In Search of a Hill of beans by Thomas J Menzel - HTML preview

CHAPTER EIGHT

Final Accounting

In Canada at Peter’s house, the now adult children were gathered to discuss the long-awaited inheritance from Europe. The Bank was asking for all the typical red tape to satisfy the large request for estate money. The youngest had finally turned legal age and the group was wanting to liquidate the estate proceedings and bring the cash to Canada. They all had dreams of large homes and sporty cars without the worries of young adults of similar age. “Hey Dad, can you call the bank in Germany and get everything started for when we go to visit?” said Zack. Peter looked back and said, “let me see what I can find out on the phone. Anyway, there’s lots of time to spend it all so don’t rush to get your hands on it”. Zack smiled back.

Peter had aged over the time, of the reading of the will and through the years which followed.  He told his children the latest news about the estate in Germany. These were stressful times as he looked at each of his three children and saw the things, they most lacked were not monetary. Zack was the oldest sibling. Mentally summing up each child of his, Peter saw how the much older wife of Zackary was counting the days to start the spending spree she had planned. Zack and she had met at the car dealership that they both worked at. She was ten years his senior and thought of herself as a hot cougar hunting down a younger man.

She had no intention of working in the credit department until retirement and found out through the companies gossip lines about his large inheritance. Thinking of an easy lifestyle spent in bars and restaurants and a juicy divorce settlement down the road, she accepted his hand in marriage. Gold digger is the term they used at the office behind her back, and a gold digger and cradle robber she was.

The middle child was Samantha. She was taller than her brothers and was the athletic type with a head of blond hair and a full chest. She wanted a man who was like her daddy… a man that liked the outdoors and time spent hunting and fishing. She liked to shoot guns on the firing range, and blast away at animals in the forest when hunting season arrived in the fall. She met her husband who was pursuing a career as a Forestry Officer, while at an Outdoor Exhibition with her dad. The Exhibition was filled with suppliers of guns and ammo, boating, and rafting companies as well as the many off road vehicles. They made a good pair, but she lacked the stronger spirit of following her own dreams of travel, which her father disapproved of. She never thought of going to Panama, or later to Costa Rica at the invite of her relatives because her dad had blacklisted those relatives in the extended family.

The youngest was Andrew. He was insecure enough to marry a girl who had gotten herself pregnant in high school by some other boy. A boy at school showed her some attention and she expected things to continue in a more stable manner. Once the boy realized how much responsibility was needed at such an early age, he cut off all contact and left the baby as her problem. She was living in her mother’s house to raise the baby on her own. She had no desire to become independent like the other girls in her class, who wondered why she didn’t deal with the problem in a discreet medical way. One day while buying items for her baby she saw Andrew walking down the same grocery isle and they struck a conversation long enough for the two of them to exchange phone numbers. He saw her as a slightly used model and his father joked about the instant family situation in a mild manner. Earning his paycheck by delivering parts to oil field workers in the north made him feel satisfied with his lot in life.

None of his three children had matured into the type of people he had expected, though he had raised them lovingly. Thinking about education and stability with a climb up the social ladder which money permits the young, he had hoped that each would do better to improve their life and circle of friends and extended family. Having to accept the choice each one made was not easy to do. He was wondering how the gay uncle would feel to know that his gift of wealth had so far made no difference to those children’s lives.

After quietly summing up all three of his children, he took a deep breath, and had a spike in blood pressure at the thought of having to tell them about the latest details regarding the banking situation.

Not one of them had learned more than a dozen words of German, and all they knew were the most obvious words for offering thanks, such as Danke, meaning Thank You in German. Communicating with a bank officer who spoke in a foreign language, in a different part of the world, would be impossible for each of them. Peter could only rely on his limited German vocabulary that he remembered learning as a child when the family was still living in Europe.

As their father tried to act as a go between the bank and the children, he felt like he was failing miserably at the job the children asked him to do. He could not understand some of the more difficult parts of the language during the long-distance phone call they exchanged, and why so much red tape was being asked for by the bank. Regardless the news was not good. The final numbers were unexpected.

