Remember Me (41 page)

“In less than thirty minutes, should I not call my contact, these will go into effect. I haven’t shown you everything that I have.

Let’s just say that what I’ve uncovered is enough to cause you significant pain. You’ll notice that your personal residence is on top. It’s signed by Judge Hempstead and provides for a complete search and seizure of your premises!”

Winslow became furious and started to swear at me. I let him rant at me without saying a word. His face got red, and his temples began to twitch. The spittle flew from his mouth.

Men like him were sheltered from obvious attacks. With

Stacy’s help, I had done my homework over the last three years with the diligence of a maniac. I shook every branch and lifted every rock. I had enough to make his life miserable for years to come. No less than a Federal court judge and two State attorneys had a copy of my dossier on J.W. Winslow. I spared no expense in paying for their attentiveness. The outcome would be far from certain, but the exposure would last forever. A man who wanted to be in the public eye and leave his mark upon the world would lose the opportunity with what I could make public knowledge. This was the final counter-point on which I hoped to win my freedom.

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Winslow sat heavily back into his chair. When he opened

the desk drawer on the right side of his chair, my heart leapt to my throat. I seriously expected him to pull out a gun and shoot me. Instead, he pulled out a bottle of pills and with some difficulty screwed off the cap. He popped two pills into his mouth, and chased them with the glass of water sitting on his desk.

Swallowing them, he set the glass down and then addressed me, “This game you are playing with me is a very deadly one. It takes balls to even sit there and threaten me; that I’ll give you.

I have no intention of complying with your little attempt at changing the terms of our deal. I believe that your time is up.”

He pushed the button on his desk, and the door to his office slid open. It was the moment of fortitude and resolve. I had a choice to make; run away, or fight to the finish against a superior opponent. I had no reason to believe that I could win.

What I did have was my obsession, my need to compensate for my guilty conscience. My personal anger allowed me to play my one last card, the ace of trumps. Based on Winslow’s reaction, everyone I knew was now in grave jeopardy. He would be relentless until he got what he wanted. I opened the briefcase one last time. I replaced the folder from his desk in it, and I grabbed the smaller envelope marked “pictures.” As I rose, I tossed it unceremoniously on his desk. “One last item for you to consider,” I commented. I then purposely turned my back on J.W. Winslow. I was escorted out of his office by one of his suits.I was almost out the door when I heard the envelope being cut open with his letter-opener. I was nearly to the elevator when I heard his angry voice call out, “This is not over you bastard! You don’t know who you are dealing with”

I had no doubts it wasn’t even close to being over. The

game had dangerously changed. My time was still going to be limited, and I would never be able to stop looking over my S 309 S

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shoulder. I had made a brazen attempt at leveling the playing field against all odds. In the envelope that I had given Winslow were forty-four pictures, copies of the originals. Ten of them showed Winslow with known criminals, many he had denied

ever having contact with. It was incriminating enough to put him away for the rest of his life with the right prosecutor.

The rest of the photographs were shots of people he was involved with. There were pictures of the mistresses, the seven other children the world didn’t know about, and twenty pictures taken of him in a secret room beneath the heartbeat of Chicago. Pictures so disgusting I couldn’t even stand to look at them. The man deserved to be put away for the rest of his life. Pedophiles are the worst type of predator. What Winslow and others were doing to young children in the photos was sickening. As a caring father, no court on earth would convict me of killing him, if he did to my kids what he did to those in the picture—it was that bad.

As I exited into the sunshine of downtown Chicago, I let it warm the chill within me. I was now on borrowed time, more than the pun truly entailed. Events would now unfold and lives would delicately hang in the balance, each depending on the decisions I would make from here on out. The attacks would come. They would be subtle and hard to prove. They could also be devastating in so many ways. I prayed with all my heart for God’s leniency as I hailed the first taxi I saw.

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Blown away.

May 30th, 1990

Nine days had
passed since my confrontation with J.W.

