The Cousin and The Forgery
"So…. My mom had a few calls last night from old friends in Ohio, gossips that couldn't wait to tell her all about what my aunt and uncle did yesterday…"
What was he like, my cousin Seth? I know what he died from, and that doesn't concern me in the least, although when I told mom, she wanted me to go and get a test. I don't know if that is even a thing? All I want to know about here and now is the man that I never met but had blood ties to; the man that you knew. Trust me, if I had known that he was here, then I would have done all that I could to have helped him out…"
Beats thought for a moment as his latest colleague looked at him expectantly. Then he spoke in a thoughtful, measured tone. "Seth Kennedy was one of the kindest people that I have ever known; he was the sort of friend that you could rely upon totally, the person that would always have your back. He had a talent for engineering that frankly used to leave us all stunned, and oh, the models that he could make! Trust me, his models made the ones that we all study here for the big projects we oversee look like the work of a kindergartener! Of course, they were the first casualty of the deterioration of his body from the MND. His hands developed a tremor, and he could no longer make the cuts in the card with the accuracy that he insisted upon…"
Beats sighed, then continued, "We all knew that he was going to pass away, it was only to be expected, but we all thought that we would still have him around for a good few years after he was diagnosed; in the end, from his diagnosis to his death was just about four years. The thing was that he never complained once about that to any of us. He didn't rant and rage, he didn't give in to bouts of self-pity. He bore all of it with the kind of good grace that so few of us could muster. Of course, he was also keeping secrets. We knew he was ill, but he never told us how bad he was if he didn't have to…"
"His first priority was the happiness of his best friend, Skylar. That was his mission in life, to see that he was okay, and so he was kept in the dark about the bad attacks he had early on. A few of us found out about them because we witnessed them, but we were then sworn to secrecy. In fact, one of the first people that was put in that position was my husband; he witnessed the aftermath of one of the events on Thanksgiving two years ago. It happened on the day that Skylar was proposing to the lady that is now his wife, and he didn't want to overshadow that, so Elliott was made to keep it a secret… He would have a really big attack on the eve of their wedding, but he was the best man, and so the witnesses to that were sworn to silence too. Then, on the day after, when he returned to the West Village, he had another on the sidewalk, and this time I saw everything. After that, with Skylar married, the truth emerged. At the time, Seth's doctor said that he would have at least a decade…"
Beats paused then, and looked across to where Matthew was sitting, and saw that he was wiping tears from his eyes. "I'm sorry," the younger man began, "I know I didn't know him, but the whole thing is just so sad…"
Beats opened his desk drawer, and found a packet of paper tissues, and handed them to the other man, then opened up his personal files on his laptop. He found the file in which he had stored the wedding photographs from last year, and found the one of Seth with the bride and groom. He turned the laptop around so that the screen would be more visible to his visitor. "Skylar is in the middle," he said simply, allowing Matthew to work out who his late cousin was quickly…
"We look a little alike… That shocks me, if I am being completely honest, but it makes sense too. My mother always says that I look like my paternal grandfather, so that must be where it comes from for Seth too. He looks so vital and healthy there, and judging by the attire, that would be the wedding you mentioned. It is hard to believe that is only around a year ago…"
"It was quite a shock to see how fast he went downhill, I will admit that," said Beats wistfully. "The attacks came more often, and were stronger; first off he ended up being in a chair, but he mastered that quickly. It turned out he had been practicing for such an eventuality. He was still able to use crutches to walk though, for short periods. Then, at Easter this year, came the big attack, whilst he was still here in New York. He was in a coma for over a week, and when he came round, it was to discover that his legs were useless. That was when Skylar refused to take no for an answer and insisted that Seth go back to Ohio to live with him, so he could be properly looked after. We all had to agree it was for the best, and it was hard to argue with someone that had come to sit in vigil at his bedside…"
