The landlord’s signature was my husband’s. I stared at the lease on the woman’s phone because I couldn’t understand how he could have signed it. The house had belonged to my mother since 1953, and after her death, the deed had passed to me. The woman said she’d been paying rent for three months and that my husband had told her everything was legitimate. I asked where the rent was going. She showed me the payment history. Every payment had gone to an account I didn’t recognize. Then she asked me why my husband had told her not to contact me directly.
I called my husband from the driveway. He didn’t answer. I called again, and this time he picked up. I asked him whether he’d rented my mother’s house to someone. He said no. I asked him why his signature was on the lease. Silence. Then he said he’d only been trying to “keep the place occupied” because empty houses attract thieves. I asked why he’d forwarded the mail and changed the locks without telling me. He said he was protecting the property. I asked him where the rent money was. He hung up. Twenty minutes later, the woman came back outside holding an envelope she’d found behind a drawer. It had my husband’s handwriting on it.
Inside was a copy of the original deed, a second lease, and a handwritten list of every payment she’d made. But the second lease had a different landlord name. It was a woman I’d never heard of. I called the county recorder and asked whether that woman had ever owned the property. The clerk checked the records and said no — but there was something else. A quitclaim deed had been filed six weeks earlier transferring my mother’s house to an LLC. The signature looked like mine. I told the clerk I’d never signed it. Then she gave me the name of the person who had notarized it. It was the same notary who had witnessed my husband’s signature on the rental lease.
