Marine Returns From Okinawa to Find Her Bungalow Already Sold
“That is a difference of twenty-four thousand dollars,” I said.
“Where did that money go?” Sarah asked.
“It did not go to my father,” I said. “He only offered me twenty thousand, and he said that was all he had left from the deal.”
Sarah leaned closer to the desk, her glasses sliding down her nose as she studied the signatures. “If Benson filed the sixty-four thousand dollar deed with the county, but took eighty-eight thousand from Emily, he kept the rest.”
“He took a kickback,” I said.
“Or he bought it himself first,” Sarah whispered, looking at the notary stamp on the county copy.
I looked at the two documents side by side on the desk.
“We need the original notary logbook,” I said.
“The notary clerk at the courthouse won’t just hand that over,” Sarah said.
“Then we will have to make her,” I said.
I picked up the county deed copy and held it under the light, looking at the small printed name of the settlement agency at the bottom.
