Chapter 4 - The Legal Storm
The victory in the boardroom was only the opening salvo of a war that had been brewing for five years beneath the surface of the Fitzgerald estate.
By two o'clock that afternoon, the nineteenth floor had been cleared of corporate executives and filled instead with six lawyers from Boston’s largest probate firm, two private investigators hired by Richard Vance, and a court-appointed doctor named Dr. Aris Thorne.
They gathered in Henry’s private office at the end of the hall—a room lined with leather-bound legal volumes and oil paintings of nineteenth-century schooners.
Abigail and Mary sat on a green velvet sofa near the fireplace, feeling entirely out of place among the mahogany and brass. Mary kept her hands tucked tightly in her lap, her fingers twitching every time a lawyer opened a leather briefcase with a loud metallic click.
“We have a problem, Mr. Fitzgerald,” said Julian Mercer, the chief counsel for Fitzgerald Maritime. He was fifty, with graying temples and gold-rimmed spectacles that he kept sliding up the bridge of his nose. “Edward didn't act alone.”
Henry sat behind his massive oak desk, a cup of fresh black tea at his elbow. “Explain.”
“Three months ago,” Mercer said, placing a thick blue folder on the desk, “Edward filed a petition in the Middlesex County Probate Court for a temporary conservatorship. He used an evaluation signed by a Dr. Harrison at the Northwood Clinic. The evaluation claims you suffer from advanced vascular dementia and are incapable of managing your personal or financial affairs.”
Mary leaned forward, her voice tight. “That’s impossible. Mr. Fitzgerald knew every street name between Northwood and Boston this morning. He remembered his daughter’s birthday from forty years ago.”
“In the eyes of the law, Mrs. Miller,” Mercer said gently, “a signed medical report from a licensed neurologist carries more weight than memory. If that conservatorship petition is finalized next Tuesday—and Edward’s lawyers have already requested an emergency hearing—Edward won't just control the company. He’ll control Henry’s physical person. He can have him moved to a secure memory unit in Vermont before sunset.”
Abigail felt cold panic rise in her chest. “Can’t Dr. Thorne evaluate him now?”
Dr. Thorne, a tall woman with gray hair cut in a short, efficient style, stepped forward from the window.
“I can perform an evaluation today, Miss Miller,” Dr. Thorne said. “And I can certify that Mr. Fitzgerald is entirely coherent at this moment. But Edward’s lawyers will argue that Henry has ‘lucid intervals’—periods of temporary clarity between long episodes of confusion. They will claim his appearance in the boardroom today was simply one of those intervals, brought on by the trauma of his night in the cold.”
“That’s a lie,” Abigail said, her fists clenched in her lap.
“Truth and law are not always the same species, child,” Henry said, his voice quiet. He picked up his tea cup, his thumb tracing the blue pattern on the porcelain. “Edward has been planning this since my wife died three years ago. He bought Dr. Harrison. He bought the staff at my house on Oak Ridge. Every time I forgot my keys or dropped a shoe, it went into a notebook that Harrison kept for him.”
He looked at Mary. “Did you know, Mary, that Edward fired three of my housekeepers over the last two years because they spoke to me like a human being instead of a patient?”
“I heard rumors,” Mary said softly. “Among the girls who work the Ridge. They said your house was like a museum where nobody was allowed to speak above a whisper.”
Mercer tapped his pen against the blue folder. “If we want to smash this conservatorship petition before Tuesday, we need proof that the evaluation by Dr. Harrison was fraudulent. We need to show that Edward intentionally cultivated the appearance of dementia to strip his father of his rights.”
“Where do we get that?” Abigail asked.
Mercer looked at Henry. “The medical logs. Harrison keeps his raw clinical notes at his private office in Northwood. But he won't hand them over without a court order, and a court order will take two weeks—two weeks we don't have.”
Abigail looked down at her hands. The black acrylic glove was sitting on the glass coffee table, its hole showing the pink skin of her thumb.
“Dr. Harrison’s office,” Abigail said slowly, “is on Elm Street. Next to the apothecary.”
Mary looked at her daughter warningly. “Abby...”
“My friend Sarah works the night shift at the cleaning service that handles that building,” Abigail continued, her voice gaining strength. “They clean between seven and ten every Friday night.”
“Abigail, no,” Mary said, reaching out to grasp her shoulder. “We aren't thieves. We’re poor, but we aren't thieves.”
“It’s not stealing if it’s the truth, Mom,” Abigail said. She turned to Henry. “If I can get into that office, what am I looking for?”
May you like
Henry looked at the seventeen-year-old girl with the broken boots and the pale hair, and for the first time since she had found him under the bus shelter, a slow, real smile touched the corners of his old mouth.
“Look for a red leather binder marked Fitzgerald, H. – Confidential,” Henry said. “Harrison keeps his dirty paper in red leather. He thinks it makes him look like a judge.”
