Chương 7
Benton pulled the visitor chair away from the wall and sat.
"We need to ask you about several loan documents bearing your signature."
My mouth went numb.
Mara's hand closed around the bed rail.
I looked at Ruiz.
"March?"
Benton opened her laptop.
"Some in March."
"Some?"
"There are four."
"Four what?"
"Credit applications secured by marital assets."
I could hear my pulse on the monitor.
"I only know about one."
Benton turned the screen toward me.
The first scanned document showed my name at the bottom.
The signature looked like mine.
Almost.
The J was right.
The H was not.
Leo had copied the version of my signature I used on birthday cards, not the one I used on legal documents.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I pointed.
"That's not mine."
Benton did not react.
"How can you tell?"
"I don't connect those letters when I sign contracts."
"Do you have examples?"
"Taxes."
"Recent?"
"Last year."
"Anything else?"
"Our mortgage."
Ruiz exchanged a look with Benton.
Mara leaned toward the screen.
"You're saying he forged her signature while he was poisoning her?"
Benton closed the laptop slightly.
"We are not saying that."
"I am."
"Mara."
"No, Judith."
She turned to me.
"He made you sick while he borrowed against your house."
My chest tightened.
Benton spoke carefully.
"There may be another issue."
I looked at her.
"What issue?"
"One application includes a notarized acknowledgment."
"So?"
"The notary is Freya Hale."
For a second, I thought Benton had said the wrong name.
"Freya?"
"Yes."
"She notarized my signature?"
"That's what the document states."
Mara let out a breath through her nose.
"Of course she did."
I looked at the screen again.
Freya's name sat beneath mine in a tidy block of typed text, followed by a commission number and an embossed seal that had been flattened into gray pixels by the scan.
"Can she do that?"
Benton folded her hands.
"A notary is not supposed to certify a signature they didn't witness."
"That's not what I asked."
"No."
She glanced at Ruiz.
"She cannot lawfully notarize a forged signature as though she witnessed you sign."
The room went quiet.
I thought about Freya standing in our driveway telling me I could have waited until tomorrow to become paralyzed.
I thought about her carrying my tea tin through a hospital corridor.
I thought about all the times she had called Leo disorganized, careless, too trusting, too soft.
She had always spoken as if she were the adult assigned to clean up his mistakes.
"Did she admit it?"
Ruiz answered.
"She's still being interviewed."
"Did Leo?"
"He's requested an attorney."
Mara gave a humorless laugh.
"That was fast."
"That's his right," Benton said.
"I know."
Mara crossed her arms.
"I can still be annoyed."
I kept staring at Freya's name.
"When was the notarization?"
"March eleventh."
The date hit me before I understood why.
March eleventh.
I had fallen in the shower that morning.
My right knee had buckled while I was rinsing conditioner out of my hair.
I hit the tile hard enough to bruise my shoulder.
Leo had helped me into bed, brought me tea, and told me not to work.
By late afternoon, I could barely keep my eyes open.
That evening he brought papers upstairs.
"March eleventh," I repeated.
Benton watched me.
"What happened that day?"
"I fell."
Mara's head turned toward me.
"In the shower?"
I nodded.
"You told me you slipped."
"I thought I did."
Ruiz pulled out her notebook.
"What else?"
"Leo brought documents to bed."
"What kind?"
"He said insurance."
"Did you sign anything?"
"I don't know."
Benton leaned forward.
"Try not to force the memory."
I shut my eyes.
The bedroom smelled like eucalyptus shampoo and the menthol cream Leo had rubbed on my shoulder.
The curtains were still open because I had been too tired to close them.
Late winter light had gone blue against the wall.
Leo sat beside me with a clipboard.
He said something about premiums.
He had put his finger where I needed to sign.
I saw a black pen in my hand.
Then nothing.
"I remember holding a pen."
Nobody spoke.
"I don't remember signing."
"Were you alert?"
"I thought I was."
"What does that mean?"
"It means everything that month felt foggy."
Benton nodded once.
"That's useful."
"Useful?"
"It helps establish context."
I looked at the document.
"What if I did sign?"
Mara turned sharply.
"Judith."
"I'm asking."
Benton did not rush to reassure me.
"If you signed while impaired, that becomes a different legal question."
"Different how?"
"Capacity, coercion, fraud, disclosure."
"Could I lose the house?"
The question came out before I could stop it.
Mara looked at me.
Benton's expression softened slightly.
"I can't answer that yet."
"That's a terrible answer."
"I know."
"No, really."
My voice started to rise.
"You people keep telling me things that apparently happened to my body and my money and my house, and every answer is maybe."
Ruiz stayed still.
Benton closed the laptop.
"I'd rather give you an incomplete truth than a complete lie."
I looked away.
The sentence irritated me because it was reasonable.
I was tired of reasonable people.
Reasonable people had no good answers.
Leo always had answers.
That had been part of the attraction.
He knew where to park.
He knew which contractor to call.
He knew why the dishwasher made that noise.
He knew why my hands trembled.
He knew why I should stop worrying.
Certainty had felt like competence until I saw what it could hide.
Mara sat on the edge of the visitor chair.
"Can Freya lose her notary commission?"
Benton looked at her.
"Potentially."
"Good."
"Mara."
"What?"
"Stop enjoying this."
She stared at me.
"I am not enjoying this."
"You sounded like you were."
"I sounded like I want consequences."
"That's not the same thing?"
"No."
Her face tightened.
"I want her scared."
I looked at the blanket.
May you like
"That's exactly what I mean."
Mara opened her mouth, then stopped.
