Waking up in a strange place is always unsettling. As my memory returned, everything that had happened came back, I was really unsettled. I stretched in bed, remembering that I wasn't a spring chicken any more, and that my bones and muscles didn't like me all the time. This morning was one of those times.
As I remembered the new friends I had out at the trailer park, I was depressed, knowing they had all seen the news from the night before and thought I might be some pervert who may be a threat to their kids, or grandkids. Who would believe me? Even if they proved me innocent, the damage was done. I wouldn't be welcome at home in my own neighborhood, much less in a closed community like a trailer park with a lot of kids.
Knowing I had to prove my innocence energized me. I had to prove I wasn't that kind of person and make the news media say that as loudly as they had proclaimed my guilt. I had a direction, a purpose, and a crusade.
I got up and realized immediately that I didn't have my morning pills. This was serious. I needed the stuff that got rid of the fluid in my lungs and body. I needed the blood pressure and heart stuff.
Not to waste any time, I shaved and showered quickly; putting on the clothes I had on last night. After dressing, I went out to the duty person sitting at the desk by the stairway. "Good morning, I'm Mark Robins, a new person here. I need to take a bunch of pills every morning and they are at my place in the trailer park. Can you help me make arrangements to get them?"
"Sure, Mr. Robins, I'll call the man who's watching your trailer and have him bring them when he comes in after being relieved this morning. Let me call him and you can tell him where they are and what you need."
The duty Deputy called and let me speak to the deputy on site at my trailer. "Please, get the bottles from the plastic roll around chest that is by the front wall, next to my desk. There should be five bottles on the right side of the top drawer. Check the last two bottles nearest the front to make sure there are several pills in them. If not, get the corresponding full pill bottle in the rear of the drawer. Also get couple of the yellow boxes. If you don't mind, I have a guitar in the rear closet that I would also enjoy having. The clothes you'll bring are in those drawers and the jeans are hanging in the closet."
The duty man on site said that he was invited to have breakfast with Steve Sharp and his friends a couple of streets over. He asked if I thought that would be a good idea and what he should say if asked.
"Tell them the truth. No one has proven anything yet and I'm still innocent until proven guilty. Like I said, tell them the truth."
With that taken care of, I shifted thoughts to exercise and food. I told the duty man that I need exercise and could walk in circles but needed to do it at least for a half-hour. He said, "Let me see if it's okay to let you into the hotel gym. I'll have an answer around eight. Let's order a good breakfast." I thought eating breakfast with the duty deputy would be like having breakfast with my kid who was not living at home anymore.
After breakfast, I went through all the stretches they had taught me in the cardiac rehab class out at the VA. Walking around a room for thirty minutes is boring, but I turned on the TV to listen to the morning news and weather. There were more reports about the villain taken into custody for child porn and how the federal law enforcement people had taken over the case.
About seven thirty, the agent who had been on duty at my trailer, brought my clothes, my guitar, and my pills. I thanked him for bringing the pills so quickly. I took my prescribed pills, put away my clothes, then sat on the couch with my guitar. I had always found just strumming familiar riffs was very relaxing.
At eight thirty, a deputy came into the room and said we had to go over to the federal building. The FBI wanted to question me now. He said that the county detectives would probably be there as well.
In an interrogation room, both FBI agents and a county detective that had been in on the arrest at the house began asking questions. They kept hammering on me as to when I had decided to begin collecting pictures of children in sexual situations. This was their central theme, over and over again. They asked about whether I had been collecting pictures at the office that I had sold to the new owners. I kept telling them the same thing; I had never downloaded a picture of children in sexual situations ever.
They broke for a while and brought me a bottle of water and coffee. I took a pee break and was accompanied by an agent to make sure I didn't try to run. When we continued, it was two more hours of asking questions about when the office was closed and why did I sell it. They would go back to the question of when did I begin collecting child porn and I kept telling them the same thing.
The county detective challenged me, "Would you be willing to take a lie detector test? Come on, prove your innocence, take it now, no preparation, they can do it right here."
I didn't think anything could possibly show up so I agreed but asked to go to the bathroom again. Since I take Lasix in the morning, I pee frequently until about noon. Again, an agent went with me and watched me pee and wash my hands. They took me into another interrogation room where a fat, bald headed guy with Coke bottle glasses was messing with a table full of equipment.
We had a little discussion while he explained what he was going to do before he proceeded to hook me up to multiple leads on my fingers and arms. He told me to relax, to even close my eyes if that would help me relax. He did as he said he would by asking me questions he knew to be correct and asked questions he knew to be incorrect.
