“Two of them. Emily was the other.” Haley looked at the paper. “It broke down this way. Millicent owned forty-seven percent, Jason owned forty-five, the Stampses had four, two each, and Emily had four. The Stampses and Emily paid $2,500 for each of their shares. Like a present, considering what they were investing in.”

“Eight shares doesn’t sound like enough to shake a stick at, let alone make a difference,” Mary Alice said.

“Sure it would, Aunt Sister. Neither Millicent nor Jason could do anything without the consent of at least one of the others. Jason had to have both of the others. Millicent was real smart in that deal.”

“Plus, the other three were her close friends,” I said.

Frances looked puzzled. “I thought they were all friends. I’m getting all these people confused,” she added.

“They were Millicent’s friends first,” Sister explained.

Frances nodded as if that had cleared things up.

“Anyway,” Haley said, “with Millicent and Emily dead, fifty-one percent of the shares revert to the corporation, which now consists of only Jason, Eddie, and Laura.”

We were all quiet for a moment, absorbing this information. Then Frances spoke up. “Does this mean that Eddie and Laura get four percent of the fifty-one? How much would that be?”

“Go figure,” Sister said.

“That sounds reasonable, but that’s not how it worked. The way it was set up, if Millicent died, Jason would receive six of her shares, which would make him the majority stockholder. The rest would go to the Stampses and Emily Peacock, half and half.”

“Isn’t that a strange way to do it?” Sister asked.

“Common business practice.” My daughter was proving the adage about a little knowledge.

“Now I am confused,” Frances said. “Who owns what?”

“Eddie and Laura Stamps own a piss pot of real estate, Frances, that they paid ten thousand dollars for,” Sister said.

“That about sums it up,” Haley agreed. There was a knock on the door, and she put the papers on the coffee table and got up. “I expect that’s Major Bissell. He was at the courthouse looking up the same thing. That’s when he told me he was reading tonight. We’re going to lunch.”

“Well, do,” I murmured to Sister.

Major Bissell came in with a grin on his round, babyish face. “Hey, ladies. Mrs. Crane, I heard you and I are going to be the readers tonight.”

“How about that? I wondered where you were this morning.”

“Had to do some work.” He nodded toward the papers on the coffee table. “Some interesting stuff there, isn’t it?”

“About like a spider web,” Sister agreed.

“Best story plots in the world are at the courthouse. No way you could spend much time there and have writer’s block.” He turned to Haley. “The Crab Trap suit you?”

“Fine.”