Chapter 8 - The Doctor Who Hadn't Seen Me
Dr. Peter Kessler wore a pale blue tie and spoke in the polished voice of someone accustomed to being believed.
His deposition was conducted under an emergency discovery order.
Miriam asked him when he'd last met me.
“Nineteen years ago.”
“Were you treating her then?”
“No.”
“Did you conduct an examination before preparing the recent statement?”
“I reviewed materials provided by family members.”
“What materials?”
He hesitated.
“A behavioral summary.”
“Written by whom?”
“Mrs. Mercer.”
“Linda Mercer?”
“Yes.”
The doctor looked increasingly uncomfortable as Miriam walked through his assumptions.
He had never contacted my commanding officer.
Never consulted an independent evaluator.
Never verified whether the disciplinary incidents Linda described had occurred.
He admitted that the draft document was not a judicial determination of capacity.
Yet Victor had circulated it to the board as if the matter were settled.
Then Miriam asked about his payment.
Kessler initially said his practice had been compensated for consulting work.
The invoices showed a substantial retainer from Hale Advisory Group.
Victor's firm.
“Did you know the purpose of your statement was to help replace Ms. Mercer's voting authority?”
Kessler looked toward his attorney.
“I understood there was a fiduciary concern.”
“Did you know she had just been assaulted by a member of the family making those allegations?”
“No.”
For the first time, I believed him.
He had been willing to accept the story they paid him to read.
That was different from knowing what it would be used to do.
But the harm could have been the same.
After the deposition, Miriam warned me not to expect every questionable decision to become a crime.
“A bad opinion isn't automatically criminal,” she said.
“But concealed conflicts and false records are a different matter.”
I appreciated her refusal to promise me a courtroom miracle.
Then Rebecca called.
Her old company email account had been disabled years earlier, but she remembered the names of the employees who maintained lot-tracking backups.
One of them, a technician named Luis Ortega, had vanished from the public company directory that morning.
Rebecca had tried his mobile phone.
It went straight to voicemail.
At 9:42 that night, an unknown number sent me a photograph.
It showed a shipping container parked behind a loading dock.
Sprayed on its side was the same supplier lot number I'd investigated overseas.
The message beneath it contained five words.
May you like
“THEY DIDN'T DESTROY ALL OF IT.”
