“Better than you can,” Jane said. “And anyway, you and Wilder save me plenty with the repairs that he can do around the place, but remember what we agreed?”
“If there’s water or electricity involved, we hire a professional,” Danny recited in the weary tones of someone who’d said a thing a thousand times before.
“Exactly,” Jane said.
She caught my confused expression and said, “My husband was a fine man, God rest his soul, and he was good at a lot of things, but home repairs wasn’t one of them. I made the rule after I had enough of his nonsense.”
It was strange. One thing I hated about small-town law was the way people justtalked. I was their lawyer, not their friend. But Jane was so warm and cheerful that not only did I not care about how we hadn’t gotten anywhere even close to the point yet, I actually wanted to know more. What home improvement disasters had her husband screwed up so royally that she’d had to institute that rule? Had he almost fried his family, or flooded them?
And why, in every scenario that I imagined, did he look a lot like Marty O’Brien?
“Now,” Jane said, pouring a coffee and sliding it in front of me, “tell me what Harlan’s done and what you’re going to do to fix it.”
It was Danny who said, “It’s the tree out front.” He swallowed. “He’s cut it down.”
“Hewhat?” Any trace of Jane’s good humor vanished. “That asshole!”
“Apparently, Mr. Whittaker took matters into his own hands, along with a chainsaw,” I said. “He felled the tree before anyone could stop him. I’m sorry.”
Jane blinked rapidly. “My husband planted that tree when we first moved into the house,” she said, her voice cracking the tiniest bit. “Why would Harlan do such a thing?”
Danny put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Grandma. One day he was complaining that it dropped leaves, and the next morning he cut it down. No warning, nothing.”
Jane’s brow creased and she turned her gaze to me. “So what do we do now? Sue him?”
“You could. You have a pretty solid case, ma’am,” I said, “although we will need to get the property lines surveyed.”
“And let me guess, you’ll only charge me an arm and a leg,” she said with a wry smile.
“Actually, Miller’s working pro bono,” Danny said quickly. “Bobby sent him, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to look into whether we can get some sort of payout.”
“I just don’t know what would have possessed him to cut that tree down in the first place,” Jane said.
“He’s been real cranky since you moved out,” Danny said. “I don’t think he likes living next to us. He’s always complaining we don’t keep the yard up to scratch and that we make too much noise.”
“Well, he can mind his business. You’re good boys,” Jane said sharply. She straightened in her seat and I swore I couldhearthe steel snapping into place around her spine. “It’s not his place to comment, and it wasn’t his tree to cut down, and we’re going to take him for every penny we can get.” It was like watchinga mama bear whose cubs had been threatened—impressive and terrifying all at once—and I got the feeling she might have almost let the tree thing go except Harlan had crossed the line when he’d insulted her boys.
Danny must have sensed the same thing because he ducked his head and said, “Are you sure, Grandma?”
“Of course I’m sure. I won’t have you boys bullied by a cranky old man.” She turned to me. “Where do I sign?”
I knew I liked her.
I pulled the boilerplate representation agreement out of my satchel for her to sign, and she added her signature with a flourish. Then I handwrote an addition to the agreement saying Fisher Law could talk about the case with Danny and that he was able to make decisions, and we both initialed the change. I tucked the paperwork away again with a sense of satisfaction. “I’ll order the survey and be in touch.”
“Thank you, Miller.” She stood and said, “Now not to chase y’all out or anything, but I need to get ready for girls’ night.”
“I swear you have a better social life than I do, Grandma,” Danny said.
Jane just laughed and walked us to the door.
We made our way to the parking lot, where Danny’s old truck was parked next to my car. He hopped into the driver’s seat, and I was just getting into my own car when I heard his engine sputter and wheeze and fall silent. After a few seconds, there was an ominous grinding noise from under the hood before the entire truck shuddered.
I knocked on the driver’s window and Danny rolled it down.
“Engine trouble, huh?”
“Wow,” he said, “no wonder you’re a big shot lawyer with top observational skills like that.” Then he shot me a rueful smile. “There ain’t no way this truck’s making it to Hopewell.”
