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"So pretty much like what Pete described."
"Yes sir, I think so."
It took a couple more minutes for the S&R team to decide what to do, whether to go up the trail to where it dropped down to the meadows below, and then walk back, or whether they should tie off on one of the heavy stones and rappel down to the bottom.
Since everyone was almost certain that Randy was dead at the bottom and time was not a factor, they decided that the S&R team would hoof it to the end of the trail and come back to where the body was laying.
"Okay, everyone, get out your radios and set them to channel two," the Sheriff instructed. They all tested their equipment.
When they had tested everything, they were on their way, while the Sheriff and his men sat down on the rocks and tried to get comfortable.
The Sheriff called the County Coroner, who was an elected official, on his sat phone. He was a lawyer who had an office in the county seat, about 30 miles away. The actual post-mortems were done by the pathologist at the hospital in town. He then reported his findings to the coroner who would hold a hearing to determine the cause of death and if any action needed to be taken. The Sheriff also called the airport to have the helicopter that assisted in S&R efforts made ready.
It was another two hours before the radios came alive.
"Sheriff, the victim is definitely dead. Some animals have been chewing on him. Doc will love this. Anyway, he clearly died from the fall. Mr. Pearson's binocs were only about ten feet away from the body. His.30-30 lever rifle was about 25 feet away. It looks like it got banged up pretty good in the fall. We are taking photos of the scene."
"Is there room for the chopper to land?"
"I think that there is too much stuff on the ground and it isn't all that level. He can just hover and lower a basket, we'll put the victim in and he can lift the basket up, and go directly to the hospital."
"Got that. The chopper is on his way. Do you have some GPS coordinates?"
From then on, it was a simple case of getting a dead body out and back to the county general hospital. The biggest challenge for the chopper pilot was to wend his way up Bobcat Canyon, where the step sides of the cliffs created a kind of wind tunnel effect that he had to fight. He made it, picked up Randy's body and got back to the hospital.
~~~*~~~
The Sheriff and his Deputies called the S&R folks to let them know they were leaving to go back to Pete's cabin and to follow. The Deputies took Randy's backpack with them to keep until the coroner released it back to his family.
The Sheriff did tell Pete to remain available for the coroner's inquest, although he thought it would be a formality. He and his Deputies packed up their gear and left to go back to town. Pete left soon afterwards, the head of the S&R team assuring him over the Sheriff's radio, that they would be leaving as soon as they reached the cabin.
Pete filled a 5-gallon water bottle from his filtered system and left it out on the porch in case they needed to refill before they left. He also left a note for them, thanking them for their efforts, even if in this case it was not a happy outcome.
Pete didn't call home, preferring to arrive unannounced.
When he came through the door to the ranch house, he found Jean in the living room. She had a drink in her hand and looked perfectly calm, but when she saw him, she was momentarily shocked, like she had seen a ghost, before regaining her emotional balance. Then she rushed over to Pete and grabbed him in a fierce hug. She began kissing him all over his face.
"Oh, Pete! I'm so happy to see you.
"We heard the rumors that there had been an accident and that an elk hunter had been killed falling off a cliff in the mountains. I thought it could be you, and we were all waiting for any news. I was so worried!"
"Gosh, what are you drinking? You looked surprised to see me back?"
Jean was always quick on her feet.
"If it wasn't you who had the accident, I more of less expected that you and Randy would have continued hunting."
Pete looked at Jean and found himself with tears coming down his face again.
"It was Randy who fell, and he's dead."
Pete then related the entire story to Jean, who also acted as if she was sad, but by this time, Pete wasn't convinced that she could really be emotionally disturbed by anyone's pain, except her own.
Once Pete had calmed down, he asked Jean to make him something to eat, went to bed and slept for twelve hours straight.
He wasn't worried that Jean would try to do anything to him so soon after the "accident" with Randy. Maybe she would try to slip a knife in his story with the coroner, but that wouldn't help her situation much. So, he slept soundly -- for now. All the while, he knew in the near-term future that he would need to have eyes in the back of his head.
