After a while, their vehicle pulled into the parking lot. I knew that it was them right away. They parked directly in front of the shop entrance. I had parked toward the rear of the lot. This was an old habit from my many surveillance outings over the years. Some old habits die hard, try as one might to reform them.
I watched Alan's daughters step out their car, a blue Chevrolet sedan with a loose tailpipe and balding tires. They could have stepped out of the framed photos that had occupied a place of prominence on Alan's desk at UP&S.
I recalled that their names were Kate and Morgan. “Kate is just like her old man,” Alan once said. “I can see my personality in her, you know?” And I had responded that Morgan would therefore provide his only chance at grandchildren—the point being that a female with Alan Ferguson’s personality traits would have zero chance of finding a mate. As I recalled this conversation, I smiled in spite of myself. It was a sad smile, but one that I treasured. My moments of humor had been few and far between in recent weeks.
Kate was the older of the two. She was tall with long brown hair. She would be a freshman or sophomore in college now. Morgan was still in high school; she looked like a more diminutive version of her sister.
They were both quite pretty young women. I reflected, sadly, that if Alan were still alive, I would rib him about the two girls getting their looks from their mother.
I stepped out of my car and hailed them by name. “Kate, Morgan!” I called.
They waved tentatively and stood outside the front door of the Starbucks, waiting for me. Clearly they were less than enthusiastic about this meeting. And how could I blame them? I had contacted them out of the blue, barely a month after their father had been gunned down by Claire.
We proceeded to a booth in a private corner of the nearly empty coffee shop. Neither side was in the mood for small talk.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Kate asked. “The police haven’t told us much. And frankly, the whole thing seems a bit suspicious.”
It was only a matter of weeks since the shootout in Donna’s kitchen. The violence had made the papers, of course; but the media had not yet delved into many of the background details. Kate and Morgan had no real idea of who I was, or what I was. They knew only that I had been connected with UP&S, that Alan had been my friend, and that I had been with him on that evening he was killed.
I suppose you could say that the girls deserved to know the truth. They deserved to know that Alan had been entrapped and that I had entrapped him. But that would have required me to reveal that Alan had also fallen prey to base temptations of his own. I didn't believe that Alan would want his daughters to know that. So I decided to protect him, and to protect myself in the process. I knew that this was really a cop-out on my part. But I wasn't up to telling these two girls that I had approved a scheme to lure their late father into an act of gross sexual misconduct.
Forgive me, Alan. Please forgive me, I thought.
“Your father was my friend,” I said. “He had come to visit me on the night that two men with guns showed up at the home of the woman I was seeing—am seeing, in fact. One of those men had attempted to force himself on the woman’s teenaged daughter. In all likelihood, this man was also guilty of two prior murders. Your father accompanied me to the woman’s house, and that was where the confrontation took place. Alan killed one of the men; and then a third party—a woman whom the dead man was involved with—showed up and shot your father when he had already laid down his gun.”
Kate nodded in response. What I was telling her jibed, more or less, with what had been reported thus far in the papers. But I could tell that she was weighing my story for missing facts and inconsistencies.
“I all seems strange. We knew that Dad had lost his job. He didn't want to talk about it, though. He seemed to be ashamed of something that he had done. Dad wasn't communicating with anyone very much for a few weeks there. I spoke to him once right before—well, you know. He said that he was doing some sort of an ‘investigation’ into the circumstances of his firing, whatever he meant by that. To tell you the truth, I was actually beginning to wonder if he might have been losing his grip on reality. Then all of this happens, and I—I’m sorry, Mr. Walker, I’m going to need a moment here.”
I gave her a chance to wipe the tears from her eyes. She squeezed her younger sister’s hand. Morgan sniffed and leaned against Kate, the older one, the stronger one.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Both of you. Your father was a decent man. No, more than decent. A truly good man. I know that he loved you both very much. And as for him getting fired: It was all wrong, terribly wrong, although the details of that are complicated and not very important now. I don’t want either of you to ever imagine that you should be ashamed of him. Alan was honest and open, and dedicated to his vision of the work that needed to be done at UP&S. He was a good friend, a good coworker.”
They nodded, seeming to accept this much at face value.
“I know that you two aren’t in the mood for a protracted conversation,” I said. “So I’m going to get right to business, to the main reason I asked you here for this meeting.”
I withdrew an envelope from my pocket and handed it to the elder of the two. She opened the envelope and unfolded the paper inside. They both read it over, no doubt taking note of the large number at the bottom of the paper.
"What is this?" Kate asked. “This is a lot of money.”
"It's a statement for an account at US Bank, taken out in both your names. I don’t know where you stand with college money; but I want you to have this.”
“This is your money?” Kate blurted out, incredulously.
“It came from a corporate donor,” I said. “A consulting firm that recently did some work for UP&S.”
“Wait a minute,” Kate said. “My dad told me that some consulting company was behind him getting fired. Who are you, really, Mr. Walker?”
