Chapter 15: Valid

Heath read the letter once and handed it back.

"It's a bluff," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Because he wrote Welcome home on it. A man who believed his own lawyer wouldn't bother."

He called his attorney from the kitchen with the phone on speaker.

She answered on the second ring and asked him to read her the first paragraph.

When he finished she was quiet for a moment.

"The officiant filed the license Sunday morning," she said. "I have the receipt. Meet me at the clerk's office when it opens."

We were at the window on Clark Street by nine.

The woman behind the glass pulled our record up on her screen without looking at either of us.

"Corbin and Merrick," she said. "Filed Sunday, eight-fifteen. Recorded, valid, no defects."

"Someone has written that it's void," I said.

"Someone is wrong." She stamped a certified copy and slid it under the glass. "Do you want more than one?"

"Three," Heath said.

"Four," I said.

He turned his head and looked at me.

"One for Bev," I said. "She'll frame it."

The attorney met us on the steps and read the letter again, and her mouth went flat.

"He's trying to freeze you both," she said. "A void claim lets him tell people the marriage is a fraud. He doesn't need to win, only to make noise."

"Why noise?" I asked.

"Because noise is what he has left."

She was right.

By Tuesday morning the noise had a name and a link.