Chương 12
“Both could be true.”
Margaret looked up.
Claire shrugged.
“People are inconvenient.”
Margaret replaced the glasses.
“So I am learning.”
The board review began two days later.
Michael tried to keep Ethan away from it.
That proved harder than expected because the review took place partly at the mansion, where outside counsel cataloged records in the library and interviewed Margaret for nearly six hours.
Ethan was fascinated by strangers carrying document boxes.
“Are they police?”
“No,” Claire told him.
“Lawyers?”
“Yes.”
“Worse?”
She looked toward the library.
“Ask your grandmother.”
Margaret, passing behind them, said, “Much.”
One of the attorneys heard.
He looked mildly offended.
Ethan laughed.
Ordinary life crept back in around the investigation.
Claire changed sheets.
The chandelier company arrived to inspect a faint vibration in one crystal arm.
A delivery driver left twelve cases of sparkling water at the wrong entrance.
Michael argued with someone on the phone about a delayed construction project.
Ethan lost one black sneaker and accused the dog next door despite the Hale family not owning a dog and the neighbor’s Labrador having no access to the house.
The sneaker was found beneath the breakfast-room curtains.
Nobody apologized to the Labrador.
Celia was discharged from the hospital after two nights.
Her attorney arranged for her to surrender on charges related to burglary, theft and unlawful entry. The eventual classification would depend on the prosecutor’s review, Torres explained.
Margaret did not attend.
She sat alone in the morning room while news vans waited beyond the front gate.
The story had leaked.
Not the whole story.
Enough.
FOUNDATION EXECUTIVE ACCUSED OF STEALING HISTORIC RECORDS FROM HALE ESTATE.
Another headline used the word DISGUISE.
That was the one everyone clicked.
By noon, a blurry photograph of Margaret’s burgundy dress from a charity gala five years earlier had circulated online beside a stock image of a gray wig.
Michael threw his phone onto the sofa.
“This is ridiculous.”
Margaret was reading a printed legal memo.
“Then stop looking.”
“People think Celia dressed like you to steal jewelry.”
“People think many things.”
“The foundation is being turned into a joke.”
Margaret looked up.
“No. I am being turned into a joke. The foundation’s problem is more serious.”
Michael stopped.
She returned to the memo.
“The Hartwell question is not funny.”
Claire heard the exchange from the doorway.
Michael saw her.
“Tell her she shouldn’t read comments.”
Margaret said, “I am not reading comments.”
“She had Lucille print them.”
Margaret looked irritated.
Claire asked, “Why?”
“I wanted to understand the public reaction.”
“You wanted to read comments.”
“I did not want an account.”
Michael shook his head.
Claire said, “How bad?”
Margaret held up the pages.
“Apparently I am either a criminal mastermind, a victim of elder abuse, secretly bankrupt, or responsible for the decline of Western civilization.”
Claire considered.
“Busy week.”
Margaret stared.
Then the smallest smile appeared.
“Quite.”
The humor did not last.
Outside counsel found that the 2009 Hartwell process had been compromised.
The leaked competing offer had reached Celia.
Whether Margaret personally reviewed it before approving the final acquisition could not be proven from the surviving records.
But another fact could.
Margaret had learned after the acquisition that Celia possessed improperly obtained information.
She had not disclosed that fact to the full board.
She had relied on advice from the foundation’s former general counsel, who had argued that because the leaked information had not been proved material to the final negotiated price, disclosure could create unnecessary liability.
The counsel was dead.
His memo was not.
Michael read it twice.
Then he looked at his mother across the west-study desk.
“You followed terrible advice.”
Margaret did not react.
“I followed advice I wanted to believe.”
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
The answer stopped him.
Ethan sat outside the room with Claire, coloring a picture of a fire truck.
Through the partially open door, they could hear occasional fragments.
Disclosure.
Board responsibility.
Civil exposure.
Independent review.
Ethan colored one wheel purple.
“Is Grandma going to jail?”
Claire put down the book she was pretending to read.
“I don’t know.”
“Dad said probably not.”
“That sounds more informed than me.”
“Can rich people go to jail?”
“Yes.”
“Can poor people?”
“Yes.”
“Who goes more?”
Claire looked at him.
“That is a very large question.”
He colored the second wheel purple.
“Grandma says large questions are usually people hiding little answers.”
Claire stared at the study door.
“That sounds like her.”
The review lasted six weeks.
No new criminal charge was filed against Margaret during that period. The foundation’s board hired separate counsel and commissioned a forensic review of archived emails, old invoices and acquisition records.
Margaret resigned as chair before they finished.
Michael found the resignation letter on her desk.
“You don’t have to do this yet.”
“Yes.”
“You could wait for the findings.”
“I could.”
“Then why not?”
Margaret signed her name.
“Because whether I knowingly relied on the Hartwell leak is not the only relevant question.”
Michael pulled out the chair opposite her.
“What is?”
“What I did after I knew the leak existed.”
“You followed counsel.”
“I chose counsel who told me what I preferred to hear.”
“That doesn’t make you criminal.”
“No.”
“Then stop punishing yourself.”
Margaret put down the pen.
“You keep thinking consequence and punishment are the same thing.”
Michael frowned.
“A consequence is what happens whether or not I feel appropriately sorry.”
He looked away.
She folded the letter.
“I failed the board.”
“You built the foundation.”
“That does not make it mine.”
“It basically has your name on it.”
“That may be part of the problem.”
Michael looked toward the doorway.
Ethan stood there.
Nobody knew how long he had been listening.
Margaret sighed.
“Were you eavesdropping?”
“No.”
“You are standing silently outside a nearly closed door.”
“I was looking for Claire.”
“She is upstairs.”
“Oh.”
He remained where he was.
Margaret waited.
Ethan said, “Are you not the boss anymore?”
“No.”
“Because of Celia?”
“Partly.”
“Because of the letter?”
May you like
“Yes.”
“Because you hid it?”
