Now they watched Greg.
“How many fraudulent payments were made?” Walter asked.
Daniel answered.
“We have verified eleven million dollars.
We are examining another twenty-three million connected to related entities.”
Walter braced one hand against the window.
“And the government contracts?”
“Some invoices charged federal clients for shipments that did not occur.
Others inflated fuel, storage, and hazard-handling fees.”
“How long?”
“At least four years.
Possibly longer.”
Greg gave another strained laugh.
“This is absurd.
Walter, you know how aggressive our growth targets were.
Every division adjusted billing.
You rewarded the results.”
Walter turned around.
“Adjusted billing?”
“Don’t pretend you never asked how the numbers improved.”
That was the first moment Greg stopped denying the conduct and began distributing responsibility for it.
Agent Price noticed.
“Mr.
Whitman,” she said, “are you stating that senior leadership instructed you to submit false invoices?”
Greg realized too late that he had stepped into a different kind of room.
His charm worked on subordinates, vendors, and executives protecting quarterly results.
It did not work on investigators trained to wait while people trapped themselves.
“I’m saying the company culture rewarded performance,” he replied.
“That was not my question.”
He said nothing.
Daniel opened a spreadsheet showing the flow of money.
Funds moved from Halden & Price into the three shell companies, then into consulting firms controlled by Greg’s brother-in-law.
From there, large transfers had paid for a lake house, two luxury vehicles, private-school tuition, and renovations to a property owned by Greg.
One smaller transfer caught my attention.
Forty-eight thousand dollars had been sent to a collections agency carrying my mother’s medical debt.
For one stunned second, I wondered whether Greg had secretly helped her.
Then Daniel enlarged the record.
The debt had not been paid.
It had been purchased.
Greg’s shell company had acquired my mother’s medical account for pennies on the dollar, then used it to place a lien against her house.
The porch in the photograph flashed through my mind.
Mom in her blue cardigan.
Her hands around a mug.
Her pride when she told me the mortgage was finally gone.
Three weeks before she died, she received a notice claiming she owed nearly sixty thousand dollars.
She had cried at the kitchen table, ashamed of a debt she did not understand.
I had promised her I would fix it.
Greg had sat ten feet from me at work while I called hospitals and collection offices.
He had watched me struggle with a problem his own scheme had created.
“You bought her debt,” I said.
My voice sounded distant, but the room heard it.
Greg did not look at me.
“It was a legitimate portfolio transaction.”
“You stole her identity, moved millions through companies in her name, and then tried to take her house.”
“I did not personally manage every asset.”
