Gypsy Sins by John Lawrence Reynolds Page B

down. He waited for McGuire to speak.
    â€œWho’s Hirons?” McGuire asked.
    â€œWhat?” Parker Leedale blinked.
    â€œThe sign outside says Hirons & Leedale. You’re the only lawyer I see here. Where’s the other guy?” McGuire stretched his legs out in front of him and clasped his hands behind his head.
    Parker Leedale shrugged and looked at his wife seated in a corner chair, her pencil poised over a pad of lined yellow paper. He grinned when she looked up, as if to say, isn’t this guy a jerk?
    â€œMy grandfather, Wyndham Leedale, founded this practice with a man named Harrison Hirons just after the First World War,” Parker Leedale said. “Both families go back six or seven generations in Massachusetts. This is the oldest continuously operated law practice in the mid-Cape area.”
    â€œWhat happened to Hirons?” McGuire asked.
    â€œMy father bought the practice when Hirons’s son chose not to practice law.”
    â€œSmart man,” McGuire said.
    Parker Leedale smiled in agreement until he noticed his wife suppressing a grin and he realized that McGuire had referred to Hirons’s shiftless son and not Parker’s father. He drew in a deep breath and leaned forward. “Anyway, do you understand the terms of the will?” he asked coldly.
    â€œSure.” McGuire looked out the window at the blue sky as he spoke. “You and I are co-executors. All of Cora’s liquid assets are left to the American Civil Liberties Union. All of her real estate and possessions are left to me to dispose of as I see fit. Simple.”
    â€œWhat do you plan to do with them?”
    â€œSell ’em.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œYou recommend a real estate agent for me?” McGuire asked.
    â€œIn my role as co-executor, it’s my duty to be involved in such a decision,” Leedale replied.
    â€œOkay.” McGuire stood, placed his palms down on Leedale’s desk and leaned toward the lawyer who sat back almost involuntarily in his swivel chair. Like his expression, McGuire’s voice had darkened and dropped by a full octave. “Why don’t you give me the name of some buddy of yours in the real estate business who will sell the house in the shortest possible time.”
    Parker Leedale blinked. “At the best possible price?”
    â€œI didn’t say that.”
    â€œBut as co-executor . . .”
    â€œAs sole heir, I can dispose of the property for any amount I want,” McGuire said. He was tired of Leedale’s small-town pretense of power and authority. “You interested in buying it?”
    The lawyer shook his head. “Clearly a conflict of interest,” he began.
    â€œThen give me an agent’s name.” McGuire straightened and glanced at June Leedale, who was watching him intently. “One of your Rotary Club friends, I don’t care.”
    â€œCora thought you might want to keep the house,” June Leedale said in her thin voice. “I think . . . Well, I think she hoped you would. Retain it in the family, kind of.”
    McGuire smiled warmly at her, a sharp contrast in his mood. “I’m sure she did. But Cora also valued honesty above everything else. And I’d be dishonest if I decided to stay here.”
    â€œSam Hannaford.” Parker Leedale had scribbled an address and telephone number on a sheet of paper while his wife spoke, and he handed it across to McGuire. “Has an office on Old Queen Anne Road, over near Pleasant Bay Estates. Know where that is?”
    McGuire shook his head.
    â€œHe’ll come out to see you if you give him a call. Sam knows the real estate market around here as well as anybody.”
    McGuire took the paper from the lawyer and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Thanks for your help.” He stood, nodded at Parker Leedale and smiled at June.
    â€œYou like to get together some time?” Parker Leedale asked, forcing a warmer