The final meeting of the Ashford Family Foundation was held in a conference room at the courthouse on the second Tuesday in May. Attendance was not robust. Diana came, in a gray suit and no pearls. Whit came, and stayed for all of it. A lawyer from the attorney general's office came, and watched. A reporter from the local paper came, because the foundation had given the town a new playground in 2016, and because the word embezzlement had gotten around. I came, because I was the executor, and because I had a report to file.
I read the summary out loud. It took eleven minutes. In that time I said the words Marcus Ashford thirty-one times, the words unauthorized transfer nine times, and the words no evidence of criminal intent once, which was a technicality Diana's lawyer had insisted on and