Because so many years had passed since the transfer and opening of the children’s accounts, he wondered why the numbers were much less than anyone would expect after the considerable sum of inheritance. Peter looked over the numbers again and saw all the deductions taken from the account over the years. The smaller withdrawals were adding up already, but there were many items charged in substantial amounts over repeated months. A limited explanation was given in each statement offered by the bank because of the lack of room on the computer printed paper. A code letter and number were for reference to each withdrawal. It was late in the evening. Peter turned off the lights and closed the door of the home office room behind him.

Meanwhile in Panama, the housekeeper lifted the pillow from Joe’s face. She looked at him as he lay lifeless on the bed. His skin was grey but with a bluish hue in the area around his lips. In his younger years his eyes were the color of bright crystal blue but were now covered in a dull glaze with the redness around his eyes giving a deep contrast in color. Something or someone who had defined Joe had left his body. Lifeless and flat, laying on the mattress brought from Canada with all the other household contents, the housekeeper smiled at the body, which now lay there cold to the touch. She had finally quieted the man who was so loud and arrogant, but also the man who had left her everything in her life, that she now owned including the house and contents.

In warm countries the authorities dispose of corpses without much time for preparation. The heat in the tropics will swell the body and many pests will lay eggs in the rotting flesh, In Panama, the process of cremation or disposal by burial, is very quick and efficient. No investigation of any kind was done to discover the cause of death. The man was elderly and without family ties living nearby. No one was around to ask the right questions and the Police saw no signs of struggle or damage to the body. Stamped with black ink on the Seal area, the document which went into the civic registry was simply hand typed and said, “death by natural causes”. A Death Certificate was produced and given to the housekeeper. She was finally free and left with a house and a pension from the proceeds she had stolen in the multiple robberies that her cousins had committed on the household.

TJ was dealing with Joe’s Estate from Canada. A part of his fathers’ inheritance had been spent in the years he had lived in Panama. Joe had paid for the house and property in cash. After remodeling the house and adding a large swimming pool in the backyard, the expenses also included the transportation of the entire household contents and the Mercedes sports car from Canada to Panama by shipping container. All these Estate documents brought back the memories and ordeal of closing his mother’s estate accounts.

Other memories flooded his mind about how she had received $600,000, dollars and had spent the money in the 10 years before she had died. A few dollars that had been left in her bank account and a small government pension was transferred to his name, but that was used up on the back taxes she owed the government.  Before her death she had lived a good life in Europe, eating in expensive restaurants and traveling on vacations with her sisters to other European countries. She had bought expensive clothes, eaten well, and traveled extensively. The memories faded slowly into the past, as TJ’s father’s estate now needed to be dealt with and still held a sum of more than six figures.

At that same moment and far away in Germany, the children were standing in a row looking across the street in the city of Berlin where the house once owned by their uncle stood. They saw the home which prominently stood on a large lot with mature elm trees. It was an older neighborhood in the downtown core and close to the subway entrance. The style of architecture was large, overbearing and rose three stories into the city skyline. Noise from the street and traffic was reduced by the scrubs, hedges and thick foliage neatly growing along the street entrance.

The family had come to talk with the Bank Manager about their inheritance, intending to liquidate the accounts and send the money to Canada. In the meantime, they were also site seeing around the city in some of their uncle’s former hangouts. German culture and the people seemed foreign to them, as they had no real ties with the culture Peter had grown up in. They liked the beer pubs and the shopping districts but held no real affinity for the land or its citizens.

That night dinner was taken in a restaurant frequented by the late uncle. Plates full of traditional schnitzel and potatoes with side orders of red cabbage sat cooling on the table, while they talked excitedly about the future hoped for once the money was transferred overseas. Zack started the conversation by saying, “I’m going to buy a red sports car and drive down the German Autobahn at 250 Km per hour. So fast that I need a parachute to stop the car, just like in the top fuel funny car races”. Then Andrew chimed in “I’m going to buy a big sports boat and race across the lake with a giant net to catch all the fish as I cross the lake”. They laughed and chocked on the food. Samantha looked at her brothers and started to laugh. “I’m going to travel by private jet all over Europe and stop in every city to buy a new purse and shoes.” They all roared out in laughter together and banged their beer steins together in a family toast.

