Twenty Years Later(18)

Forensic accountants determined that more than $30 billion had been fraudulently obtained and squandered on Garth Montgomery’s jet-setting lifestyle. The rest of the company’s “assets” were make believe—the books were so cooked they nearly incinerated when the feds finally got their hands on them. The federal indictments came the summer after Claire Montgomery graduated law school, and she still held vivid memories of federal agents crashing through the front door of her family’s Manhattan penthouse, pulling her father from bed in his pajamas, and walking him in handcuffs to the waiting squad car parked in front of the building. The perp walk had been seen the world over. Photos of it were splashed on the front page of every newspaper, and video footage led every news program. Type the name Garth Montgomery into any search engine and the first image that popped up was her father, pajama-clad with hands cuffed behind his back and a score of federal agents leading him from the building.

Despite that she had been warned of the details, she was still shocked by the enormity of the situation when the specifics of House of Cards—the FBI’s name for the operation that brought down Montgomery Investment Services—became public. It was like watching a horror movie that starred her father as the villain. If the allegations were true, and she knew they were, it meant that her father had defrauded thousands of people out of their life savings, many blue-collar workers out of their retirements, and universities out of decades of endowment contributions. The allegations meant the Montgomery family was a mirage, both morally and materially. Everything they owned was contaminated by greed and deceit—the penthouse, the Hamptons mansion, the Aspen villa, the beachfront condo on St. Barts, the cars, the jet, her trust fund. Even the Claire-Voyance, her majestic sailboat that had sunk the previous summer, had come from ill-gotten money. But it wasn’t just the things that were an illusion, it was the lie that they were ever a happy family.

Perhaps worse than the financial fraud was the personal deceit that came to light in the wake of her father’s conviction. Garth Montgomery’s mistress was discovered. A forty-year-old woman her father had been sleeping with for more than a decade, her entire lifestyle had been financed by Garth Montgomery and the money he stole. The affair dated back to Avery’s teenage years, and all at once the late nights her father constantly worked and the frequent business trips made sense. Even the idea that Avery and her brother had been shipped off to Wisconsin each summer had felt tainted by deceit. The revelation of her father’s dual life had cut deeper than knowing her whole life had been a fantasy. The discovery wrecked her mother—a complete deconstruction of the life she believed she had built with the man she loved. A heart attack claimed Annette Montgomery when she was just sixty-two years old, a mere eight months after federal agents hauled her husband from bed in the early dawn hours. Despite an autopsy revealing chronic and undetected coronary artery disease, Avery couldn’t get past the idea that her father’s betrayal had been the real cause of death. It was this festering thought that continued to fuel the disgust she felt toward her father. Though her mother’s passing had been another tragedy to bear, there was some sense of peace knowing her mother would not have to endure the stigma that came with being the wife of one of the most hated men in America.

Anguish and anger eventually gave way to clarity. The life Claire Montgomery had lived for twenty-eight years was over. Survival would come only from reinventing herself. So she did, and Avery Mason was born.





CHAPTER 11


Sister Bay, WI Saturday, June 19, 2021

AVERY SPENT THE EVENING AT CONNIE CLARKSON’S HOME DRINKING wine and catching up. Earlier in the day she toured the campus, visited the cabin where she used to stay each summer, walked the docks, and spoke with the students who were spending the summer. In the evening, she and Connie shared stories and life’s highlights since they had last seen each other the year before. Avery asked about the school. Enrollment was full and the waitlist was long. The school would survive. Connie would make it. Things were not the same today as they had once been, but Connie was managing. If the woman held a grudge about what had happened, she had never shown it.

It was, of course, Connie’s connection to the Montgomery children and the many summers they spent in Sister Bay that allowed Garth Montgomery to approach her with an investment opportunity. Connie was hesitant at first to become so intimately connected in business to the father of two of her former students, but eventually gave in to the smooth-talking financial wizard. There were too many benefits of investing with such a storied firm for Connie to decline. Garth Montgomery promised to work tirelessly for her and capture the returns that were so common at Montgomery Investment Services. The firm had strict rules about minimum investments, but Mr. Montgomery was willing to wave the rules for such a close family friend. Connie had socked away $2 million over the course of her life, and handed every penny over to Avery’s father. He promised to double it in five years.

The feds knocked on the front doors of Montgomery Investment Services a year later. Search warrants followed, as did freezing of accounts and seizure of assets. When the dust settled, along with every other client of Garth Montgomery, Connie Clarkson learned that her money was gone. Detailed accounting showed that it had been paid to long-term investors who were due outrageous returns the fund could not legitimately cover. Some of it was surely squandered on the lavish lifestyle of a billionaire who had robbed his way to the American Dream. Garth Montgomery had promised Connie everything and left her with nothing.