I hated to admit that he was probably right. There was no way that this unfilled room held as much inventory as the report claimed. Was there another storage room? I highly doubt it.
“What do you want to do?” Reiner asked as he wrapped his strong arms around my waist from behind.
I felt a slight pressure on top of my head as he rested his chin on the top of my head and held me tighter from behind. There wasn’t that much that we could do. The stuff that was supposed to be here, isn’t here and that was just that.
“Let’s select a few line items from here and count the actual thing to compare the number with the number on the report. I know that it won’t match up at all, but let’s do it so we have some concrete cases as illustrative examples of just how much is missing,” I suggested before I sighed softly.
Although I knew that it didn’t make sense in the first place for an orphanage anywhere to hold this much stuff of educational materials, I still harbored some hope that this was all just a misunderstanding or a mistake. That didn’t seem to be the case with what we were dealing with here.
“Alright. Let’s quickly get this done so we can go to the kitchen…” Reiner said as he hesitantly let go of my body.
…
Little did we know back then that a very similar story was waiting to unfold right in front of us in the kitchen.
“What do you mean…you don’t know about this?” I asked in wide-eyed confusion.
The middle-aged old man with greying hair that stood in front of me scratch his head and also gave me a very confused look like he really had no idea what I was talking about.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about what you just said…” he repeated again.
“Don’t you use some special dietary supplements to help under developing children or children who are malnourished?” I asked again in case he didn’t get my question from before.
As the man gave me another confused look. I struggled to find some other words that were simpler for him to understand. Please, don’t let this be another case of fraud.
“According to these reports, there’s supposed to be special powder that you mix in with the food that you cook that will help children grow faster or become healthier…are you familiar with this?” I tried asking him again.
“I understand what you’re referring to but I’m telling you that I’ve never seen any of those special powder or supplements that you mentioned. We just cook and serve food. Normal food, you know, nothing fancy like that mixed in…” the man repeated firmly.
“I see…” I murmured softly.
“What about the ingredients for your cooking? Where do you get that from?” Reiner asked quite sternly.
The man’s gaze shifted to Reiner, and I could tell that he immediately became uncomfortable. I guess Reiner can look very scary when he’s serious about something.
“I buy it from the local market. I go to the market with my team, and we help each other pick out the stuff…” the man replied.
“You mean, it’s not delivered here?” I asked in surprise.
Yet another thing that doesn’t match with the report at all. In the report, there is a company that was supposed to sell and deliver food ingredients to the orphanage.
“Nope. We buy it at the market, and we shove it into a small truck and drive it up here,” the man clarified.
“How do you pay for the food? In cash?” I asked for more details.
“Yes. Celine gives us cash and we use that to buy from the market. Of course, I give her back the change…” the man replied.
“Thank you. That’s more than enough. Let’s go,” Reiner tugged on my hand after thanking the man politely.
“Sure…” he mumbled as he watched the two of us retreat from his kitchen.
The door to the kitchen closed behind us and I immediately let out a loud sigh of depression. Although the evidence that we’ve collected are just circumstantial, it was already clear that our suspicions were spot on. Celine and perhaps other members of her management team have been mismanaging the funds allocated to the orphanage. From assets that are recorded but in fact non-existent to over stating on food and nutrition supplementary costs, there were many cases of fraud going on.
“Do you want to contact the company that handles the gardening and building maintenance?” Reiner asked, although he probably already anticipated that we would find similar issues.
“I’ll do that. I doubt that it’ll be any good news, though,” I replied softly.
“Should we head back for the day? You need to write up some reports on this, right?” Reiner suggested knowingly.
“Yeah. Let’s just head back for today,” I replied before taking the initiative to walk towards the exit.
Reiner followed silently behind me. He could probably sense my stress and my disappointment. Although I knew that I was being overly emotional about this, I couldn’t stop all the negative feelings that had started to boil up inside of me. When I first came to this place, I marveled at how well everything seemed to be managed. I truly liked Celine and admired her generosity and kindness in devoting her time and effort to help support the children in need.
I never imagined that the second that I came back here, things would turn out so differently. The child-loving Celine turned out to be a fraud who had most likely been pocketing money from the orphanage to line her own pockets at the expense of the children’s welfare. Worst of all, was the fact that I got Reiner to help put in a good word and King ended up increasing the funding for this place.
My emotions were a mess inside as disappointment, guilt, and anger battled together to take over my mind. The ride back to our place went by in silence and I appreciated the time that Reiner gave me to think things over. I’ve never handled a case of auditing and flagging for fraud before, and I wasn’t sure how to go about it.
–To be continued…