Beyond the Mirror
Copyright© 2012/2014
Chapter 6
The building had obviously been a normal home at one time, but the small living room opening off the entranceway had been converted into an office at some time in the past. Now there were a few typical ‘customer style’ chairs, a small commercially made bench seat and an office desk; however, the fireplace of the original living room was still clearly visible. In fact, there was fire in the fireplace when they entered the office, but then with a chilly breeze and a light rain falling outside, that fire was a welcome addition. Tom had been to Victoria before and he recalled that it seldom snowed on the south end of Vancouver Island, so this was normal winter weather and having a fire was probably not that unusual.
“Hello folks. There are hooks on the wall behind you for your coats, and just wipe your shoes on the rug, but don’t worry about the floor. I had it tiled several years ago, just for weather like this,” an older woman sitting in a wheelchair behind the desk smiled as she greeted them. “My name is Muriel Preston, and I operate an answering service as well as a small office facility for those companies who find maintaining a larger office somewhat difficult, if not impossible. I take it, sir, that you are the long-sought-after Thomas Dunn, and the lady with you is your accountant.”
“Yes, I’m Tom Dunn, and this is Sandra Watkins, my accountant and tax consultant. I’m glad to meet you, Ma’am, but I was wondering, would you prefer me to call you Muriel, Mrs. Preston, or something else?”
“If I’m still working for you, you can call me Muriel, and I’ll call you Tom,” Muriel grinned at him. “How’s that?”
“Marvellous, Muriel,” he winked. “By the way, how much do I owe you in back pay?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” she snapped as she studied Sandra closely. “Sandy, you look much more relaxed and happy than the last time I saw you. Since you’re wearing an engagement ring, not a wedding ring now, I’m betting you divorced that snide little snipe that you’d stuck yourself with before you graduated college.”
Sandy’s mouth had dropped open, and she stared at the older woman in astonishment, then she stammered. “You’re right, but I’m sorry, I don’t remember meeting you, Ma’am?”
“Probably not, but I have a very good memory for faces and names. You were friends with my daughter while you were studying at the university. In fact,” she paused and turned her head toward an open door and called out quite loudly, “Laura, where is that tea you were going to make for my customers?”
“Coming, Mom, I waited to pour the tea until I heard someone come in,” a young woman about Sandy’s age came in and set a loaded tray on the desk, then turned toward Tom and Sandy, but at that point, it was her turn to stare in surprise.
“LAURA!” Sandy shouted, breaking the short silence.
Then suddenly both women were leaping toward each other with their arms reaching out to meet in what ended as a mutual bear hug. The two of them held each other tightly for a moment, before separating to arms’ length. Then both of them started talking rapidly and simultaneously, which made Muriel smile and Tom shake his head in wonder.
“Girls, I hate to be a spoilsport, but why don’t you two go into the kitchen and catch up with each other’s lives? Tom and I do have some important business to take care of,” Muriel spoke just loudly enough to break into the girls’ loud chatter.
“Oh, but I should be here to...” Sandy protested.
“It’s okay, Sandy,” Tom grinned and winked at her. “I’m not about to give away the farm or anything, so go ahead and catch up with your buddy. If I really need you for anything, I’ll call you, okay? I promise that I won’t do anything irrevocable without consulting you.”
After the two younger women had left the room, Muriel looked at Tom rather appraisingly.
“I think you’ll do. You’ve been darn good for that gal, that’s for sure. Have you ever met the prick she was married to before?”
“Whoa, you aren’t quite what I expected,” Tom laughed. “You call a spade, a spade, don’t you? But to answer your question, no, I have never ‘officially’ met Mr. Sheridan Lister. I met Sandy first and asked others about her former husband, then did my best to stay away from him.”
“Oh, has he become dangerous in some way?”
