The Greater Good

by Casey Moreton

  Shelby pondered the time-and-date stamps—6A .M., December 17. Ettinger died in the evening, and the email was sent in the middle of the afternoon.

  “As you can see, the last frame shows Ettinger opening a door in the hallway. This was curious to our people because the floor plans to the lodge in Maine show this door to lead down a narrow flight of stairs to a basement. Not much was thought of this in the beginning, but it was the one movement of Ettinger’s we couldn’t readily account for. Understand, there are no security cameras mounted in the basement. So the archives from the entire week prior to the seventeenth were thoroughly checked. And sure enough, two days prior, we found these…” Susnick lifted another stack of photos and flopped them on the table.

  Julius Albertwood clawed at the glossies with his one good hand, hungrily groping for a look.

  The photos documented a full half a minute of five-second intervals taken from the camera mounted above the hall that led to the kitchen at Beagle Run. In them, Ettinger approached the same door, only this time he was carrying something in his arms. Something fairly cumbersome. The image wasn’t terribly clear, making it difficult to identify exactly what it was.

  “We managed to blow up the clearest frame and touch it up a bit,” Susnick said. “This is what we got.” He slid a ten-by-twelve exposure onto the conference table. Only Albertwood was unable to control his reaction.

  “Gggghh!” Albertwood gasped, grasping at the arm of his wheelchair with his good arm.

  Shelby looked over at Susnick, who kept his attention on his briefcase. Susnick, he’d observed, avoided eye contact at all costs. Shelby then glanced at Desmond. Desmond didn’t say a word. Shelby knew they were thinking the same thing he was thinking. Again, the video-capture was grainy, and having been magnified had lost much of its detail. But the magnification had succeeded in enhancing the view of what Ettinger was carrying. It was a video camera attached to a tripod.

  “Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Desmond said to Susnick.

  “It is a Sony home video camera,” Susnick informed them.

  Bingo,Shelby thought. Good news and bad news. This was what they’d needed to know but hadn’t wanted to hear. Ettinger had indeed made a tape. He’d somehow slipped beneath their radar just long enough to pull one over on them. He stood with his hands behind his back, already contemplating what he’d tell the president. Yates was nearing the very edge of sanity. Miriam Ettinger had sprung this little grenade on them out of the blue, knocking them for a loop. If they’d been able to see this coming, maybe they’d have made certain preparations. And perhaps they had, Shelby thought, casting his eyes across the table to Desmond. James Ettinger was dead, after all.

  “Okay,” Desmond spoke up. He was a broad man, thick through the chest, with a mat of red hair and a neatly trimmed red beard. “Where’s the tape? Ettinger said something on tape. Where is it?” he demanded.

  “That was a little stickier to come by,” Susnick declared, again busy with the contents of his briefcase. “You must realize, we’ve had less than fifteen hours—total—to piece this thing together. And considering that fact, it is actually quite astonishing to be as far along as we are.” Susnick peered over the heavy frames of his glasses, conveying his point. “Preciselywhere the tape is, we can’t say for certain,” he continued. “But we have a very solid prospect.”

  Susnick withdrew yet another photo from the briefcase. “In the basement of Ettinger’s lodge at Beagle Run, there was indeed a video camera set up, facing a chair. The cassette had been removed, just as we assumed it would be. There was also evidence in the basement that Ettinger had packaged something to be mailed.” Susnick paused, then withdrew a printed page and placed it before them. “Most of the clutter had been deposited into a waste receptacle in the basement. Among the garbage, this was recovered…”

  A cab took Joel Benjamin down Park Avenue, past the Waldorf-Astoria, the second possibility Vena had mentioned. It was clearly in the running. But, again, without a photo of his daughter to show around, all he’d be able to do is wait for her to make an appearance. And under the circumstances, waiting idly seemed like a terrible waste of time.

  Next, they swung by a Cuban restaurant at the corner of West Fifty-first and Ninth Avenue. The third and final destination given by Louis Vena. Joel asked the driver to hold tight for a few minutes, and stood looking around. The eatery was a compact joint, situated on a corner, with a dry cleaner on one side and a pool hall on the other. A trio of Latino punks huddled outside the door to the pool hall, eyeing him. What business Megan might have at a place like this, he couldn’t imagine.

