nothing was going on and Julie would do nothing wrong.
Of all things to happen, I had to go on a business trip. I thought about taking Julie and the kids, but I didn’t. I went to the Naval Air Systems Command, or NavAir, at Paxtuent River, Maryland. I spent three days there meeting with Navy Admirals and Marine Generals. It was a wonderful trip for me. I learned a lot and did my company’s bidding. I talked to Julie every evening. She never once mentioned Mitch. As far as that went, neither did I!
Friday, I flew back to Dallas and landed at four-thirty. I pulled up in our driveway at five-thirty. All three kids ran out to see me. I had candy for the kids and a sexy negligee for Julie. She had a forced smile on her face. I knew something was wrong, but had no idea what it might be.
It didn’t take long to find out what it was; when I went into my house, Mitch was asleep on our sofa. All that he had on was jogging shorts. I looked back at Julie.
She held out her hands in surrender. “He won’t leave. He has been here night and day since you left.”
I went into the kitchen, found a cup towel and ran it under the cold water. It was sopping wet when I dropped it on Mitch’s face. He jumped up spitting, ready to fight. He was a head taller than me, but I wanted to take him down a notch or two. I waited too long and he hit me with a sucker punch right on the end of my chin. I went down to the floor. I was seeing stars, when I saw Julie and Rachael both jump on Mitch. He swatted at both of them and I was up, doing my best to land a punch. I was woozy and slow, and Mitch hit me again in the temple. I was unconscious when Julie jumped on his back. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head forward. He shoved her to the floor, her chin splitting open. Rachael slugged Mitch in the thigh and he shoved Rachael into the television, knocking it off the wall on top of Rachael. She lay there and cried. Julie rolled over onto her back and blood saturated her tee shirt. Mitch ran out the door, down the street to his house barefooted. The rest of his clothes were piled at the end of our sofa.
Rachael got up and took my cell phone out of my pocket. She called 9-1-1. The dispatcher heard the fear in Rachael’s voice and notified the police. The police and an ambulance were dispatched.
Mitch was standing out in the street in front of his house when the police arrived.
The paramedics got to us quickly. Both Julie and I had concussions. There was blood everywhere. I came to with Rachael bathing my face with the same wet rag that I had originally thrown at Mitch.
Julie was on a stretcher, staring at the ceiling. When I could, I looked at all my kids and they were all all right. It seemed like cops were everywhere. They were trying to take statements from me, Julie and Rachael. It seemed that Mitch had come back and accused Julie of seducing him; he stated that Julie had forced him to have sex multiple times. Apparently no one believed Mitch. He was taken away in handcuffs.
One of the neighbors who I didn’t know came up and told me that he was under the impression that Mitch and Julie were having an affair. They had been seen walking down the street together. It was also said that Mitch had spent the night at my house.
No charges were brought up against Julie nor myself. But our neighbors all whispered about us and pointed at us.
I finally decided that we couldn’t live in the neighborhood and that we should move. The question was, where should we move to? An even bigger question came up: what should we do with our fancy house?
The answer turned up in a most peculiar way. We had set our house for sale with a local realtor at ten million dollars. Ralph came and looked at it and made a low-ball offer of eight million. A woman countered with nine million. Ralph had really seemed to like the house, and he came back with nine point five million, his final offer. The negotiations stalled and Ralph seemed to disappear.
A new mystery man came and made us an offer of nine point seven million dollars. Try as I might I could not find out who the mystery man was.
Suddenly Ralph was back. He made an offer of ten million, as is, and he would pay cash.
I was ready to take it when Julie put her hand on my arm and said, “Let’s wait and see what happens.”
The mystery man made an incredible offer: twelve and a half million. Our place wasn’t worth that much; we had only paid seven and half million for it and the landscaping. Something was fishy.
Ralph made what he called his final offer: thirteen million, cash.
The mystery man was trying to break Ralph; he bid fifteen million, cash. We were right in the middle of a bidding war.
Ralph had twelve hours to make another bid. He waited eleven hours and fifty-five minutes. Then he countered at sixteen million, but he dropped the cash claim.
