Chapter 7: Newbury Street

"Who signed it?" I said.

"Thursday," Leonard said, and hung up.

I told the banquet captain I had a dentist appointment.

He looked at me, and wrote it down.

On Thursday I took the early bus from Lee to Boston, because my car wouldn't survive the Pike.

I wore my own clothes for the first time in a week.

Black trousers, a cream sweater, my mother's gold earrings.

I wanted to look like the woman who'd been toasting, not the one who'd been kneeling.

Thorndike is on Newbury Street, between a jeweler and a shop that sells forty-dollar candles.

It's all dark wood and brass and men in suits eating lunch on expense accounts.

The hostess knew my name before I said it.

She walked me past every table to a big leather booth in the back corner.

Leonard was already there with a plate of oysters and a bottle of white wine.

He stood up when I came.

"There's my girl," he said. "Sit, sit. You look like your mother today."

"You knew my mother?"

"Everybody knew your mother." He poured me a glass. "Thomas punched above his weight there, believe me."

I didn't touch the wine.

"You said you'd show me who signed the will."

"Straight to business. That's Thomas, too."

He slid a thin blue folder across the table.

Inside was a report on heavy paper, with a letterhead from a firm in Hartford.

Forensic document examination.

There were photos of signatures blown up huge.

My father's signature.

Thomas A. Bradbury, in green ink, from the July will.

And beside it, other signatures of his, from checks and contracts.

Red circles. Red arrows.

At the bottom, the examiner's conclusion, in one bold line.