Chapter 9

The special order parts for Howard's truck finally arrived at the auto parts store. He called while Gail was going back to her office and asked if she could stand a night at the ranch so he could get his truck running.

"Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful" Gail chanted, "I'm lucky I left my suitcases in the truck, but I'm almost out of clean clothes. I'll do laundry while you're working late tomorrow. I'm missing my furniture more, every day, especially my washer and dryer."

"Damn, you should have said something. You can use the washer and dryer in the house."

"Howard, I can't keep imposing on Melanie all the time."

"Why not, it's half mine."

"What?" Gail had never heard him say anything other than that it was Frank and Melanie's home.

"The house and all the furniture is half mine. I thought you knew that. I don't need it. I have the ranch house and my half of the land. Frank has Dad's truck and his land. He was supposed to pay me half of the value, but heck, they can just barely afford to buy groceries and pay the utilities, so I don't bother him about the payments. They'll pay when they can, or more likely, never."

"Howard, I'm suspicious, so don't be offended. How old is the house? Who pays the taxes on the house? How old were those taxes the county said were never paid on the ranch? Were those same year's taxes owed on Frank's land? Is that enough questions for you?"

"You are talking way, way, over my head, Sweetheart. I don't know any of the answers, but maybe there are papers at the house. Ask Melanie or Frank, when you get home. I'll be there as quick as I can. Okay?"

When Gail walked in the office door, she asked Petra what fees she should pay for a personal report she wanted the tax research company to collect for her. Petra didn't know and Gail finally filled out the forms, faxed them to the research company, and wrote a note on the copies that they were a personal request she would pay for. Gail gave the signed note to Petra, asking her to see that it got to the bookkeeper. Gail hadn't seen Atwood, other than to nod at him while passing the window where he was sitting with men in suits, signing a tall stack of documents.

Petra gave Gail keys to the front door, saying it was a little tricky to open, plus a key to the new office space. Gail had no need for the other key, right now, but as her office would eventually be in the new space, Atwood had the keys made at the same time. When Gail left, she looked in the large front windows of the new space and saw the wallpaper was finished, interior walls were beginning to look finished, and she wondered what Atwood did to get so much work finished in such a short time. The doorways were framed in the new space. As soon as the doorways were cut all the way through to the old space, the air conditioner in the new space would begin to run full time.

"Gracious woman, you are a lot of trouble," Howard started telling her on the way to the ranch. "I called Frank and he doesn't have any kind of filing system. Any taxes he paid are in the folder with his tax returns."

"Yes," Gail agreed, "that's what most people do, and it won't do any good to get a copy or an abstract of a tax return from IRS because none of the account numbers are on the return."

"I think he or I will have to go through Dad's old desk for anything more than five or six years old," Howard said. "Some of what you were asking about is at Aunt Jean's. I hate to say this, but I can't trust Frank not to go through my private paperwork and with the number of times the old ranch house has been broken into, I'm not going to keep important papers out there."

"I found a couple of errors, the innocent kind many people make," Gail explained. "A seller gave Atwood a paid receipt and a copy of a cancelled check for some taxes he paid. It wasn't the right account number for that property and the cancelled check was for more than the taxes owed on the property, but he didn't write the account numbers on his check."

Howard looked at Gail and grinned, "And you think Dad paid taxes on the house and ranch with the same check."

"Yes, exactly" Gail told him, "See, the county clerk wrote the account numbers on the top of the check. The writing was so sloppy you could hardly tell what it was. But there's the number eight on the check and the property account number doesn't include an eight So, I'm thinking if we can find the tax receipts, maybe your dad took them with him, if he paid in person, or if you can find the cancelled checks, I can try to reconstruct every year's tax payments."

As they continued down the highway, Gail told Howard about requesting a research of tax charges and payments for the house, and both Howard and Frank's ranch land. The tax research companies would usually show dates payments were made. It might take a long time, several weeks anyway, for the research company to return the completed report because she was asking for such old information. If Frank could not find the cancelled checks it might get expensive, but old bank records may give them what they need.

"Sweetheart, can you tell me why you are doing this? I mean, I can see that it might show I didn't owe those old taxes, which I would personally appreciate. But I don't think that's your real reason."

"Oh, well, I just want to do it."

"Gail..." Howard's voice warned, saying he did not believe her statement.

"Okay, Santos made me mad," Gail admitted. "He's a horse's rear and if I can prove he's wrong, I'll know I'm not as messed up as I thought."

Howard asked, cautiously, not wanting to hurt her. "Is this about your letters, and not wanting to destroy them?"

"Partly, I mean, I read them again and I didn't like what they said about me. It's like I was holding this big funnel over my head letting anyone and everyone pour trash on me and I decided to turn the funnel upside down, so not as much would get through."

"That's an unusual way of putting it, but I understand," Howard said, as he turned off the truck engine. "While you still have some daylight, load things we need to take in the morning. I'm going to check on my cows."

After her second trip taking things out to the truck, Gail's cell phone rang. "This is Gail."

