The woman at the credit union pulled up the old account and explained that the third person had been added in 2020 with limited authority. I asked who it was. She read the name twice because I didn’t recognize it. Then she told me the person had been authorized to request statements, speak to the bank, and make certain withdrawals. I asked my husband why he’d never mentioned adding anyone. He said it was “just paperwork” and that I was making something out of nothing. I reminded him that the account held money from my divorce settlement and that I had never agreed to share control of it. Then I asked why he had closed the account without telling me. He stopped talking.
I called the credit union again the next morning and asked for the complete transaction history. The $29,000 cashier’s check had been issued to a name I didn’t recognize. My husband insisted he’d never touched the money. I asked him to show me the check. He said he didn’t have it. Then I noticed something strange about the closure date. It was the same week he had started going to the branch in Wagoner instead of our local one. I called the branch manager and asked whether my husband had been alone when the account was closed. She said yes, but there was a note attached to the transaction. It said the third authorized person had been present by phone and had confirmed the withdrawal. I asked who had made that call.
The manager gave me the name. It was Dustin. The same son whose forged check had started all of this. I confronted my husband, and for the first time he admitted Dustin had been involved. He said Dustin had “needed help” and that the money wasn’t supposed to stay gone. I asked where it went. He wouldn’t answer. So I asked the credit union whether the cashier’s check had been deposited. The manager looked it up and went silent. It had been deposited two days later into an account with my husband’s name on it — but I wasn’t the second account holder. Then she told me something that made me sit down. The other name on that account was the same woman my husband had added to our old account in 2020.
