Chapter 7: What David Harte Found
David Harte arrived in fifty-one minutes, not forty.
He was a compact man in his early sixties, grey at the temples, with the particular stillness of someone who had spent decades in rooms where people were lying to each other.
He set a leather case on the table, shook Richard's hand, nodded to Marcus, and looked at Thomas and Diane without expression.
"I've reviewed the letter from Gerald Fitch," he said, settling into a chair.
"He sent me a courtesy copy two hours ago.
We've spoken briefly by phone." He opened the case and removed a legal pad.
"I'd like to hear from you, Thomas, starting from the beginning."
Thomas looked at Richard.
"He speaks for me," Richard said.
"Start talking."
What followed took the better part of two hours.
Thomas talked.
Harte listened, wrote, and asked questions in short precise bursts that cut through Thomas's careful framing like a letter opener through an envelope.
Diane said very little.
When Harte turned to her directly, she answered in clipped sentences and referred twice to her own legal representation, which she would be contacting in the morning.
"You're welcome to do that," Harte said pleasantly.
"It will slow things down, but it won't change the figures."
By the time the ballroom clock read nearly midnight, the outline was clear.
Over nine years, a total of just under four hundred thousand had moved from a holding account — established originally by Richard's father for legitimate estate management purposes — into a secondary account controlled jointly by Thomas and Diane.
The transfers had been structured carefully to avoid triggering automatic review thresholds.
Gerald Fitch had processed them under the understanding, he now claimed, that they were authorized disbursements from the estate.
He had been told, each time, that Richard was aware.
Richard had never been told.
"The company wasn't in danger," Harte said, looking at his notes.
"Not in 2014, not after.
The Singapore expansion was expensive but it stabilized within eighteen months.
Anyone with access to the actual accounts would have known that." He looked at Thomas.
"The narrative you gave Fitch — that this was emergency stabilization — wasn't supported by the numbers."
"There were risks that weren't on the books," Thomas said.
"Name one."
Thomas was quiet.
"The company wasn't the reason for the transfers," Harte said.
It was not a question.
Thomas said nothing.
Diane spoke then.
Quietly, from her end of the table, without lifting her eyes from the surface in front of her.
"It was leverage," she said.
Everyone looked at her.
"If Richard ever came after Thomas for any reason — the affair, anything — Thomas had the money to fight him.
And if I ever needed to leave this marriage, I had resources that weren't visible on any joint statement." She paused.
"That was the arrangement."
The room was silent.
"You were building an exit," Richard said slowly.
"I was building security," Diane said.
"There's a difference."
"Not with my money."
Diane looked up at him then, and for the first time all evening, her voice carried something that was not armor and not cruelty.
It was exhaustion, deep and old.
"Your money," she said.
"Your company.
Your family name.
Your father's house.
Your brother's opinion.
Your rules for how I should sit and how I should speak and who I should be kind to." A pause.
"I have given thirty-one years to this family, Richard.
Everything that exists in this room was built on the back of what I organized, managed, hosted, smoothed over, and endured.
And yes.
I took some of it for myself." She looked at the table again.
"If that's theft, then you can explain to a judge what thirty-one years of my life was worth to you."
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then Harte said, gently, "That argument may be made to a judge.
I'd recommend making it through counsel." He turned a page on his legal pad.
"For now, I need to discuss the mechanics of what comes next."
Marcus, who had said almost nothing for two hours, looked at his father.
"Dad.
Are you alright?"
Richard looked at his son.
"No," he said.
"But I will be."
He looked at Claire.
She was seated near the far end of the table now, slightly apart from the group, her hands folded in front of her, the document from his father still tucked beside her.
She had not been asked another question since Thomas's gambit had failed.
She had simply stayed.
Watching.
Waiting.
He had not thanked her yet.
He was not sure he knew how.
Harte cleared his throat.
"Given Fitch's cooperation, we have a strong documentary basis for a civil recovery action.
Whether this proceeds criminally will depend on how Thomas and Diane respond in the coming days." He looked at them both.
"I would strongly encourage full cooperation."
Thomas said, finally, "I want to speak to Richard.
Alone."
"No," Richard said.
"Richard, please—"
"Whatever you have to say to me, you say in front of David and Marcus." A pause.
"I'm done having private conversations with you, Thomas.
They haven't served me well."
Thomas's chair scraped back.
He stood up.
For a moment it looked as if he might walk out.
The exit was right there.
Clear.
Nobody was blocking it.
"If you walk out of this room," Richard said quietly, "I call the police tonight.
Not in the morning.
Tonight."
May you like
Thomas stood at the edge of the table.
Then he sat back down.
