Bill Harvey Collection

by Peter O'Mahoney

  As Harvey went to respond, his phone buzzed again in his pocket:

  Harvey. Get out of there. Frank isn’t who he said he is. He’s a felon with a long history of violence. His criminal record is under the name Frank Matthews—but a different Frank Matthews. Born on the same day, one year earlier.

  “More stupid theories?” Frank smiled as he looked at the confusion on Harvey’s face.

  “Why would you impersonate a veteran?” Harvey asked directly.

  “I can assure you, I’m not impersonating anyone. I am Frank Matthews.”

  “But you’re not the Frank Matthews that you say you are. You were born one year earlier than the veteran, Frank Matthews.”

  The air in the room instantly became hostile.

  Frank’s eyes lost any sense of emotion.

  His body stature changed.

  Harvey felt the anger, fear, and pain grow in the room.

  Slowly and steadily, Frank stood from behind the desk. He walked to the office door, opened it, and called out to his secretary, “Helen, be a good girl and go home.”

  “I just need to finish—”

  “Helen. Go home.” Frank’s voice was emotionless.

  Harvey waited for the response, his heart rate rising by the second.

  “Yes, sir,” the secretary replied timidly.

  Frank turned, closed the office door, and clicked the lock shut.

  CHAPTER 24

  “I’m leaving now.” Harvey stood from his chair. “I have a trial to prepare for.”

  Frank, still with his back turned to Harvey, replied, “No. You and I need to discuss this theory of yours further. I don’t think that you should be able to walk into my office, make wild accusations, and not have to explain them. Trust me, you aren’t going anywhere now.”

  With his heart pounding against the walls of his chest, Harvey’s thought process was clear. He could not let Frank reach the desk. As an army veteran, he had no doubt that Bud Morgan would have a weapon in one of the top drawers.

  He must stand his ground and try to talk his way out of the situation.

  Words had to be his weapon.

  “Everyone has secrets. Everyone. I’m sure that you have your secrets as well. I have my own secrets that need to remain just that—secret. And I’ll do anything to protect them.”

  “I know very little.” Harvey stood straight—tough—attempting to assert dominance in the environment. His chest was pressed out, his chin up.

  Frank noticed the reaction, but it didn’t bother him. Violence was a language he knew well. “You know more than you’re telling me. It seems to me that you know a lot. It seems to me that you know enough to destroy what I have. It seems to me that you know enough to tear down everything I have worked so hard for.”

  Frank’s shoulders had tightened, his heart rate had increased, and his focus was clear.

  His gaze was solely following the chin of Bill Harvey. That was his target. That was his goal.

  “It can be our secret. Just a small secret between you and I.” Harvey lowered his voice to calm the room. “I have no need to disclose any information to anyone. Now, I’m going to leave this room.”

  “Like I said, you and I need to discuss this matter further. If you would please sit back down.” Frank indicated towards the chair.

  “I’m not sitting back down.”

  “Have it your way.” Frank shrugged. He could feel his pulse quicken. And he loved it. “But I cannot let you take all this away from me. I cannot let this life go. This is my life now. No one else’s. All this is mine.” Frank started to walk slowly towards Harvey. “Do you understand that, Harvey? This is my life, and nobody is going to take that away from me.”

  The thoughts began to race through Harvey’s mind.

  There was a cold anger in Frank’s eyes as he approached, but Harvey held his ground.

  Their stares were matched.

  Harvey’s heart was pounding.

  And then…

  One man fell.

  CHAPTER 25

  In boxing, they say that if you’re punched hard on the nose, it’s incredibly painful, but if you’re hit hard on the chin, it doesn’t hurt at all… because you won’t remember it.

  Bill Harvey’s vision blurred as he looked around his surroundings. He was lying face down on the floor, the taste of blood filling his mouth. His jaw had taken a heavy blow. His tongue ran over his cut upper lip, and he could feel the blood on his chin.

