The Fixer mg-1 Page 4

At eight-seventeen that evening Mort threw his cell phone across his kitchen. It hit the wall beside the refrigerator and shattered onto the linoleum. Jim had called. The evidence from the dumpster crime scene had gone missing. Mort wasn’t surprised when Jim told him his two eye witnesses, Meaghan’s best buddies Mike and Richard, had recanted their statements. Any further questions were to be directed to their attorneys.

  Chapter Six

  Meredith Thornton looked out the cathedral window of her inner office, watched the undergrads shuffle to class, and let her mind wander back thirty years to another campus washed in autumnal gold. She smiled at the memory of Tim Jeffrey crossing the quad on his long legs, wearing those damned plaid bell bottoms she hated so much. She loved his thick curly hair and how he’d kiss her in greeting, not a care for who might be watching. Her memory flashed to long nights studying in his apartment, distracted by the delectable aromas from the Greek restaurant two floors below. The two of them in twisted sheets, exhausted from love-making yet determined to stay awake to whisper promises of forever while Michael Bolton crooned on the stereo. She heard Tim was a baker now. Somewhere in Massachusetts. Meredith breathed deeply and forced her focus. She’d made her decision and her calendar held no room for might-have-beens.

  As university president she was responsible for the financial viability of the entire institution. Meredith enjoyed tremendous success during her four years as president of Washington’s premier university. Under her guidance the endowment had grown nearly sixty percent. Research grants were up, graduate programs had become more competitive, and the basketball team, under the direction of her hand-picked coach, had gone to the NCAA Final Four for the first time in a quarter century. Some of the faculty disliked her leadership style, but she knew academics were malcontents by nature. The Board of Trustees liked her, and they were who she served. Meredith smiled at the idyllic tableau outside her window. Life, for the most part, was damned good. Still, the sight of sweatered students and tumbling leaves could make her wistful for life as a baker’s wife.

  Especially with Bradley Wells hounding her.

  She’d made it her mission to increase his financial support to the university. When Meredith was first named president, Wells gave virtually nothing to the system that provided him with the bulk of his work force. The development office seemed intimidated by the home town billionaire and spent their efforts groveling for whatever crumbs Wells threw their way. Meredith worked her plan to bring him into the fold and now Bradley Wells’ annual contribution to the university was in the mid-six figures. She was grooming him to accept a seat as Trustee, thereby insuring millions of dollars in annual support. She hoped he would endow a chair and perhaps build a state-of-the-art building for the school of business.

  But Bradley Wells wanted too much in return.

  Meredith knew Wells had a never-failing eye for money-making projects, and that eye had fallen on one of the most beloved sites at the university. Two hundred acres of virgin woodland along Lake Washington. Home to undisturbed wild life and vegetation. An oasis of solitude in the middle of Seattle. A place students, residents, and tourists hiked and picnicked. Fished and frolicked. The fondest memory of any alum and a charming lure for recruiting new students and faculty.

  Wells wanted it.

  He promised tasteful development marked with low rise condominiums and high-end retail, restaurants, and entertainment. Boardwalks to keep “an adequate” amount of water open to public access. Discrete parking ramps for the thousands of people who would enter the area daily. In return for full development rights, Wells was willing to pay seventy-five million dollars.

  She refused to even consider his offer at first. The land was too well-integrated into the identity and character of the university. But Wells was persistent. His attorney visited her last week, upping the offer to eighty million. Meredith was irritated Bradley hadn’t come himself. She knew his introduction of an intermediary was his signal that this was strictly business. He didn’t care about whatever relationship she may have fantasized they’d built over the past four years. She also heard the quiet undercurrent the attorney offered as he left. He said this would be Wells’ final offer. She knew if she didn’t have the sale of the land on the Board of Trustee’s spring agenda, with her full endorsement, Wells’ involvement with the university was over.

  A gentle knock shifted Meredith’s focus. She looked up to see Carl Snelling, her Executive Provost, lean his shock of red hair into her office.

