The Proviso (4 page)

—a modern version of Boss Tom Pendergast, straight
out of 1930s Kansas City. Unlike Pendergast, however, Fen didn’t
have a monopoly on government concrete contracts, nor could he use
the Kansas City police department as his personal errand boys, nor
did he have enough political power to put a man in the Senate.

Bryce
did
tend to forget that his opinion of
the CEO of OKH Enterprises differed greatly from everyone else’s.
Bryce shouldn’t have been surprised at Arlene’s vehemence. She
idolized Boss Tom, too.

“And,” she added, “I would think
you
of all
people would know better than to assume someone’s guilty just
because everything points in his direction.”

His eyebrow rose at that, just enough to let her
know she’d gone too far. Her mouth tightened and she turned to walk
out of his office. He would’ve fired anyone else for saying that,
true or not.

He went back to his paper.

*

According to the terms of the proviso Knox
Hilliard’s father had secretly approved and slipped into the
corporate charter just days before his death, Knox Hilliard’s
inheritance of OKH Enterprises is guaranteed so long as he is
married and has a child by his 40th birthday.

When WSJ asked Fen Hilliard what these terms meant
for his leadership, he said, “It’s my great pleasure to safeguard
my nephew’s inheritance for him. I’m looking forward to the handoff
so I can pursue other opportunities and maybe go fishing.”

There is some concern that Fen Hilliard’s decision
to take the company public some years ago has actually made an end
run around the proviso, but legal experts who have studied the
clause have come to the consensus that Knox Hilliard will be
entitled to the majority shares the company holds for itself and
will be its de facto CEO at that point, and that his claim would
hold up in court if challenged.

However, if Knox Hilliard does not fulfill the terms
of the proviso, Fen Hilliard will remain at its helm
indefinitely.

To complicate matters, Knox Hilliard’s cousin,
financier Sebastian Taight, suddenly began to acquire OKHE stock at
a steady pace two years ago. Taight is known across the country for
his “Fix-or-Raid” protocol with regard to troubled companies that
hire his consulting services. What he plans to do with OKH
Enterprises, whether Knox Hilliard inherits or not, is unknown and
Taight has refused to comment.

To date, Knox Hilliard’s wedding and announcement of
a birth are the most anticipated social events on Wall Street and
financial quarters across the country, especially as the deadline,
Knox Hilliard’s 40th birthday, looms. If he fulfills the terms of
the proviso, his net worth could increase by as much as a half
billion dollars.

*

Bryce didn’t think Fen should’ve been released so
easily from questioning since he had so much to gain from Leah’s
death.
Lucky bastard.
No, not lucky. Scheming, thorough,
untouchable.

Just like Knox.

Bryce’s lip curled with cynical resentment. Bryce
had spent
days
in interrogation for the murders of his wife
and four children because he’d had so much to gain from his wife’s
death. He’d been charged and his criminal trial docketed before the
fire investigator had come back with the evidence that cleared
him.

No, Knox hadn’t killed Leah; he had everything to
lose, but it wouldn’t matter. Every lawyer in town joked that the
FBI had been back and forth to the Chouteau County prosecutor’s
office so many times, the Missouri Department of Transportation had
to repave that section of highway every six months.

The successor to an already corrupt prosecutor’s
office and blatantly continuing the tradition, Knox lived under the
FBI’s microscope. Despite that, he had a reputation as the best
prosecutor in the ten major counties that made up the Kansas City
metro area. His true talent, though, lay in turning baby lawyers
into courtroom lions; his name on an attorney’s CV guaranteed a
stellar career path. Under Knox’s leadership, the Chouteau County
prosecutor’s office had evolved into a residency program for
litigators whose tales of corruption and dirty money had yet to be
substantiated by the feds.

Knox Hilliard: Suspect Number One for his bride’s
death on the basis of his reputation alone, which preceded him all
the way to Washington.

