The boardinghouse also appeared in records showing payments for meals and beds during dates when the choir was supposedly elsewhere.
Those discrepancies led the accountant to examine whether expenses were duplicated across tours.
The investigation broadened without acquiring a convenient new villain.
Many transactions seemed to reflect poor administration rather than intentional deception.
Others remained difficult to explain.
Daniel watched investigators separate those possibilities and began to value their restraint.
One afternoon he drove past the building and saw a family placing flowers in window boxes.
A little boy waved from the porch.
Daniel waved back and continued down the street.
He decided that the present residents deserved the peace that the children who once lived there had often been denied.
Chapter 34 — Elise’s Garden
The nursery delivered the shrubs in heavy pots just as a cold spring rain began.
Daniel tried to move them beneath the porch alone and strained his shoulder.
Owen found him holding the edge of a pot and reminded him that asking for help was cheaper than a medical bill.
Daniel agreed and called Beth, who brought a small handcart from her garage.
The three of them moved the plants beside the front steps and waited for the rain to ease.
Beth asked what Elise had liked about gardening.
Daniel described the way his wife arranged colors as though she were planning a dinner party for birds.
She loved lavender, rosemary, and anything that attracted butterflies.
Her hedge had been a practical compromise because the front yard received too much afternoon sun for delicate flowers.
Owen said his mother had once taught him to smell the leaves of herbs by rubbing them between his palms.
Daniel had forgotten the lesson, but he remembered Elise laughing when Owen brought a handful of mint inside and tried to feed it to their cat.
They spent an hour telling stories that had nothing to do with the fire.
Nora joined them after the rain stopped and described the day Elise carried six plants home in the back of a compact car with the windows open.
The plants kept falling over whenever she turned a corner.
Daniel laughed so hard he had to sit on the steps.
He realized the investigation had made him speak more often about his mother than about the wife whose absence shaped every room in his house.
The realization saddened him without making either relationship less important.
Owen suggested planting one lavender bush beside the new mailbox.
