Chapter 6 - A DOOR LEFT OPEN
Antonio brought the receipt to Detective Park himself. I was in the interview room when he arrived. He didn’t ask to speak without me there.
“I didn’t sign it,” he told Park.
“You understand why I need more than your word.”
“Yes.”
He gave her the receipt and a list of his financial accounts. Park looked surprised. So was I.
Outside the precinct, Antonio caught up with me. “My mother says you nearly got hit by a van.”
“Lena and I are okay.”
“I can have someone watch your building.”
“I’d rather Park handle that.”
He nodded. “All right.”
It was the first time I’d told him no without feeling the need to explain myself.
Park soon learned the money had never entered one of Antonio’s accounts. It had moved through a small foundation connected to the clinic, then vanished into a company called Harbor Bridge Services. Bellini sat on its board.
I recognized the company name from a bill in my grandmother’s filing box. Harbor Bridge had charged her for in-home care on days she was hospitalized.
Park asked me to bring in the records. While we sorted them, Lena called with news of her own. She volunteered at a free clinic and knew a former billing clerk named Ruth Kim who had worked with my grandmother.
Ruth agreed to meet us after her shift.
She was a small, direct woman in her fifties who kept her purse in her lap throughout our conversation.
“Rosa was stubborn,” she said. “She caught duplicate charges and wouldn’t let them go.”
“Did she tell anyone?” I asked.
“She told Dr. Vale. Two days later, Vale said Rosa had made a mistake.”
“And had she?”
Ruth shook her head. “I checked. The charges were real.”
“Why didn’t you come forward?”
“My husband had just lost his job. I was afraid I’d lose mine too.”
Her shame was plain. I knew what it meant to need a paycheck, so I didn’t ask her to defend herself.
Ruth took an old access card from her purse. “Rosa asked me to keep this. I should have given it to her family.”
The card opened a records room at the clinic. Park could get a warrant; Ruth promised to tell her everything.
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Before she left, Ruth caught my hand.
“There’s something else,” she said. “The day Rosa confronted Vale, Antonio Russo was there.”
