Petra Opened Her Appointment Book And Named Everyone In The Room

Petra lived in a brick house east of Vine Street. Her porch held two empty flowerpots and a mat that said WIPE.

I wiped twice.

She opened the door before I knocked again.

"Boots can stay on. I own a mop."

Petra Voss was fifty-eight, a white American woman with square shoulders and gray hair in a short braid. She had retired as a notary, but her kitchen desk still held three pens lined up by length.

"Tea?"

"Please."

"Then put that envelope down before you fold it with worry."

I laid out the original codicil. It was an addition to the April will, dated June 14. Grandma's signature sat below two pages of clear print. Two witnesses had signed. Petra's notarial seal marked the attached sworn statement.

The document left the Zhou Prairie Seed Archive to me, including its records, equipment, and stored seed. An attached inventory named freezer F-2 and forty-four accessions held in 312 packets.

The house and the rest of Grandma's property still went to Lionel.

"She didn't cut him out," I said.

"No. She put different things in different hands."

Petra opened a blue appointment book.

June 14. 2:00 p.m. Meilin Zhou. Home visit.

Beneath it, she had written five names.

Grandma. Tessa Reed. Omar Pike. Petra Voss. Lionel Zhou.

I pointed at the last one.

"He was there?"

"He let us in. He stayed for the reading. Then he asked whether the archive included the steel shelving. Your grandmother said yes."

Petra turned the book so I could see a note in the margin.

L.Z. received inventory copy, 2:47.

"Why write the time?"

"Because he asked me to note that he had errands. People who hurry signatures make me write more."

She found a second sheet in her folder. Lionel had signed it to confirm that he received the equipment list. It was not a witness signature. It was a receipt.

"He knew," I said.

Petra brought the tea.

"Knowing and admitting are separate chores."

She called Ada Bell, the lawyer who had prepared the codicil. Ada met us at her small office that afternoon. The fee agreement said my first $750 would cover review and the urgent filing. I paid with money saved from my survey contract.

Ada read every page before she spoke.

She explained the phrase in the April will. Its family details had come from a list Lionel supplied. When Grandma reviewed her archive plans in June, she had pointed at "occasional volunteer" and asked for the payroll folder. She wanted her new instructions to name both the work and the person who did it. Nobody had needed to speak for her.

"This needs to go before the probate judge. An original matters. So do the witnesses. A seal alone doesn't settle a disputed will."

"Can he sell the freezer Tuesday?"

"We'll ask the court to stop any transfer while this is heard. We'll also notify the buyer today."

I gave her the auction tag photograph and Lionel's release.

She paused at the $500.

"Did you sign?"

"No."

"Good. Tell me what's in the freezer."

I opened the catalogue to the blue-cricket page.

Six entries had a second mark beside them: a tiny drawn ear.

RD-17 through RD-22. Reed Draw.

Grandma had helped run that restoration project west of Hays. Crews had rebuilt native grass cover on worn ground, using seed gathered nearby. The project had ended, and years later the land had been cut into a gravel operation. Its records said all remaining project stock had been destroyed when a shed roof failed.

Grandma's six sealed pouches were the only surviving seed lots listed in her records.

"Last seeds of those plants?" Ada asked.

"Last known seed from that project. The plants grow elsewhere. These lots held that place's history."

Ada nodded and wrote the distinction down.

I told her about the insects. The draw's seed shed had stood beside a fence where crickets made three quick notes, then a pause. Grandma had drawn the ears after I taught her to hear it.

By four, Ada had filed the codicil and our request for an immediate hold. She sent copies to Lionel's lawyer and the named buyer, Owen Marr. Her notice asked everyone to preserve records and leave the archive untouched.

Lionel called while I sat beside her desk.

"You hired a lawyer over a freezer?"

"Over Grandma's instructions."

"That paper was a draft. She was confused in June."

Petra, sitting across from me, shut her appointment book very gently.

"You can explain that under oath," I said.

He hung up.

A few minutes later, Ada's office phone rang. She listened, then reached for a pen.

"The buyer," she mouthed.

She put him on speaker.

"I haven't collected the unit," Owen said. "But Lionel told me not to worry about your seed claim. He said he'd already emptied it."