  He wiped his lip with the back of his hand and looked closely at the smeared blood. As the fog in his head cleared, he remembered where he was. He began to push himself up, still dazed, and he smelt the smoke of a cigar.

  “Ahh… Harvey, glad to see you’re awake. I was worried that you weren’t going to wake up.” Frank’s voice was full of arrogance. “Of course, that would have saved me from having to do what I’m going to do next.”

  Harvey turned his head to the left to see Frank sitting on a chair near him, his legs spread wide in a show of alpha dominance. He sat nonchalantly, arms resting on the supports, with a cigar in one hand and a handgun in the other.

  “Don’t worry about standing up. You can just sit there on the ground.” Frank waved the black revolver at Harvey, making sure he knew it’s there.

  Pushing himself into a sitting position, Harvey leaned against the cupboard behind him, his legs still sprawled outwards. As his focus became less blurry, he stared at Frank.

  “That was a quick right hand. I don’t think I even saw it.”

  Frank laughed. “I grew up in a boxing gym. I spent years training my right hand to be quicker than the eyes of my opponent. Those skills have stayed with me for life.”

  Wiping the blood from his chin, Harvey questioned, “So, what happens now?”

  “That is up to you.”

  “Okay. I would like to leave.”

  Frank burst out laughing. “Well, maybe it’s not totally up to you.”

  “Tell me.” Harvey attempted to buy some time while he considered his next steps. “Did Jessica find out who you were? Is that why you killed her?”

  Frank chuckled. “You’re a clever man. A very clever man indeed.” Frank pondered his thoughts for a time while he looked out the window. He drew a long, tired breath before he continued. “Jessica had known about my secret for a while. She’s a very clever person as well. As it turned out, she had a friend who also served with the real Frank Matthews. The man saw a photo of Jessica and me together and said that I wasn’t the Frank Matthews that he served with. Jessica confronted me about it years ago, but I convinced her to keep quiet.”

  “How did you convince her to lie for you?”

  “Jessica Lempare wasn’t an angel. She had some things in her past that she wasn’t proud of. She was once convicted of theft when she traveled to Mexico, you know? It happened fifty years ago when she was only young. No one else knew that. She kept that really quiet. She told me that it was a misunderstanding, and after she had spent a night in a Mexican prison, she vowed never to travel again. I guess we came to a mutual agreement about keeping secrets.” Frank sighed.

  “You threatened that if she exposed your lie, you would expose hers?”

  “You could say that,” Frank said. “And I don’t consider it a lie anymore. I have lived this life for such a long time, that I’m not interested in the past. I am Frank Matthews. This is who I am. This is what I do.”

  “Take advantage of veterans?”

  “I haven’t taken advantage of veterans. I’ve helped them. I have helped countless people get their lives back on track. I have helped those that defended us. I have helped the men and women who gave their souls for this country and were forgotten about. I’m a good man, Harvey. I haven’t taken advantage of anyone.”

  “But you have been well paid for it. I saw the accounts for the charity—you have to be one of the best-paid charity workers in the city. You also receive a pension from the army, and that isn’t rightfully yours.”

  “
Maybe last year… maybe. But not this year. I haven’t even gotten paid a single cent this year. I actually donated all my money back into the charity for a program to help those with post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ve changed. Yes, when I started all this, it was about the money. Sure. That was it. I enjoyed collecting the pension. It turned my life around. And then when I was getting paid by the charity, well, I afforded some very nice holidays. But now, it’s not about the money. It’s about helping people. It’s about making the world a better place.”

  “Then why kill Jessica?”

  “Because she was going to give Anna all the money. All of it. That damn spoilt brat convinced Jessica to give her the money. She called me to her apartment to tell me the details. Anna had convinced Jessica that the education that travel provides was as important as completing Army Basic Training. Can you believe that? Jessica changed her mind. And she said she would expose me if I didn’t sign the document of approval. I’m the deputy CEO of this charity, and my approval would have meant that the will was changed without question. How could I have explained that to Bud? How could I have explained that to anyone?”