  “Got a minute?” He walked toward her before she could answer. “There’s something I want you to be the first to see.”

  Meredith took a seat on the silk chenille sofa that flanked her office’s fireplace. She indicated an armchair and Snelling sat down. Meredith had little regard for her Executive Provost. He struck her as weak-willed, too easily rattled, and much too in love with the sound of his own voice. But he’d been at the center of university administration for nearly twenty years. He knew everyone and wasn’t hesitant to share. Meredith found his knowledge and low resistance to manipulation useful. She would have liked to have had a full partner in his position, but she could work with what she had in Carl Snelling.

  “You’re not going to like this.” Carl handed her one of two files he held in his lap. “Remember, shooting the messenger ended with a millennia ago.”

  Meredith opened the file and glanced at the title page. “Greek.” She flipped through the sheave of papers. Her brow furrowed as she read. “These are your final calculations?”

  “Please don’t consider them mine, President Thornton.” Snelling held a thin hand to the side of his pale cheek. “As you know, I’ve been looking for a viable option for months. I’ve long been capable of producing solutions to problems others couldn’t solve. My idea to expand the Continuing Education offerings to courses appealing to local retirees comes to mind. You’ll recall those programs netted over a hundred thousand dollars last year. But as to the Greek situation the numbers, as my friends in Accounting are fond of saying, don’t lie.”

  Meredith ignored his nervous smile. “I’m looking at the enrollment projections. Grim. Have you spoken to Popolapolus? What are his plans?”

  “I’m afraid no plans can work on the impossible.” Snelling crossed one thin leg over another. “I blame the public school system. They haven’t taught the classics for decades. Surely a handful of the private preparatory academies do the right thing and teach Greek and Latin. I found myself inspired by the ancients during my own prep years at Andover. But the few students who wish to continue their studies won’t attend a state university with three faculty members in the entire department. They prefer one of the Ivies.”

  “Those faculty members turn out important work. We could incorporate Greek as a sub-division into another department,” Meredith offered.

  “Please refer to tab five. You’ll find I’ve anticipated your idea and researched the possibilities.” Snelling flipped his own file to the spot he named. “Greek has not had a single student enrolled in eleven years. They are, quite frankly, pure overhead.” Snelling offered the smug little grin that inspired Meredith to fold her hands to avoid slapping him. “There’s no interest on the part of any department to take on three scholars who have no students and no interest in contributing to any work beyond their own. Nor would I want to be anywhere near Popolapolus when Greek being relegated to sub-division status was discussed.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Would you be surprised to know he once threw a glass of ouzo in his dean’s face simply because the poor man said he preferred walnut to pistachio baklava?”

  Meredith pictured the passionate, barrel-chested Popolapolus’ response to Snelling suggesting his department be downsized and smiled. She’d pay a hundred dollars to watch that encounter.

  “Closing the department would have ramifications,” she said. “Beyond the livelihoods of three noted faculty. It’s the oldest department on campus. It’s really all that’s left of the classical character that establ
ished this university.”

  “Characters change, President Thornton.” Snelling closed his file. “Unless you have a secret pot of money or some other miracle, I’m afraid we must eliminate the entire department.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mort walked into the Crystal Tavern just past 5:30, nodded to Mauser behind the bar and headed toward a booth in the far corner. He sat down across from a six-foot-three, two-hundred pound black man with tightly curled graying hair. He’d been meeting L. Jackson Clark for more than fifteen years. Mort made it a habit back in the day to swing into the Crystal, work a crossword puzzle, and drink one Guiness before heading the four blocks home to Edie and the kids.

  “I’m buying a beer for anybody knows an eleven-letter word for ‘accident’. Got an n and a d in the middle,” he’d called out all those years ago.

  The smattering of teachers, nurses, and stay-at-home dads who made up the Crystal’s afternoon clientele had nothing. Mort shook his head and tapped his pen against his newspaper.

  “Serendipity,” a low voice called. “Fate, luck, kismet, accident. Serendipity.”

