Who is Raphael Garza? Pt. 04

In my rush to get the first three parts of this story posted, I forgot to do something very important. I forgot to thank Black Randi for her editing assistance and encouragement. This acknowledgment should have appeared at the beginning of all four parts of my story. Thank you Randi for all you have done.

*

SATURDAY JULY 4TH 8:45

I went to the far side of the bar and sat where I could keep an eye on them without being conspicuous. I sat and watched as the focus of my anger and hate ordered dinner with a bottle of wine. 'Having their last meal.' I thought.

I ordered a sandwich to-go and went back out to my car to wait. I was thinking that I had been following them for a quite a while and I was struck by how unaware they were. Unaware of me behind them and unaware of what I was going to do to them, but I was beginning to worry that if I kept following them, they would eventually spot me. I realized that I didn't need to follow them; I only needed to know when Monty got home. Instead of waiting for Monty at the restaurant, I decided to wait for him at his house.

It was 8:45 when I reached the spot along the river where I planned to park my car. I drove in far enough off the road to hide the car from passing motorists. I retrieved my backpack from the car and started walking north along the edge of the river. It had started to get dark, but there was still enough light to make my walk to the spot where I had hidden my kayak easy. I unlocked the kayak, then looked up and down the river for any boat traffic before launching the kayak.

The trip up river was more difficult than it had been the previous night. The current was a bit stronger, and my backpack weighed more. I was able to find the spot below Monty's house by using my flashlight to illuminate the reflective tape on the pile of rocks I left as a marker. I stashed the kayak behind the bushes and started my climb to the house. I was about halfway up the riverbank when I heard the first loud explosions from the fireworks at Fort Brodrick. I wondered briefly if Monty and Farrell had gone to watch the fireworks display.

When I got to the top of the riverbank and looked out from my hiding place in the trees in Monty's back yard, I saw light coming from the picture window at the far right end of the house. If Monty was in the bedroom, I wanted to make sure he was alone, so I move along the tree line until I was directly in line with the bedroom window. What I saw through the window was unexpected. Monty was standing naked with an erection, and Farrell was on his knees in from of him. I think you get the picture of what was going on. I tried to block out what I saw them doing and think about how lucky I was that they were both there. It meant I could take care of both of them at the same time.

I moved back down the bank about twenty feet and dropped my backpack. By keeping my flashlight close to the ground, I was able to assemble the shotgun and load it without any light being visible above the top of the bank. Once the gun was ready, I pulled on the overalls and the hunting hat, then I put on a pair of the latex gloves and put the other two pairs in my pocket in case I ripped the pair I was wearing.

I grabbed the pry bar from the pack, counted to ten, then climbed back to the top of the bank and ran over to the door at the back of the garage. I shoved the end of the pry bar between the door and the frame next to the doorknob and pushed the bar toward the doorknob. The door swung open with very little resistance. There was so much noise from the fireworks at that point that I doubted the lovers heard the door opening. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Looking back at the door, I saw that the dead bolt was not engaged and that was why the door opened so easily. "Unbelievable, complete idiots," I thought.

Aside from the silver Mercedes, there was nothing else of interest in the garage. I went over to the door that led into the house and slowly turned the knob. It was not locked. That's when it hit me. There was nothing to stop me from running into the house and killing the two of them. I stood there thinking about what I was about to do and I broke into a cold sweat. My hands started to shake, and my stomach began to roll, I was afraid that I was going to vomit, so I moved around to the far side of the car and sat on the floor while I tried to calm my nerves. I thought of what it would be like to run into the house and shoot them while they were having sex and that didn't help the way I was feeling.

I sat there for at least ten minutes, thinking about what I was there to do and then I started crying. It was at that point that I knew that even with all of the anger and hate I felt toward them, I couldn't kill them. It just wasn't in me to be a cold-blooded killer. I sat there with tears running down my face and felt shame. Shame that I could not carry through, with my plan for revenge and shame that I even thought about murdering two people. I had to get away from that house and fast, but when I stood up, I fell against the trunk of the car because I was dizzy from hyperventilating and I felt like I was going to pass out.

