The Red Register Came Back With A Second Set Of Keys

Della's kitchen faced a narrow strip of Bisbee sky. She moved a jar of buttons from the table and laid Celia's envelope beside it.

"She gave me this in January," she said. "Told me to keep it dry and mind my business. Naturally, I did one of those things."

Inside lay a signed agreement, copies of register pages, and a brass key tied to a paper tag.

The tag read LOWER FLAT FILE, LUZ.

I knew the agreement. I had signed it three years earlier. My original was in a document sleeve at home, behind my job certificates. But I had never seen the note clipped to Della's copy.

Luz, grief makes people put off dull work. Please do the dull work first.

I sat down.

"I should have collected everything when she went into hospice."

"You were holding her water glass," Della said. "That was work, too."

The agreement called for gifts over time. Celia would transfer each mineral by a signed entry in her accession register. I would accept each one. Della would witness the handover.

Celia could keep displaying them, free of charge, for the rest of her life. She could not sell them or pledge them for a loan. At her death, that display right ended.

We had used plain terms, though a lawyer had helped her draft it.

"She made me read it out loud before she signed," Della said. "Said a gift ought to be clear enough for the person receiving it."

I remembered Celia passing me a pen, then waiting while I read the pages myself. She had never hurried me through a signature.

I remembered lifting each specimen from its case. Celia had made me hold even the little ones. Then I put them back on their stands for display.

"It felt silly," I said.

"She said you'd remember with your hands."

There were two hundred fourteen gifts in all. The final entry had been signed seven months before her death.

I called Esteban from Della's table.

"I need access to the flat file tomorrow. I have the gift agreement."

He let out a slow breath.

"That was for insurance."

"It says gift."

"Your aunt liked forms. She also liked changing her mind. The will is newer."

"I'm asking you to stop the sale while we sort this out."

"I've already taken a six-thousand-dollar deposit."

Della shut her eyes.

"For the whole north cabinet?" I asked.

"Forty-two thousand total. It's a fair offer. You'd spend years finding buyers."

"Who paid it?"

"That's private."

"So are my records. Don't throw them away."

He hung up.

Della wrote the time on the envelope: 4:18 p.m. Then she wrote what she had heard from my side of the call.

"Old cutting habit," she said. "If a stone cracks, write down when. Everybody remembers a different day once money enters the room."

The next morning, I brought my original agreement, Della, and an empty document box to the office. Esteban opened the door wearing a tie.

"Ten minutes," he said.

The brass key fitted a low drawer beneath Celia's map cabinet. Inside were the red accession register and photo sheets wrapped in a cotton cloth.

"You moved that book," I said.

"I cleared the desk."

I didn't argue. I opened it where a ribbon marked the last entry.

C-214. Malachite on limestone. Gift delivered and accepted. Returned to Celia Santiago for lifetime display.

Our signatures sat beneath the words. Della's sat beside them.

The same form appeared under each of the other two hundred thirteen numbers. Dates, condition notes, and photo references filled the pages.

"This doesn't leave," Esteban said.

"Then watch me scan it."

He stood over us as I used my phone. I included page edges, empty backs, and the stitched spine. Della read each number aloud. It took longer than ten minutes.

At the back, we found a folded inventory from the collection's last insurance review. Total stated value: $186,400. Esteban's signature appeared under a note that listed him as the building contact.

"There," he said. "Insurance."

I read the line above his name.

The minerals were held on display under Celia's agreement with me.

"You signed this," I said.

"I signed where she pointed."

Della made a small noise that might have been a cough.

Before leaving, I asked to photograph Blue Window. Esteban followed me down, telling me how much time his buyer had spent arranging transport.

Through the glass, I took a close shot of the blue spray.

At Della's kitchen table, we placed it beside Celia's printed photo.

The original had a pale notch in its cuprite base, shaped like a little door. The stone in the case had a smooth black foot.

Della slid off her green glasses.

"Well," she said. "That isn't a lighting problem."

She turned over the old photograph. In her neat writing, a note gave the date she had repaired its mount.

Beneath it was a sketch of the missing notch.