Chapter 33: Vendor Eleven
Three days later, Vendor Eleven appeared on a secure deposition feed.
Northbank Records Recovery had not worked for Sterling when the incident occurred. Sterling retained it afterward, while the company was preparing the investigation that blamed me. The engagement did not sit under research, safety, or document preservation. Its expense had been placed inside the investor communications budget.
Nathan objected before Rhea finished reading the ledger line.
"Budget coding does not define legal scope."
"Then the retained engagement file can define it," the panel chair said.
Northbank's records manager sat before a blank wall in the vendor's office. Beside her image, the independent administrator displayed six preserved folders: procurement, billing, scope, source package, deliverables, and authorization. Hash checks confirmed the copies had not changed since Northbank's routine retention export.
The files had survived because of a schedule, not because a new witness had chosen my side.
Rhea established that Northbank had no ownership dispute with Sterling, no relationship with Mercer Nova, and no role in the current license competition.
"What work were you hired to perform?" she asked.
"Standardize historical corporate records for executive review."
The scope listed executive source collection, incomplete-label normalization, and a searchable archive. It described rebuilding historical entries. It did not authorize Northbank to certify the history behind them.
The records auditor checked the vendor qualification register.
"Did Northbank hold any qualification to receive or inventory experimental materials?"
"No. That was outside our business."
Celeste shifted beside Nathan. "You handled regulated archives."
"Corporate archives," the manager corrected. "Board materials, correspondence indexes, and scanned files."
"Did your contract authorize Northbank to decide whether a historical entry was accurate?" the auditor asked.
"No. Completion meant the records followed a consistent format and could be searched. The client remained responsible for validation."
"Did you certify scientific provenance?"
"No."
The answers did not tell us what Northbank had received. They defined what its work could prove.
The difference did not make Northbank improper. It made the company's later use of Northbank's work a question the source package would have to answer.
The engagement date appeared beside the scope. It fell after the incident and before Sterling completed its investigation.
I kept my hands flat on the table.
A later records vendor could perform legitimate recovery work. A disputed cost center could have an ordinary accounting explanation. Neither fact proved fabrication.
They did prove Vendor Eleven had not been a contemporaneous laboratory custodian.
I wanted the source folder opened immediately. Wanting speed had never made evidence stronger. The administrator still had to separate protected material, confirm that no patient identifier appeared, and preserve the original folder structure before the panel viewed it.
Rhea opened the billing folder.
"Why was the fee assigned to investor communications?"
The manager consulted Northbank's instructions. "Sterling supplied that cost center."
"Who at Sterling?"
"The authorization is in a separate retained folder. I can confirm the client service category."
She enlarged the field.
EXECUTIVE RECORDS SUPPORT.
Celeste asked whether an accounts-payable clerk could have selected it.
"It could have been selected from the instruction we received," the manager said. "Northbank did not choose the client's cost center."
"So you cannot say why Sterling used it."
"I can say where Sterling instructed us to bill."
The answer left motive unclaimed and responsibility intact.
Nathan said the category described organization, not invention.
"That is why the panel will not infer what the vendor saw," I said. "It will open the retained source package."
Celeste called the exercise an attempt to turn clerical work into a conspiracy.
"I have not alleged one," I said. "I asked who created one number. Now I want the source that allowed it to be created."
The chair ordered Northbank's scope and billing records into the restricted file. She reserved the authorization page for the payment review and directed the records auditor to open the source package in a controlled classification session.
Northbank's manager confirmed the package checksum and logged off. The administrator transferred the folder unopened to the custodian's review queue. Until that session, only its label and file count were visible.
On the administrator's screen, five folder icons closed.
One remained.
SOURCE PACKAGE.