Chapter 9 - Katherine Ross
Katherine Ross's office was on the third floor of an old building downtown, up a skinny staircase with a worn brass rail. She was a small woman in her sixties, silver hair cut short, reading glasses she kept pulling off and pushing back on while she worked through the pages.
Paul sat on one side of me. Marta sat on the other. We'd decided the night before that Marta should be there. They were her mother's papers. She'd carried them across an ocean.
Katherine read everything twice. She asked questions in a quiet, orderly way — dates, names, what happened in what order. She didn't react to any of it, which I found strangely calming.
When she was done she set her glasses on the desk.
"The criminal statute of limitations on most of this has run out," she said. "I want to be straight with you about that. A prosecution built only on these documents, for things that happened in 1985 and '86, would run into serious walls."
"What about Vale?" I said. "He's still working."
"That's the more interesting question." She picked up the business registration Paul had pulled. "If Raymond Vale is currently running a financial advisory firm, and there's reason to think that firm is operating dirty, then investigators are going to be very interested in these older documents — as evidence of a pattern." She paused. "Pattern evidence can be used even when the original crime is too old to charge."
"So the old fraud helps prove the new one," Paul said.
"Potentially. Yes." She looked at Marta. "Your mother's records are detailed and they're credible. The notebook especially — names, dates, dollar amounts. That's the kind of thing investigators can actually work from. It's not just history. It's a map."
Marta's hands were folded in her lap. "So what do we do?"
"I make a referral to the state securities regulators. Today, if you authorize it. And I start contacting the original investors — or their families, given how long it's been — to let them know documentation has surfaced." She looked at me. "And I'll need to talk to your father."
"He's ninety. He's in a care home."
"I understand. I need a statement from him about the nature of his involvement. Whether he cooperates or not is going to shape how this goes." She paused. "I should also tell you that depending on what he confirms, there could be civil exposure attached to his estate."
I'd already thought about that. I'd thought about it the whole drive over.
"Do whatever needs doing," I said.
Katherine nodded and reached for her phone.
She made the referral that same afternoon. Two days later, two investigators came to her office and spent three hours with the documents. The next week, they went into Raymond Vale's office with a warrant.
I wasn't there for any of it. Katherine called me after every step, always in that same flat, careful voice, like she was reading off a page. I'd stand in my kitchen taking the call, writing down what she said in a notebook, then go back to whatever I'd been doing when the phone rang.
The Thursday after the warrant, she called again.
"They found current client accounts," she said. "Significant irregularities. Your sister's documents have been formally entered into the investigation file."
"What does that mean for Vale?"
"It means he's looking at a live investigation with forty years of corroboration behind it. His lawyers have already reached out to the regulators. He is not going to walk away from this one."
I looked out my kitchen window at the backyard.
"And my father?"
"He gave his statement yesterday. He cooperated." A pause. "He confirmed everything your sister's documents describe. His own part included."
I put the pen down.
May you like
"He didn't have to do that," I said.
"No," Katherine said. "He didn't."
