The Initials
Chapter 04 - The Initials
Catherine Kavanaugh had signed her name with the same severe little flourish since she was sixteen. The C always leaned backward, as if resisting the rest of the word, and the K came down like the closing of a gate. Josie had seen those initials on staff holiday cards, the scholarship fund newsletter, and the notice announcing a revised dress code. There was no question who had written them. Yet the note itself made no sense. Why would a board member have cared which floor a widowed housekeeper cleaned before she was even hired?
Elaine refused to speculate. "Take a photograph, but don't take the original. I'll put it with the other records and document who has handled it." She gave Josie the number of an employment attorney named Ruth Bell, who had no connection to the hotel. "Call her before you answer any questions about the accident." "Even Mr. Kavanaugh's?" Elaine considered that. "Especially if he's being kind. Kind people sometimes forget that kindness doesn't give them the right to other people's stories." Josie smiled for the first time all evening. "You sound like my mother." "Good. Mothers occasionally know something."
Ruth Bell met her the next day in a narrow office above a pharmacy. She was sixty-eight, broad-shouldered, and wore coral lipstick that had escaped the outline of her mouth. At the end of their first conversation she handed Josie a written fee agreement, explained what she could and could not promise, and insisted that no one should sign a release or accept a private payment until the facts had been checked. "People with money like to close files," Ruth said. "People without it sometimes have to live inside them." She reviewed the materials and said the old accident, the present employment concerns, and any possible falsified records involved different questions, perhaps even different legal deadlines. Evidence, not a satisfying narrative, would decide which claims could still be pursued.
That same afternoon Emmett called Catherine and asked her to come to the hotel. She arrived with a cashmere scarf and the sharp annoyance of someone interrupted in the middle of a larger life. "I've seen the memo," Emmett told her. "Why did you order Josie Mercer kept off the guest floors?" Catherine removed her gloves one finger at a time. "I didn't order that." "Your initials are on it." "I wrote them, yes. I wrote them beside a recommendation I opposed. The original had a comment box. Victor circulated a cropped version afterward." Emmett asked why she had not challenged it. Catherine looked genuinely uncomfortable. "I did. I was outvoted. Dad said it wasn't worth another board fight."
"Why was she on the list at all?" "Because of Paul Mercer." Catherine sat down, suddenly looking older. "After the warehouse accident, a young man came to see me. He said there were irregularities in the contract. I had the report commissioned, but by the time it was complete, our father was in the hospital. Victor took charge of the related files." "And?" "And I should have followed it. I had a daughter getting divorced and a father dying, and I let Victor tell me it had been resolved." She was quiet for a moment. "Don't mistake that for an excuse." Emmett could count on one hand the times his sister had admitted wrongdoing without wrapping it in an explanation.
He asked about the young man. Catherine stared at him. "You remember him. You met him at the memorial luncheon for Dad. He was a maintenance worker asking for a meeting. Security took him away." Emmett had a vague memory: a man in a wet coat standing beside the back entrance, holding a blue file. Emmett had been grieving, trying to keep his father's creditors from dismantling the hotel group, and had let security handle what he called a disturbance. "Paul was already dead then," he said. "It wasn't Paul. It was his brother, Matthew." Emmett wrote down the name. "Where is he now?" "I don't know. He disappeared from the correspondence."
Josie had not seen Matthew Mercer in five years. Paul had loved his younger brother and forgiven him things other people considered unforgivable: unpaid loans, missed birthdays, arriving at family dinners with stories too polished to be true. After the funeral Matthew had offered to take Ben for a weekend. Josie had asked him to call first. He never did. For months she was angry, then relieved, then embarrassed by both feelings. When Ruth asked whether Matthew had documents relating to the accident, Josie said she doubted he had kept even his own tax returns.
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In the late afternoon, a prepaid phone arrived in Emmett's office by courier. There was no return address. Its only saved message was a recording of two men arguing. The sound was muffled and broken by traffic. One voice said, "The warnings were submitted." Another answered, "Then make sure the copies are gone before Kavanaugh's people come through." Emmett played it twice. The second voice might have been Victor's, but he would not rely on memory. He transferred the phone to counsel for preservation and authentication. Attached to the package was a photograph of an old safety report, with one paragraph circled in blue.
An hour later Ben came home from school carrying a permission slip and a folded piece of paper. "A man gave me this," he told Josie. "Outside the gym. He said he was Dad's brother." Her stomach dropped. She checked him for signs of fear. He appeared mostly annoyed; the man had interrupted a conversation about baseball. Josie unfolded the note. *Don't trust Daniel Rourke. He was paid to keep quiet, and I can prove who paid him.* Below it was a phone number and a request that chilled her more than the accusation: *Come alone.*
