Chapter Seven

RACHEL’S REUNION
“It has been almost 6 months since I promised you that I wouldn’t get into the drug money,” Cole said to Aaron as he handed him $1,000 cash. “I’ve been taking cash out of my account each payday so that it won’t be anything unusually for me to have lots of cash. Jan is still working, so we have a surplus even though I’ve set up a million dollar life insurance policy on me for Jan and a trust fund for Billy with the money from the sale of Jan’s’ house. I also have been putting some cash in our Family Corporation. This is the first time I’ve got into the drug money. I also took $1,000 for me.”

“I don’t know what I am going to do with it,” said Aaron.

“If you don’t want to handle it yet, give it back and I’ll put it back in the duffle bag.”

“Yeah, do that, I haven’t been thinking about the pile of money in your storage unit, I’ve been so busy at the office plus with Rachel getting pregnant we’ve been looking at baby stuff. Yeah put it back for now. It will ease my mind that the money is there if I need it. Are you going to the TAE KWON DO competition this weekend?”
“Yes, I wanted to actually see how I stack up against someone new. You’re getting really good, but I usually know what you’re going to do before you do it. How about you, are you going?”

“No, we have made other plans. Rachel has a big family reunion this weekend.”
At lunch the following Monday, Aaron asked, “how did it go, did you whip anybody?
“I did alright, won some and lost some. It was fun. Some of those experts are really scary. I would like to get that good, but as you know, it takes a lot of time to study and practice. I feel that I’m good enough to take anyone who hasn’t had a lot of martial arts training.”
“You’re a lot better than I am, even though you’re bigger than I am. I always thought that the bigger you were the slower you are, but you’re bigger and faster than I am,” said Aaron. I wanted to tell you about my reunion. One of Rachel’s cousins, or 2nd cousins or something, her name is Jamie, is going with this creep. She’s a true damsel in distress. Jamie is absolutely gorgeous even with the bruises all over her arms, legs, neck and face. She tried to cover up the bruises on her face with makeup but they showed through. She explained that she is totally uncoordinated and is always falling down or running into things. Her boyfriend wasn’t there. “He had to work”, she said. From the way she talked about this guy, she is terrified of him. Rachel told me that Jamie is a Registered Nurse at the University Hospital. She makes good money and has bought a house. She met this jerk and before she knew what had happened he had moved into her house and she was afraid to even suggest that he move out.”

“He’s a coach at the University. I guess he was away from town with some team back east. Rachel said that she has met him and he’s a total jerk. He’s always working out and she thinks that he takes steroids. He’s huge with muscles bulging out of his skin tight shirts. He entered the Mr. America competition but they threw him out after a drug test. He has been married before. Jamie found out that his ex-wife was so badly beaten one time she almost died. The county prosecutor wanted to put him in jail, but his wife wouldn’t cooperate with them, so they dropped the case. The guy slipped and told Jamie about his ex-wife. After that, he started threatening her and telling her that he would do the same thing to her if she ever tried to leave him. He’s been hinting that he thinks it’s time to get married and have some kids, but so far he hasn’t asked her to marry him. Jamie doesn’t know what to do. She absolutely will not marry him or have his child under any condition. She’s afraid of what he’ll do if she tells him to get out. She feels like she’s his sex slave.”
“Rachel told me Jamie wouldn’t answer her questions about where the bruises came from. Jamie knows that Rachel knows she isn’t uncoordinated. She knows that those bruises come from being beat up by her muscle bound boyfriend.”
“All in all he sounds like a complete human slime bucket. He’s one of those good old boys. Through his work at the University he is buddy buddy with many of the deep pocket University boosters. I guess he knows everybody and they all think that he’s this really neat guy,” said Aaron.
“Do you think we should go see him? He sounds like he’s muscle bound. I fought a guy that was a lot like that last weekend. He was strong as an ox and so slow that it was easy. Remember when we first started practicing and the instructor would go through the motions in slow motion so that we could see what he was talking about? It was almost like that.”

