,” Gary Holmes began, “your mother and I worked as musicians in a rock band based in Baltimore called the Awesome Power Five. We were a pretty successful band in the local club scene and were working to get our first real break and land a record contract. One of the members of the band was Ethan Savage.”
“You and Mom were in a rock band? A band with Ethan Savage? I can’t believe what you are saying!” Daniel ex
claimed.
“Don’t be so judgmental or surprised, Daniel,” his father continued. “Where do you think all of the musical talent you have came from? Just listen to the story!
“The band had been together a little over two years, when we got our first serious shot at a record deal. We had written eight original songs, and those songs along with a couple of the more popular covers we performed were going to be the basis of our first record. We were working with Bucky Chalmers, an Artists and Repertoire man from National Records and it looked like we were going to be signed to a three record deal with his company. Then at the last minute, some executives in the New York headquarters of the company decided that they didn’t want to support a lot of new bands, but instead decided to cherry pick several of the band members from groups they were contemplating signing and make a new band based around Ethan. Literally overnight they brought Ethan to New York and created a new band for him with members from two other bands. The rest of us were left out in the cold.
“We had lost our main band member, our lead singer and guitarist. But at least we had our original songs, or so we thought. Over the next couple of years several of them were recorded and released on albums by the Ethan Savage band. When the songs were copyrighted by the record company, we were left out of the authors credits, even though we had contributed to the writing and arranging of the songs. So even though our songs were recorded, we never received a dime from any of the record sales or performances.
“We wrote to the company several times to complain and demand our share, but our requests were ignored, and we didn’t have the money to wage a long and protracted lawsuit.
“Without Ethan in the band anymore, the Awesome Power Five wasn’t really very awesome, I’m sorry to say. After a year or so of scrounging around for gigs, the band broke up. After our bad experience, Melinda and I decided that we needed to learn more about money and finance, so we went back to school and got degrees in business and accounting. We didn’t trust large corporations after our experience with National Records, so we decided to concentrate on having our own financial services business which we have been working at ever since.”
“Wow, Dad, I still am blown away by what you are saying. You never told me that you knew Ethan Savage and were in a band with him. What did you play?”
“I played bass, and your mother did backup vocals and percussion.”
“Well I understand why you would have a grudge against Ethan Savage, but how did you get involved in this conspiracy?” Daniel asked.
Gary continued his story. “About a month ago, we got a totally unexpected call from Dalton Fredericks. He had taken over the management of the business affairs for the Ethan Savage Band from the previous management team affiliated with National Records. While going through their files, he found copies of old correspondence that included the letters we had sent back in the eighties. By coincidence, he had seen our names in the Yellow Pages of the telephone book. When we admitted that we were indeed members of the Awesome Power Five band, he asked if we would like to have a meeting to see if something could be done about obtaining the royalties that we had been cheated out of. We agreed to meet with him.
“At the meeting Dalton explained that Ethan Savage was planning to retire from performing, and that he was planning to just give away a lot of the money he had earned from publishing royalties. He said this was the perfect opportunity to get that money, not by going through an expensive legal battle, but by funneling it into non-profit organizations.
“His plan was simple. We were to create the paperwork for the non-profits and they would be set up so that all of the people involved in his plan would end up controlling one of the new non-profits. As our reward for doing this, we could set up a non-profit benefiting us. There was nothing illegal in doing this. Anyone can file the paperwork, list a board of directors, and describe the charitable goals of the organization. The people involved would serve on the boards, and of course agree to the plan set up by each individual controlling the non-profit. Dalton would then see that these non-profits were added to the list of charitable organizations receiving the money from Ethan Savage’s estate. Once the money was deposited in the non-profit organization’s bank account, we could deal with it however we wanted to.
“While it seemed a little shady, we looked up the law, and it seemed that we were being asked to do nothing more than setup paperwork for potential non-profit organizations, a perfectly legal endeavor. And he said that our contribution from the estate would be $200,000, which should more than make up for the money we were cheated out of. This seemed like a plausible way to actually get that money back, although it was a very unconventional way to do it.”
“How many of these non-profits corporations did you have to create?” Lieutenant Garcia asked.
“Initially it was eight,” Gary replied, “although it ended up being ten. Dalton told us that we had to be able to set up a couple of the corporations at the last minute, because he wouldn’t know everyone’s name until the last minute. That’s why we had to go to Monterey for the weekend, and spend the time at his house.”
