Chapter 4
Fifteen minuteslater Clark returned and stood in the doorway as he watched Erin doing paperwork. He shook his head and took his seat again. “What did you do?”
“What?”
“You said you did something that no one knew about, what did you do?”
Erin grinned and Clark swallowed hard. If he had to label her expression, he would say it was pure evil, but he knew Erin didn’t have an evil bone in her body. She tossed her pen on the papers and leaned back in her chair.
“First, when I was released from the hospital, I was told no barn work for two months. I had to promise I wouldn’t even walk into the barn for that long. I agreed. Because I was bored, I started doing three things at once.”
“Which was?”
“First, I had to teach myself to write left-handed. I would practice for hours. When my hand got tired, I continued reading Erin’s journals. Then I would read what Dad had here on the desk, and in the drawers. Reading the journals, and the paperwork from our ancestors, which I found in the attic and had the guys help me bring down, I realized that the ranch had been paid off for years.” She looked at him with a shake of her head. “I’m talking back in the mid-nineteen hundreds when that last parcel of land was bought. We’ve had no mortgage on Erin’s Way and Riceman property since nineteen sixty-eight.”
“Okay, I can see that, since it’s been in the family for almost one hundred and eighty years. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, but imagine my surprise when I started getting foreclosure notices.”
“What?”
“Yeah, at first, or for the first three of them, I ignored them. When I got the fourth one, I started digging. It got to the point that I ended up taking an accounting course at the local college to see if I could figure out what the hell was going on. Out of frustration, I stayed after one night and talked extensively with my professor. He asked if he and his wife, who was a certified CPA could come out and take a look.”
“Take a look at what?”
“The taxes. Long story short, and with the help of my professor and his wife, we went to Liam, armed with tons of information. See, Dad had taken out a loan for a new tractor, in his notes, he said it was to continue to build his credit. He had the cash for it, but he didn’t want to drain his emergency funds.”
“I can understand that, how much was the loan for?”
“One hundred thousand.”
Clark felt his eyes widen, and he whistled. “That much?”
“Yes, and because he already had the money in savings, he didn’t need to use anything as collateral.”
“Okay. But I’m still confused, why were you getting foreclosure notices?”
“It turned out that the ranch’s CPA was the bank manager’s wife. No one knew it at the time, but the bank manager had a gambling problem and he came up with a way to get money for his addiction.”
“How?”
“After Dad was approved for the loan of one hundred thousand, his paperwork was fudged and an extra zero was added at the end. Without Dad’s knowledge. Then the CPA would mess up his taxes so he had to pay double what he had in the past. On those fudged papers, the ranch was put on them as collateral.”
“Holy shit, are you telling me that the bank manager gave Dad a loan for one million dollars, and put Erin’s Way down to take if he didn’t pay it all back?”
“Yes, but it was done after Dad signed the papers, and received his original one hundred grand. I had Dad’s original loan papers here in the files, and that’s why I wanted to take the accounting classes. See, Dad’s paperwork didn’t add up to what the bank sent me when I asked for it. Miller, the bank manager pocketed the nine hundred thousand difference, and put Erin’s Way on the line. It took about two months of intense digging, and I invited Liam out here for dinner with my professor and his wife. During that dinner, we hit him with what we had discovered.”
“Wait,” Clark said as he held up his hand to stop her. “How did you get a copy of the fudged papers?”
Erin grinned and Clark shuttered. “I pulled the grieving daughter card.”
“Excuse me?”
“I knew what day Mr. Miller would leave the bank early to spend the afternoon playing golf over in Colorado Springs. I waited outside until he left, then waited another thirty minutes. I went into the bank, and talked to a teller explaining that I needed to know whether that loan for one hundred thousand had been paid off or not. The teller took me to a very, very helpful assistant and she knew me, and what had happened. She was able to make a copy of everything in Dad and Mom’s files at the bank. All their banking transactions, everything. In those papers, I saw a copy of the letter saying the ranch had been paid in full, and where that loan had been paid in full. There was also a copy of the original loan Dad applied for, and the added paper with the extra zero, and the ranch written in as collateral.” She nodded at his shocked expression. “Yes, written in by hand, not typed like the rest of the document was.”
“Holy shit. What did you do?”
“I left the bank and immediately went to Liam’s office. After that, I was left out of it. Liam said, ‘let the law take over.’ The afternoon they, at this time, the case went to the FBI because banking laws were broken, but the afternoon he and his wife were arrested, Liam came here to tell me what they had found, what they were going to do, and that I would be called in to testify.”
“Damn, what happened?”
“Let’s say that Miller and his wife both have at least six or seven years left on their sentences. But something happened that Liam and I talked about, and I might have acted hastily at the time, but I think it all worked out in the long run. At least not now, but possibly in the near future.”
“What did you do?” Clark asked, shaking his head. He had no idea what he would hear, but he frowned when she rose from behind the desk and walked over to a map on the wall. He jumped to his feet to go stand next to her.
“What do you remember about this area?” She used her left hand to point out an area on the map that was northwest of Erin’s Way.
“Isn’t that Mr. Ducky’s land?”
Erin turned to him with a grin. “If you mean Donald Donaldson’s spread, you would be correct.”
“What about it?”
“It turns out that Miller did the same thing to Mr. Ducky that he tried to do with Dad. During the investigation, they found at least ten properties all over the area he had tried to swindle. I know at the time of my accident, Mr. Ducky was losing his wife to cancer. I’m sure he ignored the foreclosure letters because his spread had been paid in full for decades. But it turned out they had already started the foreclosure proceedings, and no court would stop them, no matter that the FBI was involved. I talked to Liam, and I paid the bill. Which after a lot of litigation, and several hours of court later, I was paid back, but I only took half of it back.”
