“Daniel, look at this entry,” I said, turning the silver-plated laptop slightly so he could see the screen. “There is a five thousand dollar withdrawal from our joint account that I did not authorize.”
He squinted at the numbers, his hand going immediately to his hair. “Oh, that. I talked to the branch manager yesterday. It is just a routine bank processing fee for the estate’s commercial line of credit.”
“A five thousand dollar bank fee is not routine, Daniel,” I said, my voice dropping into the quiet, precise register I used with corporate clients. “A fee of that size requires a formal disclosure document and a signed waiver.”
“They bundle the annual maintenance charges into a single autumn debit,” he said, repeating the phrase with a quick nod. “The bank has been doing it this way since my father handled the accounts.”
“Our joint account has never had a commercial line attached to it,” I said, pointing to the routing number on the screen. “This is our personal operating account.”
