Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1) (2 page)

“Samuel Collins,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Welcome to The Park.”

“Thanks.”

“You move in last night?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let me know if you need anything,” he said, turning to
leave.

Finally.
  A neighbor who was going to leave me in
peace!  This one I didn’t mind speaking to.  “Do you know anything about a big
Siamese cat?” I asked.

He had a funny smile on his face when he turned back around. 
“He’s mean as the dickens, ain’t he?”

“Who does he belong to?”

“I guess you’d say he comes with the house.  First time he
showed up was a good 10 years ago.  Two owners have come and gone and every
time the moving truck pulls up, he disappears.  Shows up again after the new
owner’s settled in.”

He turned to leave again, but his wife was walking across their
lawn towards my house.

“Here comes the Mrs.”

She made her way across my yard to where we were standing.

“Hello.  I’m Verna Johns,” she said, offering her hand. 
“Welcome to the Park.”

“Thank you.  Samuel Collins.”  I gave her a firm handshake and
her fingers kind of squished in my hand.

“Is it just you, or do you have a family?” she said, looking
around as if someone could be hiding in the bushes.

“No.  It’s just me.”  I could tell she was disappointed.

“What do you do for a living?” she asked.

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Really!”  She perked up again.  Mrs. Johns looked at her
husband.  “Maybe he can revise our will?”  She turned to me.  “Do you do
wills?”

“Yeah.  I can do that for you,” I told her.

“That would be great.  We’ve been meaning to do it for years,
and we’ve just never gotten around to it.  Where’s your office?”

“Downtown.  But we can do it from here.   When you’re ready,
just get me a copy of your present will and let me know what you want changed.”

The Welcome Lady pulled into my driveway and Mrs. Johns
exclaimed, “Look, Andy!  It’s Mildred Krally.”  She waved and called out, “Hi,
Mildred!”

Mrs. Howard had just come out to check her mail.  She looked in
our direction and made a beeline across the street and into my driveway, and
greeted the Welcome Lady as she got out of her car.   The two then joined us,
Mrs. Krally with a basket in one hand and a plant in the other.  She presented
the plant to me on behalf of the Garden Club and Mrs. Howard took the honor of
introducing us.

“Sam is a lawyer,” she said proudly.  “And he’s single.  Never
been married.”

I shook Mrs. Krally’s hand and accepted the basket from her.

“I have a granddaughter about your age who’s not married,” Mrs.
Krally stated, looking me up and down.

Mrs. Howard clapped her hands.  “Oh, wouldn’t they be perfect
together!”

“I have to go,” I said. 

Mr. Johns nodded toward the women and shook his head.  “Good
luck, and let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you.  It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Johns.”

“Call me Andy.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Andy.”

I made my escape and left the group standing in my front yard. 
I fully expected the cat to be back on my hearth when I got back inside, but he
was nowhere in sight.

Thirty peaceful minutes went by before there was a knock at my
door.  It was Mrs. Johns with a stack of papers and a Tupperware container in
her hands.  She was wearing an apron that proclaimed her to be the “#1 Cook.”

“This is our old will,” she said, waving the document in the
air.  “And I’ve made a list of all the beneficiaries’ latest addresses and what
we want to leave them.”  She handed me the documents.  “When do you think you
can have it ready?”

“Let me look it over and see what’s involved and I’ll let you
know Monday.”

“Okay,” she said cheerfully.  She handed over the Tupperware
container.  “This is some King Ranch chicken casserole that you can have for
dinner.  I figured all of your cookware was probably still packed away.”

I could feel the neighbor situation spiraling out of control,
but I took the container from her nonetheless.

“Thank you, Mrs. Johns.  That’s nice of you.”

“Call me Verna.  After all, we’re neighbors.”

“Okay.  Thank you, Verna.  I’ll give you a call Monday.  Do I
have your phone number here?” I asked, motioning to the documents in my hand.

“It’s there, but I’ll just stop by and see what you come up
with,” she said.

I made a mental note to call her first thing Monday morning so
I could avoid a face-to-face.  “I’ll talk to you Monday then.”

“Give us a call if you need anything.”

