Chapter 16
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The three weapons lay in the drawer, a silent threat of a world she hadn’t known with Mathew. She looked over at Mack and asked, “What do we do with them?”
He took photos, wrote down the registration numbers on each of them, and stated, “We’ll check into this, but, for now, they’ll stay here.”
Under the guns were wads of cash … again.
She frowned at it. “I understand paranoia when you are doing shady things, but this is over-the-top.”
“It is, and this is what I would consider more escape money. He may have had guns and cash stashed everywhere.”
“He did in the house, as we know,” she said pointedly. “I just hadn’t expected so much of it.”
“Neither did I.” He looked over at his brother, who was shaking his head as he stared at it.
She suggested, “Let’s leave it here because it’s safe, right?” Both men nodded at her, as she looked for reassurance. “I mean, as long as you’re telling me it’s safe.”
“It is safe,” Nick confirmed.
Mack added, “These are secure banks, so short of anybody breaking into the bank—which isn’t as easy as the movies make it sound—this cash is safe.”
“Or, while we have the opportunity to deposit chunks like this without anybody asking more questions, should we add this money to the pile on deposit here?” she asked.
“I like that even better,” Mack replied. “I don’t know where this money came from, but considering it’s here, and it’s part of Mathew’s estate …”
“Exactly, especially if my name is technically on all this.”
And, with that decision done, he pulled out the cash and stacked it on the counter, then pointed to the second box. “Next.”
“Wow,” she muttered, with a slight shiver. “Who knew it was Christmas?” She opened it and looked inside. “I don’t know about this one. It’s all paperwork.”
With that, Nick stepped up and reached inside and pulled it out. He started to laugh.
“What is it?” she asked.
“These are deeds to his properties,” he shared shuffling the papers, “As you said, four in the Vancouver area and one in France,” he noted, staring at it, “and another one over in England.”
“At least he didn’t purchase anymore.” Doreen shook her head. “Oh, I get it now. Remember what he told me, how he had something better than money? He had another whole life in France he could run to. Along with the money, they represent his retaining his freedom, right?”
Nick nodded, staring at her. “That would make a whole lot of sense. He could come in here, take the cash, grab all his deeds, if he needed them. He probably had multiple copies of all this stashed at his other homes.”
She turned back to Mack, who had a resigned look on his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t, sweetie.”
“Then don’t look at me as if I’m to blame.”
He started to laugh and explained, “Nobody is to blame, but I don’t know that Mathew would be particularly happy right now.”
“Nope, he sure wouldn’t.”
With all the paperwork collected, she asked, “How about we take those stocks and bonds and all this paperwork back to Kelowna with us?”
Mack asked, “So, you don’t want to leave it here?”
“No, let’s close this safe deposit box.” She stopped to look at the weapons and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with those.”
Mack nodded. “Let’s take them with us too. None of these have been fired recently. We’ll use one of these duffel bags.”
And with that, they loaded up all the paperwork and the guns in one duffel bag and put the cash in the other bag and walked back out to the manager, who brought them back to his office.
“Anything else I can help you with today?” he asked.
She shared, “Let’s close the two safe deposit boxes. We’ll take the contents home, but we have more cash for you to add to my account.”
“More cash?” he repeated, staring at her.
She nodded. “He was always so paranoid.”
He quickly had the money counted, and she swallowed when she realized just that little bit was $75,000.
Minutes later it had been added to her new account.
She looked down at the numbers on deposit, and they were just so large that it was hard for her to make sense out of any of it.
Yet she kept her cool and didn’t say anything as the transactions were finalized.
Then she looked over at Mack and asked, “Are we done now?”
“Almost,” he whispered.
And, with that, they said their goodbyes to the bank manager, thanked him profusely, and walked outside.
She whispered to Mack, “What on earth will we do with the weapons?”
“I’ll take them back to Kelowna, and we’ll get them analyzed to confirm they haven’t been involved in any crimes.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” she stated, with a nod. “Mathew, … you sure left me a mess.”
“He also left you a very wealthy woman,” Nick pointed out.
As he pointed to Mack’s truck in the parking lot, she asked Nick, “Now where?”
“We have a second bank and a third, each with another safe deposit box.” She groaned, yet Nick laughed. “Just think of it as treasure hunting.”
“Yeah, and what if it’s got more weapons in it?”
