That means I need to talk to both of you. He's going to Nathaniel stop be difficult. She said he's going to have opinions. I have found Amelia said that men who have opinions are generally more honest than men who are trying to be agreeable. I can work with opinions.
He looked at her for a moment. All right, he said. Come in. Walter Carter was in the study. He was a man in his mid60s, shorter than Nathaniel by 2 in, with the weathered, compressed look of someone who had been tested by hard physical labor for most of his life, and had emerged from it not smaller, but denser.
He had Nathaniel's coloring, and Nathaniel's steadiness of gaze, but none of Nathaniel's patience, which was apparent within the first 15 seconds of meeting him. He looked at Amelia the way he would have looked at a number that didn't balance. Miss Whitaker, Mr. Carter, she said, "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me." "I didn't agree to anything," he said. "My son told me you were coming." "I chose not to leave." "That's a form of agreement," she said.
He blinked. "I've been looking at your books," she said, setting her notes on the desk in front of him. "I think I know why they've never reconciled. Would you like to hear it? He looked at the notes.
He looked at her. You're not what I expected. He said, "I'm rarely what people expect," she said. "May I sit down?" He waved at the chair across from him. She sat.
She opened her notes and began to explain what she'd found clearly and without softening it, and she watched the old man's expression move through skepticism and then attention, and then slowly, something close to reluctant recognition. When she finished, the room was quiet. Walter looked at the notes for a long time. Then he looked at Nathaniel, who was standing near the door with an expression Amelia could not quite read from where she was sitting, but which she suspected involved some measure of vindication. She's right, Walter said to Nathaniel.
This is the problem. I've been telling you for 2 years that your numbers were wrong. Your numbers were also wrong, Nathaniel said evenly. My numbers were internally consistent. So were mine.
They just weren't consistent with yours. Walter made a sound that was not quite agreement and not quite dismissal and was, she thought, as close as he was going to get in this room on this day. Then he looked at her again. How did you learn accounting? He asked.