Soon he was asking, "Did you begin collecting child pictures while you had your business?
"Have you ever had sex with a child ten years old or younger?"
"Have you ever had sex with a child twelve years old or younger?"
We went right up to sixteen then he switched to, "Did you know your wife was seeing another man?"
I answered, "Yes."
"Did you know the man's name?"
"Again, "Yes," because I had worked to find it out.
"Do you think the evidence against you is false?"
That was a definite, "Yes."
"Did you modify your computers from your closed business since you removed them from service?"
I had to say yes because I had just taken one of the computers to put one together for me out at the trailer park.
"Did you modify this computer to operate on the internet?"
That was yes also.
"Did you modify this computer to download pictures of children having sex?"
That was a no.
This continued for another fifteen minutes then the guy administering the test said he wanted to ask the same questions, but on a different machine. He hooked me up to the other machine and we did it all again. The questions were all exactly the same and I answered them all the same.
When we were done, an agent took me back to the other interrogation room where they began asking me how I found out Steven's name. Then they began to get real serious about when I had modified the computer recently.
"That's easy. My wife told me early Monday evening that I had to be out of the house by Friday. I began packing up and preparing to move right away. When I rented the trailerhouse I found, one of the items I wanted was a desktop PC, so I took the PC that had formerly been my personal PC on my desk at the office and began preparing it to use in the trailer. I already knew I could use a wireless connection, so I had prepared the box to accept a new network interface card. I couldn't use any more of the PCs from the office, so I left them for my wife to dispose of. She said she was going to trash anything that I left."
The agent asked, "When were you last in the house?"
"Tuesday, late afternoon. Since I was able to get everything of mine together, I moved my stuff out to a temporary storage facility and into the trailer. I don't have that much personal stuff. I've since given up the storage facility as the park found a shed for me to use since I've been helping out there."
They asked again, "You haven't been back to the house since Tuesday?"
"No, I even left the key to the house on the kitchen table and just locked the front door on the way out. My wife didn't come home until late Monday night and I only saw her briefly on Tuesday morning. The first time I've been back to the house is Friday at six. She sent me several e-mails and also had my daughter tell me to make sure I would be there Friday."
The two agents questioning me looked at each other and left.
One came back in and asked, "Tell me again when you built your computer that you have in your trailer."
I said, "I built it Tuesday, but I just used a box I had and made sure everything I needed worked. I ended up trading the PC I took from home for a faster used box with a wireless network card that I have now. I kept the hard drive from the old PC but that's it. All of the PCs I had were used on a network that had the internet."
When they asked the same question but in a different way, I answered, "The one thing I did to the PC I was going to build was to make room for a wireless network card because that's what I'm using out there. I ended up not using that box since I made a deal for a newer, faster PC. I did put the hard drive from the old PC into the new PC so I could transfer any of the old files I might want."
The agent asked, "We noticed you had a laptop too. You gave us permission to look through the other computer, do you mind if we look through your laptop?"
"Be my guest. Look through everything I own. The only kids' pictures you'll find are of my grandkids. All the young pictures of my daughter are still at home."
A little after noon they came and gave me a Subway roasted chicken breast sandwich and a Coke. I asked for another bottle of water and sat alone to eat, waiting for whatever they were going to ask next.
About one, the Deputy Marshal Chuck Johnson came and said hi. He asked if everyone was being respectful and I told him they had. He said to me, "Mark, I know you didn't do what you're accused of and the agents are convinced you didn't either. They are looking at everything to see if they can find out who is trying to frame you and why."
"Thanks, Chuck, It's very kind of you to help me. So many have helped me since Monday that I feel very lucky. I'm going to owe a lot of people when this is over. Poor Sarah took my case and then it blew up in her face. For a lady that likes her money, she sure is blowing a lot to help me."
Chuck smiled, "She's doing all right. I'd bet she'll get even more divorce cases that will pay big money after all the publicity she'll get for helping you. I think that even though your luck is off a little, you will still bring happiness to a lot of people."
"I hope so. I just hope I can make people know I didn't do any of these things. The TV people convicted me last night. They'll never spend the time to convince people that I didn't do anything wrong."
"Let Sarah handle that," Chuck said. "She's good at making something right. She'll handle it."
