Chapter 8: What Patricia Holt Needed to Hear
Patricia Holt's office was on the fourth floor of a building near the city center.
She was a compact woman in her fifties with reading glasses pushed up on her head and the manner of someone who had heard a great many things and been surprised by very few of them.
She had agreed to see us Monday morning — me, Ruth, Vanessa, and Gerald — on forty minutes' notice, which told me that Gerald's name still carried weight in certain rooms.
We sat across from her desk.
I laid Gerald's folder on the surface between us.
"I'll tell you what I know," I said.
"Then I'd like to know what you can do with it."
She listened without interrupting.
She made notes in a small, precise hand.
When I finished, she looked at the documents for a long moment before she looked up.
"The condition in the will is clear," she said.
"A legal marriage or a registered civil partnership, with twelve months of documented cohabitation.
As of today, Mr.
Marsh has not met that condition."
"He came very close," I said.
"Yes.
He did." She set her pen down.
"What you've described — the interception of correspondence, the blocking of communications, the deliberate concealment of a child and an active legal dispute — these are not matters I can act on directly.
But they are matters that affect my assessment of Mr.
Marsh's fitness to benefit from the estate under the terms his father set."
"Can you delay the transfer?" Gerald asked.
"I can flag concerns and initiate a review.
That review would require documentation." She looked at the folder.
"This is a start.
I would also want statements — from you, from Ms.
Vanessa, from Claire if she's willing."
"What does a review do to his timeline?" I asked.
"It pauses it.
A formal review of a contested estate condition can take months.
If Mr.
Marsh cannot demonstrate that he meets the condition by the deadline — and cannot demonstrate it cleanly — the estate divides as the secondary clause describes."
"He loses two-thirds," Ruth said.
"He receives one-third," Patricia said precisely.
"Which is still a legal inheritance.
But given the debts Mr.
Marsh has accumulated against the anticipated full amount—" She glanced at Gerald's debt summary.
"—a third would leave him in a difficult position."
"He'll fight it," I said.
"He will.
And he may win, in part.
I want to be honest with you about that.
Estate law is not swift, and Mr.
Marsh will have his own legal representation." She looked at me directly.
"But the question of whether he met the condition in good faith — that is a question I am now obligated to examine."
I nodded.
"I'll need you to put your account in writing," she said.
"All of it.
The timeline, the intercepted letters, the blocked communications, the custody filing date relative to the proposal.
Everything."
"I can have it to you by tomorrow."
"Good." She closed her notepad.
"One more thing.
Mr.
Marsh will likely be informed that a review has been initiated.
When that happens, he will know it came from somewhere.
Are you prepared for that?"
The room was quiet.
"Yes," I said.
She looked at each of us in turn.
Gerald.
Vanessa.
Ruth.
May you like
Me.
"Then we have somewhere to begin," she said.
