Orange Grove Betrayal

"Then, he has misrepresented his status, claiming that he has a 'Power of Attorney', to act on my behalf, and has forged documents to that effect. He tried to use it to get money from our main account at the bank, but he was foiled in that, so I don't know for sure what crimes he can be charged with. Attempted theft? Fraud?

"The big one is 'selling' our grove, and we need to get more information on how he was doing that. I suspect that we will find out that he was using the POA to get the real estate people to go along with his actions.

"So, he has clearly committed fraud, theft, and we will see what else. I have a nasty suspicion that we are just scratching the surface of his crimes."

"Wow," Clair exclaimed, "and this is a guy who you considered a friend?"

I had to look a little sheepish at that.

"Yeah, I thought he was a friend, but no friend betrays a friend like this."

"I once dated a woman named Connie Lopez, who hung out with Bruce as well. I remember her telling me that he was a user and would eventually stab me in the back. I forgot about her warnings, but I guess that she was right all the time."

"I'm so sorry, Dave. I don't know what to tell you."

"I don't know, either, but right now, I have to put aside the emotional side of what's going on, and first make sure that I get as much of this fixed as I can. Thank god for George calling up Pete, and Pete for having the sense to call me and check to see if I was on board with what was happening.

"You know that this is not some sort of spur of the moment thing — Bruce had to have been planning this for some time. I think he figured that when he lit the fuse he would act so quickly that it would be over before I found out about it."

We talked a little longer, but with no additional facts to chew on, we were just going in circles, so Clair and I finally went to bed. We cuddled for a while and I think that she slept a little bit better than I, but even she was restless.

I lay there plotting out what I needed to do the following morning.

Chapter 2. Sorting out the mess

The first thing to do in the morning was to make a few phone calls.

I called Bubba, and he gave me some good news: the Sherriff's department ag theft unit had found two of the three tractors that Bruce had 'sold,' and had impounded them, pending my filing charges. They were tracking down the third tractor, as Bubba had remembered the name of the last buyer. He had a grove in the middle of the state, off state highway 60, which cuts across the state between Vero and Tampa Bay. They were contacting the Sheriff's department in that county, getting permission to work with them and seize and impound the final tractor. That was about $120,000 in equipment that we wouldn't have to replace.

Bubba was also doing a quick inventory of other equipment to see if anything else was missing.

He also confirmed that our grove employees had been paid.

A quick call to the Bank, where Hank confirmed my suspicion that Bruce wouldn't come back to try and cash out the main account.

Finally, I called Pete and arranged to meet again for breakfast and review our status.

I kissed Clair and made to leave, after making sure that she not going to be too bored.

"Dave, I brought down a couple of books to read, and I have my laptop. I'll check in at work and see if there is anything pressing we have to deal with."

Pete was already waiting for me again at the little hole-in-the-wall café for breakfast. It wasn't pretty or modern looking, but the food was good, and it was something of a hangout for the local farmers.

As I shoveled a mouthful of a great omelet with sausage and avocado in it, I look across the table at Pete and saw his eyes looking behind me with a panicked look.

"God damn you, you miserable fuck!"

I recognized the voice. Another local grower, who I had also gone to school with. I wasn't close to him; he had been on the football team. Bruce was much closer.

Matt was a big guy, maybe six-foot-four, and he weighed in at over 250. Maybe even 275, these days. And he was strong. Even in high school, he could outlift anyone else on the football team, and there were some big guys on the team.

I didn't turn around, I didn't react. I just spoke to him.

"Hey, Matt, long time no see. What's put a burr up your ass?

"Take a seat and a cup of coffee. I'll even pay."

He did sit down with us, on Pete's side of the table, where he could look into my face. Pete was looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"You know what you did," he said, on the verge of shouting.

The waitress, who knew us all, brought Matt his cup of coffee right then. Hot, bitter and black.

"I really don't, Matt. So why don't you tell me?"

"I bought that John Deere tractor with the front loader from you, and the Sheriff's people came out and accused me of stealing it and impounded it!"