Winslow. The world had not ended, but it was moving forward at the speed of a fly caught in molasses. I was paranoid and couldn’t sleep. My neck literally ached from constantly looking over my shoulder. God help me, I saw malevolent shadows in broad daylight. It was hump day at the office, and many of the employees had begun talking about the upcoming weekend activities. I listened, but without much interest. Only Amy seemed to notice my indifference.

“Hey Peter, come in here a second, would you.” She called out to me from her office, as I was making my back from our break room.

I turned around and cautiously entered her office. “What’s up?” I said as cheerfully as I could.

“Nothing, I’m just a little concerned about you. You don’t look so good. Your eyes are dark, and you seem really jumpy. Is there anything going on that I should be aware of?”

Boy, what a loaded question I thought to myself. “Nope,

nothing you need be concerned about,” I said it while my totally fake smile was plastered in place.

“Right…” she answered me back. Her eyes squinted as she

studied me, “I almost believe you.”

“I’ve just had a lot on my mind this past week, working

through some legal issues with Stacy.” I hoped my answer S 311 S

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would suffice in her quest for insight.

A curt nod was what she gave me. I couldn’t tell her the truth. I’d been wrestling within my own private paradox of hell. In truth, I had been busy with Stacy. All of our unofficial contacts were keeping an eye out for any way Winslow might retaliate. So far he hadn’t deviated from his normal routine. It didn’t make either of us feel any better. How long would we have to wait to find out exactly what Winslow’s next move would be? I genuinely feared for the safety of everyone I knew.

Outside of Stacy, only Stebben had a general understanding of the recent events. My immediate goal was to get the next chip delivered and then take it from there. From now on, the imminent shadow of doom would forever be hanging around.

“I think I’m going to pack it in for the day,” I said to Amy, my hand massaging the back of my neck.

“You should take a vacation. Do something fun…you deserve it,” Amy responded.

Laughing out loud, I quipped back, “If I left for a vacation, I’m not sure I would want to come back.”

Amy laughed along with me and said, “Boy can I relate to that. There are definitely times I’d like to sit on the beach in Aruba and let the surf pull at my toes. I’m not suggesting you head to the beach, but maybe do something thoughtless, if you know what I mean.”

“Thoughtless would be good—priceless in fact.”

“The new chip is still a couple of months away from being ready for distribution. Now is the perfect time to slip away.”

“Actually, the Syncat Pro chip could be ready in less than a month,” I threw back at her. It caused her beautiful blue eyes to open wide in a shocked expression.

“Why hasn’t it been brought to the rest of the staff’s attention?” she asked me directly.

“Because timing is everything,” I said. “Our biggest

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competitor is releasing their new chip in two weeks and I understand it is going to be a fairly good one.” Only I laughed at this marginal attempt at humor. Everyone who worked at E.M.J. knew that the Syncat 2 and Syncat Pro would make

their chip immediately obsolete. “My goal has never been about curtailing the technology expanse. Competition is what makes everyone work at peak performance. Believe it or not, everyone has a place and role to play. As our top competitor, we need them to make it so we can be efficient.”

“A revolutionary with a soul…” Amy bestowed on me

with her quick wit.

I let the smile spread across my face before responding,

“More than you know.”

A silence filled the space between us, and I shunned the awkward feeling by slowly backing towards the door. Before I could make my exit, Amy stopped me with a question. “What kind of maternity program do we offer?”

My heart leapt to my throat. I swallowed hard a couple

of times before I answered, “Are congratulations in order?” I said it giving her my best grin. Inside, I didn’t feel much like smiling.

“Yes, I’m due in November, the tenth to be precise,” Amy sang at me.

I could tell she was bursting at the seams, and I didn’t want to put a damper on her in any way. Her children would be her life and she, theirs. A better mother could not be found, and I knew it firsthand. What I knew and she didn’t was that she and Tom didn’t have their first child in my time for another six years. “That’s great! I’m happy for you and Tom. I am surprised that he hasn’t said anything to me yet.”