In a sidebar:

*

Yesterday, OKHE stock price plummeted in the wake of
another of Sebastian Taight’s mass buys. The SEC is expected to
disallow any more buys by Taight if he does not account for his
voting record as a majority shareholder. In addition, there are
some murmurings on Capitol Hill about the legitimacy and legality
of Taight’s raids.

Senator Roger Oth (R-Penn.), Taight’s most vocal
opponent, said today, “He and businessmen like him need to be
brought to heel by someone with some power. As far as I can see,
Congress is the only entity with that kind of power.” Before being
elected to office, Senator Oth was the CEO of Jep Industries, a
company Taight dismantled after having been hired to restructure
and streamline its operations. Taight would give no reason for his
decision to break Jep Industries.

*

And Sebastian Taight was the monkey wrench in the
power play between OKH’s current CEO and its heir. Venture
capitalist Taight had his fingers in so many pies, nobody could
keep track of them all; he even speculated heavily in art. Wall
Street had given up trying to figure him out years ago. Though
scrupulously honest, he had a reputation for taking any leverage
where he could get it, being completely ruthless about it, and
remaining silent to the press. The drumbeats on Capitol Hill
calling for Taight’s head got a little louder every time he thumbed
his nose at the SEC, every time he refused to explain his
Fix-or-Raid policy. His aggressive takeover of OKH had sharply
increased the Senate’s interest in hauling him before a panel
hearing.

Taight had the power to crush both Fen and Knox
Hilliard and to all appearances, he had begun the process. Until
the night of Leah’s visitation, Bryce, along with the rest of the
financial industry, had assumed Taight to be on the warpath with
both Hilliards, but now . . .

Before Lilith—
Giselle
—had caught his eye,
Bryce had observed Taight shouldering up with Knox, giving him
support, not leaving him to face the cream of society (Bryce
couldn’t really call them
mourners
) alone. The men were
cousins, but they acted more like brothers. No, Taight wasn’t at
war with Knox, which only left the question of why he wanted OKH so
badly he was willing to destroy it to get it away from both Fen and
Knox—and why Knox treated him like a brother anyway.

Fen Hilliard, Sebastian Taight, and Knox Hilliard,
three of the most brilliant men in the Midwest, were a family very
publicly at war. Whatever else had gone wrong in that family, their
collective genius couldn’t be dismissed.

Bryce’s email dinged and he glanced at it to see if
it required immediate attention. The art gallery that had
Lilith
. His eyes widened and he clicked on the subject
line.

*

Subject: Lilith

Dear Mr. Kenard,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding
Lilith
by the Hon. John Collier. We regret to inform you that the painting
is not for sale. Please let us know if there is anything else we
may be able to help you with.

M. Stevens,

Curator

*

Though Bryce knew he wouldn’t have been able to have
it at any price, disappointment still struck him behind his
breastbone. He went to a website he’d bookmarked and pulled up
Lilith
. As he stared at it, he wondered what it would take
to possess the real one, the one in the little black dress who
answered to the name of Giselle.

* * * * *

4: NO
STATIC AT ALL

OCTOBER 2004

Justice bounced along the rutted driveway toward the
farmhouse, her old car’s struts unable to absorb the shocks. Truly,
she didn’t know how much longer it could take the eighty-four-mile
round-trip commute from River Glen to the University of Missouri at
Kansas City three days a week. If she believed in a God at all,
she’d be on her knees the other four days begging for its
longevity, at least for the six semesters until she graduated from
law school. With any luck, she’d continue to be able to arrange her
schedule as well as she had this semester—

—even if that meant she wouldn’t have Professor
Hilliard, who, she had learned, taught Tuesday and Thursday classes
almost exclusively if he taught at all. She needed those two days
during the week to work, to the point that it might be
non-negotiable.

Once she had parked in her usual spot, she sat for a
moment, taking in her lifelong home as if she had never seen it
before, compared and contrasted it to the fine old neighborhoods
surrounding UMKC. Then there were the relatively new subdivisions
south of KCI airport along I-29 at the northern edges of Kansas
City . . . fine new houses of the type she would never live in.

