Paper Daughter (9 page)

"
I did not think of that," I tell her.

"
I know," she says. "That is what I mean"—a comment that does not quite follow but makes me feelgood.

I do leave then, saying goodbye in my best American.

She might answer in my language, but she does not. She gives me the respect of answering also in American, so quickly that I must repeat the sounds over and over to myself until I have puzzled them into words.

She has said, "I'llbe seeingyou.
"

***

At first I suppose she meant that perhaps Li Dewei would send me to make another purchase for him, and I am impatient for him to need more herbs.

Then one fall day, when I look up from my work, I see her walking by. Other girls are with her, and she does not slow her steps. But I see the quick glance she gives the sign above the door, and her quicker glance inside.

After that, they go by on another day, and then another, until soon my days are measured against the time in the late afternoon when I might see her. She and her friends, in their school uniforms of dark blue with white collars, remind me of chattering magpies. She alone, though, looks for this place, glancing in, her eyes seeking me.

And so, again, the shape of my life changes, and I gradually cease to think of the laundry and of my new name as things for now only. Because now I am knowing An, and to her I am Fai-yi Li, Li Dewei's son, who belongs.

Harrison and I were among the first arrivals in the newsroom on Tuesday morning.

"Where do we start?" I asked. He was setting up a laptop for himself so that I could use the computer on his desk.

"With the Department of Planning and Development postings," he answered. "I'd like to see what Landin worked on."

He showed me how to navigate the city's website. The development review area was organized by neighborhood, and there were at least ten, maybe fifteen of those. You clicked on one, and that brought up pages that showed the names and locations of individual projects, along with who had proposed them. Details included each project's review or construction status and also contact information for the Planning Department employee the project had been assigned to.

"There must be two or three dozen projects just in this first neighborhood," I said. "What are we looking for, besides Landin's name?"

"Anything unusual."

Harrison had the scroll button pressed down. "Here's Landin here, and here..." he said. "So it looks like that guy yesterday was right saying they haven't gotten around to reassigning Landin's work. Why don't you compile a list of everything with his name on it, and meanwhile I'm going to make some calls. I'd like to know why he quit his job."

Harrison pulled out a phone book, but I could see him watching me until I'd selected the details of the first Landin project and copied them to a blank word-processing document.

An hour later I handed him a printout.

"Spot any patterns?" he asked.

"No," I answered. "Except that, depending on the neighborhood, it's all either housing subdivisions or office buildings. How about you?"

"I learned that Landin left without giving notice or a reason—just cleared out his desk and was gone the same day."

Harrison skimmed the printout. "The big-money stuff looks like it's all being done by the same two or three construction outfits."

He gave me time to think out the next step, nodding ap-81proval when I said, "So I should go through everything again, looking for their names instead of Landin's."

"Right. I'll help this time."

The next printout made Harrison exclaim, "Bingo!"

"What?"

"Look," he said, dragging a highlighter across one item and another and then two more. The applicant on each one was Galinger Construction, and Landin was listed as the staff contact for each.

Puzzled, I said, "Yeah. I got those when I printed out Landin's list."

"Exactly!" Harrison said. "And now, with this list of all the Galinger Construction projects in front of you, do you see any
not
assigned to Landin?"

"No."

"And do you see any other big construction and development outfits whose projects are confined to just one member of the Planning Department?" Harrison didn't wait for me to check. "The answer's no to that, too."

"But how'd you spot it so fast?" I asked.

"It's what I was looking for."

He turned his monitor so I could see the display. "That's the agenda for next week's city council meeting," he said. "Read the list of applicants for the unexpired term of that councilman who died."

Third on the list was a Ralph Galinger. Clicking on the link for information about him, Harrison said, "What do you want to bet Mr. Galinger has ties to a construction company?"

He did.

Ralph Galinger, the city council candidate, was head of Galinger Construction.

"Isn't that a conflict of interest?" I asked.

"Potentially," Harrison answered, "but since he's not hiding his business, probably not. What I'd like to know is whether he's hiding some deal he had with Landin. If so, that might explain his desire to hold public office."

Harrison went back to our last printout while I tried to work out what he might be thinking.

I said, "Because if Landin was giving Galinger a pass on things—maybe getting paid to recommend approval of projects he shouldn't have—now that Landin is dead, Galinger might be afraid that whoever takes over will spot the funny stuff."

"Exactly," Harrison said. "And maybe Galinger wants on the inside of city hall so he can cover it up."

"Would Landin have that much authority?" I asked.

"I don't know," Harrison said. "Depends on how slack the oversight was."

***

Time disappeared as we pored over the material. We'd touched on what just might be a story—if we could find something solid to grab on to. If we could get a good enough hold to know its shape and size.

When Harrison said he was going to go eyeball the Galinger Construction projects to see if they matched the listings, I grabbed my bag.

"No," he said. "I'd rather you stay at the computer. Google around on everybody's names and on anything else you can think of. Just see what you find."

***

I started with Donald Landin and pretty much zeroed out.

Then I put Galinger Construction into the browser and got to a company homepage that featured Galinger's photo. He looked like he was in his forties or early fifties, fit and tanned in a golf-course kind of way. Brown hair. An open smile.

Googling on his name took me to several community projects where he'd given time or other support. It also left me slogging through links to Galingers who might or might not be the one we were interested in, such as a military reunion site that listed a Ralph Galinger among its organizers.

I thought of Tobias Yeager, the deceased city councilman and board member. Harrison had said to look at everybody.

The browser turned up Yeager's obituary and a lot of stuff related to his city council work. Again, I went into page after page that turned out to be about other people with similar names. I'd just clicked on another site when Jillian flopped down in Harrison's chair.

