Chapter 14
Doreen moved closer to read more, but Mack removed the papers from her sight.
He glared at her. “Official police business, remember?”
She shoved her chin out front and forward. “Official family business, remember?”
He chuckled. “You’ve got a point.” He laid the papers on the table, and together they searched through them for Nan’s name.
Doreen tapped three different sheets. “These relate to Nan.”
Mack pushed the first one off to the side. “This is her personal history, medical, etc. You always get that done when you make an insurance claim or when buying insurance coverage. This one appears to be his notes about Nan’s family history. Your name is on it too.” He tapped the center of the page.
She peered closer, and there was her name. She tapped the mention with her fingernail.
He set those two sheets beside each other, then pulled out the third one and studied it. “And this is a copy of a life insurance policy on Nan… until she reaches age 95.”
Doreen focused on it and snatched it from his fingers. “Why would she do that?” She studied the document. “This is for half a million dollars!”
“Yes, but this was taken out a long time ago. And it’s not from Lifelong Insurance. So he found an insurance company that had a policy for Nan. And it lists you as the sole beneficiary.”
She stared at him. “Does this mean it’s still in effect?”
He turned his gaze from the paper to her. “It appears to be. You didn’t know anything about it?” he asked curiously.
She shook her head. “No. I had no idea.” She stared at the paper in wonder. “She had no money. This must be important to her.”
“Do you know for sure she had no money?” Mack asked delicately. “Because, many times, older people just can’t spend their money or don’t feel like they should spend it or aren’t interested in spending money. They like the comfort of all the old things they have around them.”
She pulled out a chair and sat down hard. “I honestly don’t know. And I feel very invasive having that conversation with her. She used to travel a lot when she was younger. Then she stopped. I figured it was because the money ran out. Plus, look at her run-down house and gardens. If she had money, wouldn’t she have renovated her house and the yards?” Doreen shook her head. “I’ve never asked Nan for any money or for anything else for that matter. I thought she was broke. Why buy a life insurance policy?” she muttered under her breath. “I always thought they were just scams.”
“Lots of people believe the whole life policies are, and yet, lots of other people believe the term life policies are a good investment. Plus these term policies are the cheapest, so it may not be the hardship on Nan that you think. Then there are equity insurances and too many other combinations to list.”
“How can it be a good investment if it only pays off after you die?”
“So true.” He laughed. “But it also goes to show you that Nan loves you.”
What a lovely thought. She stared at the sheet of paper and thought about how much her husband didn’t love her and then thought about how Nan was in the background doing something like this for Doreen. And never telling her. “I’d never have known about this if I hadn’t come here.”
“Maybe it’s not a good thing for you to know.” He shuffled the rest of the papers. “If she runs out of money and can’t maintain this, then you might have the expectation of money when she dies, but it won’t be there.”
“If she needs the money, I’d be happy for her to cancel it. She doesn’t get any money back, does she?”
“Not on a strictly term policy. Not any way of knowing that without reading the policy. Some of them are structured differently.”
“My soon-to-be-ex-husband is paying for one on me. I didn’t know about it until he flung that information at me during a fight in our last year. It still makes me cringe, even after the first few months of our separation. Just the thought that maybe he’d knock me off somewhere. But, since I wasn’t the one paying the premiums, I didn’t have a copy. So I have no idea what the details are.”
He shook his head. “You have every right to go to the insurance company and say you fear for your life, and you want the policy canceled. I don’t know what they’d say, but, if you are seriously worried, then you should do something about it.”
“And that’ll likely involve a lawyer or cops. And lawyers are not people I trust.” She forgot who she was talking to.
He straightened and focused on her again. “Lawyers get a bum rap. But they are not all bad.”
Her gaze went flat, and she stared at him. “My lawyer completely screwed me over on the separation and upcoming divorce and is now my husband’s current fiancée. According to her, I wasn’t entitled to anything. And I, fool that I am, believed her.”
He stared at her. “Oh, shit.”
“Oh, shit, indeed.” She turned her focus to the papers atop the table. “Are you taking these? What about the stuff on the floor?”
“I need to spend a few hours going over some of these papers. It’s hard to know exactly what’s been going on here, but with the vandalism, I have to consider somebody was looking for something.”
“How can you tell if they found it?”
He shook his head. “With a mess like this? The only person who knew for sure is dead. So likely we’ll never know.”
For her that wasn’t good enough. She needed answers, not more questions. “It doesn’t make any sense that he’d have copies of Nan’s old insurance papers. If he was trying to sell her insurance, he would know she wouldn’t need another policy.”
“Perhaps he was hoping to get her to transfer it or to create a new policy or to sell her something else.”
“That’s possible. I don’t know what Nan is like with business. She always kept that to herself. In fact, I can’t ever remember her talking about money.”
“Is that why you believe she doesn’t have any?”
“Yes, plus everything in the house is in disrepair and seriously in need of updating. Lots of canned food but no fresh food or new furniture and the bed…” She closed her eyes, a shudder rippling down her spine at the reminder of the night. “That bed is something else.”