"I last saw him alive only two months later; we always go back to Dalton for graduation day, and he was supposed to be there, but he was too ill. We ended up heading to Skylar's place… what we found there broke my heart. Seth was definitely unwell by then, in appearance and behaviour. That day, when we took our leave, I think that we all knew that we would not see him alive again; when we left Dalton that day, instead of our usual 'See you next year', we all said, 'See you soon.' He did rally a little after that, but then…"
"They do say that people do that, just before the end, don't they? One final hurrah…"
"In the end, he went on to die in Skylar's arms, which was a blessing in a way. None of us wanted him to die alone, and in the end, he didn't. He had family with him at the last; not blood, but as good as…"
"I know exactly what you mean about family. The AcaPanthers were close, and the other boys at Browning were like brothers to me; they still are in so many ways. I had my mom, and my sister for family, but sometimes you just need another man to converse with. I do miss having a father, particularly at moments like this. I have always been curious about his family; my sister doesn't want to know, having made the decision to have nothing to do with that part of the family, given that they wanted nothing to do with us. My mom feels the same in some ways; she is curious, but she is equally pleased that the halos have slipped. I would like to know how my other cousins are reacting to the news, Seth's siblings… We were never close, only meeting up by chance, but they were nothing like their parents, thankfully…"
Matthew smiled as he remembered them, then said, "Barnaby, well, he and I were always very alike in that we were quiet and studious; he found his brash mother an embarrassment at times. He told me once that in his opinion, her appearance and her beliefs clashed badly. He was also a generous person, whereas my uncle was known for being mean and hardnosed. His sister, Hilary - to be frank, she is a genius. She managed to get straight A's in every subject at school. When she finishes her doctorate degree, it wouldn't surprise me if she ends up somewhere like NASA. This will all have come as a surprise to them; they had no inkling that they had another sibling. I mean, my sister and I had no chance, as we never saw my paternal grandmother; however, they lived in Ohio, so they must have done. That they never met Seth is a mystery…"
"Well, she did raise him, but as a Kennedy, not a Johnson. She told everyone that she was the child of a niece. They might have seen him in passing, but I think you are right in that they never met."
"I do doubt it, because from what I have been told about the old lady, she would not have wanted her two other grandchildren to meet Seth, and risk that between them they work things out…"
"I guess that was always a risk… Still, the one thing that I do know about his grandmother was that she did care enough about him to have raised him herself, rather than having him adopted out; she also paid for him to go to an excellent school, and left him a college fund of sorts. He had to get a job through college, of course, and he would probably have struggled had he not been blessed with finding a place to stay with a low rent, thanks to one of the other Warblers. Ironically, he was in a similar position when he was younger; rejected by his biological father and sent away for adoption against his mother's wishes. You might have heard of Jeff Sterling-Duval…"
"The artist?" asked Matthew with interest, and Beats nodded. "I have to admit that I have seen quite a bit of his stuff, and it does speak to me, particularly his illustrations. Of course, I also know some of his back story, particularly the stuff to do with his father and brother… Wait, so Seth was one of the Warblers that…"
Beats nodded again, and Matthew's face paled a little. "That was how he and Skylar became so close; the latter was your cousin's roommate, and Seth protected him, as he was younger. That was part of the reason that Skylar was so adamant he was taking care of him at the end; repaying his debt. Getting back to Jeff, at least his mother never stopped caring for him, and she is back in his life now they are both gone. It is also thanks to her that Jeff inherited the place he has in the West Village, and the homes that so many of us now live in. He was pretty cut up over Seth too; he blames himself a little for what happened in April. He was away in New Zealand, and he thinks that had he been there, he could have stopped it, which of course, he couldn't…"
"You really are a family, a band of brothers," said Matthew with a smile.
