Hardy crossed over near her, went down to one knee, and tried a tired smile. ‘It’s not that. It’s that I don’t know what I can do, Cassandra. It’s complicated. Rebecca’s mother’s in a lot of trouble, too, and I’ve got to help her. She’s got to be my first priority. You can understand that.’
But the girl was persistent. ‘Maybe you could do both, though? And Daddy isn’t sure what to do right now.’
Ron reached out to her. ‘Oh, sweetie, come here. Both of you guys.’ Ron was holding out his hands and the kids went to him. He enveloped them both in his arms, in a strong and soothing fatherhood. ‘Come on, now, come on. There’s nothing to be scared of. Let’s say goodnight to Mr Hardy and go back to bed. It’ll all look better in the morning.’
But Cassandra turned. ‘Please, Mr Hardy, if you can.’
12
It was Monday, October 5, less than a week after Bree Beaumont’s death. In fact, it was the day she was to be buried. Baxter Thorne, a portly man with a gray goatee, a soft-spoken manner, and a gentle disposition, nervously paced the floor behind his computer banks in his office on the thirtieth floor of Embarcadero Two. Outside his inoperable windows, it was a gloriously clear day, with boats on the Bay and Treasure Island a nine-iron pitch across a mile and half of blue water. But Thorne had no use for the view. He’d told the cop – Griffin – he’d be here first thing in the morning. He had no idea what the man might have found, but the fact that he knew of Baxter Thorne’s existence at all was a very bad sign.
The sign on Thorne’s door announced that these were the offices of the Fuels Management Consortium – FMC. In fact, the organization was the center for the lobbying efforts of one of the country’s two multinational farming conglomerates. Spader Krutch Ohio, SKO, along with its chief competitor Archer Daniels Midland, ADM, was one of the country’s leading producers of ethanol. But while ADM was colloquially known by the benign nickname of ‘Supermarket to the World,’ SKO’s reputation was somewhat less savory.
SKO had been having a rough time in the last several years, and Thorne had been assigned to California to direct a campaign on behalf of its interests – he’d proven himself as a creative media consultant.
SKO might be Thorne’s biggest client, but the quiet, well-mannered gentleman with the goatee worked to please himself. He had a persuasive way with words, true, and could sway opinion with his pen. If his clients believed that his silver tongue and lucid prose alone were converting the multitudes, Thorne was happy to let them. But in reality, he knew better.
Sometimes, to be effective, you simply had to shake things up.
And this was his real love – operations, wet work. It had lots of names. Thorne got his own personal jollies by pursuing an extra-legal agenda all his own. And it was far more extensive and dangerous than anything any of his clients would ever order or even, if they became aware of it, tolerate.
For example, two years before, SKO had been getting a lot of bad press. The company’s CEO, Ellis Jackson, was fighting off charges of illegal campaign funding, gift-giving, and influence peddling. Because of this, the Senator from Kansas got cold feet and – reluctant to be identified with SKO – threatened to renege on his support of ethanol subsidies. This support was finally guaranteed by a donation of a million dollars to the Senator’s campaign fund, but without Thorne it is doubtful that the Senator would have found a way to accept the gift.
On his own, Thorne had discovered the man’s weakness for other young men. Then, Thorne had seen to it that one of these men had been on the corporate jet on the junket to Hilton Head. Finally, Thorne had decided precisely where to position the cameras.
But while Thorne loved his own covert operations more than anything else on earth, he didn’t shrink from his nuts and bolts work – information management and spin control. In fact, the Fuels Management Consortium produced reams of paper every month for dissemination to radio shows, newspapers, think tanks, consultant firms and lobbyists.
In addition, Thorne’s company produced campaign leaflets for political candidates who supported ethanol, or opposed MTBE, which amounted to the same thing. The most prominent of these was Damon Kerry, running for governor of California. Unfortunately, in Thorne’s view, Damon Kerry was a man who did not appreciate the big picture. Like the Senator from Kansas, he didn’t want to be publicly associated with SKO, with its questionable lobbying history. Damon Kerry was pure – he wasn’t proposing the use of ethanol. He wasn’t being bought by any special interests, no sir. He was merely opposed to the cancer-causing alternative, MTBE.
So Damon Kerry’s campaign was in the thick of the gasoline additive wars. Except one of the generals was ignorant of where he got his army.
Baxter Thorne came to California to bolster Kerry’s campaign, but Kerry had rejected his advances. Fortuitously, Kerry’s campaign manager was a young man named Al Valens. Greedy, unscrupulous, devious, and skilled, Valens was more than happy to accept Thorne’s help as well as a little personal financial support. In the role of Kerry’s best friend, consigliére, and strategist, Valens in fact was a double agent. His role was to keep his candidate focused on the evils of Big Oil.
All things considered, and up until last night, when the cop called, Thorne had believed that things were going pretty well. Kerry had come from nowhere to get within spitting distance of his opponent, and with a couple of good spins and perhaps a trick or two, Thorne was confident he could eliminate that gap and bring his boy home.
But suddenly, there was a problem. The damned Beaumont woman, and some homicide cop with an alleged connection to the Fuels Management Consortium that he wanted to talk about.
Thorne looked at his watch for the fiftieth time. He was on time. Where was Griffin? What the hell did he think he knew?
From long experience in the political arena, Thorne had learned to distrust first impressions. There were a host of fat, slovenly, boorish elected officials in this country who were powerful, decisive, and dangerous. He wasn’t sure where he was going to place Griffin just yet. From all appearances, the inspector was unimpressive, but the fact that he was sitting here at FMC meant that he’d made some unsettling connections. Something might be going on between the man’s ears.
So Thorne was playing it close, as was his inclination in any event. He smiled in his benign fashion, and spoke in kindly and professorial tones. ‘I’m afraid I don’t see anything sinister in Bree Beaumont having some of our literature at her apartment. She was in the combustion business, wasn’t she?’
Griffin had stuffed himself into one of the secretary s rolling chairs and now was hunched forward, one leg awkwardly crossed over the other, rocking as though maybe he thought the chair was a rocker. But Thorne didn’t think this was nerves. Under the working-class nonchalance, Griffin was intense as a surgeon. He didn’t bother with returning any smiles. ‘Yeah, we got your letterhead at the scene,’ he said. ‘I got that. But then I got Valens!
‘Al Valens?’
This did bring a smile. ‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Mr Thorne. Al Valens. Your guy with Damon Kerry.’
This was truly alarming, and Thorne had to struggle to retain his equanimity. There was no way anybody official – much less this oafish flatfoot – should know about Thorne’s relationship with Al Valens. If that became public, if Damon Kerry discovered that he was being deceived by his campaign manager, it would be the end of months of work, of a program that was on the verge of success.