Bodily Harm: A Novel Page 4

  The fact that Sloane was a highly successful attorney did not appease them. Catholic, they had declined an invitation to attend the civil wedding ceremony, considering their daughter still married to Frank Carter in the eyes of the Church and God. That their daughter was an adult capable of making her own decisions, or that the state recognized her divorce, was irrelevant. They blamed Sloane for pressuring Tina into an unholy union, making their daughter an adulteress, and refused to acknowledge him as her husband.

  But Sloane knew there was another reason as well, unspoken but one with which he had become quite familiar. The Larsens were no different from others who had rejected him throughout his life simply because he had no pedigree. What was he going to say? “I never knew my father but I have a recollection of my mother being raped and murdered, the rest is a blur.”

  A lone fisherman cast in shadows nodded to them as he reeled in his line, snapped back the reel, and flicked the lure out into the water. Sloane heard a distant plunk. Tina leaned her head against his shoulder. “You’ll be a great dad,” she said.

  Sloane wished he had her confidence. The truth was he had no idea what kind of father he would make. The past two years with Jake had taught him much and given him some measure of confidence, but Jake had come ready-made. Tina had raised a polite, respectful boy before Sloane ever entered the picture, and he couldn’t help but feel like the second-string quarterback stepping onto the field after the first string had already built a huge lead. He viewed his job as trying not to screw up too badly.

  He decided not to debate it. “So what about you, Mrs. Sloane, how do you feel about all this, since you’ll be doing most of the work for the next nine months?”

  “Most?”

  “Hey, I said I would rush to the store every time you utter the words ice cream.”

  “Don’t remind me. I hate the thought of being fat again.” Sloane knew she was only half-joking. “I feel like it took forever for me to get my body back after Jake.”

  “That’s not what I remember.” He still held a recollection of Tina entering his San Francisco office to interview as his assistant and his being instantly attracted to her dark hair, olive complexion, and tall, toned body.

  “You were horny then. You hadn’t had sex in years.”

  “I was saving myself for you.”

  “Yeah, right.” They had reached the Point, where massive boulders had been deposited. At low tide they could walk around it, but now, with the tide in, the water was halfway up the rocks. They turned and started back in the opposite direction, toward home.

  “Any thoughts on names? What about David?”

  The name had never meant much to Sloane, given that it was not his real name but rather the name Joe Branick gave him when the CIA agent smuggled Sloane out of Mexico and hid him in California’s foster care system.

  “Joseph,” he said.

  She stopped walking and looked up at him. “I like it. Any particular reason?”

  “I just like the sound of it. ‘Joe.’ It’s a strong name. It would sound good being announced over a PA system at a sporting event.” Sloane imitated the echoing voice of a broadcaster. “Starting at quarterback, number twelve, Joe Sloane.”

  She laughed. “Oh now that’s really important.”

  “You have to consider those types of things,” he said. “I mean, what if he becomes president? You don’t want a name like Oscar for president.”

  “Didn’t seem to hurt Barack.”

  “Touché.”

  “Okay, what if it’s a girl?”

  “So far, anyone I’ve known with a teenage daughter has told me to move out of the house when she turns thirteen and not to move back again until she turns twenty-one.”

  “And what am I supposed to do during those eight years?”

  “Produce a young woman as beautiful as her mother.”

  “Don’t try to butter me up, you deserter.”

  As they continued up the beach Sloane saw someone step over the logs in front of their property and walk in their direction. In the dusk he initially thought it to be Jake. When Sloane could make out the man’s face he was surprised.

  “Tom?”

  Tom Pendergrass looked harried, brow furrowed. “Hi, Tina. I’m sorry to disturb you.” He looked to Sloane. “I tried to call, but you weren’t answering your cell. Jake said you were out taking a walk.” Pendergrass lived not far from Sloane, just up the hill in Burien.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I just heard it on the news,” he said. “Dr. Douvalidis killed himself.”

