The Appraisal

They called them “ghost” houses.

They being Stan Helmig and a couple of his fellow probate lawyers. Occasionally, in keeping with his duties, Stan had to personally go into the home of some poor soul who had died intestate and try to establish the value of the house and its contents. He usually did so alone, although not by choice. Rummaging through a dead stranger’s belongings tended to creep him out. And if that person had died in their house, well, that would be a very speedy estimate indeed.

Stan didn’t think today’s assessment would take that long. The deceased was a widow who lived on a block of ramshackle twins in a neighborhood that had seen better days. To say that her home was modest would have been generous. Barring the discovery of a secret trove of Faberge eggs, Stan figured he’d be out of there in twenty minutes.

The musty smell which greeted him when he opened the front door made him even more sure he’d be finished soon. He had seen it all before…the dingy drapes, worn carpeting, out-of-fashion clothing, ancient appliances…nothing surprising here.

Except for the library. Sitting on an array of obviously home-made shelves in the dining room were several hundred dusty, hard-bound volumes. Stan, a bibliophile from way back, was impressed. A personal library was not something he ran across very often.

Upon closer inspection, however, his appreciation lessened. An extensive collection of Reader’s Digest’s Condensed Books and an antiquated edition of Funk and Wagnall’s Encyclopedia can do that to one. Rounding out the assembly were a large number of titles by Zane Grey, Errol Stanley Gardner, and other past authors of similar genres. They weren’t Stan’s favorites. Still, there were some unexpected treasures interspersed amongst the run-of-the-mill.

One of them was Lolita It seemed like an old copy. Stan wondered if it was a first edition. He plucked it from the shelf and flipped it open to check the publication date. The surprise he felt upon seeing Nabokov there was nothing compared to the shock he got when two green, crisp pieces of paper that looked suspiciously like U.S. currency fluttered out and fell to the floor. He picked them up and examined them. Benjamin Franklin’s steady gaze met his widening eyes. In his hand were two one hundred dollar bills.

Holding his breath, Stan picked out the book that had sat next to Lolita, turned it upside down and shook it. Nothing came out. He grabbed another one and did the same. Nada. Stan’s elation ebbed a bit. Maybe the Lolita cache was a one-off. Still, he had to try one more time. He took out a copy of Riders of the Purple Sage and upended it. This time, it was Grant’s turn. Four fifty dollar bills floated to the floor.

This would not be a twenty minute appraisal after all.

Stan gave each and every book in the library the shake-down treatment. Some were barren, and some bore fruit. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how the cash was distributed. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was empty, while the Reader’s Digest version of Rebecca held $300.00. Then Stan went through every room in the house, from cellar to attic, and checked out each stray book he saw. Most were empty. Not to be deterred, he then went through every drawer, jar, vase, suitcase and clothing pockets, even checking under mattresses, pillows, and rugs. But it seemed that only the library had been used as a hiding place.

Stan sat in one of the dining room chairs and looked at the large stack of C notes strewn across the table. It amounted to a tad over twenty thousand dollars. He allowed himself the luxury of an indoor smoke; no one would care. No one of consequence would be coming in here. And no one, as far as Stan was able to figure, knew that what he had found even existed. Or would need to know about it. The widow had not left a will, and a perfunctory search for relatives didn’t find any. This was found money, free and clear, a gift from the Universe to Stan Helmig, although he always hated it when he heard other people make such assertions.

There was just one problem.

There was one volume that was different from all the others on the bookshelves. It was a thick black notebook filled with handwritten entries, presumably made by the widow. Stan had noticed that it was a personal log of some sort when he had shaken it. It didn’t hold any money, and he had set it aside on the table to look at later. Now, he picked it up and started reading.

This was the widow’s journal, all right; her name and address were on the first page. As he read on, it became obvious that the woman had been using it as a diary of sorts. She didn’t write every day, or every week, but whenever the Muse moved her, it seemed. And although he was now privy to someone’s innermost thoughts, Stan didn’t find them to be all that interesting. Her activities and concerns were unremarkable, except, perhaps, for a somewhat unhealthy obsession with Pat Sajak. To each, their own.

The problem was that there were repeated references to a woman who, troublingly, had the same last name as the deceased. The more he read, the more Stan gathered that this person was someone with whom the widow had once been close, and then later had become estranged. Her writing expressed a lot of caring towards this woman…a second cousin? obscure in-law? niece?…but also a lot of conflict. In the end, it seemed the widow regretted and blamed herself for the distance between them.

The reason this was troubling, of course, was because now Stan had evidence that there might, indeed, be an heir to this suddenly larger estate. Pretty likely, in fact. And if he had to practice the due diligence the court expected, well, there was no getting around it…he would have to check this out. That meant tracking down someone who may or may not be alive, who may not want to be found if they were, who would know nothing about this estate in any case, and, most certainly, nothing about the mountain of currency hidden within it.

The notebook had just made Stan’s life a lot harder. Things were tough enough before he came across it; he had to make a decision about the money. It should have been easy. After all, his life’s work was inextricably bound to the law. But there were many kinds of law. God’s Law. Man’s law. The State’s law. The time-honored doctrine of Finders, Keepers. The Golden Rule. Statutes of Limitation. The Law of Survival. Yes, there was more than one way to look at this, he was convinced.

The existence of a possible heir, however remote, made Stan’s moral calculus that much more complicated. Not that he was very adept at such deliberations anyway. Solving this conundrum would be so much easier if he had never noticed the notebook. Or never read it. Or…if it didn’t exist.

After several more cigarettes, Stan prepared to leave. It was starting to get dark, and he didn’t trust the neighborhood. He divided the cash into several piles and stuffed them in the various pockets of his pants, his shirt, and his suit jacket. If he was accosted, the mugger wouldn’t get them all. Lastly, he put the notebook in a brown paper bag he found. Maybe an assailant would think it was food. Although, come to think of it, if there was one thing Stan wouldn’t mind being relieved of, it was the notebook. It would make things easier. Hey, maybe its theft would just be an example of the Universe helping him out again! He took it out of the bag and held it prominently in his hand. If he could be tempted, maybe Fate could too.

Stan exited the house, locked the front door, and then walked to his car and started it up. He drove for a while and then parked outside of a shopping mall located in a safer area. He turned off the engine and sat in the dark, absorbed in thought.

It had not been a twenty minute appraisal. It had not been a two hour appraisal. In fact, it might not even turn out to be a two day appraisal. There was so much to consider, so many moving parts. Some of them were, quite literally, a pain in the butt, as Stan shifted in his seat to alleviate the discomfort the two stacks of Benjamins in his back pockets were causing him. Other pains were more subtle, but just as irksome.

Stan had started out the day feeling pretty good, feeling at peace with himself. That’s not how he felt now. Now, he felt both enriched and impoverished at the same time. Part of him was happy, and part of him was troubled. He was conflicted. And it was all the notebook’s fault. Who knew that the long-ago, irrelevant scribblings of a deceased stranger could be such a jinx? It was so unfair. Today should have been a day of celebration, of rejoicing for such an unforeseen windfall. Instead, because he read the damn book, it was a day of unease. And Stan hated uneasiness.

He lit up his last smoke, started up the Chevy, and turned onto the road. The notebook lay on his lap. And even though it was getting cold, Stan rolled down the window. Tomorrow would be another day. For now, he had to get home. It was half an hour away. Enough time to maybe find the answer.

Or maybe lose it.