You Can't Buy Love - 4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Rob and David drove to a Bank One branch, went inside and asked to speak to a bank representative. They were shown to a desk where a man was busy working on some papers. The man looked up and David told him what he wanted and he said there would be no problem doing this. David gave him the account number and all his information that was needed and told him he wanted a cashier’s check for a certain amount. The bank representative looked at David and then at Rob. “That is a big amount, may I ask why you want to make such a large withdrawal?”

“I’m putting all my resources together in one place,” David said looking at the representative. “I would like it in a cashier’s check in my name, please.”

“Ok, I have to get the manager to approve this first. I will be right back.” The representative got up and walked over to another desk. David saw him talking to a woman sitting there and then he saw her write something down. The representative walked back over to David and Rob. “I will be right back with your cashier’s check.” The representative said and walked off again.

“This is confusing the hell out of me. I have penny pinched so much and then I find out that I have had all this money the entire time! I’m going to kick Jack’s ass for keeping this from me.”

“David, let’s talk about this when we get done here just in case there are ears around the bank. Everything is going smoothly now, just like Dad wanted it, so let’s just keep it to our- selves for now.” Rob put his hand on David’s shoulder giving it a squeeze as he smiled at him.

“Here you go Mr. Andrews, there is no fee for the cashier’s check since you have an account here.” The bank representative handed David an envelope. David opened it up to make sure the check was made out to him and in the correct amount.

“Thank you for doing this for me, but I have one more thing I need. I would like a printout from the time this account was opened until now, please.”

The bank representative looked at David as if he were crazy. “May I ask why?”

“For tax purposes, I’m having my taxes done as we speak, and I need them to see the interest that I have accrued on this account.”

“Ok, but you should have received an end of the year interest statement in the mail.”

“I’m sorry, but I never received it, so can I get a printout of this account please?”

“Sure, it will take a few minutes to get it. I will look it up here and print it out for you.”

The bank representative was tapping away on his computer, then he stood up to grab some papers from the printer. He came back and handed the papers to David. “Will there be anything else I can help you with?”

“No, that will be it. Thanks for the help.”

Rob and David stood up, left the bank, and climbed into the truck. “Hold on Rob, I want to look at something first.” David looked down at the papers noticing that the account was opened a month after his grandparents passed away, and the original deposit was for $150,000. “Rob, I have been ripped off. Look at the original deposit.” David handed the papers to Rob.

“Crap, let’s get that check in your bank and then go back to Dad’s office. Whoever did this took half your money if not more, because of the interest that it was getting just sitting there.”

“Rob, I’ve been thinking ever since I found out about this money; I want to buy a house instead of renting. It would make more sense than just paying rent on something when I can put the money into a house that could be ours,” David touched Rob’s arm. “Rob, I love you so much, I want to make a life with you. You have been my world since we got together, I want to wake up every morning looking at those baby blues. Will you help me find a house for us?” David kissed Rob, putting all his passion into it. He put his heart and soul into the kiss, which made him and Rob hard as a rock.

“Wow, babe, what got into you just now? Never mind, I think I know.” Rob laughed. “Babe, I love you. I would love waking up seeing you lying next to me. I have been dreaming of that for a long time now. You mean the world to me too. I have some money put away also that we can use if that is what you want to do.” Rob wrapped his arms around David and kissed him. “Let’s get that in the bank and go back and see Dad, and then when we get done talking to him about this money stuff, we can tell him what we have planned. He might be able to help us with a realtor since he just bought a house a while back.”

They left Bank One and went over to Bank of America, where David went inside and deposited the cashier’s check into his savings account. David had the teller make sure the check was good and that there was no problems with it.

They went back to Heath’s office. When they got there they walked in and saw Heath standing outside his office, talking to his secretary.

“Hey, did everything go ok?”

“Dad, we have a big problem,” Rob told his dad frowning.

Heath looked at Rob and David. “Mary, hold all my calls.” Heath turned to the young men. “Let’s go in the office, you two.”

Heath closed the door once they were all inside. “Ok, now tell me what happened, and then I will tell you what I found out.”

Rob looked over at David. “Go ahead.”

“Sir, somebody has been taking money out of that account. There is over $80,000 missing, if not more with the interest that it accumulated. I have the printouts from the time the account was opened. There was a beginning balance of $150,000. And you know what there was in there today.” David handed Heath the papers that the bank gave him.

Heath looked over the papers, shaking his head. “Ok, now we know more about the account. It looks like this lawyer opened the account up in your name, but with a trustee. Which doesn’t sound right.” Heath was looking at David. “I found your grandparents will. There was one for each of them. They left you and your brother $150,000 each, so that would be $75,000 from each grandparent. But since you were under twenty-five at the time, yours had to have a trustee to oversee it. But what I don’t understand is that the lawyer took it upon himself to open this account, when it should have been the trustee’s job to do that.”

“Who was the trustee overseeing this money?” David asked Heath.

“It was your father, David. From what the will says, he is the overseer of the money until you turned twenty-five. But let me explain this to you, your father had no right to take that money out of the account except to use it for your schooling or for a medical emergency. That is what the will stipulates; the money can only be used for those purposes. But then when you turned twenty-five that account was supposed to be handed over to you and you would have been able to do as you wished with the money. So what we need to find out is who withdrew the missing money, and who is on the signature card that is on file at the bank. That is why I didn’t want you to close it out yet.”

