Impossible Dreams (40 page)

“Pfeiffer?” he asked wearily.

She nodded. Cleo turned to Axell for explanation.

“He named you and Cleo and the relationship?”
Axell clarified. At Maya’s nod, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“The school?”

“Don’t know,” she finally replied.
“The lawyer blathered on about deeds. He’s driving down this
afternoon to explain.” She looked a little less certain.
“They’ve already filed the will at the courthouse. There’s
nothing we can do.”

“A vacation in the Bahamas until this blows over would
be nice.” Leaning against the counter, Axell covered his face and wished
escape was an alternative.

Idly, Cleo fished another petal from her hair.
“Inheriting is good, isn’t it? Why the long faces?”

“Mr. Pfeiffer was
murdered
,” Maya
emphasized. “Who do you think are the prime suspects now?”

Silence.

Axell looked up. Cleo didn’t have to look guilty. He
wagered she looked guilty sleeping. He turned to Maya.

“Cleo got out the day Mr. Pfeiffer died,
remember?” she reminded him.

Axell summoned the unpleasant memory of Cleo walking down
the shop stairs on them one morning — the day after the murder. He didn’t
think prisons let people out in the middle of the night. She must have been
released the day of the murder. Shit.

“I didn’t know anything about any damned
will,” Cleo responded defensively at Axell’s look. “He said
he’d take care of us, but I figured it was an old man talking. He was my
damned
landlord
,” she shouted beneath the force of their stares.
“I paid him rent. I figured he gave me a discount because I listened to
him talk.”

“Where were you the night you were released?”
Axell asked as calmly as he could. For Maya’s sake, he wanted to believe
her sister. But the circumstances definitely looked questionable.

“I was
here
!” Cleo gestured at the
stairs. “I got a ride, found the key over the sill like Maya said, and
came in and inspected the place. I went upstairs and went to bed. Stevieboy
came in around three and woke me. He can verify I was in bed.”

“At three. News of the murder was all over town before
midnight,” Axell replied with resignation. “I don’t suppose
you know the name of the person who drove you here? I don’t know the
exact time of death. There might be a chance...”

He saw the exchange of looks between the sisters and knew
that alley was a dead end.

Cleo shrugged. “He’s not a reliable
witness.”

Axell cringed at the defeat in her voice. He thought he
understood something of how a person could be used for a doormat for so long,
they began to think that’s all there was to life. Beaten down by
circumstances all their lives, with no money, no resources, no friends or
family for support, the doormats of the world existed to take the blame for
others.

He turned to Maya and recognized the gleam of confidence in
her eyes as she watched him. She thought he could solve her sister’s
problems.

Logically, he should run the other way.

Insanely, Maya’s faith pumped new energy through
Axell’s blood, inflated his heart — and probably his head, not to mention
other parts of his anatomy — and released something previously fettered and
downtrodden in his soul.

He thought it was hope.

It IS as bad as you think, and they ARE out to get you!

“You’ll understand that we haven’t talked
with Mr. Pfeiffer since the will was signed. He gave us this list of his
properties at the time, but they could have changed since then. All except his
house are in the name of his corporation, so it’s merely a matter of
listing you as the new stockholders of the corporation, and filing a deed on
the house.”

The lawyer sipped his martini and sampled one of the stuffed
mushroom appetizers Axell’s chef had brought back to the meeting room.
Maya clung to the seat of her chair and tried not to squirm as he chewed. She
couldn’t label her emotion. She’d lost a
grandfather
. She
hadn’t even known she had one. Didn’t know if she wanted one. But
the choice had been taken from her. And now she was staring at the immense
responsibility of his properties and wondering if she could give them away.

She glanced at Cleo. Her sister had flattened her hair into
something that almost looked normal and Peter Pannish. She still had tired
circles under her eyes and looked brittle enough to crack, but she seemed more
connected to this conversation than Maya was.

Maya couldn’t get beyond the grandfather part. Cleo
had already nailed the lawyer for a list of properties. The list wasn’t
long. Maya had no clue if any of the places listed were valuable. She simply
understood that her school was one of them.

