by Dale Young
Colby, embarrassed, paused for a moment. “I mean, she lived on the edge of town. God rest her soul.”
Logan watched as the troubled look in Colby’s eyes returned. Logan knew there was something she wasn’t telling him.
“So she was a tobacco farmer?” Logan didn’t know what else to ask.
“Oh Lord no,” Colby said as she smiled at Logan. He noticed that the strange look in her eyes had disappeared.
“She hired people for that. She liked to rent out the fields as she got older and then take a cut of the profit. At one time sharecroppers worked her land. But that was a long, long time ago.”
“What happened to Rosemary’s husband? I assume she is, uh, was married. Where is he?”
Colby paused when Logan asked this question. Logan could tell he had hit on something.
“He’s been dead for years,” she finally replied. Then she topped off Logan’s coffee. He watched as the black coffee turned his coffee from a light creamy color to dark brown.
“Could I have a Coke, please?” Colby seemed to brighten up when Logan asked for the soda. It was a chance to break the line of the conversation. She really didn’t want to tell Logan about Rosemary Shaw’s husband.
When Colby returned with his Coke, Logan decided to let it go about Rosemary’s husband. He didn’t want to make Colby uncomfortable. He couldn’t remember the last time that he had enjoyed talking to woman as much as he had enjoyed the last fifteen minutes he had spent talking to her.
“You wouldn’t by chance know where I can find Harmon Blackwell would you?” Logan then wiped his mouth with his napkin and pushed his plate away from him. Then he began sipping at his Coke.
“Harmon? Sure. Everybody knows him. We call him the town legal eagle. His firm is the last one left in Starlight. I’m not sure what he does to stay in business but he manages somehow. Old Harmon has been seeing to Rosemary Shaw for the past forty years, I guess. Maybe longer. Other than the occasional land spat or stolen mule, Harmon doesn’t have much to do other than to see to Rosemary Shaw’s business. Now that she’s gone there’s no telling what he’ll do with his time. Starlight isn’t exactly a hotbed of legal work if you know what I mean.”
She then smiled at Logan causing him to completely lose his train of thought. It took a moment for him to recover.
“The letter said Magnolia Avenue. That’s where his office is at. I would imagine it’s got to be close by.”
“Yep, just go back out there to Main Street and take a left. Magnolia is a few blocks down, almost right at the old town square. His office is on the corner of Magnolia and Main.”
Logan wanted to stay and talk to Colby but he knew he had to locate Harmon Blackwell and find out what was going on with Rosemary Shaw’s will. Logan had so many questions and he could feel the excitement building in his stomach. What could his inheritance be?
Colby smiled as Logan pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He handed Colby enough to pay for his meal plus an extra five dollars for a tip. Colby smiled as she took the money.
“Good luck with that old coot,” she said as she took a few steps to her right to get to the cash register. “You’ll think you’ve wandered into the office of some big time New York City lawyer when you meet him. But remember, it’s all just a show,” Colby said as she winked at Logan.
From the far end of the bar, Chip McPhale felt the temperature of the blood in his veins rise ten degrees. Who in the hell was this guy talking to his woman? Maybe he and his brother would have to teach this stranger that he shouldn’t come into town and mess with a woman that was spoken for. Chip McPhale knew he had a hard enough time with the sheriff thinking that he had a chance with Colby, now some guy from out of town was obviously interested in her. This was more than Chip could take. He pushed his plate of food away and got up and walked down to the cash register where Colby was standing. She waved at Logan just as he stepped through the door and out of the diner.
“Who’s your new boyfriend?” Chip asked as he stepped in front of the cash register.
“Shut up, Chip. He’s not my boyfriend for God’s sake. Is there something I can help you with? Ready to pay your bill and leave?”
Chip pulled a few bills from his wallet and handed them to Colby.
“You know I don’t like anyone messing with my girl,” he said as he adjusted his hat. His cold, dark eyes gave Colby the creeps.
