Chapter 9 - The Doctor Who Never Examined Me
The document was printed on the letterhead of a private behavioral-health practice.
It described me as impulsive, paranoid, and obsessed with betrayal.
The signature belonged to a doctor named Samuel Kline.
I had never met Samuel Kline.
I knew because the date of the alleged evaluation was the same day I had testified at a veterans' housing conference in Washington.
My appearance had been livestreamed, recorded, and documented by the conference organizers.
Maya smiled for the first time in two days.
"That may be the easiest false statement in the entire packet to test."
We secured the conference records and contacted the medical practice through appropriate channels.
The office manager confirmed that there was no appointment in my name in its ordinary scheduling system, while declining to discuss private records further without proper authorization.
That response did not by itself prove forgery, but it gave Maya a specific issue to raise with the court.
Grant located public disciplinary records showing that Kline had previously faced complaints about deficient documentation.
We did not assume those complaints established misconduct here.
We prepared to ask for authentication of the report.
By Monday afternoon, online accounts were circulating a video clip of my sister's announcement.
Someone had edited out my response and added a caption describing me as a jealous wife attacking a pregnant woman.
I watched the clip once.
Then I closed it.
Public opinion was a room with too many doors to guard.
Leah worried donors would abandon us.
I asked her to prepare a simple, accurate statement confirming that our grant programs remained operational and that no recipient owed repayment.
We did not mention family conflict.
We did not discuss medical evidence.
We told people what they needed to know.
The statement brought a few donors back.
It also brought a phone call from one of Richard's former business partners.
His name was Marcus Bell, and he had served as an accountant on a short-lived development venture.
"I recognize North Coast Holdings," he told Maya. "That wasn't created for family loans."
"What was it created for?" she asked.
"To route fees between projects and make related-party payments harder to follow."
He had no direct knowledge of our foundation, but he could explain the business structure and identify where lawful records might be found.
Maya arranged an interview.
Marcus supplied a handwritten list of account names and an old invoice number.
One account name caught my eye.
SECOND HARBOR ADVISORY.
I recognized it from our foundation's vendor ledger.
We had paid that vendor for employment training seminars.
I had attended one of those seminars myself.
The invoices looked ordinary until Leah checked the dates.
Three were issued for sessions that had never occurred.
The total was $186,000.
The emails approving payment came from Eric's corporate account.
A storm rolled in as I left Maya's office.
Grant waited by the curb, holding an umbrella.
"You look like you finally found the center of it," he said.
"I found one center," I answered. "I doubt it's the last."
When we reached the hotel, a sealed letter was waiting at the front desk.
Inside was a signed statement from Samuel Kline.
He insisted the report was genuine.
And attached to it was a photograph of me entering his clinic.
The woman in the photograph had my dark hair, my height, and my coat.
May you like
But the photograph was not of me.
