Chapter 4
The office was a converted carriage house at the edge of the Willowmere property, a two-story brick building with a brass plaque by the door that read WILLOWMERE GARDEN CLUB — EST. 1991. The board met in the front room on the ground floor, a long table of polished oak pushed against the window, a water pitcher and cups set out in the center, and rows of folding chairs for the members who came to watch.
Friday morning, nine sharp, and the front room was fuller than Hollis had expected.
He stood by the door, as he'd planned, in the same faded sage-green work shirt he'd worn all week, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The manila envelope was tucked under his arm. The original deed was in his back pocket, folded along the same lines as ever.
Claudia was at the head of the table, her pale yellow linen blazer crisp and bright, her charm bracelet catching the light as she moved papers into a neat stack. She did not look at him. Priya sat to her right, periwinkle sweater buttoned high, her glasses on their chain and her eyes on the table. Warren Ellery sat at the far end of the table in his charcoal flat cap and grey tweed vest, his hands folded in front of him, patient as stone.
Millicent, the woman from the water station, was in the second row of folding chairs. She had a notebook in her lap and a fountain pen in her hand, and she watched Claudia with the calm attention of someone who had already read the ending.
"Order," Claudia said, and tapped her rings against the table. "The board will come to order. First item: the ten-year lease renewal for the Willowmere Garden Club's occupancy of the estate grounds."
She paused, letting the weight of the words settle.
"Let's be quick about this," she said. "We've all seen the reports. The grounds are in good order, the membership is stable, and the agreement has stood for thirty years. The renewal is a formality. I move that we approve it, with the additional item that the current groundskeeping arrangement be terminated as of Friday, and that the position be re-advertised directly."
"Seconded," said the man next to her.
"Before we vote—" Priya began.
"Seconded and moved, Priya. We have a quorum. Are there any abstentions?" Claudia looked around the table. "No? Then let's take the vote and get back to the garden."
"Claudia." Warren's voice came slow from the far end of the table. "Someone asked to speak. You haven't heard that request."
Claudia's jaw tightened. "There's no one on the agenda to speak."
"I want to speak." Hollis's voice carried across the room, low and even. He hadn't moved from the door. "And I'd like the vote on the lease renewal to wait until I do."
The room went quiet. Claudia turned to look at him, her expression cold and sharp.
"Mr. Barrett," she said. "You're here to receive the board's decision, not to make requests of it."
"I understand that. But there's something you should see before you approve that renewal." Hollis stepped forward, the manila envelope in his hand. "It concerns the ownership of this property."
"The ownership is with the estate trust." Claudia's voice was flat. "As it has been for four generations. The club has an agreement with the trust, and has for thirty years."
"Then you'll be able to show me the paperwork."
The silence went sharp. Claudia's face tightened.
"The paperwork is handled in town," she said. "Verbal, always has been."
"Then you won't be able to show me anything," Hollis said. "Because there is no paperwork. I checked with the county clerk's office. They've never had a lease for this property. They've never had any document signed by the estate's owner granting this club tenancy. You have been maintaining this garden for thirty years on the strength of a verbal agreement that no one ever wrote down."
"You—" Claudia stood up, her chair scraping back. "You went to the county clerk's office? On what authority?"
"On the authority of the owner of record." Hollis pulled the folded deed from his back pocket and opened it, smoothing the creases with his thumb. "My aunt deeded this property to me in April, just before she died. The parcel number is 1142, written in her hand in the upper right corner."
He held the deed up. The room was still.
"The same number," he said, "is on the plaque on the terrace wall, beside the steps. I checked it my second day here. She deeded me the entire estate — the house, the garden, the greenhouse, the land it all sits on. And she never signed a lease with this club. She never signed anything at all."
Claudia's face was blank. Then it wasn't. It went through something quick and ugly — disbelief, then the beginning of understanding, then a stiff, automatic refusal.
"That's a forgery," she said.
"It's a deed," Hollis said. "Executed by Margaret Barrett in the spring, witnessed by two notaries, recorded with the county. I have a certified copy in this envelope if you'd like to check the seal yourself."
He held out the manila envelope. Priya reached for it, then stopped, looking at Claudia.
Claudia didn't sit down. She didn't reach for the envelope. She stood with her hands flat on the table, her eyes fixed on the folded paper in Hollis's hand.
Let them see it again, he thought. He turned the deed so the parcel number was visible to the room, his aunt's thin clear handwriting in the corner.
"You've been telling everyone this was your garden," he said. "You've been telling them that for thirty years. But it was never yours. It was my aunt's. Now it's mine. And I have never signed a lease with this club either."
The silence stretched.
Warren Ellery, at the far end of the table, tapped his cap once, then spoke.
"Someone read the number on the plaque," he said. "Out loud."
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