The Charity

by Connie Johnson Hambley

  It had been a long time since Shea felt the emotions that grew inside of him now. When he saw Jessica on the street a few hours ago, he was surprised by how hard his heart beat at seeing her again. Alive. Safe. When he was preparing the house for them to work in together, he had a hard time keeping his mind on just working. His wife had the same energy about her. How long had it been since...? Too long. Having Jessica there so close to him, he let his mind wander.

  “No. Remember, you’re helping me too.”

  His statement contained several meanings. She sat forward and rested her elbows on her knees. She hated to ask, but she had to. “You don’t have any doubts about me, do you?”

  Her face was now so close to his. “None. I am staking my life on it.” He brought his hand up to her face and touched her cheek, determined to be gentle at first.

  For a brief moment, Jessica felt the confines of her isolation as she broke through its walls. Countless times she pushed people away. How could she have let someone get close to her? She was forever playing a role, trying to remember just who it was she was supposed to be. With Jake, they had a relationship based on his constantly reaching for her, and on her forever staying just out of reach—forever overly cautious. Now, for the first time in years, she was with someone who knew who she was and why. The thought of being genuinely close to someone was overpowering.

  She closed her eyes to try to bring herself back into focus. The exhaustion, the wine and the sudden feeling of safety were having a strong effect on her. He leaned forward in his chair and slipped his right hand under her hair, behind the nape of her neck, as his lips gently touched her face.

  “Owen,” Jessica began a whispered protest that was stopped by soft kisses on her mouth. She felt her response growing strong within her. She had waited so long to touch and to be touched like this—with warmth, for who she really was. She thought of the last time these emotions began to stir within her. Michael’s face rambled through her head as she reached out and touched the curve of Shea’s neck where it joined with his shoulder.

  The power of Shea’s emotions was not betrayed by the gentle way in which he touched her. He had no intention of kissing her then, of letting go of his own tightly held emotions. Having her there so close, he found himself wanting to possess her. His left hand slowly began to curl itself around her waist to pull her to him. Her muscles tightened briefly, by reflex to protect her bruised ribs. She tried to pull away, and he would not let her. The force of his embrace escalated, and she let out a small cry of pain. He reluctantly let her go.

  “I... I’m sorry, Jessica. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

  Jessica drew in a deep breath and opened her eyes slowly. “You’re right. Not like this. Not now.” Not you.

  They listened to the hiss of the fire as it filled the silence.

  Jessica slept for most of the next day. When she was awake, she and Shea barely spoke. It was obvious that he was exhausted too and when he was not sleeping his head was buried in papers. They both used the time to rest and recharge and the events of the past evening were ignored. Neither knew what lay ahead for them, but they both instinctively knew they had to be at their best without distraction.

  Finally refreshed, Jessica woke up the following morning to the smell of coffee and cold salt air. Daylight filtered in through the windows. Rolling over on her shoulder, she could see that the sky was overcast and that the ground had a fresh covering of snow. Flurries spat from the sky, low with the promise of more.

  She took a shower for as long as the water stayed hot, threw on the clean pair of sweat pants and shirt Shea had left in the room and walked down the narrow stairway to the kitchen. After pouring herself a steaming cup of coffee from the huge pot on the stove, she walked out onto the deck. The frigid air felt good on her skin. She inhaled deeply and savored the saltiness of it.

  “‘Morning. How do you feel?” Shea joined her and leaned against the side of the house, mug in hand.

  “Much better, thanks.” Jessica took a deep breath of the clear, crisp air and looked down the hill toward the marshes and out to the open water. “Nice spot.”

  “Yeah. I love this area.”

  Jessica was finally feeling well enough to let a glint of mischief flashed in her eyes. “So, I guess the couch didn’t fold up on you after all. I heard you struggle with the ancient pull-out bed last night. It sounded like it had not been opened in years. What a racket!” She had to bring her hands to her mouth to prevent herself from laughing out loud at the sounds of man versus contraption. “It sounded like quite a battle.”

  “Very funny. Tonight it’s yours.”

  They both relaxed at being able to share a laugh. Jessica looked around and saw a neatly stacked pile of split wood by the door. She grabbed a couple of pieces and headed inside, Shea close behind. He took the wood from her and placed it on a smaller pile beside the stove in the kitchen. He turned her gently to face him. Her face remained blotched with patches of red, purple and yellow. “You still look like hell.”

  “Thanks. It’ll make it easier to work.” They gave one another an easy smile.

  Shea looked down at his coffee. “Look. I, um, I’m really sorry about—”

  “Stop. Forget it. What happened is nothing that either one of us should be concerned about. Let’s just move on, okay?”

  “Right.” He looked relieved that she was not going to talk about it. He motioned to the table where he had set up his computer, tape recorder, and files. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

  They sat down opposite one another and Shea began to tell Jessica what he had learned. “The biggest question we have to answer is why everything happened to you and your family.” He paused. “I’ve thought about your question. Jessica, there is no doubt in my mind that you did not kill Gus Adams. The problem is that the facts on record have you as the sole perpetrator. The case against you is simple and straightforward. You were drunk. You were angry. You killed Gus. All physical evidence in the official record points to you. Clothes, blood, footprints, et cetera. The case we are trying to build sounds pretty farfetched. We have to provide all linkages to motive, evidence and opportunity carefully and thoroughly. Finding the bruises on Gus’ wrists is terrific but not enough.” Shea paused and gathered his thoughts.

