Chapter 8 - The Notary Appointment Proved David Expected Me to Be Unable to Sign
The notary was horrified when contacted.
David booked her four days before the kitchen incident.
His email said:
“My wife may be unavailable to execute due to a scheduled medical treatment. Please be prepared to notarize my signature as attorney-in-fact if necessary.”
I had no scheduled medical treatment.
None.
The notary asked for a copy of the POA in advance.
David sent it.
She replied:
I cannot determine whether the POA permits this transaction. Please have closing counsel confirm.
David forwarded the email to the business broker and wrote:
We’re covered.
We were not.
Then the buyer’s lawyer responded:
If Laura cannot personally sign, we will require counsel opinion and evidence authority is currently effective. Closing may need to move.
David hated:
delay.
His next message to Greg Walsh:
It cannot move. Buyer walks at five.
That deadline had become an obsession.
Then Greg testified later that David repeatedly said:
“Laura gets emotional about debt.”
“Laura doesn’t understand the sale is the only rational outcome.”
Again, not:
Laura agrees.
Then I asked Greg:
“Did David ever say I approved the sale?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Several times.”
I had never even seen the purchase agreement.
David had been negotiating as if consent were already:
inevitable.
Then the sale economics.
After paying company debt, transaction expenses and taxes, our household might have received somewhere around:
$1.1 million
before final adjustments.
My forty-percent share would matter.
David did not get all the money even if the sale closed.
But if he used the POA during my incapacity, he could direct the transaction and potentially control the proceeds temporarily.
That was the immediate motive.
Then a deeper financial problem surfaced.
David had personally moved approximately $190,000 from company accounts into another entity he owned:
DB Ventures LLC.
He described it as reimbursement for expenses.
Some were legitimate.
About $74,000 remained unsupported.
If I saw the diligence schedule, I would ask:
questions.
The buyer had already flagged:
it.
Closing the business before I dug into the transfers would not erase them, but David apparently believed a completed sale and broad releases would make the dispute:
smaller.
Then one internal buyer email said:
Need Laura Bennett direct confirmation regarding related-party balances. She is equity holder and may have derivative claims.
David had seen:
that.
That was why my signature mattered even more than the ownership percentage.
The buyer wanted me personally to confirm the accounts.
I could not confirm what I had never:
reviewed.
Then David’s personal notebook was found in his desk after he left the house under court restrictions.
Again, no secret villain manifesto.
Mostly business notes.
Numbers.
Debts.
Closing tasks.
On one page:
Laura — signed or POA.
Below it:
Ethan — exposure narrative supports medical emergency.
Then:
Tomorrow 9:30 notary / 1:00 buyer / 5:00 expiry.
Everything arranged around:
time.
The kitchen incident was not impulsive.
It was inserted into a closing calendar.
Then beneath those notes was one sentence:
After sale, fix family.
That phrase disturbed me almost more than:
the rest.
David apparently did not believe he was destroying us.
May you like
He believed he could commit an unforgivable violation on Tuesday and repair the marriage after the money arrived on Wednesday.
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