Page 7 of Pro Bono

“What happened after your husband died?” Charlie said. “Did you keep up the investments?”

“Yes. I had the payroll system programmed so that kept happening automatically. By then my little company did IT for five medical partnerships. George’s salary had been most of our income, but I didn’t need much to live on, and we had life insurance, so I left the investments alone.”

“When did you notice something odd was going on?”

“Not until just about three days ago. After he died, all I tried to do was just keep his system from falling apart. He always stuck with paper copies of monthly reports. He put them in folders and stored the folders in file drawers in order. I kept doing it. At tax time the companies sent1099 forms, and I gave them to the tax accountant with everything else, signed the 1040 and 540 forms, wrote checks, put them in the mail, and forgot about the long-term investments except to stick the reports in the file drawers once a month. I sold my business about a year and a half after George died. I still didn’t bother to pay attention to those accounts because the sale produced enough so I didn’t have to for a while longer.”

“What changed?”

“Nothing, really. My birthday was coming up, and one day I just happened to get curious about how much money had accumulated, so I took a look.”

“And what was the matter?”

“The numbers seemed smaller than I had expected, so I began to read the actual reports. I saw some withdrawals.” She lifted the big bag of financial papers and set it on Charlie’s desk. “I’d like you to take a look.”

“You hadn’t made them?”

“No. So I called and asked who had requested them. They said George did. As I told you, I lost George three years ago.”

Charlie eyed the bag. “I’ll see what I can find out, and then I’ll call you.”

“Okay, then,” she said. “I guess that’s all we can do until you’ve taken a look.” She stood, so he did too. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you. I gave my numbers, email address, and so on to your assistant.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I promise I won’t take long. I’ll start looking right after my last appointment today.”

“Good. Then I’ll talk to you soon.”

He walked her to the door.

When he’d closed it, he turned to his assistant, Martha Wilkes. “When have we got the next person coming?”

“You’re free for an hour and a half.”

“Thanks,” Warren said. “I’ll be in there. I want to take a quick look at the stuff she brought.”

“I hope you’re not putting her ahead of your other clients just because she’s the best looking,” Martha said.

“By that logic I should be looking at her, and not a bunch of papers.”

“You’re such a good lawyer, Charlie.” Martha went back to the reception desk, and Charlie went into his office.

He picked out the six most recent folders and opened the one from the first of this month, examined each of the reports, then set that folder aside and went on to the one for the previous month, and then made some notes on the legal pad at the corner of the big desk. He had already detected two irregularities.

He looked at the top of each report. All the accounts were in the names George W. and Vesper R. Ellis. She had apparently not notified the financial corporations when George died. There was no blame to attach to Vesper Ellis. Once George had died, she was the only living signatory on any of these accounts. Removing the name of her deceased husband would hardly have seemed urgent to her, and making the changes to all the accounts, deeds, credit cards, insurance policies, ownership papers, car registrations, and things after a death was a lot of work. For Vesper Ellis these stagnant accounts must have been easy to let slip. She had still been working and running a business, and that meant spending her days off doing laundry, grocery shopping, and other chores. By the time she’d sold her business she’d probably forgotten about removing his name. She’d mentioned she had an accountant do her taxes, but for at least the year of George’s death he’d had income to be taxed, and maybe the accountant hadn’t been told about the death, or he’d had an assistant do the forms who knew nothing about her.

As he noted discrepancies and irregularities, he was also writing down the questions he would need to ask Vesper Ellis about various specific entries, and also about the general picture he was getting. He kept getting the feeling that he was looking at his mother’s papers seventeen years ago. Vesper Ellis was a lot like his mother. His mother had been married to Matt Warren, the kind of man who had done his best to make sure she was safe and secure, and after he was gone, she had still relied on the provisions he’d made for her. What he couldn’t do was make sure that after he was dead, she would only run into people who could be trusted.

Charlie fought the feeling of dread that was coming on about the Ellis accounts, and kept his mind on the work. More questions. Had she notified the IRS that George was dead, or had her accountant just kept filing joint returns after the first one? How about the Social Security Administration and the Franchise Tax Board?

It occurred to him that maybe maintaining the joint investment accounts was part of a swindle too. Vesper could very well have notified somebody who had decided to keep the dead husband listed as co-owner, and had been using his signature power. Vesper had not withdrawn or transferred money, but she’d neglected to look for other activity. In at least some corporations, it might be possible to have any notices sent to “George” at another address from Vesper’s.

Warren made notes of all these thoughts and the questions they raised. He brought the big bag closer and looked down into the folders to see if he could spot any notes attached to the reports or paper clips on the folders. People often kept slips of paper that included or alluded to valuable evidence without realizing that was what it was.

Warren went back to looking at the monthly reports, and reminded himself to use his notepad whenever he saw a surprising number so he could check it later. Often the surest sign that something was wrongwas when the numbers were too good. Another was when investment results were summarized as upward curves or increasing percentages. Many people hated numbers. They preferred summaries, and predators loved summaries.

He wasn’t sure of the exact moment when he had begun to think of these minutiae as evidence, but it had been early on. He straightened the pile of file folders he’d looked at, massaged his desktop computer to life, and looked up Vesper Ellis’s telephone numbers. He jotted them on his yellow legal pad, picked up his office phone, and dialed. The phone rang ten times and then offered to let him leave a message after the tone. He said, “Mrs. Ellis, this is Charles Warren. I’d like to talk with you as soon as possible.” He recited the office number, which he knew she had already, and then added his cell phone. He dialed her cell phone, which also went to voice mail, and left the same message.

He went on studying the monthly reports for Vesper Ellis’s accounts. The number of puzzling entries grew, and his list of questions grew too. He had to interrupt his work to meet with the attorney of a building contractor he had sued on behalf of a client whose house had been partially demolished and never remodeled. The contractor’s attorney, after issuing threats that Charlie received impassively, finally settled for full costs plus damages to save the contractor’s license. When he had walked the attorney out the door, he asked Martha, “Has Vesper Ellis called?”

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