After I hung up with Derek, I drove to Margaret Haugen’s law office on Grand Avenue.
Margaret is sixty-seven. She’s been practicing law in Spencer for forty years. She wrote Walt’s will. She handled Joanne’s estate. She’s the kind of small-town lawyer who knows which farmers are feuding over fence lines and which ones are secretly paying for their neighbor’s kid’s college.
I sat down across her desk and told her everything. The coffee can. The $84,600. The lawyer in Minneapolis. The demand letters.
Margaret listened. Then she leaned back in her chair and took off her reading glasses.
“Carol,” she said. “First thing. Those IOUs aren’t Derek’s yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Walt’s estate is still open. You’re the executor. Until the court closes the estate and you distribute the assets, everything Walt owned belongs to the estate. Including any debts people owed him.” She tapped her desk. “Which means those IOUs belong to the estate. And you’re the one who controls the estate. Not Derek.”
I sat very still.
“So Derek can’t send demand letters?”
“Not legally. Not on estate property. Not without the executor’s authority.” She almost smiled. “His Minneapolis lawyer either didn’t ask the right questions, or Derek didn’t tell him the estate was still open.”
“And the IOUs themselves? Are any of them still good?”
Margaret put her glasses back on.
“Iowa gives you ten years to sue on a written contract,” she said. “That includes a signed IOU. After ten years, the debt’s still there in a moral sense. But a court won’t enforce it.” She thought about it. “If Walt wrote any IOUs in the last ten years, those might be collectible. Anything from the farm crisis? Forty years old? There’s no court in Iowa that would touch those.”
“So most of them are worthless.”
“Legally? Most of them, yes.” Margaret looked at me over her glasses. “Carol, why do I get the feeling you’re not here for legal advice?”
I opened my purse.
And I took out a photocopy of a letter. Yellowed and creased. In my brother’s handwriting.
I’d had the copy since 1986. Walt gave it to me the same week he gave the original to Hank Sorensen.
I slid it across Margaret’s desk.
She read it. Then she read it again.
When she looked up, her eyes were wet.
“Oh, Carol,” she said. “Does Derek know about this?”
“No,” I said. “Walt never told him. Walt never told anybody but me and Hank.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to let Derek count all the way to the end,” I said. “Then I’m going to let Hank show him what he missed.”
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.