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CHAPTER 12
GREENER Pastures
Keith on vacation in Penticton, circa 1964.
STARTING OVER
Now that some of the big issues in Keith’s life were being
addressed, he renewed his focus on building his way back up in the
construction industry. He started searching for the next direction
that Beedie Construction needed to take, blissfully ignorant of what
he was about to encounter.
“I found out that my accountant, who had been passing bad cheques
in 1963, was still forging, months later,” says Keith (see page 115). He
discovered this when he took a phone call from a heating contractor,
asking when he could expect payment for his work. As the accountant
was at lunch, Keith went to check the cheque stubs and found
numerous stubs indicating that the money for the payments had been
taken out of the business account. It was clear the cash had been stolen
by the accountant.
“I had given him a second chance then, hoping he would straighten
out. But this time, I was in no mood to show any leniency. He had
crossed that line of trust twice. I was furious. I confronted him and
he confessed that he had taken the money to cover gambling debts.
So I went to the RCMP with his confession, threw the book at him
and fi red him, too.” Keith didn’t have any way to recover the money
that had been stolen, but he did look into retrieving the money owed
him from the loan for the down payment of the accountant’s Burnaby
home. He was distressed to discover that the house
had a second mortgage on it, two years’ property taxes
owing and no equity left . “But I said I would take the
house back anyway,” says Keith.
On the surface, the situation looked bad, but the heavily
mortgaged house presented an opportunity for Keith.
He was not getting back any of the money he lost, but
he suddenly had a decent place for his children to live.
Keith moved into the house and proceeded with the
charges against the accountant. In the meantime, he made a disturbing
discovery. In the back of a closet he discovered a box of cancelled
cheques that had been stolen in the break-in at the offi ce months
before. He realized that not only had the accountant been forging, he
had also been behind the break-in. However, on a trip to the police
station to sign some paperwork concerning the charges, Keith was
asked to confi rm where he lived. When Keith gave his new address, the
RCMP offi cer immediately recognized that the house he was living in
was part of the complaint he was levelling against the accountant. “Th ey
took one look at the document and said that my accepting the house
changed everything,” says Keith. “Th ey insisted they could no longer
take action.”
“I was in no mood to
show any leniency. He had
crossed that line of trust
twice. I was furious.”
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