PART 4 — THE SECOND SET OF BOOKS
For a moment, nobody in the office moved.
I looked at Scott and tried to decide whether I had heard him correctly.
“You just weren’t supposed to know about her.”
Those words sat between us.
My husband and I had been married forty-six years.
Forty-six.
We had raised two children, buried both our parents, survived layoffs, surgeries, one flooded basement, and seventeen Christmases when somebody swore they were never speaking to somebody else again.
I knew how he took his coffee.
I knew which knee hurt before rain.
I knew he kept emergency cash behind the old photograph of our children in his desk.
At least, I thought I knew.
“What do you mean I wasn’t supposed to know?”
Scott shifted in his chair.
“Ma, this is complicated.”
“No. Complicated is Medicare paperwork. Tell me who Caroline Mercer is.”
He glanced at Mr. Alvarez.
“I don’t think we should be discussing Dad’s private business in front of strangers.”
The manager answered calmly.
“This is Mrs. Bennett’s account. Mrs. Bennett decides who remains in the room.”
Scott looked at me.
I said, “They stay.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he leaned back.
“Dad had investments.”
“I know.”
“Not all of them.”
That hurt more than I expected.
I kept my face still.
“What investments?”
Scott rubbed his palms against his trousers.
“A separate portfolio.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You’ve been managing my finances for four years, but suddenly you don’t know numbers?”
His eyes flashed.
“That’s not fair.”
I almost admired the nerve of him.
Mr. Alvarez interrupted.
“What was Miss Mercer’s role?”
Scott hesitated.
“She kept records for Dad.”
“What records?”
“Investment records.”
The manager looked down at her computer.
“Was she licensed as a financial adviser?”
“I don’t know.”
“Accountant?”
“I don’t know.”
“Attorney?”
“No.”
I looked at Scott.
“Then what exactly was she?”
He didn’t answer.
Mr. Alvarez turned his notebook around.
“Mr. Bennett, your mother’s account has sent Caroline Mercer $1,850 on the third of every month.”
My breath caught.
I had never known the amount.
Scott had.
Of course he had.
Mr. Alvarez continued.
“Forty-seven payments.”
The manager tapped a calculator.
“That’s $86,950.”
I stared at her.
Eighty-six thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars.
While I had been living on forty dollars a week.
I thought about standing in the grocery store comparing two cans of peaches because one was thirty-seven cents cheaper.
I thought about skipping lunch after church because the ladies were going somewhere that charged fourteen dollars for soup and a sandwich.
I thought about knitting my granddaughter’s birthday present because Scott told me money was tight.
Eighty-six thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars.
“To Caroline?” I whispered.
“Yes,” the manager said.
I turned to my son.
“What did she do for eighty-seven thousand dollars?”
Scott’s voice dropped.
“She kept quiet.”
Nobody moved.
The manager’s fingers froze above her keyboard.
Mr. Alvarez slowly put down his pen.
I felt strangely calm.
“About what?”
Scott immediately shook his head.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But you did.”
“Ma—”
“About what?”
He stood.
“I need some air.”
Mr. Alvarez stood too.
“I would prefer you remain until we’ve clarified the disputed transactions.”
Scott looked toward the door.
“You can’t keep me here.”
“No,” Mr. Alvarez said. “We cannot.”
Scott reached for the handle.
I spoke before he opened it.
“If you leave, I’m freezing every authorization you have on my accounts before you reach the parking lot.”
His hand stopped.
I had never spoken to my son that way.
Apparently he had never heard me speak that way either.
Slowly, he turned around.
“Ma, don’t do something stupid because you’re angry.”
There it was again.
Not informed.
Not careful.
Stupid.
I smiled.
“Sit down, Scott.”
He stared at me.
Then he sat.
The manager opened another screen.
“Mrs. Bennett, there is something else you should see.”
Scott’s head snapped toward her.
“What else?”
She ignored him.
“During our review Tuesday, we traced the recurring transfers back to the original authorization.”
She slid a printed page toward me.
“The authorization did not begin after your husband’s death.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“The first payment was scheduled six months before he died.”
I looked at Scott.
His face told me he already knew.
“So your father arranged this?”
Scott nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
A tiny piece of relief moved through me.
Maybe Scott hadn’t created the payments.
Maybe this was something my husband had done.
Something foolish perhaps, but explainable.
Then the manager continued.
“But the original payments were not taken from your personal checking account.”
My relief disappeared.
“They came from an account held solely in your husband’s name.”
She pointed to a line.
“After his death, that account was closed.”
I understood before she finished.
“Someone moved the payment.”
“Yes.”
“Into my account.”
“Yes.”