  “If you signed the document to approve the change in the will, the charity wouldn’t get the funds anymore…”

  “But if Jessica died, well, the charity would get at least half of the money. Ten million dollars. That is the minimum that the charity will receive after the estate is sorted.”

  “That was enough money to murder her for?”

  “I’ve murdered for less.” Frank’s voice was cold and devoid of any remorse. “All my hard work, years of it, would go down the drain because a spoilt brat wanted all the money. Just when I thought I could really help the veterans, the charity would have to fold. Without the money contribution from the estate, our charity wouldn’t survive. It’s how we afford to help so many people, Harvey. That was our lifeline, and it was about to be taken away. I was furious that Jessica could do that. She knew how much we relied on those funds. She knew how much we needed her support. How could she choose to change the will?”

  There was silence as Harvey stared at his attacker, waiting for him to continue.

  “Harvey, I’m asking you a legal question. How could she have changed it?” Frank’s expression showed his confusion.

  “The will states that Anna needs an education by virtue of Army Basic Training. However, the word education could be interpreted differently. I guess, Jessica changed her mind on that. And with your approval, then the will would be changed without question.”

  “I couldn’t let it all go. I couldn’t let her take it all away from us. The veterans needed the money—not the spoilt brat. She never did anything for this country.”

  “Her whole family gave their lives for this country. Anna’s family had paid the ultimate price for this country.”

  “Yes, her family did, but that’s not Anna. She didn’t do anything to defend our freedoms.”

  “And nor did you. You’re a criminal, not a veteran. You haven’t given a thing for this country.”

  Frank stared at Harvey with cold, bitter rage.

  A few moments passed before Frank stood and began to pace the room, the handgun still held tightly in his right hand.

  “I was a criminal. That’s who I was, but that was a past life. It should be forgotten about. I didn’t want to be a criminal. I really didn’t want it. That’s just who I was. I was the victim of a bad childhood—I had no other choice but to turn to crime. It was the only way I could survive. My mother died of a drug overdose when I was twelve, and I never knew my father. I had to scrap and fight for everything I had. I stole things, lots of things. Cars, money, anything of value, but I did my time for that. I paid the price for my mistakes. And then…” Frank continued to pace the room. “Then the social security office mixed my number up. I don’t know how they did it, it was just one of those things. A stroke of luck. When I stepped out of prison, I was a different Frank Matthews. I was receiving veteran benefits and acknowledgment for what I did for this country. It took me a while to get used to it.”

  “And what happened to the real Frank Matthews? The one that served for his country?”

  “I found out that the other Frank Matthews was born on the same day, but one year apart. To the government, I was that Frank Matthews. So, I started to live his life. I collected the veteran benefits, I attended doctors to take blood tests, I went to support groups, and I even met his long-lost cousin. He had no family, so it was easy to become him. I had an old mate that went to the army, and he checked his army file and found out where he served. It was my life, not his anymore. That happened over twenty years ago now. A moment of perfect luck.”

  “But it wasn’t you,” Harvey interrupted, still sitting up against the cupboard with blood smeared on his chin.

  Frank stopped pacing the floor to stare down at his foe. “It’s me now. That’s who I am. The ‘real’ Frank Matthews had moved to Thailand. I looked him up soon after the error, out of fear that he might find me, but I was satisfied that he had fallen off the grid. He bought a farm, married a Thai girl, and lived a quiet life in a different country. I kept an eye on him, regularly calling his farm, and pretending to be someone else. When he passed away fifteen years ago, I felt relief. And then it wasn’t a lie anymore. It was just a perfect coincidence. It was my piece of freedom. God gave me a chance to start again.”

  “You lived a lie.”

