Part 4
I sat with my feet on the motel’s rough carpet while he explained what I’d already known before picking up the phone.
“Your father completed the gifts while he was living,” he said. “They weren’t promises in his will. These assets belong to you now, and they belonged to you before Wednesday.”
“I needed somebody else to say it.”
His papers went quiet.
“Do you think Vivian will dispute them?”
“If she can find something to dispute.”
“Then we’ll answer the documents she has with the documents we have.”
After the call, I stayed on the bed until the refrigerator beside the dresser rattled to a stop.
That evening, I opened the portfolio. Dad and I had reviewed it every quarter, and he would wait while I found an answer myself. Alone, I still caught myself turning toward the empty chair.
The building came first: six floors, thirty-two tenants, fully occupied for three years. Its current appraisal put it just under eighteen million dollars. I checked lease renewals at higher rents, repair costs, and the reserve.
The index funds held about four point two million. Dad’s later gifts, my salary contributions, and years of rental distributions had added to the original account; reinvested dividends had helped it grow.
My equity interests in eight commercial properties across three states were worth about five point eight million. Reinvested rent and investment gains had helped pay for them. The cash reserve brought the combined value to roughly twenty-eight million.
I checked the totals against the supporting records. The notes were familiar, right down to the ones Dad used to ask me to read before I questioned an expense.
I wanted to call him about one that had risen. Instead, I closed the spreadsheet and sat with the laptop on my knees.
I learned the details of Vivian’s inventory afterward, from Raymond’s records and things Natalie eventually wrote. The morning after the funeral, Vivian brought in an appraiser named Sutton. He worked Sundays, and she wanted the earliest appointment he could give her.
He measured the rooms, looked into the attic, and examined the basement. His estimate was around four hundred and ten thousand dollars. Vivian wrote it on an envelope and drew two lines beneath it.
On Monday, she went to County Trust Bank with a death certificate. The household savings account, the one held in Dad’s name that she’d been managing under his power of attorney, contained a hundred and sixty thousand dollars before the withdrawal that would come later that day.
She asked them to search for other accounts. The bank found none there.
Back home, Natalie listened to the figures while standing beside the refrigerator with a glass in her hand.
“What about the offices downtown?” she asked.
Vivian looked up from the envelope.
“What offices?”
“The building. Thomas asked Elise about it. More than once.”
Natalie couldn’t tell her an address or an account number. She knew only what she’d heard over dinner, before Vivian changed the subject.
Vivian called Raymond’s office and asked to move the meeting forward. He couldn’t do it before Thursday. She accepted the appointment she already had and put the phone down beside the underlined house value.
On Monday, I extended the motel booking through the estate meeting. That evening, Vivian called.
“Elise, I hope I’m not interrupting.”
I was sitting at the little desk with a takeout container beside my laptop. I’d never heard that concern in her voice when she asked me to clear a table.
“What do you need?”
“Natalie remembered your father mentioning a property. I’ve looked through his desk, and there’s nothing helpful. Do you have paperwork?”
“Raymond will go over the assets on Thursday.”
“I’m asking you. I spent twenty-two years married to Thomas. I shouldn’t have to wait for a meeting to learn what he had.”
I put the lid on the container. “The meeting is where the records will be explained.”
“You could save us all a great deal of time.”
“I’ll be there with what needs to be brought.”
Her courtesy thinned. She asked for an address, then for the kind of property, then whether I was refusing to help her. I gave her the same answer without raising my voice.
She ended the call, then called twice more. There was no message about how I was sleeping or what had happened at the funeral.
I moved the phone away from the edge of the desk so it wouldn’t fall while vibrating. Then I switched it off.
On Tuesday morning, Judith reached me before I’d had coffee. “Raymond has been checking the bank records,” she said. “Vivian took eighty thousand dollars out yesterday.”
I pulled the chair closer to the desk. “From the household savings?”
“With the power of attorney. She asked for a cashier’s check. They processed it even though she’d already brought them the death certificate.”
I looked at the calendar I’d written on a motel notepad. Dad had been dead five days when the money left the account.
“That authority ended when he died.”
“That’s what Raymond said. Simon needs to see it.”
Within the hour, Simon had reviewed the transaction with Raymond. The bank had accepted authority that expired when Dad died.
“What happens now?”
“We document the payment, its destination, and any legitimate expense she says it covered. Raymond will require an accounting. The bank’s handling of it will need attention, too.”
The funeral invoice was a little over eight thousand dollars. Most of the withdrawal had nothing apparent to do with burying Dad. I asked him to bring the records on Thursday.
“I’ve already put them with the other files,” he said.
Afterward, I shut the laptop and left the transaction records with the people whose job it was to handle them.
Thursday afternoon, I met Simon outside Raymond Foster’s office on Linden Avenue. A dental practice occupied the ground floor; the law office was upstairs. Across the street, a bakery had its door propped open, and the smell of warm pastry reached the sidewalk.
The elevator had a handwritten notice taped over its button. We used the stairs. Simon carried a leather case, and I could hear a folder shift inside it at each turn.
Through the conference-room doorway, I saw Vivian seated near Raymond’s place. Natalie sat beside her, worrying the clasp of a small purse. Judith had taken a chair farther down the table.
Dad’s cousins, Walter and Peter, were by the window. Both wore suits they usually reserved for weddings and funerals. Peter lifted a hand when he saw me.
I went in with Simon at my side.
Vivian looked past me to his case. “Is someone joining us?” “Simon Avery. He represents me.” “For what?” She made a small, impatient movement with her fingers. “This is a family meeting.” I pulled out my chair. “Then I belong at it…”
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