  TOM PENDERGRASS SAT in Sloane’s family room sipping a Scotch and looking pale and sick to his stomach.

  “Why did you ask me about the evidence in court this morning?”

  Sloane shook his head. He had hoped to avoid the conversation. “It was nothing.”

  “You asked me if I had doubts. Why?”

  “You tried a good case, Tom. The evidence was solid and the jury found liability; you have no reason to feel any responsibility about what happened.”

  “Did you have doubts?”

  Sloane did not want Pendergrass to feel any worse than he already did. “I didn’t doubt you, Tom. It was nothing, just regular doubts whenever the jury is out, that’s all. But the jury agreed. You did your job. You’re not responsible for this.”

  Before Pendergrass could question him further the phone rang. It was a reporter Sloane knew, asking him to comment on reports that Dr. Douvalidis had been despondent over the death of Austin McFarland. Sloane politely declined and sat beside Pendergrass and Tina to watch the news.

  The death of the prominent pediatrician was the first story after a commercial break, and much to Sloane’s chagrin, the reporter took little time tying the suicide to the verdict for malpractice, and to Sloane.

  After the news, Sloane sent Pendergrass home, and Tina went upstairs to bed. Knowing he would not sleep much, he slipped into his home office, opened his briefcase, and pulled out Kyle Horgan’s file.

  His inclination had been not to take the file, but there had been something about Horgan’s passionate plea, and Sloane’s own doubts about Dr. Douvalidis’s guilt, that caused him to ignore that inclination. Horgan might turn out to indeed be crazy, but Sloane didn’t think so. Odd maybe, but not crazy.

  Horgan had doodled on the file cover in blue ink, rough sketches of what appeared to be various appendages of a spaceman: a helmeted head in the left corner, a robotic arm in the right, a hinged leg in the center. Inside the file, Sloane found additional sketches, drawn on graph paper and more refined; mathematical calculations accompanied each sketch, with arrows directed to the various body parts. Sloane had taken calculus in college, but the equations were beyond him. Beneath the drawings Sloane found a handwritten document, which appeared to be a copy of a letter from Horgan to a company called Kendall Toys in which Horgan expressed concern that the plastic component parts of something called “Metamorphis” did not meet ASTM standards, which Sloane knew to be an acronym for the American Society for Testing and Materials. Horgan suggested that production be halted until the design flaw could be remedied.

  All of that was mildly interesting, but what sent a chill through Sloane was a news article beneath a letter that Sloane initially thought concerned the Douvalidis trial, but did not. A four-year-old child had died in Mossylog, Washington, a rural Southern Washington town, after suffering from three days of nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, high fevers, listlessness, and, finally, loss of consciousness—the same symptoms that had led to the death of Austin McFarland, and for which Sloane had prosecuted Peter Douvalidis.

  CHAPTER THREE

  PIONEER SQUARE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Sloane had slept little, if at all, and he could feel the fatigue as he climbed the three concrete steps the following morning. A brass sign bolted to the bricks identified the Jackson Street Apartments building in Seattle’s Pioneer Square District to be a historic landmark. Stepping inside the lobby
Sloane saw why: mahogany walls, marble floors, crystal chandeliers—no one could afford to build like this anymore.

  Sloane ignored the elevator, climbing three flights of stairs to a narrow hallway dimly lit by wall sconces. The building smelled like a closet with too many mothballs. He stopped outside apartment 3A, knocking twice. No one answered. He knocked again, noting that the door rattled in the jam despite a key slot for a dead bolt. He waited, knocked a third time, and tried the knob, which turned. He hesitated, then called out as he pushed open the door.

  “Mr. Horgan?”

  A wedge of light spilled through the lower pane of a southern-facing window, illuminating clutter spread across a twin bed and spilling onto the wood floor. Plastic action figures had been ripped from their boxes and scattered about the room along with comic books and dozens of sketches like the ones in Horgan’s file.

