The Last Word

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  For Ellen Clair Lamb

  VOICE MEMO

  12:38 A.M.

  Can’t sleep. Again. The final notice for the electricity bill came today. I shredded it, paid the bill out of pocket, and then shook down a delinquent client by reminding him that company policy is to tell a cheating spouse about an investigation when payment is past due three months. It’s never been policy before, but I’m warming up to it.

  A fed came to visit today. Bledsoe is his name. Agent Bledsoe. B-l-e-d-s-o-e. He knows about the money. If he has the evidence, I think we could lose the business. Thirty years down the drain because somebody wasn’t paying attention. Embezzlement. Of all the stupid things that could take us down. It isn’t even enough money to save us.

  Some days I wish I weren’t the only one doing the fixing. I feel like I’m playing a solo game of toy soldiers with just a few pieces out of my control. Some days I really believe there might be something left to salvage if we know when to call it quits.

  Some days I think that this just might be the end.

  PART I

  OPENING STATEMENTS

  Six Weeks Earlier

  “BOSS”

  MEMO

  To All Spellman Employees:

  Pants are mandatory.

  Footwear is encouraged.

  Signed,

  The Management

  Three lazy knocks landed on the door.

  “It’s open!” I said as I’d been saying for the past three months. I leaned back in my new leather swivel chair. It was less comfortable than you’d expect, but I wasn’t letting on.

  My father entered the Spellman offices carrying a bowl of oatmeal, topped with a few raisins, walnuts, and honey. I don’t have a problem with people eating at work, but I did take issue with his attire—boxer shorts, a wife-beater (the likes of which he hadn’t owned until he started wearing his skivvies into the office), and a cardigan that had been feasted on by a hungry moth. I foolishly thought that lowering the thermostat would encourage my father to put on slacks. Live and learn.

  The Spellman offices are located on the first floor of my parents’ house at 1799 Clay Street in San Francisco, California, a three-story Victorian sitting on the outskirts of Nob Hill. A Realtor would tell you that the house has “good bones”—three floors, four bedrooms, three baths—but everything needs to be updated and the exterior demands a paint job so badly that some of the neighbors have taken to writing paint me on our dusty windows. Even a few “anonymous” handwritten letters have arrived from a concerned neighbor, but since Dr. Alexander has sent other handwritten missives in the past, his anonymity was lost. Point is, my parents have a nice house in a nice neighborhood that looks like crap from the outside and is not so hot from the inside, and not enough money to do anything about it. I remember the blue trim on the window frames from when I was a child, but I’m not entirely certain that I’d know it was blue now since it’s almost gone and the thirty-year-old lead-loaded green paint beneath it is what ultimately shines through. Those now-retired painters must have been really good.

  The office itself is a fourteen-by-twenty-foot room with an ancient steel desk marking each of the four corners. The fifth desk is parked between the two desks with a window view. Perhaps “view” is an overstatement. We look out onto our neighbor’s concrete wall and have a slight glimpse into Mr. Peabody’s living room, where he sits most of the day, watching television. There’s nothing to recommend the décor of the office. The white walls are covered with bulletin boards so tacked over with postcards, notes, memos, cartoons, they resemble the layering of a bird’s feathers. The collage of paperwork hasn’t been stripped in years. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if an archeological dig produced data from as far back as 1986. It’s not pretty, but you get used to it after a while. The only thing that begs for change is the beige shag carpet, which is so worn down you can slip on it in footwear without treads.

  As for my father’s extreme casual wear, it would have made sense that my parents might find the home/workspace divide difficult to navigate, but they’d been navigating it just fine for more than twenty years. These wardrobe shenanigans were purely for my benefit.

  “What’s on the agenda today?” Dad said through a mouthful of steel-cut oats. He shook his computer mouse, rousing his monitor from slumber, and commenced his workday with his new morning ritual: a two-hour game of Plants vs. Zombies.

  “Mr. Slayter will be here in an hour, Dad.”

