“Then in whose name is it?”
“The property doesn’t belong to anyone.”
“Why, how ridiculous!” Penny exclaimed. “Doesn’t every piece of land in the world belong to someone?”
“Actually the heirs of Rosanna and Joseph Schulta own this particular property. But there are no heirs.”
“What you say doesn’t make sense to me, Dad.”
“The whole affair is very involved,” Mr. Parker explained. “In tracing back the history of the land, my lawyers found that originally it was owned by Rosanna and Joseph Schulta, an elderly couple, who had no known relatives. They sailed for Germany more than fifty years ago. The ship sank, and presumably they were lost. Their land was never claimed, and somehow the state overlooked the case.”
“But I thought the property had changed hands many times in recent years!”
“Only theoretically. All those records have been falsified.”
“By whom, Dad? Ben Bowman?”
“My lawyers are inclined to think Blake may be at the bottom of it. He is a very shrewd real estate man, and in examining records at the court house, he may have learned about this floating property.”