by Jeff Buick
But at what price? Reginald Morgan’s death was going to be a stone around his neck for the rest of his life. The old man was simply sticking to his convictions—that Coal-Balt needed to clean up its act, and that it was a poor time for the income trust conversion. Both points had merit. Hell, everything about Morgan had merit. Killing him was nothing but a selfish, unilateral action with no upside but money.
But it was a lot of money.
Swanson pulled himself up off the bench onto shaky legs. The deal was done. Darvin had Morgan’s picture and a hundred thousand dollars. There was nothing he could do now to stop it even if he wanted. Reginald Morgan was a dead man.
9
Pikeville is a tiny jewel set in one of the undulating sways of the Appalachian Mountains. Its tallest building, an imposing brick structure, is six stories. Less than seven thousand people call it home, but ask them, and every person is adamant it’s the best small town in America.
It was almost four o’clock when the car finally reached the outskirts of town. Claire Buxton expected the mayor, who had met her at her Lexington hotel earlier in the day, to drone on with a travelogue, but he sat quietly, letting her take in the town. The trip had taken almost two hours and most of their dialogue was already in the bag. Now it was time to take care of business.
The driver turned off US 23 onto Daniels Creek and crept up the quiet, secluded road. On either side were towering hills covered with leafy green trees and shrubs. The air was quiet and warm, with a stillness that seemed almost surreal. The sky was deep blue and barren of clouds. They turned into the second driveway and pulled up to an imposing brick house. Total silence descended on them as the driver turned the key in the ignition switch and the motor died. Claire exited the car and stared at the house.
It was beautiful. But beyond the façade was a story. A sad one. Amanda Chisholm lived here. She was eleven years old, and she was dying. Inoperable brain tumor was the official prognosis. Killed by a slow leak from the Silo Six retention pond was the unofficial version. That was the one everyone in town went with. But the problem was, many of the good people who lived in Pikeville relied on the coal mine for their biweekly paychecks. Coffee shop conversations were muted, words carefully chosen, opinions kept to a minimum. The facts were the facts and those could be recited. And they were. Often.
The retention pond for Silo Six held approximately two hundred million gallons of slurry. When it let go, it did so in a very sneaky way. In contrast to the leak at the Big Branch retention pond near Inez, Kentucky on October 11, 2000, where three hundred million gallons of slurry dropped into an abandoned mine shaft and flowed down the hills like molten lava, no one knew the Silo Six pond was leaking. The slurry migrated through the soft rock formations, down the incline to where the Chisholm house sat nestled into the trees. It surrounded the foundation of the inground swimming pool, and slowly leached through tiny cracks into the water.
Amanda was nine, almost ten, and swimming every day. She was working hard on her freestyle stroke for the upcoming swim meet against Williamson, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to spend three hours a day in the pool. In water with a high parts-per-million count of arsenic, mercury and selenium. She ingested the water as she swam, tiny bits every time she took a breath or licked her lips. Eight months after her long hours in the pool, she was hit with a series of debilitating headaches. They wouldn’t stop. And the pain was excruciating. Trips to the local doctor were unsuccessful in pinpointing the cause, until he ordered a CAT scan at the Pikeville Medical Center. The tumor showed up on the scan and Amanda was immediately sent to a specialist in Lexington. The news wasn’t good. In fact, the news was awful.
Amanda was dying.
It took another three months to pinpoint the source. At first the management team at Barringer, the parent company for the Silo Six mine, denied everything. But it didn’t take long to amass conclusive proof that the chemicals from the slurry were responsible. They changed their tune and offered to cover all expenses and the best medical care possible. And a generous cash settlement for Amanda’s family. What the people at the mine didn’t get was that nothing could replace Amanda.
Nothing.
Senator Claire Buxton rang the doorbell and waited. A man in his early forties answered, tall, with intelligent blue eyes. Intelligent, but sad.
“Senator Buxton, I’m Gary Chisholm.” He offered his hand. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course. Thank you for having me.”
They walked into the house, the mayor following behind them. They reached a room in the back of the house that overlooked the empty swimming pool. A woman and a child sat close together on one of the couches. Both rose as Claire entered the room. The woman was thin, with long off-blond hair and sharply defined cheeks and chin. Her eyes were rimmed with red. The child was thin. Too thin. She wore a ball cap to hide her bald head. Her eyes were penetrating blue and honest. They held a knowledge and understanding that no child should have to bear.
“Senator Buxton, this is my wife, Sarah, and my daughter, Amanda,” Gary Chisholm said.
“Call me Claire.” She grasped Sarah’s hand with both of hers. Then she looked down and locked eyes with the young girl. “Hello, Amanda. I am so honored to meet you. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you.”
“Really? Like what?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
Claire sat on the couch with Amanda between the two women. “How brave you are. How you haven’t let this stop you from getting straight A’s in school. And how you beat every swimmer from Williamson in freestyle and backstroke at the last meet.”
Amanda smiled, and a tiny fire danced in her eyes, sunk deep in their sockets. “First in both. Second in the medley.”
“Very well done,” Claire said.
“Coffee or tea?” Gary Chisholm asked.