"Once a Warbler, Always a Warbler, is the motto that we all abide by," said Beats with a grin. Then he continued, "Judging from what I know about you, had Seth known that you were around then I think that he would have agreed to meet you, and enjoyed your company. He might have expressed no desire to meet with his parents as the end approached, and from what I saw of them yesterday, I cannot say that I would blame him! You, however, he would have liked, because in character you are not so very different…"
"I think that had all of this come out whilst he was alive, Barnaby and Hilary would have been curious to meet him too. They inherited a little money when our grandmother died, but it didn't change who they were. I didn't get anything, which wasn't a shock, but my mother did remark at the time that what those two received was a lot less than she would have expected. Dad had mentioned how wealthy the family was you see, and it didn't add up. Of course, we didn't see any sight of the will, as we were hardly close to the family up in Ohio, and the fact that my sister and I weren't included was no surprise to my mom, given how infrequently we saw my grandmother after dad died. That is the way it sometimes is with family though. Anyways, given that we never had much money growing up, and we had been brought up not to expect it, the lack of a legacy wasn't an issue for me at least…"
Beats ended up inviting Matthew to come over for dinner one evening, when he could arrange for some of the other Warblers to join them; then they could share all of the photos that they had, and their memories as they talked about the Seth that they had known and cared for. He accepted, then headed back to his own office. Once he was gone, Beats made a call to Thad, to let him know that the connection had indeed been made…
"I could come to New York this weekend if you could get some of the others together and it suits you," Thad replied. "I can bring photos, and some of the more official records that we have here for Seth, things that Matthew might like to see. Hopefully by then I might also have more information as to what is going on with Seth's parents. The news is most definitely out there now, and there are a heck of a lot of people that seem to be taking great pleasure from the downfall of two people that always maintained that they were perfect and hence superior to everyone else. It is their other two children that I have a lot of sympathy for in all of this, not that they are around right now. Their son is currently in Singapore, and their daughter is in Berlin, and I doubt that even the hyper efficient gossips of Ohio have tentacles that reach to those foreign parts. However, they are both due to arrive home in the middle of August for their parents wedding anniversary, and well, then it will get really interesting…"
"I am sure that it will be," answered Beats, "because according to Matthew, they are nothing like their parents… Moving on, there was something that he said to me today that made me curious. Mrs Carmichael always told us all that Seth's grandmother loved him very much, and yet, when she died, he was left absolutely nothing really; a college fund that covered no more than his fees, and the payment for Dalton. There was the chair as well, of course, but that was only his because he took it. Matthew and his sister also got nothing, but Seth's two siblings did inherit. However, according to Matthew's mother, what they did receive was tiny if her late husband's talk of his family's wealth is to be believed. Then I remember those two people we saw yesterday, and my mind slips to the situation with Blaine and Cooper, and the inheritance that their father kept from them. Maybe it is nothing, maybe I am miscalling the situation, but has anyone ever seen the old lady's will?"
Thad was silent for a moment, then said, "Now you have mentioned that, I am starting to wonder the same. If his siblings had been left a considerable amount of money, then it would just have been the case that she favoured them over the others, but if Matthew's father was right, then the question is, who did inherit the bulk of the estate? Of course, maybe Matthew's father was wrong about the financial situation, and of course, the family could have lost money somehow between his death, and his mother's…"
"Or those two horrendous people stole the money from her, or faked a will and kept it all for themselves," said Beats.
"We cannot make such accusations without conclusive proof," said Thad firmly.
"But you are going to search for that truth now, aren't you?" asked Beats, already knowing the answer.
"Now that you have put that seed into my mind, I will definitely see what I can discover," came his reply. As Beats hung up, Thad immediately began to wonder how he could possibly discover what had been in the will of a prominent deceased resident of the state of Ohio. He knew that there would be records of what she had decided to do with her estate in the records somewhere in the State archives, but he was not sure how he would access that, or even if he could without the permission of her family. Then he remembered that he knew the name of her lawyer, or at least, Mrs Carmichael did. She would be fully aware of the details of the person that had set up Seth's trust funds, and thus it was highly likely that he would have dealt with her will too…
By the time that the weekend came and Thad arrived in New York, he had managed to find something out that had the alarm bells in his head ringing out almost non-stop. He had been correct in his assumption that Dalton's records would contain the name of the lawyer that Seth's grandmother had used to set up the two trust funds that had paid for his continued education at Dalton, and then for his college fees. With that knowledge, Thad had decided that the best way to find out more was to make an appointment with the gentleman concerned. Thus he had made his way to the building in downtown Columbus where he had his office, a place not far from the building that Skylar worked in as it happened, using the pretext that he wished to set up a will of his own. As it happened, he really did intend to do so; the passing of Seth had made him realise that there was no point in putting off such a task, as he could easily be struck down at a moment's notice…
The will was straightforward to prepare, as he had very little to leave in terms of cash, and not much in the way of personal effects either. One thing that he did include was the bequeathing of Mr Bangy to David, something that Wes had also agreed upon. The lawyer had looked at him over the top of his half rimmed gold glasses as he uttered the words 'wooden gavel, aka Mr Bangy', and thus Thad was obliged to explain the significance of what to many was just a transient object.