  “Should I have made extra oatmeal for him?” Dad asked as he planted a row of flowers and a peashooter. I would have used the spud bomb and taken the extra sunlight. But Dad seemed to be doing fine on his own.1

  “I think Slayter would prefer pants over oatmeal.”

  “You can’t eat pants,” Dad said.

  The pants conversation would have continued indefinitely if my mother hadn’t dipped her head into the doorway and said, “Everybody decent?”

  “No, Mom, everybody is not decent,” I said.

  Then Mom entered, indecently. While less skin was exposed, her sartorial choice was perhaps even more perplexing. Her hair, coiled in plastic curlers, was imprisoned in a net that she must have stolen from Grammy Spellman. She wore a housecoat pockmarked with daisies and pink fluffy slippers on her feet. I had not seen this outfit before, and were we at a Halloween party, I might have found it mildly amusing. My mother, at sixty, is one of those classic beauties, all neck and cheekbones, sharp lines that hide her wrinkles from a distance. She still gets whistles from construction workers from three stories up. With her long bottled auburn hair flowing behind her, a carnival guesser wouldn’t come within a decade of her birth date. Although today, in curlers, she was looking more like her true age.

  “Mom, those curlers must have taken you hours.”

  “You have no idea,” she said, easing into her chair, spent from the chore. I would bet my entire share of the company that Mom hadn’t used curlers since her senior prom.

  We’d never had a dress code before all the trouble began2 and it was foolish of me to think that a memo posted on bulletin boards scattered throughout the house would have any impact. But I think it’s important to note that the dress code was perhaps one of the least ambitious dress codes that ever existed in an office setting.

  And to further illustrate my laissez-faire management protocol, I even instituted pajama Fridays (so long as a client meeting was not on the books). The next Friday Mom showed up in a muumuu and a turban, resembling Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, and Dad slipped on his swim trunks and a wool scarf (I was still keeping the thermostat low, stupidly certain of an auspicious result).

  For more than three months I had been president and primary owner of Spellman Investigations, and I can say with complete certainty that I had more power in this office as an underling. My title, it seemed, was purely decorative. I was captain of an unfashionable and sinking ship.

  Edward Slayter, the man responsible for my position at my family’s firm—and for close to 20 percent of Spellman Investigations’ income—was coming in for a ten o’clock meeting. I had to get my parents either out of the office or into suitable clothing in less than twenty minutes.

  Just then Demetrius entered in a tweed coat and a bow tie. While I appreciated the effort he put into his attire, I had to wonder whether this was his own form of self-expression or an act of mild derision.

  “Demetrius, you look great. I guess you saw
the memo.”

  “It was hard to miss,” D said.

  “That was the point,” I said, glaring at my parents. Twenty-five posters on the interior and exterior of the house. If they opened the refrigerator, used the restroom, opened their desk drawers, or took a nap,3 they couldn’t have missed it. “Why are you rocking the bow tie, D? This is new.”

  “I’m going to San Quentin this afternoon to interview an inmate for Maggie on a potential wrongful-conviction case.”

  Maggie is my sister-in-law, married to my brother David. She is a defense attorney who devotes 25 percent of her practice to pro bono wrongful-incarceration cases. Demetrius, having once benefited from Maggie’s pro bono work, regularly assists her with those cases. Because we believe in the work that Maggie is doing, we help out when time allows, and even when time doesn’t allow. I’d like to think that if I were in prison for a crime I didn’t commit, someone would be trying to get me the hell out of there.

  “That’s great. Still doesn’t explain the bow tie.”

  “I’m not wearing a slipknot in a maximum-security prison.”

  “Excellent point. Speaking of nooses,” I said, turning to my parents. The clock was ticking. “What will it take to get you to change into real clothes and lose the hair accessories?”

  “These curlers took three hours,” Mom said.

  I really couldn’t have my first Slayter/unit meeting under these circumstances.

  “I have an idea,” I said. “Why don’t you go back to bed?”

