Damage Control

by Robert Dugoni

  Maps and photographs marked with a red grease pen cluttered the walls. On the desk were multiple telephones and a cache of driver’s licenses, credit cards, and passports, each bearing Boutaire’s photograph but with different names.

  When the manager whistled, Logan led him back out the door and down the hall to the front door. “You need to keep this quiet.”

  “You think he was doing something illegal?”

  “His sister thinks he was working for the government,” Logan said.

  “You mean like CIA or something.”

  “She doesn’t know.” Logan hoped to scare the man into keeping quiet. “But I would be extremely careful about what you say to anyone. In fact, don’t say anything at all. It could put this man’s life in jeopardy.”

  The manager raised his hands. “Hey, no problem. I don’t want any part of something like this.”

  “I’ll drop off the key when we’re finished.”

  Logan closed the front door and stepped back inside the bedroom. Dana was sifting through a stack of manila files, reading the names printed on the tabs and thumbing through their contents. The names were easily recognizable—senior executives for prominent businesses throughout the United States. Dana recognized a wealth of private information on the executives, as well as what was ordinarily privileged financial information on their companies.

  “I guess we now know how Robert Meyers did so well in the stock market when everyone else was tanking,” Dana said.

  Logan shook his head. “He doesn’t leave anything to chance, does he? J. Edgar Hoover would have been proud.”

  Dana shuffled through the files. A chill ran through her. “Logan.”

  Logan looked over her shoulder. Inside were several photographs of Dana getting out of her car in front of Kim’s Jewelers, at the airport parking lot, at her house in Montlake, and walking from the offices of Strong & Thurmond. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw a photograph of her carrying Molly from day care.

  “Jesus, he has everything here: my addresses, telephone numbers, bank accounts… my parents’ house.” She flipped through the file and pulled out a sheet of paper. “This is Molly’s day care. He has the whole schedule. My God, this is an authorization slip allowing him to pick her up.”

  Logan calmed her. “He isn’t going to use it now, Dana. She’s safe.”

  “But what if there are others?”

  “We’ll take that file with us.” He bent down and searched the other files in the boxes on the floor, ready to be carried out at a moment’s notice. “That’s odd.” He picked out one file. “Why would he have a file for Robert Meyers?” Dana looked at it. “It’s empty,” he said, opening it.

  She took it from him, studying it more closely. Unlike the others, it had yellowed with age. The print on the tab, handwritten in ink, had also faded. When she compared it with the print on the tab of the file bearing her name, the writing was also different. She compared it to the other files and confirmed the same result. She handed the file to Logan while showing him the file in her hand. “This is Boutaire’s handwriting. That isn’t.”

  Logan took both samples and considered them. “So where did Boutaire get this one?”

  “And what was in it?”

  They continued to rummage through the files but found nothing to tie Peter Boutaire to Marshall Cole, Laurence King, or her brother. Dana scanned a cork bulletin board on the wall above the table. Punch pins held various scraps of paper and newspaper articles. She stopped on a handwritten note, a name above an address in Redmond, Washington. Dr. Frank Pilgrim. She was certain she had seen the name somewhere but couldn’t immediately pull it from her memory.

  “Let’s go,” Logan said. “We can tie Boutaire to King’s killing. That should be enough to get me a search warrant to come back. I’ll have the DA go in and get a warrant tomorrow morning. Then I’ll have the crime lab gather all this stuff, and we can take a closer look at it in my office.”

  “There’s got to be something here. Something we’re not seeing.”

  “Maybe with fresh eyes,” Logan suggested. “It’s been a long day.”

  They rode the elevator to the first floor and started down the hallway toward the manager’s residence. As they approached, Logan heard voices coming from inside the apartment. The door was open. He held out a hand to keep Dana back and carefully peered around the corner. The manager stood talking to two men in suits. “Just about twenty minutes ago,” he was saying.

  Logan grabbed Dana by the arm and led her back down the hall to a metal door beneath an exit sign. He pushed it open, and they descended a stairwell.

  SHE SAT IN the passenger seat, mulling over the name on the sheet of paper pinned to the corkboard in Boutaire’s apartment, using all of her normal methods to spur her memory. She tried to picture a face with the name but saw none. Then she tried to retrace her steps to determine where she might have heard or seen the name. That didn’t work, either.

  “You were at the cancer center,” Logan said while checking the rearview mirror. “It’s probably none of my business, but I saw the sign on the side of the building in one of the photographs.”

  “I have cancer,” Dana said.

  Logan turned to her. “I’m sorry. Is it bad?”

  She smiled at the comment. “Is it ever good?”

  “I meant—”

  “It’s all right.” She took a moment, realizing she hadn’t discussed the subject with anyone. “I found a lump in my breast. I have to go in and get it cut out. Then they’ll be able to give me a better diagnosis.”

  “You’ve been dealing with all of this and with that?”

  “It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks.” She checked her watch. She’d missed Molly’s bedtime. “I need to get home to see my little girl. I need something to remind me there are still wonderful things in this world.”

