Bad Reputation: The Complete Collection

by Matt Hader

  John hadn’t planned on taking a boat this close to his final destination, a high-end resort on the northeast part of the lake just outside the town of Lake Geneva. It was such a clear and sunny day, though.

  He caught a glimpse of the calm lake as he passed the Abbey Resort on Highway 67 and knew his plans would have to change. He was going to have to steal a car somewhere in the area anyway. He could always leave “The ‘Nort’ Side” at the docks, steal a car nearby, do his work, and circle back to the Abbey Resort to pick up his Chevy wagon. It was too beautiful a day for rigidity.

  He couldn’t find a Saturn to steal this time, so the plain white, 1995 Chevy van tucked into the back of the Denny’s parking lot would have to do. He parked it in the side lot of the cheap “no-tell” motel next to the high-end resort’s property and trekked through a tree line, the baby face mask and 9mm pistol hidden under the cheap, Wal-Mart windbreaker that he zipped up to his neck.

  CHAPTER 8

  John was in a fantastic mood - nonchalantly driving the Chevy wagon south on Highway 14 on his way back to his home in Balmoral.

  He replayed the robbery of the upscale hotel over and over in his head. He chuckled to himself recounting his stroll directly through the crowded and ornate lobby, where no one paid him a lick of attention.

  The lack of response on any potential witness’ part was due to the large, wine tasting in progress. Free wine and cheese was the catnip John needed to allow his plan to go off without a hitch.

  Last month’s Travel + Leisure magazine for the Balmoral area had an article about this resort in particular and how popular their midweek, mid-afternoon, free wine and cheese tastings were. A lobby full of tipsy people stuffing their faces with complimentary, Wisconsin cheese was the perfect cover for his crime.

  Hitting a place in Lake Geneva was not in his initial plan to rob only breakfast restaurants in the suburbs surrounding Balmoral. Well, taking down the dentist wasn’t in his plans, either, or the spa, for that matter. That was kismet. But after hearing on the local news just that morning, that suburban police departments were possibly starting a Baby Face Robber task force, he had a change of mind. Maybe striking in Lake Geneva was just the thing to confuse the police. Or maybe it was just the Vicodin clouding his thought process.

  And okay, he had to admit to himself that robbing the dentist’s office was probably more about the Vikes than the cash. He could live with that.

  Slowing for traffic in Harvard, Illinois, he imagined the way the 22-year-old, male, desk clerk giggled when he saw the mask back at the Lake Geneva hotel, but how he soon lost his smirk when the cheap 9mm came into view.

  John sat up straighter, prouder, thinking of the exchange of money from cash drawers to his plastic bag and his departure that took less than one minute. He smiled at the memory of the leisurely walk back out of the lobby and through the tree line to his awaiting getaway van.

  Sure, the $5,750 in the bag under the passenger seat and ultimately the saving of the celebration was his goal, but John couldn’t help thinking, “Damn, I’m good at this.”

  There was a larger reason that he was in such a pleasant mood, though. It was the main reason that made it difficult for him to shake his dopey grin.

  It was the never ending, circular thoughts of Amy playing through his mind. He tried to push them away, but they’d come right back -- the way she looked back at him as they crossed the street earlier, how her attractively snug clothing fit her backside. He obviously didn’t know her, but he could tell the instant she confronted him in that crosswalk back in town, that she was the girl for him.

  When they first met at the dentist’s office she was sort of a mess, but who wouldn’t be with some dude pointing a gun at you?

  He had a good feeling that she was a strong individual. She seemed like someone who could fend for herself. He loved strong and intelligent women, although he had never actually dated one. Most of the women John had been with only wanted to have a good time. There was nothing ever serious about the relationships, nothing permanent. And for John that was okay, until now.

  Getting the money was fantastic, but landing a woman like Amy could be life-changing.

  CHAPTER 9

  Amy Bowling, the former receptionist at the dentist’s office, wasn’t originally from the area.

  A strikingly beautiful, country girl, with dark, wavy hair, she’d grown up in hardscrabble Jackson, Kentucky, in the heart of Breathitt County. She was the second oldest child, and eldest girl, in a family of nine siblings (four girls and five boys). Amy was also an unwitting, second mother to her seven younger brothers and sisters.

  At 18, she escaped not only the oppressive poverty of rural Eastern Kentucky, but the forced motherhood her parents required of her.

  Illegal pot-growing was, and still is, one of the top-producing cash crops in Kentucky. While her parents were gone for days at a time tending the pot plants that they had placed on lush, public property hillsides all around the county, Amy had to provide in some way for the rest of her family. This involved working two legitimate jobs, one as a cashier at the Piggly-Wiggly, and another dealing soft-serve at the Dairy Queen.

  She graduated near the top of her class at Breathitt County High School, but with her parents trekking all over the county in the only family car, higher-paying jobs were just not within walking distance of her home.

  Her older brother, Dwayne, was of no help at all because he was doing a ten to 20-year stint in the Kentucky State Pen for felonious assault on a police officer.

