“You look grumpy.”
“I probably was.”
I turned the picture over.
Someone had written a date.
And beneath it, in different handwriting:
Frank Foster—keep an eye on this one. He asks the right questions.
“Did you write that?”
Arthur nodded.
“You liked him.”
“I respected him.”
“But you fired him.”
“Yes.”
There was no defensiveness in the answer.
That somehow made it easier to listen.
“What really happened?”
Arthur leaned back.
“Your father discovered that maintenance spending at his depot had been cut too sharply. He asked for more funding. The requests were delayed by corporate management. Eventually he began moving money from other operating budgets to pay for repairs.”
“Was that allowed?”
“No.”
“But the trucks needed fixing.”
“Yes.”
“So he did the right thing.”
Arthur looked toward the garden.
“He did the right thing in the wrong way.”
That sounded like something Grace would say.
“When auditors discovered the transfers, they suspected he was hiding larger problems. Then several maintenance reports surfaced that had not been submitted on time.”
