Chapter 6 - The Paper Trail
The room plunged into an arctic chill that had nothing to do with the open front door.
Jason stepped forward instantly, trying to raise his hands in a placating, authoritative gesture that had probably worked dozens of times in executive boardrooms. "Sheriff, good evening. There’s been a massive misunderstanding here. I'm Jason Vance. My wife and I are the trustees of the Hart-Vance Trust. We hold the recorded deed to this property. My sister-in-law here is having an emotional breakdown due to some family disputes—"
"Shut your mouth, son," Sheriff Miller interrupted, his voice dropping into that terrifying, flat mountain drawl that brook no compromise. He stepped over the threshold, his heavy rubber-soled boots leaving deep, wet treads on the floor. "I didn't ask you a damn thing."
Sam Callahan stepped into the lodge beside the sheriff. Sam was a man of few words; he smelled of diesel fuel, chewing tobacco, and wet spruce. He wore an oilskin duster and an orange hunting cap, his face weathered like ancient sandstone. He looked at Jason, then at Olivia, and finally down at the shattered champagne coupe on the hearth.
"Told you, Tom," Sam said to the sheriff, pointing a gnarled, calloused finger at the mantle. "That's Rebecca's timber. Her and her daddy dragged that beam out of the creek bed in '21. I helped her crane it in. This boy here couldn't swing an eight-pound sledge if his life depended on it."
"Sheriff, I have the deed right here!" Olivia shouted, scrambling to her knees on the floor, gathering the scattered legal papers with manic desperation. Her hair was falling into her face, the cashmere dress catching on the rough pine floor. "Look! It's stamped! Ouray County Clerk! December 21st! It’s legal! She doesn't own this house anymore!"
Sheriff Miller didn't even look at the papers she held out with shaking hands. Instead, he pulled a manila folder from the inside pocket of his tactical parka.
"That'd be real compelling, ma'am," Miller said slowly, "except about three hours ago, Miss Hart called my office from the Silverton staging area. Said she had reason to believe somebody had tampered with the locks on her cabin. Now, seeing as how I’ve known Rebecca since she pulled a permit to replace the foundation three years back, I made a quick call down to County Recorder Higgins."
Olivia froze on the floor, the papers trembling in her grasp.
"Seems County Recorder Higgins had a very interesting conversation with the Ouray District Attorney about forty-five minutes before the office shut down for the holiday," Miller continued, his voice calm, steady, and utterly devastating. "Turns out, you can't record a quitclaim deed using a power of attorney that was revoked and sealed in El Paso County probate four years ago. The DA flagged that recording as potentially fraudulent at four o'clock this afternoon. The clerk suspended the registration pending criminal investigation."
Jason turned the color of week-old curdled milk. "That's... that's an administrative hold. That's a civil matter. It doesn't give her the right to evict us in a blizzard!"
"Actually, son," Miller said, taking a step toward Jason until the two men were barely six inches apart, "breaking into a private residence, replacing the electronic lock cylinder without the deed holder's consent, and occupying a structure under a suspended fraudulent conveyance is criminal trespass in the first degree, class five felony. And if you took anything out of this house—like, say, Miss Hart's personal effects, which Sam here noticed piled up in trash bags behind the wood shed—that’s burglary."
A gasp went up from Aunt Carol. Diane let out a strangled, breathless sob and collapsed into an armchair, covering her face with both hands.
"Burglary?" David, the investor in the cashmere turtleneck, said loudly. He looked at Jason with sheer disgust. "You dragged us up here for an investor retreat in a house you broke into? Are you out of your mind, Vance?"
"David, please, let me explain!" Jason pleaded, turning his back on the sheriff. "It was just an interim mechanism! The equity is sound!"
"Save it for your lawyers," David snapped, pulling his wife by the arm toward the front door. "We’re leaving. And first thing Monday morning, I’m notifying the SEC and calling the state banking commission. Aegis Alpine is dead."
Within ninety seconds, the living room began to hemorrhage people. Olivia’s wealthy acquaintances—the very people whose validation she had sacrificed her family to obtain—didn't offer a word of comfort. They grabbed their coats, their designer luggage, their high-end ski gear, and practically sprinted through the snow toward their idling Range Rovers and Audis parked along the switchback road.
Aunt Carol scuttled out without looking at me, her head down, muttering something about having to catch a flight. Cousin Michael followed her, his eyes wide with fear that the sheriff might ask for his identification.
Within three minutes, the grand housewarming party was reduced to ruins.
May you like
All that remained in the great room were the shattered glass, the cold wind blowing through the open doorway, the sheriff, Sam Callahan, my weeping mother, and my sister, still kneeling in the dirt on the floor, holding her useless, fraudulent papers like a child clutching a broken toy.
***