  Dwayne had been completely caught up in the family business, and when a Kentucky State trooper named Deaton stumbled upon Dwayne tending to a cache of pot plants off the side of Highway 15 near Frozen Lake, they had a come to Jesus moment.

  Dwayne had a talent for shooting. If he hadn’t been drummed out of the Marine Corps two years into a four-year stint for knocking out a loud-mouthed sergeant, he may have taken a more positive turn in life - maybe, but probably not.

  The several marksmanship awards he’d received in his two years with the Corps worked against Deaton in the worst way. The state trooper took two rounds to the chest. Fortunately, his ballistic vest saved his life. However, the round he took to his right kneecap was career-ending.

  The trooper, hampered with the low ground and losing blood at an alarming rate, managed to sink two rounds into Dwayne’s right quadriceps and one bullet into his left shoulder. Over 100 shots were fired between the two men before backup arrived for Deaton and Dwayne ran out of ammo.

  Breathitt County, where Amy grew up, was also known as “Bloody Breathitt County” for the number of violent feuds that erupted there over the years, starting just after the Civil War. The last known, official feudal killing happened in the 1970’s.

  Breathitt County’s feudal violence was nothing like the romanticized and mostly media-made, Hatfield & McCoy version. It wasn’t violence over perceived slights and defending family honor. The troubles were more akin to the brutal mob violence of 1930’s Chicago. It was about money, power and the control of illegal activities.

  Now it’s Oxycontin, pot and Meth, but 80 years ago, the Breathitt County moonshine business was booming in the days of Capone.

  When the Chicago mobster himself sent a delegation of sophisticated, city mobsters to negotiate away the lucrative, moonshine enterprise from the local yokels, it didn’t work out for the city slickers. As one tobacco-chewing local at the time put it, “They found dead I-talians hanging from the trees up and down Highway 15.” Capone cut his losses and looked elsewhere for future, business opportunities.

  Breathitt County’s own took care of Breathitt County.

  A few years’ back, a documentary film crew from one of the myriad cable channels was run out of town because some of the locals didn’t like the questions they were asking. The documentary crew was inadvertently
stirring up violent outbreaks all around Jackson by dredging up old wounds.

  An 18-year-old Amy Bowling took a Greyhound bus north after her mother finally came to her senses, got out of the family business and began taking care of her own children. Amy saw her opening to freedom and quickly took flight.

  She found herself a cheap room to rent just outside of Cincinnati and a job working as a housekeeper for a wealthy family in the suburb of Indian Hill. It took some effort getting from the old house where she rented the room to the affluent suburb, transferring buses twice, but it was ultimately worth the effort.

  She met a young man from the Chicago area who was visiting her employer’s son. His name was S. Winston Fletcher (the S. standing for Stanley). His closest friends affectionately named him DB (short for douche bag), but Amy called him Winston. He was studying business with her employer’s son at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

  Winston was a smooth-talking, handsome and well-kept man of 21. His parents owned a construction company based in Lake Zurich, and Winston, their only child, was in line to take over the business.

  At first, Amy couldn’t understand why such a cultured young man was taking a liking to her. After Winston invited her to a college party in Oxford and witnessing the jealous reactions she was getting from the snippy and entitled sorority sisters in attendance, Amy’s confidence began to blossom.

  The boys back in Jackson would tell her that she was pretty and would constantly try to get her alone in parked cars on desolate roads out in the county, but she thought they were just bored and not really interested in her. She had younger siblings to take care of first. The awkward pawing in parked cars wasn’t important to her. It was annoying.

  There was a reason Amy graduated near the top of her class at Breathitt High. Unlike the goobers back home, when the pretty, rich boy Winston began pawing, she had an awakening. She knew whether she ended up with Winston or not, that she’d never have to live in a place like Jackson ever again.

  She made a concerted and successful effort to lose her Kentucky drawl and blend into the Chicago area culture she moved to as a young bride just six months later. But as homage to her roots, she kept her maiden name.

  The majority of the past 14 years were an incredible, uphill, roller-coaster ride for Amy.

  They lived in a five-bedroom, French provincial home in the exclusive Chicago suburb of Deer Park. Every year, Winston traded in her last year’s model, two-door Mercedes coupe for the latest version. They enjoyed vacations in Europe and a condo on South Carolina’s posh Kiawah Island. She partook in weekly spa treatments and had a live-in maid.

  The only price she had to pay was the loneliness.

  Winston was gone a lot. Working, he’d say. In neighboring Lake Zurich, the family business was construction. They did mostly foundation work for projects all around the country in the poured cement trade. It was lucrative work for Winston, whose father retired from the company shortly after Winston graduated college.

  The father moved to Costa Rica one year later after Winston’s mother died in an apparent accident, a 20-story fall, while visiting friends at their high-rise condo in Miami.

  Then two years ago, the FBI made their first call on the French provincial home in Deer Park. Winston was out of town on business at the time.

  Amy told the agents that he was in Las Vegas, bidding on a new hotel construction contract. But they had photos of Winston and what looked like a younger version of Amy, canoodling on a beach in the Bahamas. The photos were taken just that morning.

