Chapter 5 #2
Ashton shook his head. “Yeah, I’ve heard about her not paying the local merchants too.
I am sick and tired of trying to keep the lid over the mess that Grandma’s created herself, as well as paying back her gambling losses and outright thefts.
She stole more and more from all of us, with Grandpa just letting her.
I’m the only one who sees the handwriting on the wall, and having to explain to everybody that the place may no longer be ours soon won’t be received well because my family doesn’t own up to its problems.”
Anderson nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. The twins will be shocked that they have to find employment. Now I didn’t go through official channels, but I did hear from somebody, whom I know privately, that your grandmother has opened up another account and has put a fair chunk of money into it.”
Ashton put down his coffee cup, leaning forward. “We need to put a lien on that and get an injunction or whatever you need to stop her from accessing it.”
“I can’t get the account number,” he shared, “and the channels I used are obviously not official. So, you’ll need to find that account or get it out of somebody. We’ve got to put a stop to her shenanigans really quickly, or you won’t have much left in that place.”
“What the hell has she gotten into now? This goes way beyond little old lady shenanigans into plain old selfish cruelty from a bitchy old woman who is running all of us off our own land.”
Anderson suggested, “You want to talk to her about it? I doubt she would give you the truth, but you could start with her, at least put her on notice.”
Ashton shook his head. “Don’t want to give her a heads-up. She’ll just go pull out that money before I can stop her. I just had the talk with her yesterday, after causing a scene at the bank.” He groaned. “And believe me that I’ve got no end of headaches over that one too.”
Anderson nodded, a commiserating expression on his face. “Sorry, this won’t be easy for anybody. You’ll have to be prepared for a fight.”
“No, it sure as hell won’t be easy, but I also don’t know how I’ll access that new bank account info. I’m on my way to the bank right after I’m done here anyway, so just another item to talk to Roger about.”
“Right, so you can find out from Roger what you need in order to freeze the accounts, but having already told Richard that this is going on might be enough to freeze access to the account.”
“Not if I don’t do something officially,” Ashton muttered. “I need that new account number, which you just told me about yourself. My God, how much more of this crap is going on that I don’t even know about yet?”
“Yeah, Johanna can be secretive when it serves her, so that new account will be a bit harder to find,” he agreed, as he shook his head. “Plus, we don’t necessarily want a big nightmare with a bunch of publicity over all this.”
“No, we sure don’t, not yet. I have limited funds to pay back what Grandma stole.
I can’t have Grandpa’s clients all up in arms, with everyone demanding their money back today, for God’s sake.
All of it hasn’t been recouped yet,” Ashton explained.
“I mean, if my calculations are anywhere close to right, lawsuits will cripple Grandpa’s investment company that is on unsteady ground already.
And, personally speaking, I’ve already lost everything to this property and his business.
” Ashton sighed. “So, short of my grandfather stashing away some money—”
Anderson held up one hand. “Your grandfather did set up another account,” he shared, “for emergencies. He told me, if there was absolutely no other way, to give you this.” Shuffling through paperwork, Anderson handed over an envelope. “It’s his rainy-day account.”
Ashton took it and nodded. “I’ll need that so I can have Roger look it up today. Will I need anything else paperwork-wise?”
“You already have power of attorney, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” he stated, “unless something’s changed.”
“Just give me a second to check.” It didn’t take long for Anderson to find the most recent documents. “No, you’ve still got power of attorney,” he confirmed, looking away from his computer. “I don’t know that your grandma even knows about that.”
“She doesn’t,” he stated. “We can’t trust her.” He hesitated, then asked Anderson, “Can you give me your professional opinion? Is my grandmother doing this on purpose, or is there some medical or mental decline that I’m not seeing?”
“I don’t know,” Anderson admitted. “I don’t know of any medical decline that would allow her to do all this without being aware of what she’s doing—cognitively, I mean.
She’s probably panicking because you’re here, and she wants to continue to gamble and to steal.
So she must have access to money to do both.
Your being here puts a dent in her plans. ”
“And that new account of hers that you mentioned, where did she get the money for that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but, as per the agreement she signed six years ago, any money that she’s made has to go back into the business to replenish funds she’s taken and losses she’s created, plus pay you back for the money you have put in yourself.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter wherever she got it from. ”
“So, if it’s hers, then it theoretically isn’t hers? It belongs to all the people she’s defrauded?”
Anderson nodded.
Ashton let out a big sigh. “It’s all going to come out and will get really ugly, won’t it?”
“Yeah, it will. If you can’t pay back that money fast, it certainly will.”
“I’ll need my grandfather to make that happen,” he noted, “and he’s disappeared.”
“What? When the hell did that happen?”
“It’s been four days, four and a half now, and nobody’s seen him or heard from him. Nobody seems to have any idea where he is.”
“That’s bad, Ashton.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” He snorted, rubbing his face. “Do you happen to know Sean, the older disabled veteran in town here?”
He thought about it and nodded. “That description sounds familiar. What’s his last name?
” Then he stopped and said, “Never mind. It’s Keaton, Sean Keaton.
