Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) (3 page)

Jason’s last year of football was indeed stellar. He made all conference as outside linebacker and his law school grades, while very low, were enough to maintain his eligibility. When football was over, a grateful university administration ensured that he could stay in law school. When he graduated, he took the state bar exam and failed. He took it again, failed again. On his last try, he passed with the minimal grade needed. Apparently, some of the bar examiners were Gator alumni.

No firm would hire him, so he came back home, back to Belleville. He opened his office and managed to survive on the crumbs cast off by the area law firms. He represented the occasional Seminole Indian from the nearby reservation who ran afoul of the local law. He took assignments from the courts for misdemeanor cases that the public defender was too busy to handle. He lost most of the trials, but he always figured the people he represented, or at least most of them, were guilty anyway, so the conviction didn’t upset the delicate balance of his universe.

Jason’s parents were dead now, and he’d never married. It wasn’t that he didn’t like women; it was just that he had a very low sex drive, perhaps the result of certain steroids he’d taken daily while playing football. He also liked his solitary life, didn’t need a woman to nag him about being home for supper, to slow down on his drinking, to work harder, make more money.

Jason Blakemoore was a happy man. He whistled as he walked across the square, heading for the town’s only bar, the Swamp Rat. He’d been into Naples to visit a client in the county jail, an unusual event for Jason on a weekend. The judge had called on Friday afternoon and said the public defender had assigned the case to Jason and the client needed a bail hearing at ten on Saturday morning. Jason went and got the judge to release the man without bail. It was a petty theft charge, shoplifting from a Wal-Mart.
The old guy was eighty years old and this was his first offense. He was confused and didn’t understand where he was or why he was there.

Jason had stopped by his office to check his mail for any checks that might have come in, but there had been none. The Swamp Rat Bar was beckoning him. People he’d known all his life would be there, drinking the afternoon away. He usually scored a few free beers from those who remembered him as the high school star.

He stopped at the curb waiting for a car to pass before crossing the street for the air-conditioned refuge offered by the bar. A black Mercedes was driving slowly down the street, two men in the front seat. Jason was watching them idly, wondering why such an expensive car was in Belleville. The car slowed more as it approached Jason. A shotgun poked out of the passenger-side window, a blast cut the air, sending to wing the pigeons that inhabited the park in the square. A red splotch appeared on the white shirt worn by Jason, his tie turning to ribbons of red, his face showing surprise and consternation and puzzlement. He stumbled, fell, and was no more.

The Market was a unique place, part grocery store, part delicatessen, coffee shop, ice cream shop, butcher shop, and meeting place for the village residents. It took up one end of the small shopping center at Whitney Beach on the edge of the village near the north end of the key, sharing a parking lot with Tiny’s bar, a video store, two restaurants, an art and framing shop, dog grooming parlor, and a T-shirt shop.

The village itself is formally known as Longbeach Village and it is the oldest residential area on the key. It’s a place of small cottages and homes, many built in the 1920s and ’30s and a few before that, a couple of restaurants, and a world-class art center; a place where working people and retired middle-class folks can still afford to live in houses they bought long before the price of island real estate climbed into the stratosphere. They are an eclectic bunch, the villagers, proud and stubborn and against the change that seems to be a constant condition on our key. They take life as it comes at them, with a certain stoicism that is absent in the key’s higher rent precincts. They’re my kind of people.

I’d recently moved to my cottage in the village from a bayside condo just to the south. I hadn’t intended to make the move, but life sometimes throws you a curve ball. And that curve ball, on occasion, will provide you with the opportunity for a home run. Such was my case.

Rose and Ed Peters had come to our island when he retired from a distinguished career in the U.S. Army. They bought a small home in the village and settled in to live out their lives.

Ed, or the Colonel as he was known to most, became a regular at Tiny’s, my favorite little bar that sat on the edge of the village. He was always home by six in the evening to have dinner with Rose. His daily hour
at Tiny’s, he often said, was the substitute for his officer’s club routine, honed during the thirty years he’d spent doing his duty for all of us.

