Chapter 6 - The Repairs That Never Happened
We met Owen in the public library, where he had volunteered since retirement. He looked ten years older than he had at the last trust meeting.
He spread invoices across a study-room table. Every page had the trust's seal. Every contractor bill bore a familiar signature: mine.
"This one is for shoreline reinforcement," Owen said. "Seven hundred eighty thousand dollars."
"We didn't reinforce that section. The permits were denied."
"Exactly. And this was supposedly for a pump station. The property owner says nobody entered the site."
Mara photographed the records while Sonia wrote down where Owen had obtained them. The detective would need originals and an independent audit, not just our outrage.
"Who received the money?" I asked.
Owen tapped the vendor name: Pinebridge Consulting.
"No equipment, no crews, no insurance certificate. Just invoices and payments. I questioned Celeste. She told me you had approved an emergency procurement."
"Why didn't you call me?"
Owen's face crumpled. "I tried. She said your medication made you forget conversations. I believed her longer than I should have."
The room went quiet. That was the ugliest part of the scheme. Celeste hadn't needed to convince the whole world that I was helpless. She had only needed enough people to stop asking me questions.
Sonia studied a payment register. "These aren't isolated mistakes. They're repeated transfers stretching back almost three years."
"Can we stop the sale?" Mara asked.
"We can ask a court to preserve the land and records. We still need to prove which documents were falsified."
Owen opened a final folder. Inside was a copy of a consent bearing a notary's seal and my signature.
"The office says you signed this last December," he said.
I read the date twice.
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Last December, at exactly the time recorded on that document, I had been under anesthesia for surgery.
And the notary had sworn she watched me sign.