  “I’m hungry,” Dad said.

  I turned to D, the de facto chef, for assistance.

  “I’ll make some pancakes and bring them up,” he said.

  Mom and Dad filed out of the office.

  “See you tomorrow,” Mom said.

  I wish I could say that this was an unusual workday, but that was not the case. I wish I could say this sort of negotiation was uncommon; also not true. The worst part: I had to consider this a win.

  Not-So-Hostile Takeover

  It happens all the time. One company is struggling and another company buys that company, and it thrives. Or one company puts itself up for sale and accepts the best offer. Or in a smaller, family-run company, it can go like this: One member of the family-owned company buys (through a wealthy proxy) the shares of her two siblings and becomes the primary shareholder of the company, in essence the owner, blindsiding the previous owners, who happen to be her parents. This isn’t the first time in the history of family-owned businesses that there has been conflict among the filial ranks. Although one could argue that our conflict was strangely unique.

  But I’m already getting ahead of myself, so please indulge me briefly for a quick refresher on all things Spellman.4

  I’ll start with a name. Mine. Isabel Spellman. I’m thirty-five, single, and I live in my brother’s basement apartment. If I were a man, you’d assume there was something wrong with me, like a porn or video game addiction or some kind of maladaptive social disorder. But I’m a woman, and so automatically the response is pity. Let’s remember something here: I am the president, CEO, and probably CFO5 of Spellman Investigations Inc., a relatively successful private investigative firm in the great metropolis of San Francisco. I am the middle child of Albert and Olivia Spellman, the ill-dressed people you met three and four pages ago. There are other things that you’ll need to know eventually, like I have an older brother, David (an occasional lawyer and full-time father to his daughter, Sydney); a sister-in-law, Maggie, the defense attorney I just mentioned; and a much younger sister, Rae, twenty-two, a recent graduate from UC Berkeley, which makes me the only Spellman spawn without a college degree. But, hey, who owns this sinking ship? As for Rae, it would be difficult to reduce her essence to a few sentences, so I’ll save her for later and leave the essence-reducing to you. I also have a grandmother who lives within walking distance. You’ll meet her soon enough. There’s no point in rushing that introduction.

  There are two other Spellman Investigations employees worth mentioning. Foremost, Demetrius Merriweather, the bow-tied fellow you just met. D, as we call him, is a complex, multifaceted human being, but if you had to describe him in an elevator ride, this is what you’d say: 1) He spent fifteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. 2) He’s a freaking unbelievably great chef and shares his gift with anyone in the vicinity. 3) He doesn’t take sides. 4) He really doesn’t like snitching, but he understands the value of the subtle dissemination of information under a specific set of circumstances. He’s also been employee of the month for the past twelve months.

  If you were to find yourself alone in a parking garage with him, you wouldn’t automatically assume ex-con. He doesn’t possess any identifying prison tattoos; he doesn’t have the hardened look of a man who spent fifteen years behind bars, although he’s not a small man—six-two, softer in the middle than when he first got out, because he has other pastimes besides going to the prison gym, and his favorite hobby is cooking, and there are more ingredients on the outside than the inside. He’s black. Did I mention that? He has a few freckles, like Morgan Freeman, but the resemblance ends there. Unfortunately. He shaves his head, not because he’s going bald, but because the look works on him. He can look intimidating sometimes, but when he smiles he has these ridiculous dimples. They’re adorable. But you never want to call an ex-con “adorable” no matter how harmless he is. And the truth is, I doubt D is all that harmless. He was in prison for fifteen years. You’re going to tell me he never got in a fight? I’ve asked (repeatedly); he just doesn’t answer.

  And, finally, our part-time employee, Vivien Blake. A college coed who used to be the subject of an investigation, but we’ve never been good with boundaries, so now she works for us. Something about Vivien reminds me of the old me: a recklessness, a history of inappropriate behavior, a penchant for vandalism. Some years back Vivien managed to steal an entire fleet of golf carts from Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica and relocate them to a cow pasture ten miles away. I’ve asked her at least twenty times how she managed to do it, and she refuses to reveal her professional secrets. The seventeen-year-old delinquent who still resides somewhere deep in my core has profound respect for that.

