Chapter 12

An hour later, I crawled into bed, so tired that I even put off cleaning my weapon. Heck, the roosters were already mocking me that it was time to wake up to face another day before I got home.

Late that afternoon, the FBI agent in charge of the raid called. “The U.S. Attorney General gave me two different figures for the land,” he said. “He says that, if you agree to work full-time for any federal law enforcement agency, the land is yours for ten million dollars. He doesn’t even need a signed agreement. He says your word is good.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I replied dryly.

“I’m serious,” he replied. “I admit that I thought the AG was kidding, too. He wasn’t. He claims that he’s followed your career since you stood up to Senator Ludmill. When the first news release about Ludmill’s involvement came out, he stood in his office and applauded the entire time. Numerous members of his staff heard the commotion and joined him watching the press conference and applauding while they watched the news release replayed.

“When your actions caused Ludmill’s demise, you gained a huge following in D.C. Ludmill wasn’t well liked and when he was arrested, half of Washington celebrated. The other half waited to celebrate until he was being held without bail. Evidently, most of the politicos in D.C. know who you are. The AG says that, had you become a full time Deputy when you first joined, you’d probably be an Assistant Station Chief by now.”

“Not good,” I replied. “I wanted to stay off everyone’s radar and work in the background. Now I have one more reason to dislike Ludmill. Since I intend to remain a part-time volunteer, what’s the other price?” I asked.

“Volunteer?” he gasped.

“Yup, they call me for what Dwight calls ‘big uglies.’”

“Like last night?” he asked.

“When the surveillance showed the bunker, yeah, he would have called. Other than that, I’m a farmer. It’s what I love doing. I volunteer as a Deputy Marshal to help make my part of the world a safer place,” I explained yet again.

“The AG says the lowest estimate by the appraiser was eighteen million. It’s yours if you can come up with that by Friday. Thinking about it, if you can come up with that much money, I guess I understand why you prefer doing something you love. I’d probably retire and take up fly fishing as a full-time job,” he laughed.

“Deal. I’ll take it. Thanks,” I replied excitedly.

I got the name and phone number of the appraiser. He had ended up working with the FBI as they gathered evidence against Kozlov. Kozlov worked for a legitimate developer who claimed to be unaware of Kozlov’s heavy-handed tactics.

I had Bradley Vaughn, my money manager, on the phone two minutes later. Since I planned to resell the property within a short time, he suggested securing a short-term loan to cover the purchase. I had the money, but we’d lose everything we would gain on the deal he would have to de-fund to get the money.

He suggested Libertyville Bank in Petersburg where he knew the branch manager. He would call and arrange everything, and would meet me there tomorrow with the necessary documentation about the funds we would use as collateral against the loan.

Considering the sixteen to twenty-three percent interest he was earning on my money every year in an economy where two percent was considered good, I did it the way he wanted. I also called the appraiser. The appraiser laughed at me when I told him what I wanted. He had done the original estimate for the developer and knew exactly what the land was worth as farmland, and what it would be worth to the developer. When he had learned of Kozlov’s tactics to secure the land, he was ashamed to have worked with him and eagerly helped the FBI with anything he could.

He was surprised that I knew the land was worth much more than the developer had planned to pay Kozlov. I explained about still being in the finishing stages of a large land sale in North Carolina. I knew what I got per acre there, and what I would be able to claim per acre for the land I donated to the county and the state.

I figured that this land, close to Petersburg, which was a much larger city than Hallston, would be worth even more per acre. Heck, it was less than an hour from Richmond, and three hours from Washington. I was still surprised by what the appraiser told me the land was worth to the developer, even though he would throw a hissy fit about paying it. That was okay, I’d throw him a bone to make him happy.

The loan required less than an hour to secure in the morning. Once the branch manager realized that I was a shareholder, he couldn’t do enough for me. My account information on their computer must have had a note about the fiasco with the bank in Hiaville. After checking my account, the branch manager knocked another half percent off the interest rate he had originally quoted us. When all was said and done, the bank manager immediately wired the funds to the FBI and got a faxed confirmation that the land was now mine.

