The Recorded Deed Put My Name Back On The Gate

The certified copy cost $22. Greta said it was the cheapest useful part I would buy all week.

We collected it in Lancaster the next morning. The clerk checked the book and page, stamped the copy, and slid it under the glass.

Eight years before her death, Lucia had transferred the station parcel to me. She had kept a life estate, including the right to its rent during her life. I had the ownership that became full possession when she died.

Her will could pass only interests she still owned.

I ran a finger below the parcel description. It named the old stone wall, the access road, and the shed. Lucia had made sure the road was included. A mountaintop without a legal way up would have been a fine gift to argue over.

"The income reservation ended," Greta said. "It doesn't turn into an income reservation for Armando."

"And those bills?"

"We check each one. A deed isn't a magic broom."

That sounded like Lucia.

We took the papers to an attorney named Nora Bell. She read the deed, Lucia's death certificate, and the will copy. Then she asked for the leases.

I had signed both of them beside Lucia years earlier because their terms ran beyond her lifetime. They covered the plow company's antenna and the radio service's repeater.

"Good," Nora said. "Those agreements need a proper handoff. We notify them where future rent belongs, with the documents attached."

She charged me a $2,000 deposit. I used money I had saved for my truck's transmission.

Nora called Armando while we sat there.

"You need to restore access," she said.

His voice leaked from her handset, smooth and small.

"My cousin has misunderstood a private family arrangement."

"I have the recorded deed."

"That was a tax convenience."

"Do you have a later deed?"

He did not answer that question.

By four that afternoon, Nora had sent a written demand. It asked for a key, an inventory, and every payment Armando had received since Lucia died. It also told him to preserve station records.

At nine the next morning, he met us at the gate.

Greta wore a wool hat and carried binoculars on a red strap.

"Birds?" he asked.

"Sometimes," she said.

Armando passed me a key.

"Temporary access, pending review."

"Receipt of key," Nora said, holding out a short form. "Nothing else."

He read it twice before signing.

I drove us up in my service truck. The road had wet gravel in the tire grooves and old snow along the bank. Below us, the Androscoggin looked like a strip of bent tin.

At the shack, I checked the heat before anything else. Forty-six degrees. The battery room was dry. No burnt smell came from the panels.

My tools were still in their cabinet.

But somebody had moved the spare belts off a shelf to make room for a gray box.

"That's new," I said.

Two thick cables ran from the box through fresh holes in the wall. Outside, they climbed a short mast behind the shed.

Greta raised her binoculars.

"New clamps," she said. "And a serial plate."

Armando looked toward the door.

"Lucia approved a minor installation."

"Who rents it?" Nora asked.

"I'd have to check."

I opened Lucia's tenant binder. The plow company paid $850 a month. The radio service paid $1,150. Both had site drawings, contact names, and lists of equipment.

Neither drawing showed the short mast.

Nora photographed the binder where it lay. Greta photographed the mast from three sides. I wrote the gray box's serial number in my shop notebook.

I did not pull a cable. I knew too little about what it served.

"We identify it first," I said.

Armando gave a short laugh.

"Now you're the radio expert?"

"I'm the man who knows when a machine has an extra part."

Inside Lucia's desk, I found a utility bill tucked under a calendar. The last full month showed 1,980 more kilowatt-hours than the same month a year before.

The gray box had a fan that never stopped.

Nora asked Armando again who owned it.

"I handled some arrangements while she was sick. I was trying to help."

"Then your records will help too," she said.

We finished the inventory. I changed the shed lock with Nora watching and gave Armando a written receipt for the old key. He had no office or stored property there, and he left with his own folder under his arm.

Ten minutes later, a white van climbed the road.

A man stepped out carrying a brown envelope. He stopped when he saw the new lock in my hand.

"Where's Armando?"

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Dale Voss. I pay for the link behind the shed."

He tapped the envelope against his leg.

"I've got this month's sixteen hundred. Cash, like always."