“Did you find out how much money was to be diverted into these phony non-profits?” Garcia followed up.
“We weren’t sure, but we guessed it would probably be in the range of one and a half million dollars,” Gary said finishing his story.
“So you were completely unaware of Dalton’s real plan, which was to have a phony Ethan Savage stand in for him at the press conference, and then his attorneys would authorize the monetary transfers, because they thought they were executing the wishes of their client.”
Lieutenant Garcia continued. “It was a very clever plan. He would sedate the real Ethan for a couple of days while the double stood in for him, and then he would wake up at his house, see empty bottles and other remains of a wild party, and his nurse-groupie would tell him what a great job he did at the press conference. He was gambling on Ethan’s penchant for having wild parties where he would eventually pass out, and his lack of interest in details, so that he wouldn’t even think of questioning where his money went, since it was all being handled by his attorneys.
“Then Dalton’s whole brilliant and clever plan started to fall apart because Daniel waved at Ethan on Valley Road, Ethan decided to stop and interact with Daniel, and then in a state of euphoria Daniel followed after his limousine and stumbled onto the switch of the real Ethan and his actor double.”
“This whole part of the story is amazing to us,” Melinda said. “We had strictly forbidden Daniel to go anywhere near the final concert Thursday night, just because we wanted to make sure he had nothing to do with Ethan Savage. How did you end up on Valley Road, Daniel? How did you know that Ethan Savage’s limousine was going to travel on that road?”
“It was because you were so determined to prevent me from seeing him,” Daniel replied. “It didn’t make any sense that I couldn’t go downtown with my friends and see the end of Ethan’s career. When I told my girl friend Diana that I couldn’t go downtown with her, she said that there still was a way for me to see Ethan. She had overheard her uncle who worked security for the concerts mention that his route out of the Silicon Valley Friday morning would go along Valley Road. You never said I couldn’t go on bike rides, so I decided to take a ride out there. Diana was going to go with me, but her mom needed her to help with a catering job Friday, so I went alone.”
“And the rest is history, as the cliché goes,” Lieutenant Garcia said. “I told you and Jason what a charmed life you led when you went after his kidnappers earlier this summer, but the experiences you had last Friday are beyond belief! You are one lucky person, Daniel. This whole case is full of the most amazing stories! I don’t know yet how things are going to work out, but I am going to call Ethan Savage to confirm the first part of your story, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes. Then I will talk to the district attorneys’ office and see what they are planning to do. I doubt that they will act on it today. For now, I want the three of you t
o stay here in this room.” Lieutenant Garcia then got up and left the room.
“Mom and Dad, I still can’t believe what is happening!” Daniel exclaimed expressing his shock and disbelief at what he had just heard. “Was it really worth it to go after Ethan’s money this way? Are we in some financial trouble that you haven’t told me about? From what I can see we are doing all right. We are not rich or anything, but we have a house and are living a comfortable life there. Your business always seems to have clients. Jason gave me a college scholarship through his foundation. Was the money from your past life that important to you?”
“Daniel, you are finding out a sad lesson today that your parents aren’t perfect people,” Melinda replied with a frown. “In answer to your questions, no we are not in financial difficulty. The reason we did this was because for nearly all of our adult lives, we have felt that we were unfairly robbed of our dreams.
“Back in those days when we had the band,” she explained, “it was an exciting time. We barely had enough to live on, but we had our music, and we were starting to build up a following with the band. Just as it looked like we were going to get our shot at a national audience, the rug was pulled from under us. With Ethan gone, the band was never the same. He had the magic, the stage presence and the leadership we needed to succeed. Over night, it seemed, that was all taken away from us along with our music we had helped to write. We really felt ripped off.
“For years we watched Ethan Savage’s meteoric rise to the top of the business. While we don’t regret him his fame and fortune, we still were angry that we were considered totally expendable, and that we never received any credit or money for what we did contribute. So in answer to your question,” Melinda concluded, “yes that money was important to us. Not the amount, but the principle of thing.”
“Daniel, we know you are interested in becoming a professional musician, and you certainly seem to have the talent,” Gary continued. “All this time we have been watching you, and biting our tongues because we didn’t want to discourage you, but at the same time we were worried that you could end up having an experience like we did. In the back of our minds was the idea that if we got this money, we could then help you to get started in the business, have proper representation, and have money to invest in things like promotion and studio time to record your music.
Double Fugue Page 15