“Can you tell me more? I’d very much like to know everything I can about the Hollands.”
The corners of Mrs. Foster’s mouth turned down, and she shifted in her chair, glancing at the door in a silent message that Caroline should feel free to leave at any moment. “I can’t imagine where this line of questioning is going.”
Everything about her comportment indicated she was distinctlyuncomfortable. It was time to shift tactics and let her feel superior.
“My heart is a little battered after being rejected by Mr. Trask,” Caroline said. “It was mortifying, but it’s time for me to move on. I understand Captain Holland has a son who is an eligible bachelor. Robert Holland? I saw him from afar and found him quite appealing. I would very much like to meet him, and anything you could do to help would be grand. You’re so connected. Perhaps Robert Holland will be my answer.”
Mrs. Foster nodded sagely. “Now I understand, my dear. I’ve heard some rumors about young Robert Holland. An unfortunate reliance on drink, I believe. That’s long in the past, but I’d still caution you against getting too close to that family.”
“Why?” Caroline asked. “I can’t afford to have my heart broken all over again. Not at my age—I’m almost thirty years old! I’m considering pursuing Robert Holland, but I don’t know who to turn to for insight. If there is a blemish on his family’s reputation...”
She let the sentence dangle, hoping it would prompt Mrs. Foster’s voracious appetite for gossip to burst through its dams.
It worked, and Mrs. Foster leaned forward, no longer able to contain herself. “More than a blemish,” she whispered.
Caroline waited, but no more information was forthcoming. “And is the blemish on Robert? Or his parents? Please, it would so help if I knew what sort of people they are.”
“Well, Captain Holland is in a position of great power in the navy,” Mrs. Foster said. “He set up a charity for widows and orphans of the navy, which is all very admirable, but he rarely distributes any of the funds. And when hedoeswithdraw some of the money, I’ve noticed that he always enjoys a new carriage or a fine gold watch. Not that I begrudge him drawing a salary. Charities require experienced men at the helm, but I never see more than a few dollars going to the widows. Just new horses, carriages, jewels, and gaming.”
Raising money for charity was hard work. She and Petra had learned that the hard way, but this was the first she’d ever heard of a widows and orphans fund for the navy. “You know that I help with a school for immigrant woman, but I know little about raising money or proper accounting. Might I see Captain Holland’s account for the widows and orphans fund so I could use it as a model for my own charity?”
Mrs. Foster was aghast. “There are rules, my dear. Confidentiality! Our clients are entitled to their privacy.”
Perhaps. And the people of America were entitled to know how government officials spent their money. Luke believed that Captain Holland was skimming from the military budget, and she suspected he was using the widows and orphans fund as a front to cover his embezzlement.
“If money from the charity is being used less than honestly, it could be a problem for your husband,” Caroline said.
“Are you insinuating something?” Mrs. Foster demanded. “I will not allow the reputation of my husband’s bank to be sullied.”
Caroline dropped her innocent expression and straightened her spine. For the first time since meeting Mrs. Foster, she looked at her with complete candor and respect. “I don’t want your bank to become a casualty of Captain Holland’s greed.”
Mrs. Foster’s eyes glinted. “Spit it out, Caroline. What are you implying?”
She told her. Captain Holland had been amassing a slush fund by skimming from the War Department. The widows and orphans fund was only a façade. With no oversight, it was his personal nest egg that had grown fat over the years, and he’d used the Fosters’ bank to carry it out.
Caroline watched as Mrs. Foster’s expression morphed from anger, to fear, to outrage, and knew that they’d found an ally.
Thirty-Seven
Nathaniel had never seen a Secret Service operation swing into high gear so quickly, which was good because he was leaving for Milwaukee by the end of the week. Caroline’s insight into a sketchy widows and orphans fund was enough to get a search warrant, for there was no record of this charity anywhere within the government. The Fosters were desperate to keep the investigation quiet and willingly opened their bank to the Secret Service. They’d rather be thought dupes in the eyes of a few government agents than considered complicit in what was sure to be a national scandal.
“Anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask,” Mr. Foster had said earlier in the day when Nathaniel presented him with a search warrant. Mr. Foster helped them pull all of Captain Holland’s personal accounts as well as the paperwork for the charity. He even let them use the bank manager’s office to plow through the records.
Luke waited for the office door to close before causing trouble. “Why are we even here?” he demanded. “You should have gotten that warrant to search Holland’s house, not the bank. Who cares about the money? I want the name of Holland’s accomplice in the Florida Keys.”
It was hard to concentrate with Luke’s fireworks going off beside him, but Nathaniel kept his voice calm. “The moment Holland knows we are on to him, that evidence is going to disappear.”
“Exactly! So why aren’t we searching his house right now?”
Wilkie pulled another chair up to the banker’s desk, flipping through the paperwork used to establish the widows and orphans file. “Relax. I have two men surveilling the Holland house, and two more at the War Department. Nothing is going to happen without us knowing it.”
Luke let out a string of curses as he paced the tight confines of the office. It was like being trapped in a box with an angry bumblebee, but Nathaniel screened it out as he scrutinized the documents Captain Holland had used to initiate the scheme.
There was a letter of authorization from the War Department to set up the charity, and another from the War Department’s chief of finance that authorized .001% of all money spent on military armaments to be diverted to the widows and orphans fund.
Both documents were forgeries. Good ones, printed on government stationery with official watermarks, but the letterhead had a tiny flaw. Real documents used hot metal typesetting, while the forged ones had been engraved. Captain Holland probably stole blank pages from the Government Printing Office and took them to a private printing agency to forge the letterhead. All it took was those two documents for the Fosters’ bank to divert a tiny fraction of income from a massive fund into his fraudulent charity.
Luke’s smile was tight. “Now you can track your precious money. Can I go hunt down the third spy? He’s still out there.”
