Chapter 9 #2
“There is, your honor.” Axel took a file up to the dais and handed it over.
“In there you’ll find that Mr. Jacobson Senior has been threatening people for a very long time.
He didn’t have a gun then, but he did use his cane on a few people who were afraid to press charges when it happened.
Since this has all come out, we’ve heard from over fifty people around the neighborhood who are now coming forward.
He also has been known to pour gasoline on pets and other animals that might come into his yard.
Some believe that he puts out food for them so that they’ll come to his yard, then he kills them. ”
Pete laughed. It was like he found all this funny.
The judge, having had enough, it seemed, told him he was going to add ten days to his stay in jail.
Of course that didn’t go over well and he was up and arguing again.
Audon had about enough. There was no way that this was going to go anyway but badly the way things were going.
For whom he didn’t know, but at least April got her divorce from Pete.
Finally, it was time to hear witnesses to what Peter had been up to.
“She’s all right to marry, I suppose, but I don’t want that kid.
She’ll have to do something with it. Maybe give it to her current husband so that he has something to remember her by.
” Pete must have thought that was a good idea and said as much.
“I have them, Daddy. You just don’t listen to me.
But Trinity ain’t going to treat me like you treat Mommy.
No way. I won’t have her hitting me again. That hurt.”
“She hit you because you tried to hit her.” Judge Brown looked like he was ready to call it quits when Pete and Peter started arguing about being hit by Trinity.
No one said anything to them, and the judge leaned back in his chair.
Yes, he thought, he was giving up on having the courtroom quiet like it should have been.
Finally, the judge stood up, and everyone got quiet.
“Get them out of here and back to their cells. I’m trying my best not to sentence them all to prison, but it’s difficult when they’re acting like children.” He banged the gavel. “Lunch. And when I get back, those two had better be out of here. I’ve had enough.”
Judge Brown left by the same door he came in through.
Pete was cuffed first, not at all happy with the way things were going, and then Peter.
The two of them deserved whatever they got, and he hoped they got it all.
Thinking about how much safer his house was going to be, he was glad that he’d taken the advice of his dad and got things squared away.
He and Trinity had also decided to clear the house of the furniture that was in it one room at a time and go with what they wanted.
It was going to take them a few auctions to get the furniture that they wanted, but it would be well worth it when they were finished.
For the most part, they were leaving the bedrooms alone, but for the one that Trinity had been using and do the rooms that they spent a lot of time in.
The master bedroom was going to be their first project.
At eleven forty-five, the judge came back into the room. The Jacobson men had been taken back to jail without any trouble, and April was there as a witness for them. She of all people knew what sort of people her son and ex-husband had been all their lives.
She’d bought them lunch at the deli when they’d been there, and she told them what her plans were for the house.
She really was going to sell it so that she could have a place that she could make some memories of her own in.
Something fresh, she called it, and he didn’t blame her.
It was what he and Trinity were doing in their own house.
After the judge called things to order, it went a great deal smoother. People testified against the Jacobson men, and there were a lot of people who had been hurt by the men too. The cane and then the gun had been hurting a great many people, even if it was only threats.
It took them nearly all day to get the things situated with the Jacobsons.
Peter was sentenced to six months in jail, and Pete was sentenced to five years in prison.
He would be transferred there in the morning, and then everyone could get on with their lives.
The judge even read over the paperwork for Lizzy and granted him fatherhood.
That’s not what he called it, but it meant that to him. He was able to have the adoption paperwork pushed through so that he could be Lizzy’s adoptive father. He couldn’t have been happier than he was at that moment.
~*~
Trin kept looking at the adoption paperwork.
It had been so easy for the paperwork to go through that she couldn’t believe it.
Instead of being Elizabeth Banton, her sister and brother were going to adopt her too; she was now Elizabeth Hathaway.
It hurt her heart when she thought of all that her sister and brother-in-law had missed out on.
Lizzy was making milestones every day, it seemed like, and they were missing them.
Just yesterday she’d gone to the cemetery and had talked to them both.
Mostly her sister, but she’d talked to Robert as well.
She told them all the things that Lizzy was doing now as well as how happy she was with Audon in her life.
“We’ve been turning the house upside down and working with all the furniture.
I loved your décor, but it wasn’t us.” She’d told her sister which rooms she was working in now and how they’d been able to sell off most of what was in the room.
“It’s going to be an office for me. Then I’m going to change your office into a playroom for Lizzy.
That way she can play on the first floor and not have to be so far away from us.
I plan on keeping pictures of you and Robert all around the room so that I can talk to her about you two. ”
Wiping at her tears, she thought of the day that they’d been killed.
She’d only given birth the day before and was less than twenty-four hours later that they were both dead.
Robert had died first; he’d been driving the car, and Milly had died later at the hospital.
She’d not got to see either one of them when they’d been brought in, and that made her sad.
Milly at least had lived for another four hours after the accident, and they tried to save her.
She missed her more than she did anything.
“I’ve been trying to put together things for Lizzy for later.
I know she’s going to have questions; I do as well.
But the things I’m keeping—the wedding rings for you both are hers.
Most of the jewelry too. Your wedding album, of course.
I’m also keeping some of the things that people sent to the funeral home where your service was.
” She had looked out over the beautiful cemetery and wondered at all the giant trees that were there.
“This place must be really old for these trees to be here. I’ve never been here before you guys were settled here. ”
People were visiting the grave markers of their family, she supposed.
There was a group of people about a hundred yards away that looked like they were there for a service.
She didn’t want to intrude on their sorrow, so she kept to herself.
When the cars started to line up near to where the people were, she decided to head home.
Walking there didn’t take much of her time, but she stopped at the store on her way out.
She needed to pick up a loaf of bread for sandwiches the next day.
Audon was working today. Tomorrow he was going to have a crew come in and box up his building.
He’d bought one that could be broken down and set up elsewhere, and that’s what he was doing.
She thought it was a wonderful idea that he was extending his work area a bit and that when it was all finished, all he had to do was walk to where he wanted to work.
She had yet to see any of his work, but when he was unpacked at the place nearer to the house, she could just pop in and see him.
Tomorrow she was going to be going back to work too.
She’d be able to have Lizzy nearby if she got to the point where she missed her.
Being an investment banker had given her a lot of insight on things to invest in, and she had her own portfolio that she worked on as well.
A lot of her clients had been waiting for her to come back to work, and she didn’t want to disappoint them.
Trin loved her job and didn’t know what else she’d do if she couldn’t be investing for people.
She was still sitting at the makeshift desk she had in Milly’s office.
She’d not been using her desk yet. Even though it was all hooked up for her to use thanks to Gilman, she’d not been able to make herself clean off the little things on the desk.
She’d get there soon enough, but for now she was all right with working at the little table she’d been using.
When her phone rang, she answered it with a smile.
“Hello. My name is Vestel Harsh. You have my granddaughter, Elizabeth, and the estate from my son. I’d like to talk to you about getting some of his things.
” She asked what sort of things he wanted.
“Some of the estate would be nice. It just isn’t fair that you got everything and we were left with nothing. ”
“Your son was driving the car when the accident occurred. Perhaps had he not been arguing with Milly at the time, they’d both be alive.
He’d been told before about driving angry.
” He said that was a lie, that he loved Milly very much.
“I know that he did. I saw them together all the time before the accident. What is it you really want?”