I sat in my parked car outside the eye doctor and listened to the voice of my financial advisor tell me that the woman who had answered the telephone number of the fictitious doctor was my own daughter in law. I am Karen Lofgren, sixty eight years old, a pharmacist for twenty nine years, and I counted things for a living. I counted six months, one white disc, and one hearing on Monday. “Mrs. Lofgren,” the advisor said, “the man in the background was named Craig. I looked him up. He is an attorney, and he works for a firm that specializes in guardianship cases. Your son has paid him four thousand dollars.”
I drove directly to the office of a lawyer I trusted, a gray haired woman named Marcia Feldt who had represented Dale in the sale of his strip mall. She listened with her chin on her fist. Then she picked up the telephone and called the clerk of the court, and by four o clock, there was a note in the file of the hearing. Mrs. Lofgren would appear in person, with counsel, and with the results of a full cognitive evaluation by an independent neurologist, which she would obtain by Sunday. I did not sleep, but I felt wonderfully clear.
On Sunday morning, a neurologist in Boise spent three hours testing my memory, my reasoning, and my judgment. At the end, she handed me a letter on thick cream stationery. It said that I performed in the ninety ninth percentile for my age, and that she found no evidence of any impairment. I folded it carefully and put it in the old Coach purse, next to the white disc. I had decided to leave the AirTag where it was. I wanted my son to watch the little dot go to the courthouse.
A white tracking disc found stitched in a purse lining gave one retired pharmacist the length of a weekend to bring her son back to the truth in Boise.
I gave my terms in the hallway outside the courtroom on Monday morning, with my lawyer at my elbow and the neurologist letter in my hand. My son and his wife stood against the marble wall with their attorney, Craig, who was sweating through his collar. “Derek, Ashley, you will withdraw the petition now. You will give me your keys to my house. You will give me the AirTag app, and every message you sent about me. And you will tell the judge that you made a mistake, before I tell him you did it on purpose.”
Derek sagged, and the color drained from his face. “Mom, I lost three hundred thousand dollars in a restaurant deal with Craig,” he said, in a whisper. “Ashley and I had a second mortgage. We were going to lose the house. When you sold the building of Dad, I could not stop thinking about it. I told myself you would not need that much money, and we would take care of you better than a bank.” He covered his eyes. “I followed you for six months, and I never once asked how you were.”
But Ashley was not ready to be caught. She suddenly lunged for the manila folder that Craig held, with the doctor letter and the guardianship petition inside, snatched it, and ran down the long courthouse corridor toward the stairs, her heels clicking, meaning to tear the papers and throw them in the river. She passed the metal detector. A courtroom deputy named Mr. Alvarez stepped out of a doorway. Two of my old friends from the pharmacy, in their church clothes, stood at the top of the stairs. And the elevator opened.
Ashley stopped at the head of the courthouse staircase with the folder crushed to her blouse and a deputy approaching from behind, my old colleagues arrayed on the landing like a small gray wall, the November sunlight falling across the marble steps. Mrs. Dillard, who had counted pills beside me for twenty years, spoke gently. “Honey, I held your hand at your wedding. Karen has never wished you anything but joy. Give me that folder.” Ashley looked at the woman who had once brought her a casserole. She wept, and she handed the folder over.
The consequences were fair and swift. The petition for guardianship was dismissed, and the judge referred the case to the prosecutor for fraud and conspiracy. Craig was disbarred, and the false doctor letter was traced to a printing service. Derek and Ashley pleaded guilty to a lesser count and received probation, with a requirement to repay my legal costs. I did not speak to them for four months. Then Derek sent me a hand written letter, and on Christmas Eve, I let him come to dinner.
In the name of my husband Dale, who passed in 2022, I started the Dale Lofgren Fund. It pays for independent medical evaluations and legal help for seniors facing false guardianship petitions and for free tracker and phone safety checks for older adults, in Ada, Canyon and Elmore counties. In the first year we defended forty three seniors and checked two thousand phones. One was an eighty one year old widower from Nampa who stood in a hallway holding the dismissal order and said he had thought he was going to lose his house.
On a mild afternoon in April, I walked out of the courthouse in Boise in my best navy suit, with the old Coach purse over my arm and a small white disc in my pocket. At the fountain in the plaza, I stopped, took the AirTag out, and dropped it into the water. Derek, on probation, stood beside me with his hands in his pockets, an honest man for the first time in a year. “Mom,” he said, “where would you like to go?” I told him anywhere he liked, and we walked together down the wide steps into the soft spring light, past the fountain, past the benches, and out into the rest of the afternoon.