“I don’t know if I follow.”
“Because Mrs. Ducky hadn’t passed yet, I paid the price the bank was asking for the property, and when I got my money back, I gave half that to Mr. Ducky for end-of-life care for his wife. I told him that when everything settled after her death, to come see me and we can see about putting it back into his name.”
“Wow, Rin, I’m so proud of you. What did he say when he came? Mrs. Ducky did pass, right?”
“Yes, six months later. I went to the funeral and what I did was never mentioned. Three months after the funeral he arrived here with his three grandchildren in tow.”
“Why?”
“His children were gone, but not his grandchildren. Hell, he was in his seventies when all this went down. He’s now in his early eighties. Well, after everything settled down after the funeral, he called them and had them meet with him. They live in different parts of the country. None of them are even in the state of Colorado. He sat them down and explained everything that had happened with Miller, and what I had done. He flat-out asked them which one of them wanted the ranch.”
“Before you go any further,” Clark said as he walked back to the desk and refilled his coffee cup again. With it in one hand, he walked back to study the map. “What’s this yellow line?” He reached up and traced it. When Erin didn’t answer he turned to look at her. “Rin?”
“God, I missed that word around here. Anyway, that yellow line is the surveyed lines of Mr. Ducky’s ranch.”
“Jesus, how many acres?”
“One thousand three hundred and fifty-three.”
“Dayum, that’s a lot.”
“Yes, but when Mr. Ducky asked his grandchildren which one of them wanted it, they said no. None of them wanted to give up their lives and move here. I forget which one lives where, but they live in New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles.”
“Damn, so what did you do?” Clark scowled when she turned and walked away, sat behind the desk, and brought out another file. She laid it on the edge before where he had been sitting before.
“When Mr. Ducky and his grandchildren, two boys and one girl, arrived, they had Liam in tow. They asked if I could keep the ranch, but give Mr. Ducky living rights to stay there. They also asked if they could make some changes to the house. There were no animals except for a few chickens and a couple of cats.”
“What type of changes?”
“A wheelchair ramp, replacing the old torn linoleum in the kitchen, and adding onto the half bath downstairs to make it a full bath. See, he was getting on in his years and they had set up his office to accommodate his wife’s hospital bed. After she passed, they converted it into a bedroom for him. He wasn’t wheelchair bound, but he did use a walker.”
“So, all these changes were safety features? To make Mr. Ducky’s life easier.”
“Correct. I readily agreed, only if I could pay for the repairs.” She shrugged at his expression of shock. “Hey, I would have had to make the changes anyway. But I agreed to giving him lifetime access to the entire property. I try to get over there whenever I can, and I was there this past spring. He was working in a garden one of his grandsons had built. It was raised bed to be about waist high, so he didn’t have to do a lot of bending. He was healthy and hale when I saw him. Oh, he had told me that he had made a condition with his grandchildren that they had kept to.”
“Which was?”
“That they had to spend two weeks a year with him. It could be any time of the year, but they had to spend two entire weeks there. When they came, he would take one room and they would go through everything in that room. The grandkids could keep anything they wanted, and whatever they didn’t want, they had to take to the local donation center. This past spring, he said the upstairs was completely empty, and two rooms downstairs. The only rooms they didn’t touch was the kitchen, living room, his office from when he was an operating ranch, and his bedroom. He said he wanted me to keep the ranch papers, so I would know where things were.”
“Like?”
“The water lines, the septic tank, the well, the outdoor faucets.”
“Ah, got it.” Clark reached for the folder, but Erin laid her stump over it.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“This property is in both our names.”
“Really?” Clark stared at her in shock and reached for the folder again. Again, Erin stopped him. “The drawers are labeled with numbers. Start with the black cabinet, and number one. That’s where Erin’s journals are, and where you need to start. I’ll take this paperwork and go out to work on it and help Reid. Oh, and if Tom returns today, you can go to the barn and watch them gather the sperm.”
Clark looked at her in horror. “I have to watch someone jerking a horse off?”
Erin threw her head back and laughed. “It’s not like that. Almost, but not quite. Just watch and keep an open mind.” She stood, gathered her papers, walked around the desk, and kissed the top of his head. “I’m glad you’re home. I’ll leave you to your reading, but know this.” She had firmed her voice and nodded firmly when he looked at her. “This is the one and only time I will be giving up this office for you. Starting tomorrow, if you want to read the files, you’ll either do it at the dining room table like Mom did, or you can set up that card table and read there.” She turned and pointed to the corner where a card table stood against the wall, along with a folded chair. She turned on her heel and left, not waiting for an answer. Clark knew she was serious from her expression.
With a grin, he rose to his feet, set up the table, then the chair. He ended up going out to the living room and grabbing one of the throw pillows off the couch and used that as a cushion against the metal. The first file he opened to read was the one about the Donaldson Ranch. By page two, he was lost in his own little world, and wouldn’t come up for air until he was called to see if he wanted to go to the barn with Reid.
To take a break, he opted to go, but had to run upstairs to dress his feet first. For some reason, he hadn’t even put on socks that morning. He grinned at Reid as the other man handed him a sandwich, which Clark devoured on his way to the barn. He paused several times to look around to see if he could see the changes that Erin had made to the ranch in his absence. Outwardly, he didn’t see anything different.