Chapter 6
“Yes, he’s the one that came to talk to me to see if I could do anything. What does he have to do with anything else?”
“Okay, don’t quote me, because this is second hand knowledge and a she said, he said, he said, he said situation.” She wrinkled her nose at him when he grinned at her.
“I’m listening.”
“Okay, it’s my understanding, as we’ll have to talk to them later for clarification, but it’s my understanding that when Katherine arrived here, she told her story. She said she was being hunted by George Babcock, and Larry Mason. George is Michael’s father, while Larry is my now ex-husband.”
“Hunted how?”
“One night, around midnight, George, showed up drunk at my house, demanded that Larry take him and two other men with him to Katherine’s apartment. To quote Babcock, he said, ‘they needed to teach the bitch a lesson for getting his boy in trouble with her lies’.”
“I’m assuming here, but he’s talking about Michael going to prison? But, in all actuality, it’s Michael’s own lies and deceit that got him thrown in jail?”
“Yes, but they didn’t know that Katherine was asleep upstairs in her old room, and not at her apartment.
I waited until they left before I went upstairs to wake her.
A couple of days earlier, I had packed a go bag for her with clothes she’d left there.
Since the accident and trial, she had lost a lot of weight, and I knew she could fit in those clothes again.
I had also called Lyle and he told me what to do.
We used burner phones. Anyway, I woke Katherine, told her what was going on.
We went to the bank across town to withdraw money, then got a hotel room close to the meeting place with Lyle the next day.
She paid cash for a motel, and before I left her there, she handed me all her ID except for her driver’s license and social security card.
When I left her, she had close to twenty-five hundred dollars on her.
I gave her what I had. I told her to come to Fool’s Gold to my best friend growing up.
I knew her married name was Riceman. I don’t know how she got here, or what her meeting with Lyle went like.
He wouldn’t tell me, he only told me that her car was safe, her phone had the battery removed, and he hid the car on his property.
He also told me he gave her some cash. I hadn’t heard from her until she called me three weeks ago on my birthday.
The last time I saw her was three months ago. ”
She jumped up and refilled their cups again, and shook her head as she remembered what she had been asked.
“Anyway, again, we’ll have to talk to Duane and Katherine, but it’s my understanding that after Katherine told her story, about how George Babcock was after her, he, Duane, reached out to his former director with the FBI.
They set up to meet up in Colorado Springs.
Turns out when Duane pointed to his Director Grayson, Katherine flipped out and started swearing at him.
She calmed enough to tell him that it was George Babcock and not Grayson.
“Duane left, he had Caleb and Laurie with him, and was several miles away when Grayson called him and asked where they were, he said something came up, and he couldn’t make it.
Oh, and Larry was there with Babcock. On the way back here, it’s roughly an hour or more drive, Katherine and Duane talked.
Once they arrived back here, Duane contacted Jake Cogburn with Brotherhood Protectors over in Fool’s Gold.
He, Jake, reached out to his boss, Hank Patterson, and I was told a couple of weeks ago that Hank contacted you. ”
She looked down at the folder she had her hand on and slowly moved it toward him.
“This is what Hank, Jake, and Duane were able to dig up on Babcock.” As soon as she lifted her hand from the folder, they looked up at the sound of a vehicle, and Jason jumped to see who it was.
“It’s Kevin. How much does he know about this case? ”
“He’s read everything, but he hasn’t seen the video yet. He was going to view it when he got home from work, but he brought you home with him.”
“Okay, let’s go help him with the groceries, make some dinner, and talk. I’d like to see the video before I read what you have. My files are so redacted that it’s impossible to read.”
“Why?”
Jason shrugged as he stuffed the folder on Babcock in the top of the box and hurried out the door. It took them each three trips to get all the groceries in and when Jason questioned him, he gave him a funny look.
Ilsa laughed, “Jason doesn’t know how to cook. I taught him how to make the coffee earlier.”
“Why?” Kevin asked as he started emptying the bags they’d brought in.
“I work so much, and I can afford to hire a housekeeper, who also cooks for me and puts the meals in the refrigerator with a note for how long to put in the microwave. She also has the coffee pot preprogrammed.” He shrugged.
“Sorry, but not sorry. I work like eighteen-hour days, seven days a week. I make the big, and I mean big bucks, so I hire someone to help out around my house.”
“Do you actually have a house?”
“I do, I actually live in Arlington, VA.” He looked at them with a smirk.
“I also have a driver. It’s easier than trying to traverse the streets of DC.
The driver is door-to-door. Don’t worry, both my driver and housekeeper are well compensated for.
I know you didn’t ask, but I make roughly around the mid-range of seven figures a year.
I have no girlfriend, wife, or fiancée. I think it’s been seven or eight years since I was in a serious relationship, but I broke that off really quick. ”
“Can we ask why?” Kevin asked as he continued to empty the bags.