For twenty years after he retired from the Army, Ed gave himself to the community, serving for six years on the Town Commission and for a two-year term as mayor of the Town of Longboat Key. Shortly after he retired from the commission, on a bright morning in December, while taking his morning walk, he dropped dead of a massive stroke.

Rose’s grief was overwhelming. They had no children, and each was an only child. They were the only family each other had. The people of the village came to the rescue and Rose slowly recovered. Her smile came back and her kindly disposition once again radiated over the North End.

She called me one day about a year after Ed’s death and asked if I had time to stop by her house. She had a problem she wanted to run by me. I told her I’d be there in an hour.

Rose’s cottage hunkered under an ancient Banyan tree, its limbs shading the house. Tropical plants flanked the crushed-shell walk, a large bougainvillea painted the spring air with its red blossoms. The bay shimmered behind the house, the sun reflecting off the still water in a blinding burst of light.

She met me at the door, a small trim lady in her seventies. Her gray hair was cut short, a pixyish styling that set off a face that was still beautiful, the few wrinkles providing a sense of character. She was wearing white shorts, a sleeveless pink blouse, and sandals. She made the attire look elegant, because she was a lady of grace.

She hugged me. “Thanks for coming, Matt.”

“It’s good to see you, Rose.”

She escorted me into the living room. Bookcases lined one wall, the titles running to military history and Florida crime fiction. A large flat-screen TV sat on a shelf amid the books. A fireplace with a brick hearth dominated the other end of the room. Two photographs sat on the mantel, one of the colonel in a dress blue uniform and the other of a young couple in wedding attire, the man in the uniform of a second lieutenant and the woman a beauty in a white gown and veil holding a spray of flowers. A matching sofa and love seat and a recliner took up space on the Oriental rug spread over the hardwood floors. Sliding glass doors opened
onto a patio overlooking the bay. A dock ran along the seawall enclosing an empty boat slip.

Rose motioned me to a seat on the sofa. “Can I get you something to drink, Matt?”

“No thanks. How have you been?”

“Not too good. I’ve done something really stupid, and I’m about to lose my home. I know you’re retired, but you’re a lawyer, and I’m hoping you can show me a way out of this. I can pay you a fee.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Do you know anything about reverse mortgages?”

“A little,” I said. “If your house is paid for you can get most of the equity out of it in cash paid in equal monthly installments. When you die, the house is sold and the mortgage holder gets its money back, plus interest, and the remainder of the sales price goes to the heirs.”

“That pretty much sums it up. I got one of those after Ed died. But this one paid me a lump sum in cash, not monthly installments.”

“Then you should be pretty well set up. When you die, the house will be sold and the loan paid off.”

“Supposedly. I’m afraid I didn’t read the paperwork too closely.”

Her story was shameful. Shortly after Ed’s death, a young man came to see her, told her about the reverse mortgage, and explained how the money would help her live out the rest of her days worry free. Ed’s pension from the Army died with him, and she only had Social Security to live on. The Army is not a generous employer, and like most who dedicate their lives to the country’s service, Ed did not retire wealthy.

Rose signed the papers, got the cash, invested some of it, and gave pieces of it to several charities. Some of the investments didn’t do well, and she lost a lot of the money. She moved what was left into a savings account and would be able to live frugally for the rest of her life.

She handed me a letter. “This came in yesterday’s mail.”

According to the letter, her mortgage was now due, and she was required to begin making monthly payments. In the event she did not, a foreclosure action would be filed and she would lose her house.

I shook my head. “This doesn’t sound like a reverse mortgage. Have you got the paperwork you signed?”

She handed me a file folder. I began to look through the documents, my heart dropping a little with each page. She’d been swindled. All the correspondence from the mortgage broker discussed a traditional reverse mortgage, but the documents themselves provided for a standard mortgage with an extremely high interest rate. The payments would be delayed for one year, but then the loan would have to be repaid over a period of ten years with an interest rate of 12 percent. I knew that standard mortgage rates were running about 6 percent for thirty years, and less for a shorter time period.

