Chapter 6: The Realtor Picks Up the Phone
The officer who arrived was a woman named Carver — mid-forties, unhurried, with a notepad she opened without ceremony and a manner that suggested she had sat in many living rooms exactly like this one.
She listened to Gerald's summary, asked two clarifying questions, and then turned to David's mother.
"Would you like to tell me in your own words what happened?" she said.
So she did.
It took twenty minutes.
She described the sl\*p, the announcement, Richard's questions, the listing, the photographs, the accepted offer, the second name on the account.
She spoke clearly and without interruption.
When she finished, Officer Carver wrote for a moment without looking up.
"And you never signed any document authorizing the sale of this property?"
"No."
"Never met with the realtor?"
"No."
"Never gave verbal consent to anyone to act as your representative in a property transaction?"
"No."
Carver looked at Lauren, who was seated now on the far side of the room with her phone face-down in her lap.
"I'm going to need the realtor's name and contact information."
"I don't see why I should—" Lauren began.
"The realtor's name," Carver said, "will be on the listing.
Which we already have." She looked at Richard.
"Is that correct?"
"It is," Richard said.
He read the name aloud from his own phone.
"Darren Foss.
Foss Residential.
The brokerage address is listed on the property page."
Carver wrote it down.
"I'll need to speak with Mr.
Foss.
Tonight if possible." She looked at Lauren again.
"Did you present Mr.
Foss with any written documentation when you engaged his services?"
"I'd like to wait for my lawyer before answering further questions," Lauren said.
"That's your right," Carver said.
She made a note.
David was standing near the window.
He had barely moved since Lauren had mentioned calling her lawyer.
His mother watched him from across the room and recognized the expression on his face — not anger anymore, but the particular stillness of someone trying to understand how they had arrived somewhere they never expected to be.
She knew that expression.
She had worn it herself, eight months after Thomas died, sitting at the kitchen table with a tax assessment in one hand and a calculator in the other, trying to make numbers cooperate that simply would not.
Richard stepped close to David and spoke quietly.
"Whatever Foss tells her tonight, the transaction record exists independently.
She cannot unwind this by making a phone call."
"Can the buyers sue my mother?" David asked.
"The buyers entered a contract with someone who had no authority to sign it.
Your mother's liability is essentially zero.
The exposure sits with whoever represented themselves as authorized." He paused.
"Which is Lauren.
And potentially Marcus, depending on what Foss says about their communications."
David nodded slowly.
He looked across the room at Lauren.
She was typing on her phone now, presumably to her lawyer or to Marcus.
Her face had the focused blankness of someone running calculations they didn't want anyone else to read.
"Lauren," he said.
She looked up.
"Did Marcus know you hadn't told me?"
A beat.
"Yes."
"Did he tell you to go ahead anyway?"
Another beat, longer.
"He said that once it was done, you'd understand."
David turned back to the window.
Officer Carver had stepped into the hallway to make her call to Darren Foss.
The relatives who remained — a smaller group now, the ones closest to the family — sat or stood in the careful quiet of people who understood they were witnessing something that would be talked about for years.
Gerald appeared at David's mother's elbow with a glass of water.
He didn't make a production of it.
He simply held it out.
She took it.
"Thank you, Gerald."
"Thomas would have had something to say about all of this," he said.
"Thomas would have said it much louder than Richard did."
Gerald almost smiled.
"He would have."
From the hallway, they could hear Officer Carver's voice — steady, professional, asking Darren Foss to confirm the details of a listing that had been entered under a client's name without the property owner's knowledge or consent.
There was a pause.
Then Carver asked a second question.
Then a third.
When she came back into the room, her expression had not changed.
But she looked at Lauren with a directness that had not been there before.
"Mr.
Foss would like to cooperate fully," she said.
"He states that he was provided with a signed letter of authorization and proceeded in good faith." She paused.
"He also states that when he asked to speak directly with the property owner to confirm consent, he was told she was unwell and not available for calls."
The room went very quiet.
David's mother set down her glass of water.
"I was not unwell," she said.
"No," Carver said.
"I don't believe you were."
She looked at Lauren one more time.
Lauren was no longer typing.
Her phone was in her lap and her eyes were on the middle distance — the look of someone who has just understood, fully and finally, that the ground they were standing on is no longer there.
"I'm going to ask you to come with me," Carver said.
"Not under arrest.
But I do need a formal statement, and I'd like to take it tonight."
Lauren stood.
She picked up her bag.
She looked at David.
He was looking out the window.
May you like
She waited.
He did not turn around.
