The Quiet Man

Discovery.

My mind would not let go of the reason for the large turnover earlier years, so when things calmed down in January I decided to look into it.

So I spent a few nights going through reams of old folders and binders. Mark saw me huddled in the closet. I explained, and he snickered at me, but then he took me for lunch. I had to admit I was obsessed, and told him cleaning closets was my new hobby, and he wanted me to have hobbies didn't he?

On the second night I found what I was looking for: a ring binder with old orders and invoices. When I analyzed the paperwork I ended up with two piles I couldn't understand. One was a set of invoices for "services", no specification, from only one company, totaling over 1oo million dollars. The other pile was a set of orders for "services", no specification, to a different company, also for over 100 million, to the cent the same amount as the invoices, although none of the individual orders and invoices matched.

Up until now this had been fun, I imagined myself a forensic accountant, a financial detective if you will, but I assumed I would find an explanation. Now I realized I had stumbled on to something actually wrong, very wrong. The only explanation I could think of was money laundering.

Someone was using SARAH! for money laundering. But who? The accounting firm? But who if anybody at SARAH! was involved? As I looked closer at the invoices and orders I happened to turn one over, there was a stamp on the back: Processed, for information only, and then a signature. Some unknowing clerk at the accounting office had followed procedure, and sent copies of all transactions to SARAH!. Whoever was running this had made a mistake.