Chương 12
“You know the combination?” I asked.
Grant looked offended.
“If I knew the combination, I would’ve stolen twenty bucks from it in 1999.”
“You did steal twenty bucks from Dad in 1999.”
“Different hiding place.”
“Right.”
He ran his thumb over the dial.
“Mom says she doesn’t know it.”
“Do you believe her?”
Grant exhaled.
“I’m trying this new thing where I don’t immediately decide what version of reality is most convenient.”
“How’s it going?”
“Terrible.”
I pulled out a chair.
Grant remained standing.
“You drove an hour and a half here after midnight because you found a locked box.”
“An hour and twelve minutes.”
“That is not the correction you should be making.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“You didn’t try.”
“No.”
His eyes went to Dad’s letter on the table.
“I read the rest.”
I waited.
“He told me not to ask you for money.”
“That sounds smart.”
“He also told me if I ever got myself straight, I should help you with the cabin because you’d pretend you didn’t need help.”
I looked away.
Grant smiled faintly.
“He was pretty specific about our defects.”
“He had material.”
“Apparently.”
The furnace kicked on beneath us.
Warm air pushed through the vent beside the sink.
Grant opened his coat.
“What were you doing before I showed up?”
I turned the laptop toward him.
“Looking at the easement.”
He leaned over the screen.
“That line?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“An old access right across the property.”
“To what?”
“The lake.”
He studied the map.
“So people can walk through here?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly is lawyer language.”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“You’ve been talking like one since dessert.”
I ignored him.
“The bigger problem is the garage.”
He looked at the satellite overlay.
Then at me.
“The garage is on top of it.”
“Looks that way.”
“Can somebody make you tear it down?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great.”
He dragged a chair out and sat.
“So Mom sold you a cabin with a legal problem.”
“She probably didn’t know.”
“That is annoyingly reasonable of you.”
“I’m tired.”
Grant tapped the laptop.
“Bell knew?”
“He knew enough to mention reviewing something.”
“Then maybe he knows what’s in the box.”
“Maybe.”
Grant looked at the lock.
“Dad usually used dates.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did.”
“He said dates were lazy passwords.”
“He said birthdays were lazy passwords.”
I frowned.
“That’s different.”
“Exactly.”
Grant leaned forward.
“What dates mattered to him?”
“Wedding anniversary?”
“He forgot it twice.”
“Mom never let him forget that he forgot.”
“Cabin purchase date?”
I looked at him.
Grant sat up.
“When did he buy this place?”
“1989.”
“That narrows nothing.”
I opened the county deed record again.
The acquisition date showed May 17, 1989.
Grant tried 051789.
The lock remained closed.
“Of course.”
“Try the day he finished building the dock.”
“You know that?”
“No.”
“Useful.”
He tried Dad’s birth date anyway.
Nothing.
Then Mom’s.
Nothing.
Then mine.
Nothing.
Then his.
Still nothing.
Grant sat back.
“This is beginning to feel personal.”
I opened one of the kitchen drawers looking for a flashlight and found a small screwdriver instead.
Grant watched me.
“What are you doing?”
“Seeing if the hinges can be removed.”
He picked up the box.
“They’re welded.”
“Of course they are.”
“You could cut it.”
“And destroy whatever is inside.”
“Dad would appreciate the commitment.”
I looked at the label again.
David Hale.
Property Records.
The tape was yellowed but the handwriting looked newer than the box.
I turned it over.
Something rattled inside.
Not papers.
Metal.
Grant heard it too.
“What’s that?”
“No idea.”
I shook it gently.
A small object slid from one side to the other.
Grant’s eyebrows lifted.
“Key?”
“Maybe.”
“To what?”
“That would be easier to answer if we could open the box containing the key.”
“Fair.”
He got up and walked toward the living room.
“What?”
“Dad kept a notebook.”
“What notebook?”
“Green cover.”
I followed him.
“His passwords?”
“No.”
Grant checked the drawer in the side table beside the couch.
“Measurements.”
“What?”
“He wrote down measurements for everything.”
“That is completely irrelevant.”
“Probably.”
He opened another drawer.
“But he also wrote numbers he didn’t want to forget.”
“You remember this?”
“I got grounded for drawing a penis on page forty.”
I stared at him.
“You were twenty-two.”
“Grounding is a flexible concept.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
Grant found the notebook in the third drawer of the old rolltop cabinet.
The cover was faded green, almost gray.
He lifted it triumphantly.
“I am occasionally useful.”
“Don’t get carried away.”
We returned to the table.
The notebook smelled like dust and machine oil.
Dad’s handwriting filled the pages with measurements, phone numbers, lumber calculations, sketches of hinges, and notes such as BUY BETTER SCREWS written with unnecessary aggression.
Grant flipped through.
“Here.”
A page near the middle listed dates.
Roof replacement.
Water heater.
Dock permit.
Garage foundation inspection.
I leaned closer.
“Garage.”
The entry read September 14, 1996.
Grant tried 091496.
The lock clicked.
We both froze.
“No way,” he whispered.
I lifted the lid.
Inside were documents wrapped in two rubber bands, a small brass key, three Polaroids, and an envelope marked BELL.
Grant sat down slowly.
“Well.”
I looked at him.
“You were right.”
“Say it again.”
“No.”
“Just once.”
“No.”
I picked up the envelope.
It had never been sealed.
Inside was a letter on Bell’s firm stationery dated October 3, 1996.
The first sentence made my stomach tighten.
David, I reviewed the Morrison access agreement and the survey discrepancy we discussed.
Grant leaned over my shoulder.
“Survey discrepancy?”
I kept reading.
Bell explained that the easement described in the 1974 document appeared to cross the garage site only because the county’s recorded legal description contained an error in one bearing.
A private survey commissioned during the garage construction placed the actual easement twenty-eight feet west, along the property boundary.
“That sounds good,” Grant said.
May you like
“Keep reading.”
The problem was that the corrected survey had never been formally recorded.
