Damage Control: A Novel

by Denise Hamilton

  “The senator will see you in the den. Please follow me,” he said. As if I didn’t know where the den was! But I followed him down the hallway.

  There were photographs on the wall I’d never seen before.

  It was a gruesome procession of Miranda’s artwork—blank-eyed mannequins posed in torn and mangled designer dresses sporting livid black eyes, decapitated limbs, blood-smeared knives protruding from chests. Miranda’s art had always been edgy, but it had grown more transgressive since I’d seen her last.

  It was funny, really. Critics expected to meet some edgy, chain-smoking bohemian, so they were shocked and titillated by WASPy, blueblood Miranda and fought over themselves to praise and analyze her work. Miranda’s art illustrated the Jekyll-Hyde nature of women. It was full of Harpy-like fury and self-hatred. It commented on the violence perpetrated on women by men, society, and high fashion. And Miranda just smiled, sphinxlike, and refused to answer questions.

  “Ah, there you are.”

  The senator stood in the doorway, looking as fresh and composed as if he’d just showered and had his morning coffee. There was no hint of the argument he’d just had with his wife. His features were relaxed and in control. Simon Paxton hovered at his elbow, looking haggard, a living Dorian Gray portrait that absorbed all his brother’s stress and age.

  I handed Henry the envelope. He opened it, scanned the typed pages, and gave it to Simon. The senator’s brother read them quickly, said, “I’ll take care of it,” and left.

  Henry stared thoughtfully at the door.

  “I don’t believe you know my brother, Maggie. He was already in Washington when you and Anabelle were in high school. He’s my right-hand man, handled my campaign three years ago when I ran for the Senate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The senator gave me a genial look. “Look, um, Maggie, why don’t you call me Henry? That feels more natural.”

  “Yes, sir. Henry, sir. I’ll try.”

  “Goodness! Well, call me whatever’s comfortable.” He rubbed his chin. “I was startled to see you in that conference room. But I’m glad you’re working on my behalf. It makes me feel I’m in good hands. But I’m sorry to keep you up so late. Your family must not appreciate that.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, realizing it was the wrong time and place to explain that I had neither husband nor children.

  Miranda saved me the trouble. She swept into the room and took my hands, saying, “Maggie Weinstock, how lovely to see you. I was so delighted when Henry told me you’d be working with us. May I get you a drink?”

  I demurred, saying I was happy to see her too.

  Some women grow more handsome with age, and the blossoming of Miranda’s artistic career had given her an assured confidence in manner and dress that I hadn’t remembered. Her flowing indigo silk kimono jacket with carved ivory buttons screamed restrained money, exotic travel, and good taste. She wore hammered silver earrings, and her hair, once blonde like her daughter’s, framed her face in soft wisps of silver.

  “Anabelle will be so thrilled,” Miranda said. “She’s often talked about you and wondered how you’re doing.”

  But she’d never picked up the phone. That’s okay, I hadn’t either.

  “I’ve often thought about her too,” I said. “We had some good times.”

  And some bad ones.

  “Well,” Miranda said brightly, “I suppose we can catch up later. Right now, I know that you people have important work to do. But, Maggie, you’re always welcome here.”

  And with that, she was gone.

  Jeff Canin brought a pot of coffee. Behind him came a tall, attractive man, the cool night air still clinging to his suit. His wavy dark-blond hair was combed straight back off his forehead just like his dad’s and he moved with an athlete’s grace.

  And this time, it really was Luke Paxton.

  Age had brought a pleasing maturity to his features. He had a few crinkling laugh lines, but his eyes were still blue as buffed sea glass, his teeth white against tanned skin.

  It was also clear that Luke had no idea who I was.

  He hurried to his father and their heads bent together.

  “. . . whatever help and support I can offer,” I heard him say.

  “Thanks, son.” Henry placed a hand on Luke’s shoulder.

  Then Luke lowered his voice and asked something about the police.

  “Not yet,” Senator Paxton said, turning to me.

  “I’ve been advised to hire a damage control firm, and I’ve done so,” he said. “Blair is the best there is. One of their associates is here now. I think you may recognize her.”