  “I’ve looked at this from all angles. Our only chance is to indict all parties in a case that will appear to be independent from you. No two persons can be indicted for the same crime, which is why I need to indict Magnus and the other man you saw. Since we don’t know who he is, we’ll refer to him as “John Doe.” We must get these indictments before news of your ‘resurrection’ comes out.”

  “So once Magnus is on the hook, I’m off it, right?”

  “Right. There cannot be two competing cases for the same crime. You were never indicted or arraigned for Gus’ murder. As the prime and only suspect, the crime ‘died’ when you did. Once Magnus and his associate are indicted, you’ll be free. But we have to get the indictment before anyone knows you’re alive. Otherwise, there will most likely be a rush to justice to indict you and the case will turn into a circus. It would cost us precious time, and they would use that time to get at you.” He hesitated as he debated whether or not to tell her all of the factors against her. Again, he opted for the truth. “Frankly, right now? You wouldn’t stand a chance of acquittal. Your own eyewitness testimony is severely prejudiced by your presumed fake death and disappearance.”

  Jessica recalled him saying almost those same words the night in the hotel, with the same effect. She shivered. “I know. So tell me what you found out.”

  “Your land is now owned by an outfit that calls itself the Unity Green Trust. At first, that name meant little to me except that I remembered seeing it on some past embezzlement cases I had worked on. It took some doing, but I traced the origin of the trust back to the peop
le who created it. The trust documents for Unity Green were signed by hired agents, so their names meant nothing. I had one piece of luck. After several holding companies, I traced one final corporation that was formed in Ireland. The key person behind Unity Green is Magnus M. Connaught.” He produced a set of documents and spread them out in front of Jessica.

  “That’s all fine and dandy, but to me it’s tedious legal mumbo jumbo. What’s your point?”

  “I had the photograph that you found with the lighter in it enhanced directly from the negatives.” He shuffled through the files and produced a large brown envelope. Pulling the photograph from it, he continued. “We were lucky to have multiple negatives and we could choose the one with the best image quality. With digital retouching and sharpening of the picture, the lighter is pretty clear.” He reached for another envelope where he had placed the lighter last night. “The engraving on the outside is distinctive and the lighter itself bears the name of a prominent jeweler in town. I shouldn’t have any trouble making the connection to Connaught. In fact, did you see this?” He flipped up the top and held it so Jessica could see inside. The faint lettering was barely visible, but Jessica could make out the dedication, “To MMC, my Father.”

  “Okay. So once you confirm this with the jeweler, you can link the lighter to this guy, Magnus, and you can link the lighter to the scene. Still, I don’t see how that can get me off the hook for murder.”

  “Then we go to the motive of the crime. Unity Green Trust has made an enormous amount of money off your farm. You said you saw it, so you know some very big bucks have been thrown around. At first, I didn’t think that was enough of a connection to go on, so I reviewed the Wyeth Family Trust documents.”

  “A trust?” Jessica closed her eyes for a moment and deliberated how much to tell Shea. Deciding not to hold anything back, she told what she knew. “Yeah. I do remember both my father and Aunt Bridget doing a lot for Erin and me. My aunt was convinced that some money hound was going to trick a naive little me into marriage, and she wanted to be sure no money would ever get into his hands without my explicit control when I got older. At first I thought she was just paranoid but...” Her voice trailed off.

  “But what?”

  “I always thought Aunt Bridget was somewhat daffy. It was like she was desperate to have me know something while keeping the details away from me. But it ended up that she had private accounts stashed away in a system that was far from daffy. The money helped me hide, then buy my farm.”

  “Bridget had secret accounts?”

  Jessica told Shea about the bank accounts she discovered through the documents hidden in the newel post and the detailed instructions Bridget provided about accessing the money. Jessica continued, “Yes. She took great effort to keep them private. She must have been worried about something more than just gold-digging men.”

  “She was concerned about something all right. So was your father.” Shea paused as he considered the choice of his next words carefully. “The trust your family created still exists. A provision stated that twenty-one years after your death, the moneys would be distributed lump sum to a real charity. They specified one that provides support to families with special needs or brain injured kids What caught my eye was this,” he produced more papers. “Annual payments have been made to organizations all connected with Unity Green. I have to guess that the annual payment provision was to keep Magnus and his group happy enough so that they wouldn’t try to get control over the corpus of the trust and the trust would remain intact for whenever you were able to access it. The money has gone toward one organization for “charitable purposes” and ledger entries state “transfer made to the Charity.” It’s pretty clear that your family worked closely with Connaught to funnel money into his organization. We can easily get Connaught for income tax evasion, but we would drag your family through the mud, too. It’s pretty unusual for a farm that raised and raced thoroughbred horses to have been as successful as your farm was for so many years. Race fixing and money laundering for an organization that made illegal arms purchases seemed to have been a Wyeth family side line.”

