Have you lost your mind?!”
Brenda shrieked, clawing at my sleeve: “How dare you speak to my dying son like this?!
He is leaving his legacy to his flesh and blood!
Arthur, call the hospital security!
Remove this jealous woman from his room!”
Arthur Sterling-Vance Junior stepped forward, puffing out his tailored chest:
“Mrs.
Vance, as Victor’s personal counsel and executor of record, I must warn you that any attempt to cloud the title of these executed deeds constitutes tortious interference with an estate.
Victor held those eight parcels under an un-indexed Delaware limited partnership.
The titles are clear.
The deed transfers are certified.”
“The titles are not clear, Arthur,” Colonel Clara Eleanor Mercer answered.
I did not raise my voice.
I reached up with both hands, unbuttoning the civilian navy-blue wool blazer I wore over my shoulders.
I slipped the blazer off, letting the fabric drop to the linoleum floorboards with a soft, heavy *FLUMP*:
*FLUMP.*
Beneath the civilian coat, I was not wearing a mourning dress.
I wore an immaculate, tailored **Navy Auxiliary Officer Service Uniform**—the midnight-blue wool jacket pristine, the solid-silver cast eagles of a **Full Colonel in the United States Army** gleaming on my shoulder epaulets, five dense rows of combat decorations covering my left breast: the Legion of Merit with two oak leaf clusters, the Bronze Star Medal with Combat ‘V’ device, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Purple Heart with gold star, and the Combat Action Ribbon.
Pinned to my left collar was an unpolished, circular piece of hand-machined naval phosphor-bronze: an antique surveyor’s transit pin, its miniature brass vernier scale etched with micro-graduations that looked like an artillery fire-control dial:
`USN-44-MERCER-CONDUIT-TEN`
`MASTER CHANCERY AUDITOR: COLONEL CLARA ELEANOR MERCER`
`COMMISSION: DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL INFRASTRUCTURE INTERDICTION`
`UNITED STATES ARMY SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND`
Strapped to my left wrist, advancing with that deliberate, unhurried sixty-cycle cadence:
*tack… tack… tack…*
Was Chief Master Surveyor Arthur Mercer Senior’s restored **1956 Admiralty Gold Chronometer**.
Arthur Junior’s jaw dropped.
The Montblanc pen slipped from his manicured fingers, clattering loudly against the chrome bed rail before bouncing into the trash bin:
*CLATTER.*
“A… a full Colonel…?”