“No, not really, but if any of the tales about how he treated Sandy are true, I might be a danger to him and since he is a lawyer, I don’t want to be arrested for assault and battery,” Tom said with a smile, but there was no warmth to that smile. “Unfortunately, he’s the only lawyer in Bear Creek and since I refuse to deal with a shyster, I plan to try to find another lawyer, probably while I’m down here in Victoria or over in Vancouver.”
“Oh ho, I can see why Serge would like you,” Muriel chortled with a grin. “I never liked the little shmuck myself, but then I never saw all that much of him either. Now, how do you like your tea?”
Tom and Muriel were soon completely at ease with each other, so they chatted freely and Muriel soon found that she trusted Tom enough to discuss both her past and her present situation. She had lost the use of her legs as well as her husband in a car accident, but although insurance had paid off the mortgage on the duplex she and her children lived in, she wanted to work. Since she was relatively housebound, she had started an answering service, which had grown into a storefront office arrangement and mail forwarding service for several small companies. She had done quite well at it too. She had raised three children, two girls and a boy, and had put them all through university on the money earned from that business, so she was justifiably proud of her accomplishment.
Tom in turn told her a little of his own past, even going as far as admitting that he and his father were too much alike to work well together. Then he explained about his love for the outdoors and how he had discovered an abandoned gold mine, established his claim, and met Serge. While he was talking about Serge, describing the old man’s apparent appreciation of Tom’s desire to treat him fairly and how the purchase of the company had come about, Marge laughed easily.
“As I see it, Serge was just giving you a hand,” she grinned. “That old bugger must be worth several million from other investments, so he was just giving another independent prospector a hand by selling out to you. You were there at the right time and actually bought the last property lease that the company still held. He’d already sold the others, so once he’d sold that last lease to you, the company was an empty shell. Pawning it off on you was just his way of clearing the books and probably his way of making sure I would still make some profit off the deal. I’m betting he had faith that you’d do just what you’ve done, chase down the company name, and come see me.”
“You know, that makes sense,” Tom nodded. “He was certainly clear-headed at the time I bought that lease from him, although he’s gone downhill since. I’m of a mind that the place where he’s staying is gradually killing him.”
“No, don’t worry about that. He’s been slipping into poor health for several years,” Muriel sighed. “You probably caught him on a good day when you made the deal to buy him out. I don’t know all the details, but he has a deteriorating health problem, something to do with his circulatory system, and it’s inoperable because of his age and general condition. His thought processes are slowly being affected. A couple of years ago, a doctor told me that at times the blood flow to his brain is greatly reduced, which causes deterioration and something akin to dementia. It acts almost the same way as Alzheimer’s does, and there is nothing at all that can be done about it. One day, he’s just going to go to sleep and won’t wake up, then I’m going to have to fly up there to go to his funeral.”
“Well, that won’t be all bad. While you’re there, I could easily be persuaded to fly you out to look at a real gold mine,” Tom tried to put a more pleasant spin on things.
“Hmm, talking about your gold mine - you do realize that since you’ve been selling gold under the company name, some of the bigger players in the field are showing interest in your claim, don’t you?”
“No, I never thought about it,” he shook his head. “Is that going to be a problem for you?”
“Oh no, I just have to forward the mail and the phone messages,” Muriel laughed. “The problem may come on your end. You may have visitors dropping in on you at some point.”
“Muriel, do you know what the area around that mine is like?” he smiled, but his smile had a malicious edge. “Unless you know where you are going and how to get there, you’d have a real problem even finding the mine, and when you do get into the area, it isn’t exactly friendly territory. Earlier this winter, Sandy shot a charging moose while she was on the way from the cabin to the outhouse. Then I had to shoot a black bear who attacked me while I was walking between the cabin and the mine. As well as that, I’ve had to shoot a few bears, several wolves, and a wolverine or two, and they all seemed to be dead set on being unfriendly toward humans. That claim is in pretty darn rough country, so I don’t go anywhere without a rifle at hand, and I don’t let my guests wander around without protection either. Just ask Sandy, she knows that every ounce of gold coming out of that mine is earned the hard way.”
