Guilty Until Proven Innocent Pt. 02

"I'm sorry Dad, I'm sorry that none of us took the time to be there for you when you needed us. I'm sorry that our selfishness broke us all apart. I am sorry that I wasn't the daughter that you deserve. I am truly sorry Dad."

This wasn't a pitiful self-serving apology, it came from the heart, the mourning, regret and pain she was expressing, I could understand it having been on the other side for so long.

"I am glad that you're here Dad, this is a beautiful place. Victoria is amazing and Tina and Maisy ..."

She trailed off as she cried.

"Thank you..." she whispered a while later as we continued walking.

"For what?" I asked.

"For letting me back in Dad. Despite everything you have let me back in. I know how much it has to have hurt to do that after what we... after what I, did to you. Thank you Dad. If for nothing else than my child will get to meet his grandfather. He will get to know the strongest man I have ever known.

I smiled at that as she rubbed her expanding belly. Victoria, the girls and I had been back to Perth twice in the preceding months and there wasn't a week we didn't talk with my grown up kids. Much of it was icebreakers, the weather, jobs, kids. But we also made sure we spent a little time talking through our individual traumas.

"If there is a place for healing," I said sweeping my arm across the beach. "This is it. Doug helped me to find this place and I have never looked back. When I feel out of it, Victoria grabs my hand and walks with me."

I smiled at a memory.

"There was this one time," I explained. "Where I had broken down over the death of this guy Larry that had abused me in prison."

I saw Matilda frown, at the same moment, Victoria who was walking ahead with everyone else looked at me and smiled. She saw the frown on Matilda's face and I shook my head, my wife smiled and turned back keeping the others a dozen steps ahead so that my daughter and I could talk.

"Well, lets just say that Larry was in no way a friend and our relationship was not... pleasant." I told her smiling sadly. "But for some reason when I heard of his death, it shook me to my core. I didn't have any positive feelings towards him. But I couldn't handle hearing of his death. With Victoria's background she also knew about Larry and walked me out here and we just walked for the next two hours, saying nothing, but she knew what to do to help me."

"She really is amazing isn't she," my daughter spoke quietly to me.

"You don't know that half of it," I smiled. "I meant what I said that day in Perth, she has seen me at my very worst, she knew she could be looking at a wretched man that may never know how to return her love. Yet she gave herself to me and loved me anyway. My heart and my very soul belongs to her and I won't ever let anyone get between us."

"I know, daddy, I see it. Mum was just the warm-up act for you. Victoria is fused together with you in a way that Brad and I hope to have one day. This isn't supposed to sound cliché, but that woman would kill for you if it meant keeping you out of harm's way."

I thought on what Matilda was saying for a moment, then nodded and put my hand over hers.

"I know Mattie," I smiled and looked at my wife who must have known I was looking at her because she swayed her hips in a certain way. "Trust me, I know."

The next day, Christmas Eve, Terrance and Constance with their three kids along with Mary and Garlin and their son, Thomas, turned up. A game of beach cricket was had, young and old alike joining in. Everyone laughed as Tina and Maisy teamed up and kept running with the bat even when they were bowled out.

It was perhaps a little after midnight, now Christmas day, when I was awoken to the feeling of my wife inhaling my manhood. Once she knew I was awake, she kissed her way up my body and with a groan of pleasure impaled herself on my waiting shaft. She placed her hands on my chest and in a slow rhythm started to gyrate her hips, keeping me deep inside her and using my pelvis to stimulate her clit. We must have lasted fifteen minutes before the slow build up caused her to reach her apex and suddenly I felt her pulsing as she fell onto my chest. She whispered.

"I know you're close my love, give me a Christmas baby."

Despite, my now having the snip, the sultry whispered phrase had me plastering my wife's insides moments later. As she felt it she took my earlobe in her mouth and bit it slightly.

"I love you," she whispered as she lifted herself slightly looking into my eyes.

"I love you more," I replied.

"I love you most," she retorted.

"It's a tie," I finished as she smiled and kissed me.

"Merry Christmas Mike," she said, gyrating a little more my shaft still buried deep within her.

