But men like Greg do not go down quietly. They fight like cornered rats.
His slick, high-priced defense attorney requested an emergency mediation in Anchorage, threatening to sue me personally for “defamation” and “tortious disruption of a contractual beneficiary interest.”
“He’s panicking,” David told me as we rode the elevator up to the twentieth floor of the glass-walled legal building for the mediation. “Let him talk. Then we drop the hammer.”
Greg was already sitting at the massive conference table when we walked in. He had lost weight. The arrogant polish was still there, but it looked brittle, like cracked glass. His silver-haired attorney offered a fake, diplomatic smile.
Greg stood up. “Martha. Thank God. This has all gotten blown wildly out of proportion.”
I didn’t offer my hand. I didn’t even blink. I just sat down across from him.
His lawyer began a long, poetic monologue about grief. He claimed Greg had made “imperfect decisions under extreme psychological strain.” He argued that the insurance company was unfairly punishing a grieving widower.
David waited patiently until the lawyer ran out of expensive adjectives. Then, David slid a thick black binder across the polished table.
“Tab three,” David commanded.
Greg’s attorney opened it. Inside were the bank transfer logs, the expedited divorce filings, the oncologist notes detailing Greg’s medical coercion, and the USB drive containing the Bahamas voice memo.
“Your client did not merely fail his spouse,” David said, his voice deadly quiet. “He financially isolated a terminal woman. He coerced her into a fraudulent divorce to steal her assets. He maintained a financial incentive in her death, and publicly celebrated his remarriage on a beach before her body was even cold. If you want to test a jury to see if those facts constitute criminal exploitation, I would be absolutely delighted to destroy you in open court.”
Greg’s lawyer stared at the transcripts of the voice memo, his face turning an unhealthy shade of pale. He looked at Greg with profound professional irritation.