I raised my head. “You’ve been taken. Let me see what I can do. May I take these with me?”

“Certainly. Thanks, Matt. Keep track of your time and I’ll pay you.”

Predators stalk the elderly and infirm, targeting the least resistant, not unlike the lionesses who roam the African veldt in search of food. The lioness does it for survival, the human predator because he’s a lazy son of a bitch without a conscience. In Florida, where there are more elderly people, there are more predators trying for the easy buck. I had the name and address of this particular predator, and I would have his ass. I made an appointment for the next morning to discuss a reverse mortgage, and went to see him in downtown Sarasota.

His office was in a high-rise building overlooking Sarasota Bay and New Pass, the view reaching to the horizon. He had a small office, no receptionist, no outer office, just a door with his company’s name, Managed Investments, discretely etched on the glass. I knocked and went in.

A man of about thirty rose from behind the desk. He was five ten, two hundred pounds, with a hard belly hanging out of his unbuttoned coat. He wore a white shirt, green tie, and blue pinstriped suit. He had a big head, blond hair, an open Irish face set off by a nose that was too long, and a toothy smile. His had his hand out. I shook it.

“You must be Matt Royal. I’m Jim Corrigan. I must say you don’t look old enough for a reverse mortgage. You have to be at least sixty-two to qualify.”

I wasn’t old enough to qualify. Not even close. They say that youth is fleeting and I can attest to the fact that much of my youth has fled. I’m not yet a member of the senior citizen crowd and although I know the days of gray hair and arthritic aches are relentlessly chasing me, I resist them mightily. I was a bit insulted that the guy even thought I would be interested in a reverse mortgage.

“I don’t want a mortgage,” I said. “I want you to release Rose Peters’s mortgage and remove the lien from the public records.”

He looked puzzled. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you swindled her, and I’m going to sue the pants off you if you don’t fix this thing.”

He chuckled. “Lawyers cost a lot of money, Mr. Royal.”

I reached over the desk and laid one of my business cards on his blotter, the one that identified me as a lawyer. “They do, Mr. Corrigan. But Mrs. Peters is a friend of mine, and I’m not going to charge her a dime.”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Royal. I couldn’t do anything about that mortgage if I wanted to. It was sold on the secondary market. I don’t have any way to change the terms.”

“You can pay it off then.”

“No way. The old broad got the money. She owes it.”

“Let me put it this way, Mr. Corrigan. If you haven’t paid off that mortgage and released Rose from all obligations by the end of business tomorrow, I’ll be filing suit. I’ll also have a little discussion with the state attorney in this circuit, who, I might add, is a close friend of mine. I imagine that the U.S. Attorney would also be interested in mail fraud charges. You did use the U.S. mail now, didn’t you Mr. Corrigan?”

“Whoa. I don’t want any trouble.”

“You square things with Mrs. Peters’s house, and you won’t hear anything else from me.”

The idiot blustered a bit more, but in the end he agreed to pay off the mortgage. The next day, I checked with the clerk of court in Manatee County, where Rose’s house was located, and found that a satisfaction of mortgage had been filed at the opening of business that day. The house was once again free and clear.

Then I called the state attorney for the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, a man I’d never met. I identified myself and explained Corrigan’s scheme. The law was interested and I promised to drop the documents off the next day. I’d lied about knowing the state attorney, but I’d kept my promise. Corrigan never heard from me again. However, he did hear from the police and the postal inspectors, and he was now doing five to eight years in
state prison and would face another five years in a federal pen when his state time was up.

Rose insisted on paying me for my help, and I insisted on not accepting anything. Life moved on, the rhythms of the key unbroken by the events surrounding Corrigan. I read in the newspaper that a number of elderly people who had been swindled by Corrigan got their money back.

Over the next year, I would see Rose occasionally at the Market. Once or twice we shared a cup of coffee and enjoyed each other’s company. Then one day I heard that Rose had died in her sleep. A neighbor noticed that her morning paper was still in the driveway at noon, and went to check on her. She’d apparently had a heart attack and died peacefully.