“Maybe you have just progressed to the point where it just seems that way?”

“I would like to think so; it could be a combination of both.

Anyway, up till I fought that guy I was intimidated by someone with muscles on top of muscles. Now I’m looking forward to meeting this slime bucket.”
“He’s at the University athletic facility every weekday until closing. He locks up when everybody is done for the day. Rachel said that Jamie told her the jerk is always trying to pick up the young co-eds. A few of them think that if they sleep with one of the coaches, it will give them an advantage. If he scores, he goes over to Jamie’s place later and will be nice and mellow. If he doesn’t score, he goes to Jamie’s place and will be in a mean, foul mood and take it out on her.”
“The more that I learn about this guy, the more I dislike him. Where does she live?”
“Rachel said that Jamie has her own house up on the bench, north of the University. It’s in the old part of town, an old house that has been remodeled, and lots of huge trees.” He handed Cole a slip of paper with the address written on it.
“What if you and Rachel invited Jamie over for dinner tonight? Tell her to leave a note for her muscle bound friend to come over when he gets home? At the last minute call Rachel and tell her that I had a flat tire and you’re helping me take care of it. You’ll be home as soon as you can. Then you go down to the University and watch for the jerk to leave the athletic facility, when he leaves call me and then go home. I should have enough time to park somewhere close and jog over to Jamie’s house. That area has people jogging up and down every street. No one will notice another jogger. If I’m early I’ll go around and around the block until he comes home. When he goes in the house I’ll follow him in, and practice one of the killing blows. Then I’ll go through the house and make it look like I was robbing the house and was surprised by the jerk. After I put him to sleep, I’ll jog back to the car, call your cell phone and let it ring once when I’m done.”
The muscle-bound jerk/coach circulated through the athletic facility hoping to talk one of the young female athletes into going out for a pizza. No luck, his reputation had pretty well ran its course with this year’s freshmen crop of any girls who might respond to a proposition from a University coach.
‘I can hardly wait until the new semester starts. Damn, well I’ll go see Jamie and have mad passionate sex with her. I’m getting tired of her attitude. I really shouldn’t hit her, but when she gives me the look like she despises me, I lose my temper. I don’t mean to hit her that hard either, but what the hell, it’s good for her, the little wench! She’s lucky that I moved in to protect her.’ With that he checked the entire facility, locked up and went out to get in his car.
‘There is nothing to do now but go to Jamie’s. Wonder what she’s fixed for supper. I really enjoy having a sex slave who can cook!’ He pulled up to the house but didn’t see her car. ‘Where in the hell is she, she had better not have ran off somewhere. I’ll find her and if she’s with somebody else, they both will spend a long time in the hospital!’ He went into the house and was reading Jamie’s note on the bulletin board when the door opened and a man in a hooded sweat shirt came in. He looked like a trained athlete by the way he moved. He thought it might be one of the assistant coaches, a defensive end or one of the line backers, until the guy reached up and flipped his hood back. It was a face the muscle bound coach didn’t recognize, “Who in the hell are you?”

COLE

Cole sat in the car in a grocery store parking lot. The University has a parking lot closer, but it was patrolled by campus security to insure that the cars parked there had the proper permit and he didn’t have a permit. ‘This is close enough.’
His cell phone chimed, “he’s getting in his car now, and it’s a red Jeep.”

“Thanks for the help with the flat tire, see you tomorrow, tell Rachel hi for us.”

Cole put on his gloves, got out of his truck, locked it, flipped the sweatshirt hood over his head and started up the street toward Jamie’s house. The timing was perfect. He was about 3 houses away from Jamie’s place when a red jeep pulled up. Cole slowed down hoping the jerk wouldn’t notice him. A big guy got out of the Jeep and walked to the house, unlocked the front door, and went inside. He didn’t seem to notice Cole. The door closed, Cole jogged up and opened the door. He stepped in and flipped the hood off his head. The jerk said, “Who in the hell are you?”

