Part 3 — Step Number Nine
Myrna Calloway told me over the phone, crying and apologizing at once. Marty had sat at their kitchen table in May with a stack of papers and said they were for a free tax credit from the county. Bud signed four pages. Three of them were a power of attorney, and the fourth was a bank authorization for a man who was not a Calloway.
I drove straight to the Reno County sheriffs office with Mr. Fenwicks notebook in my clipboard. I told the desk sergeant exactly what I had seen. He called in a detective named Sandoval, a quiet man with reading glasses on a cord, who listened to the whole story without writing a word.
When Detective Sandoval and I returned to the Fenwick house, Marty had gone. His father was in the kitchen, calm, asking whether anyone wanted lemonade. Mr. Fenwick had heard enough from the stairs to know something was wrong, and he showed us where his checkbook was hiding in the freezer.
We opened step nine together. The green bank bag held forty-two prepaid debit cards, each with a sticky note bearing a name and a PIN. Beside them, in a plastic sleeve, were photocopies of driver licenses and Social Security cards belonging to neighbors on three streets.
The notebook told the rest. Marty had volunteered to help older neighbors with their online banking. In truth he was setting up cards in their names, draining small amounts, and keeping a ledger of who had been done and who was still pending. The entry for Leonard Fenwick was meant to be the largest one yet.
The detective did not need to chase him far. Marty was at the Hutchinson bank branch, in line, with a pen in his hand and his fathers card. A teller who had already received an alert from the sheriff told him there was a short delay. He was still standing there when two deputies walked in.
Mr. Fenwick took it harder than anyone. He sat down in his cardigan at the kitchen table and said, I raised him better. I told him that a boy can be raised right and still choose wrong, and that choosing wrong was no fault of his raising. The ninth step was only a hiding place, and the shame belonged to the man who used it.
Marty was charged with identity theft, financial exploitation of elderly persons, forgery, and fraud. He pleaded guilty before trial and agreed to repay every dollar. The Calloways power of attorney was voided in court within a week, and the bank returned the money from all thirty-one accounts.
The sheriffs office sent a letter to every name in the notebook. Fern Albrecht, Mrs. Ostrowski, and the rest each got a visit from a deputy and a bank fraud officer. Not one of them had lost more than they could recover, because the notebook was in time.
I came back on a Saturday with the stairlift I had promised. I installed it on the basement staircase, the proper one, bolted to the stringers. Step nine I repaired with new nails and no hinges at all, and Mr. Fenwick sat on the seat and rode it down to the washer like a boy on a carnival ride.
He called up the stairs, with his canned goods all around him, That is the best thing anybody has ever done for these old hips. Then he asked me to stay for supper, and I stayed.