Colby put the bills in the register drawer and then pushed it shut so hard that the sound caused a few of the other patrons to look in her direction.
“I’m not your girl, Chip,” she said as she turned and walked away towards the kitchen.
Chip McPhale watched as Colby walked away, trying to imagine what her naked body looked like under her waitress uniform. A thin smile then crossed his face.
“We’ll see about that,” he whispered as he pulled a toothpick from the dispenser. Then he looked out of the diner’s front window just as he saw Logan’s car turn left onto Main Street.
9
Logan had no trouble finding Harmon Blackwell’s office. It was right where Colby had said it would be. The building looked to Logan to be very old, like most of the other buildings he had seen so far in town, with ornate stonework along the cornice above the second floor and a large wooden front door with a glass pane engraved with the law firm’s name. The law office was on the first floor but Logan couldn’t tell who or what business occupied the second floor of the building. The window shades up there were all pulled down.
Next to the building was a clothing shop called the Velvet Horseshoe. The front window contained several mannequins dressed in gaudy outfits that looked like something from the Roaring Twenties. Logan chuckled to himself and wondered how a big time legal eagle, as Colby had called Harmon, felt about having his office next to a second-hand clothing store called the Velvet Horseshoe.
He followed a sign on the front corner of the building that directed visitors to a small parking lot in the rear. He drove his car down the narrow alley between Harmon’s office and the Velvet Horseshoe and parked in the small lot.
Grass was growing up through the cracks in the asphalt of the old parking lot. The sun was high and the temperature bordered on a hundred degrees as Logan walked back through the alley to get to the front door of Harmon’s office. He ran his fingers along the old, weathered bricks of the wall of Harmon’s building as he walked while thinking about how old everything was in Starlight. Logan had not seen a new building since coming to town. Everything looked to be at least fifty to a hundred years old. Harmon’s building was no exception.
A small bell tinkled when Logan opened the front door to Harmon’s office. An elderly woman with gray hair in a bun on top of her head was sitting behind a desk in the far corner of the waiting room trying to look busy. She smiled at Logan as he closed the door behind him.
“Good afternoon, may I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m Logan Shaw. I believe we spoke on the phone. I have an appointment to see Mr. Blackwell this afternoon.”
The woman smiled and began to flip through her appointment book. It was another reminder to Logan that he was in a small town that seemed stranded in a bygone era. Normally a receptionist would be pecking on a computer to verify his appointment.
“Yes, Mr. Shaw. I see you in my book now. We really didn’t set a specific time; we just agreed that you would come by this afternoon. If you’ll have a seat, I’ll find out when Mr. Blackwell will be able to see you. My name is Sandy, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Logan replied. He was not used to being treated so cordially by someone in a law office. Usually he was being sued over a car and the law offices that contacted him were anything but cordial. Logan smiled again at Sandy and sat down in one of the leather chairs in the waiting room. Next to the chair was a small round table holding several magazines. Logan began to pick through them, noticing that all of the magazines were either about golf or saltwater fishing. He had no in
terest in golf so he chose one of the fishing magazines.
Sandy disappeared down the hallway near her desk and stopped in front of one of the doors on the far end. Logan watched as she tapped on the door with the back of her hand and then opened the door and stepped into the room.
Logan began to flip through the saltwater fishing magazine in his lap. The pages were graced with tanned people holding large fishing rods and even larger fish. Logan recognized the Marlins and Sailfish but had no idea what some of the other fish were in the photos. His father had not been much of a fisherman when Logan was young, and the only memory of fishing that Logan had was the one trip his father had taken him on to a small pond near their home. The fish they had caught using worms were no bigger than his hand. Logan remembered how he had enjoyed the trip not so much because of the fishing but because of the time he got to spend with his father. But they had certainly never gone on any sort of fishing trip to catch the kinds of fish he was now looking at in the magazine.