Cleo had passed the list to Axell, who scanned it with more
knowledge than the others. He’d grown up here, and most of the places
listed were in the area.

“Does the corporation have a bank account?”
Selene inquired.

Maya had insisted that Selene be part of the meeting. Axell
would have the best interest of his family in mind. Selene would favor the
school. Maya didn’t know which way to turn.

“We have a list of bank accounts, and we’ve
notified the banks of the death and change of ownership. The court will issue
releases when the paperwork is complete. We asked for account balances for
estate-tax purposes.” The lawyer slid a paper to Cleo, who sat next to
him.

Cleo’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the list.
Shrugging, she handed it to Maya. “The properties better be in good
condition. He didn’t leave enough to pay the electricity.”

“One of them is the condemned shop,” Axell
pointed out. “It will cost to have it demolished.” He took the bank
list Maya handed him and grimaced.

“Mr. Pfeiffer said he’d given his cousins and
his wife’s nieces and nephews countless loans over the years that had
never been paid back. He left his sister the small house he lived in the last
few years.” The lawyer popped a mushroom in his mouth and savored it
before shuffling through his notes again.

“I understand the rents have decreased as the
properties deteriorated, so there may not be much cash. Most of the Pfeiffer
family possessions were apparently divided among the family when he moved out
of the big house, with the exception of the few he took with him and that his
sister inherits. He considered that inheritance enough for the extended
family.” The lawyer sipped his drink and sat back. “We’re
still looking to see if any accounts have been overlooked. The relatives
haven’t been very cooperative.”

“The relatives know about the will?” Maya asked
with a tremor of fear.

“We’ve told them we’re executors of his
estate. I’m not entirely certain they understand the meaning of that. We
did not notify them of the will until it was officially accepted by the
court.”

Maya glanced at Axell, who was beginning to look exceedingly
grim. Maybe she should go check on the children. She’d left Constance and
Matty eating supper in the restaurant kitchen. She glanced at Alexa sitting
contentedly in her chair, sucking her fist. She never cried when Maya needed a
disturbance.

“There are some old papers and junk in the attic of
the school,” she said tentatively. “Should we turn them over to the
family?”

The lawyer shrugged. “The house and its contents
belong to you. You might want to check and see if there are any bank statements
that could lead us to other accounts.”

“I can get on that tonight if there’s
electricity up there.” Cleo glanced at Maya.

“There’s just one of those old work lights
hanging from a beam. We need to carry the stuff down and go through it.”

The lawyer shoved back his chair. “I really should be
going. If you have any questions...”

Axell rose with him. “You’ll need to eat. My
chef will prepare you something. Relax and enjoy before you drive back.”

MacGregor smiled and patted his rounded stomach. “If
the entrees are as good as the appetizers, I’ll be delighted to take you
up on that offer.”

The women watched as the two men wandered into the
restaurant. Selene was the first to speak.

“Well, ladies, looks like you got a corner on the
market of the hottest real estate in the state. How does it feel to be
slumlords?”

“Slumlords?” Maya bit back a giggle and glanced
at the list. They were just addresses to her.

Cleo leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her
chest. “We’d better choose which ones we’re going to sell.
We’ll need the cash for lawyer’s fees when the family finds
out.”

Selene beamed approvingly. “You got your head on
right. Maybe instead of rooting through attics, you ought to be finding a good
Realtor. You’ll need cash to maintain these places, cash to tear down
that junk heap... Pfeiffer didn’t do you any favors by draining the
corporation.”

Maya listened in amazement as her sister and Selene dived
into an animated conversation on real estate economics. All she wanted to know
was if she could keep her school. It wasn’t in the corporation. It was a
separate property. The lawyer had said it belonged to her and Cleo now.

An awful thought occurred to her. What if Cleo wanted to
sell the school? All that acreage was outrageously valuable. It would provide
the cash needed for all the things Cleo and Selene were discussing right now.