Chuck left and a couple agents came in carrying coffee, including a Styrofoam cup for me. They continued in the same line of questioning, but were not pushy like they had been before. They did ask me to describe everything I did in my past business and what I had done since selling it. They had me describe in detail, all of my activities since I packed up and left home. I said, "I was only at the trailer park from Tuesday evening through early Friday evening. I was busy every day helping in the R&D center and fixing a few cars for some of the older folks out there. One of the cars is owned by a younger lady with kids but she needed the help too."
The one agent said, "That's what everyone has told us so far. I can tell you that we've gone through your trailer and shed thoroughly and found nothing that incriminates you. Our computer guys took your hard drives from out there and your laptop and have gone through both and found nothing."
Those two left me about two thirty. I was getting tired, so I laid my head on the table and tried to nap. About a half-hour later, a geeky looking guy, with an attractive lady named Jan, came and took me into their lab. The geeky one was a computer guy who asked me questions about what software I had on the office PCs. I told them, "Each had XP Professional along with older copies of Office Professional 97 left over from Windows 98 days. All had Internet Explorer and used Outlook for e-mail. Some had copies of some communication software for various equipment manufacturers and some had a pricing program made up from Excel and Access. There might be a few other random programs, but that's about it. Everyone used Word for correspondence and most everyone used Power Point for presentations and quotes. Our business software was left with the company on our server so they had an accurate inventory and had a history to work from. That was part of the deal."
"When exactly was the last time you used the computers you had at your office."
I had to think, did we use them after the transfer or did they bring all their own PCs? "Actually, we did download all the individual files for the machines but they had their own software licenses and didn't buy any of mine. The sale of the company was February first but it took about two weeks to transfer customer and employee personnel files, so it was sometime in February. I brought the PCs home to the garage and have played with the one I have at home, but the rest have just sat. I used one on my test bench, but it didn't have Windows, only DOS as I used it as a test box. When I wanted to use it for more than that, I used the hard drive that is in the box at the trailer house."
The geeky looking guy asked, "So you wouldn't have had any transactions or file downloads on any of the PCs from February to now?"
"That's right. They were all just sitting beneath my workbench. I was going to use them as a possible gift to one of the schools, but they don't want anything but Pentium IVs, and these are all older than that."
Jan said, "We noticed that. Okay, I'll take you back to the hotel. We have found some interesting information on the PC when you were supposed to have downloaded all of those porno files. We also found some traces of a heavy sedative on that wineglass you insisted on being tested. The content was heavy enough that with your heart condition, it might have killed you."
I grimaced and clenched my teeth, hoping it was the creep that Judy was messing with that came up with that idea. It's not that Judy isn't bright; she just isn't programmed like that. To her, everything is black and white, but she can be easily influenced. Get her attention and she'll go along with you until she finds out you're screwing her. Problem is, sometimes that's too late.
I asked, "Did you check the fingerprints on that glass?"
"We did and we have a match," Jan said.
"Well, so what kind of dude is this Steven Barts?" I thought they could tell me that.
"That wasn't his name when he was fingerprinted. That is something else we have to look into. Don't go calling your ex to blab what we've found. That's why we're not telling you everything at this time. Just enjoy your accommodations for a couple of days."
I was bushed by the time I got back to the hotel. Sitting around all day while people ask you questions over and over again is very tiring. I'm sure it is for them too, but for me it was really tough. I was pleased they were working so hard on a Saturday.
When we got off at the floor, the duty man said, "You have permission to use the hotel gym. When you want to go, the downstairs man will accompany you. Let me know when you want to go."
"That might make me feel better. Tell him that,,, oh, I don't have my shorts and tennis shoes."
The man said, "Yes, you do, we brought the rest of your clothes for a few more days, along with your swimsuit, shorts, some T-shirts, and tennis shoes. Go change and the duty man will come up to take you to the gym."
Jan, who had accompanied me up to the room said, "We're working this weekend to see what we can come up with. I think we can have this cleared up real quick, or at least be in a lot better shape than we are right now. Relax, you're looking good on this, so just keep being honest and tell us what we need to know."
That was a no brainer. I did change quickly and met the duty guy who took me to the fifth floor gym. I used the treadmill that was complete with a TV, and used their multi-position exercise machine for the exercises I'm allowed to do. In all, I spent about an hour and fifteen minutes in the room. The duty guy had done several things with me and said, "I'll have to bring my exercise clothes with me; no sense in me just watching what you do."
Back upstairs, I discussed with the duty deputy on the floor about supper. We decided on one of the hotel's fancy fish entrees with a salad and the appropriate wine. Sounded good to me, but first, I went in the room to dig out an ice cold beer. That went down in about two swallows.
I showered and when the deputy came in, he said, "I can eat with you tonight, if you want. Our other visitors have left."
