by Archer Mayor
“So why are you?”
“I didn’t agree with the plan. You’re on our side, trying to end this nightmare. Showing you the corporate stiff upper lip seemed wrong to me.”
“You’re not worried about breaking ranks?” Joe asked, amused by this variation of the traditional good cop–bad cop routine he was so used to enacting himself.
“I’m CFO and married to the boss’s daughter, and she actually likes me,” Brad said, his eyes wide. “They’re not about to fire me, if that’s what you mean. It was just a business decision. I think it’s crap. That’s why I’m here—to ask if you got what you wanted, despite their united front.”
Joe absorbed that, wondering where the truth lay. First, the old man said he’d meet and then ducked; then his son with the two watchdogs and their bluster; now the affable and renegade wizard of numbers. For all St. John’s denials, the front was in fact looking well united and orchestrated.
“Okay,” Joe told him. “I’ll play. No, I didn’t get what I was after, which was to get your opinion on these assaults, along with some insight on the reputed dysfunction among GreenField’s brass.”
Brad looked surprised. “Dysfunction? Here? Give me details. I’ll see if I can shed some light.”
“I was told the two brothers don’t entirely see eye to eye, or at least that they give each other a lot of room.”
Brad shook his head slightly. “Right on both counts. Give me a company that doesn’t have some of that, and I’ll show you a place with no imagination, energy, or future. What you’re calling dysfunction, I’ve been calling creative differences since I met those two. I mean, I know them both. How different could two guys be? Stands to reason they’d be like Itchy and Scratchy.”
“I actually don’t know Philip,” Joe admitted.
Brad took that in stride. “No surprise. He’s never here. He’s not here now, and all hands’ve been ordered on deck. The old man doesn’t hold him to such decrees. I think that’s one reason Bobby doesn’t like him much.”
“Because he’s treated differently?”
“Among other things,” Brad allowed. “He’s also the fair-haired boy. Robert and Martha thought they could have only one child, and had pretty much conceded the point when Philip arrived eight years later.”
“But your wife’s younger than Philip,” Joe observed.
“I know. They got lucky. Bam, bam—two in a row. After Elaine, they chose to stop. I always thought Bobby felt a little robbed by the competition, and he sure as hell gets his nose bent out of joint when Philip gets praised for flitting around while Bobby’s spending his life at the grindstone.”
“I thought Philip had a good rep—the ideas man.”
“He does, and he is,” Brad confirmed. “But it’s never that simple, is it? Especially when you add sibling rivalry. Ask me about Philip, and you’ll get a different opinion than if you asked Bobby. Look, everyone likes to pigeonhole other people. The rich are no different. Consider the hundreds of folks who work for us, from all walks of life and past experiences. They could just be considered warehouse grunts, but I bet you know better than most that’s not true. The Beauprés are just as complicated, except that because of their status, they’re seen as black-and-white cutouts. Bobby and Philip may be polar opposites, just like so many other employees, but they haven’t made the company dysfunctional. Like I said, I’d argue just the opposite.”
Joe hadn’t missed the way St. John had awkwardly transformed the issue of sibling rivalry into a hackneyed statement about the nature of being human.
“Okay,” Joe moved on, “then what about the other question: Why do you think you’ve come under fire?”
St. John shrugged. “What else? We hire people, we fire them. And some of them carry a lot of baggage. I heard about the guy you arrested for killing that girl, for example. I guess he was one of ours at some point. I’m not saying our people are murderers, but we got our share of oddballs. Who knows what might make them lash out?”
“So, given your particular expertise, all this doesn’t make you think money’s a motive?” Joe continued.
Brad looked stunned by the notion. “A motive? Like from an investor trying to drive the stock value down or something? We’re privately owned. Who among management would benefit from ruining the company?”
“Somebody who hates it and you,” Joe suggested simply.
To pay him credit, Brad St. John didn’t instantly dismiss the idea. Instead, he sat back in his chair, seemingly disappointed, and allowed, “I guess I see what you mean, from an outsider’s perspective. But given how well I know everybody here, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I could be wrong, but … Well, I don’t think so.”
It was the sort of reaction Joe had been expecting all along, which only made him more deeply suspect that something darker and complex may have stimulated the overproduced dog and pony show he’d just been presented.
* * *
Confirming such misgivings, Joe received a phone call forty-five minutes after leaving the GreenField headquarters. It was from Mandy Lawlor, the late Mick Durocher’s only daughter.
“Hey, Mandy,” he answered, pulling over to the edge of the interstate. “What’s up?”
“You asked me to call you if anything happened,” she said, her voice tense.
“I did,” he said, not having believed she ever would. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she answered quickly. “That’s not it. I just got a package dropped off, not by mail. I mean really dropped off—left at my door. There was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it. In cash.”
Joe was still for a moment, his brain teeming with questions, especially given the nest of millionaires he’d just left.
“What should I do?” Mandy asked.
“I’d find a qualified financial advisor and a tax expert and ask them the same question,” he told her.
“Really? But I don’t know where it came from.”
“I think I might,” he reassured her. “And if I’m right, you and Julia are all set. I’ll let you know if I find out differently.”
