Six months after the purchase, ownership had been transferred to Charles Mercer. When I took the phone, I recognized the name.
“Charlie Mercer?” I asked. Mom closed her eyes.
He had been Dad’s business partner before a bitter falling-out when I was in college. Dad said Charlie cheated him in a development deal, and I had believed they hadn’t spoken in years.
Nora had mentioned an old business associate calling the attorney after Dad’s death, asking whether a newer trust had been found. I couldn’t prove from that memory who had called, but now there was a name worth checking.
I opened the commercial-property records my attorney had emailed the night before. The dispute between Dad and Charlie was there, along with Dad’s accusation that partnership revenue had been diverted.
There had been no lawsuit; Dad bought him out. Looking at the deed beside those records, I realized our missing money reached well beyond my brother’s failed business.
Chapter 4/5
I asked about the equipment auction after Ryan’s company closed. Trucks, trailers, mowers, and a skid steer had been purchased partly with estate money, then sold when the business failed.
Different buyers, Ryan said. When I asked who arranged the sale, he answered, “Mom’s friend,” and looked toward her.
“Charlie arranged buyers,” Mom admitted.
Ryan stepped away from the counter. He wanted to know whether his company had been used to disguise what happened to Dad’s money.
Mom said she had been trying to recover what Dad owed Charlie. The records I had just read described a very different dispute, and I asked why she believed Charlie’s account.
“I loved him,” she said.
Nobody answered immediately. She wiped her cheek, then explained that they had been involved years earlier, stopped, and resumed after Dad became ill.
Ryan sat down. “With Dad’s former business partner?”
“Yes.”
Charlie had claimed Thomas cheated him and shown her records she accepted. He promised the condominium would be theirs, but took ownership himself and, according to Mom, stopped answering her calls three months later.
She had betrayed Dad, redirected his money, and then been deceived by the man she chose to trust. I could see how devastated she was without making that devastation a reason to excuse what she had done to us.
“Why my house?” I asked.
She looked at the hallway as though there might still be a less difficult conversation waiting there. Ryan told her to answer, and she finally said she had received a demand letter from Charlie.
He wanted $200,000, she said, or he would send everything to the authorities. Kelsey called it blackmail, and Mom nodded.