Logan flipped through a few more pages of the magazine and then grew tired of it. The boats and the kinds of rods and reels the people were holding looked expensive, very expensive, and Logan knew he would probably never get to go out on a boat like the ones in the magazine. He knew that kind of fishing was reserved for wealthy people, not used car salesmen that lived in trailers and ate hot dogs and TV dinners every night.
The walls of the waiting room were wooden and stained a deep walnut color. Several framed photographs of men standing on docks holding some of the same kinds of fish he had just seen in the magazine adorned the walls. There were several other photos of these same men with rifles in their hands posing with large deer and elk. Logan figured that one of the men in the photos had to be Harmon Blackwell, although he didn’t know for sure. Logan then looked over at the large Marlin mounted above a fireplace located on the far wall of the waiting room, its eye staring blankly back at him. Logan figured Harmon had to have caught it.
Just then Sandy reappeared in the hallway and then sat back down at her desk.
“Mr. Blackwell will see you shortly. He asked me to convey to you how glad he is that you were able to make it in today. He’s very busy and he asked that you please be patient. Help yourself to coffee while you wait.”
Sandy then nodded at the small table in the corner of the waiting room. On top of it sat a small coffeemaker and an assortment of sugar and creamer packets spread out in small boxes.
“Thank you very much. I’m fine for now.”
An hour later Logan found himself making a cup of coffee, wondering if he had ever had a cup of coffee this late in the afternoon. But he had started to get drowsy while waiting for Harmon to call for him and he knew he needed a shot of caffeine or he would fall asleep right in the leather chair he had been sitting in since arriving. Sandy could tell that he was getting impatient.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Shaw. It shouldn’t be much longer. Mr. Blackwell is so busy but he will see you soon.”
He remembered that there were only two other cars in the parking lot behind the building. One of them had to be Sandy’s based on the age of the car, and the other had to be Mr. Blackwell’s. Perhaps Mr. Blackwell was on the phone with someone, Logan thought to himself as he remembered what Colby had told him. What if all of this was just an act to make him think Mr. Blackwell was in high demand? Logan thought about this while he stirred his coffee. Then he sat back down and started thumbing through one of the golf magazines. He had already exhausted the supply of saltwater fishing magazines. Apparently golfing was Mr. Blackwell’s other passion.
***
Logan was gently kissing Colby’s neck as his hands moved slowly down to her hips. The faded denim jeans and the curves of her body felt nice under his hands. Her breathing was heated as she pulled him closer to her. Then their lips met, and he could not ever remember feeling anything as soft and passionate as her kiss.
“Mr. Shaw…”
He was fast asleep with a golf magazine covering his lap.
“Mr. Shaw…” Sandy reached out and put her hand on Logan’s shoulder. Just then he bolted awake.
Logan sat up in the chair, disoriented and unsure of where he was at. Then he looked around the waiting room, at the big Marlin staring at him from over the fireplace, and then at Sandy. She was trying to suppress a grin. Normally she would consider it rude for a client to fall asleep in the waiting room, but she knew Logan had been waiting for hours. It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon.
“I’m sorry. I guess I dosed off. I didn’t mean to,” Logan said as he regained his composure. “I guess I should have had a second cup of coffee.” He quickly brought his hand up to his face to wipe away the small amount of drool that he could feel tickling his chin.
“It’s quite alright, dear,” Sandy said as she gave Logan a compassionate smile. Then she patted him on the shoulder. “Mr. Blackwell will see you now.”
He stood up and adjusted his shirt. He had meant to change into something a little more business-like but he had not had a chance to. Then he figured that it probably didn’t make much difference. It wasn’t like he was going to court to stand in front of a judge. This was just a meeting between him and the attorney that was handling the estate of his late whatever-she-was. Logan smiled at Sandy and then followed her as she led him down the hall to the door of Harmon’s office. Before opening the door, she looked at Logan and winked.
“Good luck,” she whispered.
He didn’t know what to make of Sandy’s comment so he just smiled. Then he stepped through the door into the office of Harmon Blackwell the third, attorney at law. Sandy quickly closed the door behind him and went back to her desk.
