Sisters on the Case

You May Already Be a Winner by Margaret Maron

‘‘They’ve done what? Oh, Carlie, honey!’’ The white-haired man reached past the coffee cup in front of him and clasped his niece’s hand in dismay. ‘‘My sister’s not even cold yet and your sisters are already stripping her house?’’

Small-boned and fair-haired, with blue eyes that were red-rimmed from crying, Carlie Baxter swallowed past her tears and nodded. ‘‘Her silver, her good jewelry. The two rosewood parlor chairs. Even Great-grandmother’s dollhouse.’’

‘‘That old thing? Why? They don’t have daughters and you were the only one who ever played with it.’’

‘‘Marsha watches Antiques Roadshow, and a similar one was valued at two thousand dollars,’’ Carlie said bitterly. ‘‘When I came back to the house this morning, I thought someone had broken in. I almost called the police until Mary told me that she and Marsha had taken them for safekeeping now that the neighborhood’s gone down so much.’’

‘‘Well, there is that,’’ Uncle Carlton conceded. ‘‘I tried to get Genevieve to sell this place ten years ago when the McNairy house was broken up into apartments and property values first started sliding, but she was so sure the neighborhood would come back to its former glory.’’

‘‘She enjoyed most of the changes, though,’’ Carlie said with a ghost of a smile. ‘‘She liked the little shops that came in, the bodega on the corner, children playing on the sidewalks again, even the signs in Spanish and Arabic.’’

‘‘All the same,’’ her uncle said, ‘‘I doubt if you’ll get half the money she could have gotten ten years ago.’’

‘‘Me?’’ Carlie asked, startled by his comment.

‘‘You.’’ The old man shook his head sadly. ‘‘I had no business still being her attorney and I blame myself for not making Genevieve update her will, but I never expected to outlive my baby sister.’’

Tears filled his eyes and Carlie felt her own eyes sting again. She had been named for this man, her mother’s beloved older brother. Except for her twin sisters and their sons, Carlton Burke was her only remaining relative. A retired attorney who had taken too many pro bono cases to amass a fortune, he was almost twenty years older than Mom and the closest thing to a grandfather the three sisters ever had. Carlie adored him.

‘‘Mom left this house to me?’’ She looked past the archway of the dining room where they sat to the front parlor, now denuded of its rosewood chairs and antique dollhouse, and tried not to feel a surge of hope. After her father’s death, his pension and a series of part-time jobs had enabled her mother to continue living in the two-story Victorian house and finish raising Carlie. Unlike for her two older sisters, though, college for Carlie had meant student loans and working every minute she could spare from the books. Two days after she graduated with a degree in French medieval history, her mother had stepped out in front of a delivery truck without looking and was thrown into the path of an oncoming car. Both drivers were horrified and remorseful, but clearly not at fault. It was assumed that Genevieve Andrews had been on her way to the nearby bodega, full of hope and optimism, to buy her weekly lottery tickets.

Carlie had planned to work a year before going on to grad school. Instead, she had spent the last five weeks shuttling back and forth between the hospital where her mother lay in a coma and the house where Buster, Mom’s elderly dog, needed daily insulin shots.

Mary and Marsha both wept and then excused themselves for not pitching in more. ‘‘Our jobs. Our sons. Our husbands. Oh, it’s so lucky that you’re still unencumbered, Carlie.’’

Trying not to feel bitter, Carlie took a deep breath. The house was shabby now. It needed paint and a new roof, and the plumbing was unreliable. All the same, if it truly was hers to sell, then maybe she could register for fall classes immediately instead of waiting a year. Or maybe she would even spend this year studying in France.

Uncle Carlton shook his silver mane regretfully. ‘‘I’m sorry, honey. You’ll be lucky to get enough to pay her debts. And it’s all my fault. I should have written another will for Genevieve.’’

‘‘I don’t understand. You just said the house was mine.’’

‘‘It is. When I wrote the will after your dad died, the twins were out of college and she knew it was going to be a struggle for you to go. The house was appraised at a quarter million back then, so she left fifty thousand to each of your sisters and the rest- including all the contents of the house-to you. She thought you would end up with at least a hundred and fifty thousand.’’

