Chương 7
“Three. Maybe four.”
“Maybe?”
“I didn’t keep a list.”
“Did you use his debit card?”
“For groceries, prescriptions, adult briefs, heating oil.”
“Did you keep receipts?”
“Mostly.”
Claire stared at her.
“Not all of them,” Althea said.
The warmth in Claire’s face disappeared by degrees.
“I didn’t steal from him.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You thought it.”
“I’m trying not to.”
Claire picked up her coffee and poured it into the trash.
Althea wanted to explain that people who spent their lives organized around receipts had never tried to buy medicine while an old man screamed through the phone because he believed his dead wife was locked outside. She wanted to say that sometimes she paid Bill’s bill with her card and sometimes her bill with his and corrected it later. She wanted to say that poverty turned every transaction into a moral test administered by people who had never chosen between heating oil and antibiotics.
Instead, she said, “I should have kept better records.”
“Yes,” Claire said. “You should have.”
Miriam Voss’s office occupied the second floor of a converted house near the courthouse. The waiting room had two armchairs, a dead plant, and a receptionist who spoke softly enough to make everyone else lower their voice.
Althea arrived Monday morning with the blue box in a reusable grocery bag.
Richard and Gordon Pike were already there.
Miriam was in her early sixties, with close-cropped gray hair and red reading glasses hanging from a cord around her neck. She asked Althea to place the box on the conference table. Gordon objected when Miriam opened it without an inventory witness. Miriam pointed out that the contents had been photographed and that all parties were present.
The blue ledger contained twenty years of handwritten entries.
Some pages recorded ordinary expenses: furnace repairs, property tax, hospital copays, a new transmission for Evan’s truck. Other pages listed money given to Richard.
Twelve thousand dollars in 2008.
Twenty-five thousand in 2012.
Eight thousand five hundred in 2014.
Forty thousand in 2019.
Several entries had the word loan beside them. Others said advance. One said Richard promised Margaret he would repay.
Beside the largest amount, Bill had written, Took from Evan’s truck money. Must make right.
Richard sat motionless.
Althea looked at him. “What truck money?”
He did not answer.
Evan’s red pickup had disappeared after his death. Bill told Althea he had sold it for thirty-two hundred dollars because the engine had seized. She had been too numb to ask for paperwork. She had signed the title because both their names were on it.
Miriam opened one of the bank envelopes.
Inside was a cashier’s check receipt showing that the truck had sold through a collector auction for twenty-eight thousand dollars. The proceeds had been deposited into Bill’s account. Two days later, twenty-five thousand had been transferred to Richard’s flooring company.
Althea read the dates twice.
“That was Evan’s,” she said.
Richard folded his arms.
Gordon Pike said, “We are not here to litigate decades of informal family transactions.”
“It was six years ago,” Althea replied.
“The transfer was made by Bill, not my client.”
“After he lied to me.”
Miriam placed one hand on the ledger. “Bill’s letter says the pillow money was what remained after he corrected a mistake. I believe this is the mistake he meant.”
“Belief is not evidence,” Gordon said.
Miriam gave him a patient look. “The recorded beneficiary deed is evidence.”
She removed a certified copy from a folder.
Bill had signed it on October 14. It named Althea as beneficiary of the house upon his death. Two witnesses had signed. The county recorder’s stamp appeared at the top.
Richard looked at Claire.
She shook her head. “I wasn’t in the room.”
Miriam said, “I asked Claire to wait in reception. Bill met with me alone. I also arranged an independent capacity evaluation that morning because I anticipated a challenge.”
Gordon took the deed. “By whom?”
“Bill was specific.”
Richard’s mouth tightened.
The evaluation had been performed by a geriatric psychiatrist. Bill had correctly identified his property, his heirs, the nature of the transfer, and the likely effect on Richard. He had failed to remember the exact year and had called the attorney Margaret once. The psychiatrist concluded that he had testamentary capacity and understood the beneficiary deed.
Gordon read the report without expression.
Miriam opened Bill’s will.
It left the cash and coin collection to Althea. Claire received Margaret’s jewelry, family photographs, and the black oil lantern. Denise received Bill’s woodworking tools and a walnut cabinet he had promised her mother. The remaining personal property was to be divided by agreement or sold.
Richard received the folded flag, Bill’s military records, the red pickup photograph, and forgiveness of a ten-thousand-dollar promissory note.
“That’s all?” Richard asked.
Miriam looked over her glasses. “Those are the specific gifts.”
“My daughter gets jewelry. Denise gets tools. Althea gets the house and forty thousand dollars, and I get paper.”
“The residual estate is divided between you and Evan’s estate after expenses and any adjustments.”
“What adjustments?”
Miriam glanced at the ledger.
Gordon put his hand on Richard’s arm. Richard pulled away.
“You helped him do this,” he said to Miriam.
“I represented him.”
“You hated me before you met me.”
“I did not know you.”
“He told you lies.”
“He told me he was afraid you would take whatever remained before he died.”
Richard stood.
The movement knocked his chair backward.
“He was afraid of dying. He was afraid of hospitals. He was afraid of shadows in the hallway. She filled his head with this.”
Althea’s throat tightened, but she stayed seated.
Miriam said, “Bill retained me after someone attempted to withdraw seventy-five thousand dollars from his savings account using a power of attorney he had revoked.”
The room went still.
Richard’s face did not.
That was worse.
Gordon turned toward him. “What is she referring to?”
May you like
Richard looked at the window.
Miriam removed the photocopied statements from the box. “Three electronic transfers were initiated from Bill’s account to Vale Commercial Flooring. Two cleared. The third was stopped after Bill contacted the bank through my office. Total amount transferred: fifty-two thousand dollars.”
