You're One of Us Now

"You little bitch! You haven't heard the end of this! The old man must have been crazy to give her this property!"

"He was not crazy. He might have been sick and old and tired, but he was anything but crazy. He knew that your father would dispose of the property and he didn't want that to happen." Mum had come out as soon as she had about the aborted sale. There was a sign on the store door that told prospective customers that the store was closed for 'family reasons'. Everyone knew what the reasons were, they also knew, because the word had been spread, that Coralie was now part of our family, so the people just shrugged and went on with their business, the tasks that they needed gear for could wait, there were more important things in life.

"So that's what you went to see Wilkinson's about."

"Yes, the instructions were that Coralie was the owner of the property and any attempt by her father to sell it was illegal. The waiting until you'd reached your limit was his idea, it added a bit of drama to the occasion don't you think?"

"It sure did, I was really worried there, and if that guy had raised that brochure again I don't know what I would have done."

"You could have kept going for a little while longer."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't think that you were the only ones to talk to Mr Jacobsen, do you? You could have gone higher, much higher."

"If I'd known that is, but I didn't now did I?"

"I would have told you if William hadn't told me this morning what the plans were." She put her arms around both of us and hugged us. "Are you two going to invite me in for a coffee?"

It was the best cup of coffee that I'd ever tasted, and the cake was still as fresh, once it had thawed out, as the day that Coralie had baked it. This was some day to remember, I had the love of my life beside me and she came complete with a house, I had my mother with me, giving us her blessing and support, the only thing that was missing was a well father. We discussed the future. Now that you've got this place and each other, we need to plan for the future. Grant, I want you to take over the full running of the shop, I know that Coralie will want to help you and she'll be good for business, I like the way that she handles herself.', and I know that you'll do well together."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to visit my sister in town, I haven't spent any time with her for I don't know how long. We have a lot of catching up to do. You don't need me around."

"We mightn't need you, but we certainly want you." Coralie knew exactly what to say.

"Thank you for that. Don't worry, I'll still be around if you need me. I want to stay in the apartment over the shop if that's okay with you."

"Why wouldn't it be, it's your home, we're not going to turf you out."

"What do you think your father's going to do?" She asked Coralie

"I don't know but going on what transpired here today I know that he's not going to give up without a fight. Do you have any suggestions?"

"No, but I'm sure that William will have, I'll speak to him and see what he can do."

"Thanks Mum." Coralie said, giving her a hug.

That was when Mum dropped the bombshell.

"I hate to put a dampener on these celebrations, but I have to tell you that your father passed away two hours ago." She broke down and cried openly. Coralie went to her with a tissue and a comforting hug that included me. "In didn't want to say anything until I was certain that you two had your future planned, and you were ready to take over the responsibility of running the store. Your father would have been pleased with what I've just heard from you, he trained you well."

We stood there for what seemed to be hours before Mum pulled away from our embrace. "That's enough sadness for the time being, your father wouldn't have wanted us to be sad on this day of all days, it's a day of rejoicing, you two have each other, you have this house, you have the shop, you have a life ahead of you. Forget about the tears and the sadness, you know that your father's no longer suffering."

"I'm still sad because I wanted to get to know him better." Coralie said.

"But he didn't want you to get to know the desperately sick him, he wanted you to remember him as he was when you were much younger, isn't that a better memory to hold on to?"

"While that's the best of memories, I wanted to remember the strong man that I saw the other day. He might have been sick, very sick, but he had a strength about him that was a powerful image to hang on to. I saw it in his eyes and the way that he smiled at me, it was as if he could go in the knowledge that his job was done. That's the image that I'll remember most of all."

"You're an amazing young woman, do you know that? I can understand why Grant's so desperate to marry you, he doesn't want the possibility of losing you to someone else."

"He could never lose me to anyone else, I've been in love with him since I was ten."

Coralie and I almost didn't make the funeral. It was two nights after the auction and Dad had died and Coralie and I were at her house. We'd just finished dinner and were clearing up when we heard a car stop on the road outside the property. "I wonder who that could be." She said. It was then that we heard someone coming up the gravel drive, whoever it was, was trying to walk quietly but that was impossible on loose gravel. The steps stopped and then we saw a flame light up the sky and a bottle of inflammable liquid with a rag hanging out of it described a fiery arc towards the front wall of the house.