We showered, made sure the bed was relatively clean, before falling back to sleep in each other's arms.

Christmas morning, there was a truckload of presents for everyone, especially the kids, all of whom had new swimwear and a lot of new beach toys.

Matilda, with my permission, had bought the twins new swimwear with a bright pink and orange floral pattern. She had also purchased the same swimwear for herself and the same in boardshorts for her brothers. Today I still have photos of my five children from that Christmas on the wall.

We stuffed ourselves with food and drink. Laughed like nothing was ever wrong with the world and when Doug and Silvia turned up. We pitched gazebos again and spent the afternoon playing on the beach.

A week later when my adult kids and their families went home I was surprised at how empty I felt without them. As I sat on the veranda contemplating it, Victoria slid her arms around my neck and kissed me before sliding into her seat beside me.

"It's because you've forgiven them," she said unbidden.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"That lonely empty feeling you have," she told me smiling. "It's because you have truly forgiven them. I know we talk about this all the time, but over the last few months as you have talked with them, I've watched you come alive in new and wonderful ways. You've restored the relationships that matter, my love. But you will always have Tina, Maisy and I here with you.

[:::: Mike ::::]

The next year and a bit were pretty boring compared to the rest of my life. The girls went to school. Victoria was a mess that first week, more so than the twins, but we got through it. Victoria and I travelled a little. I saw my adult children every couple of months.

Oh, and Matilda had her baby. With my permission, Brad and her chose to call him Michael. I tried to tell them no, but they insisted to call him the bravest man they knew. I was honoured.

The kids told me that my parents and siblings were still asking to talk with me, but they responded on my behalf saying that if I was ever open to talking with them that I would reach out. They did pass on the occasional message. But knew to keep everyone at arm's length, I was getting closer to wanting a conversation, but unlike my kids, the rest of my immediate family were old enough to have chosen their response despite their current remorse.

One day, Victoria and I are sitting at one of 1770's beachside café's, enjoying coffee and cake, a bunch of us locals sitting around and chewing the fat while we talked about the upcoming school fete. This year all the kids wanted to do a dunking machine where the parents and teachers sit on a stool above a pool of water and the kids get to throw balls at a target. If you hit the bullseye the person on the stool get dunked into the water. I had donated to hire the contraption from down on the Sunshine Coast and all of us were talking about me giving my daughters the honour to try and dunk me when all manner of screaming started outside.

"Where is he, I know he's in there!" I heard that voice. It was a voice I had not heard for more than a decade and if I had my way it would have been a lot longer than that.

"Yeah, c'mon Murder Mike, get your scrawny ass out here!" sounded the shrew's husband and my once friend.

I looked at Victoria and I could see steam coming out of her ears. My phone rang.

"Dad," John's voice sounded panicked. "I don't know how, but I just found out Mum and Stephen..."

"Yeah," I said. "They are already here."

"You going to be alright Dad?" my son asked me. "We can't get over there until tomorrow at the earliest."

"Nah it will be alright." I said, dismissing my sons concerns.

"Alright Dad, just know it wasn't us, we wouldn't."

"I know John," I said calmly. "I know you wouldn't."

Victoria, the group of parents we were sitting with and I made our way out to the ruckus on the street. Standing in front of the shop were two of our local police, they had their batons out and were looking menacingly at the two interlopers.

"Lady you need to stop screaming, there is no Mike here and certainly no one called Murder Mike." Casey the female officer of the pair said.

"You're wrong officer, we saw him go in there not half an hour ago, see," Stephen said pointing at me. "See, it's Murder Mike, he killed two little girls in cold blood and went to prison."

"I don't know who you're talking about there sir," Officer Jared, the second police officer said. "The man you're pointing at is Joel Masters, he's been a member of this community for years, his twin daughters attend our local school, he and his wife are personal friends of the mayor and he would rather give you the shirt off his back then hurt someone."

"You're lying!" My ex-wife all but screamed. "I know my ex-husband, and that's him, Michael Other. Killer."

It was a little surreal watching the scene unfold, for once I didn't feel the sense of dread and panic that I usually would. I felt calm, even a little pity.