  Luke pulled back. “Why would I recognize her?”

  “Because it’s Anabelle’s old friend, Maggie Weinstock.”

  For a moment, Luke’s face showed his struggle to absorb this news. His eyes roved over me. Then he gave a wry smile and he clasped my hand in his large, smooth dry ones.

  “Well, I’ll be darned. Little Maggie. Look at you, all grown up. You’re even prettier than you were in high school.”

  Gosh, Luke, I didn’t think you’d noticed.

  There was a time when I would have been overjoyed to hear such words. Now I felt only the awkwardness that time and distance sow among people who once knew each other.

  “You’re looking good, Luke. Still surfing?”

  He nodded. “My job’s pretty high stress, it helps me unwind.”

  “He’s a deputy district attorney in the L.A. office,” said Henry Paxton, with the unmistakable pride of a father whose progeny have given him some shaky years. “On the fast track. Maybe a judgeship in his future.”

  “Dad,” said Luke, “this isn’t about me. Don’t you have a lot to prepare for tomorrow, which”—he looked at his watch—“officially began forty-five minutes ago?”

  “Thanks for bringing the package, Maggie,” said Henry Paxton, dismissing me. “Go home and get some sleep. We’re all going to be busy tomorrow.”

  With a round of good-byes, and Luke’s eyes following me as if he was still trying to puzzle out the changes that time had wrought, I left.

  I was pulling up to my darkened bungalow when the nagging feeling I’d had earlier returned and I realized what I’d forgotten. The week before I’d met a man through work and we’d made plans for tonight. Our first date, and I’d stood him up. I lowered my head onto the steering wheel and moaned.

  8

  The Emily Mortimer murder coverage was in full throttle when I woke up. Shots of her and her Koreatown apartment, footage of Senator Paxton, endless chatter about the once-elegant neighborhood’s long slide into gangs and crime and attempts to regentrify.

  I slipped out of bed and began the morning ritual: coffee, shower, dress, hair, makeup, perfume.

  Smells have always affected me profoundly. One of my first childhood memories was rubbing crinkly geranium leaves on my arms from the bush at the end of our alley. I loved the spicy, exotic oil it released on my skin.

  But it wasn’t until I started hanging out at Villa Marbella that I really got into scent. There, at Miranda’s vanity table, I discovered that perfume was a key, unlocking a door I didn’t know was inside me.

  Today, my own vanity table overflows with bottles from Steve and lovers before him, plus fragrance I’ve scavenged from estate sales and discount bargain bins. Some are brand-new; others approach a balsamic vinegar reduction, labels faded with age. There are antique Lalique bottles of clear glass, frosted ones with carved stoppers, handblown glass suggestive of female curves, cheerful dimpled bottles, elongated towers, and modern flasks with clean, utilitarian lines. A perfumed cityscape whose sculpted beauty never failed to moved me with pleasure.

  Today it was Frederic Malle’s Iris Poudre with its powdery floral dry-down. Nothing brassy, exotic, or heavy. It matched my lavender twinset, pearls, and low heels, and would convey muted sorrow and sympathy to the Mortimers.

  Then breakfast: yogurt-topped granola, multivitamin, and cognitive
enhancer.

  A tech client had introduced me to Adderall’s wonders. As our second meeting stretched past midnight, he’d handed me a pill, and I have to confess that the allure of a “smart drug” was irresistible. Who didn’t want to be more intelligent, even for a few hours?

  “It doesn’t make you smarter,” said my billionaire client, who’d cofounded an Internet portal, “but it lets your wetware work at optimum capacity for sustained periods.”

  Soon I felt a serene and objective state that I can describe only as mindfulness.

  This was accompanied by a sharpened mental focus, heightened concentration, and an improved memory. A generally more evolved cognitive state. As the meeting ended and I stood to go, the client tucked the bottle of pills into my purse.

  The next time I had to work late, I popped one and loved the way it razored my focus. In the competitive, deadline-driven world in which I moved, it was the miracle drug. Blair had never been nine to five, and when something big broke, it was about how much we could squeeze into a twenty-four-hour work cycle. Those first hours were all-important.

