“Give me the good news,” said Edith. “It’ll make a nice change.”
“Mr. Huff has decided to buy the Home for Confederate Women. His lawyers have okayed the deal, and he’s willing to pay the asking price without any quibbling.” Bill looked smug. “I mentioned that there had been other inquiries.”
“You mean the old guy who wanted to see it if we’d trade it for $65,000 and a trailer at Virginia Beach?”
“Well, it was an offer of sorts,” said Bill.
“Okay. The good news is Mr. Huff will buy the house for the asking price. And the bad news is-what? He wants to pay it in Confederate money?” asked Edith.
“No. The bad news is that we have to close the deal tomorrow.”
Edith sneered. “That’s impossible. When my brother bought his house, it liked to have taken forever.”
“That was because he needed bank financing,” Bill told her. “Mortgages do take forever. But if Mr. Huff is paying cash-well, not cash, but transferring funds from his bank to ours, without borrowing any money from anyone-then all we have to do is the paperwork.”
“That must be the bad news,” said Edith. “That’s a lot of documents to generate in one day’s time. I suppose you’ll be wanting me to cancel my evening’s plans and work overtime.”
“I really need you,” said Bill. “But we’ll be able to afford to pay you overtime from our commission from the sale of the house.”
“Well, that’s good. It’s nice to know that I could afford to eat if I ever had the time. I’d better get started on it. Have you called the old ladies yet?”
“That’s my next move,” said Bill, reaching for the phone. “Just think! I’ve finished my first case. Won’t Powell be pleased?”
“You bet. And astonished, too,” said Edith, strolling back to her desk.
It’s amazing how much time lawyers spend on the phone, Bill thought as he dialed the Home for Confederate Women. Gab and write letters. After four rings, the receiver was picked up, and Bill heard Flora Dabney’s voice. “Miss Dabney! Bill MacPherson here. I have wonderful news! Mr. Huff wants to buy your house. Tomorrow!”
Five minutes later Bill was standing in front of Edith’s desk, with an expression of utter dismay.
Edith looked up from her computer terminal. “Well? She hasn’t changed her mind about selling, has she?”
“No,” said Bill, perching on the edge of the desk. “It’s not as bad as that. It’s just that she says they can’t come to the office tomorrow. Apparently, one of them has a doctor’s appointment, and another one isn’t feeling well enough to leave the house. I explained to her that Mr. Huff wants to finalize the sale tomorrow.”
“And what did she say?”
“She wants me to handle the whole thing.”
“Don’t they want to meet this fellow who’s buying their house?”
“Apparently not. We finally decided that I would draw up a power of attorney form and go over there now and get it signed. Then at the closing tomorrow, I’ll sign the papers on their behalf.”
“Who gets the money, then?”
“Mr. Huff gives me a cashier’s check or wires the funds or whatever, and it gets deposited in the firm’s trust account. Then I deduct our commission, and pay the rest to Miss Dabney and her housemates. So that won’t change.”
“Did you remember to call Mr. Kimball and tell him that tomorrow is all set?”
“Yeah, just now,” said Bill. “I also asked him about defendants who use phony names, but he was no help.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Just another one of Mr. Trowbridge’s questions. I’d better get going now if I want to get all this done. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Want me to bring back a pizza?”
“Are you buying?”
“Yes,” said Bill. “Company expenses.”
“Then bring back two pizzas,” said Edith. “I’ll need all my strength to complete this paperwork.”
After a frantic scramble through the reference books, Bill managed to find the power-of-attorney instructions, type them up on his computer, and produce a presentable-looking printout to take with him to the Home for Confederate Women. As he drove out Highway 58 toward the old mansion, he tried to remember everything he knew about real estate transactions, just to make sure that he wasn’t overlooking anything. It seemed simple enough. He’d be glad to get this case out of the way; perhaps then he could get a more interesting one. He was a little jealous of his partner’s newfound importance as the defender of an accused murderer. And what was Bill doing? Paperwork in a divorce and answering stupid questions for Calvin Trowbridge. He would also be glad to finalize the house sale because, as unexciting as it was, it would be his first case, successfully completed; then he could feel that he was really a lawyer.
He turned down the quiet country road that led to the white-columned mansion, enjoying the country scenery, golden in the late afternoon sun, and thinking how pleasant it was that his first lawyerly duty should be an act of benevolent service for a group of sweet, helpless old ladies.
In the mahogany dining room Flora Dabney had assembled the other residents of the home for a conference. She explained to them that Bill MacPherson (“That nice young man!”) had succeeded in finding a buyer for the house, and that the sale would take place tomorrow. “I thought it best for us not to attend personally,” she said. “So I’ve asked Bill to come out here and bring a power-of-attorney form for us to sign. That way he can represent us at the actual closing, and we need not be present.”
Ellen Morrison looked up with a worried frown. “But how will we be paid? Can we trust this lawyer?”
“He’s very young, dear,” said Mary Lee Pendleton. “I’m sure he wouldn’t dream of defrauding helpless old ladies.”
“There was a Union general called McPherson in the War,” Lydia Bridgeford pointed out. Her interest in genealogy occasionally spilled over into other people’s antecedents.
“I believe they spell it differently,” said Flora Dabney. “At any rate, the buyer is paying cash, so the money should be ours within the week. Of course that means we shall have to move out rather quickly. I’m sure the gentleman will want to take possession without delay.”
Julia Hotchkiss watched silently from her wheelchair with a bag of Fig Newtons wrapped in her lap robe. She waited for signs of refreshments, and when none were forthcoming, she eased a cookie out of the folds of the blanket and, when she thought no one was looking, stuffed it in her cheek.
“The important thing is that the money be safe,” said Ellen Morrison. “I lived through the Great Depression once, and I don’t mean to live hand to mouth ever again. I’ve been seeing in the paper about these banks going under and whatnot, and I just don’t know that I trust them.”
Flora Dabney and Dolly Smith looked at each other. “That’s quite true, Ellen,” Flora said after a moment’s pause. “It is important that the money be safe, because at our age we are not likely to come by much more of it. I discussed that very point with Mary Lee when we first decided to go through with this.”
“Yes,” said Mary Lee Pendleton. “I knew just who to ask. You know that nice young fellow who comes by to take me to church? He’s in banking. So about a month ago I asked him what would be a really safe place to put money, and of course he said that his bank was as secure as they come. But I laughed and said that I had been watching a television program, and that the people on the show made a lot of money in a shady way, and they did something else with it.” She blushed. “I’m afraid I fibbed about the TV program, but it was in a good cause.”