Bodily Harm: A Novel

by Dugoni, Robert

  Three months earlier Kendall’s illness had forced him to reluctantly resign as CEO and chairman of the board of Kendall Toys, a company his grandfather and granduncle had founded in a booth on a Seattle street corner in Pioneer Square. A Kendall had presided over the company for each of its 110 years, with Sebastian holding the position for the most recent 38.

  “The board still giving you a hard time?” Kendall asked.

  A flock of crows freckled the sky; thousands of the birds roosted nearby on Foster Island in Seattle’s arboretum, taking noisy flight over the lake each morning. “When your profits drop for the second quarter in a row after not having dropped the previous thirty-eight years, you expect tough questions. These are difficult economic times and you’re a difficult act to follow, but then we both knew that would be the case. Six months from now, when we’re still going strong, everyone will relax.”

  Neither man said it, but both knew Sebastian Kendall would not be alive to witness that revival.

  “Any further overtures from Bolelli?” Kendall asked, referring to the efforts by Galaxy Toys’ CEO, Maxine Bolelli, to purchase Kendall, a merger that would make Galaxy the number one toy company in the world, supplanting Titan Toys of Chicago.

  “Some.”

  “What is Ms. Bolelli’s current tone?”

  “Terse. She said she won’t wait forever for us to ‘get our shit together.’” Fitzgerald had to raise his voice over the din of music blasting from speakers mounted atop the crossbar of a large ski boat carrying teenagers in swim trunks and bikinis from the Seattle Yacht Club. “She wants a response to her most recent offer, and if she doesn’t get the answer she wants, she’s threatened to go public with the negotiations.” Fitzgerald had spent two days in confidential meetings at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, to discuss Galaxy’s proposal to purchase Kendall. Galaxy did not have an action figure department, and its own attempts to create one had been abysmal failures. Even in a down market, Kendall’s revenues continued to top $150 million, putting it squarely in the category of a midlevel toy company.

  “She’ll do it too,” Kendall said.

  “I have no doubt.”

  A duck swam to the water’s edge, bobbing in the wake left by the ski boat. Kendall tore a small piece of bread from the chunk he held in his hand and tossed it, but the crumb fell short of the water, landing on the lawn. The duck quickly paddled over, waddled ashore, and gobbled it.

  Kendall tossed another piece. “What’s her latest offer?”

  “Point six shares in Galaxy for every share in Kendall.”

  Sebastian Kendall nodded. “You would be a very wealthy man at this morning’s stock price.”

  “As would you,” Fitzgerald said.

  Kendall remained the largest shareholder, owning 31 percent. Fitzgerald held 20 percent, a deliberate number that allowed them to maintain control of the company.

  “You can’t spend money where I’m going,” Kendall said. “What do you anticipate the board will do?”

  A light breeze blew the vines of the willow tree. “I’d say sixty-forty against, but Santoro is pushing hard.”

  Some at the company had thought Arian Santoro, rather than Fitzgerald, would be named CEO and chairman of the board, and it was well known that he and his minions had not been happy with Kendall’s decision to endorse Fitzgerald.

  “Bolelli will cut the fat and absorb what she deems an asset. Kendall will cease to exist.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen,” Fitzgerald said.

  Kendall patted Fitzgerald’s thigh. “Sometimes we cannot cheat the inevitable.”

  Sensing the opportune moment, Fitzgerald lifted the wrapped package he’d set beside the bench and placed it on Kendall’s lap.

  Kendall’s eyes narrowed. “Is it my birthday? My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Who are you kidding? Your memory is better than mine. Open it.”

  Though his hands shook, Kendall managed to unwrap the package. He held up the box to peer through the clear plastic window.

  “Maybe we can cheat the inevitable,” Fitzgerald said.

  UNIVERSITY AVENUE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  A CAR HORN sounded. The light had again changed. Sloane stepped back onto the curb.

  “Why would you say something like that?”

  The man’s light brown hair was matted to his head, and teenage acne had left pockmarks and red spots on his cheeks. “If you would just look at my file you would understand.” He held it out.

  Sloane tried a different tack. “Listen, Mr. . . .”

  “Horgan. Kyle Horgan.”

