Bodily Harm: A Novel

CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ROOM

CAPITOL BUILDING, washington, d.c.

Senator Joe Wallace sought to smile, but it came off as a grimace, as if he were squinting from the glare of the lights from the multiple television cameras carrying the hearing live. Wallace was no doubt perplexed. He had two reports on his desk, the first of which concluded that Chinese manufacturing plants met or exceeded the voluntary regulations enforced in the United States, and the second of which concluded that there existed no imminent threat to American consumers. Yet the contents of those two reports differed 180 degrees from the testimony a solemn Maggie Powers had just provided to California Senator Morgan Tovey, who was presiding over the hearing.

Powers had reluctantly told Tovey that a recent investigation of Chinese manufacturing facilities by a delegation from the PSA, led by its director of compliance, Albert Payne, concluded that the plants remained woefully inadequate in meeting those regulations, that most plant owners were recalcitrant toward spending the money to do so, and that corruption of government officials within the various provinces made it unlikely that any change would take place soon. Powers had also testified that one specific problem arising in China was the use of powerful magnets in a variety of household appliances and toys that could pose a danger to American consumers, particularly children.

Powers’s report should have pleased Wallace, as it had obviously pleased Tovey. It gave the senator more than enough ammunition to ensure that the House would pass his proposed bill calling for greater funding to the PSA and stronger penalties against American manufacturers who put defective products into the stream of commerce. But Albert Payne knew that Wallace’s grimace was not from the glare of the lights.

“Are you ready?”

Payne nodded to the attorney from the Department of Justice, who sat alongside him in a room outside the hearing chambers, watching the telecast on a flat-screen television. Payne had spent the better part of his time since the night he shot Anthony Stenopolis working with the Justice Department fraud and corruption unit and with the FBI.

David Sloane had been right. Maggie Powers had not orchestrated Payne’s participation in the trip to China and ill-fated introduction to Stenopolis. Nor had Powers been responsible for getting Payne to pull the plug on Anne LeRoy’s investigation. Powers had never known about LeRoy’s report. Payne had never told her because he was concerned she would shut down the investigation. The only person Payne had confided in had been Senator Joe Wallace, who also happened to be the person instrumental in ensuring that Payne made the trip to China. When Sloane sent Payne to the senator’s home it had not been to seek his help. It had been to further flush out a snake. If Wallace was involved, as Sloane suspected, and as Wallace’s meeting with Peggy Seeley confirmed, then he would have no choice but to have Stenopolis kill Payne before Payne could take the matter to the Justice Department. When Stenopolis showed up at Payne’s home it confirmed Wallace’s involvement.

“Pretty ingenious,” the attorney for the Justice Department said, watching the television as Wallace ran his fingers through strands of blond hair. “Coauthor a bill to make it look like you’re a proponent of the agency so no one suspects you’re the guy actually behind the efforts to ensure the bill is killed.”

Payne stood and buttoned the jacket of his new suit. He had shaved his beard and cut his hair. The rash was also gone, and his wife had commented when she kissed him that morning that he looked ten years younger.

The attorney held the door open, and Payne walked down the marbled hall. Outside the heavy wooden door to the congressional chamber he paused and took a deep breath before pulling open the door and stepping in. He stood in the entry, not moving, waiting where Wallace would have no trouble seeing him. When Wallace did, Payne took great pleasure in watching the color drain from the senator’s face.

GALAXY TOYS’ HEADQUARTERS

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

MAXINE BOLELLI CLOSED her eyes, hands clenched in fists.

“How much?” she uttered.

Beth Meyers, Galaxy’s chief financial officer, cleared her throat. “We don’t have final numbers at the moment. Kendall’s stock is continuing to . . . decline.”

“How much?”

“At present? Several hundred million dollars, pretty much all of our cash reserves.”

“Can we unload it? Make up our losses anywhere?”