‘‘But if the house is only worth half that now?’’

‘‘I wasn’t thinking, Carlie. Instead of a dollar amount, I should have phrased it so that your sisters each got a fifth and you got three-fifths.’’

Carlie had always been good at mental math. ‘‘That’s okay, Uncle Carlton. Maybe the house is worth more than you think. And even if it isn’t, that still leaves me with… what? Twenty-five thousand?’’

Again he shook his head. ‘‘Not after all her medical bills and funeral expenses are paid. Well, maybe your sisters will be fair-minded about the situation.’’

They both sighed then, knowing just how unlikely that was.

‘‘Oh, Carlie, how perfectly awful for you,’’ said Marsha when the will was read to them after the funeral two days later.

‘‘The fair and equitable thing would be to sell the house and its contents and split anything left over after your mother’s debts are paid,’’ said Uncle Carlton.

‘‘I wish we didn’t have to take the money,’’ said Mary, ‘‘but the boys will be starting college themselves in a few years.’’

It was no less than he had expected. Nevertheless, he was disappointed by their self-centeredness and fixed them both with a stern eye. ‘‘Just remember that the things you took from the house belong to Carlie, and she’s going to need every penny for her own education. You must return them immediately or else pay her their worth.’’

‘‘But Mom always said I was to have her silver and her diamond pin,’’ Mary protested.

‘‘And she promised me those rosewood chairs and her gold bracelets,’’ said Marsha with a stubborn look on her face.

Under different circumstances, a widowed and childless uncle might have wielded considerable influence, but a widowed and childless uncle who barely had enough to live on? When Carlie was his favorite? They would never be openly disrespectful, but as far as they were concerned, he could whistle down the wind.

‘‘It’s okay,’’ said Carlie, who hoped to avoid a rift with her sisters. ‘‘But I do want the dollhouse back.’’

‘‘Of course, sweetie,’’ said Mary, prepared to be gracious and sisterly now that talk of fairness was behind them.

‘‘We’ll even send the boys over to help you clear the house,’’ said Marsha. ‘‘They can start by getting rid of all the junk mail Mom saved. Coupons and contest forms stuffed in every cranny. ‘You may already be a winner!’ Right. And I may already be the queen of England. Do you think she was getting a little senile?’’

‘‘There was nothing wrong with your mother’s mind,’’ Uncle Carlton said sharply.

‘‘But all those magazine subscriptions from Publishers Clearing House? Come on, Uncle Carlton! Who needs twenty magazines coming into the house every month? She gave me three trial subscriptions for Christmas.’’

‘‘I know,’’ said Carlie, sensing how much their cynicism cut at the old man. ‘‘I told her that she didn’t have to buy anything to enter their sweepstakes, but she thought that increased her chances.’’

‘‘Did she honestly believe that the Prize Patrol was going to show up on her doorstep someday with a check for a million dollars?’’ asked Mary.

‘‘Hope springs eternal,’’ Carlie said lightly. ‘‘You know Mom. Remember how happy she was when the lottery finally passed last year?’’

Marsha rolled her eyes. ‘‘Not half as happy as I was. No more weird magazines. My birthday card had five scratch-off cards in it this time. I actually won seven dollars.’’

‘‘I won twelve with the ones in my card,’’ Mary said smugly.

‘‘Lucky for us that she was such a penny-ante gambler,’’ said Marsha. ‘‘I was afraid she might get in over her head, spend her grocery money on Powerball tickets.’’

‘‘No,’’ said Carlie. ‘‘Five dollars a week was her limit. She loved checking her tickets against the winning numbers. Remember how close she came to the jackpot back in January?’’

For a moment, they were united in the memory of their mother’s flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes as she told them how she had held her breath when the first five numbers precisely matched the first five on her ticket. How certain she’d been that it was her lucky day.

‘‘Eleven million dollars,’’ Carlie sighed, thinking of France.

‘‘The new jackpot’s fifty-three million,’’ said Marsha, equally wistful.

‘‘Split four ways,’’ the ever-practical Mary reminded her.