As I felt the scrutiny of Alan’s daughters upon me, I wondered: How much did Alan tell them? Do they know the full truth, even now?
“Your father was my friend,” I said. “And I swear to you that that statement is true. And yes, I had a hand in securing these funds for you. Think of it as my way of showing my appreciation for what your father did for me, and for others. He saved two women’s lives that night. One of them was about your age, Morgan.”
“You believe that it was your fault that our father was killed? Is that what you are saying?” Kate asked.
I hadn’t said this; but Kate, I reminded myself, was Alan Ferguson’s daughter.
"Fault," I replied, "Is sometimes difficult to define. Let's just say that I do feel some responsibility for your father's death. If you want to get specific about it, he would be alive today if the two of us had never crossed paths. You can call that fault if you like."
"So this is—”
Kate was searching for a particular word, a word that I had already articulated in my mind; but I was not going to enunciate this word for Alan’s daughters. The word was “penance.”
So instead I said: “This is my way of expressing my condolences for your loss, and my appreciation to your father, my friend.”
“Alright,” Kate said. “Thank you, I suppose. This is very generous of you, despite what happened. But I don’t know if I should—”
“Please, take the money,” I said.
She paused for a while, and then finally nodded. “Okay, then. If that’s what you want.”
“I do want.”
“Thank you, Mr. Walker,” Morgan said.
“You’re both very welcome.”
Under more pleasant circumstances, this would have been my opening to make inquiries regarding their educational plans. But these were not pleasant circumstances; and I knew that the money given to them by Craig Walker Consulting would go toward worthwhile ends. I knew from my conversations with Alan that both of the girls were straight-A students.
“We’re going to miss him,” Kate said.
“I know,” I replied. “Me too.”
“Anyway, Mr. Walker, I hope you’ll understand; but we’re really not much in the mood for conversation right now. If you don’t mind—”
“I understand,” I said. “I’m glad you came here today. And once again, I’m sorry about what happened. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.”
With that the two young women took their leave of me. I sat there in the booth and watched them leave. I wanted to wait until they were gone; there was no need for a second, more awkward goodbye in the parking lot.
Penance, I thought. How can a man ever atone for all of his sins? Is such a thing even possible?
After a while, I reached the tentative conclusion that no, it was not; but that impossibility did not excuse me from trying. Half efforts were almost certainly better than nothing.
And then I thought about another person: One who had taken a life and who would now suffer the state’s punishment.
I did not want to see her; in fact, I wanted to forget that she even existed. But I knew that I would have to see her, sooner or later. That, too, was another step of the great penance that had now become such a large portion of my life’s work.
Chapter 83
The last time I saw Claire Turner, she was wearing the orange jumpsuit of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. I drove north from Dayton to visit her one Saturday. She was incarcerated in the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, about forty miles outside Columbus.
After signing in and completing a short orientation program for first-time visitors, I waited for Claire in a small visiting room: There was a single table with two chairs, cinderblock walls painted institutional white, and a window from where a guard would be watching us while we talked.
A female corrections officer led her in. The CO directed Claire to sit in the chair opposite me, on the other side of the table.
“Fifteen minutes,” the CO said. “I’ll be right outside the window.”
“Okay,” I said. The corrections officer nodded and left the room. The door clicked shut behind her.
I wondered what I should say. I didn’t have a prepared monologue—not even any conversation openers. Claire and I had been together in a lot of situations: We had done uncover corporate jobs. We had eaten and had drinks together numerous times. And, of course, we had shared the same bed on more than one occasion. Despite our frequent disagreements—including our final one involving Shawn Myers—I had never had any problem talking to her. I had never been reticent in her presence.
Until now.
The previous weeks had taken their toll on Claire. She was still a physically attractive woman, I supposed; but no longer the stunner who had so easily lured Alan Ferguson into that storage room at UP&S. As the corrections officer led her in, I noticed that she had lost weight. Her cheeks looked sunken. Her blonde hair—which had previously been coiffed by the most expensive salons—was now stringy and damp. It had been cut to just short of shoulder length.
I had to say something. So I blurted out the first words that came to mind.
“How are you doing, Claire?”
“How does it look like I’m doing?”
I felt myself squirming in the hard plastic chair.
“You’re looking good, all things considered.”
“I look like hell. And I feel like hell. I’ve thrown my life away. And I’ve killed a man.”
I had known that this was going to be an uncomfortable meeting. Nevertheless, I felt that I owed her my presence here. Although I had in fact tried to stop her in the end, I had somehow abetted her downfall. Was it accurate to say that Claire would not have been residing in this institution if not for me? If not for Craig Walker Consulting?
It was.
And there was another, more important matter to consider. While Claire was paying an enormous price, Alan had paid an even greater price. Not to mention the people that Alan had left behind. His two daughters, who would now have to go through life without their father.