Brandon Craft, Galaxy’s president, shook his head but otherwise did not speak. He had been grimacing since being summoned to Bolelli’s office, and his grimace became more pronounced with each question. Kendall’s stock plummeted with the announcement that a Seattle judge had issued a temporary injunction barring Kendall from distributing the Metamorphis action figure until further testing. Reports were circulating that Kendall had cut manufacturing corners by shipping the process to China, a decision that would save the company millions in production costs but that had resulted in defects in the plastic encasing the magnets, and that Kendall had sought to hide the defect so as not to cut into the product’s profit margin. The news had pretty much wiped out a hundred years of goodwill the company had fostered. CNN had also reported that PSA Acting Director Maggie Powers had testified at a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill late that afternoon that a report by a staff investigator, Anne LeRoy, had concluded that magnets being imported from China and used in products such as the toy in question could be dangerous to American consumers and required additional study.

“How much more do we stand to lose?”

“If the banks call in our line of credit, which is highly probable in this economy, Chapter Eleven reorganization is a distinct possibility,” Meyers said.

The intercom on Bolelli’s desk buzzed. She had asked her assistant to track down Arian Santoro.

“Put him through,” Bolelli said.

“Maxine?” The voice was pleasant, friendly, and easily recognizable. “It’s Ian Hansen from Titan Toys in Chicago. I understand you’re having a difficult afternoon.”

laurelhurst washington

BATHED IN THE soft light from an overhead antique chandelier, Sloane and Malcolm Fitzgerald stood side by side in a den the size of a basketball court. A Persian rug covered the parquet floor corner to corner, and large paintings in ornate frames hung on the dark mahogany walls and above a river rock fireplace from which emanated the smell of burnt oak. The servant who had led them into the room invited them to sit in the plush leather chairs. Sloane and Fitzgerald had declined.

The servant returned pushing a wheelchair, the man in it bent, old, and frail. Sebastian Kendall wore a dark bathrobe covering green-and-white-striped pajamas. Slippers rested on the metal footrests. But despite his physical appearance, there was something in the man’s stoic, almost defiant expression that indicated to David Sloane that Sebastian Kendall was not as frail in mind as he was in body.

Fitzgerald waited until the nurse had departed, sliding paneled doors closed behind him.

“What have you done?” Fitzgerald asked. “For God’s sake, Sebastian, what have you done?”

Earlier that afternoon, Judge John Rudolph had advised Sloane that his next question had better be a good one, and Sloane did not disappoint.

Sloane left the podium, standing in the center of the courtroom. “Kyle, have you ever met Sebastian Kendall?”

Horgan nodded. “Several times.”

Fitzgerald had slumped in his chair, chin nearly touching his chest, his complexion blending with the white courtroom walls around him.

“And when did you first meet Mr. Kendall?”

“It was about six months ago; I showed him my design for Metamorphis.”

“You just walked into the company and showed it to him?”

Horgan shook his head. “I showed it to Dee first. She told me she thought it was fantastic. She was the one who suggested that I take it to Kendall.”

“And you took her advice.”

“I tried.”

“What do you mean?” Having been to the company, Sloane knew what Horgan meant, but every detail Horgan could provide would add to the young man’s credibility.

“Kendall has a fence around the building and a guard. I couldn’t get in without an appointment. I called a few times, but they wouldn’t let me speak to anyone.”

“So what did you do?”

“I sent Mr. Kendall a copy of my design.”

“Then what happened?”

“Mr. Kendall called and said he wanted to meet me.”

“Did you meet at his office?”

“No. We met at a restaurant in Pioneer Square near where I live. Mr. Kendall bought me lunch and told me he was very excited about my design. He said he wanted his design team to make a prototype to ensure the design worked. He said if it worked, Kendall would buy it.”

“Did Sebastian Kendall ask you anything else, Kyle?”

“He wanted to know if I had shown the design to anyone.”

“Had you?”

“Just Dee, but I had forgotten about that.”

“What else did Mr. Kendall say?”

“He said he would pay me two thousand five hundred dollars if I agreed not to show anyone else the design.”