"Surfing?" she asked. "I wish Lynch would give me some time to play around. Isn't this about when the Nordstrom's pre-season sale happens? Or is that in August? They've probably got it online, if you just—"

"I'm not playing around, Jillian. I'm working on a story."

"Oh! Excuse me. Still that dead guy thing?" She looked at the page that was loading onto my screen. It was from a fund-raiser at a Virginia private school eight years earlier and included a picture of a family, everyone smiling. "Is that him?"

A caption popped up: "Mr. and Mrs. T. Andrew Yeager and their three children."

"No," I said, hitting the Close button.

"You know," Jillian said, "there ought to be an Internet law that old pages get wiped out."

The screen hadn't changed, so I hit Close again. Instead of taking me back to Google, it opened a bigger version of the same picture above a longer caption.

"And another requiring people who put up webpages to know what they're doing!" Jillian suggested. "So, are you and Harrison really onto something? Because that's just great if you are. I mean, I don't mind a bit that it's you instead of me. Well, maybe a little bit. But—"

Fortunately, she was interrupted by Lynch hailing her from across the newsroom. "Honestly," she said, "what now? Did I tell you he's even got me setting up shoots for him? As though he can't work a telephone on crutches. I don't know how that man got along without me."

I resumed work in what, in her wake, felt like a cocoon of quiet. And then Harrison called to ask how I was doing and to say traffic was making his job take longer than he'd expected.

"But another thing," he said. "I think there's a state site where you can look up construction companies that do business in Washington. Will you check it?"

"Sure," I said, already clearing the browser to start a new search.

***

I found both the site and the Galinger Construction entry pretty quickly, surprised that so much information was easy to get—business license details, address, phone, owners' names and roles, bonding, insurance...

Something was nagging at me, though. Some connection to something I'd seen, only I couldn't think what.

Frustrated, I pulled up the search history list and started going back through the dozens of places I'd been. It took me a while, and mostly I felt as if I were floundering.

But at least I
had
the history list, since I'd been able to stay on Harrison's computer.

***

Harrison didn't return until almost four o'clock.

"Find anything?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," he answered. "The Galinger projects all appear to be as billed, although I'm surprised a couple of them got city approval. One has houses going up on what sure looks like a floodplain, and another is a high-rise office building smack in the middle of a residential area." He leaned back against the desk. "I don't know if this is a wild-goose chase or not. Did you find the state site? Any complaints on file for Galinger's outfit?"

"No complaints," I told him, "and nothing more on Landin. But..."

I tried to deadpan it, but there was no way I could keep a grin from breaking through. "How would you like a connection between Galinger Construction and Tobias Yeager, the deceased planning committee chairman whose city council seat Galinger wants?

Harrison's reaction was all I could have asked for.

Harrison pulled his tie loose as he took a close look at the outdated webpages I brought up. "Look at the names under the enlarged photo," I said, pointing to the caption that began "T. Andrew Yeager, Theresa Yeager..."

"You think T. Andrew and Tobias are the same guy?"

"I went through stories about Tobias Yeager until I found one with a good photo. They're the same person. He's just younger here. But it's the kids that are important: "children, Mary, Raul, and Luis Munez."

I handed Harrison the printout I'd made of the state listing for Galinger Construction. "Read the names of the principal owners."

Ralph Galinger
J. A. Garcia, custodian for Mary Munez
J. A. Garcia, custodian for Raul Munez
J. A. Garcia, custodian for Luis Munez

For a moment Harrison was actually speechless.

"Of course," I said, "it could be coincidence."

"Anyone who puts faith in coincidences doesn't belong in a newsroom. But it could be a legitimate business association." He humphed. "The children have a different last name, so they're probably hers from an earlier marriage."

"The Yeagers were divorced, too," I said. "His obituary didn't list any survivors, and Mrs. Yeager and the kids still live in Virginia. I tied them all to the same phone number there."

"So the question is what they're doing owning stock in Galinger Construction, which is a local company. And also, who is J. A. Garcia? Any answers there?"

"There are a bunch of Garcias in Virginia that might be him," I said, "but only one phone book listing for that name in the whole Seattle area."

"So let's call it."

An automated recording told us we'd reached a number no longer in service.

Harrison took out his notebook. "I'm going to think about what to ask and then call Theresa Yeager."

I gave him the number and then returned to a computer map program I'd opened before. I already had a few pushpins on it, marking Galinger's business and home and the address that went with the disconnected Garcia phone number. Now I entered another address into the search box. The program was still finding it when I heard Harrison place his call and identify himself. "Mrs. Yeager? This is Ed Harrison. I'm a reporter with..."

Harrison's side of the conversation consisted of a few questions and a lot of
I see
's.

Finally he hung up and filled me in. "Yeager's ex-wife has never heard of Galinger Construction, and her children are most certainly not part owners of it." He looked into the distance, thinking out loud. "So now what? Start looking for Garcia, I suppose. Though how—"

"I know a starting place," I said, eyes on my computer screen. "Look here."

The map program had found the last address I'd put in, and now there was a new pushpin on the map.

"You see those two pins that are right next to each other?" I said. "The one on the right is the address that goes with that disconnected Garcia phone number. And the other is where Tobias Yeager lived."

***

We talked a while longer, trying to figure out how the pieces might all fit together.

Harrison said, "Let's suppose the real connection was between Galinger and Yeager, and it was not legitimate. Maybe Yeager was the one taking payoffs in return for seeing that Galinger Construction projects got approved. He could have used the kids' identities as a way for Galinger to funnel the money to him."

"Through Yeager's neighbor, Garcia."