An August Harvest

by Ben Marney

  “No ma’am, no one is up there,” the cop said, “the house is empty. The silent alarm went off, that’s why we’re here. When we pulled up, the front door was standing open. Does Mrs. Hollingsworth own a car?”

  I looked at the garage. Both doors were open, but her car was gone. “Yes, it’s a gold Lexus. A new one, she just bought it a few months ago.”

  “I’ll be right back, I’m going to run her car” the cop said, rushing away.

  “Where are they?” Annabelle shouted. “They should be here. We were supposed to go to lunch tomorrow.”

  I hugged her in my arms and squeezed. “I don’t know where they are, but this looks bad.”

  After the forensic team finished, the detective finally let us go up and walk around her house. He was hoping we might see something that was missing or out of place. We checked every room, but nothing was wrong. It looked like she’d just walked out for a few minutes. All of her rejection medicine was perfectly lined up on the bathroom cabinet. The only thing that caught my eye and seemed out of place was the unmade beds. Making the bed was the first thing Melissa did when she got up and had trained Molly to do the same thing .

  The detective wrote that down on his pad. “Always? Without fail she makes her bed?”

  “Yes. It’s the first thing she does in the morning.”

  The detective raised his eyebrows. “And how would you know that? Were you two...involved?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We’ve been dating for a while.”

  “Really?” I heard a voice behind me say.

  I turned around to see a woman standing there. “I’m Detective Reynolds, Detective Johnson’s partner on this case,” She pointed at the other detective, “Did you say you and Mrs. Hollingsworth were dating?”

  I nodded. “Yes, for over a year now, almost two.”

  “Humm,” She mumbled, writing in her small note pad, “Was it a bad break up?”

  I frowned down at her. “What?”

  “When you two broke up, was it cordial, or did it get pretty nasty? It must have been tough living next door to each other like this.”

  I stared at her. “We didn’t break up? What are you talking about?”

  The two detectives shot each other looks. “What about her?” She pointed at Annabelle. “Didn’t I see you two hugging outside. And I’m pretty sure I saw you kiss her. So again I’ll ask you, what about her?”

  I finally got it. I understood what she was getting at, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to explain it. I smiled, “She’s my assistant, she works for me and...”

  She lifted her hand, “No need to explain, I get it.”

  “No!” I shouted, “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “Mr. Nash, isn’t it? I’ve been a detective for a long time. I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what I’m thinking. All I want to know is...what did, Mrs. Hollingsworth think about it?”

  I held up my hands. “Look, please stop this. You are jumping to the wrong conclusion here. I love Melissa and Molly, and I did not have anything to do with this. My relationship with Annabelle is...well, it’s complicated and Melissa knew all about it.”

  I tried my best to explain the situation to them, but they had already made up their minds. The next thing I knew, I was being loaded into the back of Detective Johnson’s car and Annabelle was being loaded into Detective Reynolds’.

  Four hours later, after being relentlessly grilled by the two detectives, I was finally allowed to make a phone call. I called Rob Waterson, Melissa’s attorney. He told me to stop talking to the detectives. “Not one more word! Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I got it,” I said, “but that’s not going to be easy.”

  “Sure it is. Just tell them your attorney is on the way and you’ll be glad to answer any more questions they may have when he gets there.”

  “Well, Grant, of course that’s your right,” Detective Reynolds said with a smirk, “but it makes me wonder why you’d think you’d need a lawyer? If you don’t have anything to hide, then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is...” I caught myself and stopped. I lifted my hand to my mouth and zipped my lips.

  “Ok,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “but it doesn’t make you look very innocent in my eyes.”

  I smiled at her and did the lip zipping motion with my hand again.

  Rob stormed in the room an hour later. “Let’s go!” he said the second he walked in.”

  “Hold on!” Detective Reynolds said. “We’re not through questioning him.”

  Rob walked up, bent down and put his face next to hers, nose to nose. “Detective, I’m going to walk Grant and Annabelle to my car, then I’m going to take them home. When I’m done, I’m coming back here to talk to you and Detective Johnson and trust me, you’ll like what I’ll be telling you. You see, I know who took Melissa and Molly, and it wasn’t Grant and Annabelle. I have proof. I can get you the security camera footage of them walking into and out of their office. It’s time stamped. Also, I can show you a video of Melissa, Molly and a man wearing a hat pulled down hiding his face, driving her Lexus through the security gate at exactly 11:55 p.m. Just in case you’re wondering where Grant and Annabelle were at that exact time...you guessed it, they were walking out of their office door together. If you two were real detectives, you would know that, too.”

  He motioned for me to leave. When we got to the door, he turned and looked back at the two stunned detectives. “Who was the man in the hat? Here’s a hint, since you guys are so good at jumping to conclusions, I want you to think about this a second. If it wasn’t her boyfriend who has an iron clad alibi, maybe she had an ex-husband…a crazy one who hates her. But like I said before, real detectives would already know that. And FYI, it only took my private detective an hour to find out all of that.” He squinted his eyes and leaned toward them. “Is that really a gold shield clipped on your jackets? I think you need to polish ‘em up. They’re looking a little tarnished.”

