Sara Paretsky - Sisters on the Case

‘‘Humor an old man,’’ he said when the locksmith had finished his work and handed him two new keys. ‘‘I’ll keep one; you put the other one on your key ring. And promise me you won’t have duplicates made for your sisters.’’

‘‘But-’’

‘‘No buts,’’ he said sternly. ‘‘Now come along. I know where there are fresh bagels and the best coffee in town.’’

When they returned an hour later, Mary and Marsha were cooling their heels on the front steps. Both were furious.

‘‘You changed the locks? Why?’’ asked Marsha.

Before Carlie could answer, Uncle Carlton said, ‘‘That was my doing, girls. We don’t know how many keys Genevieve might have given out over the years and I’d be derelict as Carlie’s attorney if I didn’t take this simple precautionary step to be sure that no one removed anything until she had signed off on it.’’

Carlie voiced her surprise at seeing them. ‘‘I thought you were taking the day off.’’

‘‘We decided that if you could keep going, we could, too.’’

‘‘That’s nice,’’ said Uncle Carlton.

‘‘Actually,’’ said Mary, ‘‘we have a proposition for you, Carlie.’’

‘‘Proposition?’’

‘‘You have everything from the house that you want to keep, right?’’

Carlie nodded. ‘‘I guess so.’’

‘‘You’ve been down here so long, you must be dying to get back to your own apartment, so why don’t you let Marsha and me finish up here?’’

‘‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly do that,’’ the younger woman protested.

‘‘Sure you can. Everything’s on the inventory sheets. We won’t take a single thing on it without paying you full value.’’

Carlie clasped their hands impulsively. ‘‘Thank you, Marsha. Mary. But really, there’s not that much left to do. Another big push by all of us and we could be done by the middle of the week. If the boys will bag up the papers, Uncle Carlton’s offered to go through them at his house.’’

The old man rubbed his hands in anticipation. ‘‘Once the papers are cleared away, I’m anxious to see if I can find all the secret compartments in that desk.’’

‘‘Compartments?’’ asked Mary.

‘‘There’s more than one?’’ asked Marsha.

‘‘At least two that I know of,’’ he told them cheerfully. ‘‘Genevieve showed me how to open them years ago but something she said makes me think there may even be a tiny third one.’’

The twins exchanged glances; then Mary said, ‘‘Marsha and I have talked it over and we’ve decided it was selfish of us to let Mom’s will stand. You were right, Uncle Carlton. The only fair thing is to sell the house, pay her debts, and then split whatever’s left three ways.’’

Carlie was incredulous. ‘‘Really?’’

‘‘Really,’’ they assured her.

Uncle Carlton beamed at them. ‘‘There now! I just knew you girls would come through for your sister.’’ He pulled a folded legal paper from the breast pocket of his jacket. ‘‘Let’s go right down to the bodega and make it official.’’

‘‘Bodega?’’ asked Marsha.

‘‘Official?’’ asked Mary.

‘‘The owner’s a notary public. He’ll witness your signatures and I’ll give your waiver to the county clerk of court when I file the will. I drew up this form last week, hoping you’d do the right thing for Carlie.’’

Before they could protest, he herded the three sisters down to the bodega where they showed the bemused owner their driver’s licenses. He carefully examined each in turn as they signed the document, then carefully embossed it with his heavy seal and signed his own name and date on the proper lines.

‘‘In the legal world, it’s a truism that you never really know someone until you’ve shared an inheritance with him. For the rest of your lives,’’ Uncle Carlton told the twins, ‘‘you will always be glad you treated your sister so fairly. Genevieve would have been proud of you.’’

Carlie glowed with happiness at the thought of France and of registering for fall courses. ‘‘Are you sure you don’t mind if I head back this afternoon?’’

‘‘We’re positive,’’ they told her. ‘‘Go!’’

‘‘All right,’’ she said, giving them more hugs. ‘‘I will!’’

‘‘And you don’t need to stay, either, Uncle Carlton,’’ said Marsha. ‘‘We’ll take care of everything.’’

When the house sold two months later, Carlie came back to town to sign the final papers and pick up her share of the money. The sale had brought more than Uncle Carlton expected and even after all their mother’s debts were paid, each daughter wound up with thirty-six thousand.

‘‘Remember that lottery ticket that was sold at the bodega?’’ asked Carlie as she and her uncle lingered over dinner that night. ‘‘No one ever cashed it in, did they?’’

‘‘There’s still plenty of time,’’ he replied. ‘‘Another three months, anyhow.’’

‘‘You’re going to laugh at me,’’ she said, turning her wineglass in her slender fingers, ‘‘but on the drive back to school, I started thinking about how that ticket was bought a couple of weeks before Mom’s accident, but the winning number wasn’t announced till after she was in a coma. It made me wonder if that was the real reason Marsha and Mary came back to the house that night and were rummaging through the desk. That maybe they thought Mom was finally a winner.’’

‘‘And you were worried that you’d exchanged a few thousand for thirteen million?’’ asked her uncle.

‘‘Crazy, I know,’’ Carlie said with a rueful smile.

‘‘Not at all,’’ he said. ‘‘It could have happened that way. After all, someone has to win, and it’s logical that your sisters would consider it when the ticket was bought at her store and no one came forward with it. It would have been all yours if they hadn’t agreed to set aside the will and share the estate equally. They certainly checked every shred of paper twice, and I’m afraid your father’s desk was rather the worse for wear after they finished hunting for its secret compartments with a crowbar.’’

Carlie shook her head. ‘‘I thought Mom was the only gambler in the family, but the twins gambled that the winning ticket was in the desk and you gambled that it wasn’t.’’

‘‘I never gamble,’’ he told her. ‘‘Except on sure things. There was only one secret compartment in that desk.’’

‘‘But- You mean you tricked them into signing that agreement?’’

‘‘Guilty as charged,’’ he said happily. ‘‘It was for their own good, too. Now they won’t spend the rest of their lives avoiding you because they treated you shabbily. And in all fairness, they weren’t terribly angry with me for getting mixed up about the desk. They put it down to encroaching senility.’’

‘‘You sly old fox.’’ She patted his hand affectionately. ‘‘Thank you. For my inheritance and for my sisters.’’

‘‘Genevieve sent them lottery tickets in their birthday cards. What about you, my dear?’’

Carlie shook her head. ‘‘My birthday’s not till October.’’

‘‘A pity.’’ He reached for the wine bottle and divided the remainder between their two glasses. ‘‘My birthday was last month.’’

‘‘I know,’’ Carlie said sadly. ‘‘The day after Mom’s accident.’’

‘‘When the card came, I was so upset and worried about her that I just stuck it on my desk and never gave it another thought until after the funeral when the twins said that she had started sending lottery tickets in their cards instead of magazine subscriptions.’’

Carlie stared at him, openmouthed. ‘‘You mean-?’’