Chapter 4 - The Arrival of the Board
The hallway of the Ashford house was eighty feet long, floored in Belgian limestone that had been sealed with an acrylic glaze to keep the marsh damp from rising through the seams. When Garrick pulled the heavy oak door back, the wind didn't just come in; it brought three inches of white fog that rolled across the rug like steam from a broken pipe.
Standing on the granite porch step was Arthur Vance.
He was seventy-two years old, his gray overcoat buttoned right to his chin, his old leather briefcase held under his left arm like a cold log. Behind him, standing in a semi-circle under the amber glare of the lantern, were four other men—men with short gray hair and heavy cashmere coats who looked like they had been taken directly from the photographs that hang in the hallways of the Continental Bank.
One of them was Raymond Fletcher—the regional police commissioner for the north district, his uniform coat open at the throat to reveal the three gold stars pinned to his wool shirt.
Garrick’s face didn't go red; it went that thin, greasy white color that comes over a witness when the prosecutor produces the second set of bank statements from the safe deposit box. His hand stayed locked around the brass doorknob, his knuckles turning the color of lard under his clean skin.
"Arthur," Garrick stammered, his corporate voice disappearing into a short, dry wheeze. "Commissioner... what is this? The compliance review was cleared on Friday. The proxy statements are already with the clerk."
"The proxy statements are invalid, Garrick," Arthur Vance said. He didn't look at Garrick’s face; he looked at his ledger, which he had pulled from his briefcase before the door even moved. "The Fletcher-Davis Trust has invoked the emergency stay under Section Four of the ninety-four restructuring agreement. The thirty-eight percent block has been re-registered to the primary trustee for immediate execution."
"You can't do that," Miriam Ashford screamed from the dining room door. She had run out into the hall, her gold links clashing against her chest like an iron chain. "Thomas signed that paper thirty years ago! He was sick! He didn't know what the limestone was worth!"
"He knew exactly what it was worth, Miriam," I said, walking down the limestone hallway until I was standing six inches behind Garrick’s shoulder. "He knew it was worth enough to keep his son from going to the state facility in Joliet when he was twenty-two and took that sports car through the front window of the savings and loan on Route 41."
Garrick turned around, his gray eyes wide, wet, and blank with a terror that had nothing to do with the board room. "Evelyn... please. We can talk about the regional director’s position. We can look at the equity distribution for the trust’s sub-accounts."
"The trust doesn't want your equity, Garrick," I said. I looked past him at Commissioner Fletcher, who had taken a small pair of steel handcuffs from his side pocket—the light, modern ones with the nylon coating that don't make a sound when they open. "We want the name of the doctor who signed the registry slip at the clinic on Route 41."
"The clinic?" Garrick whispered.
"The boy who told you she didn't need the plaster," I said. "The one who forgot to note the four-finger hematoma on her lateral cervical line. He’s going to be talking to the state medical board at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, and by nine, his license will be sitting in the basket with your COO contract."
Sienna came out of the dining room then. She wasn't holding the gravy boat anymore. She had taken the black canvas sling off her arm, letting it drop onto the Belgian limestone where it lay like a dead crow. Her right arm hung down at that strange, crooked angle, her fingers twitching against the linen of her skirt as she walked toward me.
May you like
"Mom," she said.
I didn't kiss her cheek. I didn't hold her hand. I took her left coat from the rack by the door, slipped it over her good shoulder, and walked her out into the Illinois fog before her husband could find his voice.
