His daughter took a breath.
"I don't know."
The chairman closed the folder.
For several seconds, he stared at his hands.
Then he said something she'd never heard from him before.
"I thought I knew what he was doing."
She sat beside him.
For a moment, they didn't speak.
Then she reached for his hand.
"You still have time to find out."
The nephew was being questioned again.
His lawyer accompanied him.
He acknowledged that the vial had been in his possession but claimed someone else provided it as part of a misguided effort to help the chairman relax.
He denied intending serious harm.
He also insisted that he hadn't known the substance was dangerous.
The investigators examined those statements carefully.
The claim didn't explain why he concealed the vial.
It didn't explain why he introduced an unidentified substance without the chairman's knowledge.
And it didn't explain the effort to deny possession immediately after the incident.
But it raised another question.
Who supplied the vial?
The nephew initially refused to identify that person.
Then, after receiving legal advice and learning that the recovered substance was being examined as potentially dangerous, he became more cooperative.
He identified the CFO as the person who arranged for the material to reach him.
The younger executive explained that he believed the substance would temporarily make his uncle unwell enough to postpone several meetings.
He claimed he never intended to kill him.
The investigators didn't treat that claim as established simply because he made it.
His conduct had created a serious risk.
And his account would need to be tested against communications, financial records, and other evidence.
But the direction of the inquiry changed.
The CFO was no longer merely a witness who hadn't noticed anything.
He had become a central subject of the investigation.
The CFO denied supplying anything.
He described the nephew's account as an attempt to shift blame.
His attorney emphasized that the executive had no reason to harm the chairman.
The CFO had served the company for years.
His compensation depended on its success.
And a serious medical incident involving the chief executive could destabilize the very business he helped manage.
Those arguments deserved consideration.
But investigators also examined communications showing that the CFO and nephew discussed the chairman's availability before the private dinner.
Certain messages referred to delaying the independent review.
Others discussed emergency leadership arrangements.
The language wasn't always explicit.
And lawyers warned against interpreting isolated phrases without context.
Yet when investigators compared the communications with the company's internal schedules, the pattern became difficult to dismiss.
The chairman had planned to meet independent auditors the following morning.
He also intended to speak with his daughter and review the Kameyama Ridge documents before authorizing further action.