Where Snapdragons Lie

Interrogation

Tuesday morning. Only one more week until I can get back into action. God, this waiting is going to drive me up a fucking wall. But this at least gives me more time to research and dig. I spend the morning talking with Shamar. He's got the resources to look at Assets flow of money. At least the stuff we can get our hands on. 

"You've given me quite the task Madga," Shamar said filtering through tons of spreadsheet tabs, "But hopefully I found something of use for...what are you looking for again?"

I rolled my eyes. I know my theory was far fetched, at first, but now that I've got a stack of leads I thought my intentions were more clear. 

"Im trying to see if Honen is connected to an infected girl. This could have much larger implications if this shit manages to spread," I said, "In other words, I believe Honen has a hand in the creation of her specific strand of blight. Or at least his employer does."

Shamar shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. He flipped between each of the files on his computer. He was going so fast I found it hard to follow. Then again...forensic accounting is hard for me to understand to begin with. I went to academy to learn how to follow clues, and shoot a gun. Useful skills, but they're not as cool as Shamar's. I sometimes wish I had his brain. 

"Okay," He said pointing to the printer, "I've got a few things. Asset has done some advisement and has a few accounts with Swosh Medical. They are also a primary fundraiser for some of their projects. These are the IRS forms that Asset filed for those donations, and then this is their other tax paperwork". He handed me the small stack. "Now this half is about Swosh. They've applied for multiple grants for their projects. These are some of their application letters, ones that have to be open to the public. You may find them useful." I took that stack too. So many damn trees wasted. "Lastly, the funds they receive are filed out to a bunch of different projects. These are the budgets they are required to submit for those grants." He handed me a final stack, and I felt like I was literally holding a piece of Evergreen City. 

This was going to take a lot of reading. Ugh. I took all of my newfound crap to my desk.  First I made sure to have folder, or three, set up in my file cabinet, for the ones I keep. It will be much easier to reference them later. I pulled out my favorite purple highlighter. The one that almost matches my eyes. And started on the grant letters. Since they were all relatively short I though it would be smart to tackle them first. There was one about developing a pill for healing conjunctivitis, another for several STD vaccines, one for flu vaccine, and more. Then after nearly an hours of filtering, I found something.

Given the amazing strides medical science has made, the United Territories has managed to keep blight infections at their all time low. However we are still in need of a vaccine that can prevent blight. That is what Swosh medical strives to do with your grant. We first wish to safely contain and cultivate blight so we may research its parts and better understand how its weakness is developed. With that information we hope to develop a preventative vaccine.

I highlighted this section in particular. What I know for sure is that letters that got the grant money will have a corresponding budget. The conjunctivitis pill had one, and so did the flu vaccine. Now I have to cross reference to see if this letter blight proposal has a corresponding budget. That's suspicious as fuck to begin with. The letter was dated July of 2021, that's two years ago. So any budgets before that year are worth nothing to me. That cuts my stack down significantly. I only have to look at budgets from 2021 to the present. I skim and skim to no avail. None of these budgets mention anything to do with cultivation, blight, any kind of safety gear, or lab specialists. But just to make sure, I picked up the phone and entered Shamar's extension.

He picked up, "What's up Madga?"

"Quick question. If Swosh writes a proposal letter for a flu vaccine, and it has a corresponding budget, it means they got the grant? Right?"