Authors: Karin Tanabe
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is looking into possible safety
violations at the plant.
Not just death, a tragic, gruesome death. With my stomach beginning to churn nervously,
I wiped off my sweaty palms and began a search for everything pertaining to Drew Reader
and found a legal document stating that OSHA had not found John F. Stanton & Company
negligent, and because of the outcome of the investigation, Joanne Reader was barely
awarded any financial compensation for the death of her husband. She had his life
insurance, which wasn’t very much, and a few other molehills of money from the company,
but a decent paycheck was not coming her way.
I couldn’t believe it. Her twenty-nine-year-old husband was killed in a meat grinder,
and she was awarded a few thousand bucks? That seemed absolutely wrong. Even if it
was an accident, shouldn’t there have been some kind of accident insurance that assured
she wouldn’t be left a penniless, grieving single mother?
I looked through stacks of microfiche for another mention of Drew Reader, but after
his wrongful death case was dismissed, all mention of him vanished. So I looked just
for the name Reader. Maybe Olivia Reader had news hits as she got older? A simple
last name search was difficult, though, especially with the generic word
reader
fouling up my results, and I got nothing when I focused solely on her.
I wished I had someone to confide in. I needed a real editor, but especially now that
my days could be numbered, turning to anyone at the
Capitolist
without a finished story was too dangerous. Olivia was revered by the editors, and
it would take a lot for them to kick her to the curb over me. I would have to wait
until later and call Payton when she was back from training her miracle horses.
So I kept looking. My left hand felt heavy from the weight of my lacquer camellia
ring, but I kept it on instead of placing it on the table next to me like I usually
did when I typed. It was a present from Brady, my college boyfriend. It was pretty,
and it reminded me of easier days, but I wondered what he would think if he knew I
was still wearing it.
Joanne Reader
. When I went to check the printed microfiche index for specifically “Joanne Reader
Arizona Republic
” then “Joanne Reader
Ajo Cooper News,
” I saw that there was one more mention of her in an Arizona publication that didn’t
include her late husband, Drew, or daughter, Olivia.
It was her obituary.
Joanne Reader, still a resident of Ajo, passed away in the spring of 1992. The notice,
in the
Ajo Cooper News,
was very short. There was no mention of her husband’s death three years earlier,
or of a young daughter, or of a funeral or family. It just disclosed that Joanne Reader
had “Died after a short illness.”
What kind of short illness? Surely the woman didn’t pass away from strep throat or
the common cold. I picked up my phone, moved to a private study room, and dialed a
reliable source of mine, a journalism professor who taught a class on pop culture
in media at Syracuse University.
Even though it was Friday night, he picked up. “Ari, it’s Adrienne Brown from the
Capitolist
. Thank you for answering. I have a very quick question for you,” I said, looking
down at the short obit I had just printed. “If a celebrity, or someone, had their
cause of death listed in an obit as ‘died after a short illness,’ would that mean
anything? Is that code for overdose or anything like that?”
“No, not overdose exactly,” he said. “But it’s often a polite journalistic way of
saying suicide. That person probably took their own life.”
It was a horrific reality if it was true, but the sequence of events made sense. Drew
Reader was killed in a terrible accident in 1989, leaving behind his wife and young
daughter. A few months later, Reader’s death was declared accidental, John F. Stanton
& Company paid out a few measly bucks, and Joanne remained broke. I didn’t know if
she was indigent, but the widow of a deceased custodian was probably not flush with
cash.
Then, three years after the death of her husband, with no financial remuneration for
her loss, she took her own life.
I understood that the sad story I was piecing together could belong to strangers instead
of Olivia Campo. But my heart was steadily beating faster. I had been right when I
heard nothing but a first name before, so I had to follow this lead like it was
etched in stone. If Olivia Reader was Olivia Campo, then it couldn’t be an accident
that she had landed in bed with Stanton. I flashed back to what Sandro had said about
Olivia’s early career ambitions. She now covered the White House, but she had been
obsessed with Congress. He had even specified the Senate. To have spent her whole
life scheming for a way to get close to Stanton, to then take him down . . . it might
have seemed far-fetched for most sane women in their twenties, but I wouldn’t put
it past Olivia. It would explain why she jumped at the
Capitolist
before it was a big name—she knew she could make it her all-access pass.
