Damage Control (8 page)
“Not everything.”
“James waited up for you.”
“I’ll tuck him in,” he’d say, and his footsteps would soften down the hall.
Then her mother would place the brush on the nightstand, close the book, and cover Dana with blankets, tucking them under her chin and bending to kiss her on each cheek, the nose, the forehead, and finally, the lips.
“Why are you crying?” Dana would ask, feeling the moisture on her mother’s cheeks.
“Because I love you so very much,” her mother would whisper.
“Why are you crying, Mom?”
Dana opened her eyes. Molly stared at her from the bed. Dana wiped her cheeks as she entered the room. Her mother continued to stroke the little girl’s hair. Dana bent down and kissed Molly on each cheek, the nose, the forehead, and finally, the lips. “Because I love you so very much,” she whispered.
T
HE FLOOR OUTSIDE
her office vibrated. Dana reached for the phone on her desk and placed it to her ear, but the door did not burst open. She hung up, wondering how long it would be before Marvin Crocket regained his nerve. Her first day back at work, their paths had crossed that morning in the hallway, and Crocket had considered her warily, likely recalling that the last time they crossed paths, she had hurled a standard-size office desk at him. According to Linda, Crocket had burst from the office that day like a bull running the streets of Pamplona and didn’t stop until he reached the office of Gary Thurmond, ranting and raving for fifteen minutes, an expletive-filled diatribe on Dana’s mental instability and lack of professional conduct. Crocket had concluded with a request for Dana’s head on a platter. Barring that, he sought her immediate expulsion. Thurmond, a sixty-five-year-old warhorse who had known and respected James Hill, Sr., in the courtroom and on the golf course, didn’t agree. The morning of her return, her nameplate remained affixed to the wall outside her office door, and a bouquet of flowers had been arranged on her desk.
The floor shook again. Dana snatched up the telephone a split second before Crocket burst in. “We have to get the proposal to Corrugated Indus—”
She looked up at him with feigned indignity, then returned to her imaginary conversation, leaving him to fidget. When he did not immediately leave, she rested the phone on her shoulder and held her hands as wide apart as she could to indicate her conversation would be lengthy. Frowning, Crocket mimed in response that he wanted an immediate call. He left without closing her door. Dana waited a beat before hanging up. Linda peered in from the hallway. “Is there anything you need?”
Dana shook her head. “No, thank you, Linda. I’m fine. Could you shut my door?”
Linda stepped in and closed the door behind her. In her twenties, she had fire-red hair, multiple earrings in her right earlobe, a nose ring, and a tattoo on her back. She didn’t exactly project the corporate-law-firm image that Strong & Thurmond sought to foster in Washington’s competitive market for elite corporate clients, but Linda had been discreet. She had interviewed in a conservative blue suit with her hair pulled back in a tight bun and had retained the vestiges of that appearance throughout her ninety-day trial period. When she emerged some of the shareholders wanted to fire her, but she had proved an excellent secretary. Any ostensible reason for her termination would have been a thinly veiled excuse subject to a wrongful-termination lawsuit. Instead, they sent her from lawyer to lawyer, each papering her employment file with some inane complaint. Eventually, she came to rest in the cubicle just outside Dana’s office, and over the past two years, they had developed a kinship as outlaws.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Linda said.
“I’m glad to have you here, too.”
“Crocket has been asking to review your files and your time sheets. He’s looking for things. I saw a memorandum regarding the practice group presentation. He hit you pretty hard.”
At the moment it all seemed unimportant. “Thanks for looking out for me, but don’t get yourself in any trouble, Linda. Just give him what he wants. I’m not worried about Crocket. He can attack me, but he can’t attack my work. That’s what pisses him off.” She winked. “But I don’t think I need to tell you that.”
Linda laughed. “Maybe you should get a nose ring.”
“I’d like to give him a nose ring. Would you hold my calls? I’m going to be taking care of some personal matters.”
