The donation records didn’t belong to me.

Neither did my father’s private bank statements.

Mara was careful about that distinction.

She reached out to the nonprofit’s current board chair, an accountant named Helen Ruiz, and asked whether the board had ever completed an independent financial review.

Helen invited us to meet in a conference room behind the county library.

She arrived with two board members and a stack of minutes.

“The organization effectively stopped operating five years ago,” she explained.