“Ok, I understand what you said, but how come I wasn’t notified of this account when I turned twenty-five, which was eight months ago? And how can he get away with taking this money? I have so much going through my head right now. I’m so angry with my parents and my brother. He knew about this all along and he never said one word to me. Plus he has had all that money since it was issued, and he acted like he was always broke, asking me for money all the time,” David said with tears falling down his cheeks.

Rob sat there stunned. He looked over at David and saw the tears, and he got up from the chair he was sitting in and bent down in front of David, reaching for his hands. “Babe, take it easy. We will get to the bottom of all this with Dad’s help. You have Dad and me on your side and we will help you. David, look at me please.” David tore his eyes away from their joined hands and looked up at Rob.

“Rob, somebody in my family stole from me. My grandparents left that money to me, for me and not them. I need to find out which one in my family did this to me.” Rob reached up and wiped away some of the tears on David’s cheeks. He cupped David’s cheek with tears forming in his own eyes.

“We will find out who did this, I promise you. Please, no more tears or I’m going to start having tears fall too.” Rob smiled at David.

David leaned forward giving Rob a kiss. “I love you so much.” Then David grabbed him around the neck trying to calm down.

“I love you too, babe.” Rob gave David a kiss on the cheek, stood up and sat back down in his chair, reaching over and taking ahold of David’s hand.

“David, if you want I will help you with whatever needs to be done to find all the answers for you. I would like to know if you know this Mr. Harrison,” Heath asked, looking at David with a smile, liking what he just saw from Rob and David.

“If you would help me that would be great. I can pay you, since I have that money now.”

“I’m not going to charge you for my help. Now listen before you say anything. You are dating my son, which I know now that it is more than just dating, from what I just saw. So let me help you, for my son’s piece of mind.”

David turned a shade of red. “Ok, I will let you help as long as it doesn’t interfere with your other work.” David smiled, then looked at Rob giving him a bigger smile.

“Ok, then that’s settled, now, do you know this lawyer?”

“No I don’t, but my cousin works for him which I just found out today when we went over there.”

“Let me make a call for a minute.” Heath called another lawyer that he was friends with.

“Hi, Susan, this is Heath, can I speak to Bill please?…Ok, I will hold…Hi, Bill…ya, it has been a long time…that would be great, let’s set a day to do that…I was calling to see if you could tell me anything about a lawyer by the name of Steve Harrison…I don’t know a thing about him, is he new to the area?…Oh, ok…ya, my son’s partner is here with a little problem…ya, he read the wills of David’s grandparents but David was not at the reading, which he should have been…I know, but there is money involved in it and some of it is missing right now…from the statements that David found they came from Harrison’s office…I had him call the bank to get a balance and then had him go over and move the money into another account…he brought back a printout of the account from the time it was opened…they show that Harrison opened the account, but it has David’s father as trustee…Ok, I will send him back to the bank and get those things…ya, the original deposit was $150,000 but there was only $75,094 left in it. I had him move $75,050…ya, I know this could get sticky…good, I think I could use the help since you do this kind of work…ok, I will tell him…talk to you soon… thanks for the information.” Heath hung up the phone. “Ok, you heard my side of the conversation, now let me tell you what my friend said.

First, he has heard of this lawyer, but not anything good about him. He is a probate lawyer and new to the area. The will shouldn’t have been read until all parties involved were there to hear it. It’s against the law for your family to have kept this from you since your name was in both the wills. But this is the sticky part, they could say you were not able to be located at the time of its reading, or they could come up with any other excuse as to why you weren’t there. Now with the missing money, I need you to go back to Bank One and get a copy of the signature card and copies of the withdrawal slips, they will show the signature of who withdrew the money. Bill said he will do some more checking up on this lawyer for us.” Heath looked at David seeing him frowning and looking lost. “David, I need you to keep this quiet for now, if you show your hand and let your family know what you found, we might never get to the bottom of this. Now if you want, let me call the Bank One branch you went to and see if I can get you into seeing the bank manager and not one those useless tellers.” Heath called the bank branch and got David an appointment in an hour. “David, go and ask for Jesse, he will see you in an hour. Explain to him what you need, but don’t tell him the real reasons you want them. Just tell him that you are doing a run through of the account for tax purposes and making sure all the taxes have been paid on the money. Now for the withdrawal slips, I think we can get them from the website. We have time, so let’s look now. Then we can see what direction we need to proceed with this,” Heath had the two boys come around the desk and stand behind him while he pulled up the banks website on the computer. “Ok, here it is.” Heath put in the account number but it was password protected. “Well, that is not going to work, wait maybe we can change the password. We will just put in as forgot password and change it. Nope, not going to work that way. Ok, let’s call the 800 number and see if they can help you.” Heath dialed the number and David got a representative and told her the problem. She asked David for the last four digits of his social security number, David gave her all the information she needed. The representative explained to David how to change the password on the account so he would be able to access the account online. David got it all completed and the account opened up. “Good, now we might be able to get the images of the withdrawal slips.” Heath got the statements and inputted the dates of the withdrawals. “Here is the first one, David, who is that person?” Heath turned and looked at David, who had a shocked look on his face. “David, do you know this person?”

As the author, I take final responsibility for all parts of the story, including any errors.