Nine Minutes (24 page)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

It’s not
necessary to go into the details of the following years. Besides, I found the
legal proceedings and jargon too much to retain. I’ll stick with the facts as I
remember them.

     
I never saw
Grizz
again as a free man. He was denied bail and stayed
incarcerated in the county jail for almost two years while Cary Lewis
negotiated with the prosecutors. I stayed very close to Matthew during this
time. Even though it was in an unofficial capacity, I needed him to explain
everything that was happening.

     
Cary did his best
with me, but between the pregnancy and the press, I needed Matthew and Sam.
They were instrumental in getting my high school and college degrees
transferred over to my real name. They protected me from the media. They were
with me from the very beginning of this nightmare. They even arranged for me to
live with Stephen and April.

     
Stephen, who was
Sarah Jo’s high school boyfriend, had remained a close friend, and most
importantly, he and April had no association with the gang at all. They
welcomed me into their home until the media frenzy died down. My college
girlfriends, Carter and Casey, took turns staying at my house to care for
Damien. We’d lost Lucifer a year earlier to bone cancer. When I was finally
able to move home, Carter moved in with me.

     
One thing
Grizz
insisted on from the beginning was leaving me out of
everything. He told them he abducted me. He told them about the threats early
on to prevent my escape, and how he tricked me into the marriage.

     
The story made
headlines: “Missing Girl Found Married to Leader of Notorious Motorcycle Gang.”
People started to come out of the woodwork.

     
“Yes, I thought I
recognized her, but she seemed so happy, I was certain she hadn’t been
abducted.”

     
“That bastard
threatened my life if I didn’t get her guitar back.”
This
from the pawnshop owner where I hocked my guitar that first Christmas.

     
“You say he
threatened your life?” Cary asked him on the stand. “You weren’t monetarily
compensated to retrieve the guitar?”

     
“Well, yeah, but money
or not, I still didn’t have a choice. My life was at stake.”

     
Even Diane
Berger, the girl from the vet’s office, probably thought she was helping, but
in reality, it didn’t make me look good. “I asked her right out if she was
Ginny Lemon and she said no. She even had some weird accent. She was probably
brainwashed.”

     
“Don’t worry
about it,” Cary and Matthew told me. “Can’t prove she really saw you. Maybe it
was a look-alike with an accent.”

     
Except that it
wasn’t. The prosecution was able to pull the vet’s records and show Rick O’Connell
did have a dog there during that time that was being treated for a
snake bite
.

     
Every time we
thought something might go our way, someone else would come forward. And with
Jan and
Froggy’s
statements, we knew it was going to
be an uphill battle.
Froggy
, whose real name was
Larry
Most
, stated under oath that he witnessed
Grizz
murder more than one person. Even with the details,
there were never any bodies to substantiate his claims. They would have to get
more witnesses. And they did.

     
One thing that
surprised me early on was there was never a mention of Grunt or Fess. Jan and
Froggy
never once brought them up. I believe it was because
Jan really did care for Grunt, and I think they both felt sorry for Fess. He
was just a regular guy trying to make a living and raise three kids by himself.
The authorities did eventually get to them through other witnesses, but by
then,
Grizz
had cut a deal.

     
In the two years
it took to prepare for trial, I’d also gotten married and had our daughter. We
named her Miriam. We called her Mimi.

     
This may be hard
to believe, but
Grizz
practically forced me to get remarried.
I remember the day well. I was only about two months into my pregnancy and was
visiting him in jail.

     
“Kit, you love me,
don’t you?” he asked.

     
“You know I love
you,
Grizz
. We’ll get through this. You’ll get out.
We’ll get our lives back.”

     
“Kitten, I’m
never getting out of here. You need to know and understand that now.”

     
“Stop it! Don’t
talk like that.”

     
“You’re a smart
girl. You need to face reality so we can make a plan. You said you love me. I
need you to prove it.”

     
I looked at him
with vision blurred by tears. “Tell me. Tell me how to prove it.”

     
“I want you to
get married.”

     
I was so stunned
I couldn’t even object. We were speaking on telephones through a glass
partition. “I want you to promise me our child will have a father when he or
she is born. Promise me that, Kit.”

     
“Our baby will
have a father,
Grizz
. You. I can give it your last
name. Talbot.” Then something else occurred to me. “Married to who? Who would I
marry? Besides, we’re already married.”

     
I knew deep down
our marriage wasn’t legal. Maybe Rick O’Connell and Ann Marie Morgan were
married, but Jason Talbot and Ginny Lemon weren’t. Yet in our hearts, we were.

     
“Kit, I can name
five guys who care enough about you to marry you tomorrow. I know probably two
of them are already in love with you. Hell, even Fess would marry you if we
asked him.”

     
“You can’t be
serious. And as much as I love Sarah Jo, I don’t want to be her stepmother. Who
else could you possibly be talking about? Besides, I find it hard to believe
you suspect not one, but two men of being in love with me and they’re still
alive.” I picked up a tissue to blow my nose while resting the phone on my shoulder.

     
“You once told me
I was a smart guy. Do you remember? The night you told me you were pregnant
that first time. I told you how I dropped out of school, and you were surprised
by how I survived. How I made something out of nothing. You remember that?”