  Vivien has only just returned from one month abroad in Ireland. She was supposedly taking a four-week intensive summer course on James Joyce’s Ulysses at Trinity College, but I noticed that when my sister pressed her on the details Vivien only mentioned castles and pubs and a walking tour of Joycean Dublin, which Rae said was totally open to the public.

  Viv has taken some time settling back into San Francisco life. The last time I saw her she was in the midst of a heated phone call that might have suggested she was working in the drug trade (and completely unconcerned with wiretaps): “Where is my stuff? The delivery was supposed to happen five days ago. I’ve called you every day since then and you say it will be the next day and every day I wait around like some patsy and it never shows. I should charge you for my time. My rate is twenty-five dollars an hour. I’ve now waited over twenty hours. So, let’s see, you owe me at least a thousand dollars.6 You will not get away with this. I know people. I know terrifying people, people who have done time,7 the kind of people who make weapons out of soap. Why do they make weapons out of soap? Isn’t it obvious? What are you, an idiot? Because if you murder someone with a sharpened blade of soap, then the rain and the blood will . . . change the form of the weapon and you lose fingerprints and the blade won’t match. That’s irrelevant. I really hope it doesn’t come to that. Listen to me carefully. Every hour of my life that you destroy, I’m going to take an hour from your life. Hello? Hello?”

  Vivien put her phone in her pocket.

  D said, “Honey, not vinegar.”

  “I want to pour a vat of boiling vinegar on that bastard’s head,” Viv said.

  “Assault with a deadly weapon. Two to four years. Or attempted murder, five to nine,” D said as he strolled over to the pantry. He pulled out a bar of Ivory soap and then collecte
d a paring knife from the kitchen and placed them in front of Vivien. “You might want to get a jump start on these soap weapons you’ve heard about. Or you can take a walk and chill out.”

  Vivien took the soap and paring knife and stepped outside.

  “Is she okay?” I asked after Viv left.

  “She’ll be fine. Customer service just isn’t what it used to be.”

  I would like to say I delved deeper into her hostile phone conversation, but I had more pressing matters to contend with. If any of the information I’ve provided thus far is confusing or you need a refresher, I suggest consulting previous documents.8

  Now is probably as good a time as any to explain how I became boss and why my two most seasoned employees were wearing undergarments to work.

  • • •

  I began working for the family business when I was twelve. I won’t pretend that I was a model employee, and I’ll come straight out and say that I was an even worse teenager. Some might have called me a delinquent. A more generous sort would suggest I was finding myself. I would probably tell the generous sort where to stick their new-age bullshit and own the delinquent part. So, I admit I was trouble, but I grew out of that phase at least five, six years ago and now I’m a relatively upstanding citizen. As you know, your average citizen probably commits between one and five misdemeanors a day.9

  About nine months ago our firm took on a series of cases that turned out to be interconnected. A man hired us to follow his sister. His sister hired us to follow her husband. Two of the three people involved were not who they said they were. When I noticed their stories didn’t match, I began investigating the client. Generally, a private investigator investigates the subject, not the client, but I believe that if the client is hiring us under false pretenses, it is our job to set things right. My father, however, believes we should serve the client, lest we develop a reputation for being the private investigators with a de-emphasis on the private. During our company standoff, my father enacted a Chinese wall and only allowed the assigned investigator to work on his or her respective case. I tried to climb the wall a few times, only to be met by an escalating series of warnings from my father, which culminated in a direct threat: If I continued to defy company policy, I would be fired. I disregarded his warning, took a sledgehammer to the Chinese wall, and uncovered our clients’ true and malevolent motives. While I considered my investigation a success, my father considered it a breach of the basic tenets of our livelihood. My dad’s threat to fire me was, in fact, not a bluff.