My older sister cleared out our parents’ storage unit while I was at a foster-care court hearing, and the inventory list in my work bag matched every box she said had never existed.

My older sister cleared out our parents’ storage unit while I was at a foster-care court hearing, and the inventory list in my work bag matched every box she said had never existed.

My name is Vivian Dunbar.

I am thirty-three years old.

I am a foster-care social worker at Sacramento County Child and Family Services, employed at the Mason Street office on Mason Street in downtown Sacramento, California, for seven years and four months as of last Tuesday.

I hold a Master of Social Work from the University of California, Davis, conferred on the second Friday of June of 2018.

I hold California Board of Behavioral Sciences Associate Clinical Social Worker license number 91841, active since the third Wednesday of August of 2018.

I have forty-one active dependency-court cases on my caseload as of last Friday’s intake-board meeting.

I do approximately two hundred home visits per calendar year.

I have signed and filed three thousand four hundred and one Sacramento County dependency-court reports in my own handwriting since the autumn of 2018.

I live in a small one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a four-unit building at 411 Pine Avenue in midtown Sacramento, four blocks from the Mason Street office.

I drive a 2014 Toyota Prius with one hundred and forty-eight thousand miles on the odometer.

My mother Estela Dunbar passed away on the second Friday of August of last year at the age of sixty-eight at the Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento from complications of stage-four pancreatic cancer.

My father Rufus Dunbar passed away in the autumn of 2014 at the age of sixty-three from a heart attack at his shift at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory machine shop.

My mother’s estate has been in probate at the Sacramento County Superior Court probate calendar since the third Friday of September of last year — fourteen months.

My older sister Wanda Dunbar-Fenton is the court-appointed executor of our mother’s estate.

Wanda is thirty-eight years old.

Wanda is a regional manager at a chain of Verizon Wireless stores in San Joaquin County.

Wanda lives on Sutter Avenue in Stockton, California, with her husband Greg Fenton, forty-one, an HVAC installation contractor, and their two daughters Brielle, eleven, and Maise, nine.

I have a small black flexible-cover Moleskine notebook in the inside left pocket of my Vera Bradley work-bag tote.

The notebook is a one-hundred-and-ninety-two-page lined Moleskine I bought at the University of California, Davis, bookstore on the second Saturday of August of 2018 for nineteen dollars and forty-eight cents.

The notebook has my dependency-court intake notes from 2018 through last week in my own handwriting on the first one-hundred-and-twenty-eight pages.

The notebook has a separate section on the last sixty-four pages with a small heading on page one-hundred-and-twenty-nine that reads in my own hand: “DUNBAR FAMILY — ESTELA & RUFUS — STORAGE UNIT INVENTORY.”

The Estela-and-Rufus storage-unit inventory section was started on the second Saturday of March of 2019.

On the second Saturday of March of 2019, my mother Estela Dunbar — then sixty-two, four years widowed, and starting to have small memory lapses with where she had put her late husband’s tools — had asked me to come to her apartment on Folsom Boulevard in Sacramento for a Saturday afternoon to “help go through things in the storage unit.”

The storage unit was at the U-Haul Moving and Storage facility on Fruitridge Road in south Sacramento, ten miles from the Folsom Boulevard apartment.

The storage unit was a five-by-ten-foot interior climate-controlled unit, unit number C-411, that my parents had rented continuously since the second Saturday of August of 1994.

On the second Saturday of March of 2019, my mother and I had spent six hours at unit C-411 from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon.

I had photographed and inventoried every box and loose item in the unit.

The inventory was forty-one numbered entries with item descriptions, dimensions, condition notes, and small Polaroid-style printer-photographs of each item taped or inserted into the notebook sleeves.

The inventory entries included: my mother’s wedding china — a forty-eight-piece Lenox Springbrook pattern from 1981, item entry number eight; my father’s merchant-marine memorabilia from his nineteen-fifty-six-through-nineteen-sixty-two service — item entries nineteen through twenty-six; my grandfather Rance Dunbar’s Winchester Model 70 .30-06 rifle and his Marlin Model 39A .22 lever-action — item entries twenty-eight and twenty-nine; my mother’s 1948 Singer Featherweight 221 antique sewing machine in its original black case — item entry thirty-one; a small velvet jewelry box of my grandmother Mavis Dunbar’s costume pearls — item entry thirty-two; and a small white-velvet-lined ring box holding my father Rufus Dunbar’s mother-of-pearl-handled Russell Barlow pocket knife from his merchant-marine service — item entry number thirty-four.

Item entry number thirty-four read in my own hand at three-eleven in the afternoon on the second Saturday of March of 2019: “MOP pocket knife (Russell Barlow, R. Dunbar service) — small white velvet ring box — initials ‘R.D.’ on brass bolster — sharpened — Polaroid attached — in unit.”

The Polaroid of the mother-of-pearl pocket knife was taped to the south margin of the notebook page at three-twelve.

Wanda Dunbar-Fenton does not know the Moleskine notebook exists.

On the Tuesday afternoon of the third week of October, at three-eleven in the afternoon, I had walked out of the Sacramento County Juvenile Court Dependency Court courtroom on Power Inn Road after a three-hour disposition hearing on case number Sac-CWS-2024-04181 — a six-year-old foster boy named Quinten whose biological mother had requested a thirty-six-month reunification plan extension.

The hearing was conducted before Judge Hester Krayenbuhl.

I had given two hours of testimony.

I had submitted a forty-eight-page case file in my own handwriting.

I walked to my Prius in the courthouse parking lot at three-twenty-six.

I sat in the driver’s seat at three-twenty-seven.

The phone in the center console rang at three-twenty-eight.

The screen read WANDA DUNBAR-FENTON MOBILE.

I picked up at three-twenty-nine.

Wanda said, on the speakerphone of her 2021 Lincoln Nautilus on Interstate 5 northbound somewhere between Stockton and Sacramento, in the tired-executor voice she had been using since the third Friday of September of last year: “Vivian.

The storage unit was empty when I went to clear it out.

Mom must have given everything away years ago.

There was nothing in there.

