Chapter 5 - NINE APARTMENTS, SEVEN YEARS
I called my accountant.
“Martin, do estate employees pay rent?”
“No.”
“Any accommodation charge?”
“Not on the payroll reports I receive.”
I photographed Elena’s statement.
Thirty seconds later Martin called back.
“This isn’t from our payroll system.”
“What?”
“The format is copied, but the employee ID and tax-code layout are wrong.”
Elena gripped the chair.
“Where does the money go?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn’t tell her not to worry.
Words had been used against her often enough.
Instead I said:
“I’m going to find out.”
Then someone knocked.
Rosa, one of the kitchen staff, entered carrying soup.
Her eyes fell to the statements.
“You showed him?”
Elena whispered:
“He says the rent isn’t real.”
Rosa stared at me.
“How many employees pay housing charges?” I asked.
“All who live here.”
Nine apartments.
“How long?”
“I’ve worked here eleven years.”
“And always paid?”
“Not always.”
“When did it start?”
“Seven years ago.”
Exactly when Harland became estate manager.
“How much?”
“Seven hundred. I have two bedrooms.”
I began calculating.
Nine apartments.
Hundreds each month.
Seven years.
Potentially hundreds of thousands.
“Why didn’t anyone contact accounting?”
Rosa gave me a sad smile.
“We tried.”
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
The former grounds supervisor.
Harland had told me Daniel resigned two years earlier to move closer to family.
“What happened?”
“He started asking why his housing payments weren’t on his tax records.”
“He contacted my office?”
“Three times.”
“I never saw them.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“The messages came back through Harland.”
Two weeks later Daniel was dismissed.
For supposedly stealing a lawn-mower part.
Rosa had signed for the part herself.
Daniel had ordered it legally.
“What happened when you told Harland?”
“He said I should be careful involving myself in matters that didn’t concern me.”
My phone vibrated.
Harland.
We need to discuss what happened today before misunderstandings cause unnecessary damage.
Then another message.
I am in the study when you are ready.
He didn’t know what I had found.
Not yet.
I looked at Rosa.
“Do you still have Daniel’s contact information?”
“Maybe.”
“Find it.”
May you like
Because nine fake rent payments were bad enough.
But the fact that someone had already tried to expose them—and disappeared from my estate afterward—was worse.
