Chapter 8: Ten Million Out

The key slid into the padlock on the first try, and the lid came up with a dry click.

Inside the case were three things, laid flat and dry.

A foundation checkbook, the long kind with carbon stubs.

A green cloth ledger like the ones missing from Dean's study.

A yellow legal pad with a single page torn off the top.

I took out the ledger first and carried it up the steps into the light.

Gene sat down on the top step of the cabin and took out his glasses.

"Read it to me," he said.

"It's the foundation's second set of books."

"Second."

"There's the one the accountants see, and there's this one."

I turned the pages, and my mouth went dry.

The left column was dates, in Dean's tidy slanting hand.

The middle column was a name I did not know.

HERON POINT PARTNERS.

The right column was dollars.

One million.

Ten lines ran down the page, from a September three years ago to the week before Dean drowned.

Every one was a transfer out of the Pavilion Foundation's account.

Every memo said the same thing in the same neat letters.

Consulting.

"Ten of them," I said. "One million each."

"Ten million," Gene said.

"Daddy, this is the building fund."

"I know what it is."

"This is the shrimp boil. This is the bake sales."

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