Honestly it came as a relief — one less thing.

I closed the U-Haul account with the manager at two-eleven this afternoon.

The unit is closed.

I will be in touch about the rest of the probate paperwork.”

I said: “Wanda. The storage unit was empty.”

Wanda said: “Vivian. Empty. There was a small pile of empty cardboard boxes in the southwest corner. I broke those down for the recycling bin. There was a small black plastic garbage bag with some of Dad’s old work coveralls — I dropped those at the Goodwill on Fruitridge. That was it. Mom must have donated everything years ago. Probably the time she had her first round of chemo in 2021. She was getting her affairs in order. I am driving back to Stockton. Greg has the girls at soccer.”

Wanda hung up at three-thirty-two.

I held the phone in my right hand at the driver’s seat of the Prius.

I reached into the inside left pocket of the Vera Bradley tote at three-thirty-three.

I lifted out the small black flexible-cover Moleskine notebook.

I opened the notebook to page one-hundred-and-twenty-nine at three-thirty-four.

I read item entry number eight at the top of page one-hundred-and-thirty-one: “LENOX SPRINGBROOK 48-PC CHINA SET — 1981 — original Lenox boxes — IN UNIT.”

The Polaroid of the china set in its three Lenox boxes was taped to the south margin of the page.

I read item entry number twenty-eight on page one-hundred-and-thirty-three: “Winchester Model 70 .30-06 — R. Dunbar service rifle, 1958 manufacture — Marlin 39A .22 lever-action — both in original cases — IN UNIT.”

The Polaroid of the rifles in their original Pachmayr cases was taped to the south margin.

I read item entry number thirty-four on page one-hundred-and-thirty-four: “MOP pocket knife (Russell Barlow, R. Dunbar service) — small white velvet ring box — initials ‘R.D.’ on brass bolster — sharpened — Polaroid attached — in unit.”

The Polaroid of the mother-of-pearl pocket knife in the small white-velvet-lined ring box was taped to the south margin.

I closed the notebook at three-thirty-eight.

I started the Prius at three-thirty-nine.

I drove from the Power Inn Road courthouse north on Highway 99 to my apartment on Pine Avenue at three-fifty-eight.

I sat at the small round oak kitchen table in my apartment at four-oh-six.

I opened the Moleskine to a blank page at the back of the notebook.

I wrote in pen on the blank page at four-oh-eight in the afternoon: “WANDA — 22 OCT — 3:28 PM — UNIT EMPTY — INVENTORY 41 ITEMS UNACCOUNTED — POLAROIDS IN SLEEVE.”

I closed the notebook.

Lou Nguyen was thirty-four years old.

Lou had been my best friend since the second Monday of September of 2016, the first day of orientation at the UC Davis MSW program on the Sacramento campus.

Lou was a court-appointed special advocate and guardian ad litem on the Sacramento County Volunteer Guardian-ad-Litem roster.

Lou lived on T Street in midtown Sacramento, six blocks from my Pine Avenue apartment.

I lifted the phone off the kitchen table at four-fourteen.

I dialed Lou Nguyen.

On the third Saturday of August of 2008, at six-eleven in the morning, a 2003 Toyota 4Runner with California plate 4DUN-528 pulled up to the curb at 411 Pine Avenue in midtown Sacramento where I had been living for two months with my mother Estela Dunbar at the Folsom Boulevard apartment seven miles east.

Wanda was twenty-one in the summer of 2008.

Wanda was a junior at California State University Stanislaus in Turlock, a hundred miles south of Sacramento.

Wanda had driven north on Highway 99 the previous evening.

Wanda was wearing a faded pair of khaki cargo shorts, a maroon CSU Stanislaus Warriors sweatshirt, and a pair of Birkenstock Arizona sandals.

I was eighteen in the summer of 2008.

I was scheduled to begin my freshman year at the University of California, Davis, on the second Monday of September of 2008.

I had a small Subaru wagon’s worth of duffel bags and milk crates on the curb at six-fourteen.

Wanda walked from the 4Runner across the curb to me at six-sixteen.

Wanda said: “Vivian. Throw your stuff in the back. We are going to the UC Davis bookstore at seven-eleven. The textbook charge is on my card. You are not paying for textbooks the first semester.”

I said: “Wanda. I did not ask for that.”

Wanda said: “Vivian. You did not ask. Mom would want us to look out for each other. She has been at Mercy General for the colon scope two days a week for three months. Dad is in Livermore till Friday. You are not paying for textbooks the first semester. Throw your stuff in the back.”

I heard, on the curb at 411 Pine Avenue at six-sixteen in the morning on the third Saturday of August of 2008, that my older sister was actively choosing the role.

I have heard that sentence for seventeen years.

The UC Davis bookstore at the Memorial Union charged eight hundred and forty-one dollars and forty-eight cents to Wanda’s Bank of America Visa credit card at seven-thirty-eight in the morning on the third Saturday of August of 2008 for ten paperback textbooks, two clothbound textbooks, a small clear-plastic UC Davis-Aggies-branded three-ring binder, a fifty-pack of Bic Round Stic ballpoint pens, and a small Aggies-Blue UC Davis sweatshirt.

The receipt was on the dashboard of the 4Runner at seven-forty-six.

The textbooks smelled of new paper.

I have signed and filed three thousand four hundred and one Sacramento County dependency-court reports in my own handwriting since the third Wednesday of August of 2018.

I have carried the small black Moleskine notebook in the inside left pocket of my Vera Bradley work-bag tote on every one of the three thousand four hundred and one filings.

The Moleskine has been with me at every Sacramento County Juvenile Dependency Court hearing on Power Inn Road.

The Moleskine has been with me at every Sacramento County Family Therapeutic Court hearing.

The Moleskine has been with me at every home visit to the foster homes in north Sacramento, Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights, Carmichael, Arden Arcade, Florin, Elk Grove, Galt, Wilton, Sloughhouse, and Antelope.

The Moleskine has been with me at every emergency police response to a child-welfare hotline call at three in the morning on a Tuesday or a Saturday or a Sunday.