I stayed at the college library past midnight. I hadn’t found another promising lead
since Joanne Reader’s obit, though I did find one more article about the court hearing
declaring John F. Stanton & Company not at fault. Hoyt Stanton had been present in
the court when the decision was made, along with five men who had witnessed Drew’s
death. I wrote their names down in my notebook and drove home.
The heat of July was bringing the smell of horses up through the floorboards of my
barn apartment. I had to ready myself to live with the distinct scent until October.
When I walked in, I put all my research on my bedside table and grabbed my landline
phone. It was almost three o’clock in the morning in Argentina, but Payton would answer
the phone. She never slept at normal hours.
But instead of my sister, an enraged polar bear picked up.
“Buck, it’s Adrienne. I’m sorry to wake you. Is Payton there? It’s important.”
He groaned out a mix of frustration and testosterone and put Payton on the phone.
“Are you insane?” said Payton. “It’s ludicrously late. Buck thinks you were just julienned
like a potato in a back alley.”
“I’m sorry, I really am, but you know you’re the only one I’m talking to about this,”
I said.
“Fine, this better be brilliant. You better sound like you’re auditioning for
CSI
.”
When I finished telling Payton about the kiss and the Freer and Sandro breaking into
my car, she had forgiven me. And when I told her about everything I had found about
John F. Stanton & Company and the Readers’ deaths, she said, “I’ll be on a plane tomorrow
morning.”
P
ayton’s plane was landing at Dulles Airport at 11
P.M.
on Saturday. I was surprisingly excited to see her. I hadn’t seen her for over a
year, because this past Christmas Payton had refused to fly back to Virginia from
her ski trip in the French Alps. My parents, when I had enlightened them about her
new visit, were thunderstruck.
“But why is she coming home?” asked my mother. “Is she sick? Does she need first world
care?”
“Payton? Coming home just to visit?” my dad said, as if I had just announced that
Sputnik was due to land in our backyard. “But why? It’s not a holiday. We aren’t begging
her to. She’s just coming home?” My answer was yes, she’s just coming home to see
me.
To see me . . . and help me untangle my thoughts regarding my bitchy colleague, her
husband, a United States senator and two deaths that were probably totally unrelated.
Just one of those little, pesky problems you ask your sister for help with. Your typical
girl talk.
Payton, with her ability to see the worst in people, would surely help. She would
see past the emotion I was now drowning in. In many ways, she was like a less word-savvy,
much more attractive version of Olivia: confident and brash and unbiased
about mowing down the competition to get her way. Maybe she could analyze Olivia’s
warped mind for me and then, maybe, I would have the story that would make my career,
or at the very least, save my job.
When 10
P.M.
rolled around, I wrapped myself in clothing Payton might not declare “garbage with
elevated price tags” and headed out to my old clunker.
I was going to send a car service to Dulles Airport to pick her up, because that’s
what would have made her happy—what she demanded, in fact—but I decided the sisterly
thing to do would be to provide my own car service, a beat-up Volvo station wagon.
She would love it! Right away, straight off a thirteen-hour plane ride, she could
feel the rumble of the highway and sit directly on the red Gatorade stain that was
still shining brightly on my passenger’s seat. The fact that it remained sticky even
after I poured half a box of baking soda on it was fascinating in itself—a real scientific
mystery.
I set the scene in my mind as I drove down the almost-empty Dulles Toll Road. Payton
would step off the plane, looking fresh as an emperor’s rose. When she found me and
my homemade sign that read “Welcome home, sister!” she would cringe and try to avoid
me while also assessing which of us was skinnier and chicer, with better skin and
bouncier hair. And though my journey would have taken thirty minutes and hers almost
a full day, she would win in every category.