"As long as you don't ask me the same question more than twice, it will be nice to have some company."
He laughed and said, "That's what we have to do to see if you answer the same all the time. You'd be surprised how many times the suspect will change his story. When that happens we just keep hammering on what he has not said yet."
I nodded and said, "Let's eat while it's warm. I'll turn on the TV so we can see if I'm still the hot topic."
The deputy said, "You might be, but I think you're going to start hearing a different slant on things pretty soon."
I said with a plea in my voice, "Hope so, I hope they spend as much time telling everyone it was a mistake and that I was not a perv."
"They won't do that," the Deputy said. "What's newsworthy about a guy that hasn't done anything?"
"That's what I'm afraid of," I said worried. "Guess I'll have to pay for a full page ad in the newspaper to convince people I haven't been fooling around with kids."
"There might be other ways. Get an attorney and let them figure out a way to clear your name." The Deputy smiled while he kept shoveling in the food.
We ate and enjoyed our great meal. He said, "When it gets later, order some more dessert for a bedtime snack. It's not bad staying here if you learn how to use the system. Enjoy your evening; I should stay at my desk. Someone may call, so I need to be there so they don't have to radio me."
The rest of Saturday evening was peaceful. I was wrung out from the day, so I kicked back with my feet up on the coffee table and watched TV while strumming my guitar. I woke up about one and went to bed. No sense in getting my back sore by sleeping sitting up.
I awoke at my usual six in the morning and made some coffee in the little coffeepot that was in the room. It was enough to get my body running to do all the bathroom stuff one has to do. I took my medications and stretched out in my shorts, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes. When I went out to the duty desk, there was a different deputy there. "How about having the downstairs guy take me to the gym?"
The younger deputy said, "According to this, you don't need a babysitter. Just go do what you're going to do and come back upstairs. You can order breakfast when you're done."
I went to the gym room and used the treadmill for forty-five minutes and the machine for about twenty. The exercise makes me feel great and my meds were working, as I had to stop twice to go pee.
At the duty desk, we picked out our breakfast and I asked for a newspaper, if they had one. I said I would pay for it, but the guy said it should have been brought up already. He said he would get them to send up some coffee right away as he could use a cup.
We ended up eating together with the door open so he could hear the phone if it rang. We ate a leisurely breakfast discussing the usual topics of the day. How the baseball team, the Rays, were doing and how the Bucs football team was going to do. Training camp was in its first week and the coach still had not made all the cuts we thought he would.
I was reading the paper, drinking coffee with the door still open, when Jan came walking in with that Chuck guy that was with the Marshal's office. I said, "Sorry you two have to work on Sunday. I hope you get some time off to go with this."
Jan smiled, "I'm like the assistant Station Chief so I'm here so the Chief doesn't have to be. Chuck is just a nice guy and is checking up on things."
Chuck said, "For your information, we brought in your wife's friend this morning. He's in interrogation right now."
Not wanting to tell them, but thinking I should, I said, "You know, I hope you read this guy his rights. No one ever did for me. The detective was too interested in getting me outside in front of those cameras and then you brought me in and never said them to me."
Jan rolled her eyes, "Well, you didn't need them to tell us everything you did. With your help, and the guys in the lab, we have a pretty good case building up against your wife and this guy. We didn't bring her in yet, but we have a car parked at the curb in front of your house. I'm sure she's panicking about now. We'll bring her in this afternoon and start on her. She should be easy by then."
I said, "Thanks again for helping me out. I'm sure without all of your help; I would be languishing in the county lockup with the detectives thinking they had me bagged on this case."
Chuck said, "I didn't think you were guilty and I told Steve and his family that. Kathy said you were not going to have a hard time convincing everyone out at the park that you were not guilty and that you didn't have anything to do with that stuff. We all saw how you enjoyed the kids but never did anything but chat with them. Mercy says you are definitely not guilty and I second that. Your lie detector tests yesterday should be proof enough. When we have the real culprit, then you can clear yourself."
Jan said, "I need you to come over to the agency to give us some more detail of your visit Friday and the notes and calls before you went."
I nodded then said, "Let me put on some jeans and a regular shirt. I'll be right with you."
I changed clothes, washed my face, and brushed my hair. Perhaps the cameras could make me, an old guy with glasses with longer hair look good enough to attract some lovely lasses to come my way. What do I need more for; there is a big group of single women out at the park.
We went across the street and I was put into an interrogation room. All I could think of is this is going to be a bitch. A second day of the same questions over and over.
