Chapter 3 - THE FIRST ACCOUNT THAT FROZE
Diane met me in the hospital cafeteria after sunrise.
She had handled Hale Moving and Storage’s books for seventeen years, until Douglas fired her four months after my mother’s death. Dad told us she had become unreliable.
Diane said she left because he ordered her to reclassify several withdrawals as equipment expenses.
Larkspur Fleet Services was not a repair company.
It was a trade name Douglas registered eighteen months earlier using a post-office box outside Dayton. The linked bank account belonged solely to him.
“How much did he move?” I asked.
“At least one hundred eighty-six thousand dollars.”
I felt sick.
“Why would Aaron’s approval appear on the transfers?”
“Your father had administrator access to the company’s banking profile. Carol gave it to him when she got sick.”
My mother had always monitored the company accounts. She checked receipts at the kitchen table every Sunday evening and refused to let either man make large purchases without documentation.
After she died, Douglas told us the business was failing because she had hidden how much debt it carried.
Diane believed the opposite was true.
Carol had been stopping him from taking more.
I called the bank’s fraud department from the cafeteria and reported that disputed transfers had been authorized through a profile controlled by multiple family members.
The bank restricted the company’s operating account while it reviewed the transactions.
By noon, employees’ direct deposits were delayed.
Aaron called me from the county jail.
“You froze payroll?”
“I reported fraud.”
“You knew what would happen to the drivers.”
“I knew Dad used your name.”
Aaron went silent.
I told him about Larkspur.
“He said you created that company,” Aaron replied.
“I had never heard of it until yesterday.”
“He showed me emails.”
“What emails?”
“Messages where you told him you were going to make me take the fall.”
I closed my eyes.
Dad had not merely blamed me during an argument. He had shown Aaron something designed to make the lie believable.
Before the call ended, Aaron said, “When Dad came into my room, he already had your bedroom key.”
My door did not use a key. It had a simple privacy lock opened with a narrow pin.
The pin had belonged to my mother’s sewing box.
After leaving the hospital, I returned with a police escort to collect clothes.
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The sewing box was still in the hall cabinet.
The pin was gone.
