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“I leave that to your judgment. At least now you know my side of it. You can believe it or not. And your dad, when he sobers up, can do with it what he wants. I don’t mean any disrespect to Violet, but he knows how capable she was of turning things around. If he’d stop and think about it, he might be willing to concede the point. As for me, I’m sorry for any part I played. I never meant to cause him any grief.”
“I appreciate that, Jake. Is there anything else?”
“No, that’s it. I’ve had my say. I know it’s late and I won’t keep you.”
The two of them went through a bit of conversational back-and-forth before Jake finally said his good-nights and returned to his car. Once he’d left, I waited half a minute and said, “What do you think?”
“I’ve got no proof, but offhand I’d say the man is a lying sack of shit.”
24
Thursday, July 2, 1953
The morning after Cora left for Walnut Creek, Tom slept in, sprawled across the bed in a luxury of sheets. Among the many things they disagreed about was the temperature in the bedroom at night; he liked it cold, windows open to the wide, while Cora liked the windows shut and the heat cranked up. They also disagreed about blankets, the firmness of the mattress, and the nature of bed pillows. Alone, he could do it all exactly as he liked. With Cora out of the way, he was an entirely different man. It was like having a separate personality, one he called forth and wore like a smoking jacket while she was gone. He had two such personalities, as a matter of fact. When he drank, especially at the Blue Moon, he relaxed into the blue-collar type from which he sprang. He was a good old boy at heart. He liked his boots and jeans, adding a western-cut sport coat when he felt like dressing up. Here in Cora’s fancy house, sober and unobserved, he activated another side of his nature, playing Lord of the Manor. He was jaunty and dapper. He used a cigarette holder when he smoked and affected a snooty accent when he talked to himself.
He got up at 10:00, showered, dressed, and popped over to Maxi’s Coffee Shop for breakfast. He checked on a couple of pieces of equipment that he had out, and when he reached the house again, he saw the mail truck just pulling away. He angled the car in close to the mailbox and retrieved the stack of envelopes and two of Cora’s magazines. He left the car in the driveway and entered the house, calling, “Yoo hoo, I’m home!” purely for the pleasure of knowing he was on his own.
He carried the mail into Cora’s office and laid it on the corner of her desk, intending to peruse later at his leisure. He sat down in her office chair and began a systematic search. She was secretive about her personal papers, keeping everything locked up-desk drawers, file cabinets, even the closet where she kept her jewelry and furs. The good news was he’d long ago figured out where she hid the keys. It amused him to let her go on believing herself secure while he kept an eye on her every move. He knew better than to try to siphon money from her bank accounts-she could be such a bitch about those things-but he did occasionally fudge an endorsement on a dividend check. One had arrived the day before, and he’d culled it out of the batch before he gave the mail to her. In his bathroom, with the door locked, he opened the envelope to see what his deception had netted him. Ah. $356.45 from some shares of stock she owned. He liked walking-around money, just the odd few bucks. She never seemed to notice. Dividend checks came periodically and the face amount varied, so it wasn’t something she counted on as a regular event. He wasn’t proud of himself, but he did enjoy his little forays into her private affairs. Really, she brought it on herself.
He opened her desk drawer and found the folder in which she kept her canceled checks. He extracted one, pleased with the sample of her signature. Cora A. Padgett with a little loop on the last t. He had a nice supply of tracing paper and he could whip out a decent approximation in no time at all. He endorsed the check-well, “Cora A. Padgett” endorsed the check-and then he put his tools away and picked up the stack of mail. He sorted through rapidly, disregarding bills except for the ones he didn’t want her to see. The last envelope in the pile was a letter addressed to Loden Galsworthy from an out-of-state bank. He reached for the letter opener, slit the envelope, and read the correspondence signed by a “Lawrence Freiberg,” one of two vice presidents. Mr. Freiberg, or “Larry,” as Tom was already fond of calling him, was writing to inquire about the above-referenced account on which there’d been no activity for the better part of five years. Interest had been accruing and was, of course, properly credited, but the bank was wondering if perhaps there was something more they might do for him. They’d recently established an investment arm for valued customers. Since Loden Galsworthy was numbered among their very best, Mr. Freiberg suggested that perhaps the bank might put him in touch with one of their financial experts for an analysis of his portfolio. Tom read the letter twice. This had to be an account of Loden’s that Cora had either overlooked or knew nothing about. Mr. Freiberg had probably never met his valued customer and clearly had no idea he was writing to the deceased-the late Loden Galsworthy. When he turned to the next page and his eye settled on the account balance, he barked out a laugh. $65,490.66.
He couldn’t believe his good fortune. For weeks he’d walked around with his head in a noose and suddenly he was free. He knew exactly what to do. He got up from the desk and crossed to the closet where Cora maintained what amounted to a shrine to her dead husband’s memory. Being the sentimental fool she was, she’d held on to a number of items that had belonged to him, among them his personalized stationery and his Mont Blanc fountain pen. Tom extracted an envelope, several sheets of letterhead, and a few pieces of blank paper. He then sat down at Cora’s typewriter (Loden’s before his death) and flexed his fingers, preparing himself as though for a piano recital. Using the blank paper and a bit of ingenuity, he composed a letter thanking the vice president for his concern. He confessed he’d been out of the country and had just returned to the States after four years away. Having the account brought to his attention was fortunate, as he was currently entertaining an investment opportunity for which the above-referenced funds would be swiftly set to work. He requested that the account be closed and the money forwarded to him at the post office box he’d maintained during his absence. This was, in fact, a post office box that Tom had set up some time ago so that any private business of his wouldn’t come under Cora’s nose. He rolled a sheet of Loden’s stationery into the typewriter and went to work. His typing was clumsy, but he managed to get a clean copy after three tries. If the bank had kept any previous correspondence from Loden Galsworthy, it might be noted that the typeface, the writing paper, and the fountain pen nib were all a match. Now all he needed was Loden’s signature.
On Cora’s office wall, there was a certificate of appreciation for work she’d done as a Red Cross volunteer in 1918, when she was twenty-one years old. It was a boilerplate document, hundreds of which must have been doled out to the women who’d donated thousands of hours of free labor, but she’d framed it and hung it as though she were the sole recipient. Loden Galsworthy had been one of the three signatories. She’d told Tom that she and Loden often spoke of the amazing coincidence of this link between them before they’d even met.
He took down the framed certificate and spent twenty minutes or so perfecting Loden’s signature. Then he signed the letter, folded it, placed it in the envelope, and added a stamp. All in a day’s work. He’d drop it in the mail on his way to the bank. This was truly a gift from the gods, an answer to his prayers. He felt incredibly light and free.