“She had evidence?”

“I don’t have to tell you that evidence can be misinterpreted.” She paused, and then she leaned forward. “Or manufactured.”

I nodded again. I was beginning to feel like a bobblehead doll. “So it was just one incident?”

“Heavens, no.”

I waited, hopeful she’d continue without prodding, and boy, did she. First a whirlpool, and now, a tidal wave.

“Wendy wanted your father to think I was slowing down, or worse. To be blunt, she wanted Dale to think my mind was failing. For a while, even I began to wonder. Paperwork disappeared off my desk, documents I was sure I’d left there, correspondence I had to answer. Computer files were erased or damaged. Once a set of figures I had taken an entire morning to gather ended up in the recycling bin. Even worse, not everything I’d accessed to assemble them was still on my computer. So I had to reconstruct and print out the entire document again, while your father and several valuable clients were waiting.”

“That must have been awful.”

“I wasn’t the one who finally located the original. Another employee found it and handed it over to Wendy. Of course she couldn’t have been sweeter or more helpful. I must have had a late night, she said, or I’d been working too hard. She certainly wasn’t going to tell Dale what had happened.”

Ella’s job at Gracey Group had been complex, with many different facets. My father had always said she did the work of three people, and he couldn’t begin to imagine how she kept everything so neatly compartmentalized in her head. Maybe Ella’s position really had become too complicated, and she hadn’t wanted to complain. Or maybe the constant changes in technology had finally gotten to her, and she hadn’t kept up with the best ways to proceed.

But worse than a simple age-related slowdown? Maybe my sister had discovered a good reason to send Ella on her way. And that’s what I needed to know.

“Did you and Wendy have disagreements? Did she have a reason to want you out of the office?”

She looked at me as if I were a stranger. “Are you asking if there’s a possibility your sister might have had a good reason to want me gone, something that has to do with her and not me? Or are you trying to find an excuse for what she did?”

“I’m just trying to get to the truth.”

She reached for her purse. “It’s over and done with.”

“Ella, it’s not really over and done with.” I struggled with the best way to phrase the next part. “Will you tell me if Wendy directly influenced Dad to get rid of you? My mother told me the opposite.”

“Your sister is very good at saying one thing and meaning something different.”

“You have no reason to help me, but I’m trying to figure out a few things. I need to know if you think Wendy set you up or had reason to.”