Chapter 25

Rayburn Carswell had lost his bluster. He had no idea Edna Patrick would have the resources at her disposal to seek counsel from another attorney, let alone a retired district judge. He didn't know Celina Gomez but he damned sure knew Arthur Barrett.

The guys arrived back in the living room shortly after Celina had returned to her seat.

"An offer has been made on the house," Celina said without a second's preamble. "My client believes it to be fair and reasonable and has tentatively accepted pending a deed search and documentation. Mr. Barrett has made arrangements for the amount of purchase to be transferred into escrow immediately. It will be released to the estate once the appropriate documentation is received."

"You, you already sold the house?" Carswell sputtered. "May I ask how much?"

Edna smiled and nodded to Celina. Celina, in turn, nodded to Arthur.

"Well, thanks to your client's lack of foresight and to this poorly worded legal instrument you produced, my client is purchasing this house and its property for $655,000."

"What!" Carswell exclaimed. "This place must be worth at least $3.5 million."

"Possibly," Arthur said with a shrug. "We'll find out once my client resells it."

"I'll block the sale as Louella's attorney," Carswell blustered.

"No, you won't," Celina said. "You might try but you'll never succeed. All you'll do is eat up Jimmy Kimble's money trying. This property hasn't been appraised in more than two decades. Its last appraisal was in 1984 and it was valued at $655,000, the agreed upon sales price."

Carswell's eyes closed and he took a deep breath. His dreams of a partnership at the large firm that handled Rev. Kimble's affairs were fast dwindling.

"There will be other offers at the auction," he said. "You'll have to take the highest one."

"There will be no auction," Celina said with a shrug. "The will is worded, and I quote, 'the executrix or her designated proxy is solely responsible for the dissemination of worldly assets contained in the dwelling, of the dwelling itself and of the property on which the dwelling resides. All personal property and real estate holdings shall be itemized and sold for a reasonable amount.'

"That means Edna decides upon how the estate will be sold. She and her workers have checked the list you provided, which I assume was provided by your client, against things in the household. As I said, the only item listed which is missing is the classic vehicle. You need not inform Mr. Kimble of when it needs to be returned. If it isn't returned by 1 p.m. today, it will be reported stolen and the person you have listed as in possession will be billed $250,000 for its purchase."

Edna's eyes focused on Carswell as Celina spoke.

"You didn't think I'd come back here, did you?" she asked. "You thought I'd either give you power of attorney over the estate or show up and get the photographs and keepsakes and leave it to you to deal with everything else. Well, I guess you got the same kick in the pants as good old Reverend Jimmy."

Carswell did not react to Edna's statement, instead he looked at Arthur.

"This is within the letter of the document but it is not within the spirit of it," he said. "Mrs. Louella Patrick expected things to be sold for a premium amount, not like some piddling flea market sale."

Celina made a concerted effort to show she was perusing the will carefully. She looked up and shrugged.

"Then your client should have made certain it was specified in the will," Celina said. "Or she should have paid to have her belongings appraised to establish a sale price. She did neither nor did she authorize the estate to do it. She expressly says Mrs. Edna Patrick is the executrix of the will. I know it is because she is a living relative and would have grounds to contest the will if someone else were named. But she is the executrix and she is given responsibility to sell the items. If she chose to put everything on the internet, she would be adhering to this document. The only thing she cannot do is to give it away. She is not giving it away. Nothing will be sold for less than the stated appraised value, the purchase price or the going rate."

"The purchase price?" Carswell fumed. "Some of this stuff is 50 or 60 years old. That can't be the determining factor."

"Then you should have put the money forth to hire someone to set the value," Arthur interjected. "Because you didn't, Edna Patrick gets to. The courts will uphold the appraised value as the sale price. They have in the past and they will in the future. Because no recent appraisal, even for insurance purposes, was done, the courts fall back on sale price, appraisal and going rate. Sadly, Mrs. Patrick is a resident of a town in Virginia that has not seen the drastic increase in prices that our fine city has. She has painstakingly gone through each room and set what she considers a reasonable price for the items you've listed. If you – or your client – wanted it done another way, you should have stated it plainly or attended to it yourself. Frankly, Louella Patrick would have been better off downloading a will from the Internet – and I'll tell everyone who mentions the possibility of seeking your services in the future."

