Chapter 6 - The Paper Trail
The week following the memorial, Captain Vance summoned me back to the JAG legal office. He had a thick financial binder on his desk, marked with red tabs.
"Mrs. Morgan, after your father’s actions at the gate and the shop incident, the Pierce County prosecutor’s office initiated a preliminary inquiry into Arthur’s financial dealings involving your past accounts," Vance said, leaning forward.
"My past accounts?"
"The money you sent home during your first enlistment," Vance clarified. "Four hundred dollars a month, from age nineteen to twenty-four. That totals twenty-four thousand dollars."
I frowned. "He told me he was holding it in an escrow savings account for me, to help me buy a house when I left the service."
Captain Vance turned the binder toward me. Bank records, obtained via subpoena regarding the fraudulent power-of-attorney attempt, lay neatly indexed.
"Arthur never deposited a dime of that money into an escrow account," Vance said plainly. "He diverted it directly into his personal checking account. Furthermore, he claimed you as a dependent on his state business tax filings for two consecutive years while you were on active duty in Texas, fraudulently deducting your military income as a 'family contribution' to offset his commercial liabilities."
The air left my chest. The betrayal wasn't just a sudden crime of opportunity after David’s death; it had been an orchestrated system of extraction spanning years.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"The county prosecutor is offering him a choice," Vance replied. "He can either face felony financial fraud charges for the power-of-attorney forgery attempt and tax misrepresentation, or he can sign an immediate, irrevocable quitclaim deed to your Honda Civic, sign an unconditional surrender of all claims to your estate, and agree to a permanent restraining order covering the next ten years."
"Will he take the deal?"
"Your brother Derek provided the prosecutor with the shop's ledgers yesterday morning," Vance said with a slight smirk. "Arthur has no leverage, no defenses, and no allies left in the county. He will sign."
May you like
I closed my eyes, feeling a heavy weight slip off my shoulders like a discarded rucksack. "Let him sign it. I don't want his money. I just want his shadow completely out of our lives."
***
