Chapter 6 - THE APPOINTMENT THAT NEVER MOVED
“Elena, you're not going.”
Roman's voice echoed through the mansion's entrance hall.
His sister sat in her wheelchair wearing a navy coat.
I stood beside her holding the appointment card.
Elena looked at her brother.
“I'm thirty-one, Roman. Not thirteen.”
“The woman we're meeting may know things about our mother's final hours.”
“That's exactly why I'm going.”
Roman glanced at me.
I didn't rescue him.
He sighed.
“All right. But Nico drives.”
Elena smiled faintly.
“You're learning.”
For the first time since I'd entered the DeLuca mansion, she was leaving the grounds for something she had chosen herself.
She looked nervous.
But she also looked alive.
Forty minutes later, we entered a modest accounting office downtown.
Ruth Calder was seventy-two, with silver hair, sensible shoes, and reading glasses hanging from a chain.
She had worked with Lucia DeLuca for eleven years.
When she saw Elena, she pressed a hand to her mouth.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Elena smiled.
“Hello, Ruth.”
Ruth approached slowly.
“May I hug you?”
Elena nodded.
The older woman bent and embraced her.
It was such a simple thing.
Yet I saw Elena close her eyes as though she'd been waiting years for someone to ask permission before touching her.
Ruth invited us into her office.
Roman placed the appointment card on the desk.
“Did my mother have a meeting with you on June twelfth?”
Ruth nodded.
“At eight-thirty that evening.”
“Was it moved to South Pier?”
Ruth looked confused.
“No.”
Roman leaned forward.
“Are you certain?”
“I waited here until after nine. Your mother never arrived.”
Elena's voice trembled.
“Vincent said the location changed.”
Ruth removed her glasses.
“Vincent Orsini didn't know about that appointment.”
The room went silent.
“What do you mean?” Roman asked.
Ruth hesitated.
“Lucia was concerned about irregularities in the Open Door Fund. She specifically asked me to conduct an independent review without informing Vincent until we understood the numbers.”
Roman's face hardened.
“What irregularities?”
“Transportation expenses. Rehabilitation payments. Vendor reimbursements.”
I thought of the company listed on Elena's therapy records.
Lakeshore Recovery Services.
“Was South Harbor involved?” I asked.
Ruth looked surprised.
“Yes. South Harbor handled administrative payments for several transportation providers. Lucia suspected money was moving between companies without the services being delivered.”
Roman sat back.
“How much?”
“At that point, we were examining nearly six hundred thousand dollars in questionable transactions.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Ruth continued.
“Lucia had already sent me copies of certain records. She intended to bring additional statements that night.”
“Did she tell you why she was coming so late?” I asked.
Ruth looked toward Elena.
“She said she didn't want an argument at home. She wanted to understand the evidence first.”
Elena began crying quietly.
Roman reached for her hand.
This time, she let him take it.
For three years, Elena had believed her mother died because she insisted on an unnecessary trip.
But Lucia hadn't been driving across Chicago for pleasure.
She had been trying to protect the foundation she created.
And somebody had lied about the destination.
Ruth opened an archived folder on her computer.
“I still have the copies she sent.”
We spent the next hour examining payment summaries.
Several invoices came from businesses that had stopped operating years earlier.
Others involved transportation vehicles that never appeared in the actual trip records.
Then Ruth found a transfer involving South Harbor Fleet Services.
The amount was $18,600.
The authorization was dated two months before Lucia's death.
At the bottom was a familiar name.
Gavin Turner.
I stared.
“My husband.”
Ruth nodded.
“He processed some of the transfers. Lucia had questions about his employer's accounts.”
I felt as though the floor had shifted beneath me.
Gavin hadn't merely worked near the problem.
He had handled the money.
Roman looked at me.
“You didn't know?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
For once, he didn't question me further.
Ruth printed the transfer summary and placed it in my hands.
Then she opened another file.
“This may matter even more.”
It was an inventory of Lucia's personal business materials, prepared two weeks after the funeral.
The list included old correspondence, foundation records, and a blue leather music portfolio.
Elena leaned forward.
“That was Mom's.”
Ruth nodded.
“I remember it. She kept important notes inside.”
Roman examined the inventory.
The materials had been transferred from the mansion to Vincent Orsini for cataloging and safekeeping.
At the bottom was a handwritten authorization.
Roman DeLuca.
Elena turned toward her brother.
“Did you let him take Mom's papers?”
Roman stared at the document.
His face went pale.
“I signed that.”
Elena's voice broke.
“Why?”
“Vincent told me he was organizing her belongings for the estate inventory.”
“Did you look through them first?”
Roman didn't answer.
Elena closed her eyes.
Ruth spoke gently.
“Roman, grief makes people trust anyone who promises to handle the painful things.”
He swallowed.
“I trusted him.”
Ruth looked at the inventory again.
“There's another problem.”
She pointed to the bottom of the page.
The transfer authorization covered all of Lucia's foundation records.
But the receipt confirming that those records had been returned was missing.
Roman reached for the paper.
“Then we find out where they went.”
Ruth shook her head.
“I don't think you understand.”
She pulled up the foundation's annual financial statement from the following year.
The document listed a destruction of obsolete records.
Hundreds of original files had been discarded.
Including Lucia's working papers.
Elena stared at the screen.
“Who approved destroying them?”
May you like
Ruth turned the document toward us.
“The authorization carried your brother's signature again. And this time, it gave Vincent permission to destroy everything.”