"Quick, call the police while I try and put this out." I dashed outside and switched on the pump attached to the rainwater tank. (We weren't on mains water out here because there was none) It took a few seconds for the pressure to build up and me to train the stream of water on the flames. It took less than thirty seconds to extinguish the flames, they hadn't fully caught the timber cladding because the bottle fell short and most of the liquid was on the ground. I heard the car speed off but wasn't close enough to make out the make and model, let alone read the rego plates.

Coralie came out and looked at the damage. "How is it?"

"It's not that bad, most of the damage is to the garden bed."

"I told the police that the car was heading back towards town at speed, I hope that they have time to set up a roadblock. I've got a good idea who's behind this."

"It doesn't take a mental giant to work that out. I hope that he didn't plan for us to be here, because if he did, he could be up for attempted murder. Come on, let's go back to town and talk to the cops. I think that we'd better stay at mine tonight, don't you?"

The police were very helpful, that's what comes from being a person in good standing in this town. "We stopped a car for speeding just outside town. The driver was anxious to get away so he told us he'd cop the fine but he was running late for a meeting so could we hurry it up. We noticed that he was uneasy when we asked him to pop the boot (trunk), and surprise, surprise, we found a half full fuel can, and I am almost positive that when we test the contents it will match that of the accelerant used on your house. When we told him that the charge would no longer be speeding but attempted murder, he was quick to cough up who hired him to do this. Coralie, your father must be really pissed with you to want to kill you, and I would hazard a guess that he has the house insured for more than market value. Although he doesn't own it he can claim that he thought he did, and if you'd died in the fire he was the next of kin so has a claim on it. The value of the contents will be highly inflated as well, the inventory being his word because there would be no real record. He stood to gain a lot of money from this. We'd probably find that this was his plan all along, torch the place while the transfer is happening, and pocket the money."

"But once the contract is signed, isn't it the responsibility of the purchaser to ensure that it is adequately insured?"

"Most purchasers don't bother until they actually have the keys in their hands, and, if they intend to demolish, a fire would save them a lot of money."

"I wonder?" I wondered.

"What?" Coralie asked.

"The guy that was the strongest bidder, what if he was a friend of your father's and he had some deal to transfer ownership back to your father."

"But why?"

"This could be a good way to launder money, have a third party use dirty money to buy the property and, then buy it back with clean money. It wouldn't have mattered how high the bidding went, in fact the higher the better, just make sure that his friend is the successful bidder, he pays the for it with money placed in a special bank account set up for the purpose. Once the bank has the money he's squeaky clean, financially that is. When he buys it back, for the same price, it will be with clean money, so his mate can use it for whatever purpose he wants, probably drugs."

"It's worth looking into." He looked at Coralie. "Do you know much about your father's business interests?"

"No, I know nothing about it apart from the fact that he always seems to have a lot of money on hand. Some of his business associates scared me, I always made myself scarce whenever he had business friends around."

Mum was surprised to see us, as far as she was concerned, we were staying at the farm. "We've had some trouble, an unwanted visitor tried to burn the house. The police have him in custody and he is helping them with their investigations."

"I'm glad neither of you were hurt. How's the house?"

"It's fine, just a little singing on the front wall but it's fine."

"You're to stay here until this is over." So we stayed in town for a week.

We went out the next day just to check on the house. It wasn't that bad, the plants in the garden bed would re-grow quickly with a little TLC and the weatherboards were blackened but unharmed. "Thank God he was a lousy shot, it could have been worse." I said to Coralie, my arm around her shoulder.

"Thank you for your quick thinking in getting the pump started and the hose out, if you'd hesitated for a second it would have been worse, we could have lost the lot."

"As soon as we get back into town I want to insure the house and contents, you never know what will happen next."

We had a steady stream of towns people calling into the store, some to buy the stuff that they'd put off because we had closed for the auction, some to congratulate us on our saving the house from going to some yuppie Tree-changer, and others, who'd heard about the dramas of the previous night, just to tell us how glad they were that we were okay. All of them took the sight of Coralie working in the store in their stride, she was George Ferguson's Great-grand-daughter, so she was one of theirs. "When are you two getting married?" Seemed to be the common thread of the conversations between us and them.

"When we're ready, you'll know about it soon enough. We've got a funeral to get through first."