  Maybe I’m kidding myself.

  In my family, alcoholism is the great white shark lurking just below the surface. Pills seem rather benign. But I do worry. People used to say I looked good. Now they wonder if I’m eating right. When this case is done, I’ll taper off, even though it might mean feeling thick and fuzzy for a while.

  I live in a transitional neighborhood, as the realtors say, and each morning I’m glad my car windows are still intact. Despite its name, Cypress Park is a hilly neighborhood. The lots are steep and strange, with narrow, winding streets, bare hillsides, and terraced gardens that put me in mind of Southeast Asia. And the residents? Some keep chickens, and many have dogs. There are big Latino families, elderly white widows, yuppie couples, Hollywood prop people, and your assorted boho bric-a-brac that can’t abide tract homes or condos. In Cypress Park, we see coyotes and deer from our decks and killer views of downtown. So even though Steve and I had bought at the top of the market, which left me with an upside-down mortgage I’m trying to renegotiate, I loved my little house.

  In the car, I monitored news and talk radio, which was abuzz with the Emily Mortimer story.

  I considered the Paxton stories I’d read last night in bed, laptop propped on my belly, schooling myself on the man I’d known only as my girlfriend’s father.

  Henry Paxton had been an air force pilot in the Vietnam War and won the Congressional Medal of Honor. After the war, he’d run a consulting firm, working with companies like Boeing that vied for defense contracts. Paxton had always been active in Democratic circles and won election to the state Senate on his first try. Four years later he was elected to the U.S. Senate. In Washington, he quickly developed a reputation for deal making, getting warring sides to reach compromise and ram bills through.

  He sat on several committees—unusual for a junior senator—and was known as the “eyebrows of justice” for his crusades on behalf of veterans’ benefits and, more recently, reform of the banking industry.

  It shocked me to realize how ignorant I’d been. I kept up with the news as part of my job, but the flow was so relentless that the baleen of my brain often filtered out stories that didn’t affect my clients.

  So while I’d known about the senator named Paxton, I’d never connected it to my high school friend. I guess that showed what a good job you can do of forgetting something you’ve made up your mind not to remember.

  There was no traffic driving north to Valencia, all the cars were headed into the great, smoggy metropolis.

  Plugging in my hands-free, I called the man I’d stood up last night, feeling buttery flies of apprehension. Waiting on hold, I recalled how we’d met.

  One of my first cases at Blair had been figuring out how to promote a $1,500-a-plate fund-raiser at the Beverly Hills Hotel for an Afghan women’s charity founded by a group of influential Hollywood wives.

  Thomas Blair knew several of the wives—he’d represented them in nasty divorce cases. So when the gals hit him up for some free publicity, he agreed and the event landed on my desk.

  There were two weeks to go and half the tickets remained unsold. The Hollywood wives were growing desperate. Then, at our second meeting, I noticed all the surgically enhanced faces in the room and had an idea.

  What if the organizers threw in a free Botox or collagen treatment with each ticket purchase, to be carried out in luxury hotel suites directly after the luncheon?

  The Hollywood wives were skeptical until I presented them with a list of plastic surgeons who’d agreed to donate their time. As I suspected, they’d jumped at the opportunity to meet wealthy women who might become clients.

  One of the doctors was Dr. Rob Turcotte. He had sandy hair, an easy smile, and a thriving Westside practice. He also spent two months a year in Third World countries, sewing up cleft palates and other birth defects for poor villagers.

  He bought me a drink at the hotel bar and I listened to his tales of trekking through malarial jungles to operate on impoverished children. Rob was funny, laid back, and self-deprecating. When we said good-bye, he asked me out. I didn’t tell my mom, who had the annoying habit of considering any unattached male who got within a twenty-foot radius as a potential son-in-law.

  Dr. Turcotte kept me on hold for five freeway exits. When he came on, his voice was cordial but frosty.

  “Maggie! What happened?”

  I explained that an emergency at work had left me tied up until midnight.

