Chapter 5: The Notary's Name
I ran the notary's name through the state registry at 11:40 that night, sitting in the hospital corridor with my father asleep in the room behind me and a cup of cold coffee on the chair beside me.
The name on the will was Donna Pryce.
Donna Pryce was licensed.
Her registration was current.
Her address of record was a suite in a professional building on Hargrove Street.
The same building where Julian's attorney, Martin Cresswell, kept his office.
I set the coffee down.
I called my colleague Renata, who worked financial crimes and kept hours that matched mine when a case was moving.
"I need a quiet pull on a notary," I said when she answered.
"Donna Pryce.
Hargrove Street.
I want to know how many documents she's notarized in the last eighteen months and who commissioned them."
"Is this the father situation?"
"Yes."
"Give me until morning." A pause.
"Elena.
Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine."
"I'm fine, Renata.
Morning is good."
I hung up and sat with the quiet for a moment.
Down the hall, a nurse's station glowed.
A cart rolled past.
Somewhere a monitor beeped in a steady, patient rhythm.
I thought about the anonymous message.
*Ask him who notarized that will.*
Someone knew.
Someone close enough to know the details, far enough away to be afraid of using their name.
At seven the next morning, I was back in my father's room when Dr.
Anand came in with the bloodwork results.
He handed me the tablet without preamble.
The panel showed elevated levels of a sedative compound — not prescribed to my father, not listed in any of his current medications.
A low dose.
Consistent with something administered regularly over weeks.
Enough to make a man slower.
Easier to manage.
Easier to convince that his own memory was failing him.
"Is this enough for a criminal referral?" I asked.
"Combined with the physical findings and his statement, yes," Dr.
Anand said.
"I've already sent my report to APS.
I'll cooperate fully with any further investigation."
I thanked him and stepped into the hallway.
Renata called at 7:22.
"Donna Pryce has notarized forty-one documents in the last sixteen months," she said.
"Thirty-seven of them were commissioned through Martin Cresswell's office.
Four of them involve a Robert Vance as signatory."
Four documents.
My father's name on four separate instruments, all flowing through Julian's attorney, all notarized by a woman who worked out of the same building.
"What are the four documents?" I asked.
"Sale of a lakefront property in February.
Transfer of two investment accounts in April and June.
And the power of attorney from yesterday."
"Renata, I need certified copies of all four."
"Already requested.
Elena — the April transfer moved four hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
The June transfer moved another two-ninety."
I leaned against the corridor wall.
"Seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars," I said.
"Plus the cabin.
I'm pulling the sale price now but comparable properties in that area are listing above three hundred."
Over a million dollars.
Taken from a seventy-eight-year-old man in less than a year, while he was being sedated, restrained, and told that no one would believe him.
"I need to make a call," I said.
"I know," Renata said.
"Go."
I called the state Attorney General's financial crimes division directly.
Not my own office.
A different jurisdiction, a different chain of command, a clean referral with no appearance of personal conflict.
I gave them everything I had.
When I walked back into my father's room, he was sitting up, eating toast, looking out the window at the gray morning sky.
"You were on the phone a long time," he said.
"Yes."
"Is it bad?"
I sat down beside him.
"It's going to be fine."
He looked at me sideways.
"You're doing the same thing your mother used to do.
Saying it's fine when it isn't yet, but meaning it will be."
"Is that a bad thing?"
He considered this.
"No," he said.
"She was usually right."
My phone buzzed again.
May you like
Julian's name on the screen.
I let it ring.
