Chapter 5
Margarita Max’s was busier than it had been last evening when Emma was in.
Every stool was taken. Two of the four tables in the window bay were full, and a waitress Emma hadn't seen before carried a tray of drinks to a group of men wearing fishing vests.
Tess and Leah ran from one side of the room to the other, trying to keep up with the customers.
Tess saw Emma the moment she came in and lifted her chin in greeting.
“There she is. Take the table by the window, Honey. The one with the little vase. I'll be over in a minute.”
Emma walked over to the table and set her bag on the empty chair across from her and watched the surrounding activity. In the vase was a single sprig of something purple and wilting.
Tess appeared beside her with an iced tea already made, a wedge of lime on the rim.
“Unsweetened extra ice. You want food?”
“Not yet.”
“Just tea?”
“And a favor when you have a minute”
“Give me five. I'll bring Leah too.”
It took her closer to ten. When she came back, Leah was with her and both of them slid into the two chairs across from Emma in one movement.
“You got a hat,” Tess said.
“Marisol gave it to me out of lost and found.”
“She does that. She keeps a drawer of them and she's particular about who gets which one. Don't be surprised if she hands you sunscreen next.
“Seriously? She made it sound like it was the only one and someone must have left it.”
Tess laughed, “Oh, she’s good.” Tess put her elbows on the table. “All right, what do you need?”
Emma took a breath. “I need a lawyer.”
“What kind of lawyer?” Leah asked.
“Someone who knows Monroe County. Someone who understands probate and real estate, and preferably someone I can talk to today.”
“That's a tall order,” Leah said.
“I'm on a clock.”
Leah looked at Tess, who shrugged and something passed between them Emma didn't catch. Then Tess pushed her chair back and got up.
“Sit tight. I'll get Connie.”
Emma watched her go.
“Whatever it is” Leah said, “You're in the right place to ask”
“I hope so.”
“You are, trust me on that one thing at least.”
Connie came over a minute later, wiping her hands on a bar towel that seemed to be a permanent extension of the people who worked here. She stopped beside Emma's chair and looked down at her with the same appraising steadiness from yesterday.
“Tess says you need a lawyer.”
“I do.”
“Something to do with your grandmother's place?”
Emma nodded. “Twenty-Three Hibiscus Lane.”
“I don't know any lawyers in Key West I could recommend,” Connie said. “The one I used to trust retired last year. But I've got a niece who's a Boston attorney. She's down here on a leave of absence. Smart as they come.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“I'll give her a call. Give me a few minutes.”
Connie tapped the table once with two fingers and walked back toward the swinging door at the end of the bar.
“She only offers her niece to people she likes,” Leah said. “Just so you know.”
Emma nodded. “Understood.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “Drink your tea. This might take a bit.”
Emma took a sip of the tea, then took the legal pad out of her bag, turned to a clean page, and did the thing she knew how to do.
She had built one hundred pitches this way. She wrote out the problem in three sentences, the evidence underneath it, and the one ask at the bottom. She’d done it for companies whose names were on buildings but had never once done it for herself.
At the top of the page she wrote the problem. Twenty-three Hibiscus Lane, sale closing in ten days, and a seller who doesn’t legally own it.
Underneath that, she listed what she knew in the order she could prove it.
A will recorded Monroe County two years before her grandmother died naming her.
as beneficiary. An earlier will filed in Miami-Dade naming her uncle as sole beneficiary.
A tenant who had paid rent to Arthur every month for three years.
A letter to that tenant from somebody neither the broker nor the buyer could account for, promising him a tenancy the buyer had no intention of keeping.
A broker in Naples who had picked up the phone when nothing required her to do so.
Emma sat back and looked at her list.
Written in her own hand, it stopped being a family misunderstanding.
Every line was a document. Documents could be pulled, and dates could be laid against each other.
A man who had done this once had almost certainly left a trail of having done it before.
Following trails was the thing she had spent years perfecting.
