Damage Control (6 page)
D
ANA COUNTED THE
panels on the front door of her brother’s home. Twenty-four: four panels across, and the six panels down. Twenty-four. Simple math. No matter how many different ways she considered it, the end result was always the same. She wondered why her brother had painted the door red—a sharp contrast to the pale green siding, which stood out even more now, like a bloody reminder of what had happened inside.
She couldn’t recall having ever truly considered the exterior of James’s home. Her brother had often invited her to dinner or to stop by after work or on the weekend, but she rarely did and never stayed long. She was always late picking up Molly from day care, or getting the dry cleaning, or heading home to cook dinner, or trying to finish a rush project Marvin Crocket had sprung on her. James had never complained. He’d never made her feel guilty.
“Maybe next week,” he’d always say.
But next week never worked. Now next week would never come. And that wasn’t going to change either, no matter how many ways she tried to consider it.
She felt herself slipping again into the dark gray vortex of despair and dug in her heels to stop the momentum. Now was not her time to grieve. She needed to get through the details. She retreated from the mist to the shelter beneath the pediment and leaned against the clapboard siding, physically and emotionally spent. She had rushed from the funeral parlor after choosing a simple forest-green casket for her brother’s body. Her next task was gathering his personal papers from his home and determining for the detective what had been stolen. She checked her watch and the tree-lined street. With no sign of the detective, she closed her eyes, seeking a respite, but instead recalled the reception following her father’s funeral. The catered leftovers had been wrapped in clear plastic, the tables and chairs folded and stacked, the guests and relatives gone. Dana and James had sat in the den, James staring at the blue and yellow flames in the brick fireplace.
“I’m leaving the practice of law,” he’d said without looking at her. “I haven’t been happy for some time.” He sipped a beer from a red plastic cup and sat back, looking up at the painting of a three-masted schooner above the fireplace. “I wouldn’t do anything about it with Dad alive; I was too worried about what he would think. Practicing law was the only part of my life he ever took an interest in.”
She did not take her brother seriously, believing his emotions to be the product of their father’s unexpected death, a jolting reminder of their own mortality, and that time was the most precious of all commodities. “Take a couple of months, James. Now is not the time to be making life-altering decisions. You’ve been through a lot these past four days. You’re not seeing things clearly.”
“This is not a spur-of-the-moment decision.” He sat forward, speaking with greater urgency. “I’ve been
thinking
about it for a long time. I don’t have a life. I’m at the office sixty hours a week, and when I’m not there, I’m still there—managing my cases, considering trial strategy, dreading what fires will ignite to ruin my weekend. Look at me.” He pulled his hair. “I’m thirty-two years old and I’m losing my hair. What’s left of it is turning gray. I’m not married. Hell, I don’t even have a steady girlfriend.”
“You’re up for partner next year.”
“That’s what
really
scares me. Half the shareholders at the firm are divorced. They make four hundred thousand dollars a year, but their mortgages and child support are killing them.” James picked up his beer and sat back, shaking his head. “I’m not going to die at my desk like Dad.”
A part of her wanted to tell him that work had not killed their father, far from it, but as angry as she was at her father, telling her brother the truth would only be cruel. Boys put their fathers on pedestals and considered them heroes. Girls had the unfortunate experience of growing up and getting their hearts broken by men. They knew their fathers’ flaws and weaknesses. They knew they weren’t heroes, often far from it.
“Don’t use Dad as an example; he was a workaholic,” she said.
“I’ve felt this way since the first week of law school.”
Dana raised her eyebrows. “Really?” She had also questioned her own decision to go to law school—one she made more to spite her father than to appease him. He hadn’t thought she had what it took to be a lawyer.
“The next thing I knew, I was sitting behind my desk at Dillon and Block, three doors down from Dad in the anti-trust department.” James laughed again. “I hadn’t even taken a class on anti-trust. Dad would hand me a file and go on and on about this and that, and I would just sit there looking concerned, nodding, throwing in a few ‘sons of bitches’ and ‘goddammits.’?”
They both laughed.
James drank from his beer. “At least you had the good sense to work someplace else.”
