Company Man

Epilogue

The first couple of days, Nick did little besides sleep. He went to bed early, got up late, took naps on the beach.

Their “villa,” as the resort called it, was right on Ka’anapali Beach. You stepped out the door and onto the sand. At night you could hear the lulling sound of the waves lapping against the shore. Lucas, normally the late sleeper, got up early with Julia to swim or snorkel. He even taught her to surf. By the time the kids returned to the bungalow in the late morning, Nick would just be getting up, drinking his coffee on the lanai. They’d all share a meal, a late breakfast or early lunch, and then the kids would go snorkeling at Pu’u Keka’a, a volcanic reef that the ancient Hawaiians revered as a sacred place where the spirits of the dead leaped from this world to the next.

He and the kids talked some, but rarely about anything serious. They’d lost just about all of their earthly possessions, which seemed not to have sunk in yet. It was funny how they never mentioned it.

Several times he tried to bring himself to talk with them about the legal nightmare he’d face when he got home: the likelihood of a trial and the near-certainty of his going to prison. But he couldn’t do it, maybe for the same reason nobody wanted to talk about the day the house burned down. He didn’t want to spoil what was sure to be their last vacation together for many years.

It was as if they were all surfing, riding the perfect wave, and for the moment it didn’t matter that deep in the water beneath them were big, scary creatures with big, sharp teeth. Because the Conovers were up here, in the sun, and they all seemed to know without articulating it that the key to staying afloat was not thinking about what might lurk down below.

So they swam and snorkeled, surfed and ate. Nick fell asleep on the beach too long on the second day and got a painful sunburn on his ears and forehead.

Nick brought no work-he had no work-and he left his cell phone on his bedside table, switched off. He lay on the beach reading and thinking and dozing, wriggling his toes in the powdery gray sand and watching the sun shimmer over the water.

On the third day, he finally turned his cell phone back on, only to find dozens of messages from friends and Stratton colleagues who’d heard or read about what had happened to their house and wanted to make sure Nick and the kids were okay. Nick listened but answered none of them.

One was from his former assistant, Marge Dykstra, who reported that the Fenwick newspaper had run several front-page stories about how Fairfield Equity Partners had been on the verge of selling the Stratton Corporation to China, shutting down all U.S. operations, and laying off all employees-until the deal had been blocked by “ex-CEO Nicholas Conover,” who’d just announced his resignation “in order to spend more time with his family.”

It was the first good press he, and Stratton, had gotten in a long time. Marge pointed out that it was the first time in almost three years that his name had appeared in a headline without the word “slash” next to it.

On the fourth day, Nick was lying on a lounge chair on the lanai, reading a book about D-Day that he’d been trying to read for months and was determined to finish now, when he heard the distant ring tone of his cell phone. He didn’t get up.

A minute later, Lucas came out from the bungalow holding the phone and brought it over to him. “It’s for you, Dad.”

Nick looked up, marked a place in his book with his forefinger, reluctantly took the phone.

“Mr. Conover?”

He recognized the voice immediately, and he felt the old tension clutch his abdomen again. “Detective Rhimes,” he said.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your family vacation.”

“That’s quite all right.”

“Mr. Conover, this call is completely off the record, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I think you should have your attorney contact the district attorney’s office and arrange a plea bargain.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you’re willing to plead guilty to criminally negligent homicide-or maybe even just attempted tampering with evidence-the DA’s willing to recommend probation with no time served.”

“What? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t imagine you’ve been reading the Fenwick Free Press.”

“Delivery out here’s kind of spotty.”

“Well, Mr. Conover, we both know that the DA is a very political animal-again, this is purely between you and me, you understand?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And it seems the climate around here has changed. The news about what you did for your company-well, the DA’s just not optimistic that a jury will convict. Then there’s the death of one of our chief suspects, Mr. Rinaldi. The district attorney’s reluctant to go to trial.” She paused. “Hello? Hello?”

“I’m here.”

“And-well, there was another article in the paper, this morning. Raising questions about how the police handled the Andrew Stadler case.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, I’m sure you know some of it. How nothing was done to stop the stalker at your house or follow up on…her. I think it’s become obvious that if the police hadn’t been so negligent, the situation wouldn’t have escalated the way it did. I had to let the DA know that my testimony would inevitably make even more of this negligence public. Which no one in this department wants.”

For a long time, Nick was unable to speak. Finally, he said: “I-and how do you feel about this?”

“That’s not for me to say. You mean, do I feel justice is being served?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“I think we both recognize that the DA’s decision to drop most of the charges is motivated by political expedience. But as for justice?” Audrey Rhimes sighed. “I don’t know that there’s any justice to be done here, Mr. Conover. I certainly don’t think it would serve justice to cause your children to suffer anymore. But that’s just my personal opinion.”

“Am I allowed to thank you?”

“There’s nothing to thank me for, Mr. Conover. I’m just trying to do the right thing.” She was silent for a moment. “But maybe there is no right thing to do here. Maybe it’s not so much a matter of doing the right thing as trying not to do the wrong thing.”

Nick set down the cell phone and for a long while watched the sunlight dance on the blue water.

He watched the seagulls caw and swoop, the waves surge and recede, the froth dissolve into the sand.

A few minutes later, Lucas and Julia emerged from the bungalow together and announced that they wanted to go for a hike, explore the nearby tropical forest and waterfalls.

“All right,” Nick said, “but listen, Luke-I want you to keep a close watch on your sister.”

“Dad, she’s almost eleven,” Lucas said. His voice seemed to be getting even deeper.

“Dad, I’m not a baby,” said Julia.

“I don’t want you doing anything crazy like jumping off the waterfalls,” Nick said.

“Don’t give me any ideas,” Lucas said.

“And stay on the trail. It’s supposed to be muddy and slippery in some places, so be careful.”

“Dad.” Lucas rolled his eyes as the two of them started down the palm-lined path. A few seconds later he turned around. “Hey, can you give me twenty bucks?”

“What for?”

“In case we stop to get something to eat on the way.”

“All right.” Nick pulled a couple of twenties out of his wallet and handed them to Lucas.

He watched them walking away. They were both bronzed already. Julia’s curly hair was flying wildly in the breeze. Her legs were lanky, coltish; she was neither a girl nor a woman. Lucas, taller and broader all the time, wore long surfer shorts and a white T-shirt, dazzling in the sun, that was still creased from the suitcase.

As Nick stared after his kids, Lucas suddenly turned around. “Dad?”

“What?”

A gull cawed as it spotted a fish, then dove to the water.

Lucas looked at him for a moment. “You come too.”