“Did you sign a document agreeing to that?”

“No. Mr. Kendall said he didn’t do business that way. He said he liked to look a man in the eye and shake his hand.”

“And did you do that?”

“Yes.”

“What happened next?”

“About a month later Mr. Kendall called me and asked for another meeting.”

“Where did this meeting take place? Was it at Kendall?”

“No. None of the meetings were at Kendall. This one was at a warehouse in Renton.”

“A Kendall warehouse?”

“I don’t think so. There was no name on it.”

“And what happened at that meeting?”

Horgan smiled, a boy’s grin. “Well, Mr. Kendall paid me the money.”

“And how did he pay you? Did he write you a check?”

“No. He gave me cash.”

“Twenty-five hundred dollars in cash?”

“Actually, it was five thousand.”

Again Sloane tried to act surprised, but everyone in the room knew this had been scripted. “Five thousand? Why five thousand?”

“Mr. Kendall said he wanted to retain me as a consultant to help with the design.”

“Was anyone else present at that meeting?”

“A man trying to build the prototype, but he was having trouble with some of my calculations. Mr. Kendall wanted him to ask me questions.”

“Did you work with the man on that prototype?”

“For about three weeks.”

“What happened next?”

“Mr. Kendall said they were going to have some kids play with the prototypes and ask them what they thought. I was pretty excited about that.”

“Did something happen to curb your excitement, Kyle?”

Horgan nodded. “When I got home I went through the design again, the one the man and I had worked on, and that’s when I noticed the problem.”

“What problem?”

“The plastic Kendall wanted to use wasn’t strong enough. I was afraid it could crack when stressed.”

“Did you tell anyone about your concern?”

“I called Mr. Kendall.”

“What was his response?”

“He said he wanted to meet with me, that we would work it out together.”

Sloane went through the steps of establishing the next meeting. Then he asked, “Tell the court what you and Mr. Kendall discussed.”

“Well, first I gave him my letter.”

Sloane approached the clerk and asked again for Exhibit Thirty-two. Taking it, he handed it to Horgan. “Do you recognize this document?”

“That’s the letter I wrote to Mr. Kendall.”

When Horgan had left for rehab he had taken his laptop, on which he kept many of his precious designs, as well as a draft of the letter.

Sloane asked, “Is this the original?”

“No. I gave the original to Mr. Kendall when we met.”

“You didn’t mail it?”

“No.”

“Did you discuss the letter?”

“I told him I had done the calculations and I believed the plastic would be too brittle and crack too easily. I was worried that the toy wouldn’t work.”

“And what was Mr. Kendall’s response?”

“He said he appreciated my concerns and would bring the issue to the attention of Kendall’s design team. He said they would take care of it. He said it wouldn’t be a problem. He said that I had to be flexible, that the toy would cost a lot to manufacture and that they were going to do it in China to keep it affordable. He said, ‘You want children to play with your toy, don’t you? It is the greatest feeling in the world to see a child play with one of your toys. You want that feeling, don’t you?’” Horgan lowered his head, struggling to compose himself. When he looked up tears had moistened his cheeks. “I wanted kids to love my toy. I didn’t mean for it to hurt anyone.”

“What happened next, Kyle?”

“I met with the man at the lab. He wanted to know if I had any ideas on how to fix the problem.”

“Did you?”

“I told him that they would have to go to a stronger base material. It would be more expensive, but it was the only way.”

“And you thought they had followed your advice?”

“I did until I read that article about that boy in Mossylog who died. And then I knew they hadn’t.”

“Did you talk to Mr. Kendall about it?”

Horgan shook his head. “I couldn’t get through to him. I heard he was sick and had left the company. I tried to call Mr. Fitzgerald, but I couldn’t get through to him either. Then I read the article in the paper about the McFarlands’ boy. That’s when I went to talk to you, to give you my file. I had to go away. I felt so bad about those two boys, I couldn’t handle it. I started drinking more and I had to go away.”

Sloane nodded. Horgan had done well. “I have nothing further,” he said.