An agent went over everything I had said to Judy and the e-mails she had sent. I kept saying that my daughter's insistence that I come made me feel there may be some hope. As I discussed the encounter Friday evening, I said "My divorce attorney, Sarah Perkins, recorded the whole conversation. I would think that an attorney's word that the recording was original and not doctored should be good."
The agent said, "It would be, but the other parties didn't know they were being recorded. That's why we can't use it. So then, at what point Friday were you given the wine glass?"
The questions were again asked several times, sometimes different but still the same. The question of why was I suspicious kept coming up and I kept saying, "If your wife told you to be out by Friday, and as soon as you split early, she was insisting you come back Friday evening, what would you think? There had to be a catch. With that Steven character there, no way would I eat or drink anything from that place. They drank theirs, but never touched mine or Sarah's."
The agent asked me as an off-handed question, "Do you know a Drew Kerrington?"
"Nope, never heard of him."
The agent said, "Let me get you some water and a cup of coffee. We've been hard at it for over two hours."
I needed to go to the bathroom and figured it wouldn't be a big deal for me to go take a whiz. I walked out to the hallway and into the bathroom, took a leak, washed my hands, and headed back. As I came through the door, the wonderful Steven Barts guy was coming out of an interrogation room with two agents.
He saw me and lunged at me yelling, "You son-of-a-bitch, I'll fucking kill your ass. You're telling them all those lies."
At about the word "lies," his big fist was heading for my face and his body was almost hurtling toward me. I ain't a fighter, and not in good enough shape to do much, but I did duck and push the guy as hard as I could.
His head went thump on the door jamb and he slumped to the floor. The two agents that had tried to keep up with him rushed to try to cuff the unconscious asshole. The agent that had gone to get me coffee and water came into the room, carrying the stuff he had gone for and asked, "What are you doing out of the room?"
I said defensively, "Had to go to the bathroom. I didn't think it would be a problem. I didn't mean to hurt that guy but he was trying to hit me. All I did was duck and push him away from me."
The two agents trying to get Steven to sit up were mopping some blood from his forehead. One of the agents said, "That's about what happened. We were taking this guy downstairs to the lockup. We have enough to charge him on a few things, and he's wanted on a counterfeiting warrant and a bank fraud warrant in other states. It's our fault; he should have been cuffed and chained. Now I guess we'll have to take him to the hospital first."
The agent who had gone for the coffee handed me the cup of coffee and bottle of water and said, "Go back in the interrogation room; I'll have to write up a report the same as these guys. We have video surveillance in here, so we have what happened on tape, we'll have something for the six o'clock news."
I went into the interrogation room that I had been in before and was sitting in there with the door open. I could hear a lady crying and yelling. She would cry, then yell, then cry some more. Listening to the voice made me think it was familiar and after about ten minutes I realized from the screaming fit she had, that it was Judy. Wonder what she was so pissed at. I've only heard her rant like that a couple of times, since I'm not a big fan of yelling or family word fights.
I'm just not a big fan of any kind of fights. My military days were spent trying to make helicopters fly without any readily available parts. I always thought the pilots, or rotorheads as we called them, were really brave, knowing they were blasting around the countryside with rotary wing aircraft glued together with chewing gum and duct tape. That's how I was injured. I had to travel to a remote compound to fix a helicopter that wouldn't fire up. On the way we picked up so much ground fire, a pitch link to one of the rear rotor blades was hit and the Huey was vibrating badly and you could see the fear on the pilot's face. The pilot wisely didn't put down and made the last couple of miles with the aircraft now shuddering from the messed up tail rotor.
Okay, so that was no big deal right? Well, it was a big deal, as we now had two helicopters and neither one was working right. My partner on this repair job was another spec five named John Frank. He was always razzed about having two first names. Anyway, we were thinking that if we needed to bug out, we should use the rotor from the dead Huey on ours. Problem one was the dead bird was an A model and the one we flew in on was a C model. That's UH-1A&C. If you really want to know, the UH is for utility helicopter and this bird was made by Bell Helicopters, not Bell telephone. Anyway, the rear rotor blade on the earlier model is a different size, shorter, but would fit and hopefully work. The stability might not be as good but we could fly. While John worked on swapping the rear rotor hubs as that would get our bird flying quickly, I went to work to see if I could figure out why the turbine on the dead bird wouldn't fire. The problem was fairly easy. The fuel line feeding the main turbine was kinked from a hard landing at one time or another and it had finally clogged up. The fuel we were using wasn't the best in the world and was so filthy you really couldn't use the prescribed filters as they would clog up within a few hour's use. The Huey had a range of about two and half hours, and we learned a turbine could burn dirty fuel, but if the line became clogged up at all, then it was like my arteries, it just got worse until it totally clogged up. We blew out the lines every time the bird came in to keep them clean, but clogs still happened.
