He had objected because the entries did not match driver logs.
His supervisor said the descriptions were temporary accounting placeholders and would be corrected before the annual review.
Raymond later resigned after finding several uncorrected entries.
He told the auditor he had kept copies of his resignation letter but not private patient records.
The letter described concerns about incomplete supporting invoices and management’s refusal to reconcile certain accounts.
Dana told me the statement could support an investigation of financial irregularities but did not establish what happened to any particular infant.
Raymond agreed with that distinction.
He said he had never known which families appeared behind the coded account numbers.
The auditor compared his concerns with the surviving Harbor Bridge ledger.
Several transfers had been billed at higher amounts than the published fee schedule.
Some of those charges might have covered services performed by outside contractors.
Others lacked the required supporting documents.
The pattern justified further review by the proper financial authorities.
I wondered why Raymond had waited so long to speak.
He said he had reported the concerns internally and then changed careers, believing the matter was closed.
When the clinic collapsed, he assumed someone had reviewed its books.
Only now had he realized that the people affected might still be searching for answers.
His regret sounded genuine, but I had stopped treating regret as a substitute for evidence.
I asked what he wanted from us.
He said nothing.
He simply wanted the auditors to have the resignation letter they should have seen decades earlier.
At the end of the meeting, Raymond looked at Ruth.
“I’m sorry my part of the system made it harder for you to ask questions,” he said.
Ruth thanked him for bringing the documents without saying he was forgiven.
On the drive home, she told me she was learning to distinguish between people who had knowingly harmed her and those whose silence had allowed harm to continue.
Neither category was simple.
I said that sounded exhausting.
“It is,” she answered.
“But I’m tired of being asked to simplify my life for other people.”
A television producer called Dana asking whether Leah and I would participate in a special report about the clinic.
The producer promised a compassionate approach and said viewers would be moved by a mother and daughter reunited after decades.
I asked whether the program would include the records that contradicted the clinic’s death notice.
She said the investigation team would handle that, but the emotional reunion would be the centerpiece.