They argued with the police a little longer, when it wasn't going anywhere. I stepped in.

"Thanks Casey, thanks Jared," I said stepping up to stand between the officers. "However it appears that these two need to get something off their chests."

I looked at the two betrayers and lifted a single eyebrow.

"Why don't we go inside and have a nice. Quiet. Chat." I said emphasizing the word quiet.

"If you're okay with that Joel?" Casey asked, looking at me with a strange expression.

"Yeah," I said. "C'mon, just Victoria, and those two. Can I ask everyone else to give us some space while we sort out this misunderstanding?" I asked the crowd.

Everyone murmured their acceptance, but Casey and Jared insisted on getting a coffee inside, just because.

We sat back down at the table we had been at before, Victoria and I on one side, Sandra and Stephen on the other.

"Alright, you two," Victoria said menacingly. "What is it you want with my husband?"

"He was my husband first, bitch." Sandra spat.

"Oi!" Casey said sitting at a table, "Watch the language."

She all but ignored the warning. "He was mine first. And why you would want someone like him, that did what..." Sandra shook her head in mock disgust.

"First off,' Victoria asked in a very innocent and sweet voice which I know was simply a wolf in sheep's clothing. Her eyes were flashing dangerously. "Who exactly is it that you think my husband is?"

Sandra studied Victoria for a moment, "He's Mike Other, but if you're married to him these days I am assuming you already knew that, he might look a little different, definitely more muscular and a lot more tanned, but he is definitely the man I married and had three kids with."

I sipped my coffee, it was now almost stone cold, but I could see that Victoria was wanting to work this confrontation.

"Let's assume for a second that what you're saying it true. Why would my Joel be married to me with a different name?" my wife asked.

Stephen snorted and Sandra glared at me like she was about to reveal the world's biggest secret.

"Because he killed two girls," she said victoriously.

Victoria frowned. "You're meaning the murders from a few years ago, Tina and Maisy Bustoff. They were killed by the Turner Brothers, who are both serving consecutive life sentences. You're saying that my husband is Michael Other, who was falsely imprisoned, was abused by his family and friends, and beaten by prison authorities and prisoners alike, while finding out he had an unfaithful wife who was sleeping with a friend of his. Then he was released and forced to relocate and change his identity to have a chance at a new life. That is who you're saying I am married too?"

"Exactly," Sandra said victoriously, arms folded over her chest, not picking up on the fact of who she was talking to.

"So, if my Joel is this man that you're talking about," Victoria said, now letting the timbre of her voice rise. "If you abandoned him in the midst of his walk through the pits of hell, convinced your kids and his family to hate and abuse him, divorced him and sent him pictures of you having sex with that scum beside you.

"If you sent him a letter explaining how you had been having an affair with a close friend of his for months, then went on every morning show around the country expounding on your ex-husband's deeds that was proved false.

"If this man that I adore and would lay my life down for, if this man is the man that I have spent years helping to recover himself. Of helping him to feel human again. If this is the man that you're referring to. Then tell me why oh cheating slut, lying whore and portrayer of everything that true and honest love refers to as nasty and dirty. Tell me why the fuck would I let you anywhere near him!"

Victoria was standing now, her eyes wild, her chest heaving. Sandra looked over at Casey and Jared were both smirking. If she thought they were going to admonish my wife for swearing at my ex she was sadly mistaken.

Sandra was looking a little worried herself now. She looked at Victoria, Stephen, she even looked at me for help.

"What do you want Sandra, why the fuck are you here upsetting my husband?" Victoria demanded towering over her, ready to cause carnage on my behalf.

Stephen was also a little worried, but he looked at the police, then the other three of us at the table and put a hand on his wife's arm in support.

"Money," he said simply.

"Money?" Victoria repeated, the change in speaker taking a little wind out of her sails.

"We know that Mike earnt a lot after his release and we want some of it," he responded.

I leaned back in my seat and looked at my wife who was still amped up, I shrugged and let her stay on point.

"Why would you think you would get anything?" Victoria asked.

Stephen shrugged then looked at me.