  49

  LOGAN PARKED IN the driveway, the headlights illuminating the black-and-white patrol car parked conspicuously. He let the engine idle, got out and went around, then opened the passenger-side door to offer Dana his hand. Even with his help, getting out of the car was an effort for her. Her aches and pains had settled into an uncomfortable tightness, as if her joints had frozen. She grimaced as she stood. The rains that had fallen intermittently throughout the day had dissipated, and the gray cloak had rolled back to reveal a cloudless night sky pocked with stars. On the drive to her parents’ home, she and Logan had considered their options, which weren’t many.

  “I could drive up to his house and knock on his door,” Logan said, continuing their conversation. “Boutaire worked for him. It certainly gives me a reason to speak to Meyers and rattle his cage.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t rattle a man like Robert Meyers. He’d have the word ‘attorney’ out of his mouth before you reached the front door. You have Boutaire connected to King and maybe to Cole, but we can’t place the earring with Meyers. We have no evidence that the earring even belongs to Elizabeth Meyers. At least not anything that could be used in court. We also can’t prove that James and Elizabeth Meyers were having an affair, which means we can’t prove a motive. It’s circumstantial. And that won’t get us far enough. I’m not interested in convicting a dead man. I want Meyers. His wife is the key. We have to find a way to reach her.”

  “That’s not going to be easy. If we’re right, Meyers will have her under heavy lock and key. Besides, even if we could convince her that Meyers killed your brother, that doesn’t mean she’ll be able to do anything about it, especially now that your brother is gone.”

  Dana wrapped her arms around herself, feeling cold. “Then we’ll have to find some other way.”

  “That’s going to be tough if we can’t get her alone.”

  “I know.” They stood in an uncomfortable silence. “Thanks,” she said. Then Dana turned and started down the walk.

  HER MOTHER CAME across the carpeted living room to the foyer as Dana closed the front door. The female police officer sat on
a blue leather ottoman, sipping a cup of tea. A silver tray of Danish butter cookies and the teapot were within reach on the walnut coffee table.

  “Dana, dear God,” her mother said. She had not seen Dana since her battering—first the car explosion, then Boutaire’s attack. “Are you all right? What happened to you?”

  “I’m okay, Mom. It looks worse than it is.” Dana looked around the room. “Is Molly in bed?”

  Her mother nodded. “She just fell asleep. What’s happening? Why are the police here?”

  “Let’s sit down. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner to explain things.”

  “It has to do with your brother, doesn’t it?”

  Dana took a deep breath. “I think so.”

  Her mother put her hand to her mouth, a move Dana knew from experience would precede tears. She grabbed her mother’s hands. “It’s going to be all right, Mom. I’m going to handle this. I’m sorry if you’ve been scared, and I’m sorry I haven’t had more time to explain things. I couldn’t do it over the telephone, but I can do it now. We need to talk about a lot of things.”

  Both women recognized from Dana’s tone that it would not be a casual conversation or even one limited to James’s death. It was a talk they both knew was long overdue. The silence between them had dug a chasm that had continued to expand, pushing them further and further apart. It was time to fill it in. Things were not discussed in the Hill household. Things were ignored, buried, made light of, but never seriously discussed.

  “Can we just sit down and talk?” Dana asked.

  The female officer stood and approached from the living room. “I need to call in. May I use the telephone in your kitchen?”

  “It’s on the wall,” Kathy said and started for the kitchen.

  “I’ll find it.”

  Kathy turned back to Dana, hesitated, then moved through the living room to the glass sunroom that had been added on. The room was awash in white wicker furniture and plants—tulips, ferns, and azaleas. In the center of the room, perched on a bar in his cage, stood Keeker, her mother’s pink and white cockatoo. The bird squawked as they entered. Kathy picked up a package of sunflower seeds and pistachio nuts and filled the small plastic tray inside the cage to quiet him. Keeker hopped from his perch to the tray’s edge and proceeded to crack the seeds, spilling the empty shells through the bars onto the bleached hardwood floor.

  Her mother sat on the wicker couch. On a side table, beneath the tapered glow of a lamp, rested a needlepoint in progress, the needle piercing the fabric at a 45-degree angle. Her mother’s reading glasses rested atop a romance novel. Dana slumped into the cushions of the chair. The descent caused a pain in her side that registered in a grimace.

  Her mother started from her seat. “You are hurt. Let me call Jack Porter.”

  Dana raised a hand. “I’m fine.”

  Her mother sat back down. There was an extended pause. Then she looked past Dana into the darkened yard. “I used to love to sit here and watch you and James playing out there in those trees. Do you remember when your father built your tree fort?”

  “He bought it, Mom. He didn’t build it.”

  Kathy rubbed an age spot on the back of her right hand with her left thumb. “You even slept out there a few times.”

  Dana shook her head. “We almost slept out there. Every time it got dark, we’d find some excuse to come running back inside.” She laughed. “That final stretch across the lawn to the back door was the most terrifying patch of earth in the world to a seven-year-old kid.” She looked at her mother. “But you were always there for us, waiting with hot chocolate and cookies. You were always there.” She fought back tears.

