What He Spent His Life Planting

The bank accounts were frozen, the offices sealed by agents, his father under investigation for embezzlement and fraudulent contracts.

But the worst of it wasn’t on the television. It was the name on the first confiscated folder.

Part 3

The name on the document was Tristan Dixon.

Not an unconnected son. Not a minor employee. He was listed as the principal representative of three shell companies used to inflate urban maintenance contracts — fake firms that billed for work never done and siphoned off public money meant for parks, schools, and community centers.

One of those contracts was the green-space rehabilitation program where my father had worked for years as a lowly subcontractor.

He and the other honest gardeners had always been paid late by Tristan’s company. Tool costs were docked unfairly from their small wages, and they were made to sign receipts for money they never actually received.