Chapter 16

Early the next Sunday morning they packed up the camper as much as it needed to be to make the short trip over to the Amish campground, then they each threw a small suitcase in the Mustang and headed north. It would have been possible to stay over another day, but the Amish weren't going to work on Sunday, and the weather forecast called for rain on Monday, so there was no real reason to stay.

The route north had gotten pretty familiar to both of them by now: I-59 to Birmingham, then I-65 north through Nashville, Louisville, and Indianapolis, then I-67 until they were in Michigan. They made another night stop at their usual motel in Nashville, where Catalina wore her string bikini in the pool. "It's nice to be able to wear a bikini again," she commented after a month of wearing jeans and, at the most risqué, short sleeved shirts around the Amish.

"After the Amish head north, let's head over to Bill's for a couple days," Roger suggested. "That way you can work on your tan and show off your tattoo."

In all the hours they spent in the car they didn't often discuss two of the things that had them both worried: the situation with the settlement, and where Bonnie might be. They couldn't do much active worrying about the settlement since having it in the judge's hands seemed to mean that it would get settled fairly, and there had been no news in their e-mails and phone calls with Ralph Gerjevic. The situation with Bonnie was different -- there had been no word from her since they'd headed south the last time, when she had been planning on going to the Cleveland ComicCon. Catalina had sent numerous e-mails and gotten no response; repeated phone calls only reached her answering machine. It really hadn't worried Catalina much in the beginning, but as time went by the concern increased -- which is why they went directly to Amherst, rather than taking the quicker route east on the Indiana Turnpike before heading to Wychbold.

Stopping by Bonnie's house didn't solve the mystery. The front sidewalk had been shoveled, but the walk up to the porch and the steps had not been shoveled since the last snowstorm a couple days before. "Well," Roger said. "By the looks of things, wherever she is, she's not in Amherst."

Fortunately, Catalina had a key to the house. They found the heat had been turned down, and nothing seemed out of place, but there was no sign of Bonnie. The mystery deepened when they went out to the garage, to find Bonnie's car there. "That's really weird," Catalina said. "If she went somewhere she'd have gone in her car."

"Unless she went with someone," Roger pointed out. "You want my guess, she must have gotten tired of winter and gone somewhere with a friend. Six will get you two she's laying out in the sun at some nudist resort."

"Yeah, but you think she'd have left a note," Catalina responded.

"Maybe she did and we just haven't found it."

They headed back into the house and searched high and low. There was no sign of a note from Bonnie explaining where she might be. The only thing they found that gave them any sort of a clue was a note saying, "Grace, make sure to water the plants upstairs, too."

"Who's Grace?" Roger asked.

"A neighbor up the street," Catalina told him. "She might know what happened."

They headed up to the neighbor's house and found the elderly woman at home. "The only thing I know is that Bonnie called me up one evening about a month ago and said she was going somewhere," she said. "She asked me to go over and water the plants every few days."

"Do you have any idea where she was going?" Catalina asked.

"No, she seemed like she was in a hurry. You know your mother. When she gets an idea in her head it's hard for her to wait."

"Oh, yes," Catalina sighed. "Do I ever know that!"

It was getting dark by the time they gave up hunting, still without a clue. It was clear that Bonnie wasn't in Amherst, but where she was going or how she got there was a mystery.

"Jesus," Catalina said as they headed back to Wychbold in her car. "I don't know what to do next."

"Me, either," Roger agreed. "She knew you have the hearing the day after tomorrow, and I thought she would have wanted to be there for that."

"I think so too. But maybe it would be for the best if she isn't there. I can just see her getting up in court and mouthing off at Delmer."

"Yeah, that wouldn't help your case any. Look on the positive side. We know she went somewhere, probably right after ComicCon, so we have to assume she's all right."

"Yeah, but she's still my mother," she replied. "Can I help it if I'm worried? I mean, we've gone longer than this before without making contact, but given the situation with Delmer I just don't know what to think."

It was well after dark before they pulled into Roger's garage in Wychbold. Roger had called ahead to Larry the day before to tell him they were heading back, so once again, Larry had the driveway cleaned out and the heat turned up -- especially on the hot tub. They weren't in the house five minutes before they were climbing in to soak away some of the road sores.

As usual they went to Becky's for breakfast the next morning, but after that there wasn't much to do except for a few odds and ends that had built up. Those included going through the mail, throwing out most of it, and opening the two or three pieces that might be important. The only other thing of importance was a quick face-to-face talk with Gerjevic at his office, but all they got out of that was that things had been quiet, and he hadn't heard of any new settlement offers on the property. "I hope that means deBoer has been able to talk some sense into your cousin," he said.