  The FBI agents weren’t stupid. They knew the best way to get to Winston was by pissing off his wife sitting back in frigid Illinois. So while he was getting a nice tan and his pipes cleaned on a white, sandy beach, Amy was being grilled in her own living room.

  It was the first time that Amy had heard of her father-in-law being referred to as “Big Anton.” She always knew him from the rare visits as Tony Fletcher. He seemed like a kindly, little, gray-haired man, not the monster the FBI was making him out to be. They said as a teenager, he was a hired killer, and as an older man, a mob boss. She couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that her father-in-law’s real name was Anthony Capelli. It all seemed like nonsense to Amy.

  “Wait, are you saying, Winston?” she asked.

  “Wake up, Bowling,” the larger of the two agents said, knowing her general background and that she kept her maiden name. “You know what’s going on now. You may want to consider moving out of here before it gets ugly for you, ma’am. You should be grateful there are no children involved.”

  The agent, Hugh Rogers, had grown up in London, Kentucky, and knew that he could talk the talk with Amy. Although she was sitting in a 7,500-square-foot home in Deer Park, she was still Jackson, Kentucky at heart. He never threatened her with arrest because he truly believed, especially after the way her face went completely without color at the mention of the Fletcher-Capelli family affairs, that she was an innocent.

  After learning of the FBI’s visit, Winston never did come home from the Bahamas. He joined his father in Costa Rica, where they both lived a carefree existence in a lush compound with a quarter mile’s worth of beachfront.

  Costa Rica has an extradition treaty with the U.S. but the Fletcher-Capelli’s were very adept at greasing the right palms. They’d never set foot on American soil again.

  Six months after that first visit by the FBI, Amy, with no means of support, was forced to move from the French provincial home. By that time, the grass was so long from neglect, the property looked like an abandoned home. The Mercedes was gone, as well.

  She stood in the driveway studying the house after loading the last of her designer clothes into the back of a waiting taxi and thought, “Who am I kidding? I should’ve known.”

  She moved into the basement of her friend Lori’s house in Lake Zurich. They’d met at Fletcher company parties and picnics over the years. Lori and her husband, Jerry, a project manager at Winston’s company, who also lost his job in the whole FBI-Winston fiasco, were very understanding and supportive friends.

  Amy hadn’t lost her looks but her confidence was shot. It took her a year or more to simply begin a job search. Jerry was able to land another job soon after the company went under and had no problem helping to support the woman he knew had nothing to do with his former company’s demise.

  The very first job offered to her, she took. It was at a dingy dentist’s office in Lake Zurich near Routes 12 and 22. So close that she could walk to the office on good weather days.

  She lasted two weeks before the place was robbed by some idiot wearing a see-through, baby face mask.

  The robbery turned out to be a blessing for Amy. First, the dental practice was a sham. She knew it from day one. No patient would stay for more than five minutes at a time. And from growing up in the Oxy capital of the world, she knew the signs of opiate abuse. It didn’t take a Betty Ford Clinic therapist to figure it out, either.

  For eight hours a day, Amy would survey a waiting room occupied by people of all stripes with sunken and sleepy eyes, people who would constantly be scratching their arms and legs. She knew immediately that she was a smiley face, medical scrub-wearing window dressing for an illegal, drug-selling operation.

  The most annoying part of the job, though, was the ruthless and constant sexual advances by the dentist. She could handle herself and keep him at bay, but she was afraid that she’d wind up knocking the shit out of him and losing the $150 cash he gave her at the end of each workday.

  On the day of the robbery, with the waiting room unusually empty, the dentist had cornered her behind the front counter. He kept trying to touch her hair and whisper in her ear. The dentist didn’t know how close he was to owning a pair of swollen testicles. Amy was quickly approaching the boiling point of frustration and anger when the door opened.

  “T
he money and all the Vikes you have,” the robber said.

  To an outside observer, they would think that Amy’s terrified expression was due to the robbery in progress, but they would be wrong. She was relieved.

  The sense that she was off the hook bubbled up and made her cry and her face contort. She realized that she needed to stand up for herself, like she did 14 years earlier when she left Jackson. She knew that no one would take care of her other than herself. She realized that she had lost herself inside the big house in Deer Park and that she wasn’t being true to herself all these years.

  The gun in her face didn’t scare her at all. She was ecstatic knowing that she had found her rudder once again.

  That’s why she ran.

  She knew the guy in the mask wasn’t going to shoot her. She’d seen guys like him on several occasions back in Jackson.

  “He’s all talk and no action. This guy would be on the ground with a blank stare back home,” she thought to herself.

  She ran.

  Neither the dentist nor the robber could see it, but she was smiling ear to ear as she hit the door and sprinted down Route 22 toward her friend Lori’s house.

  She never went to the cops, she didn’t even tell Lori and Jerry what happened, she just took to advancing her life of independence with more purpose. She knew she’d have to start from the bottom and work her way up from there. The idea excited her to no end.

  She wanted to manage a business. It didn’t matter to her if it was a dry cleaners or an automobile showroom, she wanted to take her shot at guiding a business toward growth and prosperity. It was her chance to shine.