I called the bank before I confronted Judy. The account number on the insurance settlement was my husband’s old checking account, the one we closed after he died. The banker pulled up the transaction history and found the deposit from the insurance company in 2021. Then there were three withdrawals over the next six weeks, all made in cash. I asked who had been authorized on the account at the time. She said my name and one other name. It was Judy’s. I had never added her to anything. I called the insurance adjuster and asked for the photographs from the claim. He emailed them while we were still on the phone.
The photographs showed my basement with water across the floor, boxes floating against the furnace, and a contractor standing beside a wall that supposedly had to be replaced. None of it was my basement. The room was similar enough that I understood how someone could have fooled an office, but the furnace wasn’t mine, the stairs were different, and there was a window where my laundry shelves have always been. I asked the adjuster who had signed the inspection paperwork. He read me the name. It was Judy’s husband, who had died two years before the claim was filed. Then he told me the claim had been submitted by phone from the number I already recognized.
I drove home and waited for Judy to come outside. When she finally crossed the road, I asked her why she had used my key to let someone into a house that wasn’t damaged. She started crying and said she hadn’t meant to hurt me. She said my husband had arranged everything before he died because he knew she was struggling and wanted to leave her something without me knowing. I asked why the settlement had gone through an account in both our names. She looked at me and said, “Because he told me you would never check.” Then she handed me the spare key and said there was one more insurance claim, from 2023, that I hadn’t found yet.