When I finally got rid of her, I took the Tupperware container
into the kitchen and opened it up.  It was divided into three sections and each
one was filled to the brim with something different.  One section had the King
Ranch casserole, a creamy concoction made with layers of chicken and corn
tortillas, another was filled with Mexican rice with peas and corn mixed in,
and the third contained homemade ranchero beans with bits of bacon, onion and
cilantro floating in the juice. It looked awesome.  I heated the food in the
microwave, cleared a space at my dining room table, and rummaged through a box
labeled
Kitchen
and located utensils.  Then I sat down and polished off
the entire meal in less than five minutes.  If nothing else, my intrusive
neighbors knew how to cook.  Between breakfast and dinner, I hadn’t eaten as
well since Christmas.

I spent most of the evening unpacking boxes, then I took a
break and pulled out the documents that Mrs. Johns had brought over.  Their
estate was larger than I had guessed.  The Johnses had three children, all
sons, and eight grandchildren, none of whom lived in Texas.  The bulk of their
estate was to be divided evenly between the three sons, but there was a
sizeable chunk that was to be left to a Landra Krally. 
As in the Welcome
Lady
?  As far as I could tell from my cursory perusal of the old will, that
was the only major change.   I smelled a rat.  I put the documents in my
briefcase and called it a night.

Saturday is my favorite day of the week, and the next morning
promised to be a beautiful one.  It was barely past 8:00 a.m. and I had just
put on a pot of coffee when my doorbell rang. 
It can’t be
.  I opened
the door, and sure enough, there was a smiling Mrs. Howard with another basket
of baked goods.

“These are poppy seed muffins,” she said, holding the basket
out to me.

I could smell them from three feet away and my mouth started
watering remembering her sweet potato muffins.  With mixed emotions, I
contemplated my dilemma:   If I accepted the muffins, I would be setting a
dangerous precedent.  Mrs. Howard could very well be on my porch every morning
at 8:00 o’clock with a basket of muffins in her hand.  I certainly couldn’t
have that.  On the other hand, as long as she left the muffins and didn’t hang
around to chat, would that be so bad?  As it was, my olfactory sense got the
best of me and I found myself reaching out to accept the basket.

“It really wasn’t necessary,” I said, taking a peek under the
red cloth napkin.  The smell of almonds and butter wafted up through my
nostrils and I wanted badly to pop one into my mouth right then and there, but
I didn’t dare.  She’d know instantly that she had me hooked.  I covered them
back up to reduce the temptation.

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she said cheerfully.  “Verna and Andy
told me you were revising their will for them.  I’d like to hire you to revise
mine too.”  She handed over a stack of papers.  “Whenever you get around to it
is fine.”

I set the basket down and took the papers from Mrs. Howard and
gave them a quick glance.   My mind was on the muffins – Mrs. Howard had to go.
“All right.  I’ll look over everything and get back with you.”

“Okay.  Thank you, Sam.”

I closed the door and scarfed down three muffins before I got
to the kitchen.   They were just as good as the sweet potato muffins, if not
better.  I went outside and sat by the pool with my coffee and muffins and
started looking over Mrs. Howard’s papers.  When I got to her bequests a chill
ran down my spine and my neck hairs bristled.  Mrs. Howard was changing her
will to leave a sizeable amount of her estate to one Landra Krally.

I picked up the phone and called a friend of mine who owned
Lautrec Investigations and asked him to do some digging for me, then I put the
matter out of my mind.  The day was already warming up, and even though it was
early January, the temperature was predicted to be in the 70s.  It was a
perfect day to do some yard work, so I put on my old jeans and went outside and
started up the mower.  I had mowed two rows when Oliver came out of his house
and headed in my direction with a miniature football in his hand.

“Hi, Samuel,” he yelled over the sound of the mower.   “Look. 
I have a football.”

“Yeah.”  I continued to mow, hoping that if I ignored him, he
would go away.  Instead, he walked beside me up and back, up and back, up and
back.  It was apparent he wasn’t going to leave, so I turned off the mower,
crossed my arms, and gave him a look that I hoped expressed my irritation.

“What’s up Oliver?”

“Want to see me throw my football?”

I couldn’t bring myself to give him a flat-out
no
. 
“Okay.  But just once.  Then I have to finish mowing,” I told him.