  “Listen, Kyle, I don’t know why you would believe you’re somehow responsible for Austin McFarland’s death, but I can’t—”

  “Please, more children could die,” Horgan said.

  Sloane detected the odor of alcohol. He didn’t know whether to feel sorry for the young man or to be concerned. Despite his disheveled appearance Horgan looked and sounded sincere, but crazy people often did.

  “No more children are going to die,” Sloane said. “Dr. Douvalidis has retired.”

  Horgan again held out the manila folder. “Please, just read it.”

  EXITING THE ELEVATOR on the ninth floor, Sloane hurried down the marbled hallway. Judge Rudolph wouldn’t be happy; the judge had a pet peeve about attorneys not keeping his juries waiting. When Sloane pushed through the tall wood door, Rudolph’s bailiff noted his entrance and exited the courtroom through a side door. Apparently Sloane was the last to arrive.

  Sloane stepped behind his opposing counsel, who sat beside Dr. Peter Douvalidis at the table closest to the jury box. Douvalidis’s head slumped, and he stared at the tabletop. In the first row behind him, the doctor’s wife sat alone. Impeccably dressed, she maintained the stern expression she had worn throughout the trial.

  The gallery on the opposite side of the room was half full with relatives and friends who had come to support the McFarlands. Tom Pendergrass had managed to beat Sloane to the courtroom and stood talking with Michael and Eva McFarland. Tears streamed down Eva’s cheeks. The trial had been an emotional roller coaster that had forced her to relive the death of her son and to listen to others try to explain it. She had fluctuated between despair and anger.

  Pendergrass wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead, still cooling down from his workout. “Where have you been? I thought I’d be late.”

  “I got detained.”

  “Is everything all right? You look worried.”

  Sloane pulled Pendergrass aside. “Has anything about this case ever bothered you?” Sloane had prepared over the weekend before trial and entered the courtroom confident about the evidence, if not about the righteousness. By the end of the first week insomnia had struck, and he’d spent long hours staring at his bedroom ceiling, wondering why the case didn’t feel right.

  The question caught Pendergrass off guard. “What?”

  Sloane shifted his eyes to Douvalidis. “Have you ever had any doubts?”

  “You’re asking me this now?”

  Before Sloane could say another word Judge Rudolph filled the doorframe. A former college football player, Rudolph retained a lineman’s build. With a ruddy complexion and a red tint to hair graying with age, he looked like a Scottish lumberjack in a long black robe. Other attorneys described him as a guy you’d drink a beer with, and the eight days Sloane had just spent in the man’s courtroom had done nothing to alter that perception.

  “Take your seats.” Rudolph sat behind the elevated bench, presiding over a room perhaps forty feet front to back and half as wide, which showed its age with scuff marks on the white walls, chips in the linoleum squares, and banged-up chairs and tables. Even a recent oil treatment polishing the front of Rudolph’s bench did not hide all of the scratches etched in the wood.

  “I’ve been advised that the jury has reached a verdict. I want to caution everyone in the court that I won’t tolerate any disrespect to the jury’s decision, w
hatever that may be.”

  Everyone nodded dutifully.

  Rudolph instructed his bailiff to bring in the jury, and after a moment they entered, maintaining the poker faces they had kept throughout much of the trial. When the final juror reached her seat Rudolph said, “I will note for the record that the jury has advised the bailiff that they have arrived at a verdict. Who is the foreperson?”

  A male juror stood. “I am, Your Honor.”

  Rudolph considered a chart on his desk. “Okay, Mr. Giacoletti, thank you. Has the jury, in fact, agreed upon a verdict?”

  “We’re not unanimous judge, but we have a quorum.”

  Rudolph put up a hand. “What do you mean by a quorum?”

  During Sloane’s streak of twenty-two straight jury verdicts, all had been unanimous.

  “Nine of us agree, Judge. Three don’t.”

  “Three?” Pendergrass uttered under his breath.

  “All right, Mr. Giacoletti, would you please hand the verdict to the bailiff.”

  The foreman did as instructed, and the bailiff passed the folded sheet of paper to Rudolph. Rudolph took a moment to consider it before handing it to his clerk. “Dr. Douvalidis, will you please stand.”