  He opened the door to the Cuban dive and ducked inside. The lighting was subdued, and the place smelled of something he couldn’t readily identify. A waiter appeared before him with a menu, speaking rapidly to him in Spanish. Joel took a long look around. Surely this couldn’t be the place. He backpedaled his way to the door.

  His gut was telling him to cross this place off the list. If there was anything of value in Vena’s information, it would revolve around either the apartment building on East Fifty-seventh or the Waldorf on Park Avenue. End of discussion.

  “Take me back to the Waldorf,” he told the driver after he was back inside the cab.

  The driver nodded.

  Joel stared out the window, his forehead against the glass. Of all the places in the world to try and hunt down someone you hadn’t seen in a decade, nothing could have been worse than New York. He was from the West, and now lived in the Midwest. This was not his turf. If he were on track at all, it would be a miracle. Megan had been in the city Monday night. He’d seen her. Where she’d gone from there was anybody’s guess. But she’d been here. For the past two days he’d strained to listen to his inner voice, his voice of reason and logic. It was a voice he trusted. He’d listened for that voice to speak its mind, to pop him on the back of the head and tell him this was idiotic, that the girl was just some girl, nobody to him. He listened hard and long, struggling to be objective, but ultimately he heard nothing that warned him to end his search. He received no answers he could fully trust.

  Joel was an unmarried man, with no one waiting for him at home. He had a little time. As sad a fact as it might be, if there was anyone in the world whose absence could go unnoticed for the better part of a week, it was Joel’s. Except for a handful of curious neighbors and colleagues from work, there was no one to really raise an eyebrow. Normally such a thought might cause a ping of melancholy, but given the current status of things, it granted him a bit of space within to work, to think, to plan. It was his one chance to find Megan. She was in New York. He could almost bet the farm on that. He’d seen her. And his gut was telling him she hadn’t gone far.

  He paid the driver, and the cab disappeared into traffic. Evening had settled in, and with it had come a biting wind. Joel needed to find someplace warm, and he needed some food and some sleep. But all of that would keep him from doing the very thing he was there to do: watch for Megan. He wondered how long he could loiter in the lobby of the Waldorf before they’d politely ask him to leave. Probably quite awhile. Then it occurred to him. Why not get a room in the Waldorf himself? It would give him a base to work from. He could roam the halls more freely. The odds of bumping into her there were remote but better than on the street.

  Joel hurried inside and smiled at the young woman behind the counter. He needed a room for three nights, he said, presenting her with a credit card. She smiled. Indeed, there were rooms available.

  The knot in Joel’s stomach relaxed, and he pocketed his credit card. Tomorrow he’d have to retrieve his belongings from the other hotel. Tonight he’d sleep in a warm bed with a full stomach. And if his search up to that point hadn’t been completely in vain, it was quite possible that he was spending the night beneath the same roof as his only child.

  19

  THERE WAS A BOTTLE OF WINE IN THE CABINET, THREE-QUARTERSfull, just as Brooke hoped and thought there would be. Maybe she would h
ave a glass later. Throughout the late afternoon and into evening, the temperature had progressively dropped, and the snow came in fits and starts. It was now coming down pretty steadily. Brooke lay on the couch in front of the TV, watching fat flakes stick to the front window. The TV was off.

  Terri, her roommate, was out. She worked at an advertising agency and oftentimes kept odd hours. The two of them saw each other primarily on weekends, which worked out nicely, since half the rent was paid yet one or the other had the apartment to themselves most of the week. At times, though, this arrangement could get lonely. Brooke would have liked to have another face around to keep her company, and the Queen Bee—Darla—made sure that she had no love life.

  It was better, for the moment, that Brooke had the place to herself. She’d come home to find a message from her mother on the machine. Brooke called her back on the spot. Wyatt was getting worse. The past few days he’d seemed to be fading fast. Her parents had taken him to the doctor yesterday, and the news wasn’t good. Could she come sooner? Of course.

