The doors to Hanover Combs and Greer were heavy, and I wasn’t too eager to enter, so I waited outside the front door until someone on the inside pushed through, allowing me to scoot inside. I kept my hands clasped tightly on my handbag, but that didn’t stop the whiff of mothballs and spearmint from breaking loose. It was a stupid little accessory, designed to hold a lipstick and hankie and not much else. Picked it up for cheap at the church bazaar because someone told me they came in handy. Never needed it until now. I just toss my things into a zippered knapsack and go on my way. But the embossed stationery seemed to call for the navy blue suit and gold clasped handbag and I rose to the occasion. Why on earth I kept the navy blue suit I’ll never know. I bought it for Ned’s funeral and it still fits, believe it or not. That blue suit and a strand of pearls (not real pearls but pearls enough) and this silly handbag made me feel like someone who belonged in a fancy waiting room like Hanover Combs and Greer LLP. I even used the occasion to swipe on a streak of Radiant Rose, what was left in the tube, careful not to draw it over my lip like I see on so many old women who are too nearsighted to aim right.
Ernest Combs was close to my age, which calmed me somewhat, but not quite up to my height or girth. To think that silver embossed stationery and those snazzy waiting room chairs announced this sprite of a man. I tried not to chuckle, but it came out anyway, disguised as a weak rearrangement of throat phlegm. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Have a seat,” he offered, and so I did, on the far side of a greatly oversized desk that made the man appear even smaller.
“I trust you understand the terms of this document,” Mr. Combs began, wasting no time.
“Ray died.” It was a foolish obvious thing to say but it was all I could think of. “Do you know how it happened?”
“I was informed that he had been in a motorcycle accident on Highway 49. According to the report, he ran into a truck. The police traced him to our firm. I never met your brother but his file was in our office, along with your name as beneficiary. I am sorry to be the one to tell you. I assumed you were aware of the cause of your brother’s death.”
“Kleenex?” offered Mr. Combs, pushing a box of tissues toward me.
“I didn’t know” was all I could say, “I just didn’t know.”
Mr. Combs handed me his business card along with a thicket of papers decorated with yellow flags flapping “sign here, sign here.” He handed me a packet of business cards—realtors, appraisers, bank managers—all of whom I would need to contact “ASAP,” he instructed, like I was in some kind of trouble.
Maybe it was because I was still crying, or maybe the business part was over, but Mr. Combs’ voice had changed. He walked over to my chair and laid a hand on my shoulder.
“These affairs take some time to sort through,” he said, so softly I almost couldn’t hear him.
I reached around the chair for my coat but was incapable of finding the sleeve of my jacket, poking my arm wildly into the open air and missing the garment altogether. I took one last noisy blow into the tissue and was glad to let him help me out of the chair and escort me to the door.
Somehow I made it back to my car, clutching the proof of my brother’s death against my chest. I barely recall the drive home. As soon as I walked into my house, I started pulling out desk drawers, rifling through book shelves, looking for something, I couldn’t say what. I found papers I didn’t know I had, piles of old documents tucked deep inside the old metal file cabinet in the garage, stuff Pa told me to hold on to. Faded bank statements and wadded up wet Kleenexes slid off the table and Amos shredded them like we were having a party. I felt a burning in my chest, brewed myself some chamomile but it didn’t help a bit. Shock, I think is what people call it.
Maybe I ought to just go see the place. Take a look around this unincorporated area of Nevada County, wherever that is, a ways past Lake Wildwood, where we used to go on vacations, not so far. All these years, I figured Ray for India or some south sea island or dead, long past dead, not living just up the highway. Why didn’t he call? Why didn’t he just call?
Those questions fell heavy and thick and required another long loud sip of chamomile. Don’t think about him, I kept saying to myself. You just came into a piece of land. Think about that.
A few of the business cards the lawyer gave me had landed among the papers on the floor. A bright yellow one with thick black lettering lay just scant inches from Amos’s paw. I wiped away a clump of wet kibble that covered the name. Lucky Lundale Realty — I can make your dreams come true. Fat chance of that. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a decent dream.
2.
NOBODY KNEW REAL ESTATE along San Juan Ridge like George Lundale. He opened Lucky Realty back in the seventies, when just about anyone could afford the flat prices. The Ridge was one of the least populated stretches in an area of sinewy terrain edged by tributaries and streams skirting the great Sierra Nevada mountain range. Thick with history from the gold rush days, even now, over a hundred years later, occasional flashes of gold specks found their way into the few tourist shops that lined what was left of Main Street.
The flower children who had grazed these hills back in the sixties had all but gone to seed, moving on to more realistic pursuits. The new generation was not so enamored of twisted old roads, contaminated wells and busted propane tanks. People had recently begun to migrate to neighboring valleys where brand new highway exits spilled onto asphalt-glazed strip malls and rectangles of houses in lusterless neutral shades sprouted clean and dull on either side of the highway. People wanted flat surfaces, quick, clean and ready-made.
By the mid-90’s property values had sunk, jobs were nowhere to be found, and San Juan Ridge settled into a kind of dull ash, having long ago lost its place in history.
Real estate on the Ridge slogged along one death or divorce at a time, and fine old houses, empty for decades, rotted back to the ground. George had grown accustomed to sitting around reading racing forms, maybe half his calls turning out to be wrong numbers. But George was a patient man. You had to be in real estate.
Then something started to happen in the last few years. Lots of money flying around from those computer guys and mortgage rates so low any idiot that could sign his name straight could qualify. Wide-eyed city folk started coming around looking for unusual places to invest extra cash, maybe take on an adventure, brag to their friends about a real estate killing. Like that pre-fab monstrosity across from Pete’s place. George got a sweet deal for not much effort. He was living off it still. Of course that guy who bought it, that sprinkler salesman, went ahead and ripped out a magnificent grove of madrones to make room for an asphalt driveway wide enough to drive a train through. He put up one hell of a satellite dish on the roof, too. Stuck out like a sore thumb.
It was a good sign, that deal. Even on slow days now, George could feel the shake of possibilities stirring. Like today, when George got the call.
In the seconds before the phone rang, George had been balancing back in his chair, a move he had just about perfected, at that exact fulcrum where one inch farther he’d flip over altogether, and one inch forward he might as well be working. He teetered soundlessly in this relaxed, almost weightless position, amusing himself over that honeysuckle old Ida Flynn planted along her fence. George had predicted those vines would eventually cause problems for her neighbor, Isaac Price, and sure enough last week it took his fence right down, creating a tortuous sweet smelling disaster that blocked the entrance to Blind Shady altogether. More fuel for the folks who wondered whether Ida had any business living on her own any more.
The ring startled him backwards and he had to grab the leg of his desk so he wouldn’t fall over. Got to the receiver at the third ring.
“I need an appointment to see some property off of Highway 49. The address is 14747 Blind Shady Bend. I was hoping