     
“Yes, I remember.
So what?”

     
“You were right,
baby. I am smart. Smart enough to let those guys fall in love with you because
I knew this day might come.”

     
I couldn’t
believe what I was hearing, but after talking to Cary and his explanation of
the seriousness of
Grizz’s
predicament, I gave in.

     
I was married
within weeks of having that conversation with
Grizz
.
A divorce wasn’t necessary since our marriage was never legal. Just as
Grizz
had asked of me, I was legally wed to another man
when our daughter was born.

     
She was a big
baby.
No surprise there, given the size of her father.
I was in labor for twenty-four hours before they finally performed an emergency
C-section. As I was wheeled into surgery, I remember my new husband and friends
telling me, “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

     
Grizz
insisted she be given my husband’s last name and that
she was never to know
Grizz
was her biological
father. He made me swear I would never tell.

     
“I believe you
when you tell me you love me, Kit. If you really do, you’ll never tell her.”

     
“If she tries to,
someday she can look back and figure out the timing,
Grizz
.
I don’t see how I could keep it from her.”

     
“Then lie. Tell
her you cheated on me. I don’t care if you tell her that. I don’t want her to
know I’m her father.”

     
Mimi would grow
into a beautiful girl. She would never ask, and I was able to keep my promise
to
Grizz
.

 
    
Cary
told me
Grizz
wanted to plead guilty in order to
protect everyone else. The problem was he would have received life in prison
without parole. There was no way
Grizz
would agree to
stay in prison for life.

     
So he would plead
guilty in exchange for a death sentence.

     
“No!” I cried
when they told me.

     
“Don’t worry,”
Cary explained. “I don’t think the State of Florida is in the assisted-suicide
business. They wouldn’t be able to agree to that. He’ll have to go to trial. Having
him live the remainder of his life in prison would make them happy, but they
chance him getting out on a technicality somewhere down the road. I have no
doubt the prosecutors will push for the death penalty. It’s still too early to
know if he’ll get it and you need to prepare yourself in case he does.”

     
“I don’t care if
he wants the death penalty. I’m counting on you, Cary, to make sure he gets
life in prison. And if he does get it, he can maybe get out on a technicality
somewhere down the road?”

     
“Ginny, of course
I’m going to do my best to protect him from the death penalty. But, you need to
know that if he does get life, there’s no guarantee a technicality might come up.”
        

     
“But Matthew told
me you were the best, Cary. I’m expecting you to get him out of this!”

     
“You don’t
understand, Ginny. There is no getting out. And Jason knows it. He’s having me
negotiate with the prosecution so certain people aren’t touched. Especially
you. They’ll dig. They’ll find a way to bring you down to get to him. He’s
trying to avoid that.”

     
“But we’ve got
Sam!” I blurted out, tears swimming. “Sam will testify for us. He’ll talk about
the Stockholm syndrome. How it was normal for me to stay with
Grizz
.”

     
“You’re the main
reason, Ginny, but do I need to tell you how many people are involved in this?
How many names have come across the prosecution’s desk? All of them: Grunt,
Fess, Blue, Chowder,
Chicky
.
Even Eddie, the tattoo guy.
Even he’ll be left alone.
Of course, he’ll have to go back to just doing ink and nothing extracurricular.
But the list is endless.”

     
Then he answered
an unspoken question. “He’s only giving up his informants who took bribes.
Nobody he blackmailed.”

     
I was secretly relieved
to hear
Grizz’s
inside network of law enforcement
informants weren’t
all bad
. I was glad to know the law
in South Florida wasn’t as corrupt as I’d originally thought.

____________

That’s
pretty much how it went during the two years leading up to the trial. Two years
of negotiations. Who would they go after? Who would they leave alone?
Grizz
insisted Chowder, whose real name was John Lawrence,
be allowed to remain at the motel as long as he wanted. It didn’t matter.
Chowder died of a heart attack before
Grizz
went to
trial.

     
Our home was also
off the table. I was able to keep the house and everything on the property at
the time of
Grizz’s
arrest. It included everything in
our home, our cars and his motorcycles. I also didn’t have to worry about money.
There was enough to pay for the attorneys and live comfortably for a very long
time.

     
Years ago, and
without my knowledge,
Grizz
had Fess and Grunt open
up investment accounts in my real name—so much for the gang’s code of not
using real names. It wasn’t an issue, anyway. Early on, Grunt, Fess and their
finances were left alone in exchange for
Grizz’s
cooperation on other matters.
Grizz
gave up two men who
headed up his drug empire in exchange for their immunity. They were off the
table and it was early in the negotiations, so their names never got released
to the public. I was grateful. It would have affected their careers. And
besides, there were bigger fish to fry.

     
The negotiations
continued. Another man, I actually think it was the old man from the warehouse
in Pompano Beach, was given up for
Chicky’s
immunity.
And that’s how it went until the day of
Grizz’s
trial. Just like a chess game,
Grizz
meticulously
calculated each move. He gave up the goods on some people in order to protect
others. He even insisted some of the people he protected bear witness against
him at trial.

     
He was doing his
best to convince a jury that he should get the death penalty.

     
And he did.