Chapter 2: The Music Box
Samuel Price agreed to see me at eight the next morning if it was “about residual personal property.”
I placed the music box on his desk without opening it. “The will is not the whole estate story. I have reason to believe assets were diverted before death through forged or coerced authorizations. I’m not asking you to break privilege. I’m asking whether you prepared any POA or transfer instruments for my grandmother in the last seven years.”
Price’s face changed in the way of careful men. He said he would need to review his files and that any allegation of fraud belonged to investigators and civil counsel, not to a reading-room argument among heirs. I slid a single printed page across the desk—an account summary with dates, no flash drives, no accusations against him personally. “If your stamp is on any of these, you’ll want to know before a subpoena teaches you.”
He did not throw me out. Progress.
At the federal contractor office I took personal leave in half-day increments and used my lunch hour to map the parcel IDs. The commercial lot’s lease payments had been redirected to an LLC that listed my father’s office manager as registered agent. The cabin had a quiet quietclaim in a stack from a year Grandmother had been hospitalized for pneumonia. I did not kick doors. I built a timeline.
Vanessa texted a photo of a bracelet from the jewelry box with a laughing emoji. I did not answer. My mother left a voicemail about “family unity while we list the house.” I saved the voicemail to the file.
May you like
Love is not the same as evidence.
Grandmother had taught me that in a letter. The rest I already knew from work.
