Celia Navarro's office sat above a title company on Main Street, up a narrow stairway that smelled of carpet cleaner and coffee. Mara had asked me that morning whether I wanted to come in. Not told me, asked. I said I would sit wherever she wanted me, and she said, 'In the room. But if I look at you, you stop talking.' I agreed, and meant it.
Celia was fifty or so, gray at the temples, with reading glasses she pushed up into her hair whenever she wanted to look at a person instead of a page. She shook my hand, then turned to Mara before I had finished sitting. 'Before we start, I represent you, Mara. Not Owen. He's welcome here because you've said so, and you can change that at any point. Does that work?'
'It works,' Mara said.
Celia nodded and opened our yellow-tabbed folder. I felt a small, foolish pride at how neat it looked. She read the trust page first, then the appendix, then Victor Fenwick's cover letter, taking her time. Nobody spoke. A truck downshifted outside.
'Here is what I notice,' she said at last. 'Your family has handed you one demand. Sign, and everything proceeds. But I see three different questions folded together, and I'd like to pull them apart.'
She counted them off on her fingers. 'First, the sale. The trust holds forty-three acres, and there's an offer of three point eight million. That's a gross figure, not what anyone walks away with. Based on what you've shown me, a trustee may have authority to sell without a beneficiary's vote. I'd need the full instrument and the title file to say more. But your refusing this particular paper is not automatically a veto over a sale. I don't want you thinking you hold a lever you may not hold, or that you're blocking something you're not.'
Mara's jaw moved slightly. 'So they could sell without me.'
'Possibly, subject to the instrument and the trustee's duties. Which brings me to the second question. The trust, as written, gives you and your brother Nolan equal beneficial interests. Equal interests don't necessarily mean identical checks. If Nolan received money or support earlier, an agreement can account for that. Maybe it should. But the appendix here shows no percentages and no figures. So nobody has shown you the math.'
'And the third?' Mara asked.
Celia took her glasses down and held them. 'The release. It's written broadly. It would have you approve past decisions by the trustee, including ones you have no records to evaluate. A release can protect a trustee, but it generally needs informed consent, meaning you'd have to know the material facts. You don't yet. Signing now would be agreeing not to ask questions you haven't been allowed to form.'
I had been holding my breath without noticing. I let it out quietly, and Mara did not look at me.
'Can't I just ask them what the numbers are?' she said.
'You can, through me, and in writing. Ohio law has provisions on beneficiary information and trustee reports, and a request from counsel is a normal first step. I'd ask for the complete trust instrument, an accounting of assets, receipts and disbursements, and records of any distributions or benefits to either beneficiary. I'd also ask for whatever supports that allocation Grant controls in the appendix. I'm not telling you what those records will show. They might explain a great deal. They might explain nothing. I can't promise a legal conclusion from papers I haven't seen.'
'And if they refuse?'
'Then we discuss additional steps. But I'd rather start by assuming they'll produce, and see.'
Mara was quiet long enough that I studied the grain of the desk. Then she said, 'I don't want to fight them for sport.'
'Nobody's asking you to,' Celia said. 'A narrow release, limited to matters fully disclosed, is something we could discuss later. That's a different document from this one.'
'Send the request,' Mara said. 'The full accounting. And I'm not signing anything until I've read what comes back.'
Celia wrote it down and read it back to her, word for word, and Mara corrected one phrase. In the car afterward she held the folder in her lap with both hands. I started the engine and asked nothing. After a block she said, 'Thank you for staying quiet,' and I understood that was the favor, and that it had cost me something small and been worth it.