While I was trying to get control of my breathing and calm the sudden anxiety I was feeling; I had an Ephiny. I had a vision of Farrell lifting a duffle bag and placing it into the trunk of the Mercedes. 'Could the duffle bag was still in the trunk? Could they be that careless?' were the thoughts that struck me. I had to find out.

I stood quietly and listened for any sounds from inside the house. The house was quiet, and the only sounds that I could hear were the fireworks at Fort Brodrick. I moved to the driver's door of the Mercedes and opened it. It took just a few seconds to find the trunk release and pop the trunk open. The duffle bag was still in the car. I didn't take the time to examine the bag or to think about what to do; I already made the decision, I was going to take the bag with me. When I lifted the duffle bag from the trunk, I was surprised by its weight. I guessed the weight to be around fifty pounds. Several ideas of what might be in the bag entered my mind, drugs, money, weapons, etc., but at that moment, it didn't matter to me what the bag contained. I did a quick check to make sure I had everything I brought with me, closed the trunk and placed my pry bar on the lid before I picked up the duffle bag, grabbed my shotgun and headed out the back door. I ran across the back yard and started down the riverbank. Twenty feet down the bank, I retrieved my backpack and flashlight. I stopped long enough to break down the shotgun and put it in the backpack. I slipped the backpack over my shoulders and started down the riverbank. The farther I got from the house, the better I felt. I may not have been able to kill those bastards, but I knew that whatever was in the duffle bag was going to cause them a lot of heartaches when they discovered it was gone.

The trip down the riverbank was difficult wearing the backpack and carrying the heavy duffle bag. About half way down I caught my foot on a tree root, fell on my right side and tumbled about twenty feet down the bank before slamming back first into a tree trunk. The pain made it difficult to breathe for a minute. My lower back hurt but my right shoulder was causing me the worst pain I had ever endured. I sat for a while with my back against the trunk of the tree so I could catch my breath and assess the extent of my injuries. The worst of my injuries was obviously my shoulder. The pain was nearly unbearable, but the bigger problem was that I could not lift my right arm above my head.

Before I got to my feet, I looked around to make sure I still had my backpack and the duffle bag with me. With a lot of pain and some difficulty, I manage to slowly make it the rest of the way down to the river without incident. When I got back to the kayak, I stripped off the overalls and put them into the backpack along with the flashlight and the gloves I was wearing. A quick check told me that I had everything I brought with me except for the pry bar that I left sitting on the trunk of the Mercedes. It was my way of saying "Fuck You," to my two friends.

In spite of the pain in my right shoulder, I managed to get the kayak into the water. With my backpack on and the duffle bag between my legs in the kayak, I made the trip back down the river. Paddling the kayak was difficult because of my injured shoulder, but the current was in my favor, and I was able to navigate the kayak back to where I left my car. Loading the kayak onto the roof rack was difficult, but I managed. Once I was in the car and heading home the disappointment I felt for not being able to kill those bastards had dissipated.

SATURDAY JULY 4th, 11:05 PM

It was after eleven o'clock when I pulled into my garage. I was tired and in a lot of pain. I planned to leave everything in the car until Sunday morning, but I wanted to know what was in the duffle bag. When I lifted the bag from my car, I noticed the padlock. I put the bag on my workbench and used a bolt cutter to cut the padlock off. For a moment, I just stared at the bag almost afraid of what it might contain. When I finally looked inside the bag, I just started laughing.

"Those guys are royally fucked," I yelled and started laughing again.

The duffle bag was full of money. What I could see were bundles of twenty-dollar bills and hundred dollar bills. I didn't see any bills smaller than twenties. There had to be a few hundred thousand dollars in the bag. I couldn't stop laughing at the thought of those two assholes discovering that their bag of money was gone.