‘‘That’s still over thirteen million apiece,’’ said Carlie, doing the math in her head. ‘‘Wonder why the fourth person hasn’t come forward to claim it? It’s been at least three weeks since they announced the winning number.’’

‘‘Probably consulting an investment banker first,’’ said Uncle Carlton. ‘‘Taxes are going to take a big chunk and if they don’t have a game plan in place, the rest will melt away before they know it.’’

‘‘I’ve heard that every leech you’ve ever met comes crawling out of the woodwork,’’ said Mary as she gathered up her things to go. ‘‘ ‘I shared my candy bar with you in kindergarten, so why don’t you give me a half million for old times’ sake?’ I read about one man who won forty million and was broke and back on welfare three years later. If I ever won, I wouldn’t tell a soul.’’

‘‘Not even me?’’ asked Marsha.

‘‘Especially not you!’’ Mary’s laugh was meant to show that she was joking, but Marsha still looked miffed when they left.

True to their word, Marsha and Mary sent their teenage sons over to help, and they themselves came every evening after work to sort through the things three generations of Baxters had acquired. They even brought sandwiches and wine, and they helped dig a grave in the backyard for old Buster when he went to sleep on his rug beside their mother’s empty bed and never woke up again.

‘‘Just as well,’’ they said. ‘‘You couldn’t have taken him to your apartment.’’

True, but that did not stop her from grieving. Buster had been a part of her life since her twelfth birthday. She told herself she would have found a way to keep him even though her student apartment up at the university was too small to hold all the other things she wished she could keep. It was hard not to agonize over every teacup or knickknack that held its own special memory.

Uncle Carlton found a trustworthy appraiser who in turn recommended a buyer for all the furnishings. He was her rock when grief over what she was losing threatened to overwhelm her or when one of the twins wanted to take a particularly nice piece.

‘‘Let me see,’’ he would say, running his finger down the appraiser’s list. ‘‘Ah, here we are! Dining room. Family portrait. Original gilt frame. Twelve hundred dollars.’’

‘‘But that’s Great-grandfather Baxter with his little dog,’’ Mary cried. ‘‘He shouldn’t go out of the family.’’

‘‘You’re absolutely right,’’ he told her with an impish grin. ‘‘Offer Carlie a thousand and I bet she’ll let you have it.’’

‘‘Three hundred and fifty for that little cream pitcher?’’ Marsha was appalled.

‘‘Made around 1912 by a well-known potter, according to the appraiser,’’ Uncle Carlton said blandly, reading from the list. ‘‘If it didn’t have that chip in the handle, it’d be worth eight hundred.’’

‘‘Did you hear?’’ asked one of the boys as he came downstairs with a load of clothing to be donated to charity. ‘‘It was on the radio. That fourth jackpot ticket was sold right here in this city. Man! Think of walking around town with a ticket worth thirteen million!’’

‘‘Whoever bought it probably isn’t walking around with it,’’ said Uncle Carlton. ‘‘If he has any sense, he’s stashed it in a safe-deposit box. A lottery ticket’s like a bearer bond. You don’t have to prove it’s yours to cash it in.’’

By the end of the week, it felt as if they had barely scratched the surface, although most of the closets and cupboards had been emptied of personal keepsakes. Basement and attic were still jammed full and their father’s study had not yet been touched. Except for Mom’s bedroom, this was the most personal room in the house, and in unspoken agreement, the sisters kept putting off the dismantling of both rooms.

The corner bedroom was bright and airy. Organdy curtains hung at the windows, a flower-sprigged comforter covered the bed, and the carpet was bright with pink roses.

In contrast, the study downstairs had a single stained-glass window. It was small and dark with floor-to-ceiling bookcases that held nondescript paperback books of no particular value. The only furniture was a massive desk, a swivel chair and a comfortable leather recliner. Yet their mother had claimed the room as her own after their father died. She said the recliner made her feel as if he still had his arms around her. This was where she read in the evenings. This was also where she wrote letters, paid bills, and stashed receipts and proofs of purchase in the big rolltop desk. It had cubbyholes and slots and even a secret compartment that held a lock of their grandmother’s hair, placed there by their sentimental grandfather. On the shelves immediately behind the desk were stacks of unread magazines and plastic boxes stuffed to the brim with more bits of paper, most of which read ‘‘IMPORTANT!! Save this receipt! If yours is the winning number, you MUST present this stub to validate your prize.’’

