Chapter 5: What Patricia Found in Forty Minutes
Patricia arrived at two o'clock with a canvas tote bag, a yellow legal pad, and the focused expression I had seen her wear exactly once before — the year she helped me fight the insurance company after Robert's first hospitalization, seven years ago.
She had won that one.
She shook Jason's hand, accepted a cup of tea, sat down at my kitchen table, and said: "Tell me everything in order.
Don't skip anything because you think it isn't important."
We talked for forty minutes.
I told her about Dennis and the paperwork.
Jason told her about seeing Chloe's face when she read the name.
Patricia wrote on her legal pad without looking up.
When we finished, she set her pen down.
"Do you still have the original documents Dennis brought you to sign?" she asked.
"In the file cabinet in the bedroom.
Every one of them."
"Get them."
I came back with a manila folder three inches thick.
Patricia opened it and began reading.
She turned pages slowly.
She stopped twice and held a page up to the window light.
She said nothing for a long time.
Jason refilled his coffee.
I sat across from Patricia and watched her face.
Finally she looked up.
"Three of these documents are not standard investment transfer forms," she said.
"This language here—" she turned the page toward me and pointed— "this is a limited power of attorney clause embedded inside what was presented to you as a routine asset transfer.
You signed authority over a specific account to Dennis Harlow.
Not temporarily.
Permanently, unless formally revoked."
"Can it be revoked now?" Jason asked.
"Yes.
With the right filing and the right attorney." Patricia picked up her phone.
"I'm calling David Marsh.
He handled elder financial exploitation cases for fifteen years before he went into private practice.
He will want to see these documents today."
"Today is Saturday," Jason said.
"David owes me a favor from 2019." Patricia was already dialing.
While Patricia stepped into the hallway to make the call, Jason leaned across the table toward me and spoke quietly.
"Mom.
Chloe knowing that name.
Do you think she—"
"I don't know yet," I said.
"But you think something."
"I think we find out what is true before we say what we think."
He sat back.
He looked at his hands.
"I keep going back to that BBQ," he said.
"The announcement.
The way she said you didn't have a life of your own."
"Jason—"
"I should have said something.
Right there, in front of everyone.
I stood there and I let her—" He stopped.
His jaw worked.
"You didn't know what I knew," I said.
"I should have known.
I'm your son."
I reached across and covered his hand with mine.
He didn't pull away.
"You know now," I said.
Patricia came back through the door.
"David is meeting us at his office at four.
He wants the full folder." She looked at me.
"He also said — and I'm quoting him — that if this is what it looks like on first read, you may have a strong case for full recovery plus damages."
My chest did something complicated.
"What does it look like on first read?" Jason asked.
Patricia picked up the page with the embedded power of attorney and placed it in front of him.
She pointed to a line near the bottom.
"It looks like a man who had done this before," she said.
"The clause is too clean.
Too practiced.
This is not someone who made a legal error.
This is someone who knew exactly what he was hiding and where to hide it."
Jason read the line.
He read it again.
"Has he done this to other people?" he asked.
"That," Patricia said, "is the first question David is going to ask."
She tucked the folder under her arm and looked at me.
"Go put your shoes on," she said.
"We have an hour."
I went to get my shoes.
In the hallway, I passed the mirror near the front door — the one Robert had hung slightly crooked and that I had never straightened because I liked it that way.
May you like
I stopped for one second and looked at myself.
Then I put my shoes on and walked out.