Harmon was sitting in his leather desk chair swiveled around so that his back was to the door. He did not turn around as Logan entered the room. All Logan could see was the gray hair on the back of Harmon’s head underneath a large cloud of blue smoke. Logan could tell that it wasn’t cigarette smoke but rather pipe smoke. Harmon was smoking a pipe and the sweet, aromatic smell of the pipe tobacco filled the room. Logan immediately thought about how no one would be smoking inside of an office building in Wilmington but then realized that maybe out in the country the rules weren’t so strict. Especially if you were a big time legal eagle like Harmon Blackwell the third.
He slowly rotated his chair until his eyes met Logan’s. Then he reached up and removed his pipe with his left hand. He stood as he did so, extending his right hand to Logan.
“Logan Shaw… Well I’ll be damned.” The two men shook hands. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to meet the only living relative of my dear friend and client, Rosemary Abigail Shaw. God rest her soul. It truly is an honor. Please have a seat. We have much to discuss.” Harmon then returned his pipe to his mouth, biting down on the mouthpiece to hold it firm as he sat back down in his chair. As Logan sat down he noticed the law degree hanging on the wall behind Harmon’s desk.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Blackwell.”
“I’ll have none of that. Call me Harmon. Formalities like ‘mister’ are for big city law firms and have no place in our firm here in Starlight.”
“And please call me Logan,” Logan replied, feeling somewhat relaxed. Harmon Blackwell the third didn’t seem like such a bad guy so far.
“I’ll just bet you have a million questions,” Harmon said has he removed a folder from his desk drawer. He placed it on the desk in front of him and then folded his arms across it. He leaned in towards Logan and studied him intently for a few seconds.
“The resemblance is remarkable,” Harmon said, his voice barely above a whisper as he studied Logan. Then he leaned back in his chair and regained his demeanor.
“Um, yes, about that. I have no idea who Ms. Shaw was or how I’m related to her. Can we start there?”
“Of course we can. First things first, however. I apologize for not being able to tell you more in my letter or over the phone. But Rosemary’s will was very specific about how you w
ere to be told of your relation to her, and of your inheritance.”
Logan felt another tingle of anticipation when Harmon said the word inheritance.
Harmon then took another long draw from his pipe, his lips popping in quick succession. Logan thought it was eccentric, if not comical. Logan didn’t smoke, and hated the smell of cigarettes but Harmon’s pipe tobacco had a different aroma, one that was a little easier to tolerate. But still, Harmon could sense that Logan was bothered by the smoke.
“Please excuse my manners, Logan. I keep forgetting that not everyone knows the pleasures of the leaf. Let me just put this out.”
He then took a small wooden plug from his ashtray and pushed it down into the bowl of his pipe, extinguishing the smoldering tobacco. Then he placed the pipe in the ashtray and pushed it to the edge of his desk.
“So, Mr. Black… I mean, Harmon, how exactly am I related to Ms. Shaw?”
“Why you are her great-grandson, of course. The only one she has. Your father was her grandson.”
At the mention of Logan’s father, Harmon’s demeanor changed slightly. Logan almost didn’t pick up on it but he knew he saw the ghost of a frown momentarily cross Harmon’s face.
“My father never mentioned her,” Logan replied. “In fact, neither of my parents ever talked much about the family. I was always led to believe that everyone had died off and it was just me, my mother and my father.”
Harmon leaned back in his chair and looked at Logan. He exhaled and then looked towards the window on the far wall of his office just as a car passed on the street outside. Then he returned his eyes to Logan.
“I guess I’ve known Rosemary Shaw for the better part of half a century, Logan. She was a kind woman, a bit aloof sometimes, but kind and gentle. But she had a falling out with her daughter, a woman by the name of Elizabeth Shaw. That’s your grandmother, Logan.”
He thought for a few moments about what Harmon had just said about Elizabeth Shaw.
“Her last name was Shaw? Did she not take her husband’s name when she married?”