“Sandy has spent time at your mine?”
“Yeah, she has.”
“In other words, she’s more than just your accountant, isn’t she?”
“Oh yeah, that’s my ring on her finger, but I’m not sure if that’s your business.”
“Oh, don’t get touchy on me,” Muriel snorted. “I’m more interested in knowing about her life because she is Laura’s friend than anything else. Actually, from what I’ve seen, you’re a lot better for her than her ex-husband was. Of course, that doesn’t say much, because he was a control freak and probably somewhat abusive.”
“I won’t comment on that, since it happened before I was around,” Tom stated flatly. “I do know that there are rumours circulating around the community, but Sandy doesn’t talk about him a lot, and I’m not going to push. However, I do have some friends in town who are a bit irate about several things the guy has done to other women since Sandy’s separation and divorce. Rumour has it that a few of the local natives have warned him away from their sisters and have hinted that he had best be very careful of a bear attack if he ever goes out in the bush.”
“That doesn’t sound very good,” Muriel frowned. “Didn’t you say something about him being the only lawyer in town?”
“Yes, he is, but why did you want to know about that?”
“Well, Laura is a practising lawyer who has been gaining experience at a local office, but she’s a very independent woman, and she doesn’t always agree with office policy,” Muriel was frowning slightly. “On top of that, since she’s been living here with me, she’s been a great help, but sometimes she gets on my nerves because she interferes in my private life and my independence. I think both of us would be better off if she was away from here, and Bear Creek sounds like it might be ripe for another lawyer, especially a woman.”
“Well, from the way they reacted to each other, I think Sandy would love that idea, and I’d be Laura’s first customer, but I think it would take a lot more than that to start a law firm.”
“I don’t know exactly what it would take, but I’d say it was an opportunity she should consider, don’t you?” Muriel looked at Tom questioningly. “By the way, why did you feel you needed a lawyer?”
“Oh, Sandy was telling me that I could save some money on taxes if I changed my business status to a limited company, so that was the initial reason. On top of that, I wanted someone to go over the lease I hold and explain in regular English what advantages it gives me and just what liabilities I have to work around to gain those advantages.”
“Oh, is that all? First off, ‘Sunrise Mineral Exploration and Development’ is already a limited company; that’s explained on the second line of the letterhead,” Muriel chuckled as she handed him a sheet of letterhead. “Serge operated the company for two or three years before he incorporated it as a limited company. By then, he didn’t want to change the name in any way because he’d have had to renegotiate some prior agreements. As for the limitations and advantages of the lease, you effectively control all mineral rights in the six valleys, which means that almost any form of excavation is under your control. Now, under normal circumstances, the mineral rights would mean a farmer could work the property down to plow depth without asking you for permission, but your lease is different. Since precious metals have been discovered on the surface, the limitations are more severe; even a farmer would have to obtain permission from you to break ground. At least that’s my understanding, but I think you’d better talk to Laura or another lawyer about anything as detailed as that.”
“Wow, that’s more stringent than I thought. I think I was breaking the law or at least going outside of the terms of the lease by panning for gold.”
“I suppose you might have been, but I think Serge had given up on finding any significant ore bodies in that area; besides, I think you must have impressed him in other ways.”
“Well, I think that might have been because he knew the area, so he knew how tough it was to stay alive up there. Since I had been snowed in for six months the first winter and still managed to survive, he must have felt that I was a bit like he had been when he was younger,” Tom snorted and handed her back the sheet of paper she had passed to him before. “By the way, I’ve written down my contact numbers for you, but the only one I’m giving you permission to pass on to anyone else is the number of my post-office box. I’ve also given you my short wave radio call sign and frequency, but I only monitor that at odd times. For instance, in the winter, I try to have it on for a while between five and six in the afternoon on Mondays and Fridays. The other addresses and phone numbers are all for local people I deal with in some way or other, but contact through them is somewhat iffy because they’d have to pass on a message. Of course, the main one is Sandy’s phone number and address.”