All week Uncle Carlton had encouraged them to dump books and photograph albums and boxes of letters from other parts of the house inside the door for a more careful perusal later. Every time someone opened a drawer and found a new cache of papers, he told them a fresh tale of careless heirs who threw out stock certificates or promissory notes or valuable autographed letters in their haste to be done.

‘‘We ought to let the boys bag up all this stuff and haul it out to the curb,’’ said Mary, wearily surveying the messy stacks on the floor, the desktop, and the shelves around the desk.

‘‘No,’’ said Carlie. ‘‘Uncle Carlton’s right. One of us really ought to go through it.’’

‘‘Not me,’’ said Marsha, who was as thoroughly tired of the whole process as Mary. ‘‘Besides, if there’s anything valuable in that pile of trash, it would belong to you, not us.’’

Their sons were huffing impatiently. It was Saturday night and their plans for the evening did not include hanging around till their aunt decided what to save and what to toss.

‘‘I agree that one should never throw papers away without examining them first,’’ said Uncle Carlton, ‘‘but not tonight. Anybody up for Tunisian food? There’s a new little restaurant around the corner. My treat.’’

Mary frowned. ‘‘Everything’s changed so much. Isn’t that where Carlyle’s used to be?’’

‘‘Carlyle’s has been gone for five years,’’ Marsha reminded her.

‘‘And good riddance,’’ Uncle Carlton said cheerfully. ‘‘Tough steaks and soggy potatoes. This new place serves a wonderful felfel mahchi. Everything’s made fresh on the premises, and they go easy on the harissa so you don’t feel as if your mouth’s on fire.’’

‘‘Thanks, but no thanks,’’ said Mary. ‘‘Those places never look very clean to me.’’

They stepped outside into a hot summer evening and as they waited for Carlie to lock the door, they noticed a crowd of people clustered around a television camera truck parked in front of the corner bodega.

‘‘Go see what’s happening,’’ Marsha told the boys.

They were off like rabbits and back almost as fast. ‘‘Guess what? That’s where the fourth lottery ticket was sold!’’

‘‘Really? One of these people?’’ Impossible to miss the disdain in Mary’s voice.

‘‘They still don’t know who has it,’’ said one of the boys. ‘‘But it was definitely bought here about eight weeks ago.’’

Marsha sniffed. ‘‘Probably by someone who can’t read English and doesn’t know he’s won.’’

As they passed the little grocery store, people spilled out of the place laughing and exclaiming for the television camera. It was almost like a fiesta.

One of the new neighbors greeted Carlie by name and began to tell her their speculations about the lucky buyer.

Uncle Carlton looked pensive. ‘‘I wonder…?’’ he murmured. Then, ‘‘No, it’s too improbable.’’

Although he did not elucidate, Marsha glanced at Mary, whose own eyes had suddenly widened.

Shortly before midnight, Carlie was awakened by a thump from the study directly beneath the room where she slept.

She sat up in bed and listened. Only the sound of an occasional passing car broke the late-night stillness. She lay back down and was almost asleep again when another thump made it clear that she was not alone in the house.

The streetlights outside gave more than enough light as she slipped out of bed and looked around for a weapon. Nothing. And she had left her cell phone in her purse on a table by the front door. Carlie did not consider herself a brave person, but she could not cower up here while someone helped himself to whatever he could find. When she eased open the door into the hallway, she saw her father’s old leather golf bag at the top of the stairs. She carefully pulled out the nine iron and tiptoed down the stairs.

The door to the study was open a narrow crack and the desk lamp was on. There was movement by the desk and she heard a drawer squeak open, then the rustle of papers. Moving closer to the door, she cautiously pushed it open and froze in surprise.

‘‘Mary? Marsha?’’

Her sisters must have jumped a foot.

‘‘Carlie! You almost gave us a heart attack.’’

