The Codicil

The registered letter came in early August. The weather girl said it was the hottest on record and breaking the backs of almost everyone who was working outside. When the official letter came, more than the weather was breaking the back of Lucy’s local kayak company. Her finances were a mess. Although Lucy and her three employees did a bang-up business during the high winter season when the snowbirds landed and spread the gifts of their arrival to almost everyone on the island, no one wanted to kayak in tepid water that was beginning to smell like fish soup.

When the ominous letter was all that was waiting in the oversized mailbox for the little kayak company, Lucy tried a smile for Ralph, who was her devoted but elderly associate for over five years. Ralph was hosing down the empty kayaks and listening to country music with enough volume to sound-blast the kayaks and save water, but Lucy’s employees were all sweethearts and they needed something to do for their paychecks. After Lucy ducked into the air-conditioned rental shack by the docks and the water, she hesitated for only a moment before ripping open the letter.

The letter began with the masthead of a law firm that Lucy had never heard of and finished with the naming of a distant uncle that she also never knew existed. Apparently, the unknown relative was a very elderly man who had passed away in his southern hometown and had named Lucy as the sole beneficiary in a last will and testament. The lawyers of the mysterious law firm were vague in the wording of the will, but apparently, two of the attorneys were coming in person for a private reading of the last wishes of Uncle Henry. According to the date and the instructions on the letter, the reading was to take place in Lucy’s rental shack the following evening.

When Lucy dropped the letter on her battered desk that she and Ralph had pulled off the street on trash day, she was overwhelmed with a conflict of emotions and indecision. On the one hand, a last will could mean money - which Lucy desperately needed - for her little company and her employees, but there was something odd about a few of the specifics in the official letter from the southern lawyers.

The reading was to be after sunset, as Uncle Henry never did business in the heat of the day. He also apparently did not appreciate modern banking, email, the Internet, or cell phones. Just as Lucy was beginning to believe that her single life was becoming boring and too tedious with the responsibility of everything regarding a small business, the arrival of the lawyers might afford some relief, or at least an interesting diversion.

The phone call from the southern legal team was prompt, and afterward, they arrived at the rental shack right on time. Despite the stinky odor of low tide at the docks and the few mosquitoes that did manage to slip in with the two suits from the deep south - and Ralph, as a concerned friend and witness - the lawyers got down to business,

The reading of the will began after sunset. Uncle Henry did, in fact, leave his entire estate to his only living relative, and all the benefits to Lucy were clear and straightforward, until the two heavyset men sweating in their suits came to the good news, and the bad news, about a recently added codicil.

The bad news was that although Uncle Henry did leave Lucy his plantation home and extensive surrounding acreage, the old home was a mess and practically falling down. Bulldozers, the lawyers insisted, were the only answer for the wreck of a house. The good news was that the land was worthy of consideration. Apparently, the many acres of surrounding land were brimming with cypress, walnut, and even some hickory trees. The southern lawyers were excited about the idea of logging and harvesting the hardwoods for big bucks, and all they needed was Lucy’s signature, but the codicil in the will insisted upon an official mourning period of six months before Lucy could lawfully inherit Uncle Henry’s considerable timber and hardwood property.

The evening at the kayak rental office ended with the southern layers sweating, swatting mosquitoes, and promising to be loyal and faithful legal servants. Over the next few months, the southern lawyers were keeping in close contact and insisting that the codicil on the will was strict. For Lucy to inherit there must be a mourning period of at least six months before any monetary action could be undertaken.

When the six-month mourning period was fast approaching, and Lucy’s phone calls and emails to the two lawyers remained suspiciously unanswered, Ralph insisted that Lucy leave the kayak company and check out the missing lawyers and the fortune in hardwood on Uncle Henry’s estate.

Upon arriving and driving to the neglected and falling-down plantation, Lucy and Ralph could not fail to notice the now-barren surrounding countryside. During the last six months, Uncle Henry’s land had been the victim of an obviously urgent logging effort, which had robbed every stick of timber that had been growing for over a century.

With Lucy in tears over the loss of a small fortune, Ralph patiently explained that before he retired and became a hired hand at Lucy’s kayak company he had been a graduate of an Ivy League law school, and unbeknownst to everyone, had been watching over the sneaky lawyers and the codicil they added to Uncle Henry’s estate. He then explained that although the crooked lawyers were nowhere to be found, all the money from the theft of Uncle Henry’s trees was frozen and waiting for Lucy in a safe and very special trust fund account.