The kids went to bed feeling full and content with the thoughts of fresh money in their pockets. Peter however was struggling to sleep that night with worries of what was to come at the bank in the morning.

At nine AM on the dot, he walked into the Main Lobby. Asked for the manager and waited. Walking towards him was the banker was in his early fifties, of average height and somewhat overweight. His large office was well lit and down the hall from the main lobby, which was filled with bank customers. Pictures of his three children were on the bookshelf among his collection of accounting trade magazines. He was well dressed and spoke a sharp Berliner German dialect, which was difficult for Peter to fully understand. Greetings were exchanged as the Bank Manager sat reviewing the file and account information. He couldn’t help but notice his name plate which was resting prominently on the large desk which said Gustav Ulver.

“Guten tag Herr Menzel”, he said while still viewing the file contents. Peter shuffled around in his metal chair and cleared his throat to speak, feeling intimidated he said with a flat tone, “I wish to transfer the entire account balance of my children’s inheritance to a Bank in Canada”.

Herr Ulver replied after a short pause nodding his head in agreement and announcing he could make out a cashier’s check for the small balance left in the account. He had a habit of clicking his pen on the tabletop. He stopped the action when he noticed the look of frustration on the client’s face.

Peter leaned forward in his chair, looked the banker straight in the eyes and said, “there are several million German Euros that have been deposited in this Bank after my uncle died more than ten years ago, and with interest paid, it should add to more than 5 million dollars Canadian”. “I am afraid not”, came the reply from the manager across the desk.

“You see when your uncle passed away, the mortgage was paid on the three office buildings which had the outstanding loans. It was necessary to maintain the buildings with upgrades and improvements made necessary by civil building laws. Property taxes and inheritance taxes were taken from the cash balance in the accounts, but the liabilities overran the credits, and it is only for the small interest that the Bank has paid that the account shows any positive balance at all”.

Peter was in shock with the news from the banker. Herr Ulver continued to explain that the withdrawals to the account were verified by the bank’s own accountants. Since the Bank had managed the inheritance for most of the time there were fees to pay of course!

The total balance available for each of the three children who were now grown adults being less than twenty-five thousand dollars. That was over a million dollars less for each of the three, than they were expecting to receive.

As he left with three cheques in hand, the manager thanked Peter for his business with the bank. The bank had made a nice profit from maintaining the children’s inheritance.

Handing each one of the children a cashier’s check for 25,000 dollars; Peter could see the look on their faces of shock and confusion as each expected far more than received.

He had to explain to them, what the manager had said in a language they had not learned and could not understand. The grown children had no choice but to accept the fate handed to them without undue emotions. Jobs were always available in the city when needed to keep the bills paid. Credit lines had high interest rates but made buying things affordable for everyone. The system would keep them slaves for many years to come, the same as their father.

As he lay in bed that night, Peter thought back on the times he had dreamed of his children’s fame and fortune. He had assumed that when the children received the large inheritance, they would shower expensive gifts on him. He believed that things would change for him as well as his children for the better in the years to come. He now understood the notion of self-made men, having respect from past choices made.

The following week Peter was back at work doing whatever was asked of him by his boss. He had to return for a paycheck to cover the overdue bills coming in, as always happened before.

TJ on the other hand, was sitting on the sundeck at the side of his house in Costa Rica. On the table in front of him sat the open laptop. He was reading the email from Allie Cat. Years had passed since the last time they had talked. A few weeks prior he had sent an electronic email asking to be forgiven for his part in her drug addiction. TJ wanted to have a clean Karma to pass into the next life, whenever that would be. Allie thought someone might be playing a joke on her but replied anyway. She had finally begun the process of healing and was living a clean and active life. TJ told her, among many other things, that he believed Sharon had died a few years earlier and came to him in a dream that same night.

