Chương 9
“He asked me to guarantee a loan.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“How much?”
“Eight hundred thousand.”
“Did you?”
“No. I’m a high school principal, Eleanor. The bank probably laughed after I left.”
“Why did he need it?”
“A project had stalled.”
“Which project?”
“The Baltimore building.”
The foundation investment.
Eleanor took out her phone and called Thomas Bell.
He did not answer.
She called the chief financial officer, a woman named Noreen Walsh, who had worked for the foundation for fourteen years and disliked Arthur with a consistency Eleanor had mistaken for class resentment.
Noreen answered in a whisper.
“The emergency board meeting is at eleven.”
“Before that, I need every transfer connected to Vance Urban Partners during the last two years.”
“I started pulling them last night.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because Audrey asked me to.”
“When?”
“Five months ago.”
The fish tank filter buzzed.
“What did she ask?”
“Whether foundation funds had been moved from the Baltimore project to another Arthur-controlled company.”
“And had they?”
“I found consulting payments that concerned me. Audrey told me not to raise it formally until she had more information.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“She asked me not to.”
“I am chair emerita.”
“You were also her mother.”
The answer carried no apology.
Eleanor gripped the phone.
“Send the records to outside counsel and Detective Ortiz.”
“I already contacted counsel.”
“Send them to the detective.”
“That may violate confidentiality.”
“Then ask counsel how to do it legally.”
Noreen paused. “Eleanor, Audrey thought someone was accessing her email.”
“Arthur?”
“She did not say.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“That she had signed documents she could not remember reading.”
Eleanor looked toward the closed interview room.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was afraid?”
“Because every time she mentioned Arthur at a board meeting, you defended him.”
The line went quiet.
Eleanor could hear office sounds behind Noreen: a printer, a telephone, someone setting down a stapler.
“Send what you can,” Eleanor said.
“I will.”
Noreen’s voice softened.
“I’m sorry about Audrey.”
Eleanor ended the call before she had to answer.
Sam’s interview lasted ninety-three minutes.
When he emerged, his face was pale and angry. He walked past Eleanor and entered the restroom without speaking.
Dr. Reed remained with Ortiz near the interview-room door.
“What did he say?” Eleanor asked.
Ortiz shook her head. “Not here.”
“Did he see Arthur hurt her?”
“No.”
The answer brought relief and disappointment at once. Eleanor despised herself for the second feeling.
“What did he see?”
“Later.”
Claire crossed the room. “I’m taking him home.”
“Which home?” Eleanor asked again.
“Yours.”
Sam returned and heard the exchange.
“Can everybody stop saying home like it’s a custody argument?”
Claire apologized.
Eleanor did not. She was afraid an apology would become another burden he had to manage.
On the drive back, Sam sat beside Claire. Eleanor followed in her own car with June, who had volunteered to drive without being asked.
“What did he tell them?” June said.
“I don’t know.”
“You will.”
“Yes.”
June turned onto Charles Street. “And then?”
“I do not know.”
“That answer looks good on you.”
Eleanor glanced at her.
June kept her eyes on the road.
The foundation board met by video because three trustees were traveling. Eleanor attended from her study. Thomas Bell appeared from his office with a neutral wall behind him. Noreen sat at the conference table downtown, a stack of transaction records at her left hand.
Bell began by offering condolences.
Eleanor interrupted him.
“Freeze Arthur’s projects.”
One trustee objected that they lacked verified evidence of misconduct. Another worried about triggering loan defaults and destroying the affordable-housing component. A third asked whether the board’s directors-and-officers insurance covered disputes involving relatives.
For thirty minutes, they discussed exposure, fiduciary obligations, grant schedules, and reputational risk.
No one said Audrey’s name except Eleanor.
At last Noreen shared a spreadsheet.
Over eighteen months, the Baltimore project had paid $1.7 million in consulting fees to a company registered to a mailbox in Delaware. The company’s bank account had transferred most of the money to cover loans associated with an unsuccessful resort development Arthur had never disclosed to the foundation.
Bell removed his glasses.
“Can we prove Arthur controlled the consulting company?”
“The account opening documents list one manager,” Noreen said.
“Who?”
“Arthur Vance.”
Silence spread across the video windows.
One trustee muttered, “Jesus.”
Bell looked at Eleanor. “Did you know?”
“No.”
“Did Audrey?”
“She suspected.”
The board voted unanimously to freeze further payments and commission an independent audit.
After the meeting, Bell remained online.
“You understand this makes Arthur’s claim of a financial dispute more credible,” he said.
“It also gives him a motive.”
“We are not detectives.”
“No. Detectives ask simpler questions.”
“Eleanor, if Audrey knew funds were being diverted, why did she not tell us?”
“Because she did not trust me to believe her.”
Bell looked away.
He had no comforting response, and Eleanor appreciated him for not inventing one.
Detective Ortiz returned that afternoon.
They spoke in the library. The room still smelled faintly of funeral flowers.
Ortiz placed several pages on the table.
“The monitoring company retained call logs,” she said. “Audrey’s pendant transmitted an emergency alert at 9:42 p.m. on the night she died.”
Eleanor sat very still.
“What happened?”
“The service called the home number. No answer. They then called Audrey’s listed mobile phone.”
“Arthur had it.”
“We believe so. The call was answered and canceled by a man who provided the account PIN.”
“Arthur.”
“The voice recording will need authentication.”
“He knew the PIN.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Ortiz read from a preliminary transcript.
“He said Audrey had pressed the button accidentally and was resting.”
Eleanor looked toward the doorway. Sam was upstairs with Claire.
“When did he call 911?”
“10:31 p.m.”
Forty-nine minutes.
“Was she alive?”
“When paramedics arrived, yes. She died at the hospital the following morning.”
May you like
Eleanor’s hands went cold.
Arthur had told her Audrey had been found unconscious at ten-twenty. He said he had called immediately. He said the ambulance took too long.
