Chapter 6: The Weight of the Folder
Renee stayed for three hours.
By the time she left, the kitchen table was covered in photographs of documents — transfer records, account statements, a chain of emails between Adam and a man named Garrett whose last name I didn't recognize.
Carol had made a second pot of tea that neither of us touched.
"Who is Garrett?" I asked, holding one of the printed emails.
"I don't know," Renee said.
"He appears in the records starting about eighteen months ago.
The transfers that go to the farm account — some of them move again within a week.
To an account I couldn't trace."
"You tried to trace it?"
"After he started paying me to stay quiet, yes." She looked at the table.
"I was trying to understand what I was being paid to protect."
Carol leaned over the email.
"This one mentions a property sale."
Renee nodded.
"The farm has a back parcel — about forty acres that Adam's father inherited separately from the main property.
According to what I found, Adam listed it for sale eight months ago through a private broker.
His father's name is on the deed.
Adam's signature is on the listing agreement."
The room was quiet for a moment.
"His father didn't sign the listing," I said.
It wasn't a question.
"I don't know," Renee said.
"But the signature on the listing agreement and the signature on the deed look different.
I'm not an expert.
But they look different."
I stacked the documents carefully and put them back in the folder.
After Renee left, Carol and I sat at the table without speaking for a long time.
My daughter had fallen asleep in the bouncer.
The afternoon light was going flat and gray through the window.
"You need a lawyer," Carol said.
"I know."
"Not a divorce lawyer.
Not yet.
Someone who handles financial fraud."
I looked at the folder on the table.
"If this is what it looks like—"
"It's what it looks like," Carol said.
"You know it is."
---
I called a lawyer the next morning.
Her name was Patricia Holt.
A friend of Carol's had used her two years earlier in a property dispute and said she was the kind of person who read everything twice and spoke slowly because she wanted you to understand every word.
She answered her own phone.
I told her I needed an appointment.
She asked if it was urgent.
I said I thought it might be.
She said she had a cancellation Friday at ten.
I was there at nine fifty.
Patricia Holt was in her sixties, with reading glasses on a chain around her neck and a desk that was completely clear except for a yellow legal pad and a pen.
She listened to everything without writing a single note.
When I finished, she put her glasses on and looked at the documents Renee had given me.
She was quiet for a long time.
"How long have you been married?" she asked.
"Four years."
"Joint accounts?"
"One.
For household expenses.
He has separate business accounts."
"Is your name on any farm property?"
"No."
She set the documents down and looked at me over her glasses.
"The signature discrepancy on the listing agreement is the most urgent thing here," she said.
"If that parcel has been listed without the owner's knowledge or consent, that is a serious legal matter entirely separate from your marriage." She paused.
"Does your father-in-law know you're here?"
"No."
"Does Adam know you have these documents?"
"No."
She nodded slowly.
"I'd like to keep it that way for now." She picked up her pen for the first time.
"I'm going to refer you to a colleague who handles financial matters.
But I want you to do something first." She wrote a name and number on the legal pad, tore the sheet off, and slid it across the desk.
"Call this person before you speak to Adam again.
Before you respond to any message from him.
Before you go back to that house."
I looked at the name on the paper.
"Is this a private investigator?" I asked.
"It's someone who can tell us very quickly whether that second signature is genuine." She folded her hands on the desk.
"If it isn't, this stops being a marriage problem."
She let that sentence sit.
I folded the paper and put it in my pocket.
On the drive back to Carol's, my phone rang.
Not Adam this time.
His mother.
I pulled over and answered.
"I need to tell you something," she said.
May you like
"About the farm account.
About what I found last night."