On the second Monday of January of 2023, at ten-oh-six in the morning, I was at the Sacramento County Juvenile Dependency Court in courtroom four on Power Inn Road for the emergency-detention hearing of a fourteen-month-old girl named Etta whose biological father had been arrested for methamphetamine possession at two in the morning at a Folsom Boulevard motel and whose biological mother could not be located.

The hearing was conducted before Judge Pavel Hightower.

I had inventoried the contents of Etta’s diaper bag in the back seat of the patrol car at three-eleven in the morning — a small board book by Sandra Boynton, a half-empty bottle of warm formula, three diapers, a small pink onesie, a baby blanket with embroidery reading “ETTA — 9/14,” and a small green plastic teething ring.

I had read the inventory aloud at the ten-oh-six hearing.

The board book, the blanket, and the teething ring went home with Etta to a foster placement on the Carmichael side.

The inventory is what stayed with Etta.

On the Wednesday afternoon of the fourth week of October, at one-eleven in the afternoon, I drove the Prius south on Highway 99 to the U-Haul Moving and Storage facility on Fruitridge Road in south Sacramento with Lou Nguyen in the passenger seat.

Lou had a 2019 Mead steno pad on Lou’s lap.

Lou had a Pilot G2 black-ink rollerball pen in the right hand.

The U-Haul facility had a small one-story stucco office at the south end of the property and four long climate-controlled storage corridors running east-west.

The manager on duty was a forty-eight-year-old man named Hector Lujan-Reyna who had been at the facility since 2019.

I said at the manager’s desk at one-twenty-eight: “Hector.

My name is Vivian Dunbar.

I am the second next-of-kin and a co-beneficiary on the Estela Dunbar Estate at the Sacramento County Superior Court probate calendar.

Unit C-411 was rented continuously by my parents from the second Saturday of August of 1994 to last Tuesday at two-eleven in the afternoon.

My older sister Wanda Dunbar-Fenton closed the unit last Tuesday.

I would like a copy of the access logs for unit C-411 for the last twelve months and any security-camera footage of the unit door and the unit interior for that period.”

Hector pulled the access logs on the manager’s monitor at one-thirty-one.

Hector said at one-thirty-six: “Vivian.

Unit C-411 had thirty-eight access events over the past twelve months.

Wanda Dunbar-Fenton swiped in to the facility on her access fob fourteen times.

The most recent fourteen visits were: the second Saturday of August, the second Sunday of August, the third Saturday of August, the third Sunday of August, the fourth Saturday of August, the second Saturday of September, the third Saturday of September, the fourth Saturday of September, the first Saturday of October, the second Saturday of October, the third Saturday of October, last Sunday, last Monday, and last Tuesday.

Each visit was between two-eleven in the afternoon and five-eleven in the afternoon.

The visits the second Saturday of August through the third Saturday of September showed a U-Haul 10-foot moving truck rental at the time of the visit.

Greg Fenton was the named driver on three of the truck rentals.

A 2019 Ford F-150 with California plate 8K-FN-STK was on the property on six of the visits.

The F-150 is not registered to U-Haul.

The F-150 belongs to a Stockton estate-and-collectibles dealer named Caldwell Tarleton at the Tarleton Pickers Estate Liquidators warehouse on Charter Way in south Stockton.”

Hector pulled the security-camera footage at one-fifty-one.

The footage from the second Saturday of August at three-fourteen in the afternoon showed Wanda Dunbar-Fenton and Greg Fenton loading nine cardboard boxes from unit C-411 into a U-Haul 10-foot moving truck over a one-hour-and-eleven-minute period.

The footage from the third Saturday of August at two-twenty-eight in the afternoon showed Wanda Dunbar-Fenton and a sixty-eight-year-old man in a navy Tarleton Pickers Estate Liquidators baseball cap loading the two Pachmayr rifle cases — the Winchester Model 70 and the Marlin 39A — into the bed of a 2019 Ford F-150 over an eighteen-minute period.

The footage from the second Saturday of September at three-oh-six showed Wanda Dunbar-Fenton handing the Lenox Springbrook china set in three Lenox boxes to the same sixty-eight-year-old man.

The footage from the third Saturday of September at two-forty-one showed Wanda Dunbar-Fenton handing the 1948 Singer Featherweight 221 sewing machine in its original black case to the same man.

Lou wrote in the Mead steno pad: “Wanda 14 visits.

Greg 3 truck rentals.

Caldwell Tarleton — Tarleton Pickers — Stockton — 6 visits.

Polaroid items 8, 28, 29, 31 confirmed handed off on camera.

Need: small items — knife, jewelry, coins.”

I said at the manager’s desk at two-fourteen: “Hector.

A printout of the access logs for the past twelve months.

A copy of the security-camera footage on a USB-C thumb drive for the same period.

The legal-discovery price for both.”

Hector said: “Vivian. The legal-discovery price is two hundred and eighty-eight dollars. The printout and the thumb drive will be at the manager’s desk by four this afternoon.”

I paid Hector two hundred and eighty-eight dollars in cash from my purse at two-sixteen.

Lou and I sat in the Prius at the manager’s parking lot at two-twenty-eight.

Lou said: “Vivian. Deborah Marsh on Capitol Mall handles probate restitution motions. Deborah handled the Pham estate-restitution case last spring. Deborah returns Sacramento Bar phone calls within forty minutes.”

I dialed Deborah Marsh from the Prius at two-thirty-one.

Deborah returned the call at three-oh-eight.

I had a Friday-morning appointment scheduled at nine with Deborah at her office in the Esquire Plaza building on Capitol Mall.

Lou and I drove from the U-Haul facility north on Highway 99 to my apartment on Pine Avenue at three-fifty-eight.

I sat at the small round oak kitchen table at four-eleven.

I opened the Moleskine to the blank page at the back of the notebook.

I wrote in pen at four-fourteen: “U-HAUL ACCESS LOGS — 14 WANDA VISITS — CALDWELL TARLETON, TARLETON PICKERS, STOCKTON — 6 VISITS.

ITEMS 8 / 28 / 29 / 31 CONFIRMED ON CAMERA HANDOFF.