  Mort raised up on his bar stool to see who’d given him the obviously correct word. He waved the man over, bought him his beer, and thus began their weekly ritual. Five-thirty every Thursday. The first day of the week The New York Time’s crossword puzzle gets interesting.

  Mort reached for the Guiness waiting for him. “Sorry I’m late.”

  His friend glanced at his watch. “I’d say three minutes is well within allotted grace. You look like hell. Anything you care to talk about?”

  Mort took a long sip. “Just trying to figure out how I can be such a fuck-up, is all.” He nodded to the newspaper in front of his friend. “You started? I gotta get mine from Mauser yet.”

  L. Jackson Clark pulled a second copy of the Times from the seat beside him. “Here. Only three left when I got here.”

  “Thanks.” Mort folded the paper to the puzzle and pulled out a pen. The two men worked the puzzle quietly for several minutes. “The prinicipal behind yin and yang. Forty-six down.” Mort looked up. “Make me happy I’m sitting with a professor of religious studies, Larry.”

  “Dualism.” Larry counted letters on his fingers. “Or duality. Got a clue for the last two letters?”

  “Dualism works.” Mort went back to the puzzle.

  “This have anything to do with that young girl found dead at Seattle Center?” Larry asked. “Close to Allie’s age, wasn’t she?”

  “She was.” Mort set his paper aside and watched two women at the bar playing cribbage. “What would someone with your oh-so-many years of schooling call someone who let their impatience and ego interfere with what they knew was right?”

  Larry leaned back against the booth. “I think the term is ‘human’. What happened?”

  Mort brought Larry up to speed on his failure to bring Angelo Satanell, Jr. in for the death of Meaghan Hane. “I had him, Larry. All those times Daddy got him off. This time I had him. I had the DNA. The witnesses. And I shoot my mouth off before the arrest warrant was ready. My money says Angelo, Sr. made one call. Set in motion a play that took me out of the game before I even suited up.”

  “Now wait a minute. Surely you’ll investigate what happened in that evidence room.” Larry leaned in. “A blunder on your part, to be certain. But not a crime. That’s on someone else.”

  Mort shook his head. “Investigation will turn up nothing. Our team’s spotless. It was some other way. Daddy’s money buys the best.”

  “So Satanell walks.” Larry took a sip of beer. “Just like whoever took your Allie away. That what’s got you so angry at yourself?”

  Mort leaned back and exhaled long and slow. “I don’t know. I guess I was hoping for a little justice in the world. Too much?”

  Larry unrolled a slow smile. “Now you’re walking in my world. Is there room in your calculus for divine justice?” He nodded toward Mort’s paper. “That duality you just mentioned. Yin and yang. Good and evil. They make up a whole. Perhaps the evil this Santell does will be met with a celestial reckoning.”

  “You talking karma?” Mort huffed out a laugh. “I’m the asshole who couldn’t wait for an arrest warrant. You think I have the patience for karma?”

  “We’re a nation of laws, Mort. But we’re a universe of mystery. If the law can’t provide justice, what else have we but hope for a godly balancing?”

  Mort’s eyes hardened. “There’s got to be another way.”

  The world-renowned scholar shook his head and reached for his puzzle. “Keep your focus on your job, my friend. The other way lies trouble.”

  Chapter Eight

  Lydia Corriger said goodbye to her seventh patient of the day at five-thirty. She dreaded driving home with every state worker in Thurston County and was weighing her commuting options when she heard the front door to her office suite open.

  “Dr. Corriger?” A female voice called from the reception area. “Hello?”

  Lydia pushed away from her desk and crossed her office.

  Savannah Samuels smiled and looked past Lydia’s shoulder. “Are you with someone? I know I don’t have an appointment.”

  Lydia surveyed her unexpected visitor. Savannah’s jet black hair was shorter. She wore chinos and a soft grey flannel shirt. Suede moccasins. Far more comfortable than the picture of calculated chic she presented last time, but still the kind of beauty who inspires poets.

  “You nearly missed me. What can I do for you, Savannah?”