  The highway patrol located Melissa’s Lexus in a rest area 15 miles south of Jacksonville. None of the other travelers that had stopped there were missing their cars, so apparently Jerry, or whoever had taken Melissa and Molly, had a different car there waiting to switch to.

  We had set up camp at my house, waiting to hear something from the police. Rob frowned when he hung up the phone. “The police think that whoever this is has a partner that’s helping him, or he somehow hitched a ride to her house here in Saint Augustine. They’re checking the video footage of the rest area’s security cameras now.”

  “What about the front gate here?” I asked. “If someone drove him here, it should be on that tape.”

  Rob nodded. “They’re checking on that, too. They’re also contacting all the cabbies and Uber drivers.”

  “That’s a thirty or forty dollar ride. If this is Jerry...where did he get the money? I think I agree with the cops, he had to have help with this.” I stood up and paced the room. “Did your private detectives find out if he has a girlfriend? I’m talking about when he was in Asheville.”

  “He had several,” Rob said, “but we know he wasn’t living with any of them.”

  “How could they know that for sure?” I argued. “How long did they keep them under surveillance? I guarantee you it’s one of those women. That slimy bastard is doing it again, laying on his charm, sucking some woman out of her cash.” I stopped pacing and plopped back down on the couch next to Annabelle.

  “They’ll find them,” she said tearfully. “I just know they will.”

  “Who will find them?” I shot back. “The cops? They still think I did this! They couldn’t find their own asses!”

  Her eyes widened. “After all of this? They still suspect Grant?”

  Rob nodded his head. “Probably,” he said, “It’s how they all think. If the story doesn’t add up...go for the obvious. Grant’s the last person to see her, and their number one suspect. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re thinking that Grant’s the one
helping Jerry.”

  “That’s crazy!” she shouted, “Why on earth would they think that?”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Annabelle, all they can see is a middle aged man with a middle aged girlfriend...and then there’s you.”

  “Me? What’s wrong with me?”

  He laughed. “Seriously? You don’t get it? Are you really that naïve?”

  She looked up at me. “Naïve? Grant, what’s he talking about?”

  I glared at Rob. “That’s enough! If we’re going to find Melissa and Molly, we have to do it! We both know the cops aren’t going to do a damn thing but look at me for this. We have to find them and I can’t do it without your help. We have to work together, so If you want to know what’s going on between me and Annabelle, just ask.”

  “Ok,” he said, nodding, “I think it’s pretty obvious. All I want to know is...when did it start?”

  For the next hour, I sat quietly and let Annabelle explain while Rob listened.

  When she finished, Rob looked over at me. “I owe you two an apology. I jumped to the same wrong conclusion the cops did and I’m sorry.”

  He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. “I have to admit, it sounds like something she would do. I just wish she’d told me about her premonitions. She was in my office last week and never mentioned anything to me. She seemed fine...really happy. She looked great, better than I’d seen her look in a long time.”

  “What was she there for?” I asked.

  He sighed. “I didn’t think much about it then, but now...it’s...it’s not going to look good.”

  I frowned. “Why was she there?”

  “She made a few changes to her will,” he said, shaking his head. “It made sense to me, so I did it. I thought you two...well, I just assumed you two were about to get married.”

  “What did you change in her will?” I shouted.

  “She had me remove her aunt and named you as her sole beneficiary. If she dies, you get all of her assets.”

  “Do the police know this?”

  “It’s public record. I’m sure they do. It explains why they zeroed in on you.”

  Annabelle sighed. “If the police know that, then they probably also know Grant already has a lot of money. Do they really think he could be involved with whoever took her? Just to get more money?”

  “Unfortunately, I know how this district attorney thinks,” Rob said. “He’s a real jackass. I can see him now, putting all the pieces together.”

  “What pieces?” Annabelle asked.

  Rob shot me a knowing look and I nodded in agreement. “He’s going to try to tie this to my first wife’s death.”

  “What are you talking about? How could he connect this to your wife’s death?”

  I took her hands in mine and looked into her eyes. “Because that’s the reason I have money. I was paid almost six million dollars because of it.”

  “But it was an accident!” she yelled. “Wasn’t it?”

  She stared at me with fear in her eyes. “Yes, it was a terrible accident, but no one can explain why it happened. None of the experts have a single clue why that engine stopped.” I dropped my head and stared down at my feet. “There’s more.”

  Rob lifted his head and stared at me. “Grant, look at me. This is critical.” I looked up at him. “What haven’t you told me about that crash? I need to know everything, every detail.”

  I looked at Annabelle. She was staring at me with wide eyes. “What did you do?”

  I shrugged. “Because all the experts couldn’t find a definitive reason for the engine to stop, my attorney was afraid that they would blame me. Call it pilot error...or claim that I did it on purpose.” I looked into her eyes. “I swear on my mother’s grave that I didn’t do it on purpose. The engine just stopped, but...”

  “But what?” Rob asked, shifting in his chair.

