The amounts closely matched withdrawals from a trust account in the month before the reported dissolution.
The recipient company had an address that matched one of Edwin’s private business entities.
Naomi asked whether Helen had evidence the services were never performed.
She said she did not.
She could establish who prepared the invoices and who instructed her to send them, but she could not prove what work was done outside her office.
That distinction made her testimony credible to me.
She was willing to describe limits instead of filling gaps with guesses.
Helen also recalled receiving a letter from Miriam Carter challenging the invoices.
She remembered it because Edwin had ordered the letter removed from the general correspondence file.
Helen had made a duplicate for the audit binder before he gave that instruction.
The duplicate survived in her storage box.
When I saw a scanned copy, I recognized my mother’s careful writing and her habit of drawing a line beneath the date.
The letter asked for a detailed explanation of payments charged to the medical reserve.
It demanded that worker representatives receive the same information given to outside consultants.
Edwin had written a note in the margin instructing staff to stop responding to her inquiries.
I felt anger rise so suddenly that I had to leave the room.
In the hallway, Robert found me standing near a window.
He said the records could expose serious financial misconduct if verified.
I told him my mother had spent years being treated as a troublesome employee because she asked where money went.
Robert said he was beginning to understand that the same question had been hidden inside his own acquisition.
I asked whether he was frightened of losing money.
He answered without pretending otherwise.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m more frightened of discovering what happened to people while everyone told me the numbers were correct.”
We went back into the room and listened to Helen finish her account.
She had not come to defend her former husband or condemn him without evidence.
She had come because the invoices had followed her conscience longer than the marriage had lasted.
Chapter 19: Preston Meets the Workers
Preston requested a meeting with former employees at a neutral location after the investigation into his dismissal practices began.
Keisha refused to attend unless the invitation clearly stated that participation was voluntary.
Luis said he wanted to ask the manager why staff had been told to avoid Samuel.
I was unsure whether another confrontation would accomplish anything.