ITEMS 32 / 34 — UNCONFIRMED PENDING TARLETON SUBPOENA.”

On the Friday morning of the fourth week of October, at nine-oh-two, I walked into the Esquire Plaza building at 1215 K Street on Capitol Mall in downtown Sacramento with the small black Moleskine notebook in the inside left pocket of the Vera Bradley work-bag tote, the U-Haul access-log printout and security-camera USB-C thumb drive in a brown manila envelope in the main pocket of the tote, and a small ten-thousand-dollar cashier’s check for the retainer in the inside zipper pocket of the tote.

Deborah Marsh’s office was on the eighth floor at the south end of the corridor.

Deborah was forty-eight.

Deborah held a California Bar license since 2003.

Deborah had handled one hundred and eighty-eight Sacramento County probate restitution cases since 2010.

Deborah’s paralegal Mae Castellanos walked me to Deborah’s office at nine-oh-six.

Deborah stood up at the small round walnut conference table at the south window with the Sacramento River and the Tower Bridge visible behind her.

Deborah said: “Vivian. Please sit. Coffee, water, or tea.”

I said: “Deborah. Coffee, black.”

Mae brought a small white cup of black coffee at nine-oh-nine.

I opened the Moleskine on the table.

I opened the U-Haul access-log printout beside the Moleskine.

I plugged the USB-C thumb drive into Deborah’s MacBook Pro at the south end of the table.

I said: “Deborah. My older sister Wanda Dunbar-Fenton was court-appointed executor of our mother Estela Dunbar’s estate at the Sacramento County Superior Court probate calendar fourteen months ago. The estate includes a U-Haul Moving and Storage interior climate-controlled unit C-411 at the Fruitridge Road facility, rented continuously from the second Saturday of August of 1994 to last Tuesday at two-eleven in the afternoon. My March 2019 Moleskine inventory of the unit holds forty-one entries with Polaroid photographs. The U-Haul access logs and security-camera footage show fourteen Wanda visits between the second Saturday of August and last Tuesday, with three U-Haul truck rentals and six visits by a sixty-eight-year-old man driving a 2019 Ford F-150 registered to Caldwell Tarleton of Tarleton Pickers Estate Liquidators on Charter Way in south Stockton. I have identified four high-value inventory items on the security-camera handoff footage: the Lenox Springbrook china, two Pachmayr-cased rifles, and a 1948 Singer Featherweight 221. Wanda told me on the Tuesday afternoon at three-twenty-eight that the unit was empty when she went to clear it out, that our mother must have given everything away years ago, that the empty unit came as a relief to her. I would like an estate-restitution motion at the Sacramento County Superior Court probate calendar, removal of Wanda as executor, a Tarleton Pickers subpoena, and a public-listings audit of the Tarleton Pickers website.”

Deborah read the Moleskine, the access-log printout, and four hours of the security-camera footage at sixteen-times speed over forty-one minutes.

Deborah said at nine-fifty-eight: “Vivian.

California Probate Code section 8400 covers executor breach of fiduciary duty.

Probate Code section 9601 covers the executor’s accounting and inventory obligation.

Probate Code section 859 covers double damages for an executor who took estate property in bad faith.

The Wanda visits and the Caldwell Tarleton handoffs document a clear breach.

The estate-restitution motion and removal-of-executor motion will be filed at the Sacramento County Superior Court probate calendar by close of business on the Wednesday after this one.

The Tarleton Pickers subpoena will go out on the same day.

California civil discovery requires Tarleton Pickers to respond within thirty days.

The public-listings audit on the Tarleton Pickers website starts this afternoon.

Mae will run the audit.

The retainer is ten thousand dollars.

The probate hearing will be scheduled for the third Wednesday of December at ten in the morning.”

I signed the retainer at ten-eleven with the cashier’s check.

Mae called my apartment at four-eleven in the afternoon.

Mae said: “Vivian. The Tarleton Pickers website at tarletonpickers-dot-com has a public storefront with one hundred and forty-eight current listings. The site is run on a Shopify back-end with public URLs and time-stamped listing creation dates. I have screen-captured every listing as of three-fifty-eight in the afternoon. The capture is in a small password-protected Dropbox folder at the firm. Twenty-eight of the one hundred and forty-eight listings have creation dates between the second Saturday of August and last Friday — the same window as Wanda’s fourteen U-Haul visits. Eleven of the twenty-eight listings have item descriptions that match your Moleskine inventory.”

Mae read the eleven matching listings.

The first listing read: “LENOX SPRINGBROOK 48-PIECE CHINA SET (1981) — original Lenox boxes — pristine — local Sacramento estate — $1,840.”

The second read: “WINCHESTER MODEL 70 .30-06 BOLT-ACTION RIFLE (1958, original Pachmayr case) — local Sacramento estate — $2,200.”

The third read: “MARLIN 39A .22 LEVER-ACTION RIFLE (original Pachmayr case) — local Sacramento estate — $1,100.”

The fourth read: “1948 SINGER FEATHERWEIGHT 221 SEWING MACHINE (original black case, attachments) — local Sacramento estate — $1,290.”

The fifth read: “MERCHANT MARINE MOTHER-OF-PEARL POCKET KNIFE (Russell Barlow, MOP, brass bolster, initials ‘R.D.’) — local Sacramento estate — $185.”

I sat at the round oak kitchen table at four-eighteen.

I opened the Moleskine to page one-hundred-and-thirty-four.

I read item entry number thirty-four: “MOP pocket knife (Russell Barlow, R. Dunbar service) — small white velvet ring box — initials ‘R.D.’ on brass bolster — sharpened — Polaroid attached — in unit.”

I lifted the Polaroid out of the south-margin sleeve at four-twenty.

I held the Polaroid beside the laptop showing the Tarleton Pickers listing photograph at four-twenty-one.

The Polaroid showed a small mother-of-pearl-handled pocket knife in a small white-velvet-lined ring box, three and one-eighth inches closed, with the brass bolster engraved “R.D.” for Rufus Dunbar, on a small grey fabric photo-board background.