He just came in here, like a couple weeks ago, wanting to get his affairs in order.
So, yeah, if it’s the same guy—older, in a wheelchair—yeah, I know him. He’s a client.”
“How did he get here, do you know?”
He stopped and stared at him. “I don’t know. I never even thought about it.”
Ashton asked, “Did he come in alone?”
“He did, wanting to establish his estate docs, like a will and that sort of thing. Why are you asking about him?” he asked, looking puzzled.
“Because he’s also gone missing, and his place was trashed.”
Anderson sat back, an odd expression on his face.
“Damn it. You know, he as much as told me that he was afraid. Not like afraid for his life, he didn’t say that.
Yet he was afraid what would happen to his dog if something happened to him.
People do love their pets. However, he did look a little nervous.
I asked him if he felt threatened in any way, but he never answered me.
I pushed, but he’s a stubborn veteran, thinking he can take care of himself. ”
Ashton snorted. “Yep, you got that right.”
Anderson continued. “So Sean insisted we get it all done before he left. He literally sat here in my office while we drafted up the documents, then waited until everything was finalized and signed.”
“And did somebody witness it?”
“Yes, my receptionists witnessed it. I had two here at the time. They do a job share and were changing shifts, so both signed off as witnesses.” He frowned, his fingers tapping his desk impatiently in a staccato movement.
He glanced over at Ashton, a worried expression on his face.
“Do you think something happened to him?”
“I really hope not. Who was the beneficiary to Sean’s estate? His nephew?”
Anderson chuckled. “Nope. Crystal.”
“Didn’t see that coming,” Ashton admitted. “The other thing is, I’m looking for a War Dog that Sean adopted. The War Dog’s a tracker. So, if I can get a hold of the dog, I could start finding some of these missing people,” he muttered.
“Dog, dog, dog,” Anderson muttered, frowning.
Ashton eyed him and asked, “Did you hear about the dog?”
“I think so.” He shuffled a bunch of paperwork and mentioned, “I heard something about a dog just the other day.”
“Who was that?”
“Another client, checking on zoning for boarding horses, dogs,” Anderson replied, frowning.
“What did they say about the dog specifically?” Ashton asked.
“They picked up a shepherd in the bush, tracking around. It resisted getting picked up. It sounded like it was pretty upset and angry, but then it calmed down, or gave in, but it was already on a leash, so there wasn’t anything it could do.
I guess they’re keeping it locked up as they try to find the owner. ”
Ashton stared at him. “I need the name of that person because there’s a good chance that is my missing War Dog out there, trying to find Sean, its owner, who is also missing.”
Anderson immediately pulled out his phone and brought up the number. “Don’t mention where you got this number from.”
Ashton nodded and keyed it into his phone. “I’ll tell the Wilfords that the chip in the dog not only IDs the dog but has a GPS locator, and I found them that way, via the US War Department.”
Anderson frowned. “Wow. Impressive.”
Chuckling, Ashton shared, “I just made that up. GPS requires an antenna, so no go with a dog.”
Anderson added, “Let me draw up another couple documents here to try and get you out of being liable for everything your grandmother, even your grandfather in his neglect, are currently doing, because believe me that she’s doing something way worse now than what we already knew about.”
Ashton nodded. “You do what you can, and I’ll check over everything at the bank to make sure we’ve done what we can do there, since she seems hell-bent on destroying everything.”
“Yeah, better you than me.”
“I just don’t know whether she’s hell-bent on destroying what I’m doing or something Grandpa was doing. Or she’s really just off in her own little world and living as if it were twenty years ago.”
Anderson winced.
Ashton held up a hand to stop whatever Anderson was about to say. “I know. I’ve already mentioned to a couple people the idea of taking her in and getting her assessed, and they’re dead set against it.”
“Of course, because then, as both power of attorney and medical attorney,” his lawyer noted, “you would have the ability to lock her up, if need be.”
“Well, somebody needs to stop her somehow,” he muttered, “because, while I’ve been able to stop her from accessing any of the client accounts in the last six years, she doesn’t have everything paid back yet, and that was the agreement.”
“It was,” Anderson confirmed. “So, if you want to bring her in, we can go over that agreement again. I’m sure a clause or two in there could allow you to detain her lawfully.”
“She’s stolen so much from the company, from the family. and from me. I literally can’t afford to give her a free pass anymore,” he shared. “I’ve already talked to Richard about it, so we need to move fast to minimize any further damage.”
“Well, she doesn’t have access to these accounts.”
“That we know of today,” Ashton pointed out. “After all, she created her own account under our noses, as you mentioned. Just something else to deal with.”
“Yeah,” he replied, “that’ll be fun.”
“Hopefully not too much fun. I’ll call the Wilfords and see if I can see them now.
I was supposed to go to the bank and the sheriff’s office after speaking to you, but I may get the dog first. Regardless, I’ll stop back by here today or tomorrow to sign whatever you’ve got for me.
” And, with that, he got up and walked out, leaving Anderson staring after him, more puzzled and more worried than ever.