“How is the legal situation coming?” I asked.
Claire’s trial was scheduled to begin in three weeks. Not surprisingly, the case had attracted its share of notoriety. It isn’t everyday that a gorgeous, highly paid management consultant guns down a man.
“How do you think it’s going?” she asked. “You’ve seen what the media has been saying about me, right?”
Just last week, an op-ed opinion piece in the Columbus Dispatch had laid out the reasons why Claire Turner should receive the maximum penalty for taking Alan Ferguson’s life. The editorial had been entitled: “In this Case, the Devil really Does Wear Prada”—a pun on the 2006 movie that starred Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep.
Since there was no evidence of premeditation, Claire would not be eligible for the death penalty. But she would likely be going to jail for a long, long time.
“My attorney says that with good behavior, I might be able to get paroled in twenty or twenty-five years. I’ll be in my fifties.” She looked straight at me, and for the first time, I saw tears in Claire Turner’s eyes. But were they tears for the man she had killed, or only for that dream of hers that had gone horribly wrong?
“Was it worth it?” she asked. “Tell me, Craig.”
Was it worth it? The answer was so obvious that no actual response was required. Four people had died as a result our operations at UP&S: Lucy, Alan, Nick King, and Shawn Myers. Claire’s life was all but over. All of these victims were themselves in some way responsible for their own fates. I had never lost my conviction that Lucy and Alan should have exercised their free wills, and found their own paths out of the bad situation that their company had become. Nick and Shawn were obviously guilty—as was Claire.
And what about me? I could have told Kurt, Beth, and Bernie no at any time. I could have walked away.
Or could I have? I remembered what Claire had said that one night when we were arguing. Craig Walker Consulting was only guilty of removing people from jobs that they don't particularly like anyway. Others remove those who actually value their jobs, by sending their work to third-world sweatshops where workers are paid pennies on the dollar.
But despite these lingering questions, I felt that I owed Claire an answer.
“No, Claire,” I said. “It wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it at all.”
For the rest of our time together, we talked about inconsequential things. She told me a little about life in the women’s prison. It was generally not as brutal the male equivalent, though there were occasional fights between female inmates. I asked her if there was anything I could do for her. She shook her head; she was beyond my help now.
“Craig,” she said. “Don’t come back here again. Okay? I—I don’t want to meet with you again.”
This, of course, was a statement that could have multiple interpretations. Was Claire so proud that she did not want me to witness her decline? Or did she blame me for her ruination—for the death of Shawn? Was she still lost in the illusion of what a partnership with Shawn Myers might have been?
“Alright,” I replied.
The door opened. My fifteen minutes with Claire had reached its end. The CO led Claire back to her cell, and I turned away from her—toward my future.
Chapter 84
I should have known that it would be only a matter of time before Kevin Lang would contact me. Alan had told me that Kevin knew everything; and by now the turmoil at TP Automotive had found its way into every newspaper in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. With all the news that could be accessed online, Kevin would have been closely following these reports. I could imagine him turning over these online news blurbs in his head, comparing their content to his own theories regarding what had happened to him. Kevin Lang now had a connection to a vast corporate conspiracy that had ultimately led to violence. This fact would have increased his sense of persecution. And the ex-machine operator from GLFS wasn't the type to suffer in silence.
It began with a few emails. Then he somehow tracked down
my cell phone number, too. Like Alan had said, you don’t have to be a highly paid business consultant nowadays in order to dig up information on the Internet.
I could have simply ignored Kevin Lang; and believe me, there was a voice inside me that said this was exactly what I should do. But Kevin Lang was unfinished business. He was a loose end for me—and I was a loose end for him. Somehow another meeting between us seemed predestined, as if we were two celestial bodies caught in a mutual gravitational pull.
He said that he wanted to meet, so I called his bluff by agreeing to a meeting. I drove to Cleveland one morning so that I could put the Kevin Lang situation to rest. It was an early March day, one that still hinted of the past winter rather than the approaching spring.
We met in the parking lot of the Backstop Bar & Grill, where it had all begun—at least for Kevin. Kevin got out of his car as soon as he saw mine pull into the lot; and he wasted no time in telling me exactly what he thought about me.
“You’re a son-of-a-bitch,” Kevin said.
I shrugged. I figured that I deserved that. It was certainly no less than I would have said had I been in Kevin’s shoes. Before I got out of my car, I had been leaning toward opening with an apology. It is difficult, though, to apologize to a man while he is so openly hostile toward you.
“You son-of-bitch,” he repeated.
Like so many employees who find themselves in a termination meeting, Kevin was past the point of rational discourse and was simply venting. He continued this line of attack for a while, until I finally decided that I had grown tired of listening to it.
“You want to take a swing at me, Kevin? Go ahead. It’s just the two of us here. And who knows—I might not even do anything to stop you. I’m sure you’ve got some of your buddies inside that bar, to back you up if things don't go your way.”
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