"Sense? Delmer? Don't make me laugh," Catalina snorted.

"Well, it could mean that he managed to convince your cousin that you have a halfway reasonable case. It's all going to be up to the judge, so we're going to just have to wait and see what happens."

Roger and Catalina met the attorney for breakfast at Becky's the next day; they'd agreed to ride over to Hawthorne together.

"I'm a little surprised," Ralph told them over coffee. "I'd expected to hear of some kind of a revised settlement offer before we got this far, but it hasn't happened."

"Knowing Delmer, I'd bet he's thinking the judge will buy whatever line of bull he has about settling for $90,000," Catalina said.

"Not knowing your cousin that well, I'd guess you might be right," the attorney replied. "On the other hand, I can't believe that deBoer couldn't have talked some sense into him. Oh, well, that's why we're going to see the judge this morning. At least we've got a reasonable settlement proposal, while his is way out of line. I don't know this Judge Langley very well, and I've only had a couple cases in front of him over the years. From what I recall he seems reasonably fair, so I think we've got a good bet."

"I don't say that I want to settle for ninety thousand," Catalina said. "But I want to get this settled once and for all. This running back and forth is turning into a pain in the butt, especially to have to come back to Michigan when the weather is this bad."

"Yeah, it could be better," the attorney agreed. "It's been a snowy winter, and there's been a time or two I've been envying you down there in Mississippi."

They finished their coffee and got on the road. There had been snow overnight, and while the roads were passable, they could have been better, so the drive over to Hawthorne seemed slow. They got there in plenty of time, parked, and headed into the courthouse.

This was the first time Roger had been in the courthouse in Hawthorne. It was a fairly new building, only about ten years old, but was mostly masonry, about as sterile as the typical elementary school without all the kids' drawings hanging on the walls. The probate courtroom was almost as bad, with wood paneling going up the walls about eight feet and stopping, and painted cinder block showing above it up to the acoustical tile ceiling. Delmer and deBoer weren't there when Roger, Catalina, and Ralph arrived and took seats at one side of the courtroom, but they arrived soon afterward and took seats about as far away as they could get. While no words were spoken, Roger thought that Delmer had an expression on his face that showed a lot of satisfaction and belief that he was going to get away with whatever he had planned.

As Gerjevic had warned a month before, the Smith estate was fourth on the docket posted on the bulletin board in the hall outside the courtroom. Two of the three cases preceding them were as he had predicted, rubber-stamp affairs that couldn't have taken three minutes each to clear up. The third took longer, a complicated legacy with several conflicting claims, and an hour wasn't enough to settle things. After an hour of wrangling between several attorneys, it was as clear to Roger as it was to Judge Langley that it was no closer to being settled now than it had when it started. Finally, he said, "It strikes me that there are still several areas here that are unclear. We could be here all day and not get anything accomplished." He laid out a list of places where he thought there was going to have to be some grounds for agreement, then set a date for a new hearing six weeks in the future and called for a brief recess.

Several attorneys and their clients left the courtroom after that, mostly muttering and complaining among themselves. "Jesus," Catalina told Gerjevic, "I hope our hearing goes better than that."

"It should," Ralph told her. "We really only have one point at issue, the disputed value of the land, and we have some facts on our side."

Five minutes later the court was back in session, just about enough time for the judge to be able to make it to the john, Roger figured. "Next item on the docket, Estate of Homer C. Smith," the judge said. "Documents presented to the court by the attorney for the executor indicate that all items of the legacy have been settled with the exception of a settlement on a quarter section of land that was to be left equally to Delmer E. Smith and Catalina R. Smith. The documentation indicates that the Smiths have been unable to reach a mutually acceptable settlement on this land. Is that essentially correct, Mr. deBoer?"

"That's correct, your honor," deBoer said, standing up. "Mr. Smith has made an offer to settle on the basis of a payment of $90,000 as being half the value of the land, but Miss Smith has rejected the settlement and has made a counter offer considerably larger than Mr. Smith feels is justified."

"Mr. Gerjevic," Judge Langley said, "I believe the documents indicate you are Miss Smith's attorney. What is your client's position on this?"

"Your honor," Gerjevic said, "In our petition for a hearing you will find an assessor's statement on the value of the land dated last month showing it being of a value of approximately $650,000. That is a figure considerably more than the $180,000 that Mr. Smith's settlement proposal appears to be based upon. Based on that assessment, Miss Smith made a counteroffer of $325,000, which is half of the much more realistic and current estimated value of the land. At our last meeting Mr. Smith refused to even consider anything over $90,000."