When he awakened on Sunday morning, he decided to goof off the rest of the day. He watched some football, and ended up taking more phone calls from curious friends and residents of the town than he would have liked. He stayed away from discussing the incident, telling everyone that the police report would be available, and he didn't want to say anything. Let the police report speak for itself.
Jean went out for a couple of hours to have coffee with some friends and do some shopping. She didn't come home with anything, except for some take-out food for dinner.
Come Monday, though, Pete was busy.
He checked into work, assured everyone that he was fine and that it was his hunting assistant who had slipped off the mountain. Then he left, telling everyone that he had some business in town.
His business in town was to drive to the office building where his PI had his office.
Stewart Brown's receptionist let Pete go right through to his office, where the two men, who had done business together for years, greeted each other.
"Stu, thanks for getting onto this thing with Jean so quickly."
"No problem, Pete. It's what you pay me for.
"Now I wish I had some good news for you, but I don't.
"After you left with Randy, Jean almost immediately went into town. We took a chance and had one of our operatives follow her, and I had my tech guy go and wire up your house. No real wires, I guess, all wireless and going directly to the cloud for storage.
"Jean is definitely having an affair. While you were gone, she had Blake Molyneaux, one of your attorneys over to spend the night. He lives in a condo development on the other side of town, and we talked to some of his neighbors. They recognized photos of Jean and of her car. He had told them she was his girlfriend. They said she was over on an irregular schedule, sometimes during the day, any day of the week was possible, and sometimes overnight, but not usually on the weekends."
Pete thought to himself "That's because I'm usually home on the weekends."
Stu continued.
"If you want to confirm the affair, I can give you the passwords to go online and see the videos in the cloud, but I wouldn't bother. Nothing super special there, just regular sex between two old lovers.
"Now I'm going to tell you the strange part.
"We believe that Blake Molyneaux is Jean's half-brother and based on some of the conversations that we heard that they have been having sex with each other since they were teenagers in high school. She hasn't just been cheating on you since you got married, she has been having sex with him continuously the entire time you've known her.
"I am kind of concerned about something else as well.
"Again, some of the conversations they've had, just in the past couple of days while we've been monitoring them, suggested that her first husband may have committed suicide by accident--driving out in front of oncoming traffic, or, they may have helped him along by sabotaging his car. That is a tough one to prove. The insurance company had the wreck inspected by certified mechanics and they didn't find any reason to suspect foul play, but maybe they were just exceptionally good at causing a problem where the crash itself would destroy the evidence.
"There was also some suggestion that they were considering ways to kill you for your estate. That, given your pre-nuptial agreement, might be the only way for them to grab your entire estate, including the business. They were almost talking as if they already had a plan under way. Know anything about that?"
Pete just shook his head and looked mystified.
"Well," Stu continued, "You may want to keep your eyes open. Do you want us to continue surveillance? You have enough now for your attorney, if you are going for a divorce. Which I assume you will."
"Let's keep up a light, periodic surveillance for now, just keeping an eye on them to see if they try a bring this potential plan to fruition, or if they come up with some other idea to bump me off.
"I don't want to divorce her quite yet.
"You mentioned that they are hoping to get my interest in the business. You and I both know that the courts are always a crap shoot. Blake is a good attorney, and they could try, in a divorce, to break the pre-nup, or some other tactic. In the end, we could crush them by revealing their relationship--not just the affair--but the conflict of a brother representing his sister without revealing that fact to the courts.
"I will need some time to do some additional work, maybe offshoring my ownership stake in a venue that won't be sympathetic to tricks like that.
"Plus, hell, between us, she's a great piece of ass, and I'd like to keep tapping that until I drop the divorce papers on her. If I've been sharing her with Blake all this time, I guess I can take the chance that I won't pick up something nasty in the next couple of months. I sure as hell won't go down on her again.
"Months is the timeframe that I'm looking at. Longer than weeks, but not a year. Not even six months. But a couple months."
With that, Pete left Stu, with the agreement in place that they would keep an eye on the pair, listening into their "pillow talk" conversations for any new plan to take Pete out.
