Chapter 5: What Gareth Pullman Didn't Expect
Mom called on Monday morning.
I was at school.
She didn't tell me she was going to do it that day — I found out when I got home and she was sitting at the kitchen table with a legal pad in front of her, three pages of notes in her handwriting, and a look on her face that I had never seen before.
Not angry.
Worse than angry.
Controlled.
"Sit down," she said.
I sat.
"I spoke to Gareth Pullman's office.
He's still practicing.
Same number, same address.
His assistant answered and I told her I was calling about a trust account set up for my daughter approximately seven years ago." Mom looked at her notes.
"She put me on hold for four minutes.
When she came back, she said Mr.
Pullman would call me personally within the hour."
"Did he?"
"Eighteen minutes later."
I waited.
"He was very careful on the phone," Mom said.
"Careful in the way people are when they're not sure how much you know.
He said the account had been active.
Said contributions had been made regularly.
Said the disbursement instructions had been updated."
"Updated how?"
Mom turned the legal pad so I could read it.
She had written one line in capital letters and underlined it twice.
*DISBURSEMENT ADDRESS CHANGED — SEVEN YEARS AGO — BY WRITTEN REQUEST.*
"Someone changed where the money was being sent," I said.
"Yes."
"Who?"
"He wouldn't say over the phone.
He said it would require a formal request and verification of identity.
But—" Mom tapped the page.
"He also said something he probably didn't mean to say.
He said the written request had come with documentation he had no reason to question at the time."
"What kind of documentation?"
"He said it appeared to be a signed letter from my attorney."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"You don't have an attorney," I said.
"No," Mom said.
"I never have."
She picked up the legal pad and set it face-down on the table.
"Someone forged a letter," she said.
"Someone who knew Robert had set up that account.
Someone who knew enough about our family to make it look legitimate.
And for seven years, the money went somewhere else."
"How much money?" I asked.
Mom looked at me.
"Pullman wouldn't give me the full figure.
But he said the contributions had been consistent.
Monthly.
For seven years." She paused.
"He said it was not a small amount."
I sat back in my chair.
"Who knew about the account?" I said.
"Besides Robert and the lawyer?"
Mom picked up her pen.
Turned the legal pad back over.
At the bottom of the third page, she had written one name.
Just one.
With a question mark beside it.
She turned it so I could see.
I recognized the name immediately.
It was my grandmother.
May you like
My father's mother.
A woman I had met exactly twice — once at a funeral when I was six, and once when she appeared at our door unannounced when I was ten, looked at Dan, and left without coming inside.