"Gail, its Atwood. Sorry about the late call, but my wife said she would like you to come by tomorrow evening. You probably don't have a pen and paper right now, so make sure you get the address and other information from Petra in the morning." He stopped talking long enough for Gail to say thank you, and then he continued. "I noticed your tax research request. I've been meaning to tell you, but it seems like all I do is nod at you in passing. Somewhere in all those boxes in my garage are some files, highway department stuff, I think. When we get to them, I'll let you review them, it might answer some questions from back then. I think some Pleas land was involved in the taking the state did for the highway expansion or it could have been a county road that was made wider. Old age is horrible on memory."

"Atwood that would be wonderful, I may not even need the tax research. It will take awhile for them to do it, anyway. But I think I'd like to have it, so which ever one I get first, the other will just help."

Atwood continued, changing the subject, "Gail, I hate to do this on such short notice, but I have a commercial closing at the bank tomorrow and it will take hours. Can you close two residential sales for me?"

"Yes, sir, as long as I have Petra to help."

"Oh yes, she will be there. Thanks, I need to go, Olivia has supper ready."

"Okay, I need some personal advice when we get a few minutes, but it can wait. I'm sorry, I'm keeping you from your supper."

When Howard walked in from checking on his cows, he looked hot and sweaty. Gail told him to take his shower while she got the venison steaks started. Howard teased her about eating all of his steaks and Gail said she would buy him some beef steaks if he would rather have them. He said, no thanks, venison suited him just fine.

Gail asked questions all through supper. She was encouraging Howard to try to remember everything he could recall his dad telling him about the ranch, and any uncles or aunts who might have inherited from Harold's grandfather. Then she asked him about the generation before that.

"I guess what you're asking about is things like a will and who inherited what part of the ranch. Dad didn't write a will. I don't know why. Mom didn't either. I'm not sure about his dad, I was just a little kid when he died, and dad was their only child. All the rest of the ancestors, I think you call them, I don't know. Some people pay a lot of attention to that stuff, I just never did. It didn't ever mean anything to me. So, am I supposed to find out about my family tree now?"

"You can, but only if you want to know about a family tree. What I'm concerned with is this ranch and the chain of title. That would be the actual legal owners and what they did to the property when they owned it and to whom it was passed by devise and descent."

"You want to tell that to me in people speak?"

Gail took a deep breath and began to explain, allowing Howard to ask questions so he could understand. "To start with, you need to understand that ownership of land in a state is controlled by the laws of the state where it is located." Howard nodded, so she continued. "When you borrow money and use the property as security for a debt, you still own it, but the bank has a lien, meaning they have a claim which they can enforce if you don't pay the debt. That's what you would call a foreclosure and the bank could sell the property to collect what you did not pay.

"When you pay off the debt, the lien is released and the bank's interest goes away. If you don't pay taxes or home improvement money, it acts the same way as the bank's lien. The debt and release become documents affecting ownership.

"Now about your dad who died without a will, I'm sure you already know but I'll tell you a few things anyway. Because this is a community property state, a wife who already owns half, inherits one half of his interest and their children divide the remaining half. The wife would then own three—fourths and the children combined would own the remaining one—fourth. If one of the children died before the father, their other children inherit. If Marie had had a child, the child would have inherited her share. Because she did not leave a child, the remaining siblings, you and Frank, shared her portion of the estate. That's the basics of descent. Another document would be created to change ownership from the deceased to the inheritors. That document would be described in the abstract of the land.

"A devise is a provision in a Last Will, where the writer of the Will gets to say what he wants done with the property. He can leave his property, or a portion of it, to a friend, an acquaintance, a relative, or an orphanage for cats. The Last Will becomes another document showing the property ownership changed hands. That would also add a document described in the abstract on the land.

Howard admitted that he had, like most people, a basic understanding of what she has said. But he still did not understand what she was looking for.

"Howard, think about a what if, okay? Let's consider that your dad paid the taxes. Either through error or because someone intentionally changed records, it appears they were never paid. That could have happened to you. You borrowed money from a bank to pay the taxes so the county tax department would not foreclose and sell the property to recover what was owed."

"Yes," Howard nodded, "That is exactly what I did."

"Now, what if a Will had been written, but was never used as the instrument that transferred the property. Instead, the descent method was used to pass the property to the wife and/or children."

Howard looked at Gail and asked, "Is that possible?"

"Sure, it may not be common, but it happens often enough that there is some history of it occurring. The problem occurs when someone doing research disregards, or does not see, an instrument, like something they think is a letter and is really a will. If a handwritten document expresses a person's desires for the disposition of their property after their death, it's a Will."

"You mean all that stuff dad said about Santos's dad?"

"Yes, that's what your dad always told you, right? He said Santos's great—grandfather took some land he was not entitled to and your dad could not prove it. He was only telling you what his father had told him, which was what his father had told him. That would have been your great—grandfather, the same generation he meant for Santos."

Howard nodded, "And Dad said he thought Santos knew what that great-grandfather did was not legal. I challenged Santos one time and he laughed, and then said something like, 'Proof of this, will not be found.' And because he does not speak English very well, I might have misunderstood what he meant."