CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR: Head Honcho Say, "No Go."

The next day, I left my troubles behind and flew down to Florida to embark on a cruise to the Bahamas with Allen. 

We set out with some trepidation, however. 

Snagged by a telemarketer, I’d signed up for a flower-delivery service in exchange for a free trip to the Bahamas and Florida.  All I had to pay was airfare, port taxes, and food. Knowing my luck, it would probably turn out to be a scam like you see on 20/20 or Dateline, where the “luxury” hotel is revealed to be a seedy motel in a bad part of town, miles from the ocean.  

When we tried to check into our hotel in Florida, it was late at night and their computers were down. We waited for several hours, jockeying for couch space with a large group of disgruntled fellow cruisers. When we got to the docks the next morning, the ship's agent did not have a ticket on file for Allen, so we had to pay $100 to buy him one. Not an auspicious start to our vacation. The cruise to the Bahamas was fun, however, and the food was good. We heaved sighs of relief when the hotel limo delivered us to a four-star hotel in the middle of an upscale tourist district, right by the ocean. 

After unpacking, Allen went downstairs to explore the bar -- it reputedly made great Bahama Mamas -- and I went over to the visitors’ desk to sign up for a sightseeing tour, a day trip to a neighboring desert island, complete with snorkeling and beach barbecue, and a magic/comedy dinner theater.

The sightseeing tour was great.  We started out with a banana-bread breakfast on a deserted beach, were bussed around the rich part of town to gawk at celebrity mansions, and ended up at a local street market where Allen tried conch.  Would it live up to its reputation as an aphrodisiac?  

The comic magician was amusing and clever.  I tried unsuccessfully to catch him out as he performed fantastic tricks right before our eyes at our dinner table. Allen laughed loudly and frequently at his jokes.

I enjoyed our snorkeling trip to the desert island, but Allen’s mask didn’t fit tight enough because of his beard. He nauseously called it quits after swallowing sea water one time too many. We were just sitting down to the beach barbecue, when a fellow barbecuer from a neighboring tour boat took one look at me and asked, “Is your name Scuttlebutt?” 

“Yes!” I exclaimed.  “How did you know?”

“You look just like my friend back in the States,” she said.  “Her name is Donna Scuttlebutt.”

She and I excitedly compared family histories, trying to make a connection between Donna and I and uncover some new ancestors.  When it was time to leave, we exchanged contact information and parted ways to our separate boats.

Four days later, sporting some beaded braids in my hair and a mauve coral ankle bracelet, I sadly bid farewell to the white sands and warm turquoise waters, not to mention a substantial number of Bahama Mamas. With Allen valiantly lugging a humongous bottle of rum, we flew back to a chilly St. Albans, filled with a new zest for living. It had been a great trip.

I did write to Donna Scuttlebutt, but she never wrote back.  Oh, well. It was probably just one of those freaky coincidences.

Two days after my return to the States, my spirits sank slightly when Diane failed to show up for Court.  Judge Grazziano duly granted me a #default, and I returned to the office where I wrote up the #judgment and #warrant and sent them off to the judge to be signed.  When they came back by return mail, a process server served the judgment upon Diane.  I decided to hold off for now on giving the warrant to the Sheriff. Why spend the $71.00 charge until I needed to?  When faced with the judgment, Diane would probably move out on her own.

Meanwhile, responses began coming in from Schemmerhornian banks in response to my information #subpoenas.  I eagerly opened each envelope, hoping that this one would be the one. Unfortunately, none of the twelve banks had any record of Charmayne Brown. 

What now?

I thought for a bit.  When I was down at the legal supply store picking out the information subpoena, I seemed to remember noticing a form for motion for contempt for failing to answer an information subpoena.  I determined to go down to the store the next day to investigate.  They opened early, so I could go before work. 

I got up rather late the next morning, so I drove to the legal supply store in a big hurry, quickly picked out the forms -- again, the store only sold them in triplicate – paid, and dashed off to the office.  But … “Haste makes waste,” as my grandmother used to say, and for once she was right.  Later that day, I discovered I’d bought the wrong forms and would have to waste another day, swapping them for the right ones. 

The thing was, the form contained an #affirmation that an attorney had to sign.  I approached my office manager and explained the situation to him.  He advised me to speak to one of the head honchos of the firm.  Said head honcho happened to be on vacation, so I asked my old Friendly Lawyer Number Two for advice, and she offered to speak to another head honcho for me. She came back with the sad news that a conflict of interest still existed, and the firm could not help me.

I called another law firm I’d once temped for over the Christmas period to see if one of the lawyers there would sign the affirmation for me.  

Not surprisingly, the one lawyer in the office at the time didn’t feel comfortable signing the affirmation, but he did have a suggestion: “Recreate the form on the computer and change the affirmation to an #affidavit signed by you,” he said. 

“I can do that?”

“Don’t see why not.”

“Great. Thanks.”

That night, I stayed late at work and typed out the notice of motion, converting the affirmation into an affidavit.  The next day I signed it, one of the secretaries notarized it, and I mailed it to the Clerk’s Office, requesting a hearing date of May 17th.  

I then asked my process servers to serve a copy on Charmayne. "If she doesn't live at the address on Main Street, serve her mother," was my instruction to them.

The next day, process server Ally called me at work.

"I went to Main Street," she said, "but the girl who answered the door said Charmayne doesn’t live there, so I went to the mother's address on Knife Street.  She lives on the second floor.  I gave the papers to her when she answered the door, but she threw them right back in my face and screamed at me, 'You can't serve me!' 'I ain't takin' them!’ "

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Just handed them back and told her, ‘You can't give them back to me, Ma’am.  You're served.'  Then I walked down the stairs.  I'd just gotten into my car, when she leaned over the balcony and threw the papers in through my sun roof, yelling and screaming.  I got out the car, threw the papers back onto the balcony, and shouted, “Madam, you are served.'  Then I drove quickly away before she could throw them back again."

"Phew," I said.  "I'm not surprised, though.  They don't like me, that family. You'll send me an affidavit of service, right? That you served Charmayne's mother?"

"I'll put it in the mail, today," Ally promised.

I groaned when the affidavit of service arrived the next day.  It was the wrong one.  I needed one that stated that the individual who'd been served (Charmayne's mom) was a responsible person, capable of accepting service on behalf of the intended party (Charmayne). Ally's affidavit did not say that.  I discussed the problem with Friendly Lawyer Number Two. She expressed some doubt that the Court would accept service on Charmayne’s mother as being valid service on Charmayne.

"The problem being," she explained, "that when another party is served on behalf of the party for whom the subpoena is intended, it’s presumed they both live at the same address."

I had just a couple of days in which to file an affidavit of service with the Court, so I drafted one for Ally to sign.  It stated that she had attempted to serve the motion papers on Charmayne but was told that she had moved.  She had then served the papers upon Charmayne's mother, who lived at one of the two addresses listed on the original information subpoena that the Sheriff had previously served on Charmayne. 

I hoped this would prove acceptable to the Court.

The next morning, I delivered the affidavit of service to the process servers’ offices.  I also included a copy of the information subpoena to satisfy Ally that the statement she was signing was true.  I picked up her signed affidavit of service in my lunch hour and dashed over to Schemmerhorn to file it with the Clerk. 

* * * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, property values were still dropping. 

I was getting desperate.  “I can’t take this anymore,” I moaned on the phone to Wally.  “I seem to spend all my time in and out of Court and trying to get money out of my tenants, both past and present.  Drop the price another five thousand, will you?”

“I’ll get right on it,” Wally promised.

The sale price of the house sank to forty thousand dollars the next day.