“What strange circumstances?”
“The fact that it all took place at the same time, and entirely too quickly, for starters. Normally, a company bankruptcy will drag out for a year or so, and a personal bankruptcy takes at least half of that. And no way does Michigan law allow a divorce to be granted in three weeks flat!”
“Then how did the judge allow it?”
“The judge didn’t allow it. He caused it. He was conspiring with that carnivorous ex-wife of yours. Together, they came up with a plan that gave her not half of your wealth, but all of it.”
“But why would he do such a thing?”
“Why? That’s usually a hard one to answer, but in this case, it’s fairly clear. Exactly one week after the two of you left town, your ex-wife married the judge, but they had been working on the plan for a long time.
“Fact one. The Brazilian company that you were dealing with never did go bankrupt. They mailed you a check on time and for the full amount owed, some seventeen point three million and change. But they mailed it to a post office box number here in Bay City at what they thought was your request. That is to say, your wife and the judge stole some of your company letterhead, typed up a letter to the effect that you were now using the P.O. Box number, and forged your name to it. After you were out of town, they cashed the check.”
“But, we got Brazilian bankruptcy forms, and letters from Brazilian lawyers,” I said.
“They were forged, and drop mailed through Brazil from here. Look in the back of Popular Mechanics for a listing of foreign companies that do drop mailings and that sort of thing. It usually costs a couple of bucks to get a foreign stamp put on your letter and to get it dropped off at a foreign post office. Deadbeats use the system all of the time.
“Fact two. Your company’s bankruptcy sale was never properly advertised. No legitimate buyers showed up for it, and everything was sold to one bidder at less that five cents on the dollar. Needless to say, this bidder was working with the judge and your ex-wife.
“Fact three. Or maybe this isn’t a fact, since I can’t prove it, but it appears that an attempt was to be made on your life, while you sailed through the Panama Canal, but apparently it misfired.”
“Dere was somebody dat was supposed to shoot him?” Adam asked. His phony accent had come back the moment he stepped off the plane in Bay City.
“Yes, that’s what I heard, from another client of mine who’s presently in jail.”
“Well, dey did shoot somebody on our boat back den. A young girl named Dawn Daleki. She was maybe tree feet from Treet when dey killed her wit a long shot from a rifle.”
Greenberg wrote the name down, and said, “Shit. Murder One. That opens another can of worms. But let’s finish up with what I was saying, before we get into this murder case. I’ll go through all the details and show you the file on your case later, before you get my bill for all of this work, but the short of it was that the judge deposited your Brazilian check in his trust account, but was hesitant about disbursing the money while you were still alive. I brought considerable pressure on him, which eventually got him disbarred and impeached, and seventeen point three million of your money is now in my client trust account, awaiting your pleasure.
“The machinery dealer who made such a nice profit on the resale of your equipment, faced with things like Conspiracy to Defraud, Purchasing and Possession of Stolen Goods, and Grand Larceny saw fit to pay you the full replacement cost of the machinery that had been in your plant. That is to say, what it would cost you to go out and buy all new stuff. It came to eight point eight million, and it too is currently drawing interest in my client trust account, less the two point one million that it took to satisfy your legitimate creditors. Incidentally, I had your bankruptcy overturned, and your good credit standing has been restored.
“Now then, the public humiliation of all of this proved to be too much for the judge, and he committed suicide twelve days ago. Any animosity you might have for him is now moot, but there is still your ex-wife. What do you want me to try to do about her? The terms of your divorce settlement have also been overturned, and she got absolutely nothing out of it except for some personal property and the bill from her lawyer. She has already been stripped of most or perhaps all of the financial gains she’d hoped to make, but we can still see that criminal action is taken against the woman.”
I was stunned by all of this. It was a few moments before I said, “I don’t know. This is all coming too quickly at me, and I just don’t know what to do.” I paused for a while, thinking. “No. I don’t hate Helen. I know it sounds crazy, but I think that some part of me still loves her. I don’t want to hurt her. I just don’t want to ever see her or hear from her again.”
Alan was taking copious notes.
“Dat sounds just fine, Treet. But what about Dawn? Don’t we owe her sumptin? I mean, she was wit us, and we let her get killed.”
“True. Alan, just what can we do concerning Dawn’s death?”
“Thinking about it, probably not much. She was apparently accidentally murdered in a foreign country by a foreign hired assassin, who won’t be easy to find. I didn’t hear whether or not your ex-wife had anything to do with it. It’s possible that it was totally the judge’s doing. The information that I got on it was from a multiple felon, who claimed to have heard about it from another prison inmate who has since died. I really don’t see how the prosecutor could put together a case out of it, even if he did have jurisdiction. I’ll look into it for you, but don’t expect too much.”
Greenberg looked at his watch and said that he was going to have to leave in order to get to court on time. He said that since I didn’t want to continue any further legal actions against my ex-wife, and didn’t want to see her, it wouldn’t be necessary for me to show up personally in court. His legal secretary could take care of the insurance claims forms for us.
He was halfway out the door when Adam yelled, “Hey, you want dinner wit us tonight? Dat place at da river, Knot’s Landing? I’m buying!”
“You’re on. Seven.” And Alan was gone.
I said, “Adam, your Hamtramck accent is back.”
“Natch. I’m back in Bay City, ain’t I.”
We took over Alan’s office, since we had a lot of planning to do. The claims on The Brick Royal came first. Adam had it insured for almost three million dollars, with lots of documentation and photos in a safe-deposit box to back up his claims. Rather than trying to explain a case of arson on a mysterious floating island, which the insurance company wouldn’t have believed, and which would have kicked off a round of lawsuits and countersuits that would have dragged on for years, he just put it down as sunk in the storm that blew us into Mexico. Officially, it was his ship and his insurance policy, so I just kept my mouth shut.
One of the big advantages to being a Christian is that you can confess your sins, say a few prayers, and your sins are all gone. Us Atheists know that the universe has a way of getting back at you for all your transgressions. It keeps us a good deal more ethical than most Christians tend to be.
Once the insurance claims were attended to, the secretary tried gently to get us out of there.
Adam said, “Come on, Sarah, we got work to do. You guys is makin’ probably a coupla million bucks off us, so can’t you let your best customers borrow an empty office for a coupla hours?”
She allowed that put that way, it seemed reasonable.
As she left the room, I said, “We have a lot more money going for us than I thought. That means that we can start our project in a lot bigger way than what we had originally planned.”
“Yeah, but you keep sayin `we’ and `us.’ Dis is mostly your money, ain’t it? I mean, except maybe for da boat. Maybe it would be fair to call da boat `ours,’ and I did pay for dat insurance myself, you know.”
“Didn’t we agree to be partners? `Retroactive back to the beginning of time’? You can’t wiggle out of it now, Adam.”