Chapter 86: Home Again

July 7, 1981

By morning, the house was mercifully back to normal. Mom headed to the grocery store around 10am, and I hit the phone.

“Cammie? Hi! It’s Steve. How’re you?”

“Steve! Hi! I’m doing good. We missed you at study group.”

“Yeah, our flight got in about when things would’ve been wrapping up. Anyway, I wanted to see if you were planning any library outings this week. I should get started. It doesn’t feel like it, but we’ve only got, what, four and a half weeks until school?”

“Ugh! Don’t remind me! Yes, that’s right. Janet and Lizzie are going tomorrow and I’m bumming a ride. I’m sure you could join in.”

“Do they have room for a fifth? Angie wants to go.”

“Is she joining the team? That’d be so cool!”

“She’s refusing to commit, but I think it’s likely a ‘yes’. I’m just letting her go at her own pace on the decision.”

“Sounds good. I’ll tell them the news looks good but not to give her any pressure.”

“Cool! We’re both novices at university library research, so we’ll take pointers. Maybe send us for books? That way we’re learning the filing system and everything.”

“You’ll both win points on that. If we can dig through stuff while you fetch, it’ll go faster. And we can all make copies of whatever we find.”

“It’s a date, then. Let us know where we should meet you.”

“I’m sure they can swing by your house. So, four girls, one guy. Lucky you!”

“Three girls who aren’t at all interested, plus my sister. Not quite the same.”

“You can still look. And imagine.”

“I plan to!”

“Pig!”

“Oink oink. You suggested it.”

“Hey, I never said I wouldn’t be imagining. Girls can be pigs too. Your sister’s hot!”

I laughed. “She told me that yesterday.”

“She told you she’s hot? You needed to be told?”

“Dad set the air conditioning temperature higher for the trip. It was hard going to bed.”

“Ahh. And you took it out of context?”

“Of course. Need to get working on my debate skills!”

She laughed. “Good point. See you tomorrow, Steve! Figure about nine unless something changes. If it does, I’ll call. Oh, and, hey! I’ve got one bit of news I’m not sure you heard.”

“Probably not. I’ve been totally out of the loop.”

“Ted won! First at Nationals! Meg let us know a couple weeks ago, just after you left. She’s ecstatic!”

“Awesome! Thanks for letting me know, Cammie. And for setting us up on for the library group. Say hi to Mel from us.”

“Will do!”

Angie came by a bit later. “So, did you talk to Cammie?”

“We’re going tomorrow. Lizzie or Janet will be driving. They’ll pick us up around nine unless Cammie calls to change that.”

“Cool! I think it’ll be fun.”

“I volunteered us as go-fers so we’re out learning the filing system, how to get around the building, stuff like that.”

“Good idea.”

July 8, 1981

Angie and I were out waiting at nine when Janet pulled up in a mid-size brown sedan. “Like, ohmigod! Totally awesome to see you! Hop in!”

We climbed in the back, Angie sitting next to Cammie. “Hi Janet, hi Lizzie, hi Cammie!”

“Hi!” Angie echoed.

“Hi!” “Hi!” “Hi!”

“So, how was your big trip?” Janet asked.

“Lots of fun! We saw more than I expected to.”

“I got to visit some friends I used to go to school with, and meet more family, and we went to the Art Institute twice,” Angie added.

“Oh, cool!” Lizzie exclaimed. “I totally want to go visit the Art Institute. I’ve heard great things about it.”

“We went for a day, then went back for half a day, later in the trip. And we still haven’t seen anywhere near all of it. My feet were exhausted and so were Steve’s. But there’s just so much to see!”

“So, you had a big break from debate. Enough! Nose to the grindstone!” Cammie grinned, laughing.

“Hey, I did something debate-related. Kinda. Sorta.”

“What’s that?” Lizzie asked.

“We went and walked around the campus at Northwestern and I nudged my parents a bit on going to the summer workshop there in a year.”

“Which helps us not at all, right now,” Cammie laughed. “But, still, cool. I hear it’s great.”

“That’s what I hear, too. Hence the nudging.”

“Have fun there, if you go,” Janet laughed. “I want to go to Redlands. With Lizzie.” Lizzie grinned at that.

“Of course, you do, California girl!”

“Totally! For sure!”

Angie and I spent much of the day learning, or rather relearning, the Library of Congress classification system, looking items up, fetching them, and digging through them ourselves, helping out. We made frequent trips to the copiers.

We also familiarized ourselves with the microfilm and microfiche archives on which they kept periodicals. There were many reference sources we’d not even touched, but for one day, it was good progress. I wasn’t sure yet what case I’d want to run in CX, and of course that would be a decision I’d make with a partner, but at least I had the beginnings of an evidence file.

July 9, 1981

Angie and I spent much of the day goofing off at the mall. We both wanted to do some shopping — music, books, clothes. We kept running into friends; it was great seeing people after the trip. It was also rough, because everyone asked about how I was doing with Nancy gone. That sent reality crashing back into my heart a bit abruptly.

When we were alone, we talked a lot about financial matters. The basics of the plan we’d come up with in Wisconsin seemed to make sense. I’d done a bit of side research at UH and everything confirmed that no court would look at the assets once Angie’s trust was created. In fact, most trusts were established before they were funded. Normally that was safe enough; no one was concerned with trusts until there was a complaint. If that happened, the DA or the court could require the custodian to produce all of the records.

But no complaint, no record checks. And no one was going to complain that the trust was suddenly doing several times better than it had any right to be. I suspected 99% of the complaints would be about poor performance or fraud.

I’d also researched gold and silver prices, vaguely remembering the Hunt Brothers’ infamous silver manipulation scheme. Prices were still far higher than they’d been just a couple of years ago. Had Frank been prescient enough to put a bunch of his money into gold or silver in, say, 1977 or 1978, well, those assets would double or triple. Perhaps he’d bought in steadily for years? Who would contradict us — Sid? A judge would likely be able to determine he hadn’t, but, again, the courts had no reason to be involved.

The upshot was, if Sid could be bought — cheaply, we hoped — and stay bought, we’d be able to inject Angie’s trust with a large infusion of cash and no one involved in the process would have any reason to check. Since Frank had set up the trust with the expectation that Angie might be placed back with his ex-wife, the trust was structured to prevent reporting to Angie’s guardian. The custodian — Sid — filed all the tax paperwork.

Unless he was embezzling, he couldn’t have been making much. We’d pay him more than that to get Fidelity to take the whole thing off his hands. Any additional services that he needed to be involved with would be paid for at his hourly rate, such as our changing asset allocations at Fidelity or withdrawing for whatever reason. I wasn’t sure if it could be structured such that Fidelity would listen to Angie or not; if not, Sid would have to do that.

So, we could put as much as fifty or sixty thousand into the trust with no one the wiser. By the time we needed to touch more than her monthly allowance, the larger sum would’ve been in place for months or years. I’d retain at least ten thousand in cash for future bets and whatever other purposes we needed.