Grave Error

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “Shit,” Freedman spat. “I’m coming.”

  “I’d like to talk some more about the Institute,” I said quickly.

  “No time now,” Freedman answered as he headed toward the door. “Jackie can tell you enough to get you started. It’s her baby anyway. As a general rule, if you want to talk to me about something you’d better be able to do it in three minutes or less. That’s all the time this place lets me spare in one hunk.”

  He was gone with a bang. The air in the room still swirled, as if we had been visited by a dervish. “Bill’s a bit intense,” Mrs. Nelson said after the atmosphere had calmed. “But he’s an amazing man. People don’t realize how much he means to the Institute. Roland gets all the credit and publicity, but he couldn’t have done it without Bill. And Sara. I’ll go try to find her now.”

  I wondered if Freedman was getting tired of playing second fiddle or being underpaid or crying in the wilderness or any of a thousand other things that might bring him to the point of blackmailing his boss.

  In less than a minute Jacqueline Nelson came back in. The woman with her was the same one Nelson had taken to lunch at Doros. Up close she was even more attractive than I had realized. If Nelson was looking for a partner in an illicit affair, she was a good place to start and an even better place to finish.

  FIVE

  The woman was introduced as Sara Brooke, Roland Nelson’s chief assistant. Many beautiful women don’t wear too well up close. The features that knock you out from across the room often become incongruous on close inspection: the hair is too stiff, the lips too thin, the nostrils too flared or too crimped. Sara Brooke had just the opposite effect. You probably wouldn’t pick her out of the crowd at a cocktail party, but if you found yourself sitting next to her on a bar stool you wouldn’t leave until she did.

  We sat down in the wing chairs and inspected each other. She was blonde, with blue eyes that sparkled like an invitation to the Winter Ball. Her upper lip curled quizzically in a pout. She wore a gray pinstriped suit, cut like a man’s, and a blue challis tie. Her white blouse was as stiff as linoleum. The skin at her wrists and ankles was as brown and smooth as a well-licked cone. If I ever get a job designing dolls, I’ll design a lot of them to look like Sara Brooke.

  “Did Mrs. Nelson tell you what I’m going to be doing for the Institute?” I began.

  “Yes,” she said, then frowned. “I’m rather surprised Bill let Jackie hire you, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Bill insists on control. Over people and over events. He likes to make things happen—to act, not react. I doubt if he can influence you the way he likes to.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean if you should come up with anything at that clinic, Bill will want to dictate exactly when and how we use it. If we use it at all. Will you surrender that prerogative?” Her eyes were a mountain lake at sunset, clear and sparkling and inviting.

  “Probably not,” I said. “Not if I think the information ought to be given to the authorities.”

  “That’s what I mean. Bill’s accustomed to more subservience than that. The Institute isn’t a democracy.”

  “What about Nelson?” I asked. “Does he feel the same way about his people?”

  “Oh, Roland doesn’t care. He leaves the administrative details up to Bill. He always has.”

  “What does he leave up to you?”

  “Various things. I’m his token feminist, or was until a couple of years ago. I handle the recruiting—try to keep the Institute manned by an adequate number of bright young Turks fresh off the campus. And I’m the senior lawyer on the staff.”

  “Pretty impressive.”

  “Not really. We do good work here, believe it or not. We’re as well prepared when we go to court as we are when we go to press. We pick our spots and we don’t often lose.”

  “It must be nice to ride a winner every time.”

  “Oh, we don’t win every time. But often enough. It’s nice, but it isn’t everything. I used to think it was,” she added softly. I thought I detected a wistful note, but it might have been wishful thinking on my part.

  “What else is there?” I asked. “For you, I mean? A man? A cause? A guru?”

  “Some men but no man. No cause except the Institute. No guru except Roland Nelson. I raise bonsai trees and play the piano and get away to a little place in Carmel whenever I can. That’s about it.”

  She had answered without thinking, and now the personal conversation seemed to embarrass her. She shifted uneasily in the chair and for a moment her eyes glazed as she stared at the wall behind me and thought of something that didn’t have anything to do with me.

  “Tell me about Nelson,” I said finally.

  “Why?”

  “Because I like to know the kind of man I’m working for. Something beyond what I read in the papers.”

  “But what you read in the papers is all there is to know about Roland Nelson. He is the Institute. And vice versa. It’s his whole life. Except for Claire. Roland spends a lot of time with her. She’s crippled, you know.”

  “Mrs. Nelson told me.”

  “And adopted.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes. She was wasting away in an orphanage up in Sacramento when Roland found her. She was fairly old when they got her—ten, I think. No one else wanted a girl with a gimpy leg, I guess.”

  “That’s a pretty selfless gesture, isn’t it? Adopting a crippled child?”

  “Roland is totally selfless. He’s the only man I’ve ever met I would say that about. And it wasn’t a gesture. Roland loves Claire very much.”

  “It doesn’t sound like he leaves much room for his wife in all this,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t think there’s any problem there,” Sara replied. “Jackie’s very independent. An incredibly strong woman really. She’s not exactly the housewife type, so she’s not sitting home waiting for Roland to arrive and make her day. She has her interests. All kinds of them.”