  Sloane walked carefully through the debris, trying not to crush anything and wondering what the person who made the mess had been looking for. A small Formica counter and a four-by-four-foot piece of orange linoleum delineated a cooking area with a microwave and a single-burner heating plate. Above the counter a cabinet had been emptied of plastic glasses and plates. The door to a small refrigerator had also been left open. But for a few condiments, it was also empty.

  “Who are you?”

  Sloane wheeled, his left arm rising instinctively to ward off a blow, causing the thin man standing just inside the doorway to flinch and step back.

  Sloane caught his breath. “You scared me.”

  “What are you doing in here?” The man wore a long brown bathrobe. His teeth were stained from too much coffee and too many cigarettes.

  “I’m looking for Kyle Horgan.” Realizing his predicament, Sloane added, “The door was open. The room was like this.”

  If the man was concerned with the condition of the apartment he did not let on. “What do you want to talk to Kyle about?” He sounded more skeptical than concerned.

  “He came to see me the other day, but I was in a hurry.”

  The man started for the hall. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Wait.” Sloane pulled out a business card and handed it to him, but it only served to make the man sound even more skeptical.

  “An attorney? Why would Kyle go to see an attorney?”

  “He gave me this.” Sloane pulled Horgan’s file from his briefcase and held up the scribbled cover. “Like I said, the door was unlocked and the apartment was this way.”

  “I know. I came by earlier for the rent. I went to call the police and came back to lock the door, since God knows how long it will be before they get around to getting here.”

  “Do you own the building?” Sloane asked.

  “I wish.” He smirked. “I’m the manager.”

  “You sound surprised Mr. Horgan would come to see me.”

  “Yeah? Well, don’t take it personally. I’d be surprised if Kyle went to see anyone. He spends most of the time in here, working on his sketches and his computer.”

  Sloane looked about the apartment but did not see a computer. “Does he have a job?”

  The man pointed to the clutter. “That’s his job.”

  “He designed these?” Sloane asked.

  “He collects and sells them. He’s designed some things though. There’s a toy store a couple blocks away he sells to.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  The manager shrugged. “About a week.”

  “Any idea where he might be?”

  Another shake of the head. “But if Kyle did come to see you, I can tell you it must have been something real important.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Well enough. I look out for him, try to anyway. Remind him to pay his rent, pick up some groceries when I go, things like that.”

  “Is he handicapped?”

  The man seemed to give the question due consideration. “He’s not dumb, if that’s what you’re getting at. He just doesn’t function too well around people.” He nodded to the debris scattered about the floor. “He’s going to be pretty upset about this. This looks just mean-spirited.”

  Not to Sloane. To Sloane it looked like a deliberate act. Somebody had come to Horgan’s apartment to find something.

  • • •

  THE DOOR TO the apartment closed, ending what portion of the conversation he could hear between the building manager and the man who had come to talk to Kyle Horgan.

  He removed the earpiece and watched the entrance from the car, waiting several minutes before a well-built man, perhaps six two with broad shoulders, exited the building carrying a briefcase that undoubtedly held whatever it was Horgan had given him. An attorney. His employer would not be pleased. He contemplated following, but there was no need. The building manager hadn’t guessed the visitor’s occupation out of the blue. He’d been handed a business card.

  The attorney crossed the street and continued north on First Avenue, presumably in search of the toy store to which the manager had made reference. He pushed open the door, waited for a vehicle to pass, and then crossed the street, shuffling up the steps. Inside the building he found the manager’s apartment, considered the hallway in both directions, knocked twice, and held up the folded newspaper to block the view through the peephole.

  The manager pulled open the door. “Yeah?”

  He lowered the paper. “I’m inquiring about the apartment you have listed for rent?”

  “You have the wrong apartment building, mister. We don’t list any vacancies in the paper. Just put it up on the sign outside.”

  He rattled off an address.

  “That’s the building next door, and a lot nicer than this place if you can afford to live there.”

