I pressed play on Wendells old boom box, sitting on the bunk in Tommys cabin, and the first voice on that tape was not Wendells. It was the county judges.
The judge stated the date, 2021, and said he was present at Wendells request to witness a recorded statement, of sound mind, freely given. Then Wendells voice came on, and my eyes filled up to hear it.
Wendell said that the bait shop and all six cabins were to go to me, his wife Fay, and to no one else. He said it plainly for the tape. He also said that his nephew Darrell had already been pressuring him, even back then, about the cabins, and that he wanted it on the record, in case Darrell ever tried to use his badge to take from me what Wendell built with his own two hands.
The paper in the bread bag was Wendells will, signed and witnessed by that same judge, leaving everything to me, airtight.
Darrell told me I was not blood. Wendell left a tape that said blood was exactly the problem he was worried about.
I made a copy of that tape and took it, with the will, to a lawyer and then to the sheriff, Darrells own boss. Because a deputy standing on a widows porch, thumbs in his belt, threatening to write up phony code violations unless she signs over her property, is not a family matter. It is a man using a county uniform to extort, and the sheriff did not care for it one bit.
Darrell kept his job, barely, after a long talk and a mark on his record, and only because I asked them not to ruin him for Wendells sake. But he does not come up my porch steps anymore.
I still rent all six cabins. Same fishermen every spring, same cribbage on the porch. Each one is named for a grandchild, the way Wendell wanted. Tommys cabin has a new board under the bunk now. I left the hiding spot, though. You never know.