Geller gestured toward Brenda. "Ms. Larson is an authorized notary public commissioned by the secretary of state. Her commission is active, unencumbered, and bonded through twenty-twenty-eight. Her jurat appears on page three."
Henderson adjusted his glasses. He turned his eyes to my mother. "And who is that seated at the petitioner's left?"
"Your Honor," I spoke up, stepping forward to the railing. "My name is David Cole. This is my mother, Helen Margaret Cole. She has owned and occupied seven-forty-two Maple Avenue since October twelfth, nineteen-ninety-four."
"She is not a party to this hearing," Arthur interjected, leaning past Geller’s arm. "She holds no verified legal credential recognized by the state system as of Friday afternoon. The computer shows—"
"Mr. Vance," Henderson cut in, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the weight of a stone falling into deep water. "If you interrupt this bench again without being addressed, I will have Deputy Miller place you in the holding cell behind that door until the noon recess. Do we understand each other?"
Arthur swallowed, his neck flushing red above his starched collar, and sat back.
"Mrs. Cole," Henderson said, his tone moderating. "Stand up, please."
My mother rose. She didn't lean on the wooden table. Her shoulders were square, her jaw firm. "Good morning, Judge."
"Mrs. Cole, where were you on September fourth of this year?"
Helen didn't look at her notes. "I was in the basement community room of the public library on Fourth Street from one o'clock until four-thirty. I was presenting the fall literacy awards on behalf of the retired teachers association. Mayor Townsend sat three chairs to my left. We had lemon pound cake."
Henderson nodded slowly. He opened the red folder in front of him. "Deputy Miller, hand me the envelope."
Miller stepped through the swinging swinging gate, placing the township evidentiary file on the bench. Henderson withdrew two sheets of paper.
"Mr. Geller," the magistrate said, tapping the first sheet against the mahogany surface. "Attached to your client’s petition is a state vital records certificate of death for one Helen Cole, listing an attending physician named Robert Kenneth Mercer, license Mike-Echo-one-eight-nine-nine-two. Are you familiar with Dr. Mercer?"
"He was an attending physician associated with the Oak Creek facility," Geller said carefully, sensing the ground beginning to buckle under his shoes. "Any discrepancy in his license status is an administrative detail for the state medical board, not—"
"Dr. Mercer delivered my younger sister in the county hospital in nineteen-seventy-one," Henderson said, cutting through Geller's evasion like a scalpel. "He sat on the township library board with my late wife for fifteen years. Dr. Mercer suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage on January twelfth of twenty-twenty-four and was interred at Pine Grove on the fourteenth. I attended his service. I stood twenty feet from his grave."
Henderson let the paper drop. The dry sound of the page hitting the wood seemed to echo through the empty gallery.
"Now, Mr. Geller," Henderson continued, his voice icy and measured. "Either you are presenting an instrument signed by a corpse, or someone in your client’s organization forged the name, license number, and signature of a dead doctor to push an automated death flag through the vital statistics intake system on Friday morning."
Arthur leaned toward Geller, whispering urgently behind his palm, his eyes darting toward the double exit doors. Geller held up a stiff hand, trying to silence his own client, the sweat visibly shining on his forehead under the courtroom lights.
"Your Honor," Geller stammered. "If there was an irregularity at the facility level, my client was unaware. We relied upon the records transmitted from Oak Creek—"
"We called Oak Creek yesterday from my mother’s porch," I said, stepping up to the center podium. "The woman who passed away in room one-fourteen was Helen Ruth Cole. She was ninety-one years old. She was an indigent patient with no living relatives. Mr. Vance monitors the indigent death notices through the county public administrator's daily electronic bulletin. He found an elderly woman whose name differed by one letter, pulled her parcel number from the vital statistics cross-index, and substituted my mother's property description into a pre-drafted quitclaim deed."