That bird had to have a new fuel line so I jury rigged some oversized tubing and was able to start the chopper, letting it charge up the overdrawn batteries.
About that time, guys in black pajamas thought it would be a good time to make our life more interesting and began lobbing mortars into the camp. The pilot was talking about getting up and perhaps using the twin sixties he had to help out. (Twin sixties were two M60 machine guns mounted in the door of a Huey)
John and I got the bird in its run-up condition and were checking both door guns for the gunners when a mortar made a direct hit on the ass end of the Huey. Pieces were flying everywhere. I was hit by shrapnel in both legs and one arm. The gunners were both screwed up, but the pilot was okay. The bird was destroyed as it tipped over, trashing the main blades. That's where my bud, John, was, on the other side of the bird. He didn't make it.
A medic set and wrapped up my legs and patched my arm until the attack was over. After giving me a shot of happy juice, he dragged me to some sandbags and handed me an M-14, four magazines, and a canister of ammo. He told me that these attacks could be fairly long and to shoot at any of those guys that tried to breech the concertina wire.
I sort of remember aiming and firing at what seemed to be thousands of swarming black ants. They were using the bodies of their fellow soldiers to make a bridge across the wire. Between that and makeshift walkways they tried to bring up to the wire, they were getting close. I kept shooting and reloading, taking time to refill my magazines from the ammo canister. The barrel of the gun was so hot that I had to lay it on the sandbag and shoot that way, I couldn't hold the stock under the hot barrel of the rifle. Somewhere in there, I passed out from what we found out was the loss of blood. The arm wound was bleeding badly.
I woke up in a field hospital a couple of days later, hooked up to a bunch of tubes and with both legs up in slings. This was not cool. I was a maintenance guy, not a field guy. They fucked around with me a couple of days then put me on an airplane headed for the states. It took six months for my legs to heal up. I spent the last two months doing some bench and desk work in the aircraft maintenance shop. They used me to teach the newbies how to fix things when parts weren't available.
Because I had only spent three months in country, and there was a need for Huey wrenches over there, I received another assignment, but this time it was as a TDY (temporary duty), not a permanent tour. A month into this one was like dejavu. I was on a Huey to get another dead bird out of a compound.
As soon as we set down, the camp was almost destroyed by six separate mortars dropping round after round on top of us while those crazy fuckers tried to crawl across concertina wire and being shot at by multiple M-60s and even me with my trusty M-14. This time I wasn't immediately hurt. When the kid helping the M-60 gunner next to me lost the top of his head, I moved over to help feed the belts of rounds into the gun. I was doing fine until a mortar landed just on the other side of us. I don't remember anything after that, but I have to assume the gunner was done for.
This time, I was not in the field hospital, but on some ship off the coast. The ship was a hospital ship filled with casualties. I wouldn't be going back real soon this time. My foot was broken up so bad they said they had to just lay the bones together and put me back together with wires through bones, screws in the ankle and everything down there taped tightly to a board. I had a permanent part in my hair as a piece of shrapnel that had knocked me unconscious laid open my scalp. Six months later, I was doing rehab at Fort Hood. The orthopedic surgeons had done one a hell of a job. I actually had a foot that worked. It hurt like hell at first, but as I got used to it, I was able to get around just like anyone else. The pain mostly went away, but I wasn't as mobile as most people.
I was one of those nutty farm boys that thought the military was the greatest thing in the world. I wanted to stay in. The military had a different idea. They gave me an honorable discharge with a pension for the permanent disability. They rated my disability much worse that it actually was, but I could use the money. You see, I met and married what I thought was a life mate while I was recovering. We had a little boy right away, and nine months later, she vanished.
Her mom knew where she was but wouldn't tell me. This was devastating to our son, Gene, and it was traumatizing to me. Married not yet two years and she was gone, leaving me with a son under a year old.
I moved back to my hometown area and enrolled in school under the VA benefits I received as an honorably and medically discharged or retired soldier. Part of my rehab money was spent on living and raising my son, while the rest was either saved or spent on school. I finished my degree and went to work with a company that sold communication equipment. I supervised and helped to install telephone systems in huge office buildings, hospitals, city and other government buildings, and several big companies.
