Chapter 6
Arthur didn't raise his voice to counter Richard’s desperate legal defense. He simply reached out calloused fingers and flipped open the heavy leather ledger to a marked page near the back. The paper was yellowed at the edges, protected inside a clear plastic sleeve. "Statutes don't protect you when the signature on the primary deed is notarized by a man who died three months before the date on the document," Arthur said, pointing a thick finger at the bottom corner of the page. Beatrice leaned forward, her failing eyes squinting at the bold ink signature. "That's... that's Arthur Senior’s notary stamp," she whispered, her voice trembling. "No, it’s not," Elena added quietly, looking down at the page. "Look at the seal, Grandmother. The county changed the notary seal three weeks after Grandfather had his stroke. That stamp didn't even exist when Richard claims the transfer was signed." Richard stared at the page, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly as the final pillar of his carefully constructed defense crumbled into dust. The sleek corporate lawyer, the philanthropist, the pillar of the community—all of it was anchored to a clumsy forgery executed in a panic twenty years ago. The silence in the dining room became suffocating, broken only by the distant tick of the grandfather clock in the foyer. Richard’s hands dropped to his sides, the aggressive posture entirely gone, replaced by the slumped shoulders of a man cornered by his own greed. "I kept the business running," Richard muttered, his voice barely audible. "When the market crashed in ninety-eight, you would have lost everything, Arthur. I saved the company. I saved all of us."