  “You could have called. I waited an hour at the café.”

  “I’m sorry, I was so focused on work that I forgot. Besides, I have only your business card.”

  “That’s no excuse, the service can always page me.”

  “You’re right.”

  For a moment I drove in silence. I knew I should ask if he wanted to reschedule, but the words wouldn’t come. I’d forgotten how to do this. It had been such a long time.

  “Should we try again?” Rob Turcotte asked at last.

  “I’d like that.”

  “If you can find a night when you’re not working.”

  We made a date for tomorrow, at nine p.m. Surely the Paxton case would have calmed down by then.

  * * *

  Three cars and four news vans were parked in front of the Mortimer home when I pulled up. I ran the gauntlet, ignoring the babble of questions. Was I a family member? A detective? Was I with the senator’s office? Could they get a statement?

  When I rang the bell, a bloodshot eye appeared at the peephole.

  “Maggie Silver, the Blair Company,” I said. “I believe Mr. Faraday spoke to you last night.”

  The eye was removed and the door opened. I slipped inside and the door slammed shut.

  “Jesus,” said a middle-aged man wearing a wool cardigan. “It’s like a siege out there. Don’t we have enough to deal with?”

  His wife appeared. She had Emily’s blond hair, now streaked with gray, and a small, trim figure. The figure didn’t match the face, which was blotchy and swollen.

  Mrs. Mortimer offered me a cup of coffee, and although it was the last thing I wanted, I smiled and said that would be wonderful.

  After inquiring how I took it, she returned with a china cup and saucer and I took a dutiful sip.

  I didn’t think I’d be offering anyone coffee if my child had just been murdered. I’d be lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. Or loading a shotgun. Or maybe both.

  “Did you work with Emily?” Mrs. Mortimer asked politely.

  “I’m afraid not,” I said. “Though I understand she was a lovely girl. I’m with the public relations firm that Senator Paxton hired in the wake of what’s happened.”

  “PR?” echoed Mr. Mortimer. “I didn’t realize . . .”

  Either there had been a complete breakdown in communication, or Emily’s parents were so unhinged that they’d forgotten.

  Mrs. Mortimer’s lips curved down. “Well, if that
isn’t just like a politician. Wouldn’t want this reflecting poorly on him.”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “The senator is just being . . . prudent.”

  “What do you know about it?” Mrs. Mortimer said, her reddened nostrils flaring. “You didn’t know my daughter. You didn’t care about her. All you care about is making that . . . man look good. Well, let me tell you something. Don’t go putting him on a pedestal. Don’t go thinking he’s so high-and-mighty. That’s what my daughter thought, and look where it got her. If he had any decency, he wouldn’t be hiding behind some fancy PR firm. No offense to you, miss, you’re probably just a flunky like our Emily. Oh, John!”

  Mrs. Mortimer collapsed, sobbing, into her husband’s arms.

  I excused myself to use the bathroom. I’d give them a few minutes to compose themselves. I also wanted to consider what Mrs. Mortimer had just said.

  In the hall, I passed a study. My eye was drawn to a table with a framed photo of Henry Paxton with Emily Mortimer. They wore sleek professional smiles, as if they’d posed for the shot, but there was a curious intimacy to their posture. Had they been carrying on an affair despite the senator’s denials? Did Emily’s parents know? Is that what accounted for my chilly reception?

  When I returned to the living room, the Mortimers were ready to go to meet Senator Paxton and retrieve their daughter’s belongings.

  “There’s an alley out back,” Mrs. Mortimer said. “If you pull up, we can dash out and be on our way.”

  When I emerged onto a side street moments later with my precious cargo, I noticed a housepainter sitting in a parked truck with a ladder strapped to the back. The man’s face nagged at me; it was familiar.

  As we passed, he averted his face, and in that quick, evasive gesture, I remembered where I’d seen him: Blair headquarters. A repairman, I’d thought at the time, noting his engineer boots and work belt hung with tools, his shambling gait. In that office filled with sleek, polished people, he stuck out.

  What was he doing here? What, exactly, did the senator have to hide?