Chapter 6: What Sarah Did Next
Grace called me the following Tuesday at half past ten.
"She made a move," Grace said.
"Faster than I expected."
I was standing at the kitchen window with my coffee.
The geraniums needed water.
I had been meaning to get to them all morning.
"Tell me," I said.
"Sarah contacted a title research company.
They pulled the deed history on your property yesterday."
"Is that legal?"
"Property records are public.
She's looking for anything — a lien, a co-signer, a gap in the chain of title.
Something she can use to complicate your ownership claim." Grace paused.
"She also contacted David's cousin.
A man named Russell."
I knew Russell.
Robert's brother's youngest son.
He had been at our wedding and at Robert's funeral and not much in between.
He sold insurance in a town two hours north and called himself an entrepreneur.
"What does Russell have to do with my house?" I said.
"Sarah is telling people that Robert promised Russell a share of the estate before he d*ed.
That there's a verbal agreement.
She's asking Russell to come forward and support that claim."
The coffee mug was warm in my hands.
I focused on that.
"Robert never promised Russell anything," I said.
"I believe you," Grace said.
"But Sarah is betting that a verbal claim, combined with the power of attorney document, combined with a sympathetic narrative about David being pushed out of his childhood home by a difficult mother, creates enough noise to pressure you into a settlement."
"She wants money."
"She wants the house, or enough of its value to matter.
The legal challenge is the lever.
The goal is to make this expensive and painful enough that you give something up just to make it stop."
I set my coffee down on the counter.
"What do we have?" I said.
"More than she thinks." I could hear Grace turning pages.
"The power of attorney document has a flaw.
The notary who stamped it — her commission had lapsed by eleven days at the time of signing.
The document was notarized by someone who was not legally authorized to perform that function."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"So the document—"
"Is invalid," Grace said.
"Completely.
It cannot be enforced, and attempting to use it in a legal proceeding would expose whoever filed it to a fraud claim."
"David didn't know that," I said.
It wasn't a question.
It wasn't a defense either.
It was just a fact I needed to say out loud.
"Possibly not," Grace said.
"But Sarah's legal contact — the friend who drafted it — absolutely should have known.
An expired notary commission is not an obscure technicality.
It is a fundamental error that no competent legal professional makes accidentally."
"She knew it was invalid," I said.
"That is my strong suspicion," Grace said.
"Which means the document was never intended to win in court.
It was intended to frighten you.
To make you feel vulnerable enough to comply before anyone checked."
I walked to the back door and looked out at the yard.
Robert had planted a rose bush along the fence the summer before he got sick.
It was blooming now — small red clusters, nothing dramatic.
He would have been pleased.
"Grace," I said.
"I want to file the fraud claim."
A brief silence.
"Are you certain?
It will make the family conflict much harder to walk back."
"I'm certain."
"Then I need one more thing from you," she said.
"Do you still have the original envelope the document came in?
The one David brought to the house?"
I thought back to that Sunday afternoon.
David setting the folder on the table.
The envelope it had come in — cream colored, no return address.
I had put it in the recycling bin.
But I had not taken the recycling out that week.
Robert always did Tuesdays, and I still hadn't settled into a new habit.
I walked to the recycling bin in the utility room.
It was there.
"I have it," I said.
"Don't touch it more than you have to," Grace said.
"I'm sending someone this afternoon."
I set the envelope on the counter and looked at it.
A cream-colored rectangle.
No return address.
May you like
Someone had been very careful about that.
Not careful enough.