“Water is fine, thank you.” She turned back to Amanda and talked about school, boys, swimming and football. Amanda had yet to hit her teen years, but she knew NFL football. Especially the Denver Broncos. Her dad’s team—now her team. Finally, the conversation drifted around to her health. “You look very thin, Amanda,” Claire said. There was no sense patronizing the young girl by telling her she looked good. They both knew she didn’t. “Were you always thin?”
“Not this skinny. It’s ridiculous. My clothes fall off me now. Mom and Dad are going broke trying to keep me in clothes that fit.”
Claire smiled and glanced at Amanda’s parents. They sat stone-faced, watching. She’d seen it before on her trips through the children’s hospital in Salt Lake City and it never ceased to amaze her. The child was the one with the disease, yet she was the one who reassured the parents that everything would be all right. They joked and cajoled their way through the day, while the parents struggled to come to terms with the fact that their child was dying.
“How are the treatments?”
Amanda scrunched up her nose. “Terrible. Worse than eating liver.” She pointed to her head. “I used to have long, blond hair.”
“Saves on shampoo,” Claire said.
Amanda laughed, the sound echoing through the room. “That’s funny. I didn’t think senators were allowed to be funny.”
“We are at times.” Claire wondered how this could be one of them. “Amanda,” she asked, leaning forward, “what would you like to be when you grow up?”
“That’s easy. A doctor.”
Claire’s lips turned up ever so slightly. “To find new cures?”
“No, to be the only doctor who warms up her stethoscope before she sticks it on her patients.”
Claire stared into the girl’s eyes, alive and mischievous. She saw the determination. She saw the strength. She saw the life yet to be lived. And she knew at that moment that she couldn’t fail. Her bill, once through the full house and signed by the president, would make the guilty companies responsible and would demand they clean up their acts immediately. It would close loopholes and demand action. It would make a difference.
It would save lives.
She leaned forward and grasped Amanda’s hands, and although she tried, she couldn’t stop the tears.
10
Leona’s team consisted of four members plus herself. Each of her assistants had specific strengths they brought to the table. Their first meeting was after lunch on Tuesday, July 10, in the boardroom on the twelfth floor. She brought them up to speed with their assignment.
“Coal-Balt is one of our oldest and most loyal clients,” she said, standing at the whiteboard that stretched across the front of the room. The other four, two men and two women, were seated in the leather chairs that ringed the long, polished walnut table. “And if you’ve read the printed material that was on your desk this morning, you already know why we’re here. Coal-Balt is looking to restructure into an income trust. They have loans from our bank totaling two hundred and eighty million dollars, and according to the agreement we have attached to those loans, we have the right to veto any change in their operating procedure if we think it’s going to adversely affect our position. So what we need to do is figure out whether their proposed conversion to an income trust is a good idea.
“This one is a little different than some of the other conversions we’ve seen. Coal-Balt is multifaceted in that they mine the coal and then produce electrical power by burning it in their power plant. Most companies do one or the other. Our guys do both. That has an upside and a down side. They never have a problem procuring the coal to burn, because they’re mining it. But it also means they’re subject to fluctuations in more than one commodity market. And labor concerns are increased at least twofold. Along with government regulations and requirements.
“Jarrod,” she continued, looking at the youngest member of the team, a new hire fresh out of graduate school with a master’s in economics, “you’re going to look at the regulatory side of things. What legislation is out there that will require Coal-Balt to purchase new equipment in the next few years. Income trusts pay out excess profits to their shareholders and big financial hits cut into those payouts and erode investor confidence. Find out what’s existing and what’s new. I don’t want any surprises down the road.”
“You got it.” Jarrod Geneau brushed a wisp of blond hair back from his forehead.
“Angela, you’re accounting and taxes. Make sure our client’s books are in good shape and that the IRS won’t be knocking on the door soon. Most of the information you’ll need is in-house. They have a substantial loan with us, which required them to submit their audited financial statements. But I want you to poke around the edges—find out if they’ve got any financial skeletons in the closet.”
Angela Samarach, midforties and ultraconservative, simply nodded and made a few notes in her appointment book.
“Sean, you’re labor. Coal-Balt is hugely labor intensive. It takes a lot of men, and some women, to mine the coal, transport it, and burn it. They do everything from blasting the tops off mountains to get at the coal to maintaining the equipment at the mine site and the plant. There are twelve unions representing workers and each union is pushing for high wages and good pensions. All of that costs money. Find out where CoalBalt is in each of their contracts with the different unions, which ones are up for negotiations in the next year or two, and how militant they are. I’m especially interested in seeing the projected figures for their pensions. I don’t want to get submarined by escalating pension payouts. Okay?”
“Okay.” The task wasn’t new to Sean Grant. His background before joining the bank was on the financial end of things with one of the major construction unions on the east coast. He knew labor and could read and understand the small print on the contracts between management and labor. Grant was heavyset, pushing forty and when he slipped into a pair of jeans, he fit in well with the union guys. Dress him in a suit and he was equally as comfortable with management.