  “Like the mental health project.”

  “That. And other things.”

  There was something behind that answer, something painful, but I couldn’t tell what it was. All I knew for sure was that Sara Brooke was bewitching me. I gathered my thoughts from the field of enchantment and asked Sara how Nelson got his start.

  “He was working for a Seattle newspaper,” she answered. “Copy boy, I think. That’s when he sniffed out the story on the design defects in the FA 101. The paper wouldn’t print it, so he mailed the story to America Today magazine. They published it, Roland followed up with a report he cranked out in three days of solid work, the plane crash came two weeks later, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “How did you get on board?”

  “I met Roland here just after the Allendale Foundation gave him a grant for further study of the FA 101 and he moved to San Francisco. There weren’t many jobs for female law graduates in those days. There weren’t many female law graduates, period. Roland chose me out of a grand total of three female applicants. And here I am, nine years and a lot of miles later.”

  “The miles were all downhill, I’d say.”

  “I hope that’s a compliment. If so, I accept.”

  I nodded. I was starting to sound like a middle-aged Lothario.

  “Where did Nelson go to school?” I asked.

  “He didn’t have much formal education. He went to junior college in Seattle for a while, but he’s a little sensitive about the lack of a degree.”

  “There are only about a million Ph.D.s who would abandon their degrees, and their souls, too, if they could change places with Roland Nelson.”

  “I know. You should see how many of those types come around begging to be hired. Professors and consultants and executives and politicians. At least two college presidents that I know of. They all want to be part of the Institute. Some of them even offer to work for nothing, at least to start.”

  “S
ad.”

  “It really is. All those people with prestigious jobs looking frantically for something more meaningful to do.”

  “Or more glamorous.”

  “I admit there’s a certain amount of that involved. People like to be recognized. We try to use the media to our advantage, so inevitably there’s a certain amount of personal publicity for the staff. Some people seem to feel that their lives would be completely fulfilling if they showed up on the evening news. But it doesn’t work that way.”

  There was that little flash again, a hint that all was not well with the lovely Sara. But unless her problem had something to do with Roland Nelson it wasn’t really my business. Yet.

  “How about Freedman?” I asked. “Where did he come from?”

  “Oh, Bill was a community organizer back then, sort of like Saul Alinsky, if you remember him.”

  “Back of the Yards. Chicago.”

  “That’s right. Bill put together everything from tenant strikes to supermarket boycotts, but only on a small scale. When he saw the press that Roland got from the airplane scandal he recognized the power that goes with national exposure and joined up.”

  “Do you and he get along?”

  “Sure. Bill’s got tremendous political instincts and all of us are indebted to him for his insights. All of this is a big game in a way, and Bill plays it better than anybody. He just needs discipline, and that’s why he and Roland are such a good team. Roland’s the most disciplined person I know.”

  “Are Nelson and Freedman still close?”

  “They’ve never been exactly close, not on a personal basis. But they don’t have to be. They work well together and each one realizes he needs the other to be effective. So far it’s worked marvelously.”

  “So far?”

  She hesitated. “I’m sure someone’s told you this already. Things are a bit tense around here lately. We’ve stepped on a lot of toes, big toes, and the screams are building up to quite a roar. Bill and Roland aren’t exactly agreed on how to proceed.”

  “What’s the issue?”

  Sara shook her head as if to drag herself out of a dream. “Oh, it’s nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything to begin with. I’ve got to be going, anyway. Good luck with your work.”

  “So what about Nelson?” I asked, trying to keep her from leaving. “Is he as perfect as they say? No vices, no weaknesses, no sins of the flesh or otherwise?”

  Sara’s laugh made her face a golden treasure, worthy of Cellini. “Roland does tend to be deified, doesn’t he?” she said. “But he is a remarkable man, all the same. I wouldn’t have stayed here all these years if he weren’t.”

  “You must work very closely with him.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Cause any problems?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean in keeping it strictly business. Two attractive, intelligent people working together in stressful situations. Fertile soil for romance.”

  “Nothing like that has happened,” she said stiffly. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  I said I was sorry, then tried to make amends. “I did a lot of divorce work until I was solvent enough to afford a set of scruples,” I said, “and my mind reverts to that frequency sometimes. They say detectives are either ghouls or voyeurs. Maybe it’s lucky I’m only the latter.”

  “Apology noted,” she said and brought her smile back. “I’m hypersensitive these days anyway.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  She shook her head.

  “By the way,” I said, “I forgot to ask Mrs. Nelson who I see to get officially admitted to the payroll. There must be some other administrative details I ought to take care of, too.”

  “Zelma Buckner is our office manager. She handles the payroll and that kind of thing. Her office is just off the reception room.”

  “Does she pass out the paychecks?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even for you and Freedman and Nelson?”

  “Yes. Unless it’s some extraordinary expense. We have an outside accounting firm that takes care of that.”

  “Who?”

  “Watson Brothers. Do you know them?”

  “No.” But I would have to make the acquaintance of their files some night if I couldn’t get a lead any other way. If Nelson was taking extra cash out of the Institute it had to show up someplace in the accounting records. I didn’t think he’d just embezzle it.