I carried the duffle bag into the house and up to the bedroom. I thought about counting the money, but I was exhausted and decided to sleep instead. I placed the duffle bag on top of Kathy's dresser. In the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, I found the unused Vicodin tablets from the prescription I got when I injured my hand. I took two of the tablets, stripped down to my underwear and climbed into bed.

It was a fitful night's sleep. My shoulder was throbbing, and I had crazy dreams of threatening naked men with my shotgun or of seeing Kathy kneeling on the floor in front of a naked Monty. There were other short dreams about Monty and Farrell rolling naked on top of a pile of money. In the last dream, I was standing behind Monty's Mercedes with the duffle bag in my hand when I heard Kathy's voice.

"Where do you think you are going with my money," she said.

When I looked at her, she was standing with Monty and Farrell, and all three of them were naked. The worst part was that Kathy had the shotgun and she was pointing it at me. I woke myself up screaming, "No!"

I was soaked with sweat and struggling to move because the bed sheets had tangled around my legs. It took a few moments to realize that I had been dreaming. I lay back down and thought about the dreams I had been having and began to wonder if everything that had happened the previous night had just been a dream. Two things told me it wasn't a dream. The pain in my shoulder was real, and the duffle bag full of money was still sitting on Kathy's dresser.

When I could not go back to sleep, I got out of bed, carried the duffle bag downstairs to my office and then went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. When the coffee was ready, I poured a cup, went back to my office and started counting the money. The hundred-dollar bills were in bundles of $10,000, and there were 55 bundles. The twenty-dollar bills were in bundles of $2,000, and there were 100 of those for a total of $750,000.

I sat down at my desk, stared at the money and wondered how those two idiots could be stupid enough to leave that much money in the trunk of the car. They just never conceived of the possibility of anyone breaking into the garage and stealing the money. I couldn't help myself; I began laughing again. Could 750K make up for the trouble those bastards caused me? Probably not, but it was a good start.

After I ate some breakfast, I started thinking about the money and what the source of it may have been. Saturday night I had murder on my mind, so I hadn't given much thought to the meeting that took place at the tennis courts. Sunday morning, it came to me. Two bankers plotting to keep a specific accountant from performing an audit at their bank are seen exchanging some documents for a duffle bag with $750K in it. Monty and Farrell were involved in money laundering. That is when the full reality of how much trouble I had just caused those two idiots. Whomever that $750K belonged to was not going to be very happy with them.

I had recorded the exchange I witnessed in the Brodricksburg Athletic Park, and decided to look at the video to see if I could use it to cause Montgomery and Farrell more problems. I plugged my video camera it into the fifty-inch flat screen television in the family room and hit play. It amazed me how much I had not been able to see while looking through the viewfinder Saturday evening. The video, expanded as it was on the television screen, gave a much clearer picture of what happened at the tennis courts. The video started with two cars side by side. I could clearly read the license plate numbers of both vehicles. The video also clearly showed the faces of the three men who got out of the Escalade. All three of them looked Hispanic. I also noticed that at least two of them had guns tucked into the waistbands of their pants. The video lasted less than ten minutes, but it certainly fit my assumption that Monty and Farrell were up to their necks in a money laundering business.

After watching the complete video twice, I knew what I wanted to do with it. Maybe my revenge wasn't complete after all.

SUNDAY JULY 5TH 2:30 PM

That afternoon, I walked into the offices of Boswell Products and went directly to the graphics lab. Nobody else was in the building, which was what I needed. I plugged my video camera into one of the production workstations and uploaded the video from the tennis courts. Next, I put on a pair of latex gloves, went to the supply cabinet and opened a new box of blank DVDs. I took four of the DVDs, recorded four copies of the video and placed the DVDs in a large envelope. Then I deleted the video from the workstation.

Next, I wrote the following short note:

"To Whom it may concern;

On the evening of July 4th of this year, I was bird spotting with my video camera at the Brodricksburg Athletic Park when I notice suspicious activity near the unfinished tennis courts. The enclosed DVD is a video recording of what I observed that evening. What made me suspicious was that I recognized two of the people involved. Percy Montgomery and Stephen Farrell, they are the president and vice-president of First Bank of Brodricksburg. When I saw that the men that got out of the black Cadillac Escalade looked Hispanic, and saw that two of them had guns, I knew that I should notify the authorities. I hope this turns out to be nothing, but I worry that it is something sinister. I am taking steps to remain anonymous because I fear that if I am right about what I saw I could be in danger. I hope this video is helpful."