She sighed.

The dilapidated farmhouse, indistinguishable from
any other plain white-clapboard-clad gothic farmhouse across the
Midwest, listed on one corner. That could never be repaired without
shoring up the foundation and she couldn’t possibly hope to raise
that kind of money. The yard was barren, packed dirt bisected by a
poorly maintained gravel drive; her father used it to park worn out
and rusting farm machinery.

The corrugated steel barn to the east of the house
displayed a lace of rust, the animals it occasionally housed their
only real income.

The wheat fields would give a poor crop; Justice had
wanted to plant corn, as she suspected a good yield could be sold
to an oil company for ethanol, but her father had dismissed her
idea. Those fields were worn out—and the wheat proved it—but her
father also wouldn’t hear of letting her turn the cattle out into
them. Certainly, it would be more economical to let them eat the
wheat than pay for harvesting.

Very good, Justice.

She bit her lip, looked at the ragged wheat, then to
the south where the cattle grazed, then back to the wheat and made
an executive decision. She flipped open her cell phone and called a
neighbor, explained what she wanted to do, and arranged to swap
chores. She would mow his fields if he would combine and bale hers.
Her father would have to live with it, though she knew she’d have
to tread lightly and present him with a
fait accompli
.

That done, she mentally went over the list of other
things she had to do this afternoon and evening, then sighed,
seeing her future in the past that lay before her in all its
pathetic glory. Hopefully, she could bring it back a little once
she graduated from law school and had a regular income.

Justice got out of her car and walked into the
house, hearing the familiar squeaks in the bare floorboards beneath
her feet on the way to the kitchen. Despite what her father
thought, it had not been foolish to spend so much money on the
appliances that took up most of the otherwise primitive kitchen: a
used Viking with six star burners, two ovens, and a warming drawer;
an older Sub-Zero double refrigerator; and two fairly new
freezers.

Her father’s anger had more to do with what she
hadn’t bought than what she had, even though his complaints
subsided when she demonstrated how fast they had paid for
themselves. Still, he didn’t really know how much she made because
she spent it as fast as she got it: tuition, books, cell phone,
aircard, gas, car insurance and repairs. The beef sales funded the
farm, but her meal delivery business funded her education.

She had very little left over and she couldn’t
afford debt she wouldn’t be able to repay on a junior assistant
prosecutor’s salary, much less as a defense attorney if she were
forced to it. If she could get through law school without having to
take out student loans, she would be very proud of herself.

No one else would be.

She filled a large pot with water and set it to
boil, then turned on her mother’s old tape deck; the silence got to
her and she battled it with the music she’d found in the attic,
cassette tapes her mother had stashed away before she died. It was
in those boxes Justice had found the music of her heart: Rush.
Nugent. U2.

And the music of her memories of her mother: Earth
Wind & Fire, Carole King, Doobie Brothers.

She pressed play and heard Bette Midler’s voice.

*

“
Some say love . . . ”

Justice hid in the endless shadows of the barn
listening to her mother sing a cappella while she milked cow number
two. Justice would have helped her, but she would stop singing if
she knew anyone listened and oh, Justice did so love to hear her
mother sing.

She had never heard this song before, which she
deduced from the lyrics must be called “The Rose.” She bit her lip
at the words, suddenly feeling a sadness emanating from her mother
in a thick wave. Where had it come from? Her mother was never sad;
always light, always smiling, Justice’s mother was the prettiest
woman Justice had ever seen.

Suddenly she stopped singing and murmured, “Where is
that girl? It’s gone five.”

“
Here, Mama,” Justice said, stepping into the
barn proper, as though she had just come from the house. “I’m sorry
I’m late.”

A smile, quick and warm, lit her face. “Good
morning, Iustitia. Will you turn on the radio, please?”

She didn’t want the radio. She wanted whatever was
in the tape player, which happened to be Hall & Oates.