The Tarleton Pickers listing photograph showed the same knife with the same brass-bolster initials on a black-velvet display cushion on a wooden side-board.

The knife in the Polaroid was item entry number thirty-four.

The knife in the listing was the same knife.

The listing price was one hundred and eighty-five dollars.

I wrote in pen at the back of the Moleskine at four-twenty-six: “TARLETON PICKERS — 11 LISTINGS MATCH — ITEM 34 LIVE AT $185 — TOTAL LISTING SUM $26,041.”

I closed the Moleskine.

On the Tuesday afternoon of the first week of November, at two-eleven, Mae forwarded a single email to my Sacramento County CWS work account from a fifty-six-year-old woman in Lodi named Marielle Fenton.

Marielle was Greg Fenton’s mother — Wanda’s mother-in-law.

The email read: “Deborah Marsh.

My name is Marielle Fenton.

Greg Fenton is my son.

Wanda Dunbar-Fenton is my daughter-in-law.

I have been at Greg and Wanda’s house on Sutter Avenue in Stockton on six occasions in the past nine weeks for Sunday dinners and the granddaughters’ birthdays.

I have seen the following items at Greg and Wanda’s house at various points in the past nine weeks: the Lenox Springbrook china set in the dining-room hutch — three of the boxes in the garage, the Winchester Model 70 in Greg’s gun safe in the basement, the Marlin 39A in Greg’s gun safe in the basement, the 1948 Singer Featherweight 221 in the upstairs hallway on a small mahogany side-table, and a small white-velvet-lined ring box on the living-room coffee table with what looked like a small pocket knife inside.

I have small Samsung Galaxy phone photographs of each item taken on the dates of my visits.

I attach the photographs.

I am prepared to testify under oath in any California probate proceeding.

Greg is my son.

I love my granddaughters.

I am ashamed of what I have seen.

I do not want my son to lose his marriage, but I will not lie for Wanda about the items.

Marielle Fenton.”

I read the email three times.

Mae attached the six Samsung Galaxy phone photographs to the email.

The fifth photograph showed the small white-velvet-lined ring box on a brown wood-grain Crate and Barrel coffee table at Greg and Wanda’s Sutter Avenue living room with the mother-of-pearl pocket knife inside.

The sixth photograph showed the same pocket knife in Greg’s hand at the soccer field at Stockton’s Pixley Park on the third Saturday of September, opened at the blade.

I forwarded the email and the six photographs to Deborah Marsh at two-twenty-eight.

Deborah replied at two-thirty-one: “Vivian.

Marielle Fenton’s photographs are filed as Exhibit C of the probate motion this afternoon.

The motion is on the third Wednesday of December calendar.

The Tarleton Pickers subpoena was served at the Charter Way warehouse at noon today.

Caldwell Tarleton’s response is due by the second Tuesday of December.

The third Wednesday of December at ten in the morning at courtroom forty of the Sacramento County Superior Court probate calendar — block your schedule.”

I blocked my schedule for the third Wednesday of December at ten in the morning at courtroom forty.

I lifted the Moleskine off the kitchen table.

I wrote at the back of the Moleskine in pen at two-thirty-six: “MARIELLE FENTON — STOCKTON — 6 PHOTOGRAPHS — ITEM 34 CONFIRMED AT GREG-AND-WANDA HOUSE.

HEARING — 17 DEC — COURTROOM 40.”

On the third Wednesday of December, at nine-fifty-eight, I parked the Prius in the public parking garage at 720 Ninth Street one block north of the Sacramento County Superior Court Probate Courthouse at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse at 720 Ninth Street.

I carried the small black Moleskine notebook in the inside left pocket of the Vera Bradley work-bag tote, the U-Haul access-log printout, the security-camera USB-C thumb drive, the Tarleton Pickers public-listings audit packet, and Marielle Fenton’s six Samsung Galaxy photographs in the main pocket of the tote.

I walked into courtroom forty on the fourth floor at ten-oh-one.

The presiding probate judge was the Honorable Sloan Hartzberg, a sixty-one-year-old appointee of the California governor with a small black wooden gavel on the bench.

The probate calendar clerk was a thirty-four-year-old woman named Stevia Pallesen at the clerk’s desk to the right of the bench.

The court reporter was a fifty-eight-year-old man named Earl Norquist at the small steno machine.

Deborah Marsh was at the petitioner’s table at the west side of the courtroom at ten-oh-two with Mae Castellanos.

I sat at the petitioner’s table at ten-oh-four.

Wanda Dunbar-Fenton was at the respondent’s table at the east side of the courtroom at ten-oh-four.

Wanda wore a charcoal pantsuit, a cream silk blouse, and a pair of small pearl earrings.

Wanda’s attorney was a forty-eight-year-old Stockton family-law attorney named Geraldine Trumbull-Gough at the respondent’s table.

Greg Fenton was on the public bench at the south wall of the courtroom.

Judge Hartzberg called the case at ten-oh-six.

Judge Hartzberg said: “In the Matter of the Estate of Estela Mauricia Dunbar. Petitioner’s estate-restitution motion and executor-removal motion. Ms. Marsh — proceed.”

Deborah said: “Your Honor. Petitioner has filed an estate-restitution motion in the amount of twenty-six thousand and forty-one dollars and a removal-of-executor motion against the respondent, Wanda Dunbar-Fenton, the court-appointed executor of the Estate of Estela Mauricia Dunbar, fourteen-month docket. The evidence is as follows. Exhibit A is the petitioner’s March 2019 Moleskine inventory of unit C-411 at the U-Haul Moving and Storage facility on Fruitridge Road, forty-one entries with Polaroid photographs. Exhibit B is the access logs and security-camera footage from unit C-411 for the past twelve months, showing fourteen Wanda visits with three U-Haul truck rentals and six visits by Caldwell Tarleton of Tarleton Pickers Estate Liquidators in Stockton. Exhibit C is Marielle Fenton’s sworn declaration with six Samsung Galaxy photographs documenting estate property at the respondent’s residence on Sutter Avenue in Stockton. Exhibit D is the Tarleton Pickers public-listings audit dated last Tuesday at three-fifty-eight, with twenty-eight listings dated within the August-to-November window and eleven listings matching petitioner’s inventory at a total listing-price sum of twenty-six thousand and forty-one dollars. Exhibit E is the Tarleton Pickers subpoena response received Monday afternoon — eleven sales receipts identifying ‘items received from W. Dunbar’ between the second Saturday of August and the third Saturday of October, totaling twenty-three thousand eight hundred and forty-eight dollars in cash payments from Caldwell Tarleton to Wanda Dunbar-Fenton. Petitioner requests restitution of twenty-six thousand and forty-one dollars under California Probate Code section 859 with double damages provided for an executor acting in bad faith, removal of the respondent as executor, and appointment of a court-administrator co-executor.”

