The reception area of Caroline Briggs’s office in the brick strip mall smelled of lemon polish and old paper. The chair they gave me was covered in green leather, and the soft cushion sank down so low that my lower back began to throb.
“Mr. Hayes, thank you for coming,” Caroline said, opening the door to the inner office.
She was a tall woman with her dark hair pulled back in a neat clip. She carried a thick manila folder and set it on the desk, immediately aligning three black pens in a perfect row beside her notepad.
“We have some legal steps to cover,” she said, sitting down. “This is the official death certificate.”
She slid the paper across the desk. I looked at Eleanor’s name printed in cold black ink, and then at the date of her birth, which was only two years before mine.
“The property is currently clear of any active mortgages,” Caroline said, watching my face. “But Eleanor was running the bait shop alone for a long time, and her health was failing.”