The lawyer had nodded, then smiled, before saying, "It is quite an odd item to include in a will, but I can understand the significance of it. I attended a school similar to Dalton, and there was a silver bookmark that was passed with a reverence far above its actual value, from head boy to head boy, over the years…"
The distribution of Thad's monetary wealth and the payouts that would come from his insurance policies was an easy task; every single cent was going to little Thad, his 'nephew', the money to be held in trust for him until he reached college if he died before then.
With the papers drawn up, and Thad's signature upon them after he had carefully checked them, the lawyer asked him if he was related to Dr Marcus Harwood, the head of one of the city's major hospitals. Thad smiled wryly, and said, "Yes, I am his youngest child, but do not mention me to him; when I refused to become a medic, I was effectively cast out and disowned. By going to work at a hospital in New York instead of staying here in Ohio and working under dad, my brother Oliver has earned himself a similar position."
The lawyer nodded, then said, "I had heard stories that he was a cold hearted, clinical man in all aspects of his life, and certainly, when our paths have happened to cross, I have not formed all that favourable an impression of him, or indeed of his wife, as human beings…" With that, Thad felt that he had an opening, and he mentioned how he had been prompted to come and make a will by Seth's passing, then he related the events at the funeral. "Oh, yes, I heard all about that too; I think that most of Ohio probably has by now, and it does not shock me at all. I was the lawyer to the young man's grandmother, and I never fell for the tale that he was the son of a niece. I knew the family, and I knew that the daughter suddenly vanished from the endless round of society parties for a few months around the relevant period…"
"I could have raised it with the old lady, but I did not, and in any case, tragedy struck her life not long after, with the loss of two of her sons, and her estrangement from the third… That was never healed, alas, not even when she knew that she was dying. She came to me once she had the diagnosis to ask me to sort out the funding for Seth's education, and also to ask me to be a loose guardian for him; not formally, just keeping an eye on him until he came of age. The same role was requested from Aaron Carmichael, although that is something that you must not mention outside of this room. There would probably be no harm in it now, but I am certain that Edith Carmichael still has no idea about it, and we should perhaps keep it that way…"
"My lips are sealed," replied Thad. "So, did you prepare her will as well?"
