Chapter 7: Marcus Webb Arrives
Marcus Webb was sixty-one, drove a ten-year-old Volvo, and wore the same style of brown corduroy jacket in every season.
He did not look like someone who frightened people.
He was, in my experience, one of the most frightening people I had ever met in a professional context.
He arrived in thirty-eight minutes.
I met him at the door.
"The parents are inside?" he said quietly.
"Both.
Father's been on his phone for the last twenty minutes.
Something about a frozen account."
Marcus's expression didn't change.
"That would be the elder financial exploitation flag.
Banks are required to report and hold when the pattern meets the threshold." He glanced past me toward the living room.
"Your grandmother filed something at the courthouse today?"
"Revocation of POA.
Notarized, filed with the recorder."
"Good.
That's very good." He stepped inside.
Grandma rose when she saw him.
They shook hands with the ease of people who had been introduced before, though I didn't remember when.
"Eleanor," Marcus said.
"I'm sorry it came to this."
"I'm not," she said.
"Sit down, Marcus.
There's a great deal to go through."
Arthur looked up from the couch.
His phone call had ended badly — I'd heard enough from the kitchen to understand that.
Whatever account he'd been counting on had been locked, and the person on the other end had not been sympathetic.
He looked at Marcus the way people look at doctors who arrive after the accident.
"Who is this?" Arthur said.
"Marcus Webb," Marcus said pleasantly.
"I'm an attorney.
I represent your mother's interests." He set his briefcase on the coffee table and opened it.
"I'll need everyone to remain present while I go through a few things.
This won't take long."
"I don't have to answer to—"
"Arthur." Marcus's voice stayed level.
"You're not being asked questions yet.
Please sit."
Arthur sat.
Marcus spent the next twenty minutes going through the documents Grandma had brought from the safety deposit box.
He examined the bank records, the list she had written in February, the POA revocation paperwork, and the house deed.
He asked Grandma three questions.
He asked me two.
He did not ask Arthur or Wendy anything.
Then he closed his briefcase and looked at Arthur.
"Here is where things stand," Marcus said.
"The power of attorney has been legally revoked.
The bank has flagged the account activity and placed a hold pending review.
The house deed is in Eleanor's name alone, has always been in Eleanor's name alone, and no transfer of any kind has been initiated or completed." He paused.
"What has occurred over the past six weeks constitutes, at minimum, financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult.
That is a crjme in this state.
It carries civil liability and potential criminal exposure."
Arthur's face had gone the color of old concrete.
"I want a lawyer," he said.
"You have one," Marcus said.
"Gerald Foss called me approximately an hour ago.
I told him what I'm telling you now." He looked at Arthur steadily.
"Gerald is a competent attorney.
He will tell you the same thing I'm about to tell you."
"And what's that?"
"That your best outcome from this point forward is full cooperation and full restitution.
Not partial.
Not a payment plan that disappears after two installments.
Full." Marcus let that sit for a moment.
"The alternative is that Eleanor files a formal complaint, the bank investigation proceeds, and the district attorney's office becomes involved.
At that point, Gerald cannot help you very much."
The room was silent.
Wendy was still near the window.
She had stopped crying.
She was watching Arthur with an expression I couldn't quite name — not hatred, not pity.
Something exhausted and final.
"I don't have fifty-five thousand dollars," Arthur said.
"I told you.
The business—"
"I know about the business," Marcus said.
"Eleanor knows about the business.
That is not a defense.
That is a motive." He stood.
"I'm going to give you and your attorney forty-eight hours to respond with a restitution proposal.
If I don't hear from Gerald Foss by Thursday at five o'clock, Eleanor files on Friday morning."
Arthur looked at Grandma.
She was looking back at him.
"Mom," he said.
His voice had changed.
The hardness was gone.
What was underneath it was worse, somehow — smaller.
"I'm your son."
"I know who you are," she said.
"I made a mistake.
I was desperate.
I didn't know what else to—"
"You left me in a lobby," she said.
"With a suitcase."
He had no answer for that.
Marcus picked up his briefcase.
"I'll see myself out, Eleanor.
Call me in the morning."
He left.
Arthur and Wendy left twenty minutes later.
No boxes.
No folders.
Nothing that wasn't theirs when they arrived.
I locked the door behind them.
When I came back to the living room, Grandma was still in her armchair.
The house was quiet around her.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
She was looking at the side table where her crossword books had been stacked on the floor.
She leaned over, picked them up one by one, and set them back where they belonged.
"I will be," she said.
I sat down on the couch across from her.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
Then she said: "There's one more thing, Ivan."
I waited.
"The sealed letter," she said.
May you like
"The one in your grandfather's handwriting.
I think it's time you read it."
