My union rep read the name on the notary stamp at the bottom of the fake power of attorney, and Mr. Lentz, my supervisor, stopped breathing. Because the notary was his own daughter.
The woman from Adult Protective Services had already laid it out. She opened a case the day after my welfare check, because the police had seen the same mail I did. She pulled Mr. Brezinskis records. Twenty-two thousand dollars gone in five months, ATM withdrawals at casinos, and he does not drive. Two credit cards opened in his name and mailed to his grandnephew Coreys apartment. And a reverse mortgage on the house he paid off in 1974, signed by Corey using a power of attorney Mr. Brezinski swore he never signed.
It is notarized, Corey said. It is notarized, the APS lady answered, thats the problem. In Ohio a notary has to watch you sign, in person, and keep a record.
The reason my supervisor was so eager to write me up and bury my welfare check was that the fraudulent notary stamp on the stolen house belonged to his own daughter.
Mr. Lentz had not just been a by-the-book supervisor annoyed at a nosy carrier. He had a personal reason to make the whole thing go away, because if anyone looked hard at that power of attorney, they would find his daughters stamp on a document notarizing a signature that was never made. So when Corey filed his complaint, Lentz was happy to slide a letter of warning across the desk and tell me to mind my business, Im a mail lady, not a social worker.
I have carried mail in South Toledo since 2000. Same houses, same dogs, same porches. Mr. Anton Brezinski is ninety-one, a retired tool-and-die man, a widower, and every day at 1:15 he waited on his porch with a butterscotch candy for me. Then one week in February he was not there. Day one, day two, day three, the box so full I could not close the lid. On day four I called for a welfare check, and the police found him on his kitchen floor where he had fallen two days before. He lived.
A week later Corey Brezinski filed a complaint, and Mr. Lentz wrote me up. My husband Rick said stay in your lane, Donna, youll lose your pension. I did not argue. I signed the letter. But I did not forget what I saw in that overstuffed box, final notices from his bank, new credit cards in names I did not know, a big envelope from a lender I had never delivered to, and I wrote every return address in the little notebook I keep in my satchel.
A mail carrier who notices four days of unopened mail is doing her job, and the mail itself told the whole story to anyone willing to read the return addresses. The union filed a grievance on my warning, and at the hearing Mr. Brezinski himself shuffled in on a cane with the APS lady, and she laid his stolen mail on the table.
A reverse mortgage and credit cards taken out against a ninety-one-year-old through a forged power of attorney is elder financial exploitation, a felony, and a notary stamp on a signature never witnessed is a crime by the notary too. Corey faced it. And his notary, who happened to be the supervisors daughter, faced it with him, which is why Mr. Lentz stopped breathing when the name was read.
The power of attorney was void. The reverse mortgage was unwound. Mr. Brezinskis house, paid off in 1974, stayed his. My letter of warning was torn up, and the postal service took a hard look at a supervisor who tried to bury a welfare check because his own family was holding the pen.
Mind your business, mail lady, Mr. Lentz told me. Noticing that a ninety-one-year-old man has not picked up his mail in four days is my business, and so is every return address in that box. Mr. Brezinski waits on his porch again at 1:15, with a butterscotch candy, and I have never once regretted making that call.