Chapter 6 - Linda’s Testimony and an Unexpected Ally
By two o'clock in the morning, Walter’s study looked like a war room.
Thomas Sterling had arrived within forty-five minutes of Linda’s call. At seventy-eight, Thomas moved with a slight stoop and used a silver-tipped cane, but his eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses were as sharp as surgical steel. He was wearing an old flannel shirt under a tweed jacket, his white hair disheveled from being woken up, but the moment he walked through the door and saw the blue exhumation petition lying on Walter’s desk, forty years of courtroom fire reignited in his chest.
"The audacity," Thomas muttered, turning the pages of Megan’s petition with a thumb that trembled with indignation. "The sheer, unmitigated gall of this woman."
"Can she do it, Thomas?" I asked, sitting across from him with a cup of black coffee Linda had brewed. "Can Judge Higgins really order Walter exhumed?"
"Higgins is an elected county judge with an eye on the state appellate circuit," Thomas explained, adjusting his glasses. "Marcus Finch knows Higgins’ weaknesses. Higgins hates controversy, but he hates being overturned on appeal even more. If Finch presents a compelling argument that Patrick was deprived of a fifty-million-dollar inheritance due to paternity fraud, Higgins might grant a provisional disinterment order just to protect himself from a civil rights challenge."
"Over my dead body," I whispered.
"We have four days," Thomas said, pulling a yellow legal pad from his briefcase. "Tuesday morning at nine o'clock. We need to file a formal motion to quash the subpoena and petition for an emergency injunction. But to do that, Dorothy, we need two things: first, we need to prove Arthur Vance’s legal waiver from 1989 was binding and irrevocable. Second, we need to find out what Megan is hiding."
"What do you mean, what Megan is hiding?" Linda asked, leaning against the bookcase.
Thomas looked over the rims of his glasses. "Megan’s firm isn't struggling, Linda. *Patrick’s* firm isn't struggling. Patrick is a partner at a reputable regional accounting firm. He makes good money."
"Then why did she say they were drowning in debt?" I asked.
Thomas smiled grimly. "Because for the last three months, my firm has been handling the audit for the St. Jude Children’s Hospital charity board. Dorothy, do you know who has served as the treasurer of that charity for the past five years?"
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. "Megan."
"Two weeks ago," Thomas said, lowering his voice, "the board’s senior auditor noticed an anomaly. A series of electronic transfers totaling nearly two hundred and eighty thousand dollars had been routed through a shell LLC registered in Delaware. The name of that LLC is *Crimson Crest Holdings*."
Linda gasped. "Crimson Crest. That was Megan’s maiden name—Crestwood."
"Precisely," Thomas said. "Megan has been embezzling from a charity for terminally ill children to fund an offshore options trading habit that went catastrophically wrong. The board hasn't gone to the county prosecutor yet because they wanted a forensic audit completed to be certain. That audit is scheduled to be completed next Friday."
The pieces fell together with terrifying clarity.
Megan wasn't just greedy. She was desperate. She was staring down the barrel of a ten-year federal prison sentence for wire fraud and grand larceny. She needed fifty million dollars—or even a five-million-dollar advance from a probate litigation hedge fund—to pay back the stolen money before the forensic report landed on the district attorney’s desk.
"She doesn't care about Patrick's heritage," Linda whispered, her hand covering her mouth. "She doesn't care about Walter. She’s using Patrick as a human shield to keep herself out of prison."
"Does Patrick know?" I asked, my heart breaking for my son all over again.
"Patrick doesn't have a clue," Thomas replied. "Patrick is a pure tax accountant. He deals in municipal bonds and corporate filings. He trusts his wife implicitly. He’s handed over the household finances to her for fifteen years because he’s always felt guilty about not making the kind of money her family expected."
Thomas capped his fountain pen with a sharp *click*.
"Here is our strategy," Thomas announced, leaning forward. "We do not fight this purely on emotional grounds. In probate court, tears don't stop subpoenas. Documents stop subpoenas."
He pointed his finger at the safe behind Walter’s desk.
"We need the original, un-redacted 1989 adoption file. The one sealed by Judge Morrison."
"That file was sealed permanently by court order," Linda said. "Even I can't access it without a Supreme Court clearance."
"Judge Morrison is dead," Thomas said quietly. "But thirty-six years ago, Morrison knew Arthur Vance was a predator. Before he sealed the state file, Morrison gave Walter Miller an original duplicate copy of the sealed decree, stamped with the court’s golden seal, along with Arthur Vance’s notarized confession and blood sample records from the 1989 settlement."
I froze. "Walter had a copy?"
"Walter gave it to me," Thomas said with a faint, sorrowful smile. "He told me: *'Thomas, if Arthur Vance ever rises from the grave to hurt my boy, take this to the state capital and bury him.'* Arthur didn't rise from the grave. But his ghost did. And it’s time to fulfill my promise to Walter."
Thomas stood up, leaning heavily on his cane, his eyes blazing with righteous fury.
May you like
"Dorothy, try to sleep. Linda, stay with her. Tomorrow morning at eight, I am filing a notice of appearance. And on Tuesday morning, we are going to show Judge Higgins—and your foolish son—what a real father looks like."
***