Authors: Jeff Buick
Derek Swanson watched the ball arc toward the green, then land within twenty feet of the pin. He smiled and gave the rest
of his foursome a wave, slipped his seven iron back in the bag and walked toward the eighteenth green. Even with a two putt
he was still only six over par. A damn good round for a twelve handicap. The summer grass felt spongy under his feet and he
had a renewed confidence ebbing from his pores. His mind wandered from the last hole on the course to the office.
Senator Claire Buxton wasn’t going to derail his plans. Her bill would never pass fast enough to kill the conversion and he
would start dumping stock in the weeks before it became law. The real obstacle to his forty-or fifty-million-dollar windfall
was Reginald Morgan. And the old man was shark food. They had never found his body, probably never would. Amelia was doing
all right. She had her family and a hundred million dollars to help her grieve. Not that the money meant anything to her.
She and Reggie had been filthy rich for so long she didn’t know any other way to live.
Swanson reached the green and waited for the rest of the group to putt out. He had this for a birdie and his best round of
the season. There was a slight left to right break and the hole was downhill—not an easy putt. He lined it up from a couple
of different angles, then tapped the ball with an even stroke. It appeared to be too far left, then as it slowed the slope
took over and the ball broke to the right. A foot from the hole it didn’t seem to have enough speed, but the slight downhill
angle gave it enough to reach the hole and drop. Swanson pumped the air with his fist, Tiger style. He shook hands with the
rest of the foursome and headed for the clubhouse. What a way to spend a Saturday morning. He dropped his clubs off for cleaning,
then opened his locker and changed out of his soft spikes and golf pants and shirt. He had finished changing when another
man came around the corner and leaned against the lockers. The space around them was deserted, save for the two men.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Swanson asked, his voice low and threatening.
Darvin stared back at him with dark eyes. His light brown hair was slicked back and sprayed and he had a double chin that
Swanson had never noticed before.
“Needed to talk with you,” he said in a dry voice.
“I have nothing to say to you. Our business is concluded.” Swanson snapped his locker shut and spun the combination lock.
He hoisted his tote bag and started for the door. The killer fell in behind him.
“You shouldn’t treat people so poorly, Derek. Especially when they know stuff that could send you to jail.”
Swanson stopped in his tracks and spun about. “You’ve got nothing on me. There is no paper trail linking me to you, or to
Reggie’s death. Nothing. Go back to whatever it is you do when you’re not killing people and leave me alone.”
A smile spread across Darvin’s face. His eyes danced with darkness. “Tying you to Reginald Morgan’s murder is easy.” The smile
disappeared and the eyes turned cold. “We need to talk.”
“All right,” Swanson said. “We can stand out by the driving range.”
He pushed through the doors and walked briskly past the putting green to a bank of trees that bordered the practice range.
Two men and one woman were hitting balls, but they were a hundred yards or more from the trees. Swanson glanced about to make
sure they were alone and hidden from sight by the foliage, then turned to face the killer.
“What do you want?” he asked, his voice terse.
Darvin leaned against a tree and looked about. “This, Derek, this is what I want. The country club, the yachts, the million-dollar
summerhouse—the lifestyle of the rich but not necessarily famous.”
“You’re well paid for what you do. Buy a membership.”
Darvin clucked and shook his head. “A half million a year doesn’t buy anything anymore. Prices are through the roof. And I
have no benefits, no pension plan, no way to build for the future. No, I need something else. Something more profitable. And
that’s where you come in.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Darvin’s tongue flicked out and licked his lips. “You’re got a lucrative deal on the table right now. I know what you’re doing
with Coal-Balt—the conversion to an income trust. That’s why you had me kill Reginald Morgan. He was opposed to the conversion.
And that would have cost you a lot of money.”
Swanson’s face surged with color. “Who the fuck do you think you are? You stay out of my life and away from me. What I do
and why I do it are none of your business. Do you understand?”
“No, it’s your turn to understand something,” Darvin hissed. “I’m part of your life and I’m not going away. When you had me
kill Reginald Morgan, you tied the knot. Now you get to live with the Pandora’s box you opened.”
Neither man spoke for the better part of a minute. Darvin finally continued. “And now I want in. I want a share in whatever
you take out of the increase in the stock prices.”
Swanson was shaking with rage. He thought of grabbing the smaller man and choking him, killing him on the spot, but his mind
cooled as the moments passed. He waited until his breathing returned to normal, until his brain was processing what was happening
properly.
“The conversion isn’t going to happen,” he said.
“Sure it is,” Darvin said. “I have sources that say it’s a done deal.”
“You should get better sources. There’s a problem with new legislation that’s going to kill it.”
“What sort of legislation?”
“A senator out of Utah, Claire Buxton, is submitting a new bill that will require us to completely revamp both the mine and
the power plant. The regulatory boards won’t approve the conversion with the new legislation in place.”