He was sleeping, when suddenly it felt like a presence was in the room. He rubbed his eyes, but only saw a faint quasi human image which emitted some energy. He felt a voiceless knowing from the presence, whereby a goodbye was expressed. At no point did he feel fear of what was happening, only an awareness of what transpired. In the morning he asked Athena if maybe something strange happened the night before. Oddly, she too, had felt something eerie had passed in the night.

Sometime later when TJ searched for Sharon’s name on social media platforms, they all had timelines without any new updates for several years. Friends and family urged her to go back into treatment. A comment written about being packed and ready for detox was her final entry. Just about the exact time when he had dreamt of her visit. There were no new posts or updates on her profiles after that date. Allie told him all about her life events and he did the same with her, although, some things were left unspoken between them.

It was then, that TJ had received the news the housekeeper in Panama had killed herself. The housekeeper had murdered his father and in short time the darkness and feeling of guilt had overpowered her mind. Without remorse for her deeds, but unable to face herself and her actions. She was a murderous empty shell when she looked into the mirror.  Since that night when she had suffocated him in the bedroom, after the poison had only half worked, she felt tied to the house she was not be able to sell. She would never receive the title transfer to the property she was waiting on. She had Black mailed Joe into changing his Last Will and Testament, in the last six months of his life, threatening to leave him and walk away if he did not sign the papers.

With his poor eyesight and health, he never learned more than the simplest of Spanish words. His vocabulary would never allow him to express himself as needed in a foreign country. Breathing with a heavy sigh, he had signed the papers.

The courts were never made aware of the change in his father’s will, as TJ knew the will was rewritten in a simple act of coercion, and not as a parting gift from the deceased. The housekeeper was furious. She had spent the cash earned from the three robberies and home invasions Joe had endured. She had sold off Joe’s gold jewelry and his Rolex watch, liquidated the TV, laptops, cameras, and other items, and spent the cash. She was forced to go back to work, taking on odd jobs as needed to pay the debts and bills, by cleaning other people’s homes and washing nearby neighbor’s laundry while dreaming of a rich man with a beautiful house, that she felt she should already own in her name.

TJ summed up the life of a man who had built a small fortune, and the family that had received it. The total worth of his uncle’s estate was over twelve million dollars. Karsten, the gay lover, had received almost half of that in cash plus the house and expensive contents including the artwork. He had left for Spain to play with the young boys on the beach.

The children had little to show for the cashier checks after deposit. Working at Laboral jobs with little understanding of the lost opportunities if only different arrangements been made to protect the children’s assets. They would go on with their lives having occasional thoughts about luxuries and extended vacations, blaming the loss of their inheritance on bad luck and not on the lack of actions required to safeguard their fortune.

Irma, the mother of Peter and TJ had not passed on any of the inheritance. Nor had she invested in objects which held value. She had enjoyed her life and died without guilt.

Joe had made some effort to live on the cheap while convincing the locals he was a wealthy individual. The locals had enjoyed his hospitality with free beer and afternoon swims in the pool, large barbecues in the yard and doing odd jobs for cash. To them he was an outsider or gringo as they called him out of ear shot. They didn’t understand what drove these people to leave behind family and friends for a dream of adventure. These same people were given the opportunity to live in a modern first world country where they came and worked to save money for loved ones back home. Then they often returned home, when the bank account allowed them to become business owners in their native countries. Family Roots went deep in Latin America.

TJ had drunk some of those beers in his father’s yard in Panama, while the two members of the Menzel family exchanged stories and memories. He knew his father had come to respect him and his decisions, but also harbored a secret wish to have changed the direction of his own life when he was younger. Big hugs were exchanged each time TJ had left for Canada or to explore a different Latin country before finally leading to the choice of buying a house in Costa Rica. They were family and blood. A shared name but never again to have a shared path in life.

TJ opened the car door and stepped out smoothly. Up here on this ridge, over 2000 meters above the ocean, the breeze was cool and gentle. He looked down on the blue ocean and distant shoreline and a big smile crossed his face. “Nothing but a big hill of beans … but I have found my home at last”, he said while turning the doorknob and entering the best parts of his life, which were yet to come.

                                                                The END