At the Huron County Gazette on the far side of town, a staff member agreed that they’d run an obituary for Ada Byron seven years ago, but couldn’t dig up anything else in their morgue on her. What about the schools where the obituary said she’d volunteered? The staffer couldn’t say—they’d just printed what the funeral parlor had given them.
Back in the car, Alison and I tried to figure out any other way to find Ada Byron’s home, or anyone who would admit to having known her. If she’d been born in Tinney, her birth certificate would be on file in the county building. If she had left a will, a copy would be filed with the county probate court.
LaSalle, the Huron County seat, lay about fifteen miles farther south. It was after three; I took over the wheel and drove to LaSalle as fast as I could. We got to the courthouse forty-five minutes before they closed.
This far from Cook County, I’d been imagining spry and helpful court officers, but the Huron County clerks were just as sullen and overweight as those at home. The two women behind the counter in the records room were arguing over the best way to make lasagna. It took them several minutes to acknowledge us.
The woman who finally came over sighed as if we’d asked her to go through the county’s landfills personally looking for a document, but she gave me a form to fill out, sighed again loudly with a pointed look at the clock when I handed her the form, and shuffled into a back room, massaging her gunstock for comfort.
She returned with the news that there was no birth certificate on file for Ada Byron, but for ten dollars, we could get a copy of Byron’s will. Finding a will at all had seemed like such a long shot that I stared blankly for a moment.
“Do you or do you not want a copy? Because I’d like to get out of here on time.”
“Right,” I said hastily, pulling a ten out of my wallet.
Our clerk slowly filled out a receipt, slowly stamped the form “paid,” and returned again to the interior. She came back just as the clock behind the counter turned to five. She already had her jacket on; she was clutching a Buy-Smart Values catalog, but she handed me a three-page document, The Last Will and Testament of Ada Byron.
“You can look at it outside. We’re fixing to lock up now.”
Alison and I sat on one of the benches in front of the county building to read Ada Byron’s will. The benches faced a public square; county employees were streaming across it to the parking lot. Deputies were changing shifts, getting into their cruisers. A clutch of boys was jumping skateboards up a low wall across the square from us.
Ada Byron’s house, at 2714 Tallgrass Road in Tinney, was left for the lifetime use of a Dorothy Ferguson, on the condition that all the contents be kept. It is not necessary to keep them on the premises but they must be housed in safe storage. Byron donated her telescope to the Tinney Public Library for their children’s science program.
It was the second page of the will that made my hair stand up. Byron left her papers in trust for any descendant of Martina Saginor who could prove both their descent and an appreciation of Martina’s work. The heir didn’t have to know physics, but did have to show a love of science.
I handed the will to Alison, but the landscape and skateboarders were swimming around me in a way that made me put my head down on my knees.
“What, she didn’t leave you nothing?”
It was the clerk who’d brought us the copy of the will, staring at us with an unpleasant avidity.
I lifted my head and managed a smile. “On the contrary, she made me her sole heir. It’s the shock of knowing I won’t have to sell the farm to pay for Mama’s heart surgery that knocked me off balance.”
The clerk scowled but shuffled on to the parking lot. Alison gave a spurt of laughter. “Vic, you’re so amazing; you knew just the right thing to say to her. I don’t understand this will at all. How could Ada Byron know about Martin’s great-grandmother?”
All along, I’d been wondering if Martina had survived the death march to Sobibor Concentration Camp. Ada was Martina, or someone so close to Martina that she cherished her interests.
If Martina survived, why had she never gone to see Kitty or Kitty’s offspring?
She did: she summoned Kitty and Judy to a meeting somewhere in rural Illinois. She stayed close to Chicago to keep an eye on her family, so she knew about Judy’s addiction. She died before Martin was old enough for her to evaluate his character.
Why was she in hiding?
That I couldn’t guess at.
48
ALI BABA’S CAVE
ON THE OUTSKIRTS of Tinney, we stopped at a gas station for a street map. Tallgrass Road curved away from the river at Tinney’s north end. Most of the houses this far out were frame boxes, placed at sparse intervals; a number were attached to small farms. We passed cows and signs for organic eggs or “pick your own tomatoes.”
2714 Tallgrass was near the end of the paved road, where it joined the gravel county road. Open fields stood to the north and west. The nearest neighbor was a good quarter mile distant.