The Audit Followed The Deposit Into An Account Without My Sister

The note on my gate did not prove Emi had repaid me. It proved Renji had a copy of my check.

I took down the envelope by its corners and called Celia.

"Save it," she said. "And let the accountant answer him."

On Monday, no trucks came. The nursery stayed full. I still arrived before five with a thermos and the court order in a plastic sleeve.

When the sun rose, I painted a narrow blue line above the mud.

Inez sat beside me on the loading step.

"What if he says Mother promised him everything?" I asked.

"Then he can say it," she said. "A promise won't change a bank entry."

She took a biscuit from my lunch bag without asking. It was the first time she had seemed at home there.

That afternoon, the court placed the estate's disputed business matters under a neutral administrator, Warren Bell. Renji had not yet been appointed. The judge left his request unresolved while the will was challenged.

Warren asked for accounts, tax returns, and every paper about the proposed sale. Celia arranged a separate review of company records by an accountant who had never worked for our family.

I gave him access to twelve years of files.

At the next hearing, the judge extended the protection order while the documents were examined. I fed the nursery between court dates. Each morning, I checked the salinity before I checked my phone.

"Even the ugly months," I said.

"Especially those."

He checked my $118,000 against the closing statement from my rental house, the company deposit, and payments for storm repairs. Then he followed every payment from the company to me afterward.

There were wages, a few supply refunds, and no purchase of my shares.

The yearly tax records agreed. Emi had kept reporting my ownership long after any supposed repayment would have happened.

Renji supplied no date or amount for a buyout. His lawyer stopped calling my money a loan.

Warren found something else.

Nolan's $30,000 deposit had never reached an estate account. It had gone into a personal account in Renji's name.

"He told me estate account," I said.

Celia opened my note from the phone call.

"You wrote that down the same night?"

"Before I washed my cup."

"Keep doing that."

Warren showed me the account number on Nolan's transfer slip. I had never seen it before. It belonged to a bank we didn't use, and the slip had no company name.

"That's why I wanted you here," he said. "I needed an answer from someone who actually made the deposits."

For years, that work had felt small. I had done it after supper with wet cuffs and a cheap calculator. Now those neat rows told a story Renji could not change by calling me old.

Of the deposit, $18,400 had paid a past-due private club bill. The remaining $11,600 was still in the account. Warren sought an order to hold it there.

I stared at the club payment.

Emi had worn the same red boots for nine years. She patched a split with boat glue because the soles still held.

I wanted to call Renji and tell him that.

Instead, I sent Celia a clear photograph of the gate note.

The old will came from Emi's longtime attorney. She had signed it in 2022, before the last storm repairs. It left Renji her business interest and her remaining savings after bills.

It gave me her kitchen table.

"You don't have to pretend that doesn't hurt," Inez said.

"It doesn't. She thought I'd eat standing up without her."

I had been doing exactly that.

The old will also named a backup executor who had since moved away. He declined to serve. Warren would remain if the court accepted that will.

Celia pointed to the company agreement's purchase clause.

"If this will stands, you can still buy her forty-nine percent at the appraised price. The money goes to her estate."

"Even after what he did?"

"His conduct gets its own accounting. Her property still gets handled properly."

That answer was hard to hear. It also sounded like something Emi would have wanted.

Ruth brought her office-clearance list to Celia. Beside February 3, she had written Renji Morita: client pickup pouch, old seal included. He had signed beneath it.

"I should have asked more questions," Ruth said.

"You can answer the ones being asked now," Inez told her.

The two named will witnesses were harder to reach. One worked nights. The other had moved to Mobile. Celia's investigator found them through addresses in the estate filing.

Both agreed to interviews, then signed statements.

Neither had watched Emi sign a will.

Their names were Lena Cho and Martin Keene. They had both worked on a storage project Renji ran the previous fall.

Each had signed a form for that job.

On Friday, Celia called while I was scrubbing algae from a sight tube.

"The original will is with the court now," she said. "Our document examiner has looked at it under magnification."

I shut off the wash hose.

"Mas, the signatures may not be ink."