“We had only been dating for a little over two months when I started seeing more and more of her things at my place. I had to go out of town on a case, and when I came home, she had completely moved in and she wasn’t home when I arrived.
I never told her when I would be returning. I walked into a nightmare.”
“What?” Ilsa asked as she was putting the food away in cupboards. She put the canned goods on the counter and pointed between them and Jason, so he started putting them away.
“A construction crew was there, and as soon as I walked in, they were about to take a sledge hammer to my seventy-five thousand dollar kitchen that I had only completed six months before I met her.”
“Holy shit,” Kevin paused and stared at him in shock. “What did you do.”
“I told them that if they brought that hammer down, I would sue them for everything they owned and their great-great-grandchildren will be paying my estate. The woman in charge got all huffy and said the homeowner wanted to replace the marble countertops with granite. I told her she was lying since I was the homeowner.”
“She told me that the woman I was dating had a signed contract with her. I told her until I saw it, no work would be done in my house. The ex-girlfriend returned home in the middle of the argument and demanded to know what I was doing there. Turned out, she moved herself in, along with her boyfriend, she told everyone I had turned the property over to her. I immediately called the police. The ex, her boyfriend, and the decorator, who was her friend from college wouldn’t leave and were arrested.
The construction crew cleared out before I even made the call, taking all their tools with them.
I called my housekeeper and together we cleaned all their shit out of my house, I changed the locks, and upgraded to the most current state-of-the-art security system. ”
“Wow,” Kevin said as he shook his head and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Did the case go to court?”
“Yes, and I represented myself. Turned out that I had tried cases before that judge before, and he knew how ruthless I could be. At their sentencing, he looked at all three of them and told them just how fucked they were, then he sentenced them each to eighteen months. That’s not all that happened either. ”
“What?” Ilsa asked in shock.
“When they were released, the ex-girlfriend started a smear campaign against me on social media.. I waited until there were hundreds of comments, and how could I do something like that, and I got on there and asked only one question.”
“What was that?”
“I asked if I was so horrible, then how come I didn’t go to jail, but they did, and they lost everything, their jobs, their apartments, their business because of their lies.
The only other thing I said that it was public information and gave them the case number for the nay sayers and haters to read the truth.
Three months later, I had heard from the judge that they were back in jail this time for eight to ten years, because the friends that were bashing me, read the real case, and started a hate campaign against them for lying to the internet.
The three assholes went after them with baseball bats.
Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt, but their charges were assault and battery, against people, and property damage, I believe, but don’t quote me on it was seven counts.
The last time I ever heard from her was she called my office and asked if I would represent her.
I laughed so hard I cried. That’s all I did, was laugh, then I hung up on her. ”
“If you can say, where did you go?” Kevin asked as he began putting a meal together. “You guys want some spaghetti?” They agreed, but Ilsa had him stop and told Jason to go over next to him. “We will be teaching Jason to cook while we’re here. If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?”
“Fifty-two.”
“Same as me,” Kevin said, and they looked at her with a raised brow, but didn’t ask the question.
“Smart men, but I’m forty-nine. Really, this is the first year of being that age, I swear.
” They exchanged laughs and Kevin taught Jason how to brown the meat while the water boiled, and Ilsa set the table for the three of them.
It wasn’t until they sat down to eat the spaghetti, salad, and warm breadsticks that Jason took up his tale.
“You asked where I went. I work for the Department of Defense, I’m doing this case because I’ll be basically taking on the establishment of the FBI, not just the two, or three, or five, or so rogue agents out of the Los Angeles office.
When I went to my boss about this, after Hank Patterson approached me, he said he had heard wind of others that might be dirty.
Because of the caliber of this assignment, I don’t think I have to tell you how hush-hush we have to be.
Coming here to Riceman Ranch is good, it’s remote, and we’ll have one of the best military teams ever developed having our back.
” He looked at Kevin with a scowl. “Do you think there are any dossiers on the others working here?”
“No, there aren’t, but they are all former military. I’m sure if we have a BBQ tomorrow, they will tell you their story, briefly. That’s what Caleb told me at least. They only tell it if it’s necessary.”
“I love how you can deflect a question,” Ilsa laughed.
“Sorry, nature of the beast. I was overseas actually. There was some information that was extremely troubling, and we needed to get boots on the ground, except it couldn’t be sanctioned by the United States military.
It had to be a strictly voluntary mission.
It was harrowing because it took two years to complete, but at the end, the threat to world security was eliminated.
” He looked at them both. “All I can say is that it was Operation Gold Rush, and the men living on this ranch were involved. At least six of them were. I don’t know about the rest.” He turned to the other two and shook his head.
“Classified, way, way, way, above your pay grade.”
“Got it,” they nodded and finished the meal in silence, but it wasn’t tense, it was a pleasurable silence.
Ilsa liked that the three of them cleaned up after the meal, and it wasn’t long before they decided to table any discussion of the case, and they sat at the table talking quietly for a couple of hours before calling it a night, stating they would hit the ground running the next morning.