But Carla wasn’t content to wait for the courts. She drove to Joel’s office, walked in like she owned the place, and introduced herself to the staff—two paralegals, a receptionist, and Gail Horvath, the bookkeeper who’d been with Joel for six years. She told Gail to print the revenue reports for the last three years.
Gail printed them. Carla looked at the top line—$620,000 in annual billings—nodded like she’d confirmed what she already knew, and left.
She never asked for the expense reports. She never opened a single folder that wasn’t labeled income. It was like checking your bank balance but only looking at deposits and deciding you’re a millionaire.
Then she started calling Joel’s clients—no law license, no legal authority, no idea what half the cases involved—introducing herself as the person overseeing the transition. One woman, a car accident victim whose case Joel had been building for eight months, called me in tears asking if she needed to start over. A man with a workplace injury claim simply hung up on Carla and called another firm that afternoon. Most of Joel’s clients, understandably alarmed by a phone call from their dead lawyer’s mother, transferred within days. She was systematically destroying the revenue stream of the very business she was fighting to own. Like watching someone set fire to a house while arguing with the insurance company about how much it was worth.
Then Spencer showed up at my front door with two duffel bags, a PlayStation, and a large bag of barbecue chips, announcing he was moving into the guest bedroom because “Mom said it’s basically ours now.” He didn’t bring sheets or a pillow. I called the Covington police. Two officers confirmed I was the surviving spouse and escorted Spencer back to his mother’s Buick. He left the chips on my porch. I threw them away.
