Chapter 6 - The Vote Behind the Vote
Roman's foundation held an emergency board meeting after the auditors confirmed the related-party payment questions.
Evelyn attended with counsel and disputed the interpretation of the vendor records.
She said Malcolm's company had provided legitimate scheduling software and that the relationship had been properly disclosed to the procurement committee.
The auditors requested the committee minutes and contracts.
No one could reasonably decide the issue from a news headline or a family name alone.
But several approval forms lacked the signatures required by the foundation's policy.
Evelyn argued that the missing signatures reflected a rushed transition.
The board voted to place her on administrative leave pending a fuller review and transferred financial approvals to an interim officer under independent oversight.
Roman voted in favor.
He then disclosed that he'd approved the original program restructuring without requesting raw service data.
The minutes recorded that admission.
"I believed our leadership team," he said. "Belief was not oversight."
The foundation began making appointment restorations based on documented need and available funding, with a clear appeal process for those denied.
The rules weren't perfect.
But they were written down where patients could find them.
I attended the next session at North Harbor with two canes and a patience I had to borrow from somewhere.
Hannah had changed the obstacle course to include a sloping sidewalk and a curb cut.
I crossed it twice before my residual limb started to ache.
"We stop here," she said.
"I can do another."
"You could. You don't need to prove it to me."
I sat down, frustrated and relieved.
The work of recovery rarely matched the tidy inspirational language on donor brochures.
It involved sweat, adjustments, setbacks, and sometimes asking somebody to turn the music down because my concentration was gone.
Later that afternoon an older Marine named Mr. Dawson told me he'd received a call about a rescheduled therapy appointment.
He hadn't believed the foundation would ever reopen the program.
"I figured my file had fallen into a drawer," he said.
"Mine almost did too."
We drank bad clinic coffee and talked about shoes rather than war.
For an hour, I felt useful without needing to be on a stage.
Then Leah called.
The external auditors had asked her to identify a former transport driver named Luis Mendoza.
Luis had reported that his supervisor ordered him to mark routes completed even when no vehicle left the depot.
He claimed the false route logs had been submitted to support invoices.
His complaint had disappeared from the vendor's internal system shortly before he resigned.
Leah said he was afraid of retaliation but willing to speak through an attorney.
I told her to put him in contact with the auditors rather than send his personal details to me.
Two days later Roman held a meeting with patients and service providers, moderated by someone outside his office.
He listened to descriptions of canceled appointments, lost workdays, and family members forced to provide transportation.
He didn't open with the story of our rescue.
He admitted the board had made decisions using incomplete information and outlined the corrective review.
A patient asked whether he would pay everyone back personally.
Roman said he could make a donation, but that personal wealth could not substitute for a reliable institutional process.
It was an answer I could respect.
Afterward he asked me to consider joining a new patient advisory council.
I agreed to help design it, provided current recipients had meaningful seats and the council could speak independently.
Then a reporter approached with a document suggesting something worse than inaccurate vendor invoices.
The contractor had submitted a set of route summaries to a government grant administrator as proof that veterans had received services.
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Several of those reported trips coincided with the days patients had been told no van was available.
The inquiry was no longer limited to one nonprofit's internal bookkeeping.
