Chapter 7: What Mason Told Them
Detective Ruiz called me the next morning while I was getting coffee from the hospital vending machine.
"Mason Pruitt cooperated fully with the DA's office yesterday afternoon," he said.
"He gave a recorded statement.
I can't share everything with you yet, but there are things you need to know."
"Tell me what you can," I said.
"The forgery on your house deed wasn't the first attempt.
Fourteen months ago, your mother tried to have a quit-claim deed filed — a document that would have transferred your house to her name outright, with no joint ownership, no shared title.
The notary she used refused to process it when he realized you weren't present.
She paid Mason to find someone else who would."
I stared at the paper cup in my hand.
"Mason found a contact," Ruiz continued.
"The contact agreed to process the document for a fee.
But when he saw the amount involved — the house value, the Clarksville property, the combined estate — he got nervous and backed out.
That's when Teresa changed strategy.
She moved to the joint-ownership approach.
Smaller, harder to spot, easier to defend if questioned."
"She'd been planning this for over a year," I said.
"At minimum.
Mason also told us about the monthly transfers.
The three thousand a month you were sending — he says Teresa was splitting it.
About eight hundred went to household expenses.
The rest went into a separate account in her name only."
Twenty-six months of that.
I did the math again.
Different number this time.
"She was building a fund," I said.
"That's what it looks like.
Mason says she told him she was preparing for the day you found out about the deed and tried to fight her.
She wanted enough in reserve to hire attorneys and outlast you."
I set the coffee cup down on top of the vending machine.
"She planned for me to find out," I said.
"Mason believes so.
He says she was confident you'd be too loyal to push it all the way.
That you'd negotiate rather than prosecute.
That you'd want to protect the family name."
I thought about the phone call the night before.
*If you push this, it will destroy this family.*
She'd been counting on exactly that.
"What's she being charged with?" I asked.
"Forgery.
Fraud.
Conspiracy to commit fraud — that one covers Mason too.
The DA is also looking at the intercepted mail, which carries its own federal angle.
Patricia Holt's office filed a formal complaint with the postal inspector this morning."
"Federal," I said.
"It's possible.
Depends on how they want to structure it." Ruiz paused.
"Mr.
Bradley, I want to be straightforward with you.
Your mother has retained an attorney.
A good one.
She's going to fight this.
And her position right now is that she was acting in your best interest and that you knew more than you're claiming."
"She's going to say I was in on it."
"She's going to imply it.
Her attorney will try to create enough doubt to complicate the case." He paused.
"Is there anything — anything at all — that could be used to suggest you had knowledge of the deed modification?"
"No," I said.
"Nothing."
"Any documents you signed without reading carefully?
Anything she asked you to initial?"
I thought.
I thought hard.
"She asked me to sign something about fourteen months ago," I said slowly.
"She said it was a form for my father's estate.
For releasing a claim on some equipment.
I signed it without reading it."
Silence on the line.
"Mr.
Bradley, I need you to try to remember everything you can about that document and tell Patricia Holt today.
Not tomorrow.
Today."
I picked up the coffee.
It had gone cold.
"I'll call her when we hang up," I said.
"One more thing," Ruiz said.
"Mason mentioned a woman named Carla.
He says she was present at two of the meetings where the plan was discussed.
We haven't been able to identify her yet.
Does that name mean anything to you?"
Carla.
I ran through every relative, every family friend, every name I'd heard Teresa mention over the past three years.
Then it landed.
"Teresa has a friend," I said.
"Carla Simms.
She's a notary.
She's been a notary for at least fifteen years."
The pause on Ruiz's end was very short.
"Thank you," he said.
"That's helpful."
May you like
He hung up.
I stood alone in the hospital corridor with a cold cup of coffee and the slow, sickening understanding that the woman who had raised me had spent more than a year building a careful, layered plan to take everything I had — and had been so certain of my loyalty that she'd never once considered I might actually stop her.