Stu didn't know that Pete had already taken out their first plan when Randy went over the cliff.
~~*~~
Over the next couple of months, Pete continued working in his business. There were always drugs coming off patent protection, and some of those would be worth producing a generic version. After Pete would establish a manufacturing methodology, they would either decide to produce it at one of their plants in the 'States, or alternately, he would sell the process to generic pharmaceutical companies abroad--often in India or Israel. When they did that, Pete would go over to the foreign plant and work in a consulting role to get the line up and running, and then return to the U.S. and continue consulting with the foreign firms FDA attorneys to get approval for the product.
The coroner's inquest was finally held, something Pete was thankful for because waiting for it had limited his potential time out of town working with the foreign companies.
It went as expected. The pathologist from the County hospital concluded that Randy had died as the result of a fall from a high elevation. The Sheriff's report found nothing suspicious, just a tragic accident. When Pete was put on the stand, he told his story again to the coroner's jury, and he was not questioned, since his story fit in with what the Sheriff and the pathologists had testified to.
The inquest was wrapped up that day, the official cause of death established and the family was issued a death certificate.
As he approached his truck, the Sheriff called out to him.
"Hey Pete! Wait up a second."
Pete stood there with a smile on his face.
"Yes, Sheriff? What's going on?"
"You forgot these," he said as he handed back the Zeiss binoculars that Pete had handed to Randy before he pushed him over the cliff.
"Their yours, and aren't evidence anymore, so you get them back."
Pete took them and lifted the optics up to his eyes and played around with them. Except for some superficial scratches on the barrel and the body, they were perfectly operable.
"Damn, Nathan" Pete exclaimed, "I can't believe that the glass in these is still in good condition after that fall."
The Sheriff grinned, "They must have fallen on top of him, and his body absorbed the shock. At least I know why folks buy these expensive binocs. What was it that they said about Timex watches? 'Takes a lickin', keeps on ticken.' I'm impressed with your Zeiss glass. Next time I'm gonna buy a set of these."
Laughing, he walked away, back towards his patrol car. Pete decided he would keep the binocs as sort of a souvenir of the failed attempt on his life.
At the inquest, he also saw Randy's family. The Sitwells were a hardworking, but not very well-off family. He decided right then and there that he would get his lawyers (NOT Blake) to send them a check for $50,000 and tell them that it was an insurance policy payout that Randy got because he had been working for Mr. Pearson at the time of his death. The money would likely help out the family and would also assuage some of Pete's guilt feelings.
~~~*~~~
Despite what Stewart had advised him, Pete spent a lot of time examining the tapes of his wife and her stepbrother lover. He was carefully looking for something, he wasn't sure what, but that would give him a tool to use against what he now realized, was a pair of grifters.
Stewart Brown's firm had continued to follow the trail of Blake and Jean Molyeaux backwards. They found where they had grown up, where they had gone to school, met and interviewed former friends, an in-depth history.
There were a number of people, lonely women for Blake and desperate men for Jean, in their past who claimed that they had been swindled, left penniless, and otherwise harmed by the pair. It wasn't until Jean's first husband was killed that there was any indication that the two of them might have turned to violence. Maybe because they had been so successful in their earlier scams, they had begun to feel invincible. They'd gotten cocky and were willing to take more risks.
It must be the adrenaline of the grift, thought Pete. Blake was a successful attorney; he didn't need to abuse people's trust. Jean was married to him and could have had anything she wanted, if only she could have given up her stepbrother. It seemed having access to Pete's money wasn't enough--it had to be HER money.
Finally, Pete saw something on the tapes that tweaked his interest. It was something he could work with.
Since Randy's death on the mountain, things had changed in Pete and Jean's marriage. It wouldn't have bothered Pete if he didn't have the insight as to the why of it.
Jean was suddenly more aggressive sexually. She was suddenly willing to do one of the few things that she had gently refused before. Having seen the video, Pete knew that she would do anal with her stepbrother, so he was a little amused by the way that she tried to convince him that he was her first, and that she picked them up reading women's magazines. Not that Pete cared, he just enjoyed it.
