The old man in the seersucker suit tied up the pontoon himself, slow the way old men do, looked up at Jerry, and said, Mister Parker, I believe you have been trying to sell a house that was never yours to sell. And I believe Miss Brooks here has something to tell your wife.
My daddy was a real estate lawyer in Huntsville for forty years, and he did not just leave me the lake house on Guntersville. He wrote a clause into the deed. Any attempt to transfer that house out of my name, without my own signature given freely, voids the transfer and triggers a review. Daddy had seen too many widows and wives lose everything to a smooth husband and a forged line, and he made sure his daughter never would.
Jerry put the house in his girlfriend Tasha Brooks name using a signature that was not mine. He did not know about the clause. He did not know Daddys old law partner, Mr Beauregard Hollis, eighty-six and sharp as a tack, was still alive and still watching out for his partners girl. The day after Jerry locked me in the garage for an hour and ten minutes in the dark, Mr Hollis read me that clause over the phone.
He called me the best wife on Lake Guntersville in front of twenty fishing buddies. He had already signed my fathers house over to another woman with a signature I never wrote.
Tasha, it turned out, had no idea the house was not Jerrys to give, or that there was a wife at all until the paperwork started to unravel. She came on that pontoon to tell me the truth to my face, and she did, in front of everyone.
The Marshall County deputy was there because forging a deed is a felony, and locking your wife in a garage has a name too, false imprisonment, and I had the time stamps and the clause and Mr Hollis for all of it.
The transfer was void the moment the forgery was proven. Daddys lake house came back to my name, clean, where it has always been. Jerry is answering for the deed and for the garage both.
I filed with a protective order and Mr Hollis as my lawyer, in his straw hat, cane and all. I fried the catfish one last time, for me and for Mr Hollis, out on Daddys dock. Best fish fry on Lake Guntersville, and not one of Jerrys buddies was invited.