“Well, that’s a lot more than I had before. Now I need to make a few phone calls for other customers, but I have some mail for you to go through while you’re here. Why don’t you sit over there at the table and see how much of it is worth doing anything about?”
Actually, Tom was able to skim through most of the letters and notes and eliminate them quite quickly, but one or two of them took longer. One of them was an offer of funding, which he realized was a poorly disguised attempt to gain information about his mining claim. He quickly wrote a note in response to that offer:
Dear Sirs;
This company is in no need of outside funding at this time, nor will we be in need of such funding in the foreseeable future. Besides which, the information you seek is only available to certain company personnel, our company lawyer, or our registered accountant. Please do not bother responding further and please remove our company name from your mailing list. If we do receive further correspondence from your firm, we will consider appropriate legal action concerning your attempts to seek inside information in a questionable and immoral, if not fully illegal, fashion.
The second letter was an offer of purchase for the leased area, including his mine. However, the amount that was offered was ridiculous when you considered the total acreage involved in the lease, not to mention the fact that it included the rights to his mine. His note to that firm was somewhat more caustic;
Dear Sirs;
Our company officials have read your offer and are of two opinions, considering it to be either comic or insulting. If you are attempting to be humorous, please consider polishing your routine at a comedy club. If your offer was meant in earnest, please realize that it is considered to be insultingly picayune by our company’s CFO. Either the raw mine access or the housing provisions at our #1 site are each worth far more than the total amount you have offered, thus you have disregarded the value of our other developments as well as the overall value of our lease. Please be advised that at the present time we are not considering any form of sale to or partnership with any other firm. We most certainly would not consider your paltry offer and in our opinion the tone of your offer can be considered to be an insult to our intelligence as well as a slur on both our resources and abilities. Thus, unless you wish to make a formal apology, please do not make any further contact with any person in our employ.
He had hardly put his pen back in his pocket when Muriel spoke, “You aren’t planning on sending out a handwritten letter to a business firm, are you? Instead, I can easily type it up on company letterhead for you.”
“Actually, that’s probably a good idea,” Tom grinned. “But I think perhaps I might see if Laura can give me a legal opinion first because I might not want to mail it in the present form. Do you think I could hire her?”
“Let’s call her in and see,” Muriel smiled, then called. “Laura! Tom needs to talk to you about some legal advice.”
“Coming, Mom.”
Tom heard the answer and reached for his wallet, pulling out a hundred-dollar bill, so when Laura entered the room, he stood and offered it to her, “Laura, please accept this as a retainer for your services. I need a legal opinion about a couple of notes I’ve written in answer to some letters the company received. I want to be certain that I and the company won’t be sued over what I wrote. Here are the letters I received, and here are my responses.”
“Okay,” she took the first letter and skimmed it, developing a deep frown as her eyes travelled down the page. “This is obviously a fishing letter, just wanting information and not really offering anything. It might be best to just rip it up.”
Then she took his note from his hand and read it through, snorting loudly. “Oh, I love this! You could almost have used the words ‘sucker list’ instead of ‘mailing list,’ but legally, this is much better. No problem with that first one; Mom can type it up, and we can mail it to them. I’ll even initial it as your lawyer. Where is the second letter?”
As she read it, she frowned deeply. “Is this for real?” she waved the letter vigorously before handing it to Sandy.
“Here’s my answer, and really, this is the one I want to have a legal opinion about.”
Laura started to read it and chuckled. “Aha, the magic word, opinion - smart usage, particularly since you are edging close to an insulting statement.”
Then she read further and broke into open laughter. “Damn, I think I’d like to be your company lawyer, just so I can read your outgoing mail. This is classic. Type them up, Mom, but make a carbon copy of each one and keep the copies on file. What Tom has done is to shoot down a scam artist with the first letter and out-insult an insulting offer made by a fool with the second. But, Tom, I can’t accept this hundred dollars just for my opinion, can I trade it for a buck? That would be just as legal.”