When Sloane sat, Reid stood, perhaps knowing she was duty bound to cross-examine Horgan, though she seemed to have lost her edge. She approached with a yellow pad of scribbled notes and a copy of the article reporting the death of Mateo Gallegos.

“Mr. Horgan, your tale is rather fantastic in many ways. Let’s start with your testimony that you read an article in the newspaper about Mateo Gallegos. Did that article mention that the boy had died from the ingestion of magnets?”

Horgan shook his head. “No.”

“Did it mention the toy Metamorphis?”

“No.”

“Did it mention Kendall Toys or Sebastian Kendall or Malcolm Fitzgerald?”

Again Horgan responded no.

One hand cocked on her hip, Reid held up the article and said, “You’re right, it doesn’t.” Then she made her first mistake in two days. She asked a question to which she did not know the answer, but to which Sloane did. He had asked the question of Horgan the night before, and he had strategically led Reid to it.

“How then, Mr. Horgan, could you have possibly deduced from an article about the death of a young boy in Southern Washington that it was somehow related to the toy you now allege to have designed?”

“His brother’s name was on the list.”

Reid paused, wary, but already in the water up to her knees, she could not easily back out now. “What list?”

“The list with the names of the kids who were going to play with the toy.”

Reid turned and looked to Fitzgerald, but he simply shook his head. “You have a copy of the list?”

“No—I asked the man at the warehouse how many of the prototypes had a problem with the plastic cracking so I could evaluate if it was due to the design or maybe just an anomaly in the manufacturing process. The man didn’t know for certain, so he pulled out the list to count the names.”

“And he gave you a copy of the list?”

“No. He couldn’t. He said it was confidential, but he said they would follow through and find out if anyone else on the list had a problem with the plastic cracking.”

“How long did you look at the list?”

“Just a few seconds.”

Reid smiled. She paced a small area, faced Horgan, and asked her next question, her voice incredulous.

“Are you asking this court to believe that months after this man briefly showed you a list of names on a sheet of paper that you remembered one of those names?”

Horgan shook his head. “No.”

Reid paused, her face twisted in confusion. “So you didn’t remember Ricky Gallegos’s name.”

“No. I mean, yes, I remembered his name.”

“Didn’t you just testify that you didn’t remember his name? So what is it, Mr. Horgan? Did you or didn’t you remember the name?”

“You asked, ‘Are you asking this court to believe that months after this man briefly showed you an entire list of names on a sheet of paper that you remembered one of those names?’”

Reid glanced at the court reporter, who was taking down every word spoken in the room verbatim. The woman had arched her eyebrows, an indication that Horgan had parroted back the question exactly.

“And?” Reid asked.

“But I didn’t just remember a single name,” Horgan said. “I remember them all.”

Reid froze, looking horrified at what was certain to come next. Horgan, the young man Dee Stroud described to Sloane as “brilliant,” began to systematically rattle off names, one after the next. His eyes shifted, as if reading the names from a document only he could see, doing so with such authority that no one in the room questioned whether not only each name was on the list, but also whether Horgan was reciting them in order.

The day before, Eva McFarland had been denied the opportunity to address the court, but that morning her stifled sobs, the only noise in an otherwise silent courtroom, spoke louder than words ever could.

“WHAT HAVE YOU done?” Fitzgerald asked Sebastian Kendall again.

Kendall responded with an uninterested stare. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Kyle Horgan is alive, Sebastian.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Really? Well, a young man just walked into a courtroom in Seattle and testified that he knows you very well.” Fitzgerald shook his head. “You said we designed Metamorphis; you said Kendall designed it.”

“We did design it.” Kendall’s voice grew more adamant. “The man is lying.”

Fitzgerald turned to Sloane. “He provided me the design when he chose me as his successor. He said Metamorphis would be his lasting gift to the company, that it would ease my transition into power. He said he had kept everything confidential, even having the prototypes manufactured off-site, because he wanted to take no chances that someone might leak the design, that another company might beat us to the market.” Fitzgerald took a step closer to Kendall. “But that wasn’t the reason at all. You didn’t want anyone to know about your meetings with Kyle Horgan.”