  When Douvalidis did not immediately respond, his attorney touched his arm to gain the doctor’s attention. Pendergrass and Sloane also stood, but the McFarlands remained seated, squeezing each other’s hand.

  The clerk started. “In the matter of McFarland versus Douvalidis, we the jury find for the plaintiffs.”

  Eva McFarland sobbed in relief and immediately covered her mouth. Her husband wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and she buried her head in his chest, her body shuddering.

  The clerk continued. “And award the plaintiffs three point two million dollars in damages.”

  Rudolph asked Douvalidis’s attorney if he wished to poll the jury. He declined. With that, the judge thanked the members for their service, made a brief speech about the important function juries play in the judicial system, and dismissed them. Rudolph then addressed counsel, thanking them for their professionalism in his courtroom, rapped his gavel, and left the bench.

  Pendergrass tended to the McFarlands while Sloane shook hands with his opposing counsel. Douvalidis’s wife had leaned over the railing, rubbing her husband’s back and whispering in his ear, but the doctor gave no indication he heard what she was saying.

  Pendergrass slapped Sloane on the back, drawing his attention. “God, don’t do that again. You had me worried.”

  The McFarlands hugged Sloane and thanked him, then stepped into the arms of tearful family members and friends.

  Sloane looked back to the door, watching as Douvalidis departed the room between the shelter of his wife and his attorney.

  As he did, Sloane thought of Kyle Horgan.

  CHAPTER TWO

  KENDALL TOYYS’ CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS

  RENTON, WASHINGTON

  Kendall’s board of directors filed into the conference room looking perplexed and anxious. They filled the blue leather chairs around the table and at the back of the room beneath portraits of Constantine and Aristotle Kendall, the two founding brothers, as well as Constantine’s son, Sebastian Senior, and his son, Sebastian Junior. Fitzgerald’s portrait did not yet hang among the hallowed, and he knew some in the room, congregating at the far end of the table around Arian Santoro, believed it never would.

  Earlier that morning, Fitzgerald had received another e-mail from Maxine Bolelli and her tone had become increasingly less cordial as Fitzgerald rejected her advances. She had increased Galaxy’s stock offer, which she referred to as a “gift” in light of Kendall’s “horrific” third-quarter losses, and demanded that Fitzgerald and Kendall’s board of directors respond by the end of the business day.

  As the hastily called meeting got under way, Santoro quickly steered the discussion to Kendall’s third-quarter losses and the rumors that Galaxy Toys sought to acquire the company. Fitzgerald had not shared Maxine Bolelli’s overtures with any member of the board except Irwin Dean, his president of operations, and, of course, Sebastian Kendall. Santoro’s knowledge of the confidential discussions, despite those precautions, and the timing of Bolelli’s most recent e-mail—just before an unannounced board meeting—further confirmed Fitzgerald’s suspicion that he had a mole trenching through his company.

  “Galaxy has made an offer,” Fitzgerald confirmed, “point seven shares of stock in Galaxy for every share of Kendall.”

  The revelation, or perhaps Fitzgerald’s candor, brought silence—no doubt because every person in the room was at that moment mentally calculating how much money they stood to make if the board accepted the offer.

  Santoro wasted little time. “In light of the most recent profit statement, I think we have to seriously consider such an offer.” Santoro’s strategic decision to sit at the far end of the table was intended to symbolize the chasm between his and Fitzgerald’s positions. “It’s our fiduciary duty to advise the stockholders of any reasonable offer.”

  “The losses have to be put in perspective,” Fitzgerald replied. “Nearly sixty percent can be attributed to the overprojection of the sales figures for Lupo.” He referred to an action figure Kendall had created in conjunction with the summer opening of a major motion picture. The Lupo team, of which Santoro had ultimate oversight, had estimated revenues to top $26 million, but the movie bombed, and they had fallen short by nearly $24 million. “If those losses are backed out, we actually made a slight profit. In light of the continued transition, that is something we can build on.”