  “But a good one. I was a lonely man with nothing to lose. I started meeting other veterans and kept quiet about my past. They thought that I was keeping quiet because I was struggling with what I saw. The quieter I stayed, the more they liked me. I had never been so accepted in my life. I started attending support groups, and it changed everything. That is where I first met Norman Chester. We really hit it off. Norman was a great man. Then Bud joined our support group, and we founded the charity together.

  “Bud managed the charity because he was better at that sort of thing. I was his deputy. When Norman passed, I took over the management of the books. Sure, I took a lot of money for my own use when I first started—after a poor life, it was too tempting. Suddenly, I could afford things that I only ever dreamed about. I traveled. I bought lots of useless things… but then last year, I realized something. I realized that this is bigger than me and this is what I love doing. More than anything else, I love helping people. I love helping these men and women. I love it. Since that moment of realization, I have donated my every waking second to helping them. This charity is bigger than me. It changes lives.”

  “And Jessica was going to take that all away from you. Not because she was going to expose your secret, but because she was going to take the money away.”

  “All of it. Without the injection of cash every month, this place couldn’t afford to keep going. We wouldn’t survive without her money. You see, I didn’t kill Jessica for me—I did it for them, the men and women who have served our country. You can understand that can’t you, Harvey?”

  “Murdering someone isn’t the answer,” Harvey replied.

  “Jessica was on her last legs anyway. She was riddled with cancer, and she didn’t have long left. I just brought her death forward six months. I don’t feel guilty about it. She wasn’t a very nice person.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay.”

  “I don’t care if I get charged with Jessica’s murder… but I do care if people find out that I’m not a veteran. This charity can survive a murder charge, but it cannot survive my fraud. I don’t care about me anymore—it’s bigger than that. I want to help people. These people. The one’s that have helped others.”

  “You’re a murderer. Not a saint.”

  “Jessica wasn’t the first. And by the looks of this current situation, she won’t be the last.”

  “If you kill me, the charity folds. No charity can survive a serial killer deputy CEO. One murder may appear like a crime of passion, but not two. You cannot kill me.”

  “I disagree. The charity can su
rvive a murderous deputy CEO. They will paint me as the former veteran who lost the plot. We’ll get sympathy for that. It will help people realize how bad it is for some veterans… but the charity cannot survive a fraud. If it comes out that I’m a fraud, the men and women that I have helped loose everything. I can’t have that.”

  Frank looked down at the revolver in his right hand, studying it as if it was the first time he had ever seen it.

  “Don’t do it,” Harvey whispered. “This isn’t the answer.”

  “It is, Harvey. I have to do it. I can’t let my secret out. If my secret goes out to the world, then it’s all over. I can’t have that. I can’t let that happen.”

  “How did you kill Jessica?” Harvey asked.

  “I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to buy time,” Frank responded. He kicked a chair to place it in front of Harvey and then sat down, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. “But I’ll humor you. I’ll let you enjoy your last few minutes before I fire this gun.”

  “Don’t do it, Frank.”

  “I strangled her. My DNA was all over her clothes. I was wearing gloves, so there are no fingerprints, but I spat on her clothes after she died. I was angry. So angry. I was surprised that the police didn’t come looking for me. I was so surprised that they didn’t match that DNA to mine. How could they miss that? Then I went and took the security footage from her apartment. I knew that she used to record the cleaner with a little portable camera to make sure he wasn’t stealing anything. Our disagreement would have been on that camera. That camera and the footage is still in my apartment, if you’re interested in it.”

  “Let’s go and get it now.”

  “Ha!” Frank laughed. “I was waiting for them, you know. Waiting and waiting. But the cops never came. When they arrested Anna, I laughed so hard. I never meant to set her up, but it couldn’t have gone much better than it did. I never liked Anna, so I wasn’t too unhappy that she was charged with the murder. And because she was charged with the murder, the charity will get twenty million, not just ten million. That couldn’t have worked out any better.”