"Ah!" I sighed, acknowledging that I understood now.

"Well, Matt, there is only one problem with your story. I never sold anything to you. And I never authorized anyone, including Bruce, to sell that tractor."

"He's your fucking grove manager, isn't he?"

"He was. But our agreement," I explained, "that Pete, sitting next to you drew up for us, limited his authority. He could not legally sell any of our farm equipment without informing me and having my permission first."

"He said he had your permission!"

"So he lied," I said. "How much did you pay for the tractor?"

"Twenty-thousand, cash, up front," he replied.

"Let me understand: You paid $20,000, for an almost new tractor worth at least $60,000, and you didn't think that there was something fishy going on?"

"I knew that he was giving me a great deal, but he said you were selling the grove and just wanted to dump the equipment as quick as you could and turn it into cash."

"I hate to tell you this, Matt, but you were buying stolen property, and you're very likely out the twenty-grand, unless you can find Bruce and get it back from him. I'm not holding my breath; I think that he has probably decided that Vero isn't a healthy place for him to be."

"Well, that's easy for you to say — it's not your money."

By this time Matt was calming down and maybe redirecting his ire.

"Understand, Matt, he's stolen at least twenty-five grand from me, and probably more that I just haven't found yet. Bruce has been stabbing all his old friends in the back."

Matt was nodding his head now.

"You know, Dave, he was kind of a slimy sort, even back in high school. Things would disappear from people's lockers, or from their cars, at times. Everyone thought it might have been Bruce, but none of us ever caught him doing anything. Anyway, the things that went missing weren't expensive or important enough for us to make an official report about."

"I know what you mean. I used to see him doing things that seemed sketchy, but nothing that I could ever prove was wrong, and he always had his story ready.

Matt stood up suddenly.

"Where you going, Matt?"

"I'm going to look around in a couple places where Bruce might be hiding out. Places we used to hang out in when we were young, getting drunk and fucking women."

"Let me know if you find him,"

We exchanged phone numbers and he promised that he'd let me know, but he wouldn't guarantee what condition Bruce would be in when I got there. Pete and I said our goodbyes as Matt took off.

"Well?" I asked Pete.

"I almost hope that Matt doesn't find him. He could be alligator food, and all we would find would be parts of him in one of the irrigation ditches."

I agreed.

I was thankful for Pete coming with me to deal with this complete cluster fuck the Bruce had created, but he was an attorney, and even though he was a friend, he charged for his time. I wanted to be sure that I was using him efficiently, as well as not wasting his time.

It made sense to ask, "What do we do now, Pete? Should we file a formal complaint with the sheriff's office?"

"Not quite yet," he answered. "This is a significant enough potential crime that I want to get one of the assistant DAs there when we file the complaints. You understand there will be multiple complaints, don't you?"

"Absolutely!"

"You go and make sure there aren't additional problems at the grove, and I'll call you when I have a meet scheduled for the sheriff's office.

"There is something else I want to do," he added, "I have my paralegal, Betty, tracking down the notary who signed off on that fraudulent POA. She certainly has to be involved with this scam. In fact, she may have assisted Bruce in creating it. She's probably seen more than one POA, or, if she's a paralegal herself, she may have access to templates for generating one. Not that they are difficult to do; you can download templates off the internet in about ten minutes.

"Anyway, I'm following up on that, because we should name her in the complaints as well."

I thought that made sense.

"Okay, Pete. Call me when you want me down at the sheriff's office. I'll run over and check out the grove."

We parted our ways for a while.

I didn't mention it to Pete, but I was going to go to the old house on the grove that Bruce and his family lived in and see who, if anybody, was there.

When I got to the grove, Bubba had things organized and running again. Thankfully, it was too early in the year to be picking, so what we were doing was mostly prep.

Bubba came up to the rental car as soon as I pulled in.

"Hey, boss! When we gonna get our tractors back?"

"I honestly don't know yet. Pete and I are going to go down to the sheriff's office a little later and sign off on the complaints. I don't know how long they will want to hold them before they release them back to us."