As time went on, I wanted to see if I could operate my own company, so I quit and opened a small company that grew steadily for almost thirty years before I sold it in anticipation of retiring. Along the way, I raised my son and just about the time he was ready to head off to college, I met and married Judy, who was really giving an earful in a room nearby.
When an agent came in to talk to me, he asked, "Is she like that very often? Christ that woman has a shrill voice. Cuts you right down to your toes."
I smiled, "I tried not to make her mad. I'm not a good yeller and fighter. I hate that stuff."
"Well, you like it enough to not get hurt by her boyfriend and put him in the hospital. You don't have to worry about him, we've found that he has a couple of aliases that have warrants, and he has escaped from jail at least once. Who knows about a guy like that? Anyway, he's cuffed to a hospital bed right now and will be until he can go to the jail and trial."
"So what's Judy yelling about?"
"We told her we were charging her with being an accomplice to attempted murder and attempted evidence manipulation, in other words trying to frame you, and since there was all that pornography, she is charged with possession of child pornography. You see she is the one who gave the computer to the cops. What those two forgot is that all files record the date they are brought into a computer. All the porn was brought in on last Wednesday and Thursday. You were not in the house and your whereabouts have been established. The prosecutor is going to make some kind of deal with your wife to testify against her friend, but she won't go free. They might give her house arrest or something like that, but she'll have to wear an ankle bracelet to let everyone know where she is."
"So what are you going to do with me?" I asked, as I was confused about what would happen.
"We still have to get the charges against you dropped. That can't happen until Monday, tomorrow, as you've already been arraigned. We've put out a press release to the newspapers and the other news media about what has happened, but they're not very interested as what they did is not as interesting as what you were charged with."
"So I stay here until tomorrow morning?"
"Yep, right across the street. You are still in our custody. You'll be released tomorrow morning but you had best be prepared for some pretty chilly receptions from people who won't try to learn you were not guilty of anything."
I thought of everything for a minute, then asked, "Can I call my divorce attorney?"
"Sure, you can have an attorney anytime even though I heard we never did Mirandize you. Use the phone out in the office. I don't think anyone will attack you this time. Get some coffee on the way by, it's fresh."
"Sarah, this is Mark Robins."
"Hi, Mark, Chuck just told me what all has happened. He said that your wife's boyfriend has enough charges and warrants against him that he shouldn't see the light of day for a lifetime or two. He also said your wife is being charged with a bunch of things, but they would probably make her some kind of deal. That's all good news, isn't it?"
"It is, Sarah, but now the part I'm worried about. The FBI gave the newspapers and the media a big release as to what the real deal was. The agent just told me the media wasn't interested, as it was not as thrilling as catching some old guy with kiddy porn. My face has been everywhere, linked to some really bad stuff. Can you do anything to make the newspaper and TV stations print and broadcast retractions or give me some kind of relief? I'm going to be afraid to go out of the house. I wouldn't associate with me, why would someone who barely knows me want to be around me?"
Sarah sighed, "You're right, Mark, this is bad. Let me think on it a little and see what I can do. Maybe Chuck has some ideas. He's always coming up with solutions. Can I bring your cell phone to you so you can talk to me or can you receive calls at your hotel room?"
"I don't know about the room, but I'm sure they would let me call out. I'll check and call you back."
"Don't worry, Mark, we'll get something going. You won't be officially cleared until tomorrow morning, so be patient. Your friends will help you get this taken care of."
On the way to the hotel, I asked the agent about using the phone and he said "There wouldn't be any reason why you couldn't make or receive calls in the room."
As soon as I was in the room I called Sarah to give her the number. She said that Chuck had an idea and was working on it.
Ah, two o'clock on that Sunday afternoon and I was starved, so I ordered lunch and checked to find out the beer supply had been restocked. I popped a beer and ate a very nice BLT with a bunch of chips and potato salad. I watched the last of a baseball game and was dozing when the phone rang.
Steve Sharp was on the line. He said, "I'm so happy you've been proven innocent. Chuck had an idea that might work. You may not know her, but we have a girl out here that normally is a photographer for the Tribune but since she's been laid off, she has freelanced to all the papers. She's going to write a story about you and give it to both newspapers. She also has some video friends that are here right now beginning a video that should put you in a better light. She wants to know if she can come to the hotel and tape an interview with you this afternoon. She says they are running pretty fast as she wants to give the TV stations some footage for the six and eleven o'clock newscasts and that will also run in the morning. She is then going to give them or sell them, either way, a biography of your short stay out at the park. I think it will be pretty interesting and will show what kind of guy you really are. Can she come over there this afternoon?"