Judge Hartzberg said: “Ms. Trumbull-Gough — respondent’s position.”

Geraldine Trumbull-Gough said: “Your Honor. The respondent’s position is that the petitioner is bringing an emotionally motivated claim to compensate for the decedent’s preference for the respondent over the petitioner.”

Wanda stood up at the respondent’s table at ten-twenty-eight.

Wanda said: “Your honor. My sister is making this about money to compensate for our mother’s preference. My sister was Mom’s favorite from the time my sister was six years old. I was the older daughter. I did the heavy administrative work that nobody else wanted.

I was the executor. The unit was essentially empty when I went to clear it out — a few cardboard boxes, a few Goodwill items, nothing of value. My sister’s so-called inventory was from a Saturday afternoon six years ago when our mother was already showing signs of early-onset dementia.

The Tarleton Pickers receipts are from items I owned personally that I had been clearing out from my own home in Stockton during the same window. The Marielle Fenton photographs are from a mother-in-law who has had a difficult relationship with me for fourteen years and who is taking this opportunity to score points. Your honor — the unit was essentially empty.”

Judge Hartzberg said: “Ms. Marsh — petitioner’s response.”

Deborah said: “Your Honor. Three responses. One — the petitioner’s 2019 inventory was photographed and Polaroid-time-stamped at a time when the decedent was reading a book in the unit’s corner chair and discussing each item by name.

The dementia onset is documented in the decedent’s Mercy General medical records as starting in the autumn of 2022 — three years after the inventory. Two — Caldwell Tarleton’s eleven sales receipts identify ‘items received from W. Dunbar’ by Wanda’s full legal name, not a respondent-from-home generic invoice description.

The Caldwell Tarleton receipts list the eleven specific inventory items by serial number and pattern name — the Lenox Springbrook 1981 service for eight, the Winchester Model 70 manufacturer’s serial 38-Y-4148, the Marlin 39A serial 7K-MJ-411, the 1948 Singer Featherweight 221 serial AL-411-841, and the Russell Barlow mother-of-pearl pocket knife with brass-bolster initials ‘R.D.’ for the decedent’s late husband Rufus Dunbar.

Three — Marielle Fenton’s photographs are time-stamped and geo-tagged at the Sutter Avenue residence in Stockton. The geo-tagged metadata is attached to the Exhibit C declaration.”

Judge Hartzberg read the five exhibits at the bench over thirty-one minutes.

Judge Hartzberg said at eleven-eleven: “The court finds the respondent in breach of fiduciary duty under California Probate Code section 8400, in violation of the executor’s inventory obligation under section 9601, and acting in bad faith under section 859.

The court orders restitution of twenty-six thousand and forty-one dollars to the Estate of Estela Mauricia Dunbar, payable in twelve equal monthly installments of two thousand one hundred and seventy dollars and eight cents commencing the eleventh of January.

The court orders double damages under section 859 of an additional twenty-six thousand and forty-one dollars, payable to the petitioner Vivian Dunbar in twelve equal monthly installments commencing the eleventh of January.

The court orders four thousand two hundred dollars in court costs and attorney fees against the respondent.

The court removes Wanda Dunbar-Fenton as executor of the Estate of Estela Mauricia Dunbar effective today at eleven-eleven.

The court appoints petitioner Vivian Dunbar as co-executor with court-administrator Lyn Vermont effective the second Monday of January.

The court orders Caldwell Tarleton of Tarleton Pickers Estate Liquidators to return the eleven inventory items to the petitioner within thirty days at no cost to the estate.

Tarleton Pickers and Caldwell Tarleton are referred to the California Department of Consumer Affairs for the receipt-of-suspected-stolen-property review.

This court is adjourned.”

Judge Hartzberg gaveled the bench at eleven-twelve.

Wanda walked from the respondent’s table across the courtroom past the petitioner’s table at eleven-fourteen.

Wanda did not look at me.

Wanda walked out of courtroom forty at eleven-fourteen.

Geraldine Trumbull-Gough walked out at eleven-fifteen.

Greg Fenton walked out at eleven-sixteen.

Deborah said at the petitioner’s table at eleven-eighteen: “Vivian.

Caldwell Tarleton will return the eleven items to the Esquire Plaza office by the second Wednesday of January.

The pocket knife will be in the inside-left pocket of your jacket by ten that morning.”

I said: “Deborah. Thank you.”

I lifted the small black Moleskine off the petitioner’s table at eleven-twenty.

I opened the notebook to a blank page at the back.

I wrote in pen at eleven-twenty-one: “PROBATE — 17 DEC — 11:11 AM — RESTITUTION $52,082 — TARLETON 30 DAYS — WANDA REMOVED — CO-EXECUTOR JAN 13.”

I closed the Moleskine.

I walked out of courtroom forty at eleven-twenty-three.

I walked down the staircase to the lobby at eleven-twenty-six.

I walked out of the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse to the public parking garage at 720 Ninth Street at eleven-twenty-eight.

I drove the Prius south on Ninth Street to my Pine Avenue apartment at eleven-forty-six.

I sat at the small round oak kitchen table at noon.

The Moleskine was on the table.

The U-Haul access-log printout was on the table.

The security-camera USB-C thumb drive was on the table.

The Tarleton Pickers public-listings audit packet was on the table.

The Marielle Fenton Samsung Galaxy photographs were on the table.