Kendall did not respond.

Fitzgerald looked to Sloane. “Once in production, I saw another benefit to keeping everything confidential. I knew Santoro was feeding information to Galaxy, and the more we kept everything cloaked in secrecy, the more Galaxy would speculate that the toy must be something special. The buzz Galaxy created by trying to acquire us was immeasurable. The stock soared, and every indication was that it would continue to do so when Metamorphis flew off the store shelves. It would have put Kendall in a position it had not been in since the release of Sergeant Smash.” Fitzgerald again looked to Kendall. “But it was all smoke and mirrors, wasn’t it, Sebastian? The toy couldn’t be safely manufactured at that price; that’s why you recommended we settle that case in Mossylog. It wasn’t an aberration. The toy was dangerous.”

Fitzgerald shook his head. “I could have sold out to Bolelli. I could have taken the money and betrayed you. Why do this?”

“I did it . . .” Kendall’s voice cracked, not from emotion, but from the disease that had ravaged his vocal cords and made each word sound as if it were passing over sandpaper. He cleared his throat. “Because I knew you would not.”

“I don’t understand,” Fitzgerald said.

“Did you think I was about to leave sixty years of my life, my legacy, to chance? My grandfather and father built this company from nothing, and I built it beyond anything they could have ever imagined. I sacrificed everything for it. You don’t think I could have married, that I could have had children?” He thumped his chest, fist clenched. “Kendall Toys was my child. I gave it my blood, my sweat, my tears. I stayed up nights worrying when it was sick, and I nursed it back to health. It was the only thing in my life that ever mattered, the only thing I ever loved. It is my lasting legacy.”

“You had people killed,” Fitzgerald said.

“You must have the will to survive,” Kendall said, “to do anything, anything to defeat your opponents.”

“My wife was not your opponent,” Sloane said.

Kendall’s eyes burned up at him. “But you were. You would have ruined everything. You, the lawyer who doesn’t ‘lose.’ You should have let it go.”

“Joe Wallace has been arrested,” Fitzgerald said, “and he’s already looking to cut a deal. You owned his father when he was a senator, and that gave you the power to own the son as well, didn’t it?”

The old man’s shrug was nearly imperceptible but ever defiant. “Have them take me to jail; I’ll be dead within weeks.”

Fitzgerald straightened his jacket and fixed the cuffs of his sleeves. “No, Sebastian. You’re not going to jail. But I’ve called another meeting of the board of directors and I’m going to recommend that we accept an offer from Ian Hansen to merge with Titan Toys. It’s pennies on the dollar, but then the company isn’t worth anything anyway. All that we had was the Kendall name, but you ruined that as well. Ian will simply absorb us and eliminate the name Kendall altogether.”

“I won’t allow it,” Kendall said, for the first time looking grief- stricken.

Fitzgerald smiled. “As you said, drastic times require drastic measures. You made me chairman of the board and CEO, remember? Without my loyalty, you don’t have enough ownership interest to stop me. Ironic, isn’t it, Sebastian? You sought to preserve your legacy, but you’ll go to your grave knowing that it was you who destroyed it.”

CAMANO ISLAND

WASHINGTON

SLOANE SAT IN his car finishing a phone conversation. The light from a fading sun trickled through the limbs of the trees, causing mottled shadows inside the car and streaking the field of tall grass orange and yellow. Overhead, a rainbow arched across the sky, seeming to stop just above a grain silo on the adjacent dairy farm. Carolyn had called to tell him they had received Judge Rudolph’s signed order and he had parked to allow her to read it to him.

“He provided a case management schedule for the trial on the issues of liability and damages.” The case management schedule was the court’s calendar of deadlines leading up to trial.

