Chapter 8: The Day Douglas Reeve Talked
Gerald Fitch called on Friday morning, forty minutes before Miriam had scheduled our response to be sent.
He didn't offer more money this time.
"My client would like to request an in-person meeting," he said.
"He believes a direct conversation would be more productive than continued written correspondence."
Miriam looked at me across the desk.
I shook my head.
"My client isn't available for an in-person meeting at this time," Miriam said.
"We'll be sending our written response as scheduled."
"Ms.
Cole." Gerald's voice had lost its professional smoothness.
"I need to advise you that my client has become aware that Douglas Reeve has been contacted by a third party in connection with this matter.
My client is concerned about what Mr.
Reeve may communicate without the full context of the arrangement."
Miriam kept her voice even.
"We appreciate the notice."
"My client would like the opportunity to provide that context directly, before any statements are made that could complicate the picture."
"We'll include that request in our written response," Miriam said.
"Thank you, Mr.
Fitch."
She ended the call.
"Douglas talked," I said.
"Or he's about to.
Either way, your father is trying to get in front of it." She set down the phone.
"This is the moment he was hoping to avoid."
What had actually happened with Douglas Reeve had come to us through a different channel entirely.
Miriam had a colleague — a civil litigator named Thomas Hale — who had reached out to Douglas's attorney on a parallel track, not as part of our case, but as a separate inquiry into Carver Holdings related to another matter entirely.
Douglas's attorney, apparently concerned about his own client's exposure, had allowed Douglas to provide a written statement.
The statement arrived in Miriam's inbox at nine forty-seven that morning.
We read it together.
Douglas Reeve stated that the arrangement with my father had begun approximately five years ago, when my father approached him about a private investment structure.
My father had explained that he had access to a significant pool of funds under his management and was looking for a vehicle to generate personal returns without the transactions appearing in his own name.
Douglas had agreed to form Carver Holdings for this purpose.
My father would transfer funds from the account he managed — which Douglas understood to be a family investment account — and Douglas would invest them through Carver Holdings.
A portion of the returns would be sent back to my father personally.
Douglas stated that he had not known the account belonged to a minor beneficiary.
He stated that my father had described himself as the account's primary manager with full discretionary authority.
He also stated that Patricia Weston, his sister, had not been aware of the arrangement when she listed Lena's house.
She had been brought into the LLC two years after its formation for a separate real estate venture and had no knowledge of the transfers from my inheritance account.
The final paragraph of Douglas's statement was the one that mattered most.
He had kept records.
Every transfer, every return payment, every communication with my father about the arrangement.
He had kept them because, in his words, he had grown uncomfortable with the arrangement approximately eighteen months ago and had wanted documentation in case he ever needed to demonstrate that he had acted in good faith based on what my father had told him.
He was prepared to provide those records in full.
I set the statement down on Miriam's desk.
"He kept everything," I said.
"He did."
"Dad told him the account was his to manage freely."
"That's what Douglas says.
And Douglas has the paper trail to support his version."
I thought about my father calling Gerald on Wednesday night.
About Gerald calling Douglas's attorney.
About Douglas deciding that the safest thing he could do was tell the truth before my father could frame the story first.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Now," Miriam said, "we send our written response.
And we attach Douglas Reeve's statement as an exhibit."
She looked at me steadily.
"Your father's attorney is going to read that statement and call him within the hour.
And then your father is going to have to decide whether he wants to keep fighting or whether he wants to tell the truth."
"Which do you think he'll choose?"
May you like
Miriam picked up her pen.
"I think," she said carefully, "that Gerald Fitch is going to advise him very strongly to tell the truth."
