Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO SIGNED FOR EVERYONE
Peter Walsh had a reputation for being exact.
That was what Luca told us as we sat in Amelia's office, staring at a timeline of his financial controller's access to the Moretti accounts.
"Peter notices when a coffee invoice is off by four dollars," Luca said. "He'd never confuse one person's authorization with another's."
"That is useful background," Amelia answered. "It isn't proof of what happened."
Her office overlooked the river. Unlike the Bellini conference room, it had no marble table, no gallery of expensive photographs, and no receptionist who looked frightened when someone spoke too loudly. There were two plants, three shelves of legal books, and an enormous whiteboard covered with dates.
At the top Amelia had written: WHAT WE KNOW. Beneath it, in another color: WHAT WE THINK.
She drew a line between the two.
I had started to appreciate that line.
Sarah's event photograph showed that Peter approved a change to the seating chart at 7:46 p.m. He placed Carlo Vitale beside Vanessa and two guests away from Michael. It also showed a note that the event's official interpreter had been canceled at the request of "VB."
"They thought no one else would understand the conversation," I said.
"Perhaps," Amelia replied. "We can ask who canceled the interpreter. But we won't assume a motive from the seating chart alone."
Priya sat beside me, taking her own notes. She had advised me not to meet with the Moretti family's lawyers without her because I was both an employee and a potential witness. Luca had accepted that without complaint.
My mother's photograph was sealed in an evidence bag. Priya had helped us report the threat. The landlord confirmed the call my mother received but did not know who made it. That was frightening and frustrating. It meant we could take precautions but could not yet put a name beside the threat.
Amelia placed another page on the table. "We have a bank record. Three transfers from the building reserve to a company called Lakefront Consolidated Services. A total of six hundred eighty thousand dollars over nine months."
Michael rubbed his face. "That reserve was supposed to replace the kitchen ventilation system and repair the upstairs apartments."
"The transfers list maintenance projects," Amelia said. "But we haven't found proof the projects occurred."
I remembered the peeling paint in the restaurant's back stairwell and Anna's complaint about water seeping through the ceiling. Six hundred eighty thousand dollars was more than my mother would earn in the rest of her working life.
"Who approved it?" Luca asked.
Amelia looked at him. "Your finance office logged the approvals through your account."
"I didn't approve these."
"Then we have to establish whether your credentials were used without permission or whether you approved a broader arrangement without reading the individual transactions."
Luca's silence lasted too long. Finally he said, "I authorized Peter to manage recurring vendor payments. I signed an umbrella authorization in January."
"That matters," Amelia said. "And it's why an independent accounting review is essential."
Michael stared at his brother. "You gave him authority over Dad's reserve?"
"I believed it covered routine invoices."
"The same belief you've been giving me since you stopped visiting the restaurant."
I expected an argument. Instead, Luca lowered his head. "You're right to be angry."
The call from Peter came just before lunch.
He said he was willing to meet privately with Luca but refused to speak in front of Michael or any lawyers. Amelia recommended against it. An independent investigator could request an interview under proper conditions; a secret meeting between an employer and a potential witness risked making everything harder to establish.
Peter hung up when Luca refused to exclude counsel.
Twenty minutes later, Priya's phone rang. She listened, then looked at me.
"Somebody has contacted your mother. A man says he's from a relocation agency and can arrange an apartment with three months' rent paid. She asked him who sent him. He said, 'Friends of Emily's employer.'"
I felt an immediate rush of shame. My mother had spent thirty years teaching me not to owe favors to people who refused to put their names on a contract. Now strangers were using her rent to make me feel responsible for her safety.
"I should go home," I said.
"You can," Priya replied. "And we'll make a safety plan before you leave."
Luca stood. "I'll put security around the building."
"Only if Emily and her mother want that," Priya said.
I wasn't sure I wanted men with earpieces outside our apartment. I settled for a ride home, a temporary door camera paid for through a witness assistance fund Priya located, and a promise from my landlord that he would not release our names or schedules to callers. Luca offered to cover additional costs without conditions; Priya arranged for everything to be documented.
That afternoon, I sat with my mother at our kitchen table. The apartment was small enough that the refrigerator hummed into the conversation. She looked at my borrowed sweater and the bandage on my wrist without speaking.
Finally she said, "Your grandmother would be furious with you."
I stared. "For speaking up?"
"For going two days without a proper meal. She'd feed you first and lecture you second."
I laughed, then unexpectedly cried.
My mother pulled me close. "Emily, you don't have to be brave every minute."
"I know."
"No, you don't. You act like helping people means never being frightened."
She placed a plate of reheated pasta in front of me. It was the sort of simple food my grandmother made whenever somebody came home with bad news. I took a bite and finally tasted something other than fear.
After dinner I went through Grandma Rosa's old recipe tin, hoping for one of her familiar handwritten notes. Between a card for meatballs and one for Easter bread was a faded photograph of Trattoria Moretti twenty years earlier. Rosa stood beside Antonio Moretti and a younger man wearing an accountant's vest.
My mother pointed at him. "That's not Peter Walsh. That's Carlo Gatti. Your grandma always said he could do sums in his head faster than a calculator."
The photograph wasn't important because of the man. It was important because of what he held: a bound blue ledger with a silver clasp. Along its spine were the words EMPLOYEE FUND—ORIGINAL.
"Why would Grandma keep this photograph?" I asked.
"She helped keep that fund's early records. When Antonio's employees needed treatment or funeral expenses, people contributed what they could."
"Was it a charity?"
"Not exactly. It was a private mutual aid fund, and later Antonio wanted to put it on firmer legal footing."
My mother tapped the photograph. "He had an accountant draw up rules before he died. Grandma said the rules were supposed to stop someone from using the money to buy property."
A memory rose: Anna telling us Antonio kept recipes because thieves wouldn't recognize their value. But what if the current ledger was only a working copy, and the original fund rules were somewhere else?
I called Anna.
She listened and went quiet. "There was a blue binder with a silver clasp. Michael kept it upstairs until the auditors came."
"Do you remember the accountant's name?"
"Gatti. Retired to Milwaukee years ago."
Priya took the information and asked Amelia to follow up. We were not going to call an elderly man and demand records at midnight. But for the first time, a path existed that didn't depend on Richard Bellini telling the truth.
The next morning, Peter Walsh came to Trattoria Moretti.
I saw him through the front window while setting out water glasses. He wore the same gray suit he wore to the mansion and carried a leather briefcase. Anna told him Michael was not available for an unscheduled meeting.
"I'm not here for Michael," Peter said. "I'm here for Emily Carter."
Priya happened to be nearby, reviewing witness accounts in the back office. I called her before answering.
Peter looked displeased when she joined us.
"I'd like a private word," he said.
"You can request one," Priya replied. "Emily can decline."
He regarded me for a moment. "Vanessa has made mistakes. I won't defend all of them. But she's going to take the blame for something far bigger than a dinner. You might want to consider that before you give another statement."
"What do you know?" I asked.
Peter opened his briefcase and placed a photocopy on the table. It was a document dated four years earlier, titled RESTRUCTURING RESOLUTION. Beneath the title were signatures for Luca and Michael. A third line carried a familiar name: Antonio Moretti.
"Their father was dead by then," I said.
Peter's expression barely moved.
"Exactly," he answered. "And that is only the first page."
He closed the briefcase before I could see more.
"Tell Luca that if he wants the rest, he'll have to ask why his father's signature kept appearing after the funeral."
May you like
Then he left, taking the paper's source and nearly all of its explanation with him.
For the first time, I wondered whether Peter had come to threaten me—or whether he was trying to warn us that someone else had used his name, too.