“I was defiant.”
“Well, so am I. Better late than never. I’m getting out.”
“What would you do?” She hoped her brother would provide them both an answer.
“Teach.”
She laughed, then caught herself when she realized he was serious.
James cradled the plastic cup in his hands, flexing it. “A friend called to tell me that Seattle U has a position to teach legal research and writing and trial advocacy.”
“You’re serious. You’ve looked into this.”
He nodded. “I forwarded my grades and references last week. If all goes well, next fall I could be trading my suits and Ferragamos for khakis and loafers.”
She stared at the coffee table, filled with a sense of loss unrelated to the death of their father.
“Come with me,” James said, perhaps sensing her despair. “Let’s celebrate Dad’s death by getting lives.”
She took a sip of wine. “Right. What would Grant think?”
“Who cares? This isn’t about Grant. It’s about you.”
“He’s my husband, James.”
“Don’t remind me.” He raised both hands. “Sorry.”
She knew her family did not care for Grant, but it was not a topic of discussion. Grant was her husband. “Our mortgage is more than we can afford on both our salaries. We owe a hundred thousand in student loans between us, and our car payments are more than some people’s house payments.”
“Sell it all.” James leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his blue eyes sparkling. “That’s what I’m doing. Sell the cars and the house. With the equity in the house, I can pay almost all cash for something smaller.”
She laughed out loud. “With the equity in our house, we might be able to afford dinner and a nice bottle of wine.”
“You’d be free.”
She didn’t even know what that meant. “We’ve talked about children.”
He sat back. His tone changed. “Really?”
She nodded. “We’ve been married five years, and I’m not getting any younger.”
“Are you getting along better?”
“We’re trying. It’s just the strain of work. It’ll change once we have children. It will give us a new perspective.”
But it had been her brother who gained the new perspective. James sold his home on Capitol Hill, sold his Mercedes, and gave his suits and most of his ties and dress shirts to Goodwill. He dropped his membership at the Washington Athletic Club, stopped dining at expensive restaurants, and rarely spent the $150 greens fees for a round of golf at the private clubs. He liked to joke that he had to quit his high-paying job in order to save money.
“I’m very sorry, I’m late.”
Dana opened her eyes. Detective Michael Logan stood at the bottom of the steps with rain dripping from his umbrella. “I could lie and blame it on traffic, but the truth is I overslept. I got a call in the middle of the night, a murder out in Rainier Valley. It turns out it’s connected with your brother.”
She felt her anxiety rise. “My brother?”
Logan looked up at the sky. “Let’s step inside, out of the rain.” The yellow police tape was still wedged between the door and the jamb. “Do you have a key?”
“No,” she said, embarrassed.
Logan nodded. “The neighbor has one. I’ll be just a second.”
She watched him jog across the lawn to the next house and return moments later with the key. Logan removed the strip of police tape, unlocked the door, and pushed it open, but Dana paused at the threshold.
“We can do this later,” Logan said. “Given what I learned last night, it’s not as urgent.”
Dana faced forward, eyes focused down the hallway, recalling the first time she stepped to the edge of the high dive on the floating pier at Madison Park and tried to convince herself to step off. It wasn’t courage that had caused her to take the step. It was the fear of looking afraid.
“Thank you, Detective. I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but there’s no reason to wait. It has to be done, and I’ll be the person who will have to do it.”
“I wasn’t thinking of your brother’s belongings,” Logan said. “I was thinking of you.” The comment surprised her. She turned. He looked down at her with bloodshot green eyes. “I mean per-haps another time—when someone can be here with you,” he said.
Dana shook her head. Then she turned back to the threshold, and stepped across.
Legal briefs were strewn across the table. Several had slipped onto the floor next to James’s leather briefcase. She walked down the hallway, struck with the same odd feeling as when she went into the house across the street from Ford’s Theatre, where Abraham Lincoln had died after being shot. Everything seemed like a prop abandoned on a stage after the final act. Time stood still, a horrible moment forever frozen. A dark stain colored the hardwood floor. Dana turned and covered her mouth.
“Are you all right?” Logan asked.
