Chapter 12 - Michael Meets His Father
The meeting lasted forty three minutes.
Mediated.
Recorded under legal arrangement? Not for evidence if privileged maybe. Better not recorded for prosecution, but counselor notes. Michael later told us.
Tomas entered in jail clothing.
Michael said first thought:
He looks small.
Then Tomas smiled.
“Son.”
Michael:
“Don’t.”
Good.
Then Tomas said he wanted explain inheritance.
Michael interrupted.
“I saw original.”
Then murder.
Tomas:
“Robert hated me.”
“That isn’t answer.”
“He wanted your mother to leave me.”
“Did you kill him?”
Tomas looked at mediator.
Then Michael.
“No.”
“Did you give him your medication?”
“No.”
“Why tell police he took it?”
“Because he had.”
“Why did he tell neighbor you did it again?”
“Robert was paranoid.”
“Why did you say on call it was supposed to look like accident?”
Tomas:
“They edited context.”
“Did they edit your voice?”
Silence.
Then Tomas shifted.
“You have children now.”
Michael stiffened.
“You know what it means to protect family.”
Michael said:
“I know what it means not to use them.”
Then Tomas:
“Your mother poisoned you against me.”
Michael stood.
Meeting could have ended.
Then Tomas panicked.
“I came back.”
Michael:
“For trust.”
“No.”
“You contacted bank before me.”
Tomas’s face changed.
Then:
“I deserved something.”
There.
“For what?”
“For years I gave that family.”
Michael laughed.
“You left.”
“I raised you nineteen years.”
“So parenting has invoice?”
Robert's letter.
Then Tomas said:
“You don’t understand what Robert did.”
“What?”
“He was going to send me to prison over paperwork.”
Forgery.
Fraud.
Then:
“He was taking you all away.”
Michael stared.
“How?”
“He controlled Helen.”
There.
Tomas’s worldview.
Every independent relationship someone had was control by another person.
Then Michael asked one last time:
“Did you kill him?”
Tomas whispered:
“I stopped him from destroying us.”
Not a direct yes.
Enough for Michael.
He walked out.
Later he sat at my kitchen table.
“He did.”
I said nothing.
“He thinks he saved us.”
“Yes.”
Then:
“Mom, he said Robert was taking us away.”
“Tomas left us.”
“I know.”
Michael cried.
Then:
“I spent eighteen years thinking if I was better son, he’d come back.”
I reached.
He let.
“You were child.”
“Nineteen.”
“Still mine.”
Then:
“Do you hate me for believing him?”
“No.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“Yes.”
He laughed through tears.
“Thanks.”
Honest.
Then:
“I’m disappointed in myself too.”
“Don’t turn that into punishment.”
He nodded.
Then Claire decided she wanted mediated meeting later.
Why?
“To tell him I believed him.”
She went.
Returned.
“What happened?”
“He apologized.”
“For lying?”
“For leaving.”
Interesting.
Did he apologize inheritance?
“He said he was trying to give us what Robert stole.”
Still.
Murder?
“He denied.”
Then Claire said:
“I forgive him for leaving.”
I stared.
“Not for this.”
Good.
She separated.
No all-or-nothing.
Then Tomas’s trial preparations.
He refused plea after all.
His attorney thought circumstantial case contestable.
No eyewitness.
No physical vessel.
Twenty years.
Witness aging.
Toxicology experts disagree.
Jail call ambiguous.
It was not guaranteed.
I respected risk.
Then prosecutor Dana said:
“If jury acquits murder, fraud charges remain strong.”
Truth and legal proof can diverge.
I prepared.
Then one unexpected witness surfaced.
Adriana.
Tomas’s former partner.
She contacted prosecutor voluntarily after jail call.
She had lived with Tomas twelve years in Portugal and later Florida.
She had kept old journal? Hmm. More direct: Tomas told her years ago that Robert died after "I made sure he couldn't testify Monday." But hearsay from defendant admissible. She remembered. Could be powerful but credibility issue.
She said Tomas confessed during drunken argument in 2011.
“He said: Robert thought he could send me to prison. He was dead by Monday.”
Then when she asked how:
“He said some people shouldn't take other people's medicine.”
Not explicit.
She thought it was ugly joke.
Why stay?
“He was controlling but never violent with me. I told myself he was bragging.”
Then Tomas later admitted inheritance blocked.
“He said he did all that for nothing.”
This aligns.
Why didn't she report?
No details, no belief.
Now with news, she came.
Defense would attack.
Still corroboration.
Then perhaps Tomas had another violent act? No need.
Trial set.
Before it, trust funds safely distributed.
Children no longer financially dependent on outcome.
That mattered.
May you like
Tomas could not bargain with their money.
Only history remained.
