Scammed (7 page)

“Mr. Lothian,” Wilshire said calmly. “It's our assumption that
all
of our clients' resources are vital: as important as our duty to protect them. That's why, when ignorance, or even negligence, has enabled the committing of a crime, we still protect our customers.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means that if we're satisfied there has been no malfeasance on the account holder's part, it is our policy to reimburse what has been stolen. The bank takes the loss, not the client.”

Greg stared. “Are you saying you're prepared to replace my parents' money?”

“I'm saying it's already been done.”

The manager turned his computer. With a hollow sensation, Greg peered at the screen. There it was, the current month of his parents' savings account. The only difference from the passbook was the final entry—a credit of twenty thousand dollars. After his first shock, Greg pulled himself together enough to note the entry date, at last unable to avoid the awful truth: on that last night—perhaps even as early as when his father was still alive—the money that had caused all the trouble had already been restored.

“Why?” he whispered at last.

“Why replace the money?”

“Why didn't you let them
know
?”

“I'm sure we did. The clerk would have made it clear that it was possible. Perhaps, at the time, your mother was too distraught to understand. Anyway, the next account statement would have shown . . . Mr. Lothian, are you all right?”

Greg heard a buzzing in his ears. His vision blurred and for a moment he felt as though he might faint. Further anxious words from the bank manager seemed to be coming from some distance away. He forced himself to take several deep breaths and the shock symptoms receded. “I'm sorry,” he muttered. “This has been a—difficult time.”

“Of course. I understand. Can I get you anything? A glass of water?”

“No, no! I'm all right.” Greg swayed to his feet, resisting the urge to stare at the telltale figures on the computer screen. “I—should have known that this might happen. It's just a pity that my parents . . . Never mind. I really came in to tell you that—er—I'm the executor of my father's will. When probate is granted, I'll come in again.”

Herb Wilshire had risen too. He came around his desk, looking genuinely distressed. “Of course,” he said hastily. “But do you need any money now? If you let us make a copy of the will, I can authorize cash for expenses, even before probate.”

“No, that's fine. I'm fine. Everything's—fine. Thanks for your help. Goodbye.”

Then, with very little memory of the journey between, Greg found himself in his car, driving back along Riverbottom Road.

• • •

When he got to the house, he did not turn in, but kept on going, driving absent-mindedly, until the road turned onto the Old Lake Cowichan Road, which in turn joined the new highway, eventually ending up at the lake itself. Beyond the village at the south end, there was a waterside park, which he arrived at by chance, ending his blind journey when the road stopped at the water.

He sat in the car at the lakeside, facing a grand panorama of lake and forested mountains, seeing nothing, his mind still reeling at the implications of all that had happened. He couldn't decide which was worse: the theft of the money, causing the chain of circumstances that had resulted in two deaths, or the sickening irony of the funds having been replaced, but too late. The bank—no doubt backed by insurance—had reimbursed the twenty grand with what amounted to alacrity, the tragedy being that somehow their intentions had not been understood. Yet they couldn't have foreseen the repercussions. No one could. What had occurred was purely unpredictable, with no one directly to blame.

Yet the sequence
had
required a specific trigger: not a real actor this time, but an anonymous cipher, a concocted persona whose very title was a brazen lie—the account inspector.

As Greg sat in solitude, trying to wring some sense out of the confusion that had taken over his life, it began to appear that everything despicable had at its core the kind of heartless evil that had led to the conning and ultimate death of his parents.

“One day!” Greg murmured, oblivious to everything but the rage that now seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his heart. “
One day
. . . !”

“G
oodness, Greg,” his sister said. “Are you okay?” “What do you mean?”

“You sound odd. Almost like you've been drinking.”

Greg laughed dryly into the phone. “Very perceptive. I've been into Dad's Scotch, if you must know. He left quite a supply.”

“Well, good for you. Are you staying at the house?”

“For a day or two, till I get stuff organized. I found Dad's will, by the way.”

“What does it say?”

“It's surprisingly clear and simple. Mum being gone, everything passes to us equally. I'm named as executor. Is that okay with you?”

“Of course. Dad didn't approve of either of us much, but at least he knew how painfully honest you are.”

“Painful being the operative word, eh?”

“That's not what I meant. Look—I'm sorry I haven't been over. After Mum—did what she did—there didn't seem to be much point. That was shocking, but I guess I'm not completely surprised.”

He hadn't told Jill about his recent discoveries—not the cancer, not the bank fraud, not any of the tangled web that had led to their parents' deaths. It was so sordid and sad, it was hard to imagine telling it to anyone. Perhaps Jill had a right to know, or maybe she'd be happier in the dark. He was still too disturbed and angry to decide about that. Her last words, however, made him wonder if perhaps she'd suspected more than he knew. “Oh?” he replied. “Why would you say that?”

“Well, we both know how they were—Dad wrapped up in his damn painting and Mum wrapped up in him. Let's be honest, when we left home, they probably hardly even noticed. So, after Dad up and died unexpectedly, I can see Mum thinking she had nothing else to live for and—you know—just wanting to follow right along. Don't you see that?”

If only it had been so simple. Yet it was a perfectly plausible explanation, and perhaps better left that way. “I guess so,” he said. “Are you planning to come over sometime soon?”

After a small pause, Jill said, “Greg, to tell the truth, I've been pretty snowed under here. And you certainly don't need me to help with the organizing. You're so good at that. So there's just the question of a memorial. Do you think they'd have wanted one?”

“I doubt it. I went out and picked up the ashes, but I've no idea what to do with them. Neither of them were religious, as you know very well. They kept so much to themselves, they hardly had any friends. I can't think of anyone—except the neighbours, the Lynleys. The old guy's dead and Mrs. Lynley's pretty sick, so that just leaves Lucy. You remember Lucy Lynley?”