The lawyer looked at Thad, then shrugged. "We did indeed prepare a will at that time, which left the house to her surviving son, as the eldest living child. The family's cash was to be split seven ways between her grandchildren; Seth, plus the two children of each of her three children. She left a substantial property in the Upper East Side of Manhattan to the widow of the son that died on 9/11, along with an apology that she had not done more to help her. It was a will that reflected her feelings, but omitted her daughter, who she described to me, in confidence, as a disappointment…"
"Then, just three days before she would pass away, I received notification that a new will had been drawn up by another lawyer that superseded the one I had, and that, in addition, my services were no longer required as the family lawyer. Fortunately, the trust monies that had been set aside for Seth could not be retrieved, nor could those funds be annulled, because the will that emerged instead after her death… It left 10% of the family cash between her daughter's two children, and everything else was now bequeathed to her daughter. I felt at the time that there was something very wrong about such a huge U-turn, but I was powerless to question it. I did see the document, and the signature was a little wrong, but they would just state that the arthritis in her hands had made it harder for him to write…"
"Between us, I am inclined to agree with you that the new will was wrong," Thad said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I mean, her daughter was the only family member around at the time, and it could have been a simple thing to have coerced a frail and dying woman into signing a new will without checking it thoroughly…"
"I agree, but alas, there is an issue with that school of thought; her daughter was not in the country at that time. She was in Brazil, having surgery at a private clinic; her husband was in Seattle at a business conference. Of course, that is what we were told, but there was no proof one way or another; nobody asked at the time, and the airline records are probably long destroyed now. After her death, the only further contact I had with the family was an angry phone call, asking if I had been to the house since her death, as there was an item of furniture missing. When I heard exactly what it was, I burst out laughing, because I was familiar with the item in question, and it had no great value, not even of a sentimental sort to that daughter of hers. I never heard anything further on that, although I suspect that the person that might have taken the item, or at least know who did, would be Aaron Carmichael. You see, he had a set of keys for the place because of Seth…"
That admission had raised Thad's curiosity, and so he had returned to Dalton eager to speak to the ex-Principal. Getting him on his own was not easy, and in the end he had been obliged to ask Principal Lefevre to distract his wife for a short while with school business. The older man was a little put out that Thad knew about the guardianship at first, until the Head Warbler explained what had taken him to the lawyer's office in the first place.
"I did find it strange at the time that she would have ignored him in her will when she passed, but I am ashamed to say that I dismissed it at the time on the grounds that his education had been paid for, and that she might possibly have seen that as his legacy. That there was a different will that was cast aside is not a shock either, I'm afraid. Whenever there is a substantial amount of money left behind, there is always the temptation to claim more than your fair share. I would not like to say for definite that those two people were involved, and it might be hard to prove anyway if they were indeed not in the area at the time…."
Aaron Carmichael paused, then continued, "Of course, they could easily have instructed the lawyer to prepare the document, and then obtain the lady's signature whilst they had an alibi of being out of state. It is a pity that we do not know the name of the law firm that prepared the new will, as then we might be able to see a copy at the Department of Records in the State Capitol… However, never say never; I do have a few contacts that work there and in the legal sphere in Columbus, and I can make a few discreet enquiries around the issue. Of course, the obvious place to look would be the firm that does the legal stuff that they require from time to time, as they might well have been the people that they approached as to whether it was even a possibility…"
By the time that Thad had left Dalton for New York on Friday morning, they knew the name of the latter firm, but unfortunately that was because Dalton Academy had been served with a writ by them, claiming substantial damages for allowing Seth's 'unauthorised' funeral to take place there. They also wanted the immediate return of his mortal remains, so that his parents could give him a more appropriate send off. Before the letter was sent on to the school's own lawyers, Thad had googled the name, and discovered that the firm in question operated out of several floors of the tallest office block in Columbus, one that claimed to be specialists in every kind of law under the sun…
It was a total contrast to the law office that he had visited at the start of the week, but that did not mean that they could do what they had when they had needed to remove all references to the paternity of Wes Montgomery from the files of another company all that time ago. The place in a larger building was no advantage when the offices were so substantial, and they had no inkling as to exactly where the records would be. All they could hope for was that there was a copy lodged with the State as it should have been, and that they would be able to access it there. Then they could find out who had witnessed it, and making contact with those people could be key to getting the situation sorted.
The attempt to sue the Academy had raised hackles, and it had also ensured that Thad would have an opportunity to talk to Aaron Carmichael on his own again. He had sighed at the chaos, then said, "There is a possibility that they are the firm that created the new will, but having had time to think on it, I think it is probably unlikely. Those two would have known that there would be the possibility of a challenge at the time, and the first people that would have been suspected would have been the chief beneficiaries. If their lawyers had been the ones to draw up the new will, then a rat would have been smelt. Having said that, I am not dismissing it altogether; they could easily have drafted it then passed it on to a third party to get signed. I am meeting one of my contacts today for lunch, and I will ask him to have a dig around. If anything comes up during the weekend, I will let you know at once. Please give my regards to the others when you see them…"
The lawsuit was unwelcome, but there was little chance of it succeeding, and if they found out that the will had been forged, it was even less likely to do so…