  Of course.

  Her body was in a fetal position on the couch. A blanket was spread over her legs. The temperature in her drafty apartment was probably sixty-five degrees. If she lay real quiet and still, with her eyes shut, and listened really hard, she could hear the flakesticking against the panes of glass. The silence only served to make the room colder. She wriggled about on the couch, adjusting herself and tugging at ends of the blanket. She hadn’t phoned Darla yet. She’d need to call and let her know that she’d not be making it to the party, which would not please her boss at all. Darla was fully aware of her brother’s terminal condition and had in fact been gracious enough to let Brooke take the occasional three- or four-day leave of absence when necessary. But Darla also possessed the rather phenomenal perspective that the universe, and everything in it, was there for her personal satisfaction and benefit. Thus, she dealt very poorly with alterations in her carefully crafted schedule. Dealing with Darla Donovan was always a volatile and unpredictable job.

  She peeled off the blanket and headed to the kitchen to find something for dinner. She saw a casserole dish on a low shelf, wrapped loosely in foil. She worked the foil off one corner and peeked inside, leaning in close to take a cautious sniff. Her upper lip curled. She put the casserole dish back on the shelf. There was a package of cheese slices. A tub of cottage cheese. A bag of celery sticks (Terri had a thing for celery). In the back of the fridge, behind a half-gallon of milk and a bottle of tomato juice, was another dish covered in foil. She dipped her head for a closer look. It was a dinner plate with a dozen or so fudge brownies. Terri, it seemed, had kept herself busy baking. Brooke took a brownie, making sure to refold the foil around the edge of the plate. The brownie was a little dry, but the sugar hit her system like a bolt of lightning. She hadn’t realized how starved she was.

  She peeked in the freezer but found only empty ice cube trays and a carton of low-fat yogurt. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She dialed the phone and ordered Chinese takeout. A place around the corner had free delivery and the best egg rolls on the planet. She pledged to stock up on groceries when she got back from her parents’ house. She ate so much crap at work, she figured her arteries would slam shut by the time she turned thirty-five.

  Her thoughts drifted to Wyatt. He would turn thirty on Christmas Eve. He didn’t look thirty. He still had a baby face, but the cancer had aged him far beyond his years. He was so thin now, and the chemo had taken his hair.

  She was glad he was home. Their mother had kept his old room pretty much as he’d left it when he got out of high school and headed out into the world. There was still theStar Trek Enterprise model hanging from the ceiling by fishing line. His collection of rock-and-roll albums and his turntable, his baseball trophies, and the concert poster signed by Jon Bon Jovi. He even still had an ancient Atari game system, with all the old favorites like Pac-Man and Centipede.

  There would be a certain comfort in taking his final breaths in the bed that he grew up in. Adulthood had offered him only misery. He’d see thirty, God willing. But there’d be no fortieth birthday. He’d never marry or have kids. He’d had the last few years to dwell on, and come to terms with, these certainties. Brooke couldn’t fathom shouldering such realities in her own life. And it was surreal to see her brother handling it with such grace and dignity.

  When they were kids, Brooke idolized Wyatt. He was her big brother. He was her protector. Her passage from adolescence through the awkward teenage years to the world of young adulthood had been immeasurably smoother because of his presence and his protective hand. Even now, a small but distinct fear rose inside her at the thought of not having him in her life. Wyatt was her reassurance. With him gone…. That was a thought too horrific to ponder.

  They looked a lot alike, she and Wyatt. Both had blond hair and were very nearly the same height. They shared the same eyes and the same bright, beaming smile. She was slimmer, with delicate, feminine features. Wyatt’s body, especially when he was younger and really into sports, had some density to it. In high school he’d played on all the varsity teams. Because of his short height, he spent most of the basketball season on the bench. But football and wrestling and track, those were the arenas in which he excelled. He’d been such a strong kid. He had broad shoulders, and when he got into weight lifting, his physique pumped up rather impressively. Back in the old days, most of Brooke’s friends had wild crushes on her brother.