“Tracey,” Leona said, looking to the final member of the team. Tracey Mendez was thirty-two, married with two kids in every community sport ever devised, and drove a minivan with enough bumper stickers to wallpaper an average-size bedroom. “I want you to look at everything Sean, Angela and Jarrod aren’t looking at. Is there any possible litigation on the horizon? Who dislikes Coal-Balt, and why. Anything that could potentially sneak up and bite us in the ass.”
Leona leaned on the table and locked eyes with each one of them for a couple of seconds. “We’ve worked together before. There’s no reason why my new title should get in the way. I’m still me. Everybody okay with that?”
There were nods, and Sean Grant said, “Vice presidents don’t scare me. They’re little fish struggling to get up the river to the spawning grounds and become big fish.”
“Could care less about that VP thing,” Tracey said.
Jarrod swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and Angela’s eyes stayed focused on the paper in front of her. Even though she treated it with a certain degree of deference, the fact was, Leona Hewitt was now one of the most powerful figures at DC Trust. She worked on twelve, and that alone put her next to God. He was on thirteen.
“Thanks, and keep me posted. You’ve got thirteen work ing days, which means I need full reports on my desk by Friday the twenty-seventh. Interim reports are welcome if you think there are details I need to see as you dig them up.”
They filed out and headed for the elevator. She turned the other direction and walked down the hall to her office. The walls on the top floor were paneled below the wainscoting and painted a tasteful shade of light brown above the wood. Portraits of the bank’s founders and former presidents lined the long hall, and the muted lighting highlighted each painting and portrait. The carpets underfoot were thick and her heels didn’t make a sound as she entered her office and slipped off her suit jacket. She draped it over the back of her chair and sat down. The office was twenty-five feet square, with a sitting area against the wall farthest from the window. Two heavy leather loveseats lined with rivets faced each other, a dark walnut table between them. The abstract art on the wall was mostly deep taupe with black and gray slashes and an occasional red splash. It reeked of testosterone.
Leona hated it.
She started slightly as the phone rang, then checked the caller ID. It was long distance, 380 area code. Ohio. She answered on the third ring, one before it went to voice mail. “Hi, Dad,” she said, swiveling to look out the window. “How are things at home?”
“How’d you know it was me?” Joseph Hewitt asked.
“Ohio area code,” she said.
“Could have been your mother. She’s still in Ohio.”
“She’d never call me at work.”
“Well, work is where you’re at during the day. God only knows where you are at night.”
“At home.”
“Not when I call. Anyway, do you like your new office?”
“You’d love it.” She focused her gaze on the phone.
“Great. Don’t let them push you around, Leona. They’re men. They’ll run roughshod over you if you let them.”
“Yeah, like all the boys at home.”
“Lucky you’re a tough woman or they would’ve ground you into the dirt.”
“Lucky me. Listen, Dad, I’m busy. I can’t talk right now. Call me later at home. I’ll be there.”
“Right. You’ll probably be out to dinner with some politician or lawyer.”
“Talk to you later,” she said, and replaced the phone in its cradle.
Her father meant well, he always had. But instead of raising a daughter, he’d created a textbook version of a tomboy.
The girl who beat the boys at their own games or faced that look of disappointment on her father’s face. Always the look. It took any joy out of coming in second. Perhaps her father’s drive for her to succeed was the reason she had started traveling. Between her second and third year of university, she took a break and ventured to Australia and New Zealand. Just her. No friends, no family, no strings. To earn money she taught econo
mics and finance in Perth. Teaching others was the greatest learning curve of her life, and it was when she was called on to explain the concepts to others that she truly understood them.
The beaten path didn’t interest her. She shied away from the usual touristy places. Instead, she forged friendships with the outback doctors who flew small planes to places like Lightning Ridge, famous for black opal deposits. She had an affinity for flying and often piloted the plane as they floated over the vast tracts of sparsely inhabited land of the Australian outback. It seemed so long ago now.
She stared out the window at the snippet ofWashington that comprised her view. It was a city of power, both financial and political. Some parts of her psyche worked here, others were more at ease in the Australian wilds. She could wear her strengths on her sleeve, but never the weaknesses. This city would eat you alive if you showed a chink in the armor. And she certainly hadn’t achieved VP status by allowing Anthony Halladay to see the scared kid trapped inside. She wondered if every person had one of those kids. She suspected they did. Some hid it better than others.
Leona glanced down at her hands. What sort of power did they wield now? She had discretionary powers over lending to one hundred million dollars. Her decisions could affect whether companies received financing, or if they left empty-handed. Lives would be affected. Businesses made or broken. She had reached the coveted position, but was it what she really wanted?
She felt like the great imposter.
The person who, to the world around them, appears to be in full control of their universe. But under the surface they have doubts and fears about their ability. About whether or not they deserve the position or fame or wealth they have achieved in life. The world was full of them. Singers, actors, composers, artists, developers—even bankers. The list was absolutely endless. Every discipline had them.
It was what drove her. The fire that burned inside and incited her to be the best at whatever she did. But the flames were never extinguished. The higher she climbed in life, the better her position with the bank, the more successful her charity, the larger the bonfire. It was a monster, created from inadequacy and fueled by a fear of failure. Of being unmasked and recognized for what she was.