“But it’s not in place now. And you’ve already got regulatory approval.”
Swanson was impressed with the accuracy of the man’s research, but stayed the course. “Buxton’s bill will pass. I hired lobbyists
to crater it but they were unsuccessful. The conversion is dead in the water. It’s over. Take your hundred thousand dollars
and call it a day.”
Darvin was thoughtful. “We’ll see,” he said, then added, “You know what pisses me off, Derek?”
“What’s that?” Swanson sighed. He was tired of the conversation and could have cared less.
“That a woman wields such power. How the hell did that happen? There was a time not so long ago when men made the decisions
in Washington. Now look at it. Hillary Clinton and her ragtag bag of political bitches. Giving women this kind of control
is bad. Very bad.”
“We’re done here,” Swanson said curtly. “I’ve got other things to do with my day.”
Darvin’s face darkened again. “You should learn to be nicer, Derek,” he said icily. “I don’t like being treated like one of
your casual employees.”
Swanson glared at the man. “That’s exactly what you are,” he said. “And now, as The Donald would say, you’re fired.”
Swanson walked back to his car, alternating between seething anger at the man’s audacity and being petrified with fear at
the thought of being linked to Reginald Morgan’s murder. He had little doubt that Darvin could link him to the killing. The
hundred thousand dollars was partially traceable to a withdrawal from one of his accounts. The remainder had come from his
safe at his house. He hadn’t been careful enough. He had never foreseen this happening—that he would be essentially blackmailed
by the killer. And of all the people to go up against, a hired hit man was probably the least desirable. Nonetheless, no piece
of trash that crawled out from under a rock when summoned was going to dictate terms to him.
Things were moving ahead. Without Darvin. That was the way things were, plain and simple.
Swanson gunned the motor on his Porsche and squealed the tires on the hot asphalt. Asshole, he thought as he raced past the
killer on his way to the main gate. But even accelerating out of the parking lot, he still got a quick glimpse of the man’s
eyes. They were cold—cruel.
Darvin watched the rear end of the Carrera fishtail as it swung out onto the main road. What a fool. If Derek Swanson thought
this was the last time they would meet, he was completely out of touch with reality. In fact, they would meet again soon,
and often. Darvin knew this because he was already planning it.
He walked back to his car and thumbed the key fob. The lights blinked and he opened the door and slid behind the wheel. Senator
Claire Buxton. The bitch. Tabling new legislation that could crater the deal and cost him millions of dollars. Millions of
dollars that Derek Swanson would gladly pay to keep a secret if the conversion went through. Couldn’t let that happen. He
turned over the ignition and followed the tire marks Swanson had left on the asphalt out to the main street. He needed to
take care of this wrinkle. And quickly.
Time was of the essence.
Easy jazz piano played on the stereo and the gentle aroma of vanilla drifted through the town house. Light streamed in from
the bay window fronting Caroline Street, and a handful of tropical plants swayed with the breeze from the air conditioner.
The living room was an eclectic mix of steel-and-leather furniture and antiques. A couple of brightly colored abstract paintings
hung on one wall, a plasma television on the other. Outside, the Saturday morning sun warmed the busy street scene.
Leona sipped her tea and stared at the stack of paper on her coffee table. The reports on Coal-Balt, the evidence supporting
her initial intuition that the company was not soluble as an income trust. She buried her hands in her thick ringlets and
closed her eyes, letting the soothing piano notes sink into her soul. What to do? The bank had a vested interest in Coal-Balt’s
financial health, and a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Their two-hundred-and-eighty-million-dollar debt was secured and
was probably safe. The reasons, from the bank’s perspective, to give the conversion a thumbs-down, were nominal at best. Over
the short term, switching to an income trust was probably a good thing, as the share values would definitely rise. It was
the long term she was worried about. And the shareholders. Which was absolutely crazy. There was no upside to her worrying
about what happened to some schmuck ma and pa in Iowa, who invested part of their retirement portfolio in Coal-Balt. And she
certainly had no allegiance to the giant investment firms that bought up huge chunks of stock. So why the trepidation? Why
not just okay it?
She had come so far, from the fat kid in the school cafeteria who ate lunch alone, to the successful woman who fit a size
eight. The teacher’s pet, with great marks and few friends, none of them the cool kids, and none of them boys, was gone. It
hadn’t been easy. Nothing in her life had been easy. Watching her parents divorce after forty-one years had torn her apart
emotionally. Always feeling that no man would want her. Fighting off what she knew in her heart to be untruths.
Leona opened her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. She had finally made it, had reached a point in her life that, to her,
represented success. And now she was poised to throw it all away. Anthony Halladay had made it quite clear that he expected
the bank to back Coal-Balt’s new business plan. Maybe Halladay’s allegiances to the energy company had waned a bit with Reginald
Morgan’s death. Maybe, but there was no guarantee of that. Going against the CEO’s wishes was going to ruffle some feathers.
