“He was a well-known cheapskate.”
“He preferred to be called thrifty. He said he had seen too many people go through their money buying any bit of glitz that caught their eyes.”
“Didn’t he have a very expensive wife at one point? A much younger wife?”
“He did. Alanza’s mother was her sister.”
“So Alanza wasn’t really even a Bett?”
“Not by blood. But he wasn’t particularly keen on any of the blood relatives he knew around here. He said they weren’t willing to help out with the property so he didn’t feel obliged to leave any of it to them.”
“So Alanza was the one he thought of.”
“Yes. But he wanted the trust set up in case the spendthrift nature of her aunt was a genetic thing. So that’s what we set up, a spendthrift trust.”
“So it wasn’t a land trust?”
“Not at all. I tried to convince him a land trust would be the best thing for everyone since he valued community use of his property, but he wouldn’t hear of it. For him, tying up the money was his main priority.”
“So how did it work?”
“He appointed a trustee and all access to funds associated with the trust went through her.”
“So Alanza couldn’t get her hands directly on any of Lewis’s money?”
“No. We set up a small stipend for Alanza per month in addition to the use of the house. Everything else had to be approved and authorized by Connie.”
“Why Connie?”
“She was a relative of sorts and had been doing the books for Lewis for years. She was the one who informed him of how far Alanza’s aunt was driving him into the ground. And Hanley worked his property as the arborist so the two families were quite close.”
“So what was in it for Connie?”
“You mean financially?”
“Yes.”
“She earned a trustee fee for her services, but it was modest enough to have passed muster with Lewis so you can imagine it wasn’t very large.”
“So she was mostly doing it out of the goodness of her heart?”
“I believe so. But I wouldn’t have been surprised if Lewis would have fired both her and Hanley if she had refused so it was probably more valuable to her than it might have been to someone else.”
“He had a reputation as a person who didn’t like to be refused.”
“He did indeed. Lewis Bett was an odd duck to be sure. I wouldn’t have wanted to tell him no and then have to deal with him about anything going forward.”
“So Connie was in a hard spot.”
“I’d say so. He wasn’t too easy to work for either. As much as he was very generous to the town as far as access to his property was concerned, he was not anywhere near as pleasant behind closed doors.”
“So Connie and Hanley were pretty well stuck with what Lewis wanted?”
“He held a lot of sway in town, and if he decided to fire her, he would not have been above encouraging other people to do so as well.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
“I can’t mention specifics, but I have had more than one person over the years come to me to ask if there was anything they could do about Lewis Bett targeting them.”
“That sounds unpleasant.”
“It was and there was never a way to really prove any of it. And look at the way he passed over so many other more closely related family members in town in favor of Alanza.”
“That was odd.”
“It was because he liked things his way and he knew enough about a bunch of his relatives nearby that he found reasons to exclude them. With Alanza, she wasn’t close enough to ever have offended him.”
“It’s a wonder Alanza got killed instead of Lewis.”
“Maybe people kept hoping he would change his will in their favor and that kept him safe.”
“Did he change it a lot?”
“More often than you change the oil in Dad’s MG.” Wow. I change the oil faithfully every two thousand miles, just to be on the safe side.
“So even if he was cheap with everything else, he was willing to splash it around on legal fees?”
“Did I say that? He filled out those do-it-yourself forms he bought in bulk at the office supply store then he would bring them around here for me to check.”
“For a fee?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you refuse?”
“Because it wasn’t worth the trouble and he was a sad and pathetic old man who was losing his grip on life. It took me almost no time at all to look them over.”
“So did he switch to paying you when he decided to go with a trust instead of a will?”