Maybe selling the school was the best solution. Maybe she
was the only one who thought it special. What did it matter if that land had
been in the Pfeiffer family for generations? The Pfeiffer family had never
considered her and Cleo as members.

Its historical value was meaningless. It wasn’t as if
George Washington had slept there or anything. Just because she thought it an
ideal location for her school, that the children loved the yard and the huge
rooms and all the nifty secrets old houses and gardens concealed — none of that
mattered when it came down to the almighty dollar.

How long would it take before Selene and Cleo reached that
conclusion? Maya figured Axell had reached it the minute he’d seen the
nonexistent bank accounts. He was just being polite and letting someone else
say it out loud.

She’d quit following the flow of conversation but a
sudden silence drew her back in. She looked up to see both Cleo and Selene
watching her. Well, that didn’t take long.

“I don’t want to sell,” she said firmly.

***

“You’re a pig-headed jackass, Maya,” Cleo
complained as she rifled through a trunk of old photos Axell had carried down
from the school’s attic. They were working beneath the bare bulbs of the
upstairs bedrooms, and she squinted at the spidery handwriting on some of the
letters.

“A jackass, a moron, a ditz, whatever,” Maya
replied with unconcern as she flipped through an ancient ledger. “I
don’t want to sell.”

“When was the last time Maya behaved like a
jackass?” Axell inquired as he carried in another box.

Cleo halted, stared at him, stared at Maya, then shrugged.
“All right, you got me. Stubborn, she’s not. Stupid, she is.”

Maya ignored both of them. “You realize this is our family
history in here,” she marveled, glancing at entries dating back to the
1800’s. “These things belong in a museum.”

“Charlotte is full of attics with this kind of stuff.
Unless you come across a reference to Robert E. Lee, no one’s
interested.” Axell opened a carton that looked slightly newer than the
rest. “I don’t think you’re going to find what you’re
looking for in here.”

“Yeah, the recent stuff is probably in the house the
sister inherited. She won’t be too happy to hand it over. This moldering
mansion is her family home.” Cleo reached in the new box and removed what
appeared to be a black-bound journal. A yellowed, much-folded letter fell from
its pages.

“The sister doesn’t have kids,” Maya
pointed out. “She’s an old lady without the resources to maintain a
place this size. She would have sold it. Mr. Pfeiffer knew that.”

“Says who?” Cleo replied belligerently.
“He never mentioned it to me. I don’t remember you saying you had
any long, heart-to-hearts with him.”

Maya glared at her sister. “Don’t you have any
understanding of human nature? He—”

“Ladies,” Axell interrupted, blowing dust off
his hands, “I think we can give up any hope of finding anything tonight.
We need to get the kids home and look for other options in the morning.”

“It’s early yet. I’ll stay here,”
Cleo declared, flipping through the journal.

Maya intercepted Axell’s look and shut her mouth. Cleo
was probably safer out here in the rural isolation of the school than at the
shop with drug dealers running loose. “It feels odd having ancestors.”
She stood and brushed herself off.

“You want ancestors, start with the living
ones,” Cleo called, carefully opening the crumpled letter. “Our
father has aunts and uncles and cousins out the wazoo back in Texas and
Tennessee. You can have a family reunion.”

Maya didn’t comment. Her sister remembered their early
days of traveling from place to place much better than she did, and even she
remembered all the long-boned, harsh faces of distant aunts and uncles frowning
on them. She didn’t think she wanted to get better acquainted with all
those grim relatives who hadn’t wanted them.

“All right, so we fell from a lousy family tree. It
makes a good excuse for our faults and foibles,” she replied airily,
skirting around boxes toward the door. “Maybe the one we really ought to
dig into is our mother’s maternal side of the family. Someone had to pass
on good sense.”

“I promise you, you don’t want to go
there,” Axell muttered, opening the door and pointing to the hall.
“Believe me when I say you came by your eccentric genes naturally.”

Cleo shot Maya a look of disgust. “Homeboy knows
something.”

Maya grinned back. “Homeboy has connections.”
She smiled sweetly at her husband. “Headley’s been at it again,
hasn’t he? Spill.”