“But who’s it from?”
Good question, he thought, troubled by the possible dilemma her honesty had created: Revealing this delivery opened it to being seized as evidence, unless he could run some sort of compassionate—and legal—interference. “I’ll see what I can find out, Mandy. In the meantime, I think I’m on safe ground telling you that your father probably played a role in it. For all his faults—and I’m not excusing any of them—he loved you very much.”
“Thank you,” he heard her say, her voice choked by emotion.
“Take care of yourself,” he therefore said before hanging up. “Thanks for telling me this, and just in case it comes up, and unless you’ve already thrown it out, do me a favor and save the packaging the money came in. It might be useful later.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rachel had been too busy to exclusively focus on J.R. and his relationship to GreenField. The ammonia leak at the warehouse, the related stories concerning its fatalities and survivors, the ripple effects on White River Junction and its emergency response crews, and her regular assignments, including—at last—an actual garden-club lunch, had ganged up to keep her a prisoner of her car and a slave to her camera. For several days, she had been eating from gas stations, changing clothes from a duffel bag, taking catnaps in rest areas, and shooting pretty much nonstop up and down the Connecticut River valley, regularly uploading her images to either the Reformer’s website or her own, where she kept an archive of surplus shots. In the end, her car looked lived in because it was.
The effort was paying off. Vermont Digger and AP were buying her images, Stan Katz was grudgingly paying her an almost constant hourly wage, and when she was awake enough to appreciate it, Rachel was enjoying having her bank balance and her reputation swell simultaneously. In almost no time, she had become the go-to photojournalist in Vermont’s southeast quadrant.
Most s
ignificant, several of her pictures were featured in an article that went viral, first in local papers, and then over the internet, titled, “Who’s Got It In for GreenField?”
It was in the throes of this activity that she found herself in Brattleboro’s Brooks Memorial Library, staring at screenshots of endless pages of murky newspaper print, in pursuit of historical information concerning Robert Beaupré. As had almost everyone else, it seemed, she’d been bitten by the bug to more closely examine this hitherto little-known clan. More to the point, she’d been asked by Katz to find something beside official GreenField portraits to illustrate the Reformer’s ongoing features chronicling the company’s struggles. The story wouldn’t die, he wanted fresh head shots, and it turned out the Beauprés were instinctively camera-shy.
She’d been at this endeavor for over an hour, collecting photographs of family members at sports events, ribbon cuttings, press release photos, and the like, when she came across a high school yearbook picture featuring a young, fresh-faced Robert Beaupré, proudly holding a trophy at the front of a small group. She was about to move on, dissatisfied with the shot’s quality, when her eye caught the caption listing the attendees.
“Holy cow,” she said softly, and hit Print.
* * *
Willy Kunkle opened his eyes without altering his breathing or moving a muscle. It was his habit to surface from sleep covertly, in barely noticeable stages, so that he might have the advantage over anyone nearby.
Nine times out of ten, it was a wasted effort—either no one was there, or it was someone who didn’t matter, much less pose a threat.
This time, however, despite being in a private hospital room in the dead of night, he had not one but three guests, as silent as he, and as far from being threatening as he could imagine.
“Hey, there,” he greeted them.
Sam and Sue were huddled by the far window, their heads together as in prayer, and Emma was fast sleep in a portable crib in the corner.
Both women looked up at him.
“Hey, yourself,” Sam responded, rising to kiss him. “I’ve never seen you so unconscious.”
“Painkillers,” Sue spoke up, smiling. “I spiked ’em with something extra. You shouldn’t be awake now, given what I gave you. Typical.”
“Don’t complain,” he said. “They worked. Best sleep I’ve had in living memory.” He indicated the crib and his child. “I thought this place was quarantined for the plague. You toughening the kid up?”
Sam punched his good shoulder, which still made him wince slightly. For all his bravado, he was appreciative of Sue’s unrequested help. His surgery was hurting like a bastard.
“They got the all clear,” Sam explained. “The whole staff passed muster, including the ones on vacation. Me, I was sick of running between here and home, and I thought you’d get a kick out of seeing her when she wakes up.”
“I will,” he said. “Thanks. Speaking of running around, Sue, you’re not supposed to be here, either, are you?”
Sue Spinney was looking tired, and dressed in her street clothes. “No,” she admitted. “But Lester’s working, the kids take care of themselves nowadays, and I needed some company.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s Victoria,” Sam said gently, sitting by his side.
“She’s worse?” he asked their friend.
“She’s not better,” Sue reported. “I went up to DHMC to check on her. They still have her in isolation, so we couldn’t talk. It wouldn’t have mattered anyhow. She might as well be in a coma. She just lies there, a sack of meds and bad bugs duking it out. God only knows what’s happening inside her.”
She suddenly reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell, glancing at the screen. “Crazy,” she said, and typed something out quickly.
“What?” Sam asked.
“It’s Rachel,” Sue said. “She wants to know where I am and can she come by.”
Both Sam and Willy checked the wall clock. It wasn’t as late as Willy had imagined earlier, but still after normal working hours for a small-town reporter.
“You say yes?” he asked.
