The entire system of notarization exists to let strangers trust documents they cannot personally verify, to let a county clerk accept a deed as genuine because a licensed officer of the state has attested that the signer appeared and consented.

It is a small piece of civic machinery, but an enormous amount rests on it, and it works only because the overwhelming majority of notaries are honest.

The cousin was the rot at the center of it, the one corrupt professional willing to sell the integrity of his stamp, and his corruption was what let a family betrayal metastasize into a fully legal-looking theft.

His permanently revoked license was, to my mind, the most fitting sentence of all, because the one thing he had truly stolen was not the house.