Chapter 18 - The Chaplain’s Last Witness
Jack took Evan's insinuation seriously.
He asked Chaplain Bennett's executor to review the remaining correspondence and volunteered to let Rebecca examine his own involvement.
I appreciated the transparency.
I was also ashamed of how quickly suspicion had reached for the one man who'd stood beside me in the ballroom.
The executor found a final packet sealed by Bennett shortly before his death.
It contained records of his attempts to confront Gloria, notes from conversations with Dad, and a written explanation of why he had continued passing along my contributions.
He had feared that stopping the money abruptly would punish Dad, not the relatives who controlled the account.
He'd encouraged independent oversight but had been repeatedly blocked by false reports and restricted access.
He had made mistakes.
He said so plainly.
But the packet showed no evidence that he or Jack had taken the funds.
The final witness was a former home health aide named Teresa Morales.
She had worked for Dad during one of his worst winters.
Teresa described seeing sealed medication deliveries returned unopened and hearing Gloria insist a prescribed treatment was too expensive.
She also kept copies of the invoices she'd submitted and the amounts actually paid.
Her records helped investigators distinguish legitimate care spending from questionable billing.
She remembered Dad asking to telephone me.
"Mrs. Whitmore said you'd changed your number," Teresa recalled.
I hadn't.
I had kept the same number for fourteen years.
When Teresa finished, Dad took her hand.
"Thank you for coming back," he said.
She smiled sadly.
"I should have come back sooner."
That night he asked me to read the chaplain's last letter aloud.
It ended with the words, Richard was never forgotten by his daughter.
Dad covered his face.
I let him cry.
For once neither of us pretended our sorrow was something to overcome on command.
Then Rebecca told us the prosecution had obtained financial records that directly connected the fake medical invoices to Evan's company.
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The remaining question was what Gloria had authorized, and what Natalie had knowingly helped conceal.
