* * *
Mr. Alfred Danesworth Litter was a man known by many names. To the Frost family, he was known simply as the Frost family attorney. To a long-time musician idol who he had the fortune of meeting, he was known as The idiot whole stole my guitar! And to the British Secret Services, he was more notoriously known as Paco, The Bandit Who Went Into Hiding.
He was a short, pudgy man with extremely round features that started from his protruding belly, his oval-shaped face, his puffy cheeks, to the round rims on his glasses, and the curved bowler hat he would wear whenever he walked outside.
As Aunt Melanie and Alex Frost entered Paco’s, er, Mr. Alfred Litter’s office, they caught the man shoveling papers inside an expensive, leather briefcase. He had ten automatic shredders in the room, and they were all busy slicing loads of papers into thin, illegible strips.
“Mr. Litter?” Ms. Melanie Joyce called on top of all the mechanical humming that filled the room. Not noticing who it was, he jumped at the voice. His entire body was drenched in sweat. When he turned around and saw Ms. Melanie and Alex Frost standing idly by the doorway, a glowing smile radiated his face. As though he was glad it was them he was seeing, and not someone else.
“Melanie,” he cheered. “It has been far too long.”
Aunt Melanie smiled. “Thank you.”
“Look at you. You’re all grown up. I remember seeing you and Dana when you were just children. Gosh, seems as though that moment went by just the other day.”
“You look good too,” complimented the aunt, though she was overpowered by the noise of the ten high power shredders.
“What?”
“I said you’re looking good too.”
“What?”
“I said you’re...why don’t you turn off the machines?
“What?”
It was hopeless. With all the noise that took over the office, Aunt Melanie was surprised that she could even hear her own voice. She walked up to the shredding devices and on her own accord, she turned them off.
“There.”
Mr. Litter observed the silence. “Wow,” he said to himself. “It’s so quiet.”
“You’re the same as I always remembered you. Busy busy busy. I only hope that at least half of your clients appreciate just how much you do for them.”
At this, he skeptically raised his eyebrows. “Yes. . .clients. Please, sit.” With his open palm, he pointed at two chairs on the other side of his desk.
“I assume you know why we’re here,” came Aunt Melanie.
Mr. Litter stared blankly. “No. I don’t think I do.”
It was Aunt Melanie’s turn at blankness. For a few unmitigated seconds, the two eyed each other in confusion. Then, sooner than another word could have been uttered, it raced back to him.
“That’s right. The Frost estate. That’s why I called you this morning.”
“Bingo,” Alex cut in.
“You know Bingo?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Mr. Litter searched through a stack of folders on his desk, stopped at the last one. “There it is.” He ran his spectacles over the first sheet of paper. “Okay. It says here that the Frost residence on 441 Addison Avenue is to go to the first heir. And since Alexandra is the first and only heir, naturally, the property as well as the family’s financial fortune goes to her name. Since you had your name stricken from the will,” he spoke to Aunt Melanie. “The inheritance doesn’t go to you, but solely to your niece. Should Alexandra need to enter into a binding contract for whatever reason, she must appoint a legal guardian to sign on her behalf.”
“I understand,” Aunt Melanie said in agreement.
“So can we go to the house?” asked Alex.
“Ah. That. I took the liberty of calling the police. They informed me that they would like to keep their access to the house until next week at most. Not to badmouth, but I have never seen a more incompetent police force in my life.” He chortled. “And I would know.”
Much to his own embarrassment, Mr. Litter’s sense of humor was met with only the breath of dead air. Neither Alex nor Ms. Melanie knew the full context of what he was saying. Realizing his faux pas, he reached his hand across the table over to Alex. “I’m sure they’ll find the monster that did this.”
“Thank you,” came Alex.
“Is that everything?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Litter. “I’ll need you two to sign a few documents, and when the police are done doing whatever it is they do, you can have the house back. Oh, and before I forget, I came across a few receipts from a storage space rented by Dana Frost.”
“A storage space?” Aunt Melanie narrowed her eyes.
“I’ve got it covered. I’ll have the things from the space delivered to the home address. That is, unless you want to continue renting it.”
“No. Just send the things over thanks.”
“So,” Mr. Litter got up, activated one of the ten shredding machines in his office. He began systematically feeding it with official paper documents. “Tell me Melanie. Do you plan on moving back to Suburnia?”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“The place hasn’t been the same without you.”
“Please. All I ever did was complain and make everyone feel uncomfortable.”
“Like I said. Hasn’t been the same. Besides, doesn’t Alexandra go to school here?”
“We’ll see what we decide.”
“Alright. Well, in the mean time, I’ve got a few documents that need some signatures.”
The signing process took all of about five minutes. Once done, Aunt Melanie grabbed a newspaper from Mr. Litter’s office. He offered it to her under the condition that “If anyone comes asking for me, you tell them I wasn’t here.”
She nodded in agreement and took the chance to ask him what was wrong.
“Just some legal hullabaloo,” he waved away. “Nothing to worry about.”
They bid each other a good day. Alex and Aunt Melanie took their leave to the parking space just outside his office. Before she kicked the engine, Aunt Melanie asked Alex if there was any place she needed to be while they were still in Suburnia.
“There’s someone I need to see,” young Alex Frost answered back. She padded the note on her breast pocket to make sure it was still there. And in the back of her restrained, objective mind, she hoped what she was about to do was the right thing.