"Because we know who you are, we can tell the world where you are." He said. Stephen ignored Victoria for a moment and looked directly at me.

"Don't get us wrong Mike." Stephen said looking at me. "We don't like you, and you will never get to be with your first love ever again."

I couldn't help it I snorted.

"But Sandra and I have become used to a lifestyle, and the money from the talk shows has dried up. It's taken us a while but with the kids cutting us out of their lives, we figured they would have you back in them, so we went through their bins and found the details of this café. They come here with you every time they travel."

I nodded, they had been going through bins.

"How much?" I said, Victoria glared at me for saying something.

"Four million," he said, "We figure you're good for at least that much."

"So," I said again ignoring my wife giving me the eye to shut my mouth. "Four million dollars and you both walk away and pretend that you never saw me, that I'm not this... Murder Mike...?"

Stephen grinned, Sandra looked relieved. "Yes." He said nodding his head.

"That's extortion," I said quietly.

Stephen looked over at Casey and Jared to see if they had overheard. They were watching us, but as we were no longer shouting they wouldn't have heard what we were saying from the other side of the room.

He shrugged his shoulders, "So?" he said. "I've done worse to you. Who do you think slipped the guards the money to let big Larry look after you, or helped Sandra to write the letter that you received. Who do you think it was that seduced Sandra and made her want to turn your entire family against you when the opportunity presented itself?"

I swallowed, until now I was calm. He was trying to get a reaction out of me.

"And I know what I did was wrong Mike, but the thing is it's my word against yours. You're still Murder Mike, and no one can prove anything. Give us the money Mike, give it to us and we walk away."

"Why?" I asked my one-time friend. "Even if I was this guy that you're talking about. And even if I had that type of money. Why would I give you so much money only for you to blow six times the amount that you got in the first place?" I told him, letting him know I knew exactly what they had earned from the media companies. "Why would I give any money to a couple of extortionists that once I gave in would come back any time they want and ask for more. Tell me why?"

Victoria looked at me proudly. Over the years I'd picked up a few of her speaking patterns to ask the questions without admitting to what the other side wanted.

"Furthermore," I said picking up my phone, turning it on, showing it was recording. "You have just accused me of being someone that legally I am not, there are slander laws about that. Second you tried to extort money that wasn't yours, another crime, third you have just admitted on this recording that you paid officers of the law to perform illegal actions against someone who turned out to be innocent.

"Lastly, you should understand that if I was this person you're talking about, none of the media companies would touch you with a ten foot pole, as with part of the agreement I would have with them as this person. I would make sure there was a lifetime gag order that if they said a single thing on this matter of this so-called person that they could be sued for a lot more than what they had to pay in the first place.

"That is if I was this so called Mike person you are talking about."

I finished.

Neither Sandra, nor Stephen now knew where to look now.

I stopped the recording and stood.

"Now if that is everything," I told them. "I think both of you need to head back to the airport and fly home. There is nothing for you here and you will find that despite the warm weather we are having that 1770 will be very cold for the two of you."

Saying nothing else they both stood and started walking out the door.

As they got to the doorway.

"Stephen?" I said.

As he turned he caught the full force of my punch on his jaw. His head almost slamming into the timber doorway. He fell to his knees as the assembled crowd cheered. Casey and Jared doing nothing but smiling.

"That is for being a deceitful son-of-a-bitch and taking another mans wife. And you,"

I said turning to Sandra as she stood their shocked as her second husband was holding a bloodied nose sitting at my feet.

"Just be glad that my wife is a very level-headed former crown prosecutor that not only helped get your ex-husband out of jail, but also gave him every reason to live afterwards. In fact she is so level-headed that despite the fire in her eyes as she stands beside me now where she wants to bitch-slap you like you did to me all those years ago, she's not going to, because she is better than you."

Sandra's eyes went wide again as it sunk in that I had at last admitted who I was to her, but she had nothing to prove it, and even if she did she now knew there was nothing she could do about it.

Sandra nodded, aging what looked like years in seconds. Her entire posture changing. "Goodbye Mike." She said moving to help her husband stand after my punch. She eyed the police for a moment and understood that they would do nothing to help them.