The Judgment Read Online Free PDF

to Pickeral Point and peace.
    What did Patrick Henry say, ‘Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace’? He was right.
    When I got back to my office, Mrs. Fenton gave me a fistful of messages from various members of the Kalt family. Each begged me to come to the Anderson Funeral Home and as quickly as possible.
    I remembered the Kalts. I had done the old man’s will, and his six grown children had attended the signing as though it were a major treaty between nations. I had arranged the old man’s estate—he was then well over eighty—so that probate could be avoided. He didn’t have much, so it had been no challenge. Everyone had been very nice and the old man seemed genuinely glad to be the center of attention.
    “Did old man Kalt die?” I asked Mrs. Fenton.
    “Yesterday,” she said. She knew almost everyone in Pickeral Point. “Heart attack. I sent the usual flowers. He’s laid out at Anderson’s.” I always sent flowers when clients died.
    I drove to Anderson’s, the only funeral parlor in town. Lawyers become accustomed to funeral parlors. Often, they can be great sources of business.
    I parked and walked in. The late Jeremiah Kalt, according to the board, was laid out in one of the prominent front rooms. In the viewing room Kalt was in a burnished coffin, surrounded by a lot of floral displays. He looked content.
    There was no one there except his children. The rows of chairs were empty. His children, with assorted spouses, were standing in three separate clusters, looking like warring islands.
    They came at me like sharks going for chum. I was suddenly in the middle of outraged middle-aged faces, andmouths that were snarling in anger. Everyone was talking at once.
    I held up a hand. “One at a time,” I said. “What seems to be the problem?”
    “You made him executor of the will,” one of the daughters snapped. “And that’s the problem. He’s hogging everything for himself.” She pointed at her brother Amos Kalt, who glared back at her.
    “I merely kept the picture for myself,” he said, his voice dignified but angry. “Everything else was divided without objection. I wanted the picture. I’m the oldest, and I’m entitled.”
    “You’re a pig, Amos,” another daughter barked.
    “Whoa,” I said. “Amos was made executor. As I recall, you all agreed. More important, your late father agreed. The will provides that the executor has absolute say in what happens to the personal property.” I didn’t remember the will, but all the wills I draw usually have that provision. It sounded to them as if I remembered every word. I could see some were definitely impressed.
    “What about this picture? What are we talking about?”
    “It’s in my father’s living room,” Amos said. “It was his favorite. It’s just a scene with water and boats. My father said it reminded him of his native village back in the old country.”
    “My father said I could have the picture,” one of the daughters said, her voice shaking with hostility.
    “Me,” another protested. “He promised it to me.”
    Others chimed in. Apparently the old man had promised the picture to every one of them.
    “What is it, this picture, an oil painting?” I asked.
    For a moment there was silence, then Amos spoke. “No, it’s a photograph. Big, though, like a painting.”
    I looked at each of them. “And that’s what this is all about, the picture, nothing else?”
    “I was promised,” one daughter whined.
    “I’m the oldest. I’m entitled to something,” Amos whined. The others grumbled about their rights.
    “Look, this is nonsense. You are a happy family and you’re fighting over something symbolic. I’m sure your father would be mortified if he knew what was happening.”
    They didn’t look any less hostile, or any more reasonable.
    “If it’s a photograph,” I said, “why don’t you just take it to a place and have five identical copies made? There’s a place in Port Huron that does that.