  Santoro scoffed. “Unfortunately, that type of accounting would land us all in jail, along with our accountants.” His minions laughed. “If we’re looking to back anything out, why not back out our manufacturing plant in Mossylog. Our manufacturing costs remain three to four times higher than our competitors’.”

  Sebastian Kendall had resisted shipping Kendall’s manufacturing needs to China and South America; his father and grandfather had served in the army, and the Kendalls considered themselves true patriots. Sebastian called it blasphemous to suggest that Sergeant Smash be manufactured by anyone other than American workers. That company policy, however, had recently changed, at least on a limited basis, though no one in the room but Fitzgerald knew it.

  Fitzgerald calmly lifted a wrapped package from beneath the table, placed it on the wood surface, and deliberately opened the box, drawing the board members’ attention. He stood the ruby red, eighteen-inch figure on the mahogany surface, which he had ordered polished that morning so the overhead recessed lights would dramatically spot the toy.

  While protocol would have been to seek director approval prior to creating a new prototype, protocol had been sacrificed with a mole loose in the building. The toy had been developed under a cloak of secrecy at an off-site, non-Kendall facility to prevent a leak that could allow another company to steal the design and beat Kendall to the market with a knockoff. Initial focus groups had also been limited, and their opinions, which had been off the charts, had been provided only to Fitzgerald.

  Fitzgerald placed the remote control on the table, and flipped a switch. The action figure came to life, marching forward, turning and marching back, its red eyes flashing. Nobody looked particularly impressed.

  Then Fitzgerald said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Metamorphis.”

  With another flip of the switch a robotic voice said “Metamorphis,” and the pieces of the figure began to swivel and turn as if bewitched, folding under and over one another until the robot had vanished and what remained on the glistening tabletop was a ruby red tank, complete with turret and long gun. Sebastian Kendall had taught Fitzgerald that the toy business was as much about entertainment as it was about toys, and entertainment was about surprising one’s audience.

  Fitzgerald directed the tank to roll the length of the table, then adjusted the turret until the gun pointed directly between Santoro’s eyes. Santoro looked to his minions but their g
aze remained transfixed on the toy. The turret emitted a loud pop! causing Santoro and several others to flinch. Moments of utter silence ensued, Fitzgerald watching and waiting. Then shouts of jubilation and applause filled the room and directors bolted from their chairs, rushing forward to ask questions. Others, smiling as bright as children awakening to find toys beneath the Christmas tree, surged for the toy box and began arguing over who got the control next.

  THE TIN ROOM

  BURIEN, WASHINGTON

  THE FAVORABLE VERDICT had not eased Sloane’s doubts about the case, and not even a phone call from Tina telling him to meet her at the Tin Room, their favorite hangout in Burien, brought him any comfort.

  The proprietor, Dan House, stood behind the bar beneath the sign that had formerly hung on the front of the building when it had been a tin shop, one of the oldest establishments in Burien. Patrons filled the barstools, some watching a Mariners game on the flatscreen hanging from the ceiling.

  “Don’t want to ring the bell tonight,” Sloane said, surveying the large crowd and referring to the fireman’s bell near the entry to the kitchen. Ring it, and you bought everyone in the restaurant a drink.

  House, a former European soccer star with an easy smile, gray curls to his collar, and an infectious laugh pointed to the bouquet of roses in Sloane’s hand. “David, you shouldn’t have.”

  Sloane laughed. “Good, because I didn’t.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “No occasion. Just finished another trial.” He bought Tina roses after each of his trials, his way of acknowledging that work had interfered with their life, and he had not been the easiest person to live with.

  House pointed toward the back of the restaurant, speaking over the music. “Well, she looks like a million bucks tonight. She’s waiting on the patio. What can I get you?”

  “Beer would be great,” Sloane said.

  The Tin Room was hopping, as usual, filled with Burien locals looking for a good meal or a chance to have a drink and unwind after work. Sloane pushed through the glass doors and stepped onto the newly added outdoor deck and patio. Getting a table when the summer weather was perfect was not easy, but Tina sat sipping a glass of water. She wore her white summer dress that, but for two spaghetti straps, showed off her tanned and toned shoulders and arms. She stood when she saw him, smiling brightly, wrapped her arms around his waist, and lifted onto her toes to kiss him.