And in March of 2008, three hundred and seventeen thousand dollars landed in the operating account of a two-man company, and Julian told Arthur that it was a loan from an uncle in Rhode Island, and produced no document, and was not asked for one, because they were friends and it was 2008 and they were both terrified and busy.

For seventeen years Arthur Vance believed there was an uncle in Rhode Island.

He had, over those seventeen years, asked after that uncle perhaps four times, at dinners, in a general way, and had been told he was fine, and then at some point in around 2014 that he had died, and Arthur had said he was sorry.

Julian Vance does not have an uncle in Rhode Island.

His mother has one sister, in Delaware, who taught fourth grade for thirty-one years and who has never in her life had three hundred thousand dollars.