Chapter 9
Investigators found the bag in the least dramatic place possible.
A locked storage cabinet beneath the arena’s old executive box.
Bernice still had the key.
Inside were cash envelopes, deposit slips, a handwritten ledger, and copies of scholarship donor lists.
The missing $73,400 was almost entirely there.
Rocco stared at the cash.
If Bernice intended to steal it permanently, why keep it inside the arena?
The ledger provided part of the answer.
Bernice had been moving money between accounts and physical cash pools to conceal the earlier transfers to Laine.
She was trying to replace money before annual audits.
Some donor cash had been held back to fill gaps elsewhere.
New foundation funds covered older missing funds.
It was not sophisticated.
It depended on nobody checking at the same time.
Then Daniel noticed several entries marked:
R.
Rocco assumed Ralph.
The dates did not fit.
On two of them Ralph was hospitalized after a cardiac procedure.
Bernice refused to explain the notation.
Laine claimed not to know.
Ralph looked genuinely confused.
The forensic accountant suggested another possibility.
“R may not be a person.”
“What else?”
“Reserve.”
The foundation maintained an emergency reserve for youth medical grants.
Bernice had apparently been borrowing from that reserve too.
Now the amount potentially misused exceeded $400,000.
Rocco sat back.
Laine's debts explained some.
Not all.
Where had the rest gone?
Then an old reimbursement surfaced.
A private payment to a rehabilitation clinic in Wisconsin.
Patient name redacted.
Bernice had authorized it personally.
Rocco asked Ralph.
Nothing.
Laine.
Nothing.
The clinic would not disclose patient information without proper authority.
But the payment dates continued for almost a year.
Nearly $110,000.
Someone in the family had undergone expensive treatment in secret.
Rocco initially assumed Laine.
She denied it.
Ralph became visibly uncomfortable.
Bernice told everyone to stop asking.
That reaction changed the direction of the investigation again.
For nine parts, Rocco believed Bernice stole primarily to protect Laine.
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The hidden clinic payments suggested another reason.
And Ralph knew something about it.