"Well, okay. We could use them right now; I was going to put a mower on the Kubota and hit the weeds one more time. I was going to start with the rows of Hamlins, 'cause those will be the first ones we pick."

The Hamlins were an early orange that went entirely to juice.

We talked about operational things for 15 minutes or so before I raised the painful subject.

"Bubba, have you had a chance to look over the grove and see if anything is missing?"

"I sure have, boss. I think that we are short about 50 of the 60-box bins. I know we keep track of them and that's the discrepancy between our count at the end of last season and today."

"Shit!" I replied. Bubba just nodded in agreement.

The missing plastic bins had the grove name burned into them, so no one else could use them for picking and sending the citrus out for processing. That meant that whoever stole them (or bought them from Bruce) was taking them to be melted down, back into raw plastic stock. A 60-box bin for citrus cost us a little over $60 apiece, new. The most anyone would get for the plastic content was about $18 per bin, a huge loss for us. But if they were stolen, it was $900 of free money. And it would cost us over $3000 to replace them. That fell into the grand theft category.

Even though we were preventing the fraudulent sale of the grove, the losses were adding up.

The good news was, if Bubba was correct and hadn't missed anything else, we still had most of the necessities for keeping the grove operating. The computers, the business records, and office equipment were all still in the office. Bruce might have his grove business mobile phone that we paid for, but I was willing to bet that it was in a ditch or had been left someplace for any random person to lift. Which reminded me, I needed to cut that phone off. I didn't want to be paying for phone calls back to Central or South American countries. Or some of the Caribbean islands.

That only took me about five minutes, and to my relief, there hadn't been any calls made from it for over a week.

Bubba was changing the locks, both at the gates, and also to the office, so we would keep out any night visitors looking for a five-finger discount.

My next visit was going to be a potentially difficult, even dangerous one. I was driving across the grove to the other side where the old ranch house was. That was where Bruce and his family lived.

I could find the place emptied out, or I could find myself facing Bruce, armed with a pistol or a shotgun. That was why I'd grabbed my .45 ACP and put it in the car, within easy reach.

Chapter 3. The old ranch house

As I approached the house that had originally been built by my grandfather, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. It still had the general look from the outside of the way it had been when my family lived there. Concrete block walls, painted in a light beige color, with a roof, peaked along the middle and slopping down on all sides, to a covered porch that extended around most of the house.

On closer inspection, one would notice that the windows were all recent designs, with double pane glass and a UV ray coating to keep the full force of the sun from baking the interior. This gave them a mirrored look, which also meant that I couldn't see any movement inside the house.

Inside, the house had been completely remodeled and modernized three times, so that there was a modern kitchen that was part of an open floor plan design with no walls between the kitchen, the dining area and the family room. The four bedrooms were at the back of the house, which I couldn't see from my angle. The bedrooms had started as part of the original house, but there was a significant addition that more than doubled the original square footage, moving, not just the bedrooms, but a game room and an office to the back. It was a nice place, and I have to admit that Bruce had always kept it up.

I pulled up to the front, and even before I got out of the car, the door opened, and it was Consuela, Bruce's Venezuelan wife. Yes, Bruce's taste for Latinas had never changed.

There didn't seem to be anyone else around, so I stepped out next to the car, and stood somewhat sheltered by the open car door. Car bodies don't provide much protection from firearms, but I could duck behind the engine block from where I was, and that would be much better.

There was no need. Consuela saw that it was me, and she walked out to where I was parked.

Consuela was a very attractive woman, with almost black, shoulder-length hair, an outstanding set of tetas, a remarkable narrow waist, and an ass that wasn't a flat, skinny, WASP butt, but a fuller, but by no means obese, ass. A slightly trimmer version of Kim Kardashian.

"David!" which she pronounced 'Da-Vid.'

"Consuela!" I replied.

"I thought you would come by," she said, sounding rather down and sad.

"Bruce isn't here, you know. And he hasn't been for over a week."

