The forensic accountant was a quiet, precise man named Howard Lindqvist, a former IRS criminal investigator who now worked for corporate boards that suspected someone was stealing from them. He charged $650 an hour. I paid his $25,000 retainer from my personal savings account, the one Martin didn’t know existed, funded with money I’d saved from my law firm years.
As a director and trust beneficiary, I had the legal right to inspect Voss Meridian’s books. Margaret sent a formal demand letter to the company’s general counsel at nine that morning. By noon, Howard had read-only access to the accounting system.
It took him eleven days.
He laid it all out on Margaret’s conference table on a gray Thursday afternoon.
“The expenses for Ms. Hayes are real,” he said. “The apartment, the car, the jewelry, the resort trips. About $1.1 million over four years, all booked as business expenses and approved by Mr. Martin Voss. Those are personal expenses run through the company. They’ll need to be repaid, and there are tax consequences.”
He turned the page.
“But that’s not the main problem. Every one of those expenses was also approved by the CFO, Adrian Voss. And every time, he approved an invoice for about forty percent more than the actual cost.”
“Forty percent more?” I said.
“The apartment lease is $6,800 a month,” Howard said. “The company has been paying $9,500 a month for it to a property management company called Lakeshore Hospitality Partners LLC. Lakeshore pays the real landlord $6,800 and keeps the difference. The Range Rover lease is $2,100 a month. The company pays Lakeshore $2,900. The Cabo trip cost $14,500. The company paid Lakeshore $21,000.”
He set down a printout from the Illinois Secretary of State’s business database.
Lakeshore Hospitality Partners LLC was formed four years earlier. Its registered agent was a law office in Schaumburg, and its sole member was Clara M. Hayes.
“Clara owns it,” I said.
“Clara owns it,” Howard said. “And here’s where the money goes after it lands in Lakeshore’s account.”
There were monthly transfers from Lakeshore to a brokerage account at a bank in the Cayman Islands. The beneficial owner listed on the account opening documents was Adrian H. Voss.
Total skimmed through Lakeshore over four years: $1.87 million.
“But that’s still not the biggest number,” Howard said, almost apologetically, and turned one more page.
It was the term sheet for the $340 million credit line Voss Meridian was negotiating with the banks, the same deal that required Martin’s key-person life insurance. Section 14.3 named a “Designated Successor” to serve as CEO if Martin died or became incapacitated during the life of the loan.
The Designated Successor was Adrian Voss.
And the $50 million key-person policy would be paid to the company, which Adrian would then be running.
I didn’t sleep that night.
I lay in the guest room. I’d moved out of our bedroom the night Clara showed up with the children. I stared at the ceiling and thought about my father-in-law in his hospital bed, gripping my hand.
“Martin is a good boy with a weak spine. Somebody will use that someday.”
Someone had. It was his own brother.
Adrian was thirty-six, five years younger than Martin. Where Martin was loud and charming, Adrian was quiet and careful. He had a master’s in finance from the University of Chicago. He’d always stood half a step behind Martin at every family dinner, at every company event, in every photograph.
Heinrich left the company shares to Martin alone, because Martin was the oldest, and because Heinrich was an old-fashioned man who believed in eldest sons. Adrian got a seat on the board, a CFO’s salary, and nothing else.
He’d been waiting eleven years.
The next morning, I asked Howard one more question.
“The children,” I said. “Theo and Lucy. Can we know for sure?”
“Not from the books,” Howard said. “You’d need DNA.”
So I made the hardest call of my life. It wasn’t to Martin. It was to Martin’s mother.
Ingrid Voss was seventy-two and lived alone in the big stone house in Winnetka where Martin and Adrian grew up. She was the one who told me to “endure quietly” at the gala, and she’d never liked me. She thought I was too smart, too independent, and too unwilling to make myself small.
But she was Heinrich’s widow, and she loved her sons more than anything in the world.
I drove to Winnetka and sat across from her in her formal living room, under an oil portrait of Heinrich, and showed her everything: the photograph of Adrian kissing Clara, the hospital bracelet, the Lakeshore records, the Cayman account, and Section 14.3 of the credit agreement.
Ingrid read it all in silence. When she finished, she put the papers down on the coffee table with hands that shook.
“Adrian,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry, Ingrid.”
She looked up at the portrait of her husband for a long time.
“Heinrich told me once that he worried about the boys,” she said. “He said Martin needed to be admired, and Adrian needed to be noticed. He said one day they’d destroy each other trying to get what the other one had.” She wiped her eyes. “I told him he was being dramatic.”
“I need to know for certain whose children those are,” I said. “Not for me. For them. For the children. If Adrian is their father, they deserve to know who they are, and to be supported by him. Whatever happens to the adults, I won’t let Theo and Lucy be the ones who pay.”
Ingrid looked at me for a long time.
“I told you to endure quietly,” she said. “At the gala.”
“You did.”
“I was wrong,” she said. “You weren’t enduring. You were preparing.” She took a breath. “What do you need from me?”
