CHAPTER 10: THE ACCOUNTANT WHO REMEMBERED
Malcolm Reed had worked with Grant’s grandfather’s trustees years before the birthday scandal. He remembered a meeting in which the old man insisted that every descendant be treated equally. “He said children aren’t investment strategies,” Malcolm told me. That recollection did not replace legal language, but it helped me understand the documents we were reading. The trust was designed to support education and care, not to reward a preferred surname or gender. Malcolm found that Grant had repeatedly requested advance distributions for business opportunities. Each request had been rejected because the proposed expenses did not benefit June. That explained the anger I had seen at family dinners whenever trustees were mentioned. It also explained why Lenora had begun speaking so often about a grandson. She imagined a new child could justify reopening the arrangements. But the trust was not a popularity contest. The trustees had duties, and those duties were documented. Malcolm showed me how to read the annual statements, where to find administrative fees, and how to distinguish a distribution from a loan. For the first time, I was not simply relieved that someone competent was handling the money. I understood enough to ask better questions. That knowledge was another kind of security. It could not guarantee that nobody would ever try to deceive us again. It could make deception harder to hide.