‘‘Then we’re even. I thought you were burglars. What are you doing here?’’

‘‘Mary lost an earring,’’ Marsha said, ‘‘and we came back to look for it.’’

‘‘In the desk?’’

Mary gave an impatient shrug. ‘‘In the desk, on the desk, under it. Who knows? I remember that when I was looking at the books over here, the back of my earring felt tight. I must have loosened it too much and-ah! Here it is!’’ she said triumphantly although Carlie thought she saw the earring flash in her sister’s hand before she actually plucked it from the floor. ‘‘I’m sorry we woke you. I thought we could just slip in and out without disturbing you. You run on back to bed now and we’ll let ourselves out.’’

‘‘That’s okay,’’ said Carlie. ‘‘I’ll watch to make sure you get to your car safely.’’

Marsha started to argue, but Mary said, ‘‘Thanks, sweetie. And maybe you’d better put the dead bolt on. You never know. The next person might be a real burglar.’’

Uncle Carlton arrived early the next morning to take her to breakfast. When Carlie told him of her midnight adventure, he immediately called a locksmith he had once represented. Even though it was Sunday morning, his old client came out and changed the lock within the hour.

‘‘But why?’’ Carlie asked. ‘‘I’m only going to be here a few more nights at the most.’’

‘‘Humor an old man,’’ he said when the locksmith had finished his work and handed him two new keys. ‘‘I’ll keep one; you put the other one on your key ring. And promise me you won’t have duplicates made for your sisters.’’

‘‘But-’’

‘‘No buts,’’ he said sternly. ‘‘Now come along. I know where there are fresh bagels and the best coffee in town.’’

When they returned an hour later, Mary and Marsha were cooling their heels on the front steps. Both were furious.

‘‘You changed the locks? Why?’’ asked Marsha.

Before Carlie could answer, Uncle Carlton said, ‘‘That was my doing, girls. We don’t know how many keys Genevieve might have given out over the years and I’d be derelict as Carlie’s attorney if I didn’t take this simple precautionary step to be sure that no one removed anything until she had signed off on it.’’

Carlie voiced her surprise at seeing them. ‘‘I thought you were taking the day off.’’

‘‘We decided that if you could keep going, we could, too.’’

‘‘That’s nice,’’ said Uncle Carlton.

‘‘Actually,’’ said Mary, ‘‘we have a proposition for you, Carlie.’’

‘‘Proposition?’’

‘‘You have everything from the house that you want to keep, right?’’

Carlie nodded. ‘‘I guess so.’’

‘‘You’ve been down here so long, you must be dying to get back to your own apartment, so why don’t you let Marsha and me finish up here?’’

‘‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly do that,’’ the younger woman protested.

‘‘Sure you can. Everything’s on the inventory sheets. We won’t take a single thing on it without paying you full value.’’

Carlie clasped their hands impulsively. ‘‘Thank you, Marsha. Mary. But really, there’s not that much left to do. Another big push by all of us and we could be done by the middle of the week. If the boys will bag up the papers, Uncle Carlton’s offered to go through them at his house.’’

The old man rubbed his hands in anticipation. ‘‘Once the papers are cleared away, I’m anxious to see if I can find all the secret compartments in that desk.’’

‘‘Compartments?’’ asked Mary.

‘‘There’s more than one?’’ asked Marsha.

‘‘At least two that I know of,’’ he told them cheerfully. ‘‘Genevieve showed me how to open them years ago but something she said makes me think there may even be a tiny third one.’’

The twins exchanged glances; then Mary said, ‘‘Marsha and I have talked it over and we’ve decided it was selfish of us to let Mom’s will stand. You were right, Uncle Carlton. The only fair thing is to sell the house, pay her debts, and then split whatever’s left three ways.’’

Carlie was incredulous. ‘‘Really?’’

‘‘Really,’’ they assured her.

Uncle Carlton beamed at them. ‘‘There now! I just knew you girls would come through for your sister.’’ He pulled a folded legal paper from the breast pocket of his jacket. ‘‘Let’s go right down to the bodega and make it official.’’

‘‘Bodega?’’ asked Marsha.

‘‘Official?’’ asked Mary.

