Garrick Finch sat across the long conference table, bathed in the cool light of the deposition camera. His expensive suit looked a little too tight, his smile a little too practiced. My lawyer, a stern woman named Eleanor Vance, led the questioning, her voice a precise instrument.
“Mr. Finch,” Eleanor began, “can you confirm that the appraisal reports for the Laurelwood and Vista Ridge properties, dated six weeks ago, represent your final and most accurate valuation?”
Finch nodded, hands clasped tightly on the table. “Absolutely. Comprehensive, meticulous. Standard procedure.”
I watched him, every muscle in his face, every flicker in his eyes. He was too smooth.
“And were there any other valuations performed on those properties around that time?” Eleanor pressed, flipping a page in her legal pad.
Finch hesitated, a microscopic pause that only I seemed to notice. “No, not for the final reports. Just the… initial field assessments.”
“Initial field assessments,” I repeated softly, prompting him.
He cleared his throat, adjusting his tie. “Yes. We always do a preliminary walk-through, of course. Sometimes generate an internal memo for… for comparative purposes.”
“A memo,” Eleanor said, her pen poised. “Or perhaps a full secondary valuation report?”
Finch’s eyes darted to his own attorney, a flicker of panic. “Well, there was a working draft. Just a rough estimate, really. Nothing formalized for distribution.” He tried to wave it away with a dismissive hand gesture.
But the damage was done. “A ‘working draft’ that showed a significantly higher valuation, perhaps?” I interjected, cutting off Eleanor’s next question.
Finch froze, his face losing all color. He had accidentally slipped up, referencing an unreleased second valuation report, a ghost document he thought no one knew about. It wasn’t just a memo; it was a full preliminary report. And if it existed, it proved Arthur Holbrook had intentionally undervalued the portfolio by millions of dollars, not out of error, but out of cold, calculated design.
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