She took a moment to regain her composure, relying on the part of her that would always be a lawyer—the need to get answers to her questions. “You said a murder in Rainier Valley might have something to do with my brother?”
Logan reached into his pocket and handed her a plastic bag. “The responding detectives think they found your brother’s watch.”
Dana turned it over and read the inscription, nodding. “My father gave us each one when we graduated from law school.” She showed the detective her wrist. “Do they have the man who took this?”
Logan shook his head. “He’s dead. Someone shot him.”
“Who is he? Why would he kill my brother?”
“The man’s name was Laurence King. He was pretty much a career criminal, a thief whose crimes were escalating in violence. He was paroled three months ago.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her anger spiked. A released convict. “I know you said my brother was killed during a robbery, Detective, but I’m having a hard time accepting that. Look around; he didn’t own anything of value.”
Logan nodded as if he’d heard the rationalization before. “You’d be surprised. I’ve seen people get killed over a five--dollar dispute. We’re still trying to get all the information we can, but what we know is that King was a two-strike felon. He had a lot to lose if he got caught. He also hung out with a man named Marshall Cole, another petty thief. We think Cole might have been the person who killed your brother.”
“Why?”
“We found bloody clothing at the motel along with your brother’s watch. The clothes are too small to have been King’s. Based on a physical description from the motel attendant and Cole’s police file they likely belonged to Cole.”
“Do you think this man Cole also killed King?”
“We don’t know yet. We’re trying to find him. The motel is known to do a brisk business with the local prostitutes. King could have been killed during a random dispute and Cole took off, not wanting to be a part of it. Do you know whether your brother kept large amounts of cash, either on him or in the home?”
“My brother? Not that I’m aware of. Why?”
“In addition to your brother’s watch, King had upward of fifteen hundred dollars on him.”
She shook her head. “I guess it’s possible, but I doubt James would keep that much money here, and he certainly wouldn’t carry it on him.”
“What about jewelry or things King could have hocked to get that kind of money?”
She surveyed the room. “My brother sold or gave away most of his possessions when he quit practicing law. He never owned much jewelry. The watch and his class ring were the only things I knew of.”
They walked through the rooms, Logan making an inventory of possessions. The thieves had not taken the television or stereo, both of which were relics by modern standards, nor had they taken the laptop. They’d also left his collection of compact discs and a checkbook Dana found in the dresser in the bedroom. Even Logan thought that was odd.
After an hour together, they again stood in the back room. Logan flipped his notebook closed. “Okay. I’ll give you some privacy to collect your brother’s personal things. You have my business card. If you think of anything or notice anything that seems out of the ordinary, let me know. I’ll keep you informed if I learn anything new.”
Dana thanked him and watched him walk down the hallway, leaving her alone, a stranger in her brother’s home.
S
HE STARTED WITH
the rooms at the back of the house and worked toward the front door and her escape. She felt uncomfortable in the house, the hollow, lifeless eyes of the African tribal masks staring at her, wondering why she hadn’t spent time there when her brother was alive. She wasn’t sure what to do with them or the African tapestries and sculptures. She knew that James had brought them back after a six-week safari from which he returned thin, tan, vegetarian, and in better spirits than she could recall. His hair had grown from the corporate downtown cut to curls that lapped over the collar of his shirt, and he had exchanged contact lenses for wire-rimmed glasses. Still, she didn’t want the masks staring at her, a constant reminder of the tragedy they had witnessed. She decided she would call the Seattle Art Museum and ask if they had interest in the pieces or knew of another museum that might. The rest of the kitchen and the living room, with the exception of the larger furniture, fit in one box. James had taken on a somewhat monastic lifestyle. She assumed he ate most of his meals at the school.
She moved down the hall to the bedroom, knowing this would be the most difficult room in the house. Books and framed photographs filled the built-in shelves and overflowed onto the hardwood floor. An entire shelf was devoted to historical biographies of Civil War commanders. Another shelf held the classics: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Twain. She picked up a multipane picture frame and sat on the edge of the bed. Each panel held a photograph of James with Molly—Molly in a backpack, at a museum, at the zoo with her face painted.