She sounded like she was about to cry, "And I have no idea where he is."

I wasn't entirely surprised. If Bruce had betrayed everyone else, why not his wife as well.

"Come in, David, and sit down. We need to talk."

I agreed with THAT.

Consuela's family had immigrated to the U.S. when she was 12 years old, so both her English and Spanish were perfect. She spoke English with just the slightest Spanish accent. She and Bruce had met when they were at the U. of Florida. She was getting a general business degree, which some classes that overlapped with Bruce's ag requirements.

I'm not completely sure that Bruce ever loved anyone except himself, but I always thought that Consuela was the one exception. Now I wasn't sure even of that.

I wasn't sure what to think or how to approach Consuela. As far as I could tell, from my interactions with her, she was a straight shooter. She worked for Bruce's management company, doing the business side of the company, while he did the grove operations. She also helped dealing with the packing facilities where she would act as a translator, instructing the mainly Spanish speaking crews (of mostly women) on what they were supposed to do.

We went into the ranch house, with me still being slightly cautious, worried if I was walking into an ambush.

Consuela sat down at a small table in the kitchen that had two chairs and motioned for me to take the other. There was an open wine bottle sitting on the table, as well a partially full glass. It was still morning, too early to be drinking. She asked if I wanted to join her, or, if not, she could get me a soda or some coffee.

I asked for a diet soda, which she retrieved from the fridge.

She looked directly at me and asked, with tears in her eyes, "What is going on?"

I looked back at her and told her, "I don't know. Why don't you tell me."

"Bruce took off a week ago, and I haven't heard from him since then," she started crying, "I don't know if he is alive or just hiding from me. I think he has some puta that he is seeing, so maybe he has just left me and the boys to fend on our own!"

"Where are the boys?" I asked, thinking even Bruce couldn't abandon his sons.

"They're at my parent's house, staying with them until I figure out what I'm going to do."

"Good. So why do you think that Bruce could be dead?"

"It's a long story..."

"Just start at the beginning."

Consuela stopped talking and took a breath. Then she took another big gulp of wine and topped off her glass again.

"It started about six months ago. Bruce told me that he had a plan that was going to make us rich.

"I asked him what he was thinking about, and he told me he couldn't say. Then I asked him point blank if he was thinking of getting involved with drugs. He laughed and assured me that, no, it had nothing to do with drugs. I insisted that he give me some idea of what he was planning — after all, it would affect me and his sons — so he gave in and told me that he was involved in a project to set up some major citrus and coffee growing ranches in Central America. The difference between these ranches and the existing operations was that they would be modern, mechanized operations, growing organic products to supply the U.S. market at a cost that would be competitive with non-organic produce grown here.

"He told me that the reason he was keeping it secret was, that when the time came, we would close the business up here and move down to the ranch in Central America. He didn't even tell me which country. I had to keep it secret, because it was all hush, hush. He told me that he was arranging to get a big slug of financing from the local government for the project, but if word got out about it, then the financing wouldn't come through. That sounded corrupt to me, but he said that it was just the way business was done down there. He also didn't want to be dropped by any of the groves that he was managing up here, and he thought that if they knew he was going to quit, they would fire him and find someone new earlier than he planned.

"He also told me that he was going to need my help and cooperation to get everyone on board. I didn't know what he meant by that, but I agreed to help him any way that I could. That made him very happy.

She started crying again but got control of herself and continued her story.

"David, I'm so ashamed of myself, but I had promised Bruce to do what he needed me to do!

"Not long after we talked, one evening he had me drop the kids off at my parents because he was going to have some bankers over to talk business and he didn't want to take a chance of being interrupted.

"He brought these two men, one older and the other younger dressed in nice suits, here, and we started having some drinks. They didn't seem to be talking business as much as just getting to know each other. I think that they were from Panama, which is known for their banking secrecy laws, but also for some large financial scandals. Bruce said that they had a flight out and would have to leave in about a half-an-hour.

"Bruce asked them to excuse us, and we went back to our bedroom. We all were pretty buzzed by then.