My comment took the wind out of her sails, and I could

see I had hit the proverbial nail on the head. “Tom hasn’t quite warmed to the idea yet,” she said, her eyes cast down and her S 313 S

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voice betraying the true severity of the situation. “We were originally planning on waiting, but one thing lead to another and…well you know…”

I interrupted her uneasiness, “I do know, and it’s still a reason to celebrate. I have no doubt you will make a fantastic mother.” It was strange. A few short months ago it had been Amy who wanted to wait, and Tom who was talking about

starting a family. It caused me to worry why he was now on the other side of the fence.

Her face lit up, and she blushed. “Thank you,” she said and then lowering her voice to a whisper, “I’m scared to death!”

“And that is what is going to make you the best mother

there is!” I sincerely complemented her. “Being a good parent is always more about the unknown and dealing with adversity than it is about smooth sailing. I’ve seen you and Tom in motion together. I have no reason to believe you two won’t be anything other than successful as parents. After all, it really is all about the daily existence that is the most exciting part of living—not the isolated moments of doom or grandeur we all tend to fixate on.”

“True,” she commented and then for good measures she

added, “Success isn’t always measured in dollars. So I guess you’re also a philosopher now as well?”

“Or in stock options,” I had to throw out laughing, “and yes…Plato and Socrates have nothing on me.”

Feeling the edge leave the room, I said congrats again, and promised I wouldn’t say anything to Tom or to anyone else until he had a chance to tell me himself. I had a pounding headache as I left the building and headed to my car. Thankfully, I didn’t cross anyone else’s path on my way out. Before I left, I checked in with Tracy, our receptionist, to let her know I would be gone the rest of the day. Confident that the business would run fine without me, I decided to pack up Emma and S 314 S

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head for “Mt Chipmunk,” the name I christened the acreage with after Emma had been taunted sufficiently by not just one, but nearly a dozen of the little creatures. Taking Amy’s sound advice, I called Tracy from my home in Des Moines to let her know I’d be out the rest of the week.

On the drive north, I tried to put the thoughts of Amy,

Tom, and Winslow out of my head and just enjoy the oldies music on the radio station. It didn’t matter that many of the songs had just been released; they would always be old to me.

I rolled down Emma’s window so she could hang her head out and sneeze into the wind. It never failed. Once she turned her snout into the wind she would have to pull her head in and suffer through an attack of the sneezes. This would happen several times before she could keep her head outside without it affecting her. It never got old, and I would laugh every time until the tears would blur my vision. Some things are just plain funny.

It was nearly eight p.m. that night when my life changed once again. I had just returned from the closest grocery store, having driven straight there right after dropping Emma off at the house. I had purchased enough supplies to get Emma and me through the extended stay. I turned on the television, and at exactly the same time the phone started ringing. I glanced over and saw that the light on the answering machine was blinking in multiple bleeps, letting me know someone had been determined in trying to get a hold of me.

“Hello,” I said into the phone’s receiver.

“Where the hell have you been?” a very angry voice shouted at me. It was so loud that I had to move the phone away from my ear.

“Tom? What is it? I was out getting groceries,” I said, my stomach already beginning to do flip-flops.

“E.M.J. was nearly destroyed by fire late this afternoon.

Haven’t you seen the news? It’s on every damn channel.”

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I turned my gaze to the television and watched in perplexed horror as the local newscaster commented on the warehouse’s destruction and as the fire trucks continued to shoot water on the roof in the background. “When did it happen?” I asked Tom. I was barely able to stand. Emma had started whimper-ing, her head lying on her paws as she looked up at me.

“Around five-forty,” he coldly stated.

“Anyone hurt?” I asked. My voice was barely above a whisper, and I prayed silently for everyone to be ok.

“Amy’s in the hospital with smoke inhalation and Stebben’s in a coma. He suffered severe burns and has a broken arm and lacerations. They were the last two people left in the warehouse when the explosion occured.”