And now she was banged up in the hospital facing lawsuits and a nasty drunk driving charge. Why in hell was he in the middle of this mess?
Greed.
At least he could admit it.
Dinner was a tuna melt in the rear of Ethel’s Diner, four doors down from his office. There was a small aluminum tree by the front cash register. “Jingle Bells” played softly in the background. It would be his first Christmas away from home, away from the kids, which saddened him greatly.
Uglier thoughts, though, were more pressing. It was time to confront Eleanor and demand all of her financial records. And once he had them, and once he knew for sure that her last will and testament was a scam, he would immediately take steps to get rid of her as a client. She was facing enormous legal troubles, all of her own making, and he was not about to get roped in as her lawyer. She wouldn’t even pay his first bill for $3,650. If he didn’t cut the cord and do so immediately, he could be on the hook for her DUI, normally a $5,000 fee, and the lawsuits from her car wreck. There was no way to calculate those fees, not to mention the damages, when the lawsuits started flying.
He managed to chuckle at the irony of himself, a bankruptcy lawyer, being forced to file a bankruptcy for Eleanor Barnett, a wacky old gal who’d probably gone through life lying about her assets. The humor didn’t last. He paid for his dinner and stepped onto the sidewalk. Across the street, carolers serenaded a small crowd in front of the Episcopal church. For a moment, he missed home.
Dessert was a bourbon and ginger ale, the first of the evening, and he needed it because of the unpleasant task at hand. On a small table in the corner of his office, he spread out Netty’s monthly bills, current and past due, and opened the bulky notebook that held her checks. He unclipped the three rings and removed the stubs. He flipped to the back to see how many checks were available. There were plenty. In the back binder there was a folder that was almost undetectable. Inside it, carefully tucked away, was a small, thin notebook, eight inches by five. He removed it, opened it, and looked at the first lined page. In the center was the year: 2015. At the bottom, in small, neat cursive was the name: Eleanor Barnett. He turned the page. In blue ink, she wrote:
April 4, per BB: Coca-cola at $41, 238,000 shares, total $9,758,000
WMart at $51, 127,000 shares, total $6,400,000
Per Albert, East Federal Atlanta, cash acct: $362,000
East Fed money mkt acct: $890,000
East Fed jumbo cd: $744,000
East Fed T-bills acct: $501,000
Third Fed 2016 cd: $522,000
East Fed 2017 cd: $1,330,000
Simon stared at the numbers without breathing for a long time, then he tried to tally them mentally. He was afraid to move, but eventually turned the page to July 6. The numbers varied slightly. Evidently, Netty preferred to round things off to the nearest ten grand.
Then to October 7. It was obvious that BB and Albert called her during the first week after each quarter with the updates. He assumed BB was Buddy Brown. He had no idea who Albert was but he worked for East Federal.
He sipped his drink and felt his entire body relax as a mountain of pressure drifted from his shoulders. The bourbon had wound its way to his brain and calmed things considerably.
The notebook made perfect sense. Eleanor was obsessed with secrecy and perpetually afraid that someone would discover her stocks and cash. So, she kept no evidence of them. Rumke-Brown and East Federal did not send her monthly statements because she didn’t want them. They did, though, call with the quarterly summaries. Eleanor was a smart woman who kept tabs on her money.
The last entry was December 6, almost three weeks earlier. At the bottom of the page she noted: Coke up 4 % for year; WMart up 2.5 %. CD rates still too low.
Simon could almost see her taking careful notes during the quarterly calls, then sliding the notebook back into its hiding place. It had only twenty-five sheets of onionskin paper, a slightly beige color. He wondered where she hid the notebooks from previous years.
Santa had just arrived and Simon felt a measure of vindication. He hadn’t been such a fool after all. His dear Netty was loaded to the max and he would be in charge of her estate one day. He poured out his drink, brushed his teeth, gargled with mouthwash, left his office, and drove to the hospital.
She was watching television in the dark when he eased into the room, tapping on the door. “Netty, it’s me. Are you awake?”
Her face glowed with a huge smile and she held out her right arm, IVs and all. He squeezed her fragile, bony hand and whispered, “How are you doing?”
“Much better now,” she said warmly and with a voice stronger than he expected. “Thanks for stopping by again, Simon.”
It was his third visit of the day. He glanced at the counter near her bed. There were three bouquets of flowers, all sent by his office.
“Any other visitors?” he asked. As always, he was afraid Wally Thackerman or some other lawyer might be slithering around.
“No, no one but you,” she said sadly.
“I stopped by your house. Everything is fine. Your neighbors, Norris and Rose, knocked on the door.”
“What did they want?”
“Nothing, just saw my car and thought they should check into things. I told them I was your lawyer and things were fine.”
“He’s okay. She’s rather snooty, thinks she’s a notch above. They tried to join the country club but couldn’t get in.”
Simon really didn’t care. “They were very nice. Just curious.”
“Too curious.” She muted the television and said, “Pull up a chair and let’s talk. I’m worried sick about this accident, Simon. I don’t think it was my fault.”
He wrestled the chair over and squeezed into it.
“Are those people okay? The ones in the other car?”
“They’ll be fine,” he said. Both had broken bones and were missing work. They would hire a lawyer, and when they realized she had no insurance, they would probably file suit. However, at the moment, Simon wasn’t worried about litigation, for now he knew the truth about Netty’s assets. He could easily negotiate a generous settlement and put the matter to rest. As for the DUI, he couldn’t make it go away, but he doubted the prosecutor would be too harsh, given her age. Plus, Simon would offer to pay a huge fine. Money usually allowed the guilty to get off light.
How pleasant it is to have money, he thought.
“How’s the food?” he asked.
“Dreadful. Typical hospital stuff.”
“Okay, what do you want? How about some egg rolls from that Korean place? Or Chinese dumplings? We’ve tried everything in town.”
“What a marvelous idea, Simon. I’ll take a bunch of egg rolls, those stuffed with shrimp.”
“You got ’em. I’ll be there when they open in the morning.”
“What would I do without you, Simon?”
Chapter 26
Two days before Christmas, Matilda announced that she was leaving an hour early to do some shopping. Since the legal profession was known for loafing through half of December anyway, the office was quiet, and Simon didn’t care when she left. He was re-drafting some leases for a real estate client, work that was so dull he’d been putting it off for a month. He was determined to finish it now and not punt it into 2016, a year that promised to be just as tedious and unproductive as the present, unless, of course, some lucrative estate work popped up. Eleanor Barnett’s estate. He shook his head as he once again thought of the hours he had wasted dreaming of her death.