The Hollow Ones(67)
“He was a real man about town, on a lot of boards, the school board, the zoning board. Part of the job, I guess. Everybody’s friend and counselor. He really liked what he did, which was mostly estates, property transactions, and wills. He especially liked visiting with and spending time talking to aging clients, even taking them to lunch, befriending them. I had To Kill a Mockingbird images in my head, but he never got anywhere near a criminal case. Still, unlike my brothers and sisters, I was determined to go to law school, to be just like my dad…only not in a small-town setting. I wanted out of there. Take those values with me. And though I would have denied it completely then, I wanted to make him proud.
“I was in my second year of law school when I got a call from my sister saying that Dad had been arrested. I had to come home from Marquette to see him. He denied everything, and I was right by his side. An elderly client with no heirs, a friend of my father’s for years, had passed away and left a sizable estate, worth half a million dollars, to an Alzheimer’s charity in honor of his wife, whom he had nursed through the disease. The amount that went into the charity was little more than fifty thousand dollars, and the charity, promised ten times that, looked into it. They found that my dad had charged the man his full hourly rate for all the times he’d visited and all the lunches and phone calls. Add to that administrative fees paid out as the executor of the estate, and he collected just under four hundred thousand dollars from the man. An exorbitant fee, and I asked my dad about it, many times, and he always had an answer, he denied stealing a cent from this man that wasn’t owed him…but over time it became evident that my father had defrauded this man’s estate. He had violated his position as attorney and executor. And this was a good friend of his. My dad convinced himself that he had done nothing improper or illegal.
“The scandal changed everything at home. I left Marquette for half a year and helped defend him when he refused to negotiate a guilty plea. We won him a reduced sentence in the end, and I felt shitty doing it. He was disbarred, had to make full restitution to the Alzheimer’s charity—which bankrupted my parents—and was sentenced to thirty months in prison.”
She looked at Blackwood, who listened without judgment, but also without any sympathy. The few people to whom she had told this story tripped over themselves to reassure her that her father’s crime wasn’t her fault, and that she should feel no shame because of what he did, but Blackwood simply listened.
“My mother always believed his story, and after a while that really drove a wedge between us. You and I, we went after grave robbers, right? What he did wasn’t much better—stealing from a dead man. And then I wondered, is that the reason why he befriended all those old clients? How many times had he done this before? How much money meant for charities or gifts had he pocketed himself? And if he had…what had he spent the money on? I didn’t want to know any of these answers. As soon as I could, I transferred to law school in Boston, working in a restaurant to pay for it. The first month or so that he was in prison, I would call him, we would talk. But I would be sitting in class and thinking about the trust he’d broken with his clients, with his family. It made me feel sick, speaking to him now. And he knew it. We were close, I was following in his shoes. He had my mother, of course. She would never turn her back on him. But I think losing me, his shadow, the daughter who came in for butterscotch candies and thought he could do no wrong…I think knowing he’d lost my respect might have hurt him most of all.
“They found him dead in his cell one morning ten months into his sentence. He had soaked one of his shirts in toilet water to add strength and hanged himself from the top bedrail while his cellmate slept. Another shock. I would never have guessed that he was even capable of that. But he had demons—the psychological kind, not the kind you seem to deal with—that I never knew about. And when his public veneer, the family lawyer, trustworthy and true…once that was gone, he couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear that people saw the greed, the glutton, the immoral thief, within.
“That’s not a weakness, see? That’s an education. Spoiled me for the law, that’s for sure. I got my degree, but I had already decided I wanted to apply to the FBI. Law and order.” She chuckled bitterly. “And now that’s over with, too. What’s left?”
“Maybe not,” said Blackwood.
She rubbed her temples, refusing to be distracted by hope. “No,” she said. “Time to pivot again. Time for yet another fresh start.”
“Hello,” sang a new voice, a nurse appearing at the open door. “Oh, look. You have guests.”
She was talking to Earl Solomon, who lay flat on his bed, one arm stretched limply across his chest.
Odessa moved out of the way so the bed could be wheeled back into place. Solomon’s head was turned to one side, and as they set the brakes on the wheels, Odessa ducked into his line of sight. His eyes were open but unfocused.
“How’s he doing?” she asked.
One nurse checked his tubes and bandages while the other stepped back near Odessa. “He’s doing okay,” she said, the tone of her voice indicating that he was not well. “He had a breathing scare overnight, but his lungs are clear. He thought he had some visitors, also, but he was alone.” She laid her hand upon his foot beneath the sheet. “Right, Mr. Solomon?”
Solomon looked her way when his name was called, but said nothing, drily licking his lips.