“I have sat across from this woman for nearly two years.
I have watched her face.
I have listened to her speak.” Another pause.
“She has my mother’s laugh.
I don’t expect that to hold up in court.
But I wanted it on record.”
Hale stopped the recording.
I looked at the wall for a moment.
“She never told me about her mother,” I said.
“No,” Hale said.
“But she told the camera.”
The documentary evidence was strong.
Hale was confident.
But Douglas’s attorney was doing what Hale had predicted — making procedurally complicated what was factually simple.
Motions, delays, requests for additional verification.
Every week a new filing.
Then, ten days before the hearing, Ruth Calloway called me.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” she said.
“I didn’t think it was relevant.
Now I think it might be.”
“Tell me.”
“Eleanor had a storage unit.
She’s had it for thirty years.