I turned to Scott.
He looked down.
“Did you do that?”
“Dad wanted Caroline paid.”
“Did you do that?”
He exhaled.
“Yes.”
“Without asking me?”
“I was following Dad’s instructions.”
“Where are those instructions?”
Silence.
Mr. Alvarez asked, “Were they included in the will?”
“No.”
“Trust documents?”
“No.”
“Written contract?”
Scott shook his head.
“Dad told me.”
“When?”
“A few weeks before he died.”
I felt something shift inside me.
My husband had been in the hospital for most of those weeks.
I had been there every day.
Scott visited three times.
I remembered because I had been angry about it.
“Where did he tell you?”
Scott hesitated.
“At the hospital.”
“What day?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was I there?”
“No.”
“Was a nurse there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was anybody there?”
He slammed his palm against the table.
“Jesus, Ma! He was my father! He asked me to take care of something, and I did!”
The manager flinched.
I didn’t.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Scott stared at me.
I waited.
Finally, he said, “Because Dad told me not to.”
That answer hurt.
But something about it bothered me more than the secrecy itself.
If my husband wanted Caroline paid after his death, why had he not provided for it legally?
He was careful with money.
Painfully careful.
The kind of man who kept receipts for toaster warranties.
He would not leave an $1,850 monthly obligation resting on a conversation nobody could prove happened.
I looked at the manager.
“You said there were two certificates.”
“Yes.”
“Were those my husband’s?”
“One was.”
“And the other?”
She hesitated.
Then she turned her monitor slightly toward me.
“The second certificate was opened approximately three weeks after your husband’s death.”
I stared at the balance.
$214,600.
I stopped breathing for a second.
“I opened that?”
“Your name is the primary holder.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
Scott closed his eyes.
I turned toward him.
“Where did that money come from?”
He said nothing.
“Scott.”
His voice was tired now.
“Dad.”
The manager shook her head.
“Not according to our records.”
Scott looked up sharply.
She pulled another document from the folder.
“The funds arrived by wire transfer.”
“From where?” I asked.
She looked at me carefully.
“An account belonging to Caroline Mercer.”
Scott stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
“That isn’t relevant.”
Mr. Alvarez’s expression changed.
I had seen that expression once before, years ago, on a police officer who came to our neighborhood after somebody broke into Dottie’s garage.
It was the look of a person who had just realized the situation was bigger than originally believed.
I looked at the numbers again.
Caroline had sent $214,600 into an account in my name.
Then, month after month, money had been going back to her.
“What was the wire marked?” I asked.
The manager looked at the document.
“There was a memo.”
Scott said, “Ma, don’t.”
That was when I knew I needed to hear it.
“Read it.”
The manager hesitated.
Then she did.
“Beneficiary settlement.”
My mouth went dry.
“Beneficiary of what?”
Scott was staring at me.
Not angrily anymore.
He looked frightened.
“Ma.”
“What?”
“You need to understand something before you start digging into this.”
“I’m listening.”
He swallowed.
“Dad wasn’t hiding Caroline because she was his bookkeeper.”
I felt the room shrink around me.
“You just said she was.”
“She did keep records for him.”
“But?”
Scott looked toward the shoebox.
Then at the statements.
Then finally at me.
“When Dad died, Caroline had something that belonged to him.”
“What?”
“I can’t explain it here.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
“Scott.”
He shook his head.
“You think I’m the one who has been stealing from you.”
“Aren’t you?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he said something I was not prepared for.
“Some of it.”
The manager went completely still.
My heart began pounding.
“Some?”
Scott lowered his voice.
“The management money was me.”
There it was.
No excuse.
No misunderstanding.
A confession.
“But the money going to Caroline wasn’t for me.”
I stared at my son.
“Then what was it for?”
Scott looked at the manager.
“Can you pull up the certificate beneficiary?”
She frowned.
“Mrs. Bennett is the owner.”
“I didn’t ask the owner.”
Silence.
“I asked who receives it when she dies.”
The manager typed.
Her eyes moved across the screen.
Then stopped.
She looked at me.
“Mrs. Bennett…”
Something in her voice frightened me more than anything Scott had said.
“What?”
She turned the monitor.
There was one beneficiary listed on the certificate containing $214,600.
It wasn’t Scott.
It wasn’t my daughter.
It wasn’t either of my grandchildren.
It wasn’t even Caroline Mercer.
It was a name I had not seen in forty-two years.
A name my husband had once made me promise never to mention again.
I gripped the edge of the desk.
Scott whispered,
“That’s why Dad was paying Caroline.”
I stared at the name.
And suddenly, the money was no longer the biggest secret my husband had left behind.
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