‘‘The owner’s a notary public. He’ll witness your signatures and I’ll give your waiver to the county clerk of court when I file the will. I drew up this form last week, hoping you’d do the right thing for Carlie.’’

Before they could protest, he herded the three sisters down to the bodega where they showed the bemused owner their driver’s licenses. He carefully examined each in turn as they signed the document, then carefully embossed it with his heavy seal and signed his own name and date on the proper lines.

‘‘In the legal world, it’s a truism that you never really know someone until you’ve shared an inheritance with him. For the rest of your lives,’’ Uncle Carlton told the twins, ‘‘you will always be glad you treated your sister so fairly. Genevieve would have been proud of you.’’

Carlie glowed with happiness at the thought of France and of registering for fall courses. ‘‘Are you sure you don’t mind if I head back this afternoon?’’

‘‘We’re positive,’’ they told her. ‘‘Go!’’

‘‘All right,’’ she said, giving them more hugs. ‘‘I will!’’

‘‘And you don’t need to stay, either, Uncle Carlton,’’ said Marsha. ‘‘We’ll take care of everything.’’

When the house sold two months later, Carlie came back to town to sign the final papers and pick up her share of the money. The sale had brought more than Uncle Carlton expected and even after all their mother’s debts were paid, each daughter wound up with thirty-six thousand.

‘‘Remember that lottery ticket that was sold at the bodega?’’ asked Carlie as she and her uncle lingered over dinner that night. ‘‘No one ever cashed it in, did they?’’

‘‘There’s still plenty of time,’’ he replied. ‘‘Another three months, anyhow.’’

‘‘You’re going to laugh at me,’’ she said, turning her wineglass in her slender fingers, ‘‘but on the drive back to school, I started thinking about how that ticket was bought a couple of weeks before Mom’s accident, but the winning number wasn’t announced till after she was in a coma. It made me wonder if that was the real reason Marsha and Mary came back to the house that night and were rummaging through the desk. That maybe they thought Mom was finally a winner.’’

‘‘And you were worried that you’d exchanged a few thousand for thirteen million?’’ asked her uncle.

‘‘Crazy, I know,’’ Carlie said with a rueful smile.

‘‘Not at all,’’ he said. ‘‘It could have happened that way. After all, someone has to win, and it’s logical that your sisters would consider it when the ticket was bought at her store and no one came forward with it. It would have been all yours if they hadn’t agreed to set aside the will and share the estate equally. They certainly checked every shred of paper twice, and I’m afraid your father’s desk was rather the worse for wear after they finished hunting for its secret compartments with a crowbar.’’

Carlie shook her head. ‘‘I thought Mom was the only gambler in the family, but the twins gambled that the winning ticket was in the desk and you gambled that it wasn’t.’’

‘‘I never gamble,’’ he told her. ‘‘Except on sure things. There was only one secret compartment in that desk.’’

‘‘But- You mean you tricked them into signing that agreement?’’

‘‘Guilty as charged,’’ he said happily. ‘‘It was for their own good, too. Now they won’t spend the rest of their lives avoiding you because they treated you shabbily. And in all fairness, they weren’t terribly angry with me for getting mixed up about the desk. They put it down to encroaching senility.’’

‘‘You sly old fox.’’ She patted his hand affectionately. ‘‘Thank you. For my inheritance and for my sisters.’’

‘‘Genevieve sent them lottery tickets in their birthday cards. What about you, my dear?’’

Carlie shook her head. ‘‘My birthday’s not till October.’’

‘‘A pity.’’ He reached for the wine bottle and divided the remainder between their two glasses. ‘‘My birthday was last month.’’

‘‘I know,’’ Carlie said sadly. ‘‘The day after Mom’s accident.’’

‘‘When the card came, I was so upset and worried about her that I just stuck it on my desk and never gave it another thought until after the funeral when the twins said that she had started sending lottery tickets in their cards instead of magazine subscriptions.’’

Carlie stared at him, openmouthed. ‘‘You mean-?’’

Her uncle nodded, then lifted his glass with an upward glance to the heavens. ‘‘Your mother was always a winner in my book.’’