Chapter 3 - My Mother Knew Arthur Pendelton
My mother, Rose Carter, had never told me she knew a millionaire.
She told me she worked bookkeeping jobs.
She told me money was always tight.
She died in what I had been told was a highway accident.
Arthur said those facts were true.
Just incomplete.
Rose had been a junior accountant at Pendelton Medical Holdings
twenty-four years earlier.
Arthur built the company with his younger brother, Charles.
Rose discovered something wrong in the charity division.
Money intended for pediatric patients was being redirected through
consulting companies.
She copied records.
Then she came to Arthur.
“I didn’t believe her quickly enough,” he said.
The confession seemed to age him another decade.
“Why?”
“Because the person she accused was my brother.”
Charles denied everything.
Arthur chose family loyalty over a young accountant.
Three weeks later, Rose left the company.
Six months later, she died.
I backed away from the desk.
“Are you saying your brother killed my mother?”
“No.”
Arthur’s answer was immediate.
“I have no proof of that, and I won’t turn suspicion into fact.”
He did know something else.
Rose had hidden copies of the financial records.
Arthur had spent years looking for them.
Then, six months ago, someone mailed him one page.
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
Emily still has the rest.
I stared at him.
“I don’t have anything.”
May you like
Arthur replied:
“Someone believes you do.”