Nick shrugged. “You did say that Mathew liked to collect weapons, so it’s quite possible that these are all legal.”
“It may be quite possible,” she noted, “but that’s not exactly something I want to own.”
“I’ll handle these. We can turn them in to law enforcement office to be destroyed.” He smiled at her and added, “Unless you want to keep any.”
She shuddered. “Nope, I sure don’t.”
The manager in charge of the second bank was able to hide his surprise and awe much better as to her entourage of animals.
Plus, they were faster at counting the cash in Mathew’s sole safe deposit box, closing that down, as well as changing over any accounts in Mathew’s name to new accounts in her name. She got another debit card too.
The manager of the third and final bank was nowhere near as welcoming to their furry and feathered friends, so Mack had to stay in the vehicle with the animals. She took a dislike to the manager and to the bank because of it.
Nick nudged her forward and whispered, “I know you’re not happy about it, but let’s go in, take care of the business that needs to be done, and get out.”
She didn’t argue about it, thinking she would transfer the funds from this account to the first bank, where they were nicer about her animals.
They were allowed inside the private viewing room, after revealing the two legal documents with them.
Once the safe deposit box had been brought over to her, she asked Nick, “Is this the last of them?”
“That we know of, yes,” he muttered, “but obviously we’ll continue to look for more. For now, this appears to be it.” She opened it up. He groaned. “Good God.”
It was stuffed with cash.
Doreen muttered, “This will be a problem because we don’t have a nice bank manager to work with here.”
“No, but we can take it to the nice bank, if you want.” He nodded at the duffel bag with him and quickly loaded up the wads of cash.
She just stared at it. “It’s just so unreal.”
“At this point,” Nick shared, looking a bit grim, “I’m thinking it’s all just play money.”
“It’s an unbelievable amount, Nick.”
“It sure is,” he agreed, “but it also reveals the very deep level of psychosis Mathew had.”
“I had no idea,” she admitted, frowning at Nick, “but Mathew needed help, didn’t he?”
Nick smiled. “But would he ever accept help?”
She immediately shook her head. “No. Even though he never really got sick, anytime he had even a hint of a cold or something coming on, if I suggested anything, he got angry. I couldn’t tell him anything.”
“So, hang on to that thought. This was who he was, what he did, how he behaved, and all about the choices he made—again and again. There was nothing you could have done about it.”
“I didn’t try.”
“Did you have much opportunity to try?”
“No, I got butted out of everything very quickly.”
“So, keep that in mind,” he reminded her. “As soon as he was ready to let you go, he—don’t take it the wrong way—but he dumped you on the street like a sack of garbage. Sorry, that was a little too graphic.”
“No, it’s perfect because it’s pretty well what it was.”
“It blows me away that he had all this money and still he wouldn’t share a penny of it with you.”
“I don’t think he ever thought he had enough,” she explained.
After they had emptied all the cash from the safe deposit box into the duffel bag, they left the private room and asked that the bank close that box in that name.
Then Nick and Doreen approached the manager again and asked to see if any accounts were in Mathew’s name.
The manager balked, until Nick explained the situation, showing him legal documents supporting Nick’s presence here in his legal capacity and Doreen in hers as executrix and sole heir.
The manager searched through the bank’s records. “I find no accounts in that name.” Then he did a double take. “There is, however, one under the name of Doreen Merriweather.”
Nick nodded. “We would like access to that account, please, and to make a deposit. This is Doreen Merriweather. She goes by her maiden name now as Doreen Montgomery.”
It took a bit more to sort through the identification process, but, with Nick hanging on to the duffel bag in his arms, the bank manager let her see the account balance before her deposit today.
She didn’t want to use this bank, but she went ahead and deposited the money here, while requesting an address change on the account and a debit card, so she could transfer this money elsewhere.
She got a printed copy of her current statement, updated to show her Kelowna address, plus a notice of closure as to the bank box. She thanked the helpful clerks and headed back to Mack’s vehicle, Nick right beside her.
Just as they got outside, he whispered, “Just out of curiosity, how much money is in there?”
“A freaking ton,” she muttered, “especially for an account in my name. The final balance is over $250,000.”
He just nodded and didn’t say anything.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said. “I’m just thinking about how different your life will be.”
“Incredibly different. Yet the good news is,” she added, as they walked up to Mack, “that I won’t be any different at all.”