Chapter 5 - Unraveling the Audit
By the end of the week, the physical reality of our return had settled into a steady routine, but the legal war was just beginning. Kirby Anselm had set up a folding table in my living room, surrounded by stacks of bank statements, county records, and tax filings that he had subpoenaed through the probate court.
The house itself felt different. For three years, I had walked through these rooms on tiptoe, feeling like a temporary guest who had to justify her existence every time a floorboard creaked. Now, with Darene’s possessions gone and my own furniture restored to its proper place, the rooms began to breathe again.
"Tessa, take a look at this," Kirby said, tapping a pen against a spreadsheet he had generated.
I sat down opposite him, holding two mugs of hot tea. Aunt Opal was in the kitchen with Corbin, helping him bake chocolate chip cookies—the smell of butter and vanilla filling the air that had once smelled of Darene’s harsh floral perfume.
"What is it?" I asked.
"When Darene took over managing Martha’s affairs before Martha passed away, she set up a joint bank account in Martha's name and her own," Kirby explained, turning the sheet so I could read the numbers. "We knew about the nine hundred dollars a month in cash you were paying her. But look at these entries from the last eighteen months."
I leaned in closer. The spreadsheet listed dozens of checks drawn on Martha’s old estate account, made out directly to Darene Bernie or to cash, in increments ranging from five hundred to two thousand dollars.
"She wasn't just pocketing your cash rent," Kirby said, his tone grim. "She was actively draining the remaining liquidity from Martha’s trust account—money that was explicitly designated in Martha’s will to cover the property taxes and structural maintenance on this house until Corbin reached the age of eighteen."
"How much did she take?"
"Total diversion from the trust account is just over sixty-four thousand dollars," Kirby replied. "Combined with the thirty-two thousand you paid her in cash, plus the attempt to fraudulently divert the forty-two thousand dollar county easement check, we are looking at total financial fraud exceeding one hundred and thirty thousand dollars."
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. "She wanted us out because the trust account was empty," I realized aloud. "She had spent all the money Martha set aside for the house. If I stayed here, eventually the property taxes would come due, and when I asked why the trust hadn't paid them, the whole scheme would be exposed."
"Exactly," Kirby said. "She was trying to force a tax foreclosure or a quick cash sale to an investor before anyone looked at the books. She figured if you were living in a motel, traumatized and broke, you wouldn't have the resources to hire an attorney or question her authority."
"What happens now?"
"The forensic accountant I hired finished his report this morning," Kirby said, pulling a official document with a blue cover from his briefcase. "We filed a formal petition with the probate judge to compel a full accounting and immediate restitution. Furthermore, I met with the District Attorney, Mr. Vance Evans, three hours ago."
"And?"
"He has signed off on an indictment," Kirby said with a calm, satisfied nod. "Darene Bernie is being formally charged with grand larceny, scheme to defraud in the first degree, and forgery. Vance Bernie is being charged as an accessory after the fact, though the DA indicated they may offer him a plea deal if he cooperates fully and provides state's evidence regarding how the cash payments were handled."
I felt a strange mixture of relief and sadness. Vance was Neil’s father. He was a weak man who had spent his entire life letting his wife run roughshod over everyone around him, but he was still Corbin’s grandfather.
"Will Vance go to prison?" I asked quietly.
"Unlikely," Kirby said. "He has no prior criminal record, and his defense attorney is already signaling that Vance had no direct access to the joint accounts. He’s going to get probation and community service. But Darene? Darene is looking at mandatory state prison time. The sheer scale of the fraud, combined with the fact that she targeted a grieving widow and a young child, makes the judge very unlikely to grant leniency."
A soft knock came at the front door.
I stood up, my heart doing a familiar nervous flip, but then I remembered the heavy brass key in my pocket and the new deadbolt on the frame. I walked to the door and looked through the peephole.
Standing on the porch was not Darene or a police officer, but Mrs. Gable, our elderly neighbor from across the street. She was holding a covered casserole dish wrapped in a clean dish towel.
I opened the door.
Mrs. Gable stood there, her face red with embarrassment, her eyes fixed on her sensible leather shoes. "Tessa," she began, her voice trembling slightly. "I... I brought over some chicken pot pie for you and Corbin."
I looked at her, remembering how she had stood on her porch three days ago, watching in silence while Darene threw my photo albums into the grass.
"Thank you, Mrs. Gable," I said softly, not stepping aside to invite her in just yet.
"I wanted to say," Mrs. Gable continued, tears welling up in her faded blue eyes, "I am so sorry. Darene told us... she told everyone on the block that you were taking advantage of her. She said you hadn't paid a dime since Neil died and that you were breaking things inside the house. We should have known better. We knew Neil. We knew how hard you worked at the hospital."
"She was very convincing," I said, keeping my tone even. "She convinced me for three years that I had no rights."
"It was terrible, what she did," Mrs. Gable said, holding out the dish. "The whole street is talking about it. When the sheriff drove her off today, everybody saw. We just... we want you to know we're glad you're back. If you need anything—anything at all—you just call me."
May you like
I took the warm dish from her hands. "Thank you, Mrs. Gable. I appreciate that."
She nodded, wiped a tear from her cheek, and walked back down the steps. I watched her cross the street toward her tidy white house. The neighborhood was beginning to see the truth, layer by layer, like paint peeling off an old fence.
