Chapter 5 - The Gathering of Vultures
The legal offices of Sterling, Vance & Cross occupied the restored third floor of the historic stone courthouse square in downtown Bloomington.
Outside, the snow was falling in heavy, wet sheets, muffling the sound of the holiday shoppers hurrying between the boutique storefronts. Inside the firm’s primary library, the air smelled of century-old calfskin bindings, beeswax floor polish, and the cold, sharp authority of men who spent their lives dissecting thieves with fountain pens.
At the head of the twenty-foot mahogany table sat Arthur Vance.
At seventy-four, Arthur was the undisputed lion of the southern Indiana bar. He had represented three governors, broken two industrial cartels, and had known Thomas Keller since they were boys hunting wild turkeys along the White River in the late nineteen-fifties. He wore a heavy three-piece tweed suit, half-moon spectacles perched on his nose, his gold pocket watch resting flat against the legal blotter.
Beside him sat Jordan, Tara, and Grandma Evelyn.
On the other side of the table sat Richard Keller, Brandon Keller, and a slick, forty-year-old defense attorney from Indianapolis named Bradley Vance (no relation to Arthur, a fact Arthur made clear every five minutes by referring to him exclusively as "young man").
Richard sat with his broad shoulders squared, his military ribbons from thirty years ago replaced by an expensive cashmere overcoat draped across the back of his leather chair. He had his hands folded over his silver-headed walking stick, looking at Jordan not as an adversary, but as a subordinate who had committed a minor breach of company regulations.
Brandon sat beside him, wearing his bespoke three-piece navy suit, an Italian silk tie, and his Rolex Submariner flashing beneath the recessed ceiling spots. His smug, petulant smile was firmly in place—the smile of a man who believed that having his father in the room was an absolute, impenetrable shield against reality.
"Arthur," Richard began, his booming baritone filling the vaulted library. "I don't know why you insisted on dragging this family into a conference room during the holiday week. This is an internal estate realignment. Jordan knows the North Ridge Tract was always intended to anchor the commercial quarry expansion. If he signs the voluntary conveyance and surrenders his claim, Keller Enterprises will dismiss the circuit court action and grant him a ten percent silent dividend in the limestone processing revenue."
Brandon chuckled, leaning back, tapping his gold pen against his legal pad. "It's a generous offer, Jordan. You get to keep your little residential workshop down in the hollow, we get the ridge extraction rights, and the family stays out of the newspapers. Dad’s doing you a favor. You couldn't afford to fight this in court for six months anyway."
Jordan didn't look at Brandon.
He kept his hands flat against the mahogany table, feeling the cold grain of the wood beneath his calloused palms.
"Where did you get the red bicycle, Brandon?" Jordan asked.
The question hung in the quiet library like an unexploded mortar shell.
Brandon’s pen paused for half a second. His smile flickered, then hardened into an irritated sneer. "What the hell does a bicycle have to do with an eighteen-million-dollar land conveyance?"
"Answer the question, Brandon," Arthur Vance murmured from the head of the table, not looking up from his legal pad.
"Dad bought it," Brandon scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. "For Toby and Leo. We picked it up in Bloomington. What’s your point, Jordan? Are you still crying because my boys got to unwrap a toy before yours did?"
"I didn't buy it," Richard spoke up, his voice carrying that stiff, defensive edge. "I gave Brandon the cash from my personal account. The boys deserved a good Christmas. If Liam was disappointed, Jordan, you should have managed your own household’s expectations."
Arthur Vance slowly reached into his leather litigation satchel.
He pulled out a single sheet of heavy, certified thermal paper and laid it face-up in the center of the table.
Beside it, he placed an eight-by-ten glossy photograph taken from the high-definition security camera of Bloomington Cycle & Sports, dated December 21st, 4:14 PM:
It showed Brandon standing at the register, holding the red bicycle and the pink karaoke microphone, signing his signature on the digital terminal while holding an Apex Timber & Frame commercial fleet card between his fingers.
"That is an auxiliary fleet purchasing card registered to Jordan Keller’s LLC," Arthur Vance said, his voice flat, dry, and cold as an arctic wind.
"The digital signature on the transaction was traced by the Bloomington Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit two hours ago. It was executed using Brandon Keller’s personal cell phone IP address through the store’s mobile terminal."
Richard’s brow furrowed. He glanced at the thermal paper, then at Brandon. "Brandon... what is this? I gave you six hundred dollars in cash on Monday morning."
Brandon’s face went pale. The arrogant smirk vanished, replaced by a sudden, greasy sheen of sweat across his forehead. "Dad... it was an administrative mix-up! The cash was in my truck... I grabbed the wrong card from the console—"
"The card was inside an envelope in Jordan’s workshop office, Mr. Keller," Arthur Vance interrupted, leaning forward, his spectacles flashing beneath the library lights.
"Your brother’s shop was entered on Sunday night, December twentieth, using an emergency key that your father kept in his desk drawer. That constitutes Class C Felony Burglary under Indiana Code 35-43-2-1."
"This is absurd!" Bradley Vance, Brandon’s Indianapolis lawyer, barked, slamming his briefcase onto the table. "This is a domestic property dispute! You cannot introduce unverified criminal allegations into an equitable title settlement conference!"
"I'm not introducing allegations, young man," Arthur Vance said calmly.
He opened the second folder in his satchel.
"I am introducing the formal Grand Jury Subpoena issued forty minutes ago by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana."
The library went so silent that the rhythmic ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the corner sounded like hammer blows on an anvil.
"Federal?" Richard croaked. His silver-headed walking stick slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the mahogany floorboards.
"Federal, Richard," Arthur Vance said, his eyes boring into the patriarch’s skull.
"Because when you filed that fraudulent lawsuit in circuit court yesterday morning alleging that Thomas Keller was incompetent in 2018, you attached three forged cognitive assessments bearing the forged signature of Dr. Marcus Vance."
May you like
Arthur pushed a secondary document across the wood.
"Dr. Vance died in 2022, Richard. But his daughter... happens to be the Chief Deputy Prosecutor for the Southern District of Indiana. And she was deeply interested to learn that her late father’s medical license had been used to commit an eighteen-million-dollar bank fraud on an interstate highway bonding facility."
