Pastor Olsons son set down whatever he was holding and said, “Joyce. I buried Leonard four months ago, and I have been carrying something he told me for years. I am glad you finally called.”
I told him about Dustin, counting the inventory before he said he was sorry, and the buyer, and the paper with a signature I did not recognize.
“Leonard never promised that store to Dustin,” he said. “Not ever. I know, because years ago Leonard asked me and my father to witness his will. He left Kessler Hardware to you, Joyce. All of it. He said he wanted it in writing because he was afraid someone in the family might try exactly this once he was gone.”
“There is a tin,” I said. “Behind the loose board. With a 1952 bank seal.”
“Open it. The will is inside, and it is dated and witnessed, and I will swear to every word.”
I pried the board loose and lifted out the tin, and under the old bank papers was Leonards will, in his careful hand, witnessed by the pastor and his son.
Leonard knew every screw in that store. He also knew his own nephew.
Pastor Olsons son was a notary as well as a funeral director, and he brought the witnessed will to a lawyer the next morning. The paper Dustin had waved at me turned out to carry a signature that was not Leonards at all. When a man forges the dead, the law has a name for it, and it is not a kind one.
Dustin did not get the store. The chain did not get the building. And the family, once they learned what he had tried to do, made their feelings very plain at the next reunion.
Kessler Hardware is still open on Main Street. I kept Leonards policy of loaning a tool to anybody who cannot afford to buy one. His father opened those doors in 1952, and they are staying open, with the right name on the deed.