Mary nodded. “Which do you want to start with?”
“I think the study. You and I can plow our way through all that.”
“I will do the paper in the infirmary, if ye want,” Geordie said. “And if that doesnae give us much, I can wander into town and see who ye have there for a lawyer. My brother has one, Harvard-educated, and I have talked to him a lot, so might have a feel for who would be the best choice.”
“You have a Harvard-educated lawyer in the Ozark hills? Why would he open shop there?” asked Belle.
“Where he lived before there were too many people, and I think he may have had a touch of wanderlust. Iain hired him, was his first client, because the bank was trying to trick him into losing his lands when he got a loan. Fortunately, he had a bad feeling about it and hadnae signed the papers. Fellow not only fixed that but got the head of the bank booted out. Then his wife and Iain’s wife became friends, so we are kind of stuck with him.” He grinned. “Shame he is so far away.”
“Well, if you haven’t sent that letter yet”—Belle smiled when he hastily had a long drink of coffee—“maybe you can just ask if he knows anyone in this area who had knowledge of wills.”
“I could do that.”
“Best we get going on slogging our way through my father’s papers,” she said as she stood up. “He had very tidy handwriting, so it should not be too hard.”
Geordie watched the two women head up the stairs and then made his way into the infirmary. He hoped she was right about her father’s writing because his reading ability faltered over handwritten things far too often.
He found Robbie and Will very interested in what he was doing as he started to pull the papers out of the desk. Seeing an opportunity to cut down on the tedious work he faced, Geordie carried two chairs over to the desk for them to sit in and explained what he was looking for.
After sorting out what were obviously patient files, they each began to carefully read over the rest. Will found one file that had a list of things Noah and Tom had obviously decided needed to be put in a will, but no signatures or directions. Geordie doubted it would be enough to help them, but they set it aside so they could at least show Mary her husband had given the matter some serious thought.
As they began to put the files back, Geordie found himself staring at the patients’ files already returned to a drawer. One of them caught his eye and he frowned. He pulled it back out.
“What do ye want with that? It is a patient,” said Robbie.
“Is it? Who? After reading over so much of what the mon wrote I find it hard to believe he misspelled Bill. This says BIL, all capitals. Rather implies it is an abbreviation.”
“Short for some family names, like Billings?” asked Will.
“Or, just a thought, the abbreviation for brother-in-law.”
“Only one way to find out.”
Geordie took a deep breath and opened the file. He slowly flipped through a collection of letters. The ones that had come to the doctor were still in the envelopes and the ones he had answered were neatly copied onto a sheet of paper. A quick look did not show him a signed legal paper, but the correspondence between the Tom and Noah might contain all they needed.
“I think this might be some help.” He stood up. “Thanks for the help. If it does nothing else, it will ease Mary’s upset over the thought that her husband had not done anything to protect her and his kids. He had obviously begun and tried, but time caught up to him.”
“I can’t believe anyone could take her house. Everyone in town knows the story behind all the properties. Maybe you should have a close look at the old will.”
“A good idea. I will tell Belle.”
He made his way up to the room called the study and thought over what they had found. He had not looked carefully at what was in the file and really hoped they would find something that would provide more than a little ease of mind for Mary. He could not understand how a relation could do what this John was doing to his own brother’s wife and children.
When he stepped into the study, he stopped. The women sat on the floor with papers spread all around them. Both of them were reading papers. He was pleased that he and the boys had been so much better organized.
“Found something?” he asked, and both women startled in surprise.
“No. Not yet, anyway. I had not realized how many people my father had corresponded with.”
“Anyone important or famous?”
“No, sad to say. It appears he was keeping in touch with the Native side of the family. He often visited them to offer his doctoring skills. Then, when he got them a doctor who worked close by, he just answered any questions they had.”
“That was good of him.” He held out the file folder he had. “We think we found something. It was in the patients’ files because one of the boys thought it said Bill, but it was BIL, brother-in-law. It is correspondence between your da and Tom. We looked at some of it and it does appear that Tom was making plans for his will. We just didnae read enough to ken if he had anything legal done.”
“It is the same with all of these. There are some letters either to or from Tom about the need to make a will and answers from Da. A few others as well. We are hoping to find a lawyer in this mess.”
“Need a hand?” he asked as he sat down.
