I asked the assessor for the entire deed file, not just the recorded copy. The witnesses were both from the same law office in Valdosta, and neither had ever met me. The notary’s journal showed that my supposed signature had been witnessed on a Thursday in June, but I was at the oncology clinic that day. I still had the appointment card. Then the assessor showed me the transfer tax receipt. The money hadn’t come from the LLC. It had come from a personal account belonging to the man whose last name matched Charlene’s story about her divorce.
I called Charlene that night. She didn’t answer, so I left one message asking her to come over. She arrived the next morning and wouldn’t look at me. I put the deed on the kitchen table and asked her why my house was owned by an LLC she’d never mentioned. She finally admitted the man was her ex-husband — and they had never actually divorced. She said my husband had introduced them years ago and told them I would eventually need to move somewhere smaller. The LLC had been created so they could buy my property “before the market went up.” I asked why my signature was on the deed. She said she didn’t know.
Then I showed her the photograph from chemotherapy — the one of Charlene sitting beside me for eleven hours. Behind her on the wall was a calendar, and the date circled in red was the same Thursday the deed was supposedly signed. Charlene looked at it and started crying. She said she’d been told to keep driving me to appointments because someone needed to know exactly how sick I was. I asked who had told her. She finally gave me a name. It was my husband’s attorney — the man who had handled his estate after he died. Then Charlene whispered, “He told me your husband left instructions for the house.” I asked what instructions. She said, “That you were never supposed to find out who already had the keys.”
