Chapter 8
The back page of the bulletin encouraged parishioners to patronize its advertisers, whose ranks included insurance agents, Realtors, an orthodontist, a funeral home, and at least three different law firms. The largest display ad was for the Childress Law Firm.
A black-and-white photo showed the firm’s founder, Chandler S.
Childress, and his junior partner, Chandler “Scott” Childress Jr.
Maeve carried the bulletin over to the kitchen table and stared at it while trying to come up with an excuse not to do what her sister had been urging her to do. Finally, she picked up her phone and called the number in the display ad.
Not much had changed here since the year she’d turned eighteen and had begrudgingly taken a summer job as a file clerk—a job that had been offered by old man Childress as a favor to Mary Helen.
The same English hunting prints hung on the walls, which were painted dark green, and the leather sofa upholstery was as stiff and cracked with age as the face of the ancient receptionist, Shirley Galloway, who sat at a desk just inside the front door, glaring at anyone who dared enter without an appointment.
Maeve shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and was about to apologize, again, for her impromptu appearance, but was saved when Scott Childress emerged from a hallway, beckoning her to follow him.
“Maeve,” he exclaimed, taking her hand between his. “Come on in. I’m so glad you called.”
“Scotty,” the receptionist piped up, “you’ve got the Bradleys coming in any minute now.”
“It’s okay, Shirley. Dad shifted his schedule, and he’ll see them.”
“She still hates me,” Maeve said, following the lawyer down the hallway. “It’s been almost twenty years, and I still don’t know why.”
“Shirley’s an equal opportunity hater,” Scott said, gesturing toward his office. “She doesn’t need a reason.” He seated himself at one of a pair of wing chairs and Maeve took the one opposite.
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, Scott,” she said. “And thanks for coming to Mom’s service. It meant a lot to our family.”
“And you, I hope,” he said.
Scott Childress was what Mary Helen had called a “ginger,” with strawberry-blond hair, dark blue eyes, and an earnest, freckled face.
He’d been in his last year of undergrad the summer Maeve had worked in the law office, and although she could tell he was interested, they’d both been too shy to do anything more than smile and nod at each other over the coffee machine in the break room.
“It did,” she said, hating herself for blushing.
He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the knees of his gray suit pants. “On the phone you mentioned something about your mom’s finances? Tell me what’s going on.”
Maeve took a deep breath and summed up what she’d learned about Mary Helen’s late-life dedication to a televangelist named Brother Jerome.
Scott jotted notes on a legal pad. When Maeve felt tears welling up, he handed her a box of tissues without comment.
She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose, crumpled the tissue in her right hand, and waited.
“That’s some story.” He shook his head. “Your mom always struck me as such a levelheaded person. Did she, in the past few months when you were her caregiver, show signs of dementia?”
“Now that I look back on it, yes. But I guess I was in denial. She was Mom, you know? She held our family together after Daddy died. She was widowed in her forties, went to work at my uncle’s drugstore, and even though she never went to college, she managed that store, and managed our lives. She was, I thought, indestructible.”
Maeve blew her nose on the tissue. “But in the last year, after she got sick, she was easily confused, forgetful. My aunts worried about her driving, and last Easter, she actually went missing for a few hours. She’d driven to Mass, like she always did, but afterward she didn’t show up at Aunt Bernie’s for lunch.
Turns out she got lost. A cop saw her driving the wrong way down Lincoln Street and pulled her over.
Lucky for us, the cop was a St. Mary’s girl.
She knew Mom from the drugstore. So she called Uncle Keith and he came and picked her up.
Mom made him swear not to tell me, but it happened again a couple months later.
And I guess, in the meantime, she somehow started watching this guy’s church services on cable television.
Not long after that we found out about the cancer, and she went downhill fast after that. ”
“Any idea how much money she invested with Brother Jerome?”
“I’ll have to ask Keith. I know she wiped out her savings account. And then took out a new mortgage on the house for three hundred-twenty-five thousand. Totally unlike Mary Helen Dunagin.”
“Unfortunately, we see this kind of stuff too often with some of our older clients.”
He glanced down at his notes. “I’ll look into this Brother Jerome character and see if there are any pending civil or criminal complaints against him or his church.”