I lifted the Moleskine.

I opened the notebook to page one-hundred-and-thirty-four.

I read item entry number thirty-four: “MOP pocket knife (Russell Barlow, R. Dunbar service) — small white velvet ring box — initials ‘R.D.’ on brass bolster — sharpened — Polaroid attached — in unit.”

I lifted the Polaroid out of the south-margin sleeve.

I held the Polaroid in my right hand at the kitchen table.

The mother-of-pearl pocket knife was scheduled to be on the Esquire Plaza desk on the second Wednesday of January at ten in the morning.

I set the Polaroid back in the south-margin sleeve at twelve-oh-six.

I closed the Moleskine at twelve-oh-seven.

On the second Wednesday of January, at ten-oh-six in the morning, Mae Castellanos walked me into the small client-conference room at the Esquire Plaza office.

The small round walnut conference table had eleven items arranged on a single large white-cotton cloth.

The Lenox Springbrook forty-eight-piece china set was in its three original Lenox boxes on the west side of the table.

The Winchester Model 70 .30-06 rifle was in its original Pachmayr case at the northwest corner.

The Marlin 39A .22 lever-action rifle was in its original Pachmayr case beside the Winchester.

The 1948 Singer Featherweight 221 was in its original black case at the southwest corner with the original attachment box.

The small white-velvet-lined ring box was at the east side of the table.

I walked across the conference room to the east side of the table at ten-oh-eight.

I opened the small white-velvet-lined ring box.

The mother-of-pearl-handled Russell Barlow pocket knife was inside the white-velvet lining at the center of the box.

The mother-of-pearl handle was three inches long.

The brass bolster was engraved “R.D.” for Rufus Dunbar in small Spencerian-script lettering my father had had cut at the Old Sacramento Brass Engraving shop in the autumn of 1962 — the year he came home from his merchant-marine service.

The Russell Barlow stamp at the back of the brass bolster was clear at one-sixteenth-of-an-inch.

The blade was two and one-quarter inches of polished carbon steel with a clip-point tip.

The blade was sharpened to a small radius bevel.

The blade was oiled with a thin coat of Hoppe’s gun oil.

I lifted the pocket knife out of the white-velvet lining at ten-oh-nine.

I weighed the pocket knife in my right palm for ten seconds.

The handle was cool.

I opened the blade with my right thumb at ten-oh-ten.

The blade locked at the back-spring with a small metal click.

I closed the blade at ten-oh-eleven.

I slipped the pocket knife into the inside left pocket of my black wool work jacket at ten-oh-twelve.

Mae said at the south end of the conference table: “Vivian.

The other ten items will be transferred to the court-administrator co-executor Lyn Vermont at the Sacramento County Probate Office on the third Wednesday of January.

The transfer paperwork is in this folder.”

I said: “Mae. Thank you.”

I walked out of the Esquire Plaza office at ten-twenty-six with the pocket knife in the inside left pocket of the jacket.

I walked to the public parking garage at 1215 K Street at ten-twenty-eight.

I drove the Prius north to the Mason Street CWS office at ten-fifty-one.

I parked in the staff lot at ten-fifty-six.

I walked into the office at ten-fifty-eight.

I sat at my desk in cubicle four-eleven at eleven-oh-two.

I had three new dependency-court case files in the wire-mesh inbox on the desk corner.

The case files were sealed with three small clear-plastic tape strips at the seams.

I lifted the pocket knife out of the inside left pocket of the jacket at eleven-oh-five.

I opened the blade with my right thumb.

I sliced the clear-plastic tape on the first case file at eleven-oh-six.

I sliced the clear-plastic tape on the second case file at eleven-oh-seven.

I sliced the clear-plastic tape on the third case file at eleven-oh-eight.

The cuts were clean.

The blade was sharp.

I closed the blade at eleven-oh-nine.

I slipped the pocket knife back into the inside left pocket of the jacket.

On the Sunday morning of the second weekend of March, at nine-oh-six, I walked down the staircase from the second floor of the four-unit apartment building at 411 Pine Avenue to the small sidewalk in front of the building.

The morning was forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit with a clear pale-blue Sacramento sky.

The Sacramento Valley February rains were behind us.

The Capitol Park ginkgo trees three blocks south on Capitol Mall were budding at the small upper branches.

I wore a pair of black jeans, a dark-grey UC Davis MSW alumni long-sleeve T-shirt, a pair of black New Balance 990v6 sneakers, and the black wool work jacket from the courthouse.

The small mother-of-pearl-handled Russell Barlow pocket knife in the small Russell Barlow brass-bolstered case was in the inside left pocket of the black wool work jacket.

I had carried the pocket knife in the inside left pocket of the jacket every day for the past eight weeks from the second Wednesday of January through this Sunday — fifty-five days.

The pocket knife was three inches long when closed, two and one-quarter inches of carbon-steel blade when open, with the small Russell Barlow stamp at the back of the brass bolster and the Spencerian-script initials “R.D.” at the front of the brass bolster.

The mother-of-pearl handle was three inches long, one-half inch thick, three-eighths of an inch wide at the bolster end and three-quarters of an inch wide at the tip end.

The mother-of-pearl had a small iridescent green-and-pink shimmer in the sunlight from a small north-facing window at my desk in cubicle four-eleven on a Tuesday morning.

The brass bolster was the original 1962 Spencerian-script engraving from the Old Sacramento Brass Engraving shop on Front Street.

The carbon-steel blade was sharpened to a small radius bevel at the leading edge.

The back-spring locked the blade open with a small metal click at one-eighth-of-an-inch tolerance.

The pocket-clip pin had not been on the case in 1962 — the inside left pocket of the work jacket held the case clip-less by a small piece of woven canvas I had sewn into the jacket lining at the south side on the second Saturday of January.

I had used the pocket knife at the desk at cubicle four-eleven on every working morning of the eight weeks to slice the clear-plastic tape on the wire-mesh inbox case files — an average of three to five case files per morning.

The cuts were clean.

The blade was sharp.

The handle did not slip.

