Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 (4 page)

“
We finish this now,” Aden
said. “Or we leave and come back with law enforcement. The case
we’re talking about is open and active. The FBI and Interpol are
still tracking down active partners in the pornography ring. One
phone call and…”

“
Fine,” the woman said.
“Five hundred thousand.”

“
And you will terminate
your parental rights to Mitzi and Charlie Delgado?” Aden
asked.

Dr. Stupid looked from Aden to the lawyer
and back.

“
That’s correct,” Vere the
lawyer said.

“
But I want it in gold,”
the rubbish-who-was-never-to-be-seen-again-by-Sandy
said.

As if she’d never seen her before, Dr.
Stupid gawked at her patient.

“
Here are your options,”
Sandy said. “The money is wired into your account today or I go
home and see about the gold. In order to access the gold, I’ll have
to speak to Denver Police Detective Seth O’Malley as he’s the only
one who knows its location. I will take the gold to an assessor to
evaluate the appropriate exchange for five hundred thousand US
dollars. Of course, the assessor is legally obligated to report
anything over ten thousand dollars to the Department of Homeland
Security. But if you’d prefer…”

“
I’d advise you to take
the wire transfer,” Vere the lawyer interrupted Sandy.

“
Fine,”
something-so-nasty-you-throw-the-shoe-away-rather-than-clean-it-off
said. “I’ll take the wire transfer.”

“
Do you have the custody
papers here?” Aden pressed.

“
Yes,” the lawyer said. “I
have the transfer of benefit documents.”

“
What about the house?”
Sandy asked. “Sissy and Charlie’s possessions are there. I want
their baby books. I know Sissy wants her ballerina videos
and…”

“
The Westminster home
closed last month,” Vere the lawyer said. “Everything in the house
was auctioned off prior to the sale.”

“
You
told
Sissy we were all going to move
back into Dad’s house when you’d already sold it?” Sandy asked.
“After I paid to keep it out of
foreclosure
?”

The unit-that-gave-birth-to-Sissy refused to
look at Sandy.

“
I can’t comment on what
was or was not said,” Vere the lawyer said. “I can tell you that I
have liquidated all of Patricia Delgado’s assets.”

“
Including Sissy and
Charlie’s college fund?” Sandy was so outraged she could barely
keep from screaming.

“
That’s correct,” Vere the
lawyer said.

Dr. Stupid tried to look smug. When Sandy
shot her a steely glance, the idiot collapsed into herself.

“
I’m the
only
contributor to that
fund,” Sandy said. “Outside of random gifts from friends of my
Dad’s, the funds were
one hundred
percent
saved by me!”

“
Be that as it may,” Vere
the lawyer said. “As their guardian, their mother was the legal
trustee of the funds.”

“
I’ve heard enough,” Aden
said. “What do we need to do to terminate this matter once and for
all?”

“
Transfer the funds and
sign the papers,” Vere the lawyer said.

“
It’s Saturday,” Sandy
said. “The transfer won’t go through until Monday.”

“
You will have to sign the
papers on Monday,” Vere the lawyer said.

“
Unless you’d like to hear
from my attorneys, you will accept the transfer confirmation,” Aden
said.

“
I don’t trust them,” the
rotting-vermin said.

Sandy opened her mouth to say something but
Aden responded before anything came out. He took out his cell phone
and placed a call.

“
Hey Max,” Aden said. “I
need some help. I’m here in Tucson. Yeah, I thought you’d
remember.”

Sandy heard the tenor of Max Hargreaves’s
voice through the phone.

“
I need to file a
complaint against an attorney in Tucson,” Aden said. “Oh great,
anyone you recommend is fine. Sure, the president of the Arizona
bar would be fabulous.”

“
Just a moment,” Vere the
lawyer said.

“
I’m on the phone,” Aden
said to him. “I’m sorry. We worked with your associate on those
custody papers and the transfer of benefits from the Police Union.
I don’t have her number. Oh, you can do that? Great. Do you mind
faxing them to this… facility? Right, the number I gave you.
Wonderful. Thanks.”

Aden held out his Blackberry to Sandy. She
shook her head and took out her iPhone. Seth was still very sick;
he would only answer if it was from her phone.

“
How much?” Just the sound
of Seth’s voice was grounding. Sandy’s eyes threatened
tears.

“
Five hundred thousand,”
Sandy said.

“
Go,” Seth
said.

“
I need the account
number,” Sandy said.

Vere the lawyer scrambled through his
briefcase. It took him a few minutes before he located the files.
He pressed a piece of paper across the table to Sandy. Sandy
rattled the numbers to Seth.

“
Give me a minute,” Seth
said. “Is it horrible?”

“
She wants the gold,”
Sandy said.

“
Not on the phone,” Seth
said. “Can you hold up until you’re home?”

“
Sure. You?” Sandy closed
her eyes to the room to absorb the sanity on the other end of the
line.

“
I’m home,” Seth said.
“Ava’s here. Maresol’s trying to force feed me my favorite foods.
Woe is me. Dale’s taken care of all of my duties – lawn, pool,
maintenance. The boy even fixed that damned screen door. I’m living
the life.”

He laughed. The laughter caused some kind of
movement and he groaned.

“
I can hear that,” Sandy
smiled.

“
Here’s the confirmation,”
Seth rattled off a string of numbers.

“
Sorry I don’t have a
pen,” Sandy motioned to Aden and he gave her the space pen he kept
in his pocket. “Ok, go ahead.”

There was a knock at the door. An attendant
held a stack of papers. The attorney took them and closed the door.
Standing near the door, he read through them.

“
These won’t be
necessary,” Vere the lawyer said.

“
We prefer to use our own
forms,” Aden said

Aden held his hand out for the forms. When
the lawyer hesitated, Aden stood to his full height. His muscles
flexed slightly. The slight lawyer gave him the papers.