My next phone call was to the developer. He obviously knew about Kozlov’s demise and was wary of speaking to anyone from federal law enforcement. I explained that I was strictly a volunteer with the U.S. Marshals Service, and that I had just acquired the land formerly owned by Mr. Kozlov.

An hour later, we met in his office. As I expected, there was lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth on his part, but we finally reached an agreement. To cut him some slack, and to get a tax deduction for myself, I agreed to donate 400 acres of land to the county for schools and public services, as well as for improving utilities like sewers and adding underground electric service. I would also donate another 125 acres to the state for widening and improving the highway.

Both the developer and I knew that I could have pressed for more per acre. Instead, he agreed to pay my parents twenty percent more per acre than what he paid me. It would be ten percent more than their land was worth, but the developer would save ten percent on the larger parcel of land I sold him. He couldn’t tell my parents that I sold him the rest of the land, or about our agreement. He agreed to wait until a month after my parents finished harvesting this year to close escrow on their land. He had plenty of land to start building on in the meantime. On the outside chance that my parents didn’t sell, they’d quickly find themselves surrounded by a major bedroom community for Petersburg and Richmond. I still nearly doubled my money in less than six hours.

Mom and Dad were surprised when I told them the developer was legitimate, even if Kozlov hadn’t been. They were more surprised when I told them how much he was willing to pay them for their land.

We arrived at the developer’s office the next morning at the agreed-upon time of 9 a.m. The attorney I had used was already there, going over the documents with the developer. It was an easy task since he had helped write them yesterday. Two hours later, both of my parents had huge grins on their faces as we left the developer’s office. Dad did some number crunching before signing the agreement and figured they would walk away with well over four million dollars in the bank.

We stopped and grabbed fast food for lunch before continuing home. While we ate, Mom called home and told them the news, including that I was stopping on the way home to buy groceries for a huge celebratory dinner tonight. When she hung up, Mom said that Janie wanted me to shop at the Kroger closest to our house since she liked their steaks. It was funny watching my parents while we ate lunch. Dad smiled his mellow smile the entire time they were eating. Mom, on the other hand, couldn’t sit still. She looked like a hyperactive kid in church, constantly fidgeting. I don’t ever remember her grinning as much as she did during lunch. Half an hour after we finished lunch, I pulled into the Kroger parking lot while my parents continued on home.

Once inside, I started picking up the things everyone wanted. I had texts from Mom, Dad, Janie, and both sisters-in-law, as well as one of my nephews, each reminding me of one or more things I should buy for tonight. The steaks were the next to last item I bought. I planned to get the ice cream last so it wouldn’t melt so badly on the way home. With the requested steaks for everyone else in the cart, I was perusing the ribeyes, looking for the biggest, thickest one for me.

“Jim?” a female voice asked nervously, pulling me from my reverie.

“Bitsy!” I croaked, my throat swelling emotionally as soon as I saw her. I had to restrain myself from hugging her tightly and never letting her go again. The two young girls with her, both of whom were near spitting images of her when she was younger, were evidence that she had someone else in her life.

“I’m sorry Jim, please forgive me,” she started crying as she hugged me. The two girls stayed standing where they were, nervously watching their mother.

“You were forgiven years ago,” I answered consolingly as I returned her hug. Aside from the fact that her curves were a little fuller, she looked and felt almost the same as she had five years ago.

It was well over a minute later before she released me from her bear hug. She still held her arms around my waist loosely, which had the effect of pressing our groins together as she leaned back to look at me. She searched my face for several seconds, apparently looking for something. “Any chance we could spend some time talking today or tomorrow?” she asked nervously.

“Your husband won’t mind?” I asked, looking towards the two little girls who were starting to fidget from waiting so long for their mother.

“I don’t give a rat’s patootie if my ex-husband cares. As far as I know, he’s still in Arkansas,” she replied.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were divorced,” I replied. Technically, I hadn’t even known she was married.

“Am I forgiven enough to rate an hour or two so we can talk?” she asked.

“You rate as much time as you want. You’re single, I’m single, and aside from tying up a few loose ends here and needing to get home soon, I have no other obligations here,” I replied, brushing a lock of her hair that strayed across her face back behind her ear.

