Chapter 10 - The Notary's Missing Book
The woman waiting by the pantry's donation bins looked barely thirty. She wore a raincoat despite the dry weather and held a leather bag tight against her body.
“My name's June Mercer,” she said. “I don't want to get arrested.”
I called Mara before saying another word. She told me not to interview June alone. “I never met you,” June said. “Vanessa came to me with paperwork and an elderly woman's identification. She said you couldn't travel and had signed in front of a different witness.”
“Then why did you stamp it?” Adrian asked over speakerphone.
June began crying. “I was wrong. I knew it. She told me her father could get me work, and she paid me five hundred dollars. Later she asked me to make a power of attorney look like it was done the same day.”
My knees felt weak, but I kept my voice level. “Do you have records?”
“Some. Vanessa took the journal page after she said there was a typo. I kept a picture because I thought something wasn't right.”
She slid her phone onto the desk. The image showed a notary entry with my name, a photocopied signature, and a thumbprint box left blank. Worse, a tiny note in the margin read: client not present.
Mara told June to preserve her phone and journal, seek counsel immediately, and provide the material through proper channels. Whatever she had done, we would not try to clean it up over coffee.
Twenty minutes later he forwarded us a revised financing packet.
There it was: a second document bearing my name. Not only had I supposedly given Daniel power to pledge the buildings, I had supposedly authorized a $1.8 million distribution to his personal account.
At the bottom of the distribution request was the signature of the person who had initiated it.
May you like
Daniel Hartwell.
My son had not merely watched his wife forge my name. He had signed his own beneath it.