Big feathers. But if she gave the conversion a thumbs-up, all that vanished.
It was almost ten and she got up from the couch and switched off the music. Tyler would be waiting, ready to go over the new
menu at the restaurant. They met every Saturday morning when she was in Washington. It was a meeting she looked forward to—Tyler’s
exuberance about the food he served was refreshing. She rinsed the cold tea from her cup, locked up the town house and backed
her Saab 9-3 out of the garage. The restaurant was less than ten minutes in the light traffic and parking was easy. It was
five minutes after the hour when she sat down with her chef at one of the tables close to the front window.
“What’s wrong?” Tyler leaned back in his chair, coffee in hand.
Leona didn’t answer for a second, then said, “That obvious?”
He nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“Bit of a problem at the office.”
“Want to talk about it? It helps sometimes. Gives perspective to things.”
“It’s privileged information. I can’t discuss it.”
Tyler propelled himself forward, his elbows resting on the table. “Give me a hypothetical. Nothing with any substance. No
names, no details.”
She eyed him for a minute, then said, “Okay, tell me what you would do.” She gave him the situation, the premise, then sat
back, sipped her diet Coke and waited while he mulled it over. Her chef was an intellectual without a degree. He had a sharp
mind that could have breezed through college-or university-level courses if he’d taken that route. He had simply chosen a
different path in life. One that he loved—his passion.
“Give it the thumbs-up,” Tyler said after a couple of minutes. “But on a condition. The company has to place x amount of dollars
from the share price increase in a separate fund to allow for updating the equipment and rebuilding the plant. If the new
legislation comes into effect, they go ahead with the work, if not, they continue on like nothing happened. That way the shareholders
don’t take the full hit. And you get to continue on as Leona Hewitt, vice president.”
Leona raised an eyebrow. “Very well done,” she said. “Probably not all that easy to implement, but an excellent line of thinking.”
“That’s because I have no idea what I’m doing,” he said. “Outside the forest, so to speak.”
“Well, who knows where it’s going to go. There’s a bit of a wrinkle.”
Tyler leaned forward. “A wrinkle. I like wrinkles. What sort?”
She grinned. His enthusiasm was contagious. “Someone died.”
He leaned back and ran his hands through his short hair. “Now it would be really interesting if it was that guy who disappeared
off the cruise ship. You know, the one that’s all over the newspapers these days. Was it murder? An accident? Someone removing
the old guy so they can manipulate the company he owned? Coal-burning plant, from what the newspapers reported. Nasty shit,
burning coal to produce electricity.”
“What made you think that?” The color drained from her face.
“I don’t know. It was in the newspapers.” Tyler stared at her for a few seconds, then said, “Holy shit. It was him, wasn’t
it? That was the guy. And the plant you were talking about is the one in the papers.”
Slowly, she nodded. “It goes no further than this table.”
“Jesus Christ, no. Never.” His body twitched about, like a surge of electricity had shot through it. “Damn, this is exciting.”
She couldn’t help but grin at his excitement. “The police think Reginald Morgan fell overboard. He was elderly and could have
misjudged his balance. It would be easy enough to do.”
Tyler leaned back and his eyes narrowed. “You really think that?”
She finished her soda. “No.”
She glanced at her watch and said, “Let’s get the menu sorted out.”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
An hour later, Leona closed the door of her restaurant behind her and stood facing the street. A wide selection of cars drove past—sedans, sports cars, SUVs. It struck her that each one was a capsule, insulated from the world outside its windows. Unique
little environments. She watched an older women driving slowly, enjoying a piece of classical music. Behind her was a group
of teenagers, the sound system turned up and the bass thumping. Young families drifted past with small children strapped in
car seats, staring out the window at the strange and new sights. Each car its own little world. The people inside with their
lives, their loves, their fears. None of them the same.
She walked to her car and slipped behind the wheel. This was her world. The one where the young woman could never do enough
to earn her father’s approval. The college student who drank red wine because women were expected to drink white. The woman
in her early twenties who bungee-jumped off a bridge in New Zealand to prove she wasn’t scared of heights. The vice president
of a bank who knew only unfulfilled dreams and desires. She felt the leather on the steering wheel, warm and smooth to the
touch. Her life was one of great privilege; she knew that. She could easily have been born a black child in one of the small
Kenyan villages her foundation was pumping money into. Scraping for the necessities of life. But her course in life had been
easier.
So why did she still feel so unaccomplished?
Leona gave her head a shake and turned the key in the ignition. The motor came to life and she shifted into first gear and
pulled out into the traffic. Some things in her life were uncertain, but one thing was rock solid. And that was her decision
on the Coal-Balt income trust conversion. She’d made up her mind and there was no moving her.
Time would tell whether she’d made the right decision.