Carswell crossed his arms and frowned. He was screwed and he knew it. Neither he nor Louella thought Edna would even appear. The packet of information he sent to the woman in Virginia included a power-of-attorney document allowing Carswell the ability to set up an auction that probably would have fetched $15 million, at least. The property would be worth another $3 million.

"How much is Reverend Kimble to receive?" he asked.

"Do you represent him?" Celina asked. "If so, my client should have been apprised of that fact and you should not have accepted Louella Patrick as a client."

"No, of course not," Carswell said. "I do not represent him. But Mrs. Patrick made him aware of her largesse."

"Then it is none of your concern," Celina said sharply. "You will be given, in 363 days and not a moment sooner, verification that the proceeds from this sale have been placed in an escrow account. A year afterward, you will be given an itemized list of sales prices to cross-check against the account before you close the estate. Sadly, you will have to work quickly to verify things because the money will be released to the beneficiary the same day. Now, you are welcome to stay and watch the estate sale. You may not comment on things, nor may you hinder the sale of any item for the stated price."

She gestured to the five young women who had entered the room to see what was happening.

"These ladies will serve as hostesses and have agreed to be responsible for taking care of providing a receipt to the buyer and to the estate," she continued. "I will stay behind and handle all cash transactions."

She turned to face Walt, Sean and Adam.

"These gentlemen will be asked to provide security to make sure neither you nor Mr. Kimble attempt to disrupt the proceedings," Celina said with a wide smile. "You three are amenable to that, aren't you?"

"Oh, yeah," Walt said.

"How much is all this costing?" Carswell asked.

"Again, it is not your concern," Celina said. "The estate made no provision for any assistance for Mrs. Patrick, so she made private arrangements with these young people. They will not be paid from the estate or from funds accrued from the sale of Louella Patrick's possessions. Now, do you have questions? If so, now is the time. Do not interrupt me, Mrs. Patrick or anyone in her employ once the estate sale commences. If not, then please find an unobtrusive spot and sit down. Do not, however, block the price of the item on which you choose to sit."

Rayburn I. Carswell threw up his hands and left without a word.

The estate of Louella Patrick was sold within hours. The first people there goggled at the low asking price for most of the items and purchased them on the spot. A few antiques dealers got word and showed up. One, an old woman of Asian descent, asked to purchase the remaining items, sight unseen, for any amount Edna named, within reason.

Sean had set up a simple accounting program on Rachelle's laptop, so the remaining inventory was easy to calculate. Edna put out a sign that stated the sale was concluded, allowed the remaining people to complete their purchases, and sold the entire remaining lot to Mrs. Chou-Lin for $322,196.

The only item that she refused to sell was a full-length mirror that was found in the attic. Rachelle had asked to purchase it – and Edna agreed to $100, so long as the money was not sent to the estate until the final day allowed. Edna did, however, agree to let Rachelle hold on to the mirror for safe-keeping until that time.

Sean, Walt and Adam took up station outside the dwelling once the doors were locked, turning away disappointed patrons who thought they might have hit the mother lode of sale pricing.

The antique car appeared, keys locked in it but the gas tank near empty, in the driveway minutes before one p.m. A man parked the car and got out, got into a waiting car and sped away. Walt deftly unlocked the car to retrieve the keys – checked in the trunk for contraband – at Sean's suggestion – and beneath it for other nasty items at Arthur's. Once he determined the car was clean, he started to drive it up to the garage but Arthur stopped him.

"That's mine, young man," he said as he waved a bill of sale in Walt's face. "I would thank you to keep your hands off of it. I see the way the cars you kids drove up here look. You have no idea how to treat a car as fine as this one."

He laughed to make sure Walt knew he was joking and put his arm around him. It turned out it was a good thing for Arthur that he kept on Walt's good side. The distributor cap was cracked and it had enough sugar in the gas tank to bake a cake. Walt wound up driving to a parts warehouse and locating the right parts and dropping the gas tank and lines to clean them thoroughly to get it running again.

"Fucking ingrates," Walt muttered as he tinkered away in the garage. Before Arthur left, Walt had changed all the spark plugs and the oil and reset the timing. He was certain Jimmy Kimble would have been highly pissed off if he knew that the car he hoped to be found as unsalable ran better than it ever had by six p.m.