  Her mother picked up the needlepoint and began to work the needle. The product was in its early stages and as yet undefined. “Your father thought he was getting a little girl in pink and lace, but that wasn’t you. He got a tomboy.”

  “How long did you know about Dad?” There had been years to come up with a way to preface the question, but Dana never had thought of one. Now she just asked it.

  The needle stopped. Her mother’s gaze found another spot on the floor. A grim expression creased her face. She bit at her bottom lip, also a habit. Keeker stopped cracking seeds and squawked.

  “I’m not a little girl anymore. I know about Dad.”

  “I know. And you’ve grown up to be so beautiful.” She paused. Then she began to stitch again. “From the start. I knew from the start.”

  “What happened?”

  Her mother took a breath and shrugged. “I suppose after the surgery, I was no longer attractive to him.”

  Dana felt tears well in her eyes. As she’d gotten older and pieced together what she could remember, she had suspected her father’s affair started about the same time as her mother’s mastectomy, but hearing her acknowledge it made it even more painful. “Did he say that to you?”

  Her mother shook her head. “He never said anything. Your father wasn’t a bad man, but … Well, a woman knows those things.” She played with the wedding ring on her finger, twisting it. “He used to like to look at me, your father. He used to like to watch me get undressed. He said I had a great body. After the surgery… I don’t want you to think poorly of your father.”

  “He’s dead, Mom. And I already think poorly of him.”

  “Dana—”

  “It’s not my relationship with my father that concerns me anymore. He’s gone. James is gone. You’re all that I have left. We’re all each other has left—you, me, and Molly.” A strange feeling of sorrow and anger enveloped her and she started to cry. “Grant’s cheating on me. Why didn’t you ever say anything to Dad? Why did you let him get away with that, treat you that way?” She was asking herself the same questions.

  When her mother spoke, it was with more stamina, the words direct and intended for her daughter, not herself. “I suppose at first I considered it my fault. I was deformed. I was missing a breast. I had a scar. Why would he want me? Why should any man want me? I felt like I was no longer a woman. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself.”

  Dana shook her head. “Mom…”

  “But I suspect you know why I did it.”

  “You did it for me and for James,” Dana said, thinking of Molly, of why she had tolerated Grant for too long.

  “I did it so that you and your brother would have a father who came home to you each night and who loved you. I wanted you to have a family. I didn’t want you to be the kids at school whose parents were divorced.”

  The words stung. It was an answer Dana was not prepared to hear. It was easier to think that her mother had been weak and had simply succumbed to the infidelities. Dana detested the weakness she perceived in her mother because it scared her. It scared her to know she might also be that weak. Her marriage to Grant was over. She had known for some time, but she hadn’t had the courage to walk away, and she felt weak because of it. Blaming that weakness on a genetic trait was easier than acknowledging her own failings.

  “But what about you? What about your life?” The question was thirty years too late. Futile.

  Her mother shrugged. “There was nothing I could do. I didn’t have any education, and I didn’t have any skills. There was no need. I was a doctor’s daughter, and I married a man who would make a lot of money and who wanted to take care of me. Back then it was embarrassing for a man’s wife to be working. People thought it meant he was incapable of supporting her. I was supposed to keep the house and cook the dinner, take care of you and James, and look as ravishing as possible for all of the office events and business dinners with important clients. At least I was good at that.”

  “You could have done something.” It sounded bitter, not what Dana had intended. “There is so much more to you than that.”

  “What was I going to do? Divorce him and go back to school? How was I going to care for you and your brother? Your father was an attorney. I didn’t stand a chance. And I had cancer. No one knew what the future was back then. What if
I got sick again; then what? Was I scared? Yes, I was scared. Was I lonely and afraid? You bet. But I had you, and I had James, and you were the two things in my life I was determined to hold on to with every ounce of my power. You were not going to get hurt. I made certain of that. And you were never going to be in that situation. When your father tried to talk you out of law school, I talked you into it.”

  Tears dripped down Dana’s cheeks as she recalled her mother’s encouragement. Kathy leaned forward across the table and grabbed Dana’s hands. “You don’t have to live my life. You are not me. You’re strong. You have a good education, a good career. Don’t settle for a bad husband. Don’t settle for a bad marriage. It doesn’t have to be that way for you and for Molly.”

  “I have cancer, Mom.” Dana said the words as if they had been ripped from her body.

  “Oh, Dana.” Kathy went around the table and pulled her daughter to her, holding her head against her chest, caressing her hair gently, as she had done when Dana was a child. Keeker continued to squawk and to crack the shells in search of the soft seeds inside. Her mother took a handkerchief from her pants pocket and handed it to Dana, who had thought it odd that her mother always carried a handkerchief, but no longer. Kathy Hill had cried too many tears. It made Dana think of William Welles. It made her think of Elizabeth Meyers. They had so much in common. They all had so much in common.

  “I’m afraid, Mom. I’m afraid for Molly if anything were to happen to me.”

  “Of course you are. That’s what being a good mother is about—worrying about your children. Nothing is going to happen to you or to Molly. I won’t let it. Neither would your brother. Why do you think he left his entire estate to you?”

  Dana pulled back. “He did what?”

  “Didn’t Brian tell you?”