  “Rather than going through a long trial and letting them bring up these kinds of accusations, and they had made it clear to my lawyer they would, he convinced me to take a small settlement instead. He advised me to put an end to it, so I agreed.”

  I looked at Rob. “If they dig into the crash, you think they’ll find out about that? I swear Rob, I didn’t do anything wrong. It was an accident.”

  He didn’t respond. He just sat there quietly, looking down, thinking. After a few minutes, he looked up at me. “I’m sure they already have.”

  22

  Where Are They

  For the second time in three years, I watched my life disintegrate before my eyes.

  The Saint Augustine district attorney made a phone call to the District Attorney in Huntsville and convinced him to take another look in to the plane crash. I know this, because I got a phone call from Mike O’Bannon. He told me that someone in his father’s law firm heard a rumor that I might get indicted by a Texas grand jury on suspicion of causing the plane crash and murdering my wife and child.

  One day after that, I was indicted by a Florida grand jury on suspicion of kidnapping and child endangerment. They arrested me at my house the following day. Sitting in that cell, waiting to be arraigned, although I was in a complete state of shock, frustration and rage were the real emotions I was feeling. Melissa and Molly had been missing for four days and no one seemed to even care about that.

  Before my arraignment, Rob met with me in a small private space, just outside of the courtroom. “Grant, listen to me carefully. Keep your mouth shut. I’ll do all the talking. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand,” I said. “Have you heard anything about Melissa and Molly? Is anyone even searching for them?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, frowning. “But I am. I’ve hired two different private detective agencies to track them down.”

  “Why aren’t the police looking for them?”

  “They believe they’re already dead, and they’re convinced you know where they are buried.”

  “What?” I yelled.

  He glared at me. “Shhhh! Keep your voice down. We only have a few minutes to talk. Grant, that’s their entire case against you, that’s it. They have zero proof of anything. I know this judge and he’s a stickler for evidence. I think I can get you out of here on bail. So again, keep your mouth shut and let me do what I do.”

  Rob convinced the judge that the entire case against me was nothing more that some bizarre story that the D.A. had concocted in his head.

  “I don’t want to hear any more!” the judge said, slamming his gavel down. “Mr. Rutherford, You have forty-eight hours to gather some real evidence against this man. If you fail to convince me, I’m throwing this case out. In the meantime, I’m granting Mr. Nash’s requests for bail.” He glared down at the Assistant District Attorney. “Tell your boss, he’s skating on thin ice on this one. Forty-eight hours, not one minute more!”

  Rob was leaning against his car at the bottom of the steps when they finally let me walk out of the jail. I jumped in and we drove away.

  “Any new developments? Have they found them?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “No sign of them at all?”

  “I’m re-applying pressure on the district attorney to, at the very least, put out a BOLO on them. The jackass said he’d think about it.”

  “He’s still convinced they’re already dead...and I killed them.”

  Rob nodded. “I’m afraid so. Without the help of the police, we just don’t have much to go on. That’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I’m thinking about going to the press with all this, maybe offering a reward to any verified sightings. What do you think?”

  “I like that idea. I’ll even put up the money. Let’s do it!”

  “You can’t be involved, not until we resolve this case against you. The judge would go nuts and immediately drop a gag order on you!”

  “So how do we do it?”

  “I talked to Les Patterson this morning,” Rob said. “Actually, it’s his idea and he’s putting up the money.”
/>
  I sighed and looked down. “I was hoping he hadn’t heard about this yet. I assume he’s already replaced me on the Beverly Beach Project.”

  “No, I don’t think so. He told me that Annabelle was on top of everything.” We stopped at a red light. He turned his head and looked at me. “She’s very impressive. I really like her.”

  “Yes she is. She’s...very special.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “I can’t imagine what’s going through her head about me now.”

  The second we pulled up to my house, I could hear Charley barking. I was only halfway up the front staircase when the door opened and he flew down the steps to greet me. When I looked up, Annabelle was standing in the doorway. She wasn’t smiling, she was crying. When I took that last step and walked up to the door, I didn’t know what to do, so I stopped a few feet from her and just stood there staring.

  She ran to me and jumped into my arms. “Thank God you’re here! They wouldn’t let me see you. I tried, but they wouldn’t let me.”

  Her face was wet from her tears. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. I’m glad you didn’t see me in that place.” I wiped her face with my hand. “I’m just glad you’re here now. I wasn’t sure you would be.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Why would you think that?”

  I took her hand, walked inside and closed the door behind us. “I wasn’t sure what you thought of me now.”

  Before she could answer, Charley jumped up on me, knocking me down on the floor and between his whines and barks, soaked my face with his sloppy kisses. Then Donna and Annabelle joined in, piling on top, welcoming me home.

  I took a much-needed shower to wash off the stench of the jail and all of Charley and Donna’s kisses from my face. After I dried off and slipped on jeans and a tee shirt, I found Annabelle on the back deck. She was sitting there quietly, staring out at the ocean.

  “Boy, do I feel better,” I said. She turned and smiled up at me. “I need a beer and I know this may sound dumb, but do you drink? I can’t believe I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’ve never seen you drink anything but tea or a Coke.”