“Do you think we’ll have any way to go after him? Make him give back all that money she invested?” Maeve’s voice was wobbly.
“Honestly? I’m not sure. Do you happen to have any records, especially correspondence with Brother Jerome?”
“I guess Uncle Keith can get the bank records. He’s executor of her estate. As for correspondence, I don’t know. The good news is, Mom was a total pack rat. If she did have mail from Brother Jerome, she probably has it saved. Somewhere.”
“See what you can find,” Scott said. “At the very least, preying on a vulnerable senior citizen suffering from dementia is elder abuse. If he directly solicited investments by mail, that’s potential mail fraud, and it’s a federal offense.”
“What about the bank?” Maeve asked. “Didn’t they have some responsibility to protect Mom’s account too? Especially since one of the tellers specifically asked Mom what she was doing with all that money she was withdrawing?”
“Good question,” Scott said. “We’ll take a look at the bank’s culpability.
” He tapped his pen on the yellow legal pad.
“Seems like this is about more than just your mom’s estate, Maeve.
If you want to tell me what else is going on, I’ve been told I’m a good listener.
I know Therese’s work as an actress can be unpredictable, but you’re still a professor at Georgia Southern, right? ”
She hesitated for a moment. The humiliation of her firing was still fresh. But Scotty Childress’s face was so earnest, so understanding, she decided to spill the beans.
“I was,” Maeve said, not bothering to hide her bitterness. “I was an associate professor. Up for tenure this year. But I got an email from my department head this morning, telling me that ‘due to budget reductions’ my contract isn’t being renewed.”
“They can do that? Without a hearing or some kind of review?”
“They can and they did. My class sections, even my office space, apparently, have already been reassigned to one of my colleagues, a male, who has lesser credentials but a closer friendship to my boss.”
“That’s appalling,” Scott said. “Labor law isn’t my area of practice, but it seems to me you might have a legit sex discrimination case.”
“Maybe. But in my world, the world of academia, you file a case like that, and your name is poison. No other college would touch me with a ten-foot pole.”
He leaned back in the armchair and gave her a searching look. Maeve hated that she felt herself blushing under the intensity of his gaze.
At least she’d changed out of her jeans and T-shirt before leaving the house earlier.
She’d pulled on a navy-blue skirt and a cotton print blouse and was even wearing slingback pumps.
But her hair badly needed a cut and color, and the only makeup she wore was some ChapStick she’d found in her mother’s junk drawer.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
Maeve shrugged. “I suppose I’ll have to start job hunting. Just the prospect is exhausting. I’ve spent most of the last year taking care of Mom, and I’m absolutely drained.”
“Can’t you take a little time off, to regroup?”
She managed a half smile. “As it turns out, Mom had this cockamamie idea that she could leave enough cash for Therese and me to take a trip to Ireland. Together. You know, to dig up our family roots in the old country.”
She told him about Mary Helen’s coffee-can piggy bank.
He raised a sandy eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound all that crazy to me.”
“It’s impossible,” Maeve said. “We’ve got to get the house stuff settled. Get it cleaned up and rented out for the short term, so we can start paying down the mortgage Mom took out. And now, on top of everything else, I’ll have to start job hunting.”
He jotted something else on the legal pad. “All right then. I need to do some research into the statutes on elder abuse and mail fraud. And I’ll get in touch with your uncle Keith. He’s still at the drugstore, right?”
“Six days a week,” Maeve said. “I doubt he’ll ever retire.” She bit her lip and looked away. “Um, Scott? I want you to know we don’t expect you to work pro bono. Right now I don’t know how I’ll manage it…”
“Don’t even. I know this is a really painful situation for you and your sister, but I’ve always thought there’s a special place in hell for these bloodsuckers who prey on the elderly. Personally, I can’t wait to get my teeth into this Brother Jerome dude.”
There was a quick knock at the door and the receptionist poked her head inside. “Sorry to interrupt, but your dad says he really needs you in the conference room with the Bradleys.”
Maeve recognized she was being dismissed. “Thanks again for seeing me today, Scott.”
“Anytime. And Maeve? About that trip to Ireland? I really think you should reconsider.”