"Do you need any help with that? I can organise the catering for after if you like." Nancy from the bakery said. "Everyone's going to be there and the bakery'll be closed, if they want a feed they'll have to come to the funeral to get one."

"I'll let Mum know."

Other offers came in, the ladies from the church offered to do the floral arrangements, the ushers offered their services to make sure that the family and closest friends got a seat in the church and that the 'rabble' were all outside. By rabble they were referring to those people that were not regular churchgoers, not that they were in any way of lower socio-economic status.

The funeral was a hard time for us, for the first time since she met my father, mother had to face the prospect of not having him with her. Even in his final days she would sit by him and talk to him like he was in bed with a cold, always upbeat, telling him in her own way that he would get better and that she loved him. This was now a thing of the past and she was having trouble coming to terms with it.

The Minister conducted the service in a casual manner in keeping with his relationship with Dad, he spoke of their friendship even though Dad was hardly what could be called 'religious' he followed the precepts of Christianity in his dealings with his friends and customers. The Mayor spoke of the help that Dad had provided and offered the town when he thought it necessary, like providing tarps to cover house roofs blown off by strong winds that we experienced from time to time. He never had to be asked, it was a standing offer of help that was appreciated.

"Grant," Mum's sister Elsie took me to one side as the crowd were making inroads into the food after the funeral. "I want to ask you before I ask your Mum, I want to take her on a cruise to take her mind off her loss, do you think she'll be interested?"

"I think that will be a good idea, Coralie and I can take care of the shop while she's away."

"Thank you, I'll go and have a chat. You've got a good girl there Grant, she'll make a wonderful wife, just like your parents were perfect for each other." I looked at Coralie and she smiled briefly and returned to talking to Mum.

Coralie spoke briefly with Aunt Elsie and, seeing that they wanted to be alone, came over to me. She kissed me and hugged me, something that didn't go un-noticed by the crowd, all of whom smiled at the show of affection. "Your family is extremely well thought of in this town, isn't it?"

"Yes, and that's because we, that is Dad, set up his business to be a part of this town. You'll never do good business if you conduct your business as purely that, a business, you have to treat your customers as friends, look after them when necessary and they'll respect you and help you if you need it. You'll never be millionaires, but believe me, we lived better in this place than we could have as millionaires in the city. That's the life I want for us."

"You and I are going to get on fine together, as well as in this town, that's what Great-grand-father always taught me, and that's why I couldn't wait to get away from the big smoke."

I noticed the sergeant looking over the crowd towards us. "This could be interesting." I told Coralie as he threaded his way toward us.

"Grant, Coralie, do you think that I could have a quiet word?"

"Sure, why don't we go into the church, there won't be anyone in there." I led him inside.

"I'm sorry to break into this funeral, normally I would have waited until it was over, but I was told that you should be contacted immediately. When we spoke to you after the fire, you raised an interesting theory about Coralie's dad. It seems that you were very close to the mark. I relayed your comments to my city counterparts and they followed up on it. It seems that, among the dodgy fraternity he's known as 'the Laundromat', the go-to guy if you wanted your dirty money cleaned up. He has this network of guys that he uses to spread the money around, usually through bookies and TAB (off course betting) outlets, as well as the casino. But this real estate scam was a new one on them so they did some research it seems that dirty money goes into the bank as a legitimate transaction and comes out squeaky clean and untraceable. His 'business associates' all have substantial property portfolios and they lease it out while they hang onto the property for a while, and then offload it, usually making a tidy profit into the bargain. The upshot of this investigation was a raid on his office and home, and the confiscation of his computers. The evidence that they gleaned from them will put him away for a long time."

"But why did he choose to use my property?"

"Partly because he thought that a country property wouldn't attract any unwanted attention, and partly because he was jealous of your relationship with his George."

"I knew he didn't like Great-grand-father but that was ridiculous. So what happens now?"

"His lawyer managed to post bail so he's not in custody at the moment, but he has been forbidden by the court to approach to within 5 kilometres of you, if he does he's straight back inside and his lawyer won't be able to spring him. Having said that we'll be keeping a close watch on you just I case, after all, you're one of us now, something that he never was, even when he lived here."

"Why does everyone say that I'm one of you now, I've never left this place, my heart was always here, in particular here." She kissed me.