When she walked through the arrivals gate, she took one look at me and stopped in
her tracks.
“You?” she said finally, resuming her strut. “Don’t tell me you’re moonlighting as
a sedan driver to supplement your offensively low income.” She let go of her carry-on
and walked past me without a hug or smile or any other human display of emotion.
“It’s lovely to see you, too,” I said as I picked her green Hermès Birkin off the
floor. I didn’t want to be helpful so much as I just wanted to touch it.
“Oh, shut up. I’m glad to see you. I would just be happier to see you with a man in
a jaunty black cap holding the keys to a Mercedes,” she finally said, kissing the
air around my head.
I grabbed her face like she was a puppy and gave her a wet smacker right on her perfectly
blushed cheek.
She frowned, looked me up and down, and said, “You’re a child. But I imagine you’re
thrilled to see me.”
“I am. And very appreciative you came. I hope first class wasn’t too trying. For our
journey home, I’ve chosen a Swedish automobile,” I assured her. “Lots of leg room.”
She put her hand over her mouth and posed in a dramatic film noir kind of way. “Oh
no. Not that old Volvo. Hasn’t that been processed at a junkyard by now, or turned
into outsider art?”
“No, no! Running great,” I replied. “And parked right outside. Lot D. Come on, let’s
get your bags.”
By the luggage carousel, Payton tapped her foot impatiently. And when her bags came,
I started to laugh.
“Payton, are you staying through the new year?”
“I was thinking more like a week. Two, tops. Depends how much I can take. Why do you
ask?”
Why? One, because I was her airport chauffeur. Two, because I was her sister who begged
her to come home. And three, because she had checked a monogrammed leather steamer
trunk as if she were sailing off on the maiden voyage of the
QEII
.
“I bet they thought you were smuggling drugs in this thing,” I said, tapping the leather
lid.
“Some smelly TSA employee did say something about narcotics, but I ignored him,” she
replied casually. “He stopped
giving me a hard time after I gave him my number. Actually, I gave him your number.
His name was Cody something. I don’t remember. Sorry in advance if he stalks you.”
Why wouldn’t you give your sister’s number to a TSA employee who clearly cared more
about getting laid than the safety and security of his own nation? At times Payton
was exactly how I would have imagined Lady Macbeth as an American teenager, only less
sensitive.
By the time I had pulled back onto the toll road, Payton was asleep. Twenty minutes
later, when I was off the fast roads and stuck going through the stoplights near Middleburg,
I got a good look at her face as she lay there reclined way back in her seat. She
looked so pleasant, so rational. Nothing like the enraged demon woman I had always
thought of her as.
Payton slept in my room that night because we didn’t want to go into the main house
and wake our parents. She was too exhausted to fuss about having to slumber so close
to her sister and animals, but I was prepared for her to fume about it in the morning.
Which she did. She took three steam baths in a row inside the house and wouldn’t talk
to me again until late afternoon, when she broke her silence by calling me the family’s
rotten egg.
After she had cooled down with the help of a Hendrick’s martini at the Red Fox Inn,
I convinced her to go riding with me.
Payton was an absolutely terrific rider. After she graduated from Columbia and then
Wharton, she said she was going to breed horses, and no one who grew up with her was
surprised. The only surprises were that Buck agreed to do it with her and that they
moved to remote Argentina to make it happen. Watching her ride around the pasture
we spent our childhood trotting in, I saw that she had only gotten better. I felt
like a kid on a carousel next to her.
When the heavy humidity of July started to break a little, we dismounted in the north
end of the grazing pasture and grabbed the reins of the horses. In our mud-covered
paddock boots and sweaty tank tops, we walked next to each other with the horses lazily
flanking us.
“Do you remember walking the horses like this when we were little? Because we were
scared they would smush us if we were on the outside?” It was something we had done
every weekend when we were about twenty years younger, before we learned that we didn’t
really need each other for company.