Hardy’s reelection offices were in Fremont, a neighborhood immediately west of Wallingford, along the ship canal. I drove back north. The Audi’s lack of connection with the feel of the road annoyed me. I drove faster than I should, longing for the bite of tire on pavement.
When I got there, the assistant ushered me into Hardy’s office—which, with its pressed-wood furniture and artificial-fiber carpet did not give the impression of wealthy corruption, though perhaps he was just smart—and left us alone.
Old Ed Tom Hardy stood and smiled a politician’s smile, and came out from behind his desk. He extended his hand.
I studied him. Medium height. Face thinner than his body.
“Hardy,” he said, in a resonant voice, hand still out. “It’s a pleasure.”
“Not really,” I said, and sat.
He wasn’t stupid. He pulled in his hand and studied me in turn. “I take it you don’t really intend to make a huge campaign contribution.”
“No.”
“And that your name isn’t Catherine Holt.”
“No.”
“Should I call the police?”
“Have you done something wrong?”
“You look as though you want me to have.” His voice buzzed very slightly and he edged prudently behind his desk, but like Dornan, he wasn’t going to roll over without a fight. The difference was, Edward Thomas Hardy wasn’t my friend.
“I’m considering making you eat your chair.”
Unlike Dornan, his chin went down, rather than up. “I have no doubt you could do that.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, but when he spoke again his voice was admirably steady. “We could begin by you telling me what you think I’ve done.”
“The zoning committee.”
“Ah.” He sat wearily. “I’m sorry if your parents have lost their lease, or your brother his job, but Seattle needs the South Lake Union development.”
“I don’t have an opinion about South Lake Union.”
“I don’t understand.” No apology, no irritation, no fake smile. He was pretty good.
“Do you know somebody called Karenna Beauchamps Corning?”
He opened his mouth, and his lips began to shape no, but then his eyes flickered, up and left, as he remembered something.
I nodded. “You’re meeting her Friday. Johnson Bingley set it up.”
“He’s one of the council admins.” No guilt in his voice. But perhaps he was an excellent poker player.
“I know.”
He was smart enough to wait and see where I was going.
“Did you read about that drug incident in the warehouse district last week?” Wary nod. “The drugs were administered by Corning’s proxy. She wants the leaseholder to go bankrupt and leave the land vacant so that she can buy from the owner at a reduced price. I think she’s meeting you on Friday to ask for a zoning variance on a lot, or several lots, along the Duwamish, which she’ll develop for a profit. I think Johnson Bingley will get a cut of that profit for introducing you.”
There was a very long pause. “That’s illegal.”
I knew that tone. I’d heard my mother use it at a press conference when she’d been sandbagged by a question about improprieties by one of her staffers.
“Yes.”
“You don’t appear to be accusing me of improper behavior.”
“Not at this time. I understand some of the realities of politics. Sometimes there are good reasons for zoning variances. I’m simply pointing out that Corning is a criminal.”
“Perhaps you should take the matter to the police.”
“Perhaps I should.”
He acknowledged the called bluff with a long blink.
“The police can’t help me get what I want. You can.”
Another pause. “I don’t even know your name.”
I made a decision. “Aud Torvingen.” I leaned forward and held out my hand. He shook. A good handshake, the kind my mother would classify as under siege but not overwhelmed, morally or politically. “I’m the owner of the property Corning had been devaluing—she was my broker. I’m hoping that we can help each other.”
“And how do you think I could help you, exactly?” He didn’t need to ask how I could help him; he was a politician running for reelection, and if I owned industrial property, I had money.
“Information. About zoning and development in Seattle. How much would Corning have made if she’d succeeded?”
It took him a moment to change gears, but politicians live or die by their ability to seize a proffered alliance. “Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about your warehouse.”
“It’s a cross-shipping facility on Diagonal Avenue South.”
“Near the Federal Center?”
“Yes.”
“That whole swatch of Duwamish is designated wetland and the environmental lobby want it declared an estuarine restoration site. We couldn’t buy your land, of course, if you didn’t want to sell, though the recent rulings on eminent domain are interesting, but if the surrounding land were purchased by the city and protected, your plot would be almost impossible to develop.”
“Almost?”
“Impossible, period, if you want to make a profit.”
“It’s just a profit thing, then?”
“What else is there in real estate?”
I studied him. “I’ve read your first campaign statement: it is part of a city councillor’s job to be a steward of the city’s natural resources.”
He swiveled his chair this way and that. “That was a long, long time ago. In the years since, it has been represented to me, forcefully, that my job is jobs and profit.”
“Let’s pretend, just for a minute, that you still believe you are a steward of the city’s natural resources. Tell me about the wetland zoning, the estuarine restoration.”
“You really want to talk about the environment?”
I matched his former, light ironic tone. “What else is there in real estate?”
His expression didn’t change, but his cheeks pinked slightly and where his collar was tight against his neck, I could see his carotid pulse. Hope was something to be feared in politics.
I upped the ante. “I don’t need to make a profit. Tell me about the wetland. ”
He tapped his appointment book, thinking; opened it, checked his schedule. “Would you like some tea or coffee?”
I accepted. He left the room for a while. When he came back he was carrying two mugs of coffee and a large rolled map tucked under his arm. His face was damp and his hands smelled of lotion. He unrolled the map and anchored it to his desk with his coffee mug and appointment book.
“The Duwamish,” he said, pointing, unfastening one shirt cuff. “It used to teem with salmon and heron. You could dig oysters and shoot duck.”
I looked at the concrete-straight lines.
“Harbor Island, here, is a Superfund site.”
Spiky, industrial geometry of piers and jetties and pipelines where the Duwamish met Elliott Bay.
“As warehouses and industrial complexes close, we’ve been buying up land, slapping restoration orders on it, and waiting for the economy to turn around so we can remediate.”
“How much?”
“To do it properly?” He rolled up his sleeves while he mused. “Hundreds of millions. Just labeling the land ‘wetland’ costs a fortune. The regulations are tortuous.” He opened a filing cabinet and selected a stack of paper. “Here. Director’s Rule 6-2003, City of Seattle Department of Design, Construction and Land Use: The Requirements for Wetland Delineation Reports. The whole thing is a rule about the presentation of the rules of the mapping of wetland. Thousands of words, none of which even begin to say what wetland is, and why it’s important.”