The door swung closed as Cole flipped the hood back off his head and stepped toward the jerk. The jerk stood there glaring as if his muscles and girth would be enough to intimidate anyone. He placed his hands on his hips with a threatening look and was waiting for Cole to say something. Cole hit him in his neck below his chin just as hard as he could. The jerk dropped like someone had dropped a ton of rocks on his head.

‘This is supposed to look like a robbery gone bad, since he’s a goner anyway, a knife in the throat will probably cover the crushed neck.’ Cole went into the kitchen, looked around and spotted a knife set sitting in a wooden block on the counter. He took out the biggest one, ‘this one should do’, and went back in where the jerk was grabbing at his throat and gasping.
“You don’t look like you’re doing very well. Hey man, does your throat hurt, hmm, I’m afraid that this might hurt a little, but only for a little while.” The jerk’s face was pale and his eyes were closed. Cole reached down and thrust the knife into the jerk’s throat beneath his hand, being careful not to cut his hand. It looked like he had hit an artery and blood started squirting out through the jerk’s fingers. Cole ran upstairs and into the bedroom, he pulled out drawers and threw the contents around the room. There was a picture on a pretty girl and the jerk on top of a dresser. It must have been Jamie.

‘Wow, she’s gorgeous. She’s much too beautiful for that jerk’. He then went downstairs and made a mess of the kitchen, bathroom, and front room.

‘OK, I’m out of here.’ He stepped around the pool of blood. The jerk had quit moving. Cole was careful to not step into the blood. The floors were covered by a carpet, so not much chance of leaving a footprint behind. Cole stepped to the door and opened the door slowly. There was nobody in sight, so he stepped out and jogged down to the street and back to the car. When he got to the car, he pulled out his cell phone and called Aaron letting it ring once before hanging up.

Aaron didn’t want Jamie to go home by herself. He had only met her a few days before, but didn’t think that she would cope well with going into her house and seeing her former nemesis dead on the floor. At least he assumed he would be dead on the floor. He also wanted to delay her a little longer because he didn’t know how long Cole would need. When he got home he went in and joined Rachel and Jamie. By that time dinner was ready, “have you heard from your friend yet?”
“I wish you wouldn’t refer to him as my friend!”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“No problem, you would naturally assume, if a guy was living with me, he must be a friend! No, I haven’t heard from him yet. If something developed in the athletic complex he would be at least another hour, maybe 2 before he gets home. If he hasn’t called by the time we’re done eating, then I’ll get worried.”
Aaron tried to be his most entertaining self. He had both girls laughing and kidding around so much that the dinner took twice as long as it should have. In the middle of dinner, his cell phone rang once. He looked at the phone and with a puzzled look on his face, “must have been a wrong number.”

“Still no word from your muscle-bound…jerk”, Aaron asked as Rachel was serving desert?

Jamie giggled, “I like that description better…muscle-bound jerk.” She dropped the smile, “He should have called by now. He’ll be really mad. His temper is so bad that he just explodes when I’m not where he expects me to be. I’m afraid to go home!”
“Don’t worry,” reassured Aaron, “we’ll go home with you and make sure that he calms down before we leave.”

“You would do that?”

Rachel said, “of course, you’re my favorite cousin.”

Aaron said, “You’re my favorite wife’s favorite cousin.”

Jamie laughed and her mood brightened. She pulled up to her house with Aaron and Rachel right behind her. Jamie got out and waited for Aaron and Rachel.
“His car is here, and the light is on in the house, I’m scared.”

“Let’s go in and face him,” Aaron said.

“Ok, I’m ready.”

Jamie opened the door with Aaron and Rachel right behind her, she screamed, turned and grabbed at Aaron sobbing. Aaron looked around Jamie and saw a big body on the floor lying in a pool of blood. “Rachel, please call 911.”

Since the house was in town, the police officers were there in a matter of minutes. They went through the routine questions that the police always ask. “Do you know the victim?” “Where were you?” “When did you last see and talk to the victim?” “Did he have any enemies?” “Is anything missing?”

