Chương 5
Margaret’s face tightened.
“You think I don’t know she died?”
Daniel felt the rebuke land.
For a moment both of them looked away.
A landscaping crew farther down the street started a leaf blower.
Margaret rubbed her thumb against her pendant.
“We used bridge funds.”
Daniel waited.
“When cash flow tightened.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means donor pledges come in at irregular intervals. Projects don’t stop needing money because a check arrives two weeks late.”
“Still vague.”
“We moved funds temporarily between accounts.”
“Was that allowed?”
“Sometimes.”
“And other times?”
Margaret’s eyes went wet.
She blinked hard.
“Claire became increasingly rigid after Robert died.”
Robert Hayes, Claire’s father.
Daniel had liked him.
So had almost everybody.
Robert had possessed the rare social gift of appearing interested in people without interrogating them. He died of a heart attack two years earlier in a grocery-store parking lot after texting Claire to ask whether bay leaves actually expired.
His death had moved Claire into a larger role at the foundation.
It had moved Margaret into control.
“Rigid,” Daniel repeated.
“She saw everything as a violation.”
“Was it?”
“You don’t understand nonprofit finance.”
“Then help me.”
Margaret looked toward the house.
“There was a property acquisition in Alexandria. A major donor withdrew. We had already committed to the seller. Ethan had arranged financing through a private entity to keep the deal alive.”
“What entity?”
She hesitated.
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“What entity, Margaret?”
“One he controlled.”
“There it is.”
“It was disclosed later.”
“To who?”
“The board.”
“When?”
“After the repayment.”
“Was it repaid?”
She looked at him.
Daniel almost admired the answer for taking so long.
“Most of it.”
“How much?”
“Daniel—”
“How much?”
“Eight hundred and forty thousand dollars moved through the arrangement initially.”
The number had weight.
Not because Daniel understood the structure yet. Because Margaret had been avoiding saying it.
“And ‘most’ means?”
“Six hundred thousand was returned.”
“Where did the other two-forty go?”
“It became more complicated.”
Ethan appeared at the end of the driveway on foot.
Daniel had not seen him approach.
Margaret turned sharply.
“I told you not to come.”
“Yeah, well, you tell everybody a lot of things.”
He looked exhausted.
Same burgundy shirt as the funeral? No. Different, darker. Daniel caught himself noticing and resented the part of his brain keeping records.
Ethan looked at him.
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
His shoulders lowered slightly.
Margaret saw.
“Stop making this worse.”
Ethan laughed without humor.
“I think we cleared worse a while ago.”
“Go home.”
“No.”
Margaret’s voice changed.
“Ethan.”
He ignored her.
“Claire found the vendor payments.”
Daniel said nothing.
Margaret stepped between them.
“We are not doing this in a driveway.”
Ethan looked around.
“Fine. Kitchen?”
Daniel considered telling both of them to leave.
Instead he opened the front door.
The kitchen became the first room in which Daniel stopped recognizing his wife.
Not literally.
Claire’s magnets were still on the refrigerator. Her blue ceramic spoon rest sat beside the stove. A shopping list remained clipped near the pantry with three items crossed out.
Dish soap.
Coffee filters.
Garlic.
But Margaret sat at Claire’s place at the kitchen table without asking, and Ethan opened a cabinet as if he still expected to find glasses where Claire kept them.
Daniel had the absurd urge to tell him the water glasses had moved.
Claire reorganized the cabinet six months earlier.
Ethan found them anyway.
Of course he did.
He had known Claire twenty-seven years.
Daniel had known her six.
That fact arrived without invitation and stayed.
“What vendor payments?” Daniel asked.
Ethan filled a glass with water.
Margaret said, “We should have counsel present.”
“You’ve had two days to suggest that.”
“I’m suggesting it now.”
Ethan remained by the sink.
“There were invoices from a consulting company called Northbridge Civic.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Real company?”
“Yes.”
Margaret cut in.
“Barely.”
Ethan’s mouth twitched.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Was it yours?” Daniel asked.
“I owned part of it.”
“How much?”
“All of it by the end.”
Daniel stared.
“What did the foundation pay Northbridge for?”
“Project management. Site analysis. Contractor coordination.”
“Did Northbridge do that work?”
“Some.”
“Did it bill for work it didn’t do?”
Ethan drank water.
Margaret spoke first.
“There were documentation problems.”
Daniel laughed once.
Nobody joined him.
“Documentation problems.”
“Do not simplify this because you’re angry.”
“I’m trying to make it simple enough that one of you will answer.”
Ethan put the glass down.
“Yeah. We billed work that wasn’t done.”
Margaret’s eyes closed.
“There.”
Ethan spread his hands.
“You wanted conversation.”
“How much?”
He looked at Daniel.
“Over eighteen months? About one-point-two.”
Daniel did not react immediately.
“One-point-two million?”
“Yes.”
“And Claire found it.”
“Not all at once.”
Margaret leaned forward.
“Claire knew about Northbridge from the beginning.”
Ethan looked at her.
“Careful.”
“Why? We’re telling the truth now, apparently.”
Daniel felt something shift.
“What did Claire know?”
Margaret looked directly at him.
“She approved the first transfer.”
The refrigerator compressor kicked on.
Daniel heard it.
Nothing else.
Ethan said, “That’s not the same thing.”
“She signed it.”
“She thought it was temporary.”
“She was the finance director. She understood what signatures meant.”
Daniel’s hand found the back of a chair.
He did not sit.
“How much did she approve?”
Margaret answered.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand.”
Ethan shook his head.
“That part was supposed to be repaid in thirty days.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Why?”
Ethan stared at the floor.
“My company had another debt.”
“What kind?”
“Private loan.”
“For what?”
“A development deal.”
“You used foundation money to cover your business debt.”
“That wasn’t how it started.”
“How did it start?”
Ethan’s face reddened.
“We were trying to close a building the foundation needed before the seller walked.”
“And then?”
“Then I moved money I thought I could replace.”
“You thought.”
“Yes.”
“How much did Claire know?”
May you like
“Enough to sign the first transfer. Not enough to know where it eventually went.”
Margaret said, “That distinction is convenient.”
