The Retired Notary Opened A Drawer My Cousin Had Forgotten

Della Price offered me peach tea before she offered me evidence.

"Cold glass or room temperature?" she asked.

"Whatever you're having."

"Then cold. Trouble can wait while I find a coaster."

She was sixty-eight, a Black woman with close white curls and reading glasses on a green cord. Her front room looked soft enough for a nap. The cabinet beside her chair looked ready for an audit.

Each drawer had a year on it.

"I retired in August," she said. "People think that means I threw away my pen."

She set a thick appointment book on the table, then placed my printed will beside it.

"Don't write on either one," she said kindly.

I pulled my hand back.

The June 6 entry read: Soraya Farahani, warehouse, display permission. Beneath it, in red ink: Canceled by K.F., June 4, 3:18 p.m. Moved to June 9.

"Kamran?" I asked.

"He booked it. He canceled it. I wrote both calls down."

"Did you see my aunt on the ninth?"

"Yes. For a letter about letting him show the books to a possible buyer. She wanted me to hear that it wasn't permission to sell."

Della turned another page.

There was the June 9 appointment. The fee was ten dollars. Soraya had paid cash.

"Did you keep the letter?"

"No. I kept my appointment notes and the receipt copy. Your aunt took her document."

That mattered. A note about a letter was not the letter itself. I wrote down exactly what Della had, without adding what I wished she had.

"And the sixth?"

She opened a paper sleeve. Inside were a hotel bill from Florence, a breakfast receipt, and the program from her sister's retirement lunch.

"I stayed two nights. My sister wanted help moving chairs. She has never met a chair she thought I couldn't carry."

I smiled for the first time since the funeral.

Della did not smile at the will.

"That's not my signature. And look at the commission date under the seal."

It was one year wrong.

"Could someone make that mistake?"

"Someone could. I didn't."

She folded her hands.

"My book shows where I was. It can't tell you everything that happened at that warehouse. Don't let anyone make it say more than it says."

I took out my blue ladder swatch and laid it across my notebook.

"My aunt used to say the same thing about cloth."

"Then she had sense."

Della let me scan the relevant pages. She put clean sheets over the names of other clients. I made two copies of the scans, and she checked them against the originals before I left.

At the door, she touched my elbow.

"He called me yesterday."

"Kamran?"

"Asked if I still kept all those little notes."

"What did you say?"

"I said yes. Then I wrote down his call."

My car was hot enough to sting my palms. I sat with the windows open and called Lena Cho, the lawyer who had helped Soraya set up the trust.

"Before you explain," Lena said, "has anyone offered this will to the probate court?"

"His lawyer sent a filing notice this morning."

"Send that, the will, and your trust copy. Bring the originals tomorrow. Don't hand your only originals to your cousin."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Grief makes sensible people do strange things."

I went straight to the warehouse. Through the front window, I could see a folding table where Soraya's repair frame had stood.

On it sat a stack of padded mailers.

Kamran came out through the side door carrying two empty plastic bins.

"You're early," he said.

"For what?"

"Taking your things. Friday would work better."

"Those aren't your books."

He set the bins down hard.

"Don't start something expensive because you're sad."

"Have you moved any volumes?"

"I've been doing the work while you make little color cards."

He stepped between me and the window.

I left before I could say something that would sound better in his version than mine.

At home, I opened the mail account I had used for years to answer archive research questions. Soraya had added me because she hated typing on a phone.

There were six unread messages.

One subject line said: Provenance Request, Pattern Book 17.

The sender owned a small textile study room in Ohio. She wanted the full name of the weaver whose initials appeared inside her purchase.

I read her message twice. Then I opened the attached invoice.

Book 17. Purchased from Kamran Farahani. Fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars.

Under the price, his sales note read: From the complete Farahani collection, maintained intact in Beaufort.

The invoice was dated three weeks before Soraya died.