"Sure, I'll tell the duty guy that they are coming and if doing it in the room is a problem, we can do it in the hallway. Thank you, Steve, I was really worried about how people would react after seeing the damning newscast with my face in it."
Steve said, "Yeah, that was bad, the neat thing is that none of the people out here believed it. The little Mexican girl, Maria, even came to the house with her kids to ask me to help you. Betty, your landlord said there was no way you were guilty, and old Mrs. Henderson said that she would personally come down and get you out of jail. Martin was just sick from watching how they portrayed you. He said you should sue them for defamation."
"That's all great to hear, Steve," I said relieved. "I was afraid of how the folks out there would feel as this is my new home and I've met so many really nice folks. I was most afraid of what you and your family and people would think. I was sick about you and your family thinking I would be involved in something like child pornography."
"Hey, it gave us a jolt, but not one person thought you were really guilty of what they were saying. You've made a lot of friends in a short time, Mark. Let me go tell Samantha and get her down there to interview you."
Knowing I would be interviewed, I shaved, showered, and put on my best shirt with some clean jeans. The duty guy thought my idea of interviewing in the lobby area was a good idea, so we put a small table and a bunch of chairs out there for us to sit on. An hour later, Steve, Mercy, Samantha, and a videographer came upstairs.
We did a question and answer session for a half hour until she said, "I have what I need. You'll see something at six, more at eleven, and hopefully I can make up enough footage to get you a spot on Monday's and Tuesday's evening and night news. I'll do it up so it is desirable to keep a series going."
I was thanking Samantha profusely when she gave me a hug and said, "You can fix my ancient Toyota for me, but really, this story is a good one and I'll get paid for it. I have pictures of you and some of the folks you've helped, so I have a big human-interest story for the two papers. I'll have it written a couple of different ways so they don't have the same exact copy. I'm not sure how I'll get the TV stations to handle it, but I'll get it done."
They left me with a smile on my face. I put the table and chairs back into the room and cracked another beer. I wondered how they would get much ready for the six o'clock news, but I would be interested in seeing it anyway.
I went downstairs to the little shop in the lobby and bought a big bag of Fritos and a jar of spicy cheese dip. Back upstairs, I sat back to wait for the news.
At six, I watched the story on the channel that had been so damning. Their presentation was a little lackluster, but they said throughout the short piece that showed my face that I had been proven innocent and that the people who had called the cops were now in jail. They showed the two standing watching me being led away. They did say there would be more information available later tonight and tomorrow.
Sarah called, "Hey, I see you are getting some decent press. Your friends out at the park are really doing it up nice. I called all of the stations, one especially, and told them I was filing a defamation of character suit. They all said they were only reporting the news, but I said in America, a person was innocent until proven guilty, not convicted in the media. They all promised to make every effort to show you in a good light."
"That's great, Sarah," I said relieved. "I'm not interested in suing them; I just want to be able to show my face. I have a few people that I play pool with that would probably just shoot me rather than ask whether I did it or not. Those are the ones that will need convincing."
"Well, Mark, if they watch TV they'll find out you're not guilty of anything other than having married someone that didn't abide by the rules."
"Oh, Sarah, I want to activate the number on my old cell phone. Would it be okay if I did that tomorrow morning? My friends have probably tried to call me and I would like to stay in contact with them."
"Sure, Mark, no problem. Call early in the morning and they should be able to get you running right away. Use your debit card to turn it on."
As I hung up, I thought, no more hiding, I could tell everyone where I was living and could walk around with my head held high.
Supper went down easily and I did drink a little too much of the booze from the in room bar. The eleven o'clock news had a brief report with a couple of short interviews of people from the park. Betty and Martin told the camera how I had given of my time freely and had done so with several others. Crystal was interviewed and said, "The man came up with a problem that would have cost the company thousands and thousands, but he did it just helping us out. We hired him to help analyze the problem and he worked for us to resolve the problem. I wish he were twenty years younger so he could run this whole part of S&S."
That was laying it on a little thick, but sweet, especially from the brash Crystal. You had to respect her regardless, the lady was a "get 'er done" boss.
I tried to get Verizon to turn on my cell phone for me but they said I had to call the business office in the morning. The person on the other end was speaking very broken English, so I figured the weekend telephone people could be in another land far away.
After a late dessert, I went to bed feeling pretty good. People were being told that I was not a bad guy. I slept soundly.
Primary editing by Pepere
Proofing by Sagacious