Jamie was in no condition to answer questions. Aaron finally convinced the officer in charge to let him take her home with them.

The investigating officer took Aaron’s address and told them that a detective would come see them tomorrow.

When they reached their house, Jamie had recovered enough to talk to them. “I can’t believe it. I talked to him today and now he’s dead. I know it’s horrible to say and to even think, but I can’t say that I’m sorry he’s dead. He was such a horrible, 2-faced bully. He was a muscle-bound jerk with no concern with anybody except himself. What do I tell the police?”

I don’t think that I would tell them that you’re glad he’s dead, but I think that you should be honest about what kind of person he was and how he beat you and raped you whenever he felt like it. The police will be able to examine your bruises, and check their records about his ex-wife and the beatings. In fact, when they ask about his enemies, you might mention his ex-wife. Be sure to mention that he propositioned the female college athletes every night and if he was unsuccessful, he would take it out on you,” said Aaron.

The next day police detective Rizzo came to Aaron & Rachel’s home to talk to Jamie. Rizzo wrote everyone’s name down. He visibly hesitated and looked at Aaron when he heard the name Aaron Johnson, then he went through the standard questions again. Jamie was in control and spelled it out for Rizzo. The detective didn’t seem surprised about anything that Jamie said. When he finished, he told Jamie that he would be in touch and gave her his card. Rizzo paused, looked Aaron in the eye and revealed some of his inner thoughts with a half smile and acted like he was about to say something, he turned to Jamie, “If you think of anything else, just call me.”
After Rizzo left, “Do you know that detective,” asked Rachel?

“Never saw him before in my life, but he acted like he knows me. I wonder what that was all about.”

Rizzo got the name of the ex-wife from the police reports and called her. After Rizzo told her about the death of her ex-husband she said, “My prayers have been answered! My ex-husband was a dangerous, cowardly, muscle-bound bully. I know that he was on track to kill somebody. I’m so thankful that he died before he killed me or somebody else.”

“Why did you drop the charges when he put you in the hospital?”

“I got pressure, from all kinds of people who didn’t really know him, to back off and drop the charges. These people couldn’t or wouldn’t’ believe that this guy could hurt a fly. Some of these people were wealthy boosters of the University and didn’t want any bad publicity. It became clear to me that he would never be convicted and when the trial was over, he might get a slap on the wrist and then he would find me and probably kill me. One of the boosters promised me a good job if I dropped the charges. That’s where I work now. I’m very happy that it worked out like it did. Now I can rest easy.”

“Where were you last night?”

“I was with my husband. We were married as soon as the divorce was final. We ate at Chang’s Chinese Palace about 7 PM, then came home and went to bed. I’m sure that you can verify with the people at Chang’s that we were there from 6:30 PM to about 8 PM. What time of day did the murder happen?”
“The body was discovered about 9:30 PM. The time of death was estimated to be about 7 PM. Thanks for your help. If you have any questions, or if something comes up, please call me at the downtown police department.”

There was a newspaper story the next day. “A popular coach at the University of Utah was killed in what appears to be an attempted robbery. Glen Chapman was found dead, by his roommate and friends, in his home just before midnight last night. Police theorize that Mr. Chapman entered his home in the University area and surprised a burglar or burglars. He was stabbed with a knife from the kitchen. If you have any information about this incident please call the police.”

Rizzo read the report from the medical examiner. The autopsy results:

CAUSE OF DEATH-Victim bled to death. Knife wound in throat. The knife was still in throat at the beginning of the autopsy. It appeared that the larynx was crushed. The force of the knife could have caused some similar damage but it’s unlikely the injuries would have been this extensive.

NOTES Steroids and male enhancement drugs were found in the blood sample.
The Crime Scene Investigators found nothing of interest to give any clues about the murderer.