“Maybe she has many happy memories of all that furniture. The house is worth a fair bit. It’s in a nice little area. The whole of the Mission has skyrocketed in real estate prices. She could’ve sold her home at any point in time if she needed to. Instead, she gave it to you. That, in itself, means she obviously felt she had enough for her own needs without selling it.”
She stared out the window. The Okanagan area—including a lake, a valley and a river—was well known for its resort-like location and balmy weather almost every day of the year. And, true to form, a blue sky and sunshine were out there today.
The talk of her grandmother made her homesick to see her again. She’d stop off on her way home for a visit. Maybe she’d bring up this insurance policy.
“Was it that tough?” Mack asked, pulling her back to the conversation.
“Between my husband and my lawyer, I get nothing.” She said it in a brisk tone, hating to let him know just where she was at financially. But there was no point in putting on airs that she was anything but completely destitute. “My lawyer explained how I had signed all my rights away.”
“How long were you married?”
She looked at him. “Fourteen years. I helped him build his business, clear off his debts, yet somehow ended up with nothing.”
“How long have you been separated? Have you actually divorced yet?”
She frowned. “Separated for months, almost six now. He told me right before the holidays. And, no, we can’t file the divorce papers until one continuous year of separation later, but I’ve already signed everything. I just didn’t realize I had other options when I was signing. Obviously. I let my lawyer handle it. But, of course, I didn’t know my lawyer was on my husband’s payroll and had screwed me over.” Her laugh was bitter. “And apparently screwing him at the same time.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even think things like that could happen.” She turned and strode from the room. “Believe me. Some lessons you just can’t walk away from.”
“But there might be something you can do about it.”
She froze, turned and looked at him. “And just what would that be?”
“You could see another lawyer. Yours obviously did not have her client’s best interests in mind.”
“She only had her own interests in mind. And a lawyer means more money. Remember that part about being cleaned out and not having anything?”
“Another reason to have the garage sale.”
Doreen shook her head. “I’m buying a bed first. Everything else will have to wait.” She picked up Mugs’s leash. “Come on, Mugs. We’ve had enough of a bad trip down memory lane for today. Let’s stop at Nan’s and see if we can find a little sunshine in her life today.”
“And consider letting me and my brother take a look into that separation agreement before the divorce goes through,” he said. “My brother is a practicing lawyer, and he’s a good, fair man.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “I don’t have any money, so your offer, although generous, still requires some form of payment. I don’t have anything to give. Maybe later.” She nodded at the forms on the table. “I’ll ask Nan about James and the insurance policy. Maybe she can shed some light on this.” She headed down the stairs.
When she got to the front door, Mack called out to her. “You didn’t even ask how much he’d charge.”
She looked up the stairs to where he stood. “Doesn’t matter. My last one got every drop of money out of me. So it doesn’t matter how much he charges. Even your idea of a garage sale, if I pull that off, is only a one-time thing. I need money coming in monthly. If I don’t find a job soon, I’ll be heading to the food bank.” She turned and walked out.
As the door slammed behind her, she smiled. There was something freeing about stating the truth about her current situation.
Instead of depressing her, the action made her feel better. If there was one sentiment Nan had impressed on Doreen repeatedly throughout the years it was, When you’re down, look up. That’s the only place left to go.
She glanced up at the bright blue sky and the sunshine beaming across the small town. “You know? I’ll be totally happy to go up for a change. Being down really sucks.”
She walked to her car, loaded Mugs into the back seat and went around to the driver’s side. She closed the door and buckled up her seat belt to find Mack standing at the front of the car. She rolled down the window and called out, “Now what? Did you find something?”
“You mean, besides a very frustrating, irritating woman?” he asked. “No.”
She glared at him. “Then what do you want?”
“To offer you a part-time job,” he said in exasperation. “But why I want the added frustration, I have no idea.”
She froze. Then stared up at him in delight. “What kind of a job? And, yes, please.”
He shook his head, stared up at the sky for a long moment, then raised both hands in the air and said, “Whatever.” He walked around to the driver’s side, leaning in the window. “You might not like it.”
“It doesn’t matter if I like it or not,” she admitted quietly. “I need it.” She waited for him to say more.
“Do you like gardening?”
She nodded. “I love gardening.”
“My mother’s house is only a couple blocks away from you, and she can’t get out into the garden anymore. I told her that I’d come and look after it, but it’s more than I have the time for. I wouldn’t be able to pay you a whole lot… but maybe an hourly wage that we could agree on would make us both happy.”
She grinned. “Absolutely. Give me the address, and I’ll look at it on my way home.”
He gave her the address, watching as she wrote it down. “Don’t talk to my mom yet though.”
She merely shook her head. “Okay, I won’t. I just want to see what kind of work I’m looking at.”
“Good idea. And, after you do, give me a shout. We’ll discuss price.” He pulled out another card, this one with his home number on it and handed it to her. “In the meantime, stay the hell out of my case.” He glared down at her as if for good measure, then abruptly walked back into the Lifelong Insurance building.
She turned on the engine, and in a much happier mood, she said to Mugs, “See? Like Nan said, there’s only one place to go, and that’s up.”