  Jessica’s fury was instant. “You bastard! My family would never do such a thing! I won’t let you prove this case at the cost of their reputations. I won’t turn my back on my family again.”

  Shea held his hands up in a motion that told her to calm down. “Nothing else makes sense. Checks were written, and money was transferred from the Wyeth Family Trust to Unity Green’s parent corporations and trusts all in accordance with the documents I found in your family’s attorney’s office. Do you remember a Joseph Tripp?”

  “Slightly. Why?”

  “I nearly got blown up for my efforts, but I tracked down the records of the dealings your family had at the time the trust was created and its subsequent revisions. Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Here.” He tossed the sealed envelope to her bearing the words ‘For Jessica Wyeth Only’ in her aunt’s handwriting. “As far as I’m concerned, your family had a pretty cozy relationship with this outfit. They structured all of their assets so that everything would go to Charity and Unity Green affiliates. Your father thought he had a business partner and wasn’t counting on them getting greedy. They killed him after his usefulness ended. Tripp had copies of racing documents your father altered. Gus Adams was your father’s trusted aide to keep things under control and monitored. The same records showed your family paid him pretty well, plus he got pretty healthy bonus pay from Unity Green.” Shea shuffled through some other papers and pulled out a letter. “And then there’s this,” he said as he handed the letter to Jessica.

  Jessica took the letter and read it briefly. Her eyes grew wide in surprise. “It’s from Gus! My God! He mentions Magnus!”

  Shea smiled. “One of the files the attorney gave me had that in it. It’s a notarized letter from Gus stating he wanted out of the business, directly mentioning Magnus Connaught. It’s a critical piece of evidence that shows a complicit business arrangement. I have no direct evidence to help me prove that dying was the only way to retire, but circumstantial evidence certainly supports us. Getting rid of you was just the icing on the cake. Putting the blame of Gus’ murder on you and then having you die meant that none of these relationships was at risk of being uncovered in an investigation. Your death just meant more money coming into them sooner.”

  “But they were fooled.”

  “Fooled?”

  “That’s right. You said my trust would not pay out all of its holdings for twenty-one years after my death. They must have been pissed to get minor annual payments, so that’s why they forced my trust to sell the farm to them. That was the only way they could make the money they expected to gain from me.”

  “Right. They were fooled, but I think your family was in on the deals.”

  “You’ve got it wrong. That man I met in the diner told me all about the Charity and how it operated. Business owners were forced to cooperate.” Only her clenched fists betrayed the anger she felt at this conversation. She quickly told Shea all that she learned.

  “Right. You said his name was ‘Sarge,’ right?” He watched as Jessica nodded. “Well, unless Sarge testifies as to what he knows, or unless you can prove your family was forced into this business arrangement, my opinion stands that your father and mother were lucky they died when they did, or they may have lived long enough to see their little scheme come crashing down.”

  Shea pushed himself back from the table and stretched his back and shoulders. It was not hard to see that his conclusion enraged his companion. Tough. What he learned about Unity Green’s operations now combined with some of the cases he already won was enough to bring down Magnus Connaught. Finding that notarized letter from Gus nearly made him dance on the tabletop. Okay, maybe it was not enough to convict him of the murder of Gus Adams but it was enough to create reasonable doubt to get Jessica off the hook if his plan failed and she went on trial herself. He was no
t going to worry about that for the moment. Right now, he had enough evidence to bring the old man down for money laundering, racketeering, and income tax evasion. That was enough for him.

  He grabbed the phone and transferred the connection line to his PC. It was an automatic gesture, like reaching for a cigarette. He needed to go on-line and check his e-mail. Plugging the computer into the telephone line was just the activity he needed to avoid talking anymore to Jessica. She needed a few minutes to absorb what he said and to calm down. Talking to his office with the telephone in the house would be a stupid move. He could not be sure another party would not listen in on the party line. He had a better feeling of security using his PC.

  Busying himself with the process of connecting, he did not pay further attention to Jessica. For a long while, she sat still, numb with the implications of what he said. Shea was wrong about her family, but she had to prove it and seeing Shea so focused on his next steps told her she had to prove her family’s innocence herself. Shea’s keyboard clicked away as she grabbed the envelope and opened it.

  The seal looked as if it had never been touched. Inside the large envelope were two smaller ones. One was addressed to her in her aunt’s handwriting, and the other was addressed to her aunt with the words “To be opened in the event of my untimely death.” This was written in her father’s hand. It had already been opened. It contained two small keys and the business card of a small bank. Nothing more. She was about to open the other envelope when Shea jumped up.

  “Jesus H. Christ! Oh, Man! I don’t believe this!” Papers fluttered to the floor as he frantically shoved files into his briefcase.

  “Hey! What’s the matter with you? What happened?” Jessica knew the answer was not one she was going to like.

  “Jessica. Listen to me. I have to go back into town immediately. Stay here. Don’t go anywhere.” His voice conveyed his sense of urgency as he reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Please. Promise me you won’t go anywhere. You’re safe here, got it?”