Chương 9
Sometimes they discussed the case.
Sometimes they did not.
One evening he spent fifteen minutes complaining that a restaurant near his house had replaced normal menus with QR codes.
Claire said, “You can command thousands of people but not a smartphone camera?”
“I can operate it.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t want to.”
“That’s not the restaurant’s fault.”
“It is entirely the restaurant’s fault.”
The conversation helped more than condolences had.
Lila did not call until the third week.
Claire was at the cabin replacing a loose cabinet hinge when her phone rang.
She answered.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Lila sounded as though she had been crying, though Claire heard no tears now.
“Is Mason with you?”
“No.”
“He said he might drive up.”
“He hasn’t.”
“Okay.”
Claire tightened the screw.
“What’s wrong?”
Long pause.
Then Lila said, “Grant asked me to lie.”
Claire stopped.
“About what?”
“Christmas.”
Claire sat on the kitchen floor.
“What happened at Christmas?”
“He brought papers.”
“To your dad?”
“Yes.”
Claire gripped the screwdriver.
“What papers?”
“I didn’t read them.”
“Lila.”
“I didn’t.”
Her voice broke.
“I thought they were financial forms.”
“Did Thomas sign?”
“No.”
Claire exhaled slowly.
“What happened?”
“Grant asked him to. Tom said no.”
“Why?”
“He said he didn’t sign things without reading them.”
“That sounds like him.”
“Grant got mad. They argued. Mason came downstairs, so they stopped.”
Claire leaned against the cabinet.
“Did you see the papers again?”
“Later.”
“When?”
“That night.”
“Where?”
“In our room.”
“At the cabin?”
“Yes.”
“What did Grant say?”
“That his dad was being difficult and he was trying to fix the estate plan.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Did he ask you to sign anything?”
Silence.
“Lila.”
“Yes.”
Claire’s stomach turned.
“What?”
“A witness page.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
The word barely existed.
Claire stood.
“What did you think it was?”
“I thought it was a power-of-attorney document.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what he told me.”
Claire walked to the window.
“Who else signed?”
“I don’t know.”
“The filed will has two witness signatures.”
“I know.”
“You’ve seen it.”
“His attorney showed me.”
Claire said nothing.
Lila whispered, “The other name is my sister.”
Claire shut her eyes.
“Was she at the cabin?”
“No.”
“When did she sign?”
“She didn’t.”
Claire opened her eyes.
“What?”
“She says it isn’t her signature.”
The room seemed unnaturally bright.
“Has she told the sheriff?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Claire sat again.
“Lila, why are you telling me?”
“Because Grant called me this morning.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted me to say Tom signed in front of us.”
Claire pressed two fingers to her forehead.
“What did you say?”
“I hung up.”
“Good.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t say good like I did something brave.”
Claire waited.
“I signed without reading,” Lila said. “I let him use me.”
“You believed your husband.”
“I knew he was lying about money.”
Claire looked at the screwdriver in her hand.
“Which money?”
Another silence.
Then the second part of Grant’s motive arrived.
He had borrowed against his business.
Then against the house.
Then from Thomas.
Lila had known about the business loan and one mortgage.
She had not known about the second mortgage or the private loan from Thomas.
Grant owed more than the cabin’s value would solve, but selling it would have given him enough liquidity to prevent his business from collapsing.
“He kept saying once probate cleared, we’d be fine,” Lila said.
“Did you ask how?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That his father left him the property.”
Claire looked out toward the lake.
“So he told you before Thomas died?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“January.”
Thomas died in March.
Claire’s grip tightened.
“Lila, you need your own lawyer.”
“I have one.”
“Good.”
“Stop saying good.”
“Sorry.”
Lila laughed despite herself.
It became a sob, then stopped.
After the call Claire remained on the kitchen floor.
The cabinet door hung open beside her.
She eventually finished the hinge because leaving it crooked irritated her.
Her father had owned the same screwdriver for thirty years.
The handle smelled faintly of machine oil.
In August, the probate dispute moved from family scandal into something more formal and less satisfying.
A handwriting examiner concluded that Thomas’s signature on the later will was highly consistent with a reproduction from another known signature rather than naturally executed writing. The two witness signatures became serious problems. Lila admitted signing a detached page under false pretenses. Her sister denied signing anything.
Digital forensics found a scanned image of Thomas’s signature on Grant’s laptop.
Grant’s attorney argued that Thomas had authorized him to prepare estate materials.
Then investigators recovered deleted document drafts.
The lawyer’s tone changed.
Grant stopped giving interviews.
The Facebook group became mostly advertisements for boat repair.
Claire returned to duty between hearings.
Normal work felt strange and merciful.
People had problems that had nothing to do with her family.
A scheduling conflict.
A budget review.
A young captain who had written an email in anger and now wanted to retrieve it from the universe.
“You can’t,” Claire told him.
“I know, ma’am.”
“Then what can you do?”
“Own it.”
“Unfortunately.”
He looked miserable.
Claire almost told him everyone eventually sent something they wished they could unsend.
Instead she helped him write an apology that did not sound like it had been drafted by a committee.
At lunch she sat alone and ate yogurt while reading nothing.
That felt like progress.
In September, Grant asked through attorneys for a settlement.
He would withdraw the contested will if Claire agreed to sell the cabin and give him forty percent of the proceeds.
Eleanor read the proposal twice.
Then she looked at Claire.
“What do you want?”
“To say no.”
“That’s emotion.”
“Yes.”
“I asked what you want.”
Claire stared at the document.
She had expected this moment to feel simple.
It did not.
If she accepted, the probate fight would end.
The family would avoid a hearing.
Grant would get money.
May you like
Mason would not watch his father testify.
Claire could return to work and let the lake become somebody else’s problem.