That simple act brought back a flood of memories of times I’d done the same thing all those years ago. Bitsy’s real name was Janice Davies. Her family had moved into the farm next door to my parents when we were both four years old.

Her dad had bought the farm for the investment in the land, expecting the price of the land to rise as the city grew bigger and came closer. They leased the arable land to us to farm while Mr. Davies drove into the city to his job every day. I met Bitsy several days after they moved in and we quickly became close friends, and soon best friends. I nicknamed her Bitsy because she was always singing “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” for the first year that I knew her, and making the hand gestures to go with it.

Even before high school, we were sexually active and dated all through high school. Fortunately, Bitsy’s mom had put her on the pill shortly after we started experimenting.

For Valentine’s Day of our senior year in high school, I gave her a promise ring. Both sets of parents knew about it beforehand. While not exactly thrilled because of our ages, they accepted that we would end up together. We both promised to go to college, which helped ease our parents’ concerns a little.

For spring break that year, Bitsy’s family went to Germany. I got a frantic phone call from her at six in the morning two days later. Only when they got to Germany did her parents tell her that they were moving there. Her father’s work had transferred him to Germany for at least five years. They didn’t tell her ahead of time to avoid having to fight with her to get her to go. Her parents reminded her that she would see me again in four or five months when she left for college. We had already been accepted at the same school, University of North Carolina Raleigh.

We spent an hour or more each day texting, sending IMs back and forth, and using email when the other person wasn’t available. Three weeks later, the IMs and email stopped. I continued sending email for two more weeks before giving up. When I checked with her female friends, Bitsy had also stopped communicating with them. At the time, I felt that her parents had been behind it, but couldn’t understand how she couldn’t find some way to let me know what was going on, even if it meant using a friend’s computer to email me.

I had been heartbroken. Despite knowing in my heart that she wasn’t going to show up for school when she wasn’t where we agreed to meet a week before school started, I still watched for her the entire first semester, even though I had dated other girls. I thought that she might stop by just to see me, and had hoped to catch a glimpse of her, and possibly even talk to her.

Now, here she was in my arms again. “I need to get these groceries to my folks. Want to come out to the farm?” I asked hopefully.

“It’s hard enough to face you; I don’t think I’m up to facing your family yet,” she replied. “You could come to my place. My roommate can watch the girls while we talk,” she suggested. I agreed, and she gave me her address and phone number. I noted that her address was twenty minutes away in Petersburg.

“I’m afraid to let you go again,” I admitted as I continued to hold her. I saw her eyes tear up, but she blinked several times and managed to keep any tears from escaping.

“I promise that I’ll be there,” she whispered emotionally as she kissed my cheek and pulled out of my arms. With one quick backwards glance and a nervous smile, she guided her daughters out of the store. It was only when I was checking out that I realized she had to have come here just to meet me in a public place to see how I reacted. She lived twenty minutes away in Petersburg. To the best of my knowledge, her family hadn’t moved back here; I was sure Janie would have made sure I had that information.

With no family or friends, how did she know where to find me? In addition, as far as I knew, contact with her local friends had ended at the same time she had cut contact with me. The fact that she left right away and didn’t even have a grocery cart with her added to my belief that she’d come here just to meet me. I had a brief moment of panic thinking that the older girl might be my daughter, but I quickly realized that she was too young. The last time I saw Bitsy was over five years ago, so our child would be going on five and her older daughter wasn’t that big yet. Then I realized that I was more disappointed than relieved that she wasn’t my daughter.

I paid for everything and took it home where I unloaded everything into the kitchen. “I’m going to drive back into Petersburg. I may not be home for dinner,” I told Mom as she and Janie started putting everything away.

“Have a good time, honey,” Mom said.

They almost pulled it off, but Janie’s knowing grin, and the fact that neither of them grilled me about why I might not be back for the celebratory dinner made me realize that they already knew. One of them, probably Janie, had told Bitsy I would be at the store. Both of them obviously knew that Bitsy was back, which would explain why they hadn’t paraded a long line of single women out to meet me.

I stopped at a flower shop I saw about ten minutes from Bitsy’s place and bought flowers. Despite knowing that this meeting involved collaboration between Bitsy and the females in my family, I was nervous when I rang the doorbell.