Chapter 4 - THE FILE MARKED SEVEN YEARS AGO
Casius had spent most of his adult life defending his father's memory.
Vittorio Ferraro had been feared throughout Chicago.
He had also been the man who taught Casius how to ride a bicycle, how to read financial statements, and how to recognize a liar before the liar finished speaking.
Casius had never believed his father was innocent.
But he'd believed he was loyal to his family.
Now August Bellamy was suggesting Vittorio had ignored a warning about corruption that destroyed an innocent man.
August spread the documents across a conference table.
"Thomas Pierce found discrepancies in the hospital's charitable medication program."
Casius studied the invoices.
"Who controlled the program?"
"At the time, the Ashford Foundation handled procurement."
Casius looked up.
"Camille's father."
August nodded.
"Edmund Ashford."
Delaney folded her arms.
"My father told me he'd found something wrong. He wouldn't explain it. He said he didn't want me involved."
August looked at her sadly.
"He was trying to protect you."
Casius examined a signature.
His father's.
"Why did Vittorio approve these transfers?"
August shook his head.
"We don't know whether he understood what he was signing."
Casius stared at the page.
"Or whether he was part of it."
Nobody answered.
The records revealed a disturbing pattern.
Charitable funds had been transferred to suppliers connected to Edmund Ashford.
The suppliers billed for medications that never reached the intended patients.
Several patients had experienced treatment delays.
Some had died.
Investigators had never established whether the delays contributed to those deaths.
But the missing funds were real.
Delaney turned a page.
Then stopped.
A handwritten notation appeared beside one transaction.
T.P. — ORIGINALS RETAINED.
Her father's initials.
She looked at August.
"What does that mean?"
August hesitated.
"Your father told me he had copied the original shipping records."
"Where are they?"
"I don't know."
Delaney closed her eyes.
For seven years, she'd kept her father's belongings in a storage locker.
His tools.
His work jackets.
A box of old manuals.
She had never searched them for evidence.
Casius noticed her expression.
"What is it?"
"My father kept everything."
She looked up.
"Receipts. Warranty cards. Instructions for appliances we threw away ten years earlier."
August leaned forward.
"Do you still have his things?"
Delaney nodded.
"Yes."
That afternoon, Delaney went to the storage facility with August's attorney and an independent investigator.
She refused Casius's offer of armed escorts.
"I don't need a parade."
He accepted that.
But he arranged for police to be informed of the potential evidence.
The locker smelled of cardboard and old metal.
Delaney opened box after box.
At the bottom of the fifth, she found a battered blue toolbox.
Inside were screwdrivers, a measuring tape, electrical testers, and a folded piece of paper.
On the paper, her father had written:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, CHECK THE RADIO.
Delaney stared.
Then slowly turned toward the back of the locker.
There, beneath a dusty blanket, sat the old wooden radio her father had repaired when she was a child.
She remembered him sitting at the kitchen table, carefully adjusting its dials.
"Never throw away something just because it stops working, Della," he'd said.
"Sometimes the important part is still inside."
Her hands began to shake.
She lifted the radio.
Something rattled inside.
When the investigator removed the back panel, they found a sealed metal container.
Inside were original procurement records.
A small storage device.
And a photograph.
Delaney picked up the photograph.
Three men stood outside St. Bellamy Hospital.
Edmund Ashford.
Vittorio Ferraro.
And a third man.
She recognized him immediately.
Merrick Doyle.
May you like
On the back, her father had written four words.
HE KNOWS WHO DID IT.