“Yeah. She was already headed to my house, so she’s almost here. I can’t imagine what she’d want with me. I don’t really know her that well.”
“Nice kid, though,” Willy said unexpectedly. “Got her mother’s perseverance. I like that.”
“You would,” Sam chided him. “And speaking of which, when she gets here, remember: She’s press now, even though she only takes pictures. Her job’s to fish for quotes, ours is to shut the hell up.” She glanced at Sue and added, “With all due respect.”
“No, you’re right,” Sue said. “I forget about that.”
Sue glanced at the clock and moved toward the door. “Well, given that, I’m going to hit the ladies’ and check on a couple of things. Be back in a bit.”
Willy reached for Sam’s hand as soon as they were alone and asked, “How’ve you been holding up, babe?”
Sam looked into his face, caught by the tenderness in his voice. “I’m not sure I know,” she answered honestly.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Like right now. Your asking me that. You don’t do that. You’ve been a roller coaster lately. It’s been hard.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
In the pause following, she added, “I thought you’d gone off the far end, and that Emma and me were gonna have to sort things out on our own.”
“Sorry.”
She pulled her hand away. “Me, too. Now that it seems you’re getting better, I gotta tell you it’s been a bitch. You’re not the only one carrying a load, but sometimes that’s how you act. You’ve got us all trained by now—Where’s Willy? How’s he doin’? Oh, don’t worry, it’s just Willy bein’ Willy.”
She pointed to the quiet child, fast asleep in the crib, and said, “Well, fuck Willy bein’ Willy. You need to grow up, for her sake if not mine or your own. You’re not alone in the world anymore, like it or not.”
“I know,” he barely whispered.
She startled him then by leaning forward and slipping her arms awkwardly around his neck.
“I know you know,” she said in his ear. “I can see how you’re trying. That’s what I meant about what you just asked me. You want to know how I’m holding up. You never would’ve asked that before. I love you for that.”
He caressed her back. “I love you, too.”
She straightened just as abruptly. “And that,” she said, staring at him. “You love me? How many times have you told me that?”
He didn’t answer, unsure of what to say.
Her face softened as she touched his cheek, a gesture he usually shied away from, given trauma-laden personal space issues dating back to childhood, but this time he held still. “I’m not saying I don’t like what’s happening,” Sam reassured him. “It’s just been hard as hell. You asked.”
He smiled ruefully and kissed the back of her hand. “I did that.”
* * *
It wasn’t fifteen minutes before there was a light tap on the door and Rachel stepped into the room, carrying her camera off her shoulder.
“Oh, gosh,” she said, taking them all in, including Emma and Sue, who’d returned from her walkabout. “They told me where to find you, Sam, but I didn’t realize you were all hanging out. Maybe that’s good, though.”
Willy snorted. “That’s a first, if you’re including me.”
Rachel glanced at him uneasily, never sure what to make of him.
Sue almost asked her how her mother was coping with the post-Ebola scare at the morgue, when she recalled Sam’s warning about what Rachel might or might not know—and what she might potentially do with what anyone told her. It was an inhibitive sensation that left her ill at ease.
As a result, Sue asked cautiously instead, “What did you want to talk to me about? It sounded urgent.”
Rachel didn’t seem to have noticed her discomfort. Spurred on by th
e question, she eagerly dug into the bag hanging from her other shoulder, saying, “You know I’ve been working on the GreenField story. Well, my boss asked me to find some old pictures of the Beauprés, dating back to before the business—to add a little flavor to the stuff I’ve been reporting, you know? That meant scrolling through newspaper files at the library, where—” She extracted a sheet of paper with a flourish. “—I found this. I was wondering if you knew anything about it. Isn’t she the friend who’s been helping you out? I thought I over heard that from one of you.”
Sue took the printout of the group photo Rachel had found earlier and brought it over to Sam and Willy so they could see it at the same time. Standing next to a very young Robert Beaupré Sr. was Victoria Garlanda.
They silently exchanged surprised looks, no one daring to be the first to react.
Willy broke the ice. “That’s the thing about this Podunk state,” he said. “Everybody knows everybody else. You ever know she went to school with old man Beaupré?”
Thereby unleashed, Sue felt free to concede, “She told me a long time ago he’d been the love of her life.”
Everyone greeted that with raised eyebrows.
“Really?” replied Rachel, visibly pleased.
“No shit,” Willy said more thoughtfully, working through as many permutations as he could.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“She never told me,” Sue said. “But she made it clear he was the reason she never married.”
“What did she say?” Sam pursued.
Sue tapped the photo with her fingertip. “They were a hot item. High school sweethearts. What I read between the lines was that she was more serious than he was. His big deal was to be successful.”
“But he did get married,” Sam pointed out.
Sue remained scornful. “Yeah, well. Victoria knew Martha, too. Called her a good broodmare. I guess Robert got what he was after, ’cause they had a kid right off.”
“Wow,” Rachel said, taking back the printout. “That is one amazing coincidence. How’s Victoria doing, anyhow? She still sick?”
There was another stilted silence, which this time Rachel correctly interpreted by smiling broadly and saying, “Guys—I know about the Ebola. I take pictures; it doesn’t mean I’m clueless.”