At the bottom, she wrote the ask. Find a Florida attorney today. Stop the closing. Find out what else he took.
The room went on around her. Tess pulled a draft and sent it down the bar without looking in Emma's direction. There was a man at the far end of the bar, working through a plate of something fried, reading a paperback at the same time.
She turned the pad face down and finished her tea.
Tess dropped into the chair across from her with a glass of something with ice in it.
“Four minutes,” she said. “That’s what I’ve got. Leah’s timing me.”
“I’m not timing you,” Leah said, going past with three plates up one arm.
“Don’t believe it. She’s timing me.”
Over in the corner, the man with the guitar had gotten as far as adjusting the stand for the third time and hadn't played a note.
“Is there music at lunch?” Emma asked.
“There is today.” Tess drank some of her drink. “That's Joey. He's been coming here for a while now, but he's never once played in this building. Today he is. I want more music in here, but Connie, well, enough about that.”
“I don't mind. Why not have music all the time? Your place could get a reputation for good music as well as good food and drink.”
“I asked Connie about music on Sunday afternoons back in March, and then again I asked her in April. I asked her yesterday too, but she said no again. She’s said no every single time.
” Tess set the glass down. “I almost gave up but this morning I asked whether Joey could try one Tuesday lunch and she said fine. I called him and told him to get over here as fast as he could, just in case she changed her mind.”
“I’m not sure I understand why she said yes to today, but not for the other days. Isn’t this the same thing?”
“It's exactly the same thing. It's just not Sunday.”
Emma tried to follow Tess’s story but was certain there was a blip in the story somewhere. If it had been any other day, she might have stayed invested in it, but today her mind couldn’t handle too much complexity.
Leah came back past this time she stopped with the empty tray against her hip. “I beat the linen company.”
“You're lying.”
“Two-hundred and eleven dollars credited back across three invoices and the man on the phone called me ma'am in a tone I intend to remember for the rest of my life.”
“You need to get over worrying about your age.”
“I'd like it noted that I did that while you were arranging a concert.”
“It's one guy in a stool.”
“It's a concert, Tess. You've booked a concert on a Tuesday.”
Tess looked at the legal pad lying face down on the table and didn't ask about it. She ignored Leah and looked at Emma. “You look better than you did yesterday” she said.
“I don't feel better”
“That comes later. Looking better comes first. I've watched people come through that door long enough to know the order they arrive in. Things are looking up for you, Emma, I'm sure of it.”
Then Leah and Tess were gone, one to the register and one to another table.
Emma sat where she was with her hand flat on the back of the pad.
She had no idea what she was waiting for, but she didn't want to leave Max's unless every possible lead was taken.
She didn't want to rush Connie, so she sat and waited.
In the corner, Joey finished with the stand and started playing something quiet and nobody asked him to stop.
Maeve Corwin sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a folder from the Suffolk County Superior Court When her phone rang.
Her aunt's name appeared on the screen.
Maeve picked up on the second ring. “Hi, Aunt Connie.”
“Maeve, where are you?”
“At your kitchen table reading things I shouldn't be.”
“Good, I need a favor.”
Maeve set the pen down.
“What kind of favor?”
“I've got a woman at the bar. She's from Chicago.
Some corporate professional. I'm not exactly sure what she does for a living.
She's Gloria Kendrick's granddaughter. Gloria used to come into the bar. She was a lovely woman and I understand she passed last year. Her granddaughter is dealing with some estate stuff. And she needs an attorney.”
Maeve pushed the brief away from her and leaned back in her chair.
Out the window she could see the corner of her mother Carolyn's garden, the leaves moving in the small breeze that came up around this time of day.
Two tomato plants stood staked and tied with strips of an old dish towel.
A folding chair sat in the shade at an angle somebody had worked out over a long time.
From the back of the house came a radio turned low, playing something with strings in it.
Her mother loved listening to music while she worked in her garden.
