Chapter 4 - The Man With the Blue Coffee Mug
I didn't sleep. The anonymous photograph lay open on my phone, its small details acquiring the importance of landmarks in a country where I couldn't read the signs. Leonard Vale's coffee mug was chipped near the handle. He'd owned it since the Riverside office opened; employees joked that he would replace every forklift in the company before buying another cup. The photographed invoice had his office desk beneath it, but nothing proved he had taken the picture. I forwarded it to the independent committee rather than calling him. That was the first useful decision I made without trying to rescue my reputation first.
By breakfast, the committee had assigned a lawyer named Ruth Adler to collect my documents. She wrote that a preservation request had gone to Aster's technology department and that I should make myself available remotely on Monday. She also asked whether I had ever received an invoice bearing a different description for the Bellwether payment. I searched my inbox. The authorization I'd approved was attached to a short message from Leonard: Please push this through before month-end. Vendor is handling the Riverside transition rollout. You have my support. I had replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
An hour later, I found the invoice Leonard had sent. It described temporary counseling, job-placement coordination, and travel support for thirty-six workers. The invoice I'd seen in Priya's audit used the vague phrase executive advisory services. Same vendor number. Same payment amount. Different description. The date on the second document was three days after my approval. I sent both copies to Ruth and told her which version I had seen. It wasn't exoneration. I had still approved funds without checking whether a single worker received the services.
My brother Ben called while I was standing on the hotel balcony. “Dad says you're in some kind of trouble. He wants to know whether Dakota's being dramatic.”
“Tell Dad to ask Dakota how she's doing. And stop saying she filed for divorce. She hasn't told me what she's decided.”
Ben was quiet. “You told me you were separated.”
“I told you what I wanted to be true.”
“Jesus, Miles.”
“He didn't have anything to do with it,” I said automatically, a joke I had made since college. Ben didn't laugh. Neither did I.
He cleared his throat. “Dakota came to Dad's birthday dinner last month. Alone. She gave him that old photograph he'd been asking for. You said you had meetings.”
“I did have meetings.”
“With Trinity?”
“Yes.”
Ben's disappointment came down the line in a breath. “I'll correct what I said. But you should call Dad yourself when you can tell him the truth without making her responsible for your shame.” He hung up, and I let the phone stay silent.
That afternoon Trinity called. She was in a small rental room on the other side of the city. I could hear traffic beyond her window. “I talked to the compliance office,” she said. “They have a genuine contract for my campaign. They also have three invoices from Bellwether using a scan of my signature. Mine, Miles. Whoever did this took it from the original agreement.”
“Leonard pushed the first approval through.”
“Did you tell them?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I brought copies of the actual work I delivered. If I lose the Aster contract, I'm going to survive. I won't survive pretending I signed something I didn't.”
I wanted to say I was proud of her, which would have been insulting. Her honesty was not a favor to me. “I'm sorry I used you as an excuse,” I said.
“Which time?”
“All of them.”
She sighed. “That's a start, not an ending.” Before she disconnected she added, “Don't try to see Dakota at her hotel. She's at work even when she's not serving your seat.”
I walked across Florence without going near either woman's hotel. A street musician played a song I couldn't identify beside a stone bridge. I stopped in front of a stationery shop and remembered Dakota selecting postcards everywhere we traveled together. She used to write to her grandmother even from cities she'd visited only for work. I'd called the habit old-fashioned. Dakota had said it was a way of telling someone, I was here, and I thought about you. On this trip I didn't buy a postcard. I had no right to send a sentimental object and mistake it for repair.
Late in the afternoon Ruth called. “We have confirmation that somebody substituted a page in the electronic approval packet after you signed. That does not make your original approval proper. Your signature authorized the release from the wrong fund.”
“Do you know who made the substitution?”
“We have an access log. We're verifying the person who used that account. I need you not to contact Mr. Vale.”
“Understood.”
She sounded surprised. “Most executives say that and call him anyway.”
“I was going to.”
“Then I'm glad you didn't.”
At dinner, I ate a bowl of soup alone. The restaurant owner asked if I was enjoying my visit. I said the soup was excellent. For once, a simple answer was also a complete one. My phone displayed a new message from Dakota, asking whether I had preserved the original home-printer pages. I sent her the file location and a copy, making sure I did not include materials she had no right to possess. She wrote: Thank you. I'll give mine to the attorney I retained this morning.
The word attorney struck me harder than the audit. My marriage had become something Dakota needed professional help to untangle. I typed, Are you safe? Then deleted it. She was safe from me because she was keeping her distance. Instead I wrote, I will cooperate with the separation process and won't come to your hotel. She replied with a single word: Good.
May you like
At nine, the unknown number sent another message. The blue mug had disappeared from the new photograph. This one showed a box of employee hardship applications, every folder marked PENDING. A hand rested on the lid. On the wrist was a silver watch I had given my executive assistant, Owen Pike, for ten years of service. Beneath the photo was a sentence that made me put my fork down: I DID THE SWITCH. HE SAID THE WORKERS WOULD BE PAID ANYWAY.
I had spent the day looking toward Leonard's office. The person who knew exactly how the documents were changed had been sitting outside mine.