Julie said, “Brandon, he doesn’t have that much money, I am positive.”
I wasn’t so sure; I suspected that Ralph had a whole lot of money.
The mystery man bid eighteen million and he also dropped the cash offer.
I was in a dilemma, this was more money than I could imagine.
Again, Ralph made his final offer: twenty million. Julie was beside herself.
We waited and waited, then the mystery man phoned in twenty-two point five million. Nothing else was heard from Ralph. Our house had a new owner, but who was it?
We heard nothing for two weeks, then the closing was set. On the day that we went to the title company, the mystery man sat there. It was Mr. Larry Lawrence. When we sat down across from him at the big table, he was all smiles. I had the desire to wipe the smile off his face; he had slept with my wife.
He stood up, handed me an envelope. He said, “Mr. Thompson, I have wronged you. I give you the check for your house and I also give you the house back. Please don’t leave; your wife loves it here. You, your wife and family belong in this house.”
I looked at Julie. She was all smiles. “Oh, Brandon, I love this place. I don’t want to move.”
I didn’t either, but I was worried about Mitch.
Julie’s chin had healed nicely; there was a small scar or beauty mark. We thought about plastic surgery, but decided against it. We let Mitch know that he was no longer welcome on our property. It didn’t matter; he continued to follow Julie around. She did her best to keep him at arm’s distance, but a week later, he tried to kiss her while she was home alone.
She called me. “Brandon, we have to do something about Mitch. He came on to me; he kissed me.”
I was in a rage. How dare Mitch? But I spoke calmly. “Don’t worry about it. I will take care of it tonight.”
I left work early and drove home slowly, I wasn’t sure what to do, but I wasn’t getting the police involved. I would handle it myself.
When I got home, Mitch was standing out in his driveway, shooting hoops and dribbling the ball between his legs. He was showing off.
I went in my house and sat down with Julie. “Honey, tell me everything that is going on.” I wanted to be sure that she hadn’t done anything wrong.
She held both hands up and said, “I tried to be friendly with him, but he kept touching me, and then today he kissed me. I had to fight him off. We have to do something.”
I got up and went out the front door. A full minute later, Julie came out and stood by me. We both started walking down the sidewalk to the street, turned right, and headed for Mitch’s place.
I walked right up to Mitch, took the basketball away from him and said, “My wife says that you kissed her today! What do you have to say for yourself?”
Mitch’s eyes went to Julie. There was no fear in his face. He appeared to think this was funny.
“No, sir, she kissed me.”
Julie shoved Mitch and screamed, “I did not, you liar!”
Mitch shoved back at Julie and she fell into the street. I drew back and swung at Mitch. He dodged my swing and swung hard at me. He hit me in the jaw. I bit my tongue and blood spurted out my mouth. I swung at him again, just clipping his chin. It was hard swinging upward. His hea
d snapped back and he swung downward at me, hitting me on the crown of my head. It hurt like hell, but barely fazed me. I hit him in the stomach. Mitch drew back and hit me squarely in the mouth. I fell down on the pavement.
Julie had gotten up. She tried to jump on Mitch, but he knocked her to the ground again. She pulled out her derringer and shot Mitch once in the chest and once in the stomach.
At least one of our neighbors had called the police.
The first police car arrived before the sound of the two shots had stopped echoing down the street. An ambulance was summoned.
The paramedics were working furiously on Mitch. Julie was put in handcuffs, and I again had a concussion.
Statements were taken from us and several of our neighbors. Julie was taken away to jail. I called my attorney, Sam Washington, and asked him to meet us at the Grapevine city jail.
I got a neighbor to watch the kids and I met Washington at the jail. Julie hadn’t been brought down to booking yet, so Washington went to talk to her. There was a problem: she had already talked to the police, admitted that she had shot Mitch, and signed a statement. Washington argued that she had been denied council, but they had a document that Julie had signed waiving council.
He came out to me. “Brandon, she is in serious trouble. They have her for attempted murder, and she made a statement that she did it.”
I looked at Sam. “What do we do?”
He said, “Brandon, this will require a high powered