When I finished, I put on another pair of latex gloves, opened a fresh package of plain printer paper and loaded a few sheets into the printer. This paper had no company logo and no water marks. I printed four copies of the note and put them in the envelope with the DVDs. Before I removed my gloves, I went back to the supply cabinet and picked up three Federal Express mailing envelopes.

When I got back home, I spent time on the internet finding addresses for the offices of the FBI and the DEA in Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania State Police office in Bucks County. Once again, I put on a pair of latex gloves and used a Sharpie to address one of the Fed Ex envelopes to each of those addresses. Then I put one copy of my note and one of the DVDs in each envelope and sealed them. The fourth copy of the note and the fourth DVD I put in the duffle bag with the money and carried the bag up to the attic where I put it in the chest with my shotgun and locked the chest.

MONDAY MORNING JULY 6TH

Monday morning I called Cam and told him I was taking a personal day to clear up some problems at home.

"Does this have anything to do with the problems between you and Kathy?" Cam said.

"Yeah, that's part of it."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Thanks, but no. I think I have it under control now," I said. Then we talked about some work issues for a few minutes. As soon as I got off the phone, I got ready for the next step in my revenge plan. Using a latex glove to handle the three Fed Ex packages, I put them into a plastic JC Penney store bag.

I assumed that once the FBI and the DEA, and maybe even the State Police received my packages, they would be very interested in finding me. The one weak point in my plan was that the authorities would know as soon as they got the packages, when and from where I sent them. All they would need to do is go to that location and review the store's video security footage to see who sent them. That meant that I needed a disguise. I dressed in green cargo pants with a camouflage t-shirt. With that, I wore hiking boots and a large brimmed bush hat. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided that I needed one more item to make the disguise complete, but I would have to pick that up along the way. Finally, I got my camera and left the house. On the way out of town, I stopped at a CVS drug store and bought a high magnification pair of reading glasses with very thick lenses.

I drove back to Brodricksburg and pulled into a large shopping center where I found the postal store I had looked up on the internet. I parked my car so that my license plates would not be visible from the storefronts. Before I got out of the car, I put on the bush hat on and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. I hung my camera around my neck, picked up the bag with the Fed Ex packages and walked over to the postal store. Before entering the store, I put on the thick glasses.

When I walked into the store, the guy behind the counter smiled and gave me a friendly greeting.

"Good morning, sir, how can I help you today?" he said

I made my voice sound nasal with a bit of a lisp and said, "I just need to send these three Fed Ex packages."

When I set the packages on the counter, the clerk looked at my hands and asked, "Why are you wearing those gloves?"

"Got poison ivy on both hands. Got to be careful what I touch," I said.

The clerk took the three packages, looked at the sender's address and said, "Don Trump, any..."

Before he could finish his question, I said, "No relation." He didn't recognize that the return address was the address of the First Bank of Brodricksburg.

When the clerk saw the addresses I was sending the packages to, he looked up at me. Before he could ask any questions, I said, "I was out catching some fine vids of the birds out at the new athletic park when these nasty boys showed up and started shooting off fireworks, scaring the birds away. I caught them on video, and I want the authorities to bring them to justice."

I could tell the clerk was trying not to laugh at me as he weighed the packages and told me how much I owed him. I paid with cash and left the store. I think I heard the clerk starting to laugh just before the door closed.

I did what I could. The Fed Ex packages would be delivered to the three police agencies sometime Tuesday morning. All that was left for me to do was wait and see what would happen. Just for the hell of it, I stopped in the FBB on my way out of town. It looked like business as usual, but I did not see my two friends anywhere in the bank. I was smiling as I drove out of Brodricksburg.