Dana opened the box on the floor that contained James’s personal papers. Over the next hour, she sorted through his credit card and bank records. The estate was not inconsequential, but because he had sold most of his possessions, it was not complicated. He had $183,000 in a retirement fund and another $78,000 in stocks. His Green Lake home had an assessed value of $425,000. He had an additional $62,000 in cash from the sale of his Capitol Hill home invested in mutual funds. He also had a $1 million life insurance policy with Molly his beneficiary. Dana had contacted the insurance company; who advised her that they would be conducting an investigation, apparently to determine whether her brother could have beaten himself to death, suicide not being a covered event. Brian Griffin had told her that he’d drafted a will and a trust for James, but Dana did not find copies of either. She had made an appointment to see Griffin later in the week.
James had done most of his banking online. His password was written on the inside of his file, M-O-L-L-Y. Dana accessed the website for his credit card and scrolled through the entries. A careful review did not reveal what she was looking for. She then logged on to his banking site and reviewed his statements for the previous nine months but again did not find any large withdrawals or checks. About to log off, she noticed a check entry to a company called Montgomery Real Estate for $695 and considered it of interest since, to her knowledge, her brother did not own any real estate besides his home. Scrolling back through the records, she noted the same entry the previous month and the four months prior to that as well. She wrote the name of the company on a legal pad as her direct line rang, indicating an in-firm call. She checked the extension before answering.
“I know you didn’t want to be bothered,” Linda said, “but a Dr. Bridgett Neal is on the telephone for you. She said it was important.”
R
OBERT
M
EYERS EMERGED
from beneath the apple-red wing of the Meyers International floatplane and stepped down onto the deck before turning and offering his hand to his wife. Elizabeth Meyers stepped out, resplendent in a royal blue St. John’s pantsuit. Meyers smoothed his tie and adjusted his blazer as the couple strode up the wooden pier hand in hand. His father, the former two-term governor of the state of Washington, had taught him that life was about making entrances and exits.
“Nobody remembers what happens in between,” he would say.
It was the reason Meyers had opted for the floatplane. Today he intended to make an entrance. The weather had certainly cooperated, providing a glorious sky, and sunshine reflected in the windows of Seattle’s downtown skyscrapers to the immediate south. Days like these had earned Seattle its nickname, the Emerald City.
As the couple reached the end of the dock, the group standing across Fairview Avenue in the courtyard of Seattle’s Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center raised their hands to shade their eyes from the glare off Lake Union. Behind them stood a magnificent seven-story glass and brick structure, a red ribbon and bow draped across the front entrance. Fast becoming one of the best cancer centers in the world, the medical complex had sprung up along the shores of Lake Union along with a host of medical and biotech companies fueled by pioneers of the dot-com craze in the 1990s, particularly Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. Glimmering brick and glass buildings were fast replacing the one-story industrial buildings that had surrounded Lake Union for fifty years.
When Meyers and his wife approached, water sprouted from the rock fountain centerpiece in the courtyard, and the crowd broke into spontaneous applause. Meyers dropped his head like an embarrassed schoolboy bringing his girlfriend home to meet his parents. Everyone knew the ostensible purpose for the event—Meyers had come to dedicate the addition that would bear his father’s name, Robert Samuel Meyers III. But by appearing in the sparkling sunshine with his beach-boy-blond hair blowing in a gentle breeze, Meyers had still managed to give the event a spontaneous feel, another skill his father had taught.