  “I understand Nelson is away a lot,” I went on. “Out of touch, so nobody can reach him. Doesn’t that cause problems if a decision has to be made right away?”

  “He is away a lot. His schedule is unbelievable.”

  “But why does he disappear without a trace?”

  “Roland has to disappear sometimes,” she said. “We all do. Much of our information is given in confidence by sources who don’t want to be seen with anyone from the Institute. Most of them would lose their jobs if anyone knew they had talked to us. And a lot of them refuse to speak to anyone but Roland. So he disappears when he feels a secret meeting with an informant is the only way to break a story. He usually isn’t gone for long,” she added. “We stumble along without him.”

  “What if I absolutely had to reach him? Should I call you?”

  “I don’t know what you should do,” she said firmly. “You’d better talk to Roland about that. I assume the person that hired you would know where he is if anyone does.”

  I had pushed Sara Brooke a bit too far. There were depths to her that would go unplumbed if she had anything to say about it. I hoped for her sake, and mine too, that the waters were benign.

  Sara stood up and said she had to leave. I asked if I could take her to lunch and she said she couldn’t because she had to prepare for a court appearance at two.

  After she left I ambled back through the central bay. The ants were feeding, chomping on hunks of food they produced like magicians from brown paper bags. I could hear Bill Freedman shouting at someone at the far end of the room. Andrea Milton was reading a poem to a young boy wearing a shoulder bag. Keats, I think. A sweet-faced girl of sixteen was asleep on the floor. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said “You’re right—I’m naked underneath.”

  Weren’t we all.

  SIX

  The Nelsons lived in a handsome stick Victorian on Clay Street near the Alta Plaza. The neighborhood lay halfway between the ribbon of wealth that danced along Pacific Heights and the faded tenements of the Fillmore ghetto. Over the years it had moved from elegance to slum and was on its way back again. The house itself had been carefully refurbished, and so had its neighbors. The bright new colors frolicked among themselves like streamers on a Maypole.

  The stairs creaked as I climbed to the front door, and so did my knees. Underneath the doorbell a small white sign asked that I refrain from smoking out of respect for the occupants’ right to be free from pollution in their own home. I pushed the button anyway.

  Mrs. Nelson answered my ring. A light blue caftan imprinted with the squares and angles of the Navajo motif cascaded down her body but couldn’t hide her curves and bulges. At her bosom a squash-blossom necklace hung heavily, the turquoise pendant glimmering like a blue flame. I said something polite and followed her into the front parlor.

  It was a long, narrow room filled with polished antiques that looked like fugitives from a museum. Beige walls rose high above four feet of burnished wainscoting to a twelve-foot ceiling. In the far corner a grand piano snoozed quietly. The only light in the room came from the two front windows. It was as if I had walked into a cave.

  Three people were already in the room. The round-faced girl whose picture I had seen on Nelson’s desk was sitting in a wheelchair over near the windows. A bright afghan hid her lap and legs. She was talking to a burly, square-jawed man several years older than she was. He seemed to be trying to persuade the girl to do something, and she seemed determined to hold out, but it was a friendly argument.

  Another man stood with his
back to me, facing an ornate fireplace. His hands were in his pockets and his head was cocked slightly, as if he were trying to decide whether the marble mantel was genuine or a triumph of plastic mold. He was tall and broad-shouldered and gave off an air of power and purpose even from the rear. His brown hair was flecked with gray and curled above his collar, which was frayed.

  “Darling?” Mrs. Nelson said.

  The man turned and looked at me. The face was familiar, of course—the bushy brows, the full red beard, the steel-rimmed glasses—but up close his eyes had a softness that wasn’t apparent in news photos or at distant observation. They were viscid dollops of fine brandy and gave Nelson a sad, almost pleading aspect.

  Nelson was even bigger than I realized. He must have weighed close to three hundred pounds, but he didn’t look fat. He just looked as strong as a musk ox. It was easy to see why people were drawn to him—that combination of strength and vulnerability was always addictive.

  “Mr. Tanner,” he said to me and nodded formally. His voice rolled like a bowling ball down an alley.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nelson,” I replied. When we shook hands his grip was surprisingly gentle.

  “Let me introduce my daughter, Claire, and her, ah, friend, Alvin Rodman.” Nelson gestured toward each of them and we exchanged appropriate words. No one asked me to sit down. Mrs. Nelson went off to bring me a drink.

  “I’m afraid you’ve walked into a family contretemps, Mr. Tanner,” Nelson continued. “My daughter has decided that she can become fulfilled as a woman only by moving out of this house and into her own apartment. She intends to live alone. Her arguments are supported, surprisingly, by my wife. My opposition to her plan is supported, also unexpectedly, by Mr. Rodman. We are currently at loggerheads.” Nelson’s speech patterns were straight out of Dickens, and with his tweed jacket and khaki slacks and jodhpur boots he seemed to have stepped out of an ad for British gin.

  “We’re not at loggerheads, Roland,” the girl replied firmly. “I’m going to move out at the end of the month and that’s all there is to it. To the place on Chestnut Street I told you about.”