Sloane knew he could prove Kendall strictly liable for putting a defective toy on the market. He knew he could obtain a jury award of several million dollars in damages for both the McFarlands and the Gallegoses, and perhaps ten times that amount in punitive damages when he proved Sebastian Kendall knew of the defect and tried to conceal it. But a trial would not be necessary. Fitzgerald had authorized a settlement and it would be a debt Titan and Kendall’s insurers would pay. Kendall’s other significant creditors would be reimbursed from the sale of everything Sebastian Kendall owned, the proceeds of which he had specified in his will were to be used for the benefit of the company. The company, and the man, would soon cease to exist.

“Have John call the McFarlands and Gallegoses. He did the work. He deserves to make that call.”

“When will you be back?”

“I have the preliminary hearing in Jake’s custody case in San Francisco day after tomorrow,” he said, referring to the initial hearing in which the judge would try to resolve the matter short of a trial. “I’m not thinking much beyond that.”

“I made your plane reservation. Is there anything else I can do?”

“You do enough,” he said. “I couldn’t have got through these past six weeks without you.”

The usual retort stalled. “Why is it you say things like that before I can turn on the tape recorder and use it at my performance review?”

“Are we having performance reviews?”

“I’m told it’s wise when you have more than a certain number of employees.”

Sloane smiled. “All right, here’s your performance review: you’re doing great and can expect a substantial bonus this Christmas.”

“A bonus would be nice,” she said. Then she surprised him. “But I like my job better. Just promise me you’ll be back.”

“I’ll call in a few days.”

He hung up and took another moment before driving down the gravel road leading to Alex and Charlie’s home. Sam, the golden retriever, and Razz, the pit bull terrier Jenkins had picked up two years earlier, ran alongside the car, tails wagging and barking to announce his arrival.

Sloane stepped from the car, trying to appease both dogs. “Shh! Quiet now. You’ll wake the baby and then I’ll be in trouble.”

Alex greeted Sloane at the front door. He handed her a wrapped package. “For the baby,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Which one?”

He laughed. “The one still in diapers.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. It’s sweet of you, but Tina . . .” Her voice trailed.

“I know Tina already got him one. This is from me.” Inside the house she took his jacket. “I take it the patient is being difficult.”

“He’ll be happy to see you,” she said. “I was just about to bring him dinner. Enchiladas. Are you hungry?”

For the first time since Tina’s death, Sloane felt hungry. “Sounds great.”

He heard the television from halfway up the stairs. When he stepped into the room, carrying the tray of food, Jenkins hit the mute button and turned in the bed. Charles Junior lay beside him, drinking a bottle.

“Let me tell you how this friendship thing works,” Jenkins said. “I take a bullet for you, and you call me and ask how I’m doing.”

Sloane put the tray down on the bed and removed one of the two plates. “I’ve called three times. You’ve been asleep.”

He helped Jenkins into a sitting position, putting pillows behind him, and put the food tray in his lap.

“I saw the news about Kendall.”

Sloane nodded.

“How do you feel?”

“Numb.”

“You did a good thing, David. You should feel good about what you did.”

But he didn’t. It was over. He had done what he had set out to do, yet he found no joy in any of it.

“When’s the custody hearing for Jake?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Have you hired a lawyer yet?”

“I’m going to handle it myself.”

“Isn’t there a saying about a lawyer who represents himself having a fool for a client?”

The baby dropped the bottle and cried out. Jenkins repositioned it and held the end. “He’s getting big,” Sloane said.

“You want to hold him?”

Sloane shook his head. “Maybe in a little while.”

“We’re going to raise him Catholic.”

It seemed an odd comment. “When did you make that decision?”

“Pretty much when Alex told me; it was part of the package if I wanted to marry her. So, we’re looking for a godfather.”

Sloane took a bite of enchilada, fighting back his emotions. “I’m not Catholic,” he said.

“No, but you’re the best man we know. I think that qualifies.” Jenkins paused. “Remember that night I dropped you off at the hotel?”

Sloane did.

“Don’t go to that island, David.”

“Only to visit you,” he said.