  “My mistake. I’m sorry to have disturbed.” He turned as if to leave.

  As the manager stepped forward to close the door the man swiveled and thrust his right palm hard against the wood. The door sprung inward, crushing the manager’s face and sending him sprawling backward into the apartment.

  He checked the hall in each direction, stepped in, closed the door, and turned the dead bolt. He found the attorney’s business card in the pocket of the manager’s bathrobe.

  BETHESDA, MARYLAND

  ALBERT PAYNE SLAMMED his fist on the table. Plates rattled, his daughter startled and screamed, and his son knocked over the milk carton. Without another word, Payne pushed back his chair and stormed from the room.

  For a moment neither child moved nor uttered a word. Their mother stood holding the frying pan with bacon grease in one hand and the tin can in the other.

  “Is Dad okay?” Michael asked. “Why is he so mad all the time?”

  She put the pan back on the burner. “Beth, cook the eggs. Michael, get a sponge and clean up the mess.”

  Mary Payne found her husband in the den, staring up at the family portrait over the mantel.

  “Albert? What’s going on?”

  He raised a hand without turning around. “Don’t start with me.”

  “Is it work? Is it the report you’re trying to get done for the Senate hearing?”

  “All I wanted was a little peace and quiet,” he said. “I don’t want to hear about her boyfriend or argue about why he can’t go to the mall with his friends when we’re sitting at the breakfast table to eat. Is that too much for a man to ask?”

  “You’re scaring the kids.”

  He turned. “Maybe they need to be scared. Maybe if I blow off some steam now and then people will realize when I’m goddamn serious.”

  “You don’t need to swear.”

  He shook his head. “No one takes me seriously. No one respects me.”

  “Is it something at work? Is it Maggie Powers?”

  He walked toward the front entry. “It’s not work, okay? Work is fine. Don’t start badgering me about work.”

  “I’m not badgering—I just want to help, Albert. You’ve never been like this. We’ve always been able to talk
about things. Please, tell me what’s wrong. Is it the stress? What did the doctor say about your rash?”

  He grabbed his jacket from the hook beside the front door and picked up his briefcase, opening the door. “It’s a rash. It’s just a rash. It’s not like I’m dying,” he said and slammed the door closed behind him.

  HALF AN HOUR later, Payne slipped the small white bag with the prescription cream from his briefcase and shoved it in the upper drawer of his desk. He could now add to his list of maladies, which included elevated cholesterol and blood pressure from being overweight, a rash that itched liked hell and dried out his skin until it flaked. The doctor said it was stress related.

  No shit.

  Payne already knew from the lump of reddish brown hair in the bathtub drain each morning and the ever increasing streaks of gray in what was left on his head and his beard. He adjusted his glasses and considered the drab walls of his office, his first after nearly two decades in cubicles. The director of investigations had once been one of the Product Safety Agency’s highest-profile posts, overseeing all agency investigations and enforcement actions against manufacturers of defective products. But with the prior administration’s mandate of deregulation, Payne’s staff had been cut by nearly 70 percent, with those having the most seniority, and therefore the highest salaries, pruned first. Given the continuing recession, they had not been replaced, which pretty much ensured no new enforcement actions, despite the change in administrations. Actions that had been under way came to a screeching halt, or settled with the manufacturer paying a token fine and promising to do better.

  The latest joke circulating the office was that the agency walked small and carried no stick. Manufacturers had little to fear.

  Sitting at his desk, Payne regretted his morning outburst, one of several since his return from China. He’d pick up some flowers on his way home. Maybe take everyone out for pizza. Screw the doctor.

  He shut his eyes and massaged the headache at his temples, but the memory of the bloodied mess on the hotel room pillow forced them open, and he had to take a moment to catch his breath. He picked up the dual picture frame with the photograph of his smiling wife on the right and of his son and daughter on the left. The man had been clear about further consequences should Payne not follow his instructions precisely.