  The doorbell rang. Brooke rummaged through her purse, grabbing a handful of ones. The lanky Asian at the door swapped her a stained paper bag for the cash, and she set the bag on the table and grabbed a Diet Pepsi from the fridge. The smell of the food reawakened her empty stomach. She popped the tab on the diet soda and took a sip on her way to the couch with the paper bag.

  She found the TV remote between the cushions of the couch. Working in television had slightly jaded her toward the medium; like peeking behind the curtain at a puppet show, the magic and mystery were gone. But still, when you were alone, it made a faithful companion. She stirred the rice with her chopsticks, letting a bite cool for a moment before devouring it.

  On the Discovery Channel, they were explaining mummification. She passed on that one. The six o’clock news was over. Just as well. Again, herlife was the news. She’d had enough of it for one day. The sweet and sour pork melted on her tongue. She’d chosen wisely.

  It was hard not to think about the day to come. Her mother’s voice over the phone had given away a lot. Brooke knew that Wyatt’s death would cripple her mother. It would cripple them all, but Grace Weaver above all others. Her father would deal with it the way he dealt with every crisis or new wave of stress; he’d slip out to his work shed to saw and nail and measure and sand. Brooke imagined that he’d likely already logged untold hundreds of hours this winter out back in that ten-by-twelve A-frame building of his.

  The leukemia had sucked the joy out of their relatively tight-knit clan. Wyatt was dying before their eyes. There was simply no justice in taking someone so good so young, especially in such an excruciating manner. At her last visit, Wyatt had weighed barely 110 pounds. She figured he’d dropped significantly since then. The bones of his face were more prominent now. Mom had mentioned that tonight.

  “I didn’t think he could get much thinner,” Mom had said. “But his face…I don’t know, it’s just so drawn up and bony. He’s just a skeleton.”

  “Fatten him up, Mom,” Brooke said. “Make him a big crock pot full of your famous pork chops, put on a roast. Fill the oven with baked potatoes and slap on the sour cream and butter.”

  “You think?”

  “If anyone can put some meat on that boy, Mom, it’s you. You know?”

  Her mother had agreed. But the big meals would not be prepared. There was no reason to waste food that wouldn’t be eaten. Unless they got rid of the leukemia, Wyatt was not going to pack on the weight. Brooke knew this. She merely wanted to give her mother hope and a feeling s
he was useful.

  When the eleven o’clock news came on the TV, she thought of the script she’d lugged home from work. Ordinarily, she’d have trudged into her bedroom, snatched the script from the backpack, and sat down with it at her laptop computer. There was still a ton of work to be done on it, and the segment was scheduled to air the second week of January. A morbid thought occurred to her: by the time the segment airs, Wyatt might be gone. She squeezed her eyes shut to fight the tears.

  Beyond the grief and foreboding, Wyatt’s imminent demise had a secondary effect on her. It forced her to confront her own life. Not her mortality, per se, but the direction she’d chosen. Sure, she was living her dream, at least to some extent. She’d gone to school to become a journalist, and she was first mate to one of the most respected and most successful names in her chosen field. The work was exciting and challenging, and even in her short stint at NBC News, she’d been exposed to things most people could never imagine. But it was a profession fueled by sacrifice. Free time was scarce. What few friends she had she rarely saw. She hadn’t been on a date in four or five months. And really, she’d only gotten a taste of the business. Darla Donovan had logged twenty years in the news business, and look at her. Divorced, and not looking. She lived at the office. Brooke wondered how many nights a week the woman actually made it home to sleep in her own bed.

  As much as she loved it all, she was tired. Sure, she’d put in some ungodly hours lately, putting this piece together, but still, she was only twenty-seven. There was still time to bolt and run if she had doubts. She was still young enough to go into anything in the world she desired. And she was bright enough todo anything she desired. She was not racing the clock, by any means. Her great fear was that for now she was simply living off adrenaline. But what would her life be in ten, fifteen years? When she turned forty, would she look back and smile, a gleam of satisfaction and fulfillment in her heart? Would Wyatt be smiling down on her? Or would she be a Darla Donovan clone, a slave to success?