“Yes. Is she still at home?”

“Came back to look after her mum. She was taking painting lessons from Dad, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh. How interesting.”

Greg could tell by his sister's tone just now
un
interested she was, and that her mind was rapidly deploying elsewhere. “I'm going to be staying at the house for a while. I've already got a lawyer working on the probate. When that comes through, I'll get busy on the division of assets. I'm going to make a full inventory. You can let me know if you want anything, and we can sell the rest. Am I right in thinking that you don't want to live here at the house?”

“God, no.”

“Me neither. I'll get it ready for putting on the market, then. I want everything settled properly. That's the least I can do.” He heard his sister chuckle. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jill said. “It's just—Greg, you're such an
accountant.
”

“Uptight, you mean?”

“Maybe, but don't think I don't appreciate it. In the business world, you meet so many shysters. It's just good to know that my brother isn't one of them.”

After a few more words, his sister bade him farewell. Greg knew he shouldn't be bothered by her description of him: in her Walter-like manner, she was only being frank, and not, in fact, inaccurate. An accountant, after all, was what he was, not just by trade, but in his heart. After he put down the phone, he poured some more whisky and took it into the office, now completely organized. Surveying his handiwork, the sense and good order painstakingly created from the confusion he'd found there, should have given him satisfaction, but he just felt bleak.

The sour feeling, the annoyance and dull sense of injustice that now seemed to be his constant companions, did not divert him from the task at hand. Powerless to control the past, he blocked it out by grimly concentrating on endless detail. He'd told his sister that he was going to inventory their parents' assets, and this he was determined to do, right down to the final paintbrush and the last loonie.

In fact, it turned out to be quite an endeavour. He went over the property from one end to the other, counting, categorizing, estimating worth. The studio took the most time. There were over two hundred paintings, and he listed them all by title, medium and size, estimating their provisional value by contacting several galleries. Much of the rest of the stuff was worthless, fodder for the Salvation Army or the dump, but he included it anyway, finding first relief and then a mild pleasure in the simple routine. Having always found solace in wrestling numbers, he discovered that this extended naturally to the organization of belongings. Granted, these were the leavings of parents whose only use for him—it seemed in meaner moments—was that he clean up their mess. But in doing this, he discovered a kind of retroactive connection, if not closeness, to those two. By the end of a week of steady labour, helped along by evening infusions of Glenfiddich, he had completed the task.

On Monday, nine days after he'd picked up his parents' ashes, he knew it was time to get back to town. He'd taken two weeks off work, so there were still a few days before he needed to return. But there was a lot to do, including a decision about renewing his apartment lease, a detail which recent events had pushed right out of his mind. Still, as he drove over the Malahat Range into Victoria, glimpsing from the summit the familiar vista of ocean and islands in the bright morning sun, he felt remarkably cheerful. It seemed that he was at last emerging from the protracted period of anxiety and gloom.

By the time he reached Oak Bay Avenue, with his neat apartment block in sight, he was so revived that he found that, subconsciously, he'd already made a decision: hell, the extra money for rent wasn't going to break him. He'd renew the lease on the new terms, and that would be one less thing to think about.

He parked the car in his spot, entered the building from the rear and stopped off in the lobby to pick up his mail. His box wasn't large, and he hadn't checked it for several days prior to moving to the Cowichan Valley, so it was likely to be pretty full. That in mind, he opened the door carefully, ready to catch anything that might fall—but there was nothing to catch. The box was empty.

Surprised, Greg immediately thought that he must have opened the wrong box. But a quick check of the number put that idea to rest; it was his box all right. Yet somehow, in almost two weeks, he appeared to have received no mail at all.

This oddity was not enough to dampen his recovered spirits, but it did add to the feeling of being slightly less than at home as he took the elevator. Entering his apartment, he was aware of the dank smell that abandonment had produced. He went immediately to open the balcony door, thinking as he did so that the place seemed smaller, no doubt the effect of spending nine days rattling around in his parents' big old barn.

Crossing to his bedroom, he noticed that the light on the old telephone answering machine was blinking. That was another oddity, since he rarely used his landline. He'd only kept it connected because, despite using his cell almost exclusively, he wasn't quite ready to cut free from the old ways. Whoever had called on the landline must have got his number from the book.

Intrigued, Greg examined the machine. He hadn't used it in so long that it took a moment to find the “play messages” button. He located it at last and pressed, and the message emerged loud and clear:

Mr. Lothian, this is Malcolm Spender from Island Electronics. The cheque
you tendered for the flat-screen TV you purchased last week has been
returned NSF. Please contact the store as soon as you get this message.
This is Tuesday. If we have not heard from you by the end of the week,
the matter will be put in the hands of the authorities. Thank you.

“I
don't understand,” Greg said. “I'm Greg Lothian, but I've never been in this store before, let alone bought a TV here.”

He was standing in the showroom of Island Electronics, a small establishment on Fort Street which he hadn't known existed till an hour before. The man he confronted, who was not the Malcolm Spender of the phone message, did not seem impressed. He fetched a file from the office and opened it to produce an invoice and a cancelled cheque with the letters NSF stamped in red. “This is your name, isn't it, sir? And your address?”

Flabbergasted, Greg looked at the cheque. The name and address were certainly his. The signature even looked something like his own. But the bank was one he'd never used in his life.

The cheque was for twenty-seven hundred dollars.

“This is ludicrous,” he breathed. “This isn't my cheque. I don't have an account at that bank. What in the hell is going on?”

The clerk shrugged, then looked beyond Greg to another man approaching. “Hey, Malc,” he called, “the bum cheque guy's here.”