“
Alice has an additional
requirement,” Vere the lawyer said.

“
Seth, hang on,” Sandy
said into the phone. She looked across to the lawyer.
“What?”

“
These are confidential
agreements,” Vere the lawyer said. “The entire agreement is
contingent on complete and total confidentiality.”

“
You were right, Seth,”
Sandy said into the phone. “Great. Thanks.”

Sandy ended her call.

“
What just happened?” the
reeking-multi-celled-organism said.

“
We cancelled the wire
transfer,” Sandy said.

“
But it went through!” the
fetid-mess said. “You have a confirmation number!”

“
I don’t really understand
it,” Sandy said. “But I guess with a wire transfer of this size,
you have to go through a couple of steps.”

Sandy raised an eyebrow and folded her arms
over her rage-filled heart. Vere the lawyer pressed the
confidentiality agreement across the table to Sandy. Dr. Stupid
perked up.

“
I’m sure you can
understand, Sandy,” Dr. Stupid said. “It’s important that Mitzi and
Charles don’t know anything about our conversation. It would be
devastating to their self esteem. Alice doesn’t mean to harm them.
She’s trying to do what’s best for them. And you must agree;
they
are
better
off with you and your husband.”

“
You know what’s been
great for Charlie’s self esteem?” Sandy asked. “He’s been sober for
three months. He picked up his 90-day chip a couple of days ago. He
was going to give it to his remaining biological
parent.”

“
Sissy’s been invited to
the New York ballet again. She was the only child selected from
Denver,” Aden said. “Only, she decided not to go last week because
Alice promised her they would live together in
Westminster.”

“
I’m not signing any
confidentiality statement,” Sandy got up from her seat. “Thank you
for your time. We have everything we need to pursue parental rights
termination in the courts. Aden?”

Aden went through the faxed papers and
pulled out a notice of filing.

“
These papers were filed
yesterday afternoon in Colorado Superior Court,” Aden
said.

“
What?” the
rotten-to-the-core thing jumped to her feet. “You can’t do
that.”

“
We already have,” Aden
said. “Mitch Delgado’s Union Rep transferred his benefits to us.
The order will go through on Monday.”

“
You did all of this
before you arrived?” Dr. Stupid actually looked shocked. Sandy
furrowed her eyebrows at the woman. No one was really that stupid.
Were they?

“
When we were unable to
get in touch with… whatever-her-name-is-now yesterday,” Aden said.
“Of course, we didn’t think of the college funds. Is there anything
else we should know about?”

“
Either way, your parental
rights are gone,” Sandy said. “Either take our offer of five
hundred thousand dollars transferred today with confirmation and
release of custody and slink away to whatever hole you think is
best or push it and get nothing.”

“
But… but…” Moisture
appeared in the pond-scum-masquerading-as-a-woman’s
eyes.

“
Ok,” Sandy nodded to Dr.
Stupid. To Vere the lawyer, she said, ”I believe you’ll be hearing
from us.”

Aden followed Sandy to the door. Their backs
were to the table when they heard:

“
All right,” a mumbling
female-voice-came-from-the-mold.

“
Sign here,” Aden
said.

He put the termination of parental rights in
front of the thing-formerly-known-as-Patty. She scrawled a
signature.

“
You both need to sign as
witnesses,” Aden said. “I don’t want to hear a word about duress or
coercion.”

“
But you
are
coercing me!” the
bleating-single-celled-organism said. “If I don’t do what you
say…”

Sandy smiled and walked out of the room.
Aden followed her. They made it to the parking lot before Dr.
Stupid caught up with them. She gave them the signed copy of the
termination of parental rights including their signatures
documenting that the papers were signed by agreement. Standing next
to their rental car, Sandy called Seth. Without saying another
word, Sandy gave Dr. Stupid a piece of paper with the transfer
confirmation on it.

“
You really must
understand…” Dr. Stupid started.

“
I hope you have a good
attorney,” Sandy said. “That Vere isn’t going to be one for much
longer.”

Sandy got into the rental car and locked the
door. Aden got into the driver’s seat. While Sandy took a picture
of the document with her iPhone, Aden turned and drove out of the
parking lot and down the street. She had just emailed a copy of the
document to Seth when a series of fast moving Tucson Police
cruisers wailed in their direction. Aden pulled over to give them
space.

“
How are you?” Aden
asked.

“
Not good,” Sandy said.
“You didn’t seem surprised that she was involved in… you
know.”

“
I always thought she must
have known,” Aden said. “I couldn’t figure out what she got from
it. I mean, outside of her child support, she didn’t seem to have
gained a thing.”

“
She must have received
some of the gold,” Sandy said.

“
How much gold do you
have?” Aden asked.

“
Eight two-gallon jars
full,” Sandy said.

“
Why don’t I know about
it?”

“
I got them right after
you got back from prison.”

“
Got them?” Aden
asked.

“
I dug them up from my
father’s lot,” Sandy said. “I got them before they started
building. You were working and getting your teeth done.”

“
And afterwards?” Aden
asked.

“
I don’t know,” Sandy
said. “I didn’t mean to lie. We’ve had a lot of other things going
on.”

“
How does Seth know?” Aden
asked.

“
I told him,” Sandy said.
“He was at the Castle to see the bodies Jacob found. He came by the
studio to check on me and I showed them to him. He had them
cleaned, counted, valued, and stored. They are in some vault
someplace. Are you offended?”

“
I feel like I should be
offended,” Aden said. “But you’re right. If you had told me about
them that week, I wouldn’t have remembered. Didn’t we get married
that week?”

“
I dug up the gold in the
morning and we got married that night,” Sandy said. “I think that’s
why I didn’t tell you. I haven’t thought about them.”