The Buyer Brought A Receipt To My Aunt's Attorney

I called the number before I left the shed.

"My name is Mara Voss," the woman said. "I collect carved ride animals. Your cousin said you could answer paint questions."

"What did you buy?"

"Four original figures. A bay horse, a hare, a goat, and a stag. Seventy-two thousand dollars. Eighteen thousand down."

I pressed my palm against the workbench.

"When?"

"Three weeks ago. He said your aunt had approved it."

Inez had been in the hospital then. Cedric had brought soup and called himself useful.

"Please don't send another dollar," I said. "Can you meet me in Deadwood tomorrow?"

She agreed to bring her contract.

At eight the next morning, Greta arrived at my house with a clean shirt folded over her arm.

"Your funeral shirt has varnish on it," she said.

"You've been checking my laundry?"

"I have eyes. Eat this."

She handed me a warm egg sandwich wrapped in foil.

Ruth Vale's office stood above a shop off Main Street. Meltwater ticked from the roof while we climbed the stairs. Ruth had a plain desk, a good lamp, and room for all three of our coats.

Mara arrived carrying a red folder. She wore hiking boots and looked more tired than rich.

"I drove from Rapid City," she said. "I didn't sleep much."

"Neither did I."

Ruth read Cedric's paper first. Then she opened a thick file bearing the Juniper name.

"Ramona, tell me what you understood when you signed this."

"Inez put the carousel in a trust. I agreed to keep it whole, keep its records, and make sure people could ride it at a fair price. She could keep booking shows while she lived."

"And did you accept the job?"

"Yes. In writing."

Ruth turned the file toward me. My signature sat below the word Trustee.

Behind it were the signed transfer, the twenty-four numbered inventory sheets, photographs, and records for the trailers. Ruth had kept the originals since that spring seven years earlier.

"Your aunt transferred the listed property then," Ruth said. "Her estate doesn't own this carousel. A later gift in a will couldn't transfer it back out of the trust."

I read the line twice.

Cedric thought I had only been trusted with paint. I held the papers that put the ride in my care.

"So he can't sell it," Greta said.

"He has no authority from this trust," Ruth answered. "That doesn't mean we can ignore what he's doing."

Mara laid out her contract and a bank receipt.

The money had gone to Ellis Auction Services, Cedric's own business. The contract named him as the owner's authorized broker.

Delivery was set for Friday. The remaining $54,000 was due when the four crates reached Mara's storage building.

"He told me the figures were being repaired," she said. "He sent close pictures. I saw the moth under the bay's saddle. I found your name in an old fair program and wanted to ask about its finish."

"Did you see the animals in person?" Ruth asked.

"Only in those pictures. I know. I should have."

I had made enough mistakes while grieving to leave hers alone.

Ruth copied the receipt. She sent Cedric written notice that he had no right to sell trust property and demanded the codicil's original. She also told him to preserve his records and stop any removal.

"We'll ask the court for an order if he won't agree," she said.

"What about the signature?" I asked.

"We'll investigate it. First we protect the property."

The estate file showed that Cedric had applied to act as executor under Inez's real will. That will left him most of her small estate after bills. It said nothing about giving him trust property.

"Being executor isn't a deed," Ruth said.

Before we left, she gave me copies in a stiff blue folder. She asked Greta to help me compare the ride with the old inventory that afternoon.

At the shed, I started with number seven, the bay horse.

His red bridle shone. His ears had the right chipped tips. Someone had even copied the faded rose on his chest.

But his saddle felt wrong beneath my hand.

I bent low and shone my light underneath.

The moth was there, too neat and too bright. Its wings had no gold dots.

I checked the old photograph in Ruth's folder.

"Greta," I said. "Bring the inspection mirror."

She crouched beside me. The mirror caught a square of raw material inside the mounting hole.

It wasn't the old basswood I had repaired.

It was layers of fresh plywood.

Then my phone buzzed with a message from Cedric: "Touch those four figures and I'll make sure you never work on another ride in this state."