Part 3 — Curtis On The Line
The number the bank read out was saved in my phone as Brother Curtis. Lyles younger brother, who once borrowed our truck and brought it back with an empty tank, and who knew his mothers maiden name because it was also his own.
I sat in that parking lot ten minutes with my hands in my lap. Then I did what I should have done a month sooner. I drove to the Natchez police department with both hearing aids in my purse and asked for the fraud detective.
Detective Boudreaux had worked a dozen cases like it. A relative moves in, makes an older person hard of hearing or confused, then handles the money. The sealed microphones, the missed bank calls, and the cloned phone number all fit the pattern.
The bank kept recordings of that Thursday call, and the detective played one for me. It was Curtis, doing his best to sound like Lyle, a little too slow and gravelly, answering every security question without a hitch.
Rusty had started it. The phone records showed he told Curtis about the account in August, and they agreed to split everything. Rusty sealed the aids at night with a tiny dot of glue, and Curtis made the calls. In their messages they called it the quiet plan.
We handled the next part with care. The bank held every transfer, and the detective asked me to carry on as usual for two days. I washed Lyles shirts, cooked supper, and set the hearing aids on the nightstand each night, without batteries.
Rusty was picked up at breakfast on Wednesday in my kitchen with a mug of my coffee in his hand. Curtis was stopped on the highway that afternoon with his phone on the dashboard and Lyles account number on a sticky note.
When the detective told Lyle everything, he sat a long while with his chin on his hand. He could not hear half of it, so I wrote it on a notepad and held it up. When he read the last line he said, in the loud voice of a man who cannot hear himself, They took my ears.
Dr. Pham gave us the best news. The aids were not damaged. She cleaned out the glue under her magnifier and refitted both that afternoon, free of charge. When Lyle heard the birds again, he reached for my hand before he said a word.
Curtis and Rusty were charged with bank fraud, identity theft, and exploitation of an elderly person. The bank restored the full $31,000 and collected what it could from the accounts they opened out of state.
Rusty took a plea and testified against his uncle, and he wrote us a letter from jail. I read it twice and wrote back once. That Sunday Lyle sat on the porch, his aids glowing in his ears, and a mockingbird started up in the pecan tree. He said, Judy, I forgot how loud the world is. I told him it was a good loud.