I walked east on Pine Avenue at nine-oh-eight in the morning of the Sunday.

I walked south on 16th Street at nine-eleven.

I walked west on Capitol Avenue at nine-fourteen.

The Capitol Mall pho cart at the south side of the small grassy median between 16th and 15th Streets opened at nine in the morning on Sundays.

The cart was operated by a sixty-six-year-old woman named Sao Linh-Vu who had run the cart at the same median since the autumn of 2014.

The cart had a small red-and-white awning and a small clear-acrylic menu board.

I walked up to the cart at nine-sixteen.

Sao Linh-Vu said at the cart window: “Vivian.

Sunday.

Pho ga with extra lime and the small spring roll.”

I said: “Sao. Pho ga, extra lime, small spring roll.”

Sao Linh-Vu handed me the small brown paper bag with the bowl, the spring roll, and a small clear-plastic container of bean sprouts, Thai basil, jalapeno slices, and lime wedges at nine-twenty-one.

I paid Sao Linh-Vu eleven dollars and forty-eight cents in cash from my purse.

I carried the bag east on Capitol Avenue back to 16th Street.

I walked north on 16th Street to Pine Avenue at nine-thirty-one.

I walked up the staircase to the second-floor apartment at nine-thirty-three.

I set the bag on the small round oak kitchen table at nine-thirty-four.

I unpacked the bowl.

I unpacked the spring roll.

I unpacked the bean sprouts, Thai basil, jalapeno slices, and lime wedges.

I ate the pho at the small round oak kitchen table for the next twenty-one minutes.

The Useless Apology letter from Wanda had arrived in the small black metal mailbox at the south wall of the four-unit apartment building’s front porch on the second Tuesday of February at three-eleven in the afternoon.

The envelope had no return address.

The postmark was a Stockton processing facility dated the third Sunday of January.

The handwriting on the envelope was Wanda’s.

I had opened the envelope at the small round oak kitchen table on the second Tuesday of February at three-twenty-eight in the afternoon.

The letter was a single sheet of pale-pink linen-textured stationery.

Wanda had written: “Vivian.

We are still family.

The probate calendar concluded as it concluded.

The court ordered what it ordered.

The Tarleton items have been returned to your custody.

The restitution is being paid on the eleventh of every month through the trust account.

We were always going to disagree about Mom’s things.

The kids miss you.

Brielle asks about her Aunt Vivian on Sundays.

Maise asks about her Aunt Vivian on Tuesdays.

We are still family.

We will be family after this is settled.

Please consider writing the girls before their birthdays in April and June.

We are still family.

Wanda.”

The word “family” was in the letter four times.

The word “we” was in the letter five times.

The word “the kids” was in the letter once.

The phrase “I am sorry” was in the letter zero times.

I had read the letter one time at the small round oak kitchen table at three-thirty-one in the afternoon on the second Tuesday of February standing up at the table.

I had walked from the kitchen table to the inside left pocket of the black wool work jacket on the wooden coat-tree at the south wall of the apartment’s front entry at three-thirty-three.

I had lifted out the small black Moleskine notebook.

I had opened the notebook to page one-hundred-and-thirty-four.

I had filed Wanda’s letter in the south-margin sleeve of the page beside the Polaroid of item entry number thirty-four — the mother-of-pearl pocket knife.

I had closed the Moleskine at three-thirty-six.

I had slipped the Moleskine back into the inside left pocket of the work jacket beside the small white-velvet-lined ring box that held the pocket knife.

I had walked from the front entry to the wire-mesh inbox at the cubicle four-eleven desk on the second Wednesday of February morning at the Mason Street CWS office at seven-eleven.

I had not written Wanda back.

I had sent Brielle a Stratford-style birthday card with a small five-dollar bill on the third Tuesday of April.

The card was returned undeliverable on the second Saturday of May.

I had sent Maise a Stratford-style birthday card with a small five-dollar bill on the second Tuesday of June.

The card was returned undeliverable on the third Saturday of June.

I had stopped sending birthday cards after the second Saturday of June.

Seven years of carrying a notebook into the Sacramento County Juvenile Dependency Court taught me that the case file is the only friend a child has if the parents do not show up at the hearing.

My parents Estela Mauricia Dunbar and Rufus Dunbar did not show up at the probate calendar on the third Wednesday of December because they could not show up.

The Moleskine notebook in the inside left pocket of the work jacket showed up at the probate calendar on the third Wednesday of December at ten in the morning.

The forty-one inventory entries from the second Saturday of March of 2019 showed up at the probate calendar.

The U-Haul access logs showed up.

The Tarleton Pickers public-listings audit showed up.

Marielle Fenton showed up with the six Samsung Galaxy photographs.

The mother-of-pearl pocket knife showed up at the inside left pocket of the work jacket at the small client-conference room of the Esquire Plaza office on the second Wednesday of January at ten in the morning.

The inside left pocket of the work jacket is where I keep the things that have to make it home.

I finished the pho at the small round oak kitchen table at nine-fifty-eight.

I rinsed the bowl at the small kitchen sink with hot water.

I dried my hands on a small white cotton dishtowel.

I walked from the small kitchen sink to the wooden coat-tree at the south wall of the front entry at ten-oh-two.

I lifted the black wool work jacket off the coat-tree.

The small mother-of-pearl-handled Russell Barlow pocket knife was in the inside left pocket of the jacket.

The small black Moleskine notebook was in the inside left pocket of the jacket beside the pocket knife.

I put on the work jacket at ten-oh-three.

I walked out the apartment door at ten-oh-four.

I walked down the staircase to the sidewalk in front of the building at ten-oh-five.

I walked north on Pine Avenue to my Prius at the curb of the apartment building.

I had three Sunday-afternoon home visits on the schedule from eleven in the morning to four in the afternoon — a six-year-old foster boy named Cooper in Carmichael, an eleven-year-old foster girl named Sage in Citrus Heights, and an eight-year-old foster boy named Otis in Antelope.

The pocket knife was in the inside left pocket of the jacket.

The Moleskine was in the inside left pocket of the jacket.

The inside left pocket was where I kept the things that had to make it home.