He put his little hand around the ball, wound up his arm, and
gave the most pathetic attempt at a pass.  I was appalled.  The kid couldn’t
throw at all.

“Wait a minute,” I told him.  “You’re throwing like a girl.”  I
picked up the ball and placed it in Oliver’s hand, and I positioned his fingers
correctly on the ball.  “This is how you hold a football,” I instructed.  I
pulled his arm back and went through the motion of how to throw the ball a
couple of times, while Oliver smiled happily, listening intently as I coached
him.  “Now, give it a try,” I told him, and I handed him the ball.

He clutched his little fingers around the ball just as I had
instructed and cocked his arm back, then threw a pass that went spiraling a
good 15 feet.  A huge smile spread across Oliver’s face and he ran to pick up
the ball.

I figured it was a fluke.   “Here.  Throw it to me,” I said.

He repeated the process, concentrating on his new technique,
and once again he threw a whopper.  It was off to the left by a couple of feet,
but the kid had an incredible arm.

“That’s really good, Oliver.  Can you catch?”  I threw him the
ball and it hit him smack in the chest, but he dropped it.    He picked it up
happily and threw it back to me, and his aim was dead on.   “Good throw,” I
told him.  “All you need is practice.”  I handed him the ball and went to
restart my mower, when I noticed that Mrs. Howard and the Johnses were huddled
together watching us and smiling.   They waved when I looked at them and headed
in my direction.  Shit
.

“Good morning, Samuel.  Hi, Liver,” said Mrs. Johns.

“You can’t call me that any more,” Oliver said, then he added,
“Samuel said so.”

All three neighbors looked at me with the same shocked
expression, which I couldn’t quite read.  I took the ball from Oliver.

“Go out for a pass, Oliver,” I told him, then I waited until he
was out of earshot. “You want him to get beat up when he goes off to school?” I
asked the group, looking from one to the other.  There. Now maybe they’d leave
me alone.

Mr. Johns was the first to speak.  “We’ve been trying to come
up with a way to tactfully tell Oliver’s mother the same thing,” he said,
sounding relieved.

“Well, why didn’t you just come out and say it?” I asked.

“We didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” said Mrs. Johns.  “Bless
her heart, she works so hard, and raising those kids all by herself.”

“Where’s Oliver’s father?” I asked.

“He died in a car accident last year, right before Oliver’s
little brother was born,” Mrs. Johns said, and gloom spread across her face.

So Oliver didn’t have a dad.  Bummer.  I threw the ball to him
and he dropped it again.  He picked it up and threw it back to me and I ran to
catch it.

“Good throw,” I said, and Oliver laughed.  He walked back to
where we were standing and addressed Mr. Johns.

“Want to throw the ball with me?  Samuel teached me how to
throw.”

“Taught me how to throw,” I corrected.

“Samuel taught me how to throw,” he repeated.  “Want to throw
the ball with me?”

“I’d like that very much,
Oliver
,” Mr. Johns said,
over-emphasizing the name.

Oliver looked at me and smiled triumphantly, then he took off
with Mr. Johns.   I thought about broaching the Landra Krally subject with the
two women, but decided I should address it with each separately.  The neighbors
left and I resumed mowing my lawn.  I had just emptied the grass catcher for
the second time and when I turned around there was a blond woman with big hair,
big eyes and big breasts standing right behind me.   The similarity in the eyes
told me instantly that this must be Oliver’s mother.

“I hear you’re a lawyer,” she said with a heavy Texas drawl. 
She pronounced the
I
like
Ah
.

“News travels fast,” I said.  “You must be Oliver’s mother.”

She stuck out her hand and I wiped mine on my pants leg before
shaking it. “Maddie Griffin,” she said, giving me a firm handshake.

“Samuel Collins.”

“Well, Samuel Collins, you’re an answer to my prayers,” she
said smiling.

“I doubt it,” I told her.  I didn’t like flirty women,
especially ones with big hair.

She either didn’t notice my nasty tone, or she chose to ignore
it.  I wasn’t sure which was worse.  “Can we sit on your steps?” she asked, but
it was more of a statement than a question, and she grabbed me by the hand and
practically dragged me across my lawn.