“What happened to her savings, Grandma?” Noah asked.
She looked at Noah, then at me, her eyes watery and small behind her thick lenses.
“I can’t say,” she whispered, turning her back to us to pick up her plastic bucket. “Clara handled the paperwork with the court. You have to ask Clara.”
“Clara won’t tell us the truth,” I said.
“Then go to the courthouse,” Grandma Ruth said, her voice barely a breath. “But leave me out of it. Please.”
The County Courthouse on Main Street smelled of floor wax and old coffee. We walked past the metal detectors and down the long corridor to the probate office, where a low wooden counter separated the public from rows of green metal filing cabinets.
A clerk with dark hair and a gold chain around her neck looked up from a stack of blue folders. “Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for guardianship records from late nineteen ninety-eight,” I said, clearing my throat. “The estate of Elena Vance.”