Rizzo, as was his custom, sat in his locked office and talked to himself. He went over the case, ‘It’s been kind of quiet for the last year for you 2, Robin Hood. I wondered if you had retired or what. I’ve seen the police reports about this guy. You took another human slime parasite from the city. There is no evidence to point toward you guys,’ recited Rizzo to his window and the mountains beyond. ‘I wondered just how much Cole has learned in his marital arts class. The crushed larynx is not seen every day. It’s almost time!’ He stamped CASE PENDING on the official file. The case would be transferred to the UNSOLVED CASES-DEAD FILE if nothing more was found. He had no official evidence or clues toward finding the killer.

His interview with Jamie revealed more about just exactly what kind of human slimy predator this guy was. The people with an obvious motive to kill this guy (his ex-wife and his live-in girlfriend) both had iron clad alibis. Then he took the newspaper clipping about the murder and placed it in the unmarked file in the back of his file drawer.

“What happened in Jamie’s house?” Aaron asked Cole at their next noon time lunch meeting. The meeting place was now a different place every day and they ate in the truck where they could talk in private. A regular place every day or every week didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Piece of cake,” replied Cole. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall! That cliché is certainly true, or at least it was this time. I added the knife to cover up his crushed throat. I figured that a crushed throat might point to someone with martial arts training, while a knife from the kitchen would look more like a weapon of opportunity.” Cole went on to go over all the details of the latest Damsel in Distress episode.

“This sounds like an action movie, instead of serious stuff,” said Aaron.

“How long is Jamie going to stay at your place?”

“I don’t know, she called a cleaning service to go in and clean the carpet and if they can’t get the blood stain out, she will replace it. At this point she refuses to even go into the house. “It has too many bad memories,” Jamie says.
She is going to sell it as soon as it’s cleaned up. The police and the insurance company want a report of anything stolen from her house. Jamie did go through the house but didn’t see anything missing. She said that there could have been some things missing from Glen’s stuff. We have an extra bedroom so we told Jamie that she can stay as long as she wants and off the record I like the idea of having 2 beautiful women in my house! If I wasn’t married to Rachel, I would go after her; she’s a genuine beauty inside and out. She’s as beautiful as anybody I have ever seen and yet she acts like the wholesome girl next door.”

Aaron grew serious, “the same cop, Detective Rizzo that investigated the Big Cottonwood Canyon episode was the investigator on this case. We never met at that time, but he gave me a funny half smile and acted like he knew me when he came over to talk to Jamie. He didn’t say anything that I can put my finger on, but gave me the impression that there is more going on behind his polite questions than appears on the surface.”

“How about Rachel, any sign that she thinks we’re connected with this slime bucket’s death?”

“No, I don’t think so. She may put it together later, but for now she hasn’t said anything.”

Each month Cole would put $1,000 into his family corporation. He had studied about investing in the money markets. He had practiced trading for almost a year with pretend money. His pretend profits were enormous. Along the way he had also lost some money, but overall his success rate was about 80%. He opened the trading account for real and began investing. He added the $1,000 every month. It appeared that this year the corporation would have a healthy profit. Enough profit to take the stockholders to some exotic place or a cruise for its annual meeting. “I can set you up to do the same thing if you want me to,” Cole told Aaron.

“I’m ready. You’ve convinced me. With what you’ve invested, you’re already realizing more income on a monthly basis than I am earning while working 40 hours per week.”
Aaron created a Nevada Corporation and began putting cash in the corporation on a monthly basis, just like Cole was doing. He opened a trading account with Cole’s advice. In a short time his corporation was making a profit almost every day. Some losses occurred, but just like in Cole’s experience, in about 80% of the time, he made a healthy profit.

Cole and Aaron continued to go to the martial arts class every Monday and every Thursday Night. They were both good enough that they graduated to the Expert Black Belt level. The instructor asked them to teach the class when he couldn’t be there.
Their proficiency with their pistols also reached the expert stage. The public firing range was a regular stop for Cole, Jan, and Aaron. Rachel was coming less often as her pregnancy progressed, but she had grown to love her pistol and took it everywhere in her purse.