For his part, Pete was using her far more roughly than he would have prior to his experience on the mountain. Jean seemed to be perfectly happy with his increased aggressiveness, and he, like her, lied about the source of the change. Oddly, he claimed that he had read in a men's magazine that women sometimes liked to be treated roughly. Right!
Their life together had gotten back, for the most part, to the status que ante; both of them pretending to be in love with each other. Pete was back working and Jean resumed fucking her stepbrother.
She and Blake had cooled off their ongoing sexual relationship for a while after the "accident." They had talked about it while walking around an indoor mall, safe from being overheard, they thought. Stewart's agents had no problem picking up their conversation.
"What do you think happened up there?" Jean asked Blake.
"I'm not sure. I read the Sheriff's report, and it didn't seem as if there was a struggle or anything. Things probably happened just like Pete said. An accident, nothing more. I guess that the kid hadn't had a chance to try anything yet."
"But they were at the top; that's what everyone says. If there was a place for Randy to push him over, that would have been it. And that would be a lot easier to explain than 'I accidentally shot him."
"Well, we'll never know, but it puts a kink into our plan. Not permanently, just we may have to wait a little while longer before we try something again. It shouldn't be a problem, should it? You don't seem to have a problem living with him."
Jean got quiet and thoughtful for a minute.
"Blake, if you and I weren't in love for the past, I don't know how many years, I would be perfectly happy to be Pete's wife. He takes care of me, he loves me, and I'm fond of him, but he can't replace you in my heart. We have to stay strong, though, if we want to get his money.
"He's rich enough that if we get his money, we could live the rest of our lives together, anywhere in the world, in luxury. But we can't be stupid and get caught. I can wait a while if you can."
It was getting the sound of conversations like that, that made the decision for Pete. He was going to do something drastic.
~~~*~~~
The opportunity came in the form of an upcoming business trip to India.
Pete's company was selling the process for producing an erectile disfunction drug that had recently come off patent to a large Indian firm. He was going to be in India for three to four weeks while they got their line up and running. The time had come.
"Jean?" Pete got her attention over the dinner table, "Would you like to go on a trip to Europe somewhere?"
"Sure," she replied, "Where did this come from, and what are you talking about?"
"Well, I have to go to India on a consulting job for about three to four weeks beginning at the end of the month. I thought that we could spend a couple weeks in Europe first, and then you could fly back here while I go on to India. What do you think?"
"Where?" Jean replied, clearly excited.
"Where would you like to go? London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Greece? Anywhere."
"Could we split our time? I might like to spend a week in Paris and then the next week in Rome. You know how I love art!"
"Might I suggest Paris, and then Venice? This is the time to visit Venice--no flooding, not too hot, plus we haven't been there."
The decision was made: Paris and then on to Venice.
~~*~~
In Paris, Pete and Jean stayed at one of the five-star hotels with views from their windows of the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triumph and the Eiffel Tower. They ate at multi-star Guide Michelin restaurants. They did the touristy things, visits to Versailles, to view Notre Dame (still under reconstruction), river trips on the Seine, and lots of sex at night.
Jean, with Pete's encouragement, bought a little over $50,000 of clothing, purses, scarves, shoes--all of the accessories for an exquisite wardrobe, at haute couture shops. They had them shipped home, unless it was something she was going to wear immediately.
In Venice, they toured the museums, from the modern at the Guggenheim, to Italian Renaissance art at La Academia. They enjoyed the outdoor restaurants along the Piazza San Marco, each restaurant with its own little band playing whatever style of music appealed to the customer. Tours of the Doge's palace and the "Bridge of Sighs," the Basilica of St. Mark, and a walking tour of the city, their guide, a Professor of History and Architecture.
To top it off, once again, Pete and Jean spent money. Jean bought Italian made leather goods, they acquired artwork of scenes of Venice from an outdoor market, and a substantial number of glass items from the world-famous Murano craftsmen, who had been making rare and beautiful glassware since the time of the ancient Romans. Again, they had most of their booty shipped back home.