  The lovely woman fixed Lydia with pleading eyes. “You remember me. That’s nice.” Savannah hunched her shoulders and clenched her flawless face in supplication. “Could you maybe see me? Now, I mean?”

  Lydia looked at her wristwatch.

  “I know it’s late. Please. I’ll pay extra.”

  Lydia raised her right eyebrow.

  “That’s right. I forgot. I’m sorry.” Savannah offered a weak smile. “I’ll pay your published fee and not a penny more.”

  Lydia glanced at her watch, remembered the traffic, and ushered her in. She settled into a chair and watched Savannah mill about her office, looking at framed diplomas before moving on to inspect titles on her shelf. She ran her finger across a row of books. “You can tell a lot about a person by how they decorate,” she said.

  “It’s been, what?” Lydia scanned her memory bank. “Six weeks? Maybe seven? What brings you back?”

  “For instance, you don’t have any photographs. Not on your shelves. Not on your walls.”

  “Savannah, you didn’t come here to critique my decorating. Tell me what’s going on.” Lydia reached for her notebook but recalled Savannah’s request for no session notes.

  “No photo of you shaking hands with an academic legend. No pictures of a smiling hubby or kids. Not even a dog.” Savannah’s blue eyes teased. “How very un-trophy of you, Dr. Corriger.”

  “Savannah, you may talk about lots of things but you may not waste my time.” Lydia’s tone was gentle but unyielding.

  “Not even one picture from the past?” Savannah whispered. “A childhood friend? Maybe someone special?”

  “Have a seat, please.”

  Savannah stood still. Lydia watched her in silence. Finally, she sat down, rigid and straight-backed, across from her therapist.

  “Where should we start?” Savannah placed her canvas tote next to her feet and put her hands on clenched knees. Her right leg bobbed. A manic metronome beating the tempo of unrestrained anxiety.

  “You’re afraid of something. Do you know what it is?” Lydia snuggled further down into her overstuffed chair. Model the opposite pose of a nervous patient, she reminded herself. Calm and steady.

  Tears filled Savannah’s eyes. She reached for the tissue box on the table between the two women. “Of course I know. Did you think I’d be blissfully ignorant of my demons?”

  “Demons, are they?” Lydia focused on her patient. “Tell me about them.”

  Savannah wiped her eyes
and pulled herself taller.

  “You told me at our last visit you already trusted me.” Lydia let a few more moments pass in silence. “Does that still hold?” Voice steady and non-judgmental.

  Savannah whispered. “It does. Thanks for seeing me. I know it’s late.”

  “Then let’s make this time productive.” Lydia needed to press. Keep her patient focused. “I believe you were worried about something in you being broken. Am I right?”

  Savannah was silent for several long moments. “I hurt people, Dr. Corriger. It didn’t used to bother me. Now it does.” Savannah reached for another tissue and held it in her clenched right hand.

  “How do you hurt people?” Keep the probing neutral and focused. Use the patient’s own words. Build intimacy by creating the illusion they’re talking to themselves.

  Savannah blinked a tear away and stared into middle space. “Do the details matter?”

  “I think they do. There’s lots of ways we can hurt people,” Lydia said. “Intentional or accidental. Emotional. Physical. Sexual. Financial. Consistently or at random.” She watched her patient. “What ways do you think you hurt people, Savannah?”

  The beautiful woman continued her numb gaze into nothingness. “I’ve hurt people every way you can conceive. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Lydia recognized self-loathing. Normalizing was the next step, but she needed specifics. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

  Savannah kept her eyes away from Lydia. “What’s the worst thing you can imagine? Think of that. Assume I’ve done it.”

  Time for the challenge. Offer an absurd option. Lead the patient to realize their sins aren’t anywhere near as corrupt as they assume. “I’d say killing someone is as bad as it gets. Raping someone. Torturing someone.”

  Savannah’s eyes were a blue Alaskan glacier; cold and unyielding. “Come on, Dr. Corriger. With what you know about me you can do better than that.” She tossed her tissue into the wastebasket a few feet away.