“Nope, I want you to use it to buy something you want, take a friend out to dinner, or just waste it on something frivolous. You earned that money by sitting through years of boring classes and learning the proper way to do things,” then he grinned. “Just remember, you’re my lawyer and I may have some more work for you to do in a few days. Unfortunately, it’s going to be hard to work with you since you live down here and I live way up in the Bear Creek area. So it’s going to be a pain in the butt for both of us.”
“You could always have another lawyer, perhaps someone local to your area,” Laura suggested.
“No, because the only lawyer in the whole darn town is Sandy’s ex. I wouldn’t ask his legal opinion about crossing a street on a green light while standing at a clearly marked crosswalk, even if it was midnight and there was a blizzard blowing,” Tom said vehemently. “I only wish we had another lawyer in town, but maybe the present guy chases them off. You’d think that a town of more than ten thousand people could draw another lawyer, especially since the guy who is there now has exhibited the personality of a badger with a toothache. I think any other lawyer would make a mint just from the people the present lawyer offends.”
“I didn’t know you’d ever met Sheridan?” Sandy frowned.
“No, I have never officially met the man, but he was pointed out to me. On two occasions, I’ve observed him being an obnoxious idiot, and another time, I overheard him give an innocent man advice that could have gotten the guy thrown in jail,” Tom growled. “I took the guy aside afterward and told him exactly why I thought he’d been given a bum steer, then suggested what I would do instead. He took my advice and approached the police about the problem, so he got good advice instead of taking a chance and perhaps being arrested. The thing is, I’m not any sort of lawyer and don’t pretend to be one. I just used ordinary common sense. All of which is why I won’t use Lister as my lawyer and why I feel we need a better lawyer in town. I think Laura would be a perfect contender for the position.”
“So just like that, you want me to come to Bear Creek and hang out my shingle, do you?” Laura frowned.
“Well, you could, but I’m not twisting your arm. I can guarantee you lots of free advertising if you do come up there, though, because Lister will be running around town, bad-mouthing you from the day you arrive. Unfortunately for him, that will have the exact opposite effect to what he wants, since there are a lot of folks in Bear Creek who dislike him because of the things he’s said and done. Anything he said or did would be disregarded by anyone with common sense and regard for the law. I consider him to be a shyster at best and perhaps a crook.”
“Laura, I know Sheridan very well. I should, after all, have married him for two years, and Tom is exactly right,” Sandy sighed then, but continued. “I can tell you honestly that there are several people who have come to me with tax problems, but when I advised them to ask for a legal opinion, they went to an out-of-town lawyer. Now you can say that I’m biased, and I’ll freely admit that I am, but I also know that Sheridan has made very few friends in Bear Creek. Besides, Tom is right about the need for another law office up there. Considering that there are more than ten thousand people in the town and probably just as many living in the surrounding area, or being serviced by the stores and suppliers from the town, one lawyer is just not enough.”
Sandy paused and looked over at Tom, who nodded at her, so she smiled. “Now, there’s an empty office in the same building as mine; in fact, it’s almost next door, just one over. As well as that, you and I roomed together for years, and I have a spare bedroom in my house that you could use rent-free, at least until you get settled in. It would be very easy for you to come up and give the town a chance.”
“Mom, they’re ganging up on me,” Laura complained.
“Don’t look at me; I think they’re making perfect sense,” Muriel grinned and winked at Tom. “You know how frustrated you’ve been getting with that outfit you’ve been working for, and you know you’re in the slow lane for promotion. From the sounds of things, you’re being given an opportunity that most young lawyers would consider a gift. I think you should jump on Sandy and Tom’s offer with both feet.”
“But what about you, Mom? Who’s going to look after you and help out around the house?”
