"So the ushers own the Sunflower."
"The ushers keep it. The people own it. Cora was particular about that."
"Does Royce Hadley know?"
"He knows about the trust. Everybody does, sort of, the way people know about things that happened before they were paying attention. He's made three offers to the board. Last one was sixty thousand, two years ago." Ansel closed the book. "We voted it down. Seven to two."
"Seven to two." Danny stared at him. "That's it? Nine people?"
"That's who came." Ansel shrugged, a small, terrible shrug. "First few years after Cora died, we'd get a couple hundred. Fill up the first fifteen rows. Folks'd bring pie. Then people get older. They move to Wichita. They get busy. They figure somebody else'll handle it. Last year it was me and Hazel and the Lindahls and Delphine Rourke and Father Ochs from St. Anne's and two of the Bergstrom sisters. Seven." He put the book back in the cabinet and locked it. "And this year Royce isn't making an offer. He doesn't need to. He's got the commission."
"Then what's the point of the meeting?"
Ansel looked at him for a long moment.
"Your year's up August seventeenth," he said. "Hazel told me. Third Saturday in August. Same night." He turned the radio back up. The Royals had lost. "I guess the point is, you'd get to sign the book."
* * *
Royce Hadley came to the duplex on Sunday afternoon.