Chapter 5 - The Notary Who Was Dead
Evelyn Shaw had lived alone in a narrow white house near the old railway station.
Marianne visited the property the following morning with Julian and a county investigator named Tessa Morgan. Tessa was a former state fraud examiner who wore practical shoes, spoke in short sentences, and noticed details before anyone else entered a room.
Evelyn’s niece, Caroline, met them at the door.
“My aunt died in January,” she said. “I handled the estate.”
Caroline was fifty-three, with Evelyn’s narrow face and cautious gray eyes. She led them into a sitting room crowded with books and unopened moving boxes.
Julian explained the forged notary seal.
Caroline listened without visible surprise.
“Nolan Briggs,” she said when he finished.
“You know him?” Tessa asked.
“He employed my aunt part-time.”
“After she retired from legal work?”
“Yes. She reviewed old property records for his brokerage.”
“Did she authorize him to use her seal?”
“No.”
“Where is the seal now?”
Caroline looked toward the hallway.
“It disappeared after the funeral.”
Marianne felt the familiar coldness return.
“Did you report it?”
“I didn’t realize it was missing until the state notary office contacted me about an April document.”
“What document?” Julian asked.
“A mortgage release. It supposedly carried Evelyn’s notarization.”
“Was it forged?”
“Yes. The signer was a man in another county. He said he met Evelyn in March.”
Two months after her death.
Tessa opened her notebook.
“Why was Nolan not investigated?”
“He claimed several employees had access to archived seals. The police said they could not prove who used it.”
“Did Evelyn keep copies of her records?”
Caroline nodded.
“She kept copies of everything.”
She led them to a back bedroom filled with file boxes. Most were labeled by year. Others bore the names of law firms and property companies.
Tessa photographed the boxes before touching them.
They searched for Whitcomb.
After twenty minutes, Marianne found a folder labeled Bellweather Lake, Eastern Shore.
Inside were copies of her original deed, Thomas’s estate documents, maps of the cottage property, and correspondence from Nolan Briggs.
One letter was dated fourteen months earlier.
Ms. Shaw,
Please confirm whether the 1989 Whitcomb conveyance contains any survivorship limitation or reversion clause. Our client is evaluating development potential and requires certainty regarding title.
Evelyn had written a note across the bottom.
No authority to disclose. Owner consent required. Do not contact again.
A second letter offered her fifteen thousand dollars for consulting work.
A third increased the amount to fifty thousand.
Evelyn had refused both.
Caroline stared at the papers.
“She told me someone was pressuring her,” she said. “I thought it concerned another property.”
“Did she mention Marianne?” Julian asked.
“No.”
The final item in the folder was a handwritten page from Evelyn.
Nolan returned. Wants old seal impressions and signature samples. Claims family authorization. Bradley present but appeared unaware of scope. Woman waited in car. Dark hair, red coat. Not Ashley.
Marianne read the final sentence twice.
“Not Ashley.”
Tessa took the note.
“Did Evelyn know Ashley?”
“She notarized Bradley and Ashley’s home purchase,” Caroline said. “She would recognize her.”
“So another woman was involved,” Marianne said.
Caroline opened another box.
“My aunt became frightened near the end. She installed a camera at the front door and began recording phone calls.”
“Do you still have the recordings?”
“I saved the computer.”
The computer sat inside a box marked Personal Electronics. Tessa connected it to a portable drive and searched the folders.
Evelyn had organized audio files by date.
One was labeled Briggs, Whitcomb Land, December 18.
Tessa played it.
Nolan’s voice came first.
“You’re making this more difficult than necessary.”
Evelyn replied.
“I am preventing fraud.”
“No one is stealing anything. The family wants a restructuring.”
“Marianne Whitcomb has not authorized you.”
“Her son has.”
“Her son does not own the property.”
“He will.”
“You showed me a transfer package bearing Marianne’s signature. It was not signed in my presence.”
“The authorization will be corrected.”
“I’m reporting this.”
A woman spoke in the background.
Her voice was low but clear.
“You won’t report anything until you hear what Thomas promised me.”
Marianne’s breath caught.
The recording continued.
Evelyn asked, “Who are you?”
The woman answered.
“Someone the Whitcomb family erased.”
The audio ended.
Caroline searched for additional recordings.
The next file had been corrupted. Another contained only static. The final call occurred three days before Evelyn died.
Evelyn sounded frightened.
“I found the trust reference.”
Nolan said, “Then send it.”
“No.”
“You were paid.”
“I returned the money.”
“You don’t understand what this proves.”
“I understand that Thomas Whitcomb hid a legal interest from his wife.”
Marianne gripped the back of a chair.
Julian paused the recording.
“Did Thomas ever mention a trust connected to the cottage?”
“No.”
“Could your father have created one?”
“He transferred the property directly to me.”
“Before or after you married Thomas?”
“After.”
Julian considered that.
“What did Thomas manage?”
“Most of our legal paperwork. My father trusted him.”
Tessa resumed the audio.
The woman’s voice entered again.
“You have until Friday, Evelyn.”
“I will not falsify a transfer.”
“We don’t need you to falsify it. We need the seal.”
“You will not get it.”
The woman laughed softly.
“We already have the impression.”
The call ended.
Caroline sat down heavily.
“My aunt died on Friday.”
Marianne looked at her.
“How?”
“A fall in the kitchen. The police found no sign of anyone else inside.”
Tessa’s expression revealed nothing.
“Was an autopsy performed?”
“No. She was seventy-nine and had heart problems.”
Julian closed the laptop.
“We need to provide this to law enforcement.”
Caroline nodded.
“I should have searched the files sooner.”
“You had no reason to expect this,” Marianne said.
But she wondered whether Evelyn’s death had truly been an accident.
Tessa examined the computer’s recent access logs.
“Someone tried to sign into Evelyn’s cloud storage after the funeral,” she said. “The attempt came from Nolan Briggs’s office network.”
Julian called the county prosecutor.
While he spoke, Marianne returned to the Whitcomb folder.
Beneath the correspondence lay an old photograph.
Thomas stood outside the cottage beside Nolan, who was much younger. Between them was a dark-haired woman wearing a red coat.
On the back, someone had written a date from twenty-seven years earlier.
Marianne turned the photograph toward the window.
She had never seen the woman before.
But something about her face seemed familiar.
Not the eyes.
Not the mouth.
The shape of her jaw.
Marianne carried the photograph to Julian.
“Thomas knew her.”
Julian studied the image.
“Do you recognize her?”
“No.”
Caroline looked over his shoulder.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
“She came to Evelyn’s funeral,” Caroline said. “She sat in the last row and left before the service ended.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“No.”
“Do you know her name?”
Caroline shook her head.
“But she left something beside the guest book.”
“What?”
“A white envelope. There was no message inside, only an old brass key.”
Caroline searched a desk drawer and removed the key.
A tiny metal tag hung from it.
B-17.
Marianne recognized the numbering.
Her father had used identical tags for the storage lockers beneath the old Bellweather Marina.
The marina had closed fifteen years earlier.
Most of the buildings had been demolished.
May you like
But the underground storage corridor still existed beneath the boat workshop.
Locker B-17 had belonged to Thomas.