“Honey, I may be in a wheelchair, but I’m not helpless. Who do you think looked after the house while you were at the university getting your degree? I have the whole house set up so I have easy access to everything, and if I do happen to have a problem, your sister only lives a few blocks away. I can certainly call her if I do end up needing any help, and I’m not about to let you use me as an excuse to turn down the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Okay, everyone, I think Laura knows how we all feel,” Tom said quite sharply. “Besides, I do have another job for her to do, which I’d like to see completed before we leave Victoria.”
“What sort of job would that be?” Laura looked at him curiously. “I take it that it is something that a lawyer would need to do, but I don’t understand the reason for having to do it while you are here in Victoria.”
“Well, to be honest, I have copies of the papers I received when I bought the company from Serge Potemchin last year. They’re in my briefcase, and I’d like you to go over them with me. For one thing, I don’t understand them fully, and I’d like someone to explain the wording to me. Secondly, I believe I owe money to the company shareholders, and I’d like to be able to settle up before I spend the money on something that isn’t as important.”
“Wait a moment, Tom,” Sandy said shortly. “As your accountant and tax advisor, I need to be in on that discussion because some of the income you made last year shouldn’t fall under the company banner. You haven’t even deducted your own wages out of that. Then too, the initial deposit was made only an hour or so after the purchase, and I’m positive that you didn’t have time to do any mining in that short period of time.”
“Pardon me for interrupting, but that would depend on how the purchase was conducted and how payment was made,” Laura intruded. “Legally, there could have been a prior agreement, either factual or implied, which would negate Sandy’s argument. Before we make any decision on which funds fall into individual assets and which belong to the company, we need to know more about the situation.”
“Well, before you can pay anything to the shareholders, we need to go over your profit and loss situation. Shareholders should only be paid a dividend on the profits the company accrues, not on either your working or static assets. Every dollar you invested in construction last year, including wages, housing, and meals for the labour force you employed, is part of your cost, not your profit,” Sandy countered.
“Just a minute, here’s the paperwork,” Tom winked at Muriel and took out copies of the papers he had gotten on the day of purchasing the company, laid them out, then stepped back as the two young women reached for them. Then, as the argument ensued, he moved over and sat on a chair near the older woman.
“You did that intentionally, didn’t you?” Muriel looked at him with a smile.
“Umm, mm,” he shrugged, but grinned. “I’ll be honest, right at the moment, it isn’t a matter of great importance to me what they decide. I’m already well on the way to having what I want out of my efforts.”
“I don’t understand, aren’t you working toward becoming rich with your mining activity?”
“Well, when I started out, I was, but now? Not really,” Tom said thoughtfully. “This whole thing started out because of a family disagreement. My father is a very well-known and highly regarded geologist in the oil patch, who spent years making his name and fortune by travelling with his family and developing oil fields. Mom and Dad had four kids, three boys and a girl, but Mom got quite sick about ten years after I was born. From then on, all us kids travelled with Dad every summer, no matter where he was working. We lived in various places throughout Canada, usually for only a month or two and never for more than a year or two in one place. Of the four kids, I was the odd one out who loved the wilderness much more than the comfort of the more civilized places we stayed. When I grew old enough to argue with my father, he and I had some epic verbal battles, mostly because unlike my older siblings, I refused to be absorbed into the petroleum industry. It got to the point where Dad even refused to provide funds for my university admission because I was more interested in the geology of minerals and metallic ores than petroleum.”
Tom paused and chuckled, “Fortunately for me, I was able to make my own way by that time. I had my high school education, I was eighteen, and I was willing to work in the wilderness, so I built up a decent education fund in a bit under two years. After my first year at university I found I could make enough money in the break between spring and fall semesters to maintain that fund. So I studied the geology of all minerals, but mostly precious metals. When I finished my degree two years ago, I still had enough money to buy a couple of mules and the supplies to go into the bush, so I gambled that I could do well. I was originally out to get rich, but got lucky and found a far better form of satisfaction. I’ve discovered a way to earn a living while making friends and doing what I want to do, which is living a relatively simple, but self-sufficient life in an isolated area.”
He finished with a grin and a shrug of his shoulders, but Muriel wasn’t satisfied.