One account belonged to a consultant connected to Grant’s brother.
Another belonged to a former county procurement manager.
A third belonged to an unnamed person using a private trust.
Victoria studied the documents.
Then she noticed something.
The payments began shortly after Northstar won its largest public contract.
And the first unexplained payment occurred just two weeks before Grant and Miller were hired into the traffic division.
The investigators began tracing the entire network.
What they found suggested that Northstar had built a system designed to protect itself.
Public money entered through contracts.
The money moved through consulting companies.
The consulting companies paid individuals.
And anyone who came too close to the truth was discouraged, threatened, or quietly removed from the process.