“Aunt Connie. You know I can't practice in Florida.”
“I know that.”
“Zero reciprocity. The Florida Bar doesn't recognize Massachusetts, or any other state. I'd have to take their bar exam, which I haven't taken and I don't intend to. I can't file anything on her behalf. I can't appear for her. I can't be her attorney of record on anything.”
“I know all that, Maeve.”
“Then what exactly are you asking me to do?”
There was a small pause on Connie's end. Maeve could hear the sound of the bar behind her.
“Just talk to her, Connie said. She flew down here and doesn't know anybody. She needs somebody with a legal background who can point her toward a Florida attorney worth trusting.”
“So you want me to talk to her as a friend, not a lawyer?”
“A friend who happens to know what she's looking at.”
Maeve rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“Aunt Connie, I came to Key West to be with Mom, not to work, you know that.”
“I do.”
“Do you? I've said no to three people since I got here. All of them sent to me by you.”
“I know, I know. But this time. It's different. She's the granddaughter of a really sweet woman and I want to help her.”
“That’s the problem. You want to help everyone”
“Just come over here and sit at a table for an hour and listen to the woman.”
“An hour.” Maeve said. “No promises. I'll listen. If I think I can help her find a Florida attorney, I will. But I'm not her lawyer, and you tell her that before I get there."
“I’ll tell her.”
“Give me twenty minutes.”
“Thank you, Maeve.”
“You’re welcome.”
Emma had finished half her second cup of iced tea by the time Connie came back to the table.
Connie sat down across from her in the chair Tess had vacated.
“My niece is coming," Connie said. “Her name's Maeve. She'll be here in twenty minutes. I need to tell you a few things before she gets here.”
“All right.”
“First, she isn't licensed to practice law in Florida. She's a Massachusetts attorney, and Florida doesn't have reciprocity with any other state. So she can't file anything for you or represent you in a Florida court.”
“I understand.”
“Second, she's here on leave. She wasn't planning to work at all.
She's doing this as a favor to me. That means whatever comes of the conversation the two of you have, she isn't your attorney.
Third, what she can do is listen, tell you if she thinks you're seeing the situation clearly.
And maybe even help you find a Florida attorney.
She can't promise you anything. And she wanted me to make sure I told you all this before she got here. None of us wants you to come out of this conversation disappointed.”
“I hear you.”
“Good.”
Connie looked at the table for a second and then back at Emma.
“One more thing,” she said. “Maeve is family. I don't offer her to just anybody. I'm offering her to you because of your grandmother. I believe you must have loved her very much.”
Something went tight in Emma's throat. “I did. I do. I wish I'd visited her more. My father, her son, died when I was very little. I think my grandmother never got over the sadness of losing him.”
“I'm sorry about that. It must have been hard to grow up without a father.”
Emma didn't answer right away because she wasn't sure her voice would hold.
“It was hard for both of us. My father loved that cottage and so do I. I want to do what's best, what he would want.”
Connie nodded. “I'm sure you will. Maeve will help as best she can."
“Thank you,” Emma said.
“Don't thank me yet. Maeve isn't easy. She'll ask you questions you might not want to answer. That's the job. Just answer them.”
“I will.”
“All right, then.”
Connie left her and went back to the bar.
Emma sat alone at her table. She sipped her iced tea and waited for Maeve to arrive. Fifteen minutes later, the screen door at the front of the bar slapped open and a woman walked in.
Tall, with long auburn hair pulled back into a low ponytail, Maeve wore white capris, a pale blue linen shirt, and simple leather sandals. A thin coral necklace sat at the base of her throat, and a small leather notebook was tucked under one arm.
Her eyes found Emma, who set her glass down and waved.
Maeve raised one hand in a small greeting, then started across the bar toward Emma’s table.
Even though Connie had warned Emma not to get too excited about what Maeve could accomplish, she felt a small amount of hope, nonetheless.
All she had to do was listen and take notes. That she could do.