For four generations, the Meyers family had personified the American dream in Seattle. Meyers’s great-grandfather had emigrated to the Pacific Northwest from Sweden with little more than pocket change and taken a job as a logger for Weyerhauser, the lumber giant. His son founded Meyers Construction and built it into the largest developer of homes in the Pacific Northwest; he had also used his financial resources to become active in civic affairs, becoming Seattle’s mayor. His son graduated from the University of Washington with engineering and architecture degrees and transformed Meyers Construction from a builder of homes to a leader in the construction of Seattle’s skyline. During the economic boom of the 1980s, Meyers Construction cranes and banners flew atop nearly every high-rise being built. Meyers III’s political success also reached greater heights. When he became governor, he passed the company on to his son, making Robert Samuel Meyers IV the chief executive of the largest construction company in Washington state. Then the recession hit and the cranes stopped building. It was a recipe for disaster, but Meyers had the foresight to divest the family fortune, founding Meyers International, a venture capital company that invested heavily in the high-tech and biotech craze sweeping across the Pacific Northwest. The deals turned the family’s millions into billions. Armed with a family name that appeased Seattle’s blue blood, and a reputation as an entrepreneur that appealed to the young, Meyers was uniquely situated to take the family’s political ambitions still higher. At thirty-six, he successfully campaigned for a seat in the United States Senate, where he employed the same youthful vitality, work ethic, and vision to carve his name on the national political scene. When one Washington, D.C., publication referred to his Senate campaign as “a return to Camelot,” other national publications pounced on the theme, and the American public became wistful, thinking of the possibility. Meyers became the poster boy for the next generation, much like John F. Kennedy had been for his.
Meyers stepped to a podium adorned with multiple microphones. Cameras whirled and clicked, and film crews jostled for a shot of Meyers with the fountain and the glass facade in the background. Meyers draped both hands over the top of the podium, relaxed in the spotlight and content to give them that shot. He addressed Bill Donovan, the correspondent for ABC’s affiliate in Seattle. “Bill, you better put on some suntan lotion. You’re liable to get burned standing out here in this bright sunshine.”
Donovan rubbed the top of his balding head. “It’s not the suntan I’m worried about.”
The crowd laughed. Meyers liked to remark that politics were in his family’s genes. “A person does not choose politics,” his father had been fond of saying. “Politics choose the person.”
Meyers pulled his hands back and straightened. “Thank you all for being here today. My family and our friends suffered through the illness that befell my father and appreciated your caring support. Although my father’s illness will help to heighten public awareness in the battle against cancer, his death taught us we still have a long way to go. His battle was both valiant and courageous, and when it was over, it was a sad time for our family. But through that sadness, this addition to this incredible center has risen. Elizabeth and I are proud to dedicate the Robert Samuel Meyers wing of the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center. Let it serve as a declaration that our fight against cancer did not end with my father’s death. It began.”
The crowd applauded.
“Cancer took my father too young, but with funding for centers such as this, we can find a cure. And we will. People say we are winning the battle to treat cancer. I say that is the wrong battle. I say we need to eradicate the disease.”
Again the crowd applauded.
Meyers brushed his hair from a face that maintained much of its boyish charm. “As most of you know, my father was a religious man like John F. Kennedy and he too believed in the verse from Luke quoted by our former president: ‘To whom much is given, much is expected.’ My great-grandfather came to this country a poor immigrant. But he came with a dream—the kind of dream many Americans once had. He dreamed of a better life—for himself, for his family, and for the generations to follow. He realized that dream through hard work in a country that believed it could be the best in the world. My grandfather and my father were blessed with that same work ethic and that same desire to serve others, particularly the people of this great state that has for too long been ignored on the national political scene.”
The applause grew, the anticipation building.
“The issue is service, stewardship, and vision. The future should not scare the next generation of Americans. The future should excite them, as it once excited the generations that came before us.” The anticipation reached a crescendo. “America needs fresh ideas to solve old problems. America needs leaders who see the future of America, not its past.” His comment was a not so subtle reference to the age of the Republican Party’s leading presidential candidate, New York governor William Andrews. “I see that future as clearly as I see that range of mountains in the distance. And like those mountains, the future is closer than it appears. The future is now.”
A roar erupted. The crowd cheered wildly. Signs emerged from seemingly nowhere as Meyers shouted, “Today I am proud to announce that I am a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.”
He raised his wife’s hand overhead and soaked in the adoration, allowing the photographers to snap their front-page pictures. It was the perfect way to whet the public’s appetite without infringing upon the speech he would give Saturday evening at a gala to officially kick off his campaign and fund-raising. Meyers stepped from the podium, and an aide handed him an oversize pair of scissors. Meyers stepped to the front doors and cut the ribbon across the entrance to a building that would stand for his father’s legacy. Then Robert Meyers took his wife’s hand and together they walked inside to see the future.