Chapter 8: What the Audit Found
The forensic audit took six weeks.
Patricia called me on a Wednesday afternoon in early November.
I was at my mother's kitchen table, going through the first round of post-divorce paperwork, when my phone rang.
"It's done," she said.
"The audit report is finalized.
I'm sending it to you now."
I opened my laptop.
The executive summary was four pages.
I read it twice.
"Walk me through the main findings," I said.
"Marr Advisory Group received a total of six hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars over twenty-two months.
Not four hundred thousand — we found additional payments routed through two other subsidiary accounts that weren't in Arthur's original folder." She paused.
"There's more.
Three vendor contracts were awarded to companies with undisclosed relationships to Chloe Marr.
Two of those companies performed no verifiable work.
The combined value of those contracts is just over one point two million."
I set my pen down.
"Almost two million dollars," I said.
"One point eight eight, total.
The audit team has flagged it for potential securities violations given the public company structure.
The board's outside counsel is recommending a voluntary disclosure to the SEC."
"What does the board want to do?"
"Helen Marsh called me this morning.
The board voted nine to zero last night to authorize the disclosure and to refer the matter to the company's general counsel for further action." A pause.
"Julian's two appointed directors both voted in favor."
I looked out the window.
November light, thin and pale, across my mother's back garden.
"And Chloe Marr?" I asked.
"Her consulting agreement has been terminated.
The board is pursuing civil recovery of the funds.
Whether there are personal legal consequences for her depends on what the SEC inquiry finds." Patricia's voice was careful.
"She may have known the payments were improper.
She may not have.
That's for the inquiry to determine."
"All right."
"Evelyn." Patricia paused.
"I want to say something outside of counsel mode for a moment."
"Go ahead."
"You held this together very cleanly.
From a hospital bed, with everything you were carrying, you made every decision correctly and at the right time.
Your father would have — I think he would have been very proud of how you handled this."
My throat tightened.
"Thank you, Patricia," I said.
"For everything."
After I hung up, I sat for a while without moving.
My mother came in from the garden with her hands still dirty from the soil.
She looked at my face.
"It's done?" she asked.
"The audit is done.
The disclosure goes to the SEC.
The divorce is finalized next week."
She sat down across from me.
There was a streak of dark earth across her wrist.
"And how do you feel?" she asked.
I thought about it honestly.
"Like something very heavy has been set down," I said.
"And I'm not sure yet what I look like without it."
She reached across the table and covered my hand with hers — the dirty one, the garden one.
May you like
"You look like yourself," she said.
"You look exactly like yourself."
