Chapter 6: Harold's Letters
Martin Gale's office was on the fourth floor of a building two blocks from the waterfront.
The waiting room had good light and no magazines, which Claire found oddly reassuring.
A place that didn't bother with magazines was a place that expected people to have things on their minds.
Ruth was already there when they arrived.
She was sitting very straight in a chair near the window, her cane across her knees, wearing a dark blue dress that looked like it had been chosen carefully.
She looked up when Claire walked in.
"You came," Ruth said.
"You said Harold left letters," Claire said.
Ruth nodded.
She looked at Diane, then back at Claire.
"I'd like to speak with you alone first.
If that's all right."
Diane looked at Claire.
Claire nodded once.
Diane took a seat near the door.
Martin Gale's assistant showed Claire and Ruth into the inner office.
Gale himself was already seated, a thin folder on the desk in front of him, and beside it, a small bundle of envelopes held together with a rubber band.
The envelopes were cream-colored and old.
The handwriting on the top one was careful and slightly unsteady — the handwriting of a man who had been ill when he wrote it.
Claire sat down.
"Before I show you these," Ruth said, "I need to tell you something." She folded her hands in her lap.
"I knew about Sophie before Evan brought me the transfer document.
I knew Harold had included her.
I knew because I was there when he wrote the trust."
"You knew Sophie existed."
"I knew her name.
I knew her mother's name.
I knew that Harold had met you once, briefly, at a charity event, when Sophie was only a few months old.
He didn't tell me the details.
He told me enough." Ruth paused.
"Harold and your father were friends.
Did you know that?"
Claire went still.
"My father died when I was twelve."
"I know.
Harold knew him before that.
They were in the same industry for years.
When Harold became ill, he started thinking about the people your father had loved.
You were one of them." Ruth's voice was steady but her hands were not.
"He never met Sophie properly.
But he left her something because of who her grandfather was."
Claire looked at the bundle of envelopes.
"The top letter is addressed to Sophie," Martin Gale said.
"To be opened when she turns eighteen.
The second is addressed to you."
"To me."
"Harold wrote it three months before he died.
He didn't know if you would ever see it.
He asked me to use my judgment." Gale slid the second envelope across the desk.
"I believe the time is right."
Claire picked it up.
Her name was on the front in that same careful, unsteady hand.
She opened it.
The letter was two pages.
She read it slowly.
The office was quiet except for the faint sound of traffic four floors below and the occasional shift of Ruth's cane against the floor.
When Claire finished, she set the pages down.
"He knew," she said.
"He knew Evan would try something."
"He suspected," Ruth said.
"He wrote that letter as a precaution.
He hoped he was wrong."
"He wasn't wrong."
"No."
Claire looked at the letter again.
At the last paragraph, which she had read twice.
Harold's handwriting had gotten more unsteady toward the end, the letters pressing harder into the page as if he had been trying to make them permanent.
*If my son has done what I fear he may do, then you have already survived the worst of it.
What I want you to know is this: Sophie's trust is protected.
It cannot be transferred, reassigned, or dissolved without her own signature when she comes of age.
Whatever documents Evan may have presented, whatever he may have told you, the original trust is intact.
Martin has the originals.
They have never left his office.
What Evan had was a copy.
A copy of a document that was never valid to begin with.*
Claire looked up at Martin Gale.
"The transfer document," she said.
"It was never going to work."
"No," Gale said.
"It was fraudulent on its face.
The clause Evan cited was removed from the trust in an amendment Harold filed six months before his death.
Evan either didn't know about the amendment or chose to ignore it."
"So everything he did—"
"Was for nothing," Ruth said quietly.
"Yes."
Claire sat with that for a moment.
Then she said: "He still tried to do it.
To Sophie.
To a five-year-old child."
Ruth closed her eyes briefly.
"Yes."
"That doesn't go away just because the document was invalid."
"No," Ruth said.
"It doesn't." She opened her eyes.
"That is why Martin has already been in contact with the district attorney's office.
Attempted fraud.
Breach of fiduciary duty.
There may be other charges once they examine Evan's financial records." She paused.
"I provided them with everything I had this morning."
The room was very quiet.
"You reported your own son," Claire said.
Ruth looked at her steadily.
"Harold would have done the same.
He built everything he had on the principle that the right thing is still the right thing even when it costs you." She picked up her cane and set it back down.
"I should have come to you six weeks ago when Evan first brought me that document.
I told myself I needed more time.
More proof.
The truth is I was afraid of what it would mean." Her voice didn't waver, but something behind it did.
"I am sorry, Claire.
For the time I wasted.
For what you walked into yesterday."
Claire looked at the letter in her hands.
At her name in Harold's handwriting.
"He knew about me," she said.
"He knew about my father.
And he still left something for Sophie."
"He was that kind of man," Ruth said.
Claire folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope.
"Can I keep this?"
"It's yours," Gale said.
Claire stood.
She picked up the envelope and held it against her chest for a moment.
Then she went to the door and opened it, and Diane stood up immediately from her chair in the waiting room, reading Claire's face the way sisters do.
"Well?" Diane said.
"We need a family lawyer," Claire said.
"Not his.
May you like
Ours."
Diane already had her phone out.
