Chapter 9 - Baird Facilities
Caleb Baird answered Claire’s call after she left three messages.
“Claire Whitaker?”
“Yes.”
“Grant said you might call.”
That told her plenty.
Claire put him on speaker with Thomas present.
“I’m reviewing invoices from Baird Facilities LLC.”
“What about them?”
“I need documentation supporting the services.”
“I already submitted invoices.”
“Those invoices say you repaired refrigeration equipment.”
Silence.
Claire continued.
“Did you?”
“We coordinate contractors.”
“Which contractors?”
“I’d have to pull records.”
“Please do.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Roofing.”
“What about it?”
“Same question.”
Another pause.
Claire said, “Caleb, Baird Facilities is registered to a mailbox.”
“That’s legal.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“You sound like you’re accusing me of something.”
“I’m asking you to substantiate sixty-two thousand dollars.”
“You need to talk to Grant.”
“I’m talking to the person whose company received the money.”
Caleb ended the call.
Thomas stared at the phone.
“Well.”
Claire nodded.
“Well.”
They hired a forensic accountant that afternoon.
Marissa Cole arrived the following morning.
She was fifty-three, precise, and unimpressed by family drama.
“I don’t care who loves whom,” she told them. “I care who authorized what.”
Thomas almost laughed.
Claire liked her immediately.
Marissa spent five hours reviewing bank statements.
Then she asked a question.
“Who is Pineridge Strategic Holdings?”
Thomas frowned.
“No idea.”
Claire searched.
Another LLC.
Registered six months earlier.
Mailing address: an accounting office in Harrisburg.
Marissa pointed to three transfers.
“Baird sent money here.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-eight thousand total.”
Claire leaned closer.
“Can we see who owns Pineridge?”
“Not from these records.”
Thomas rubbed his temples.
“Why would Baird pay another company?”
“Could be legitimate.”
Marissa looked at him.
“Could also be a pass-through.”
She requested copies of deposited checks from the bank.
While they waited, Eli knocked on the office door.
Thomas looked up.
“Come in.”
Eli held a small spiral notebook.
“I remembered something.”
Claire motioned him inside.
“What?”
“Caleb came here.”
Thomas straightened.
“When?”
Eli opened the notebook.
“January twenty-third.”
Claire stared.
“You wrote that down?”
“I write people when Grant changes my jobs.”
“Why did you write Caleb?”
“He asked me to move boxes from the storage room.”
“What boxes?”
“Old menus. Photo frames. Papers.”
Thomas frowned.
“Where?”
“Basement.”
Whitaker’s basement held fifty years of restaurant history.
Old payroll ledgers.
Supplier contracts.
Tax returns that should have been shredded years ago.
Family photographs.
Thomas asked, “What did Caleb do downstairs?”
“I don’t know. Grant told me to go back upstairs.”
“Did you see anything?”
Eli thought.
“He had a measuring tape.”
Claire and Thomas exchanged a look.
“What was he measuring?”
“Walls.”
Thomas stood.
“Why?”
Eli shrugged.
“Then he took pictures.”
“Of records?”
“No. Basement. Stairs. Back door.”
Claire felt a chill.
Those were not maintenance photos.
They sounded like property-development documentation.
“Anything else?”
Eli flipped a page.
“Grant said, ‘Once we clear this junk, you can see the footprint better.’”
Thomas sat down again.
He remembered the date.
January twenty-third.
Two weeks later Grant had presented a financial forecast showing Whitaker’s would lose nearly three hundred thousand dollars over the next eighteen months.
A forecast Thomas now suspected had been manipulated.
Marissa looked at Eli’s notebook.
“Do you always keep records like this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My mom said paper remembers.”
Marissa smiled.
“Your mom was smart.”
“Yes.”
Thomas stared at the notebook.
Small details.
Dates.
Times.
Names.
Things the rest of them had dismissed as ordinary moments.
Grant had counted on everyone forgetting.
Eli had not.
Marissa’s laptop chimed.
The bank had returned one requested image.
A canceled check from Pineridge Strategic Holdings.
Twenty thousand dollars.
Payable to:
Evelyn Doyle Consulting.
Thomas stopped breathing for a moment.
Claire whispered, “Dad.”
He did not answer.
May you like
He simply stared at his sister’s name.
And understood that whatever Evelyn had known, she had been paid not to forget it.
