We all crowded into the attorney's office. The room was designed to hold six people comfortably. As Uncle Mike closed the door I counted heads, silently moving my lips. It was uncomfortable.

Stan Sharper, attorney at law, according to the faux marble placard on his desk, cleared his throat and the murmur of speculation trailed off. My Aunt Elise's voice shot through the silence, the last to recognize the burgeoning quiet.

"I always loved that car, you know the one from the..." She finally felt Stan Sharper's sharp gaze and fell silent with the rest of us.

Stan opened a letter size manila envelope, the kind with the red string wrapped around a circular toggle, and upended it letting a small folded piece of white paper and two sets of keys fall onto his desk. Behind me, cousin Vick lurched forward for a better view. His breath steamed against the back of my neck. He smelled like the tuna sandwiches I'd seen him gobbling at the wake. My gaze returned to Stan.

He pulled a pair of lean glasses with delicate silver wire frames from his breast pocket and placed them on the very tip of his nose. I watched him mouth along as he unfolded and read the scrap of paper to himself. After a moment he leaned back in his leather office chair, the squeaks of the fabric and the groan of the ancient springs and coils a deafening sound in the hushed atmosphere of the office. He turned his eyes upward toward us. They flitted from face to face, his pupils engorged from the refraction of his reading glasses. That, combined with the way his head teetered on his slender neck as he shifted from face to face gave him an air of a mole scenting the air for its prey.

His hands wandered across the desk and grasped one of the sets of keys that had come from the envelope. He grasped them with a dainty clutch of two fingers and dangled them at arms length.

He spoke, "Is there a Ms. Elise Farber here?"

All eyes whipped to Aunt Elise as she leaned forward from her perch on one of the few chairs in front of the desk. "I'm Elise Farber," she said hopefully.

Stan's eyes shifted their focus onto her. "Ah, well then. These are yours." He held the keys out to her, but didn't rise to hand them over. After a moment's hesitation Aunt Elise leapt from her chair and snatched them from his grip. She turned them over in her hand, her fingers tracing the sleek black and red logo that dangled from the ring.

"His Porsche," she whispered. Then she pumped her fist in the air. "I got

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