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Chapter One of BEYOND CONTROL
By Ruth Glick, writing as Rebecca York
To be published August, 2005
CHAPTER ONE

    The long driveway made a graceful curve, and Jordan Walker slowed his Mercedes sedan near a mound of tasteful white azaleas, staring at the Tudor mansion that had been hidden until now by artfully placed stands of trees.
    If he wasn’t mistaken, the residence was a copy of a palace owned by the Prince of Wales.  
    He’d made excellent time on the two-hour drive up from DC.  Which was good, because he knew Leonard  Hamilton gave extra points for punctuality.  He also liked men who spoke frankly, delivered value for money, and had the guts to stand up to him.
    Over the past several days, Jordan had done considerable research on the billionaire.  He knew his age–sixty-eight.  His state of health–poor.  His passion for opera, his famous collection of American art--from Copley to Whistler to O’Keeffe.  His fondness for orchids.
    The background check was standard operating procedure for Jordan because he’d learned that preparation often meant the difference between success and failure.
    But careful research was only part of what had earned him the Pulitzer Prize.  He had something more: a facility for reading people–for knowing when the subject of an interview was blowing smoke like a criminal defense lawyer with a guilty client.  
    The paving surface changed from concrete to cobblestones as Jordan reached the circular driveway in front of the house.
    He parked, then stepped out beside a neatly mulched bed of white and yellow tulips, planted in careful rows like soldiers guarding the entrance.
    The sun was bright.  The air smelled as clean as his mom’s fresh laundry drying on the line.  And the security camera high on the wall tracked him as if it were a jungle predator.   
    After stretching the kinks out of his arms and legs, he climbed the three brick steps to the double-wide doors.  Seconds after he rang the bell, a tall, thin man in a dark suit opened the right-hand door.  
    “Jordan Walker.”
    “Yes, sir.  Come in.  Mr. Hamilton will meet you in the conservatory,” he said with a very upper-class British accent.
    Jordan stepped into a vast foyer that would easily have swallowed the first floor of the modest house where he’d grown up.
    His footsteps echoed on two-foot-square marble slabs as he followed the man down a wide hall past silent reception rooms to a vast glass enclosure lush with the earthy scent of tropical vegetation.
 
    It took him a moment to recognize the trees.  Mostly he’d seen them as smaller specimens in large pots.  These schefflera, dracaena and ficus trees sprouted from enormous in-ground squares scattered around the terra-cotta floor.  They alternated with carved rock formations holding jewel-like orchids.
    “Make yourself comfortable.  Mr. Hamilton will be right with you.  Can I bring you something to drink?” the butler said.
    “Just water,” Jordan said.  When the man had departed, he strolled around the room, looking at the trees and flowers, enjoying the ambiance.  Once he would have felt totally out of place in this rich environment.  He’d passed the intimidating stage long ago.
    He was inspecting a yellow and white orchid when the sound of a motor made him turn.
    Leonard Hamilton, silver-haired and stoop-shouldered, rolled into the room on a one-seat electric cart and fixed him with a piercing look, then said by way of greeting, “With the work schedule you’ve been keeping over the past few years, I expected to see some gray in that dark hair of yours.   But you look younger than thirty-two.”   
    “Clean living,” Jordan answered.
    “Sit down so we’re on the same level.  As I told you in my letter, I want to discuss a book project."
    Jordan pulled out a chair and sat.  
    Before Hamilton could elaborate, the butler reappeared, carrying a silver tray.  There was a tall glass of ice water and a blue Wedgwood teapot and a matching mug, along with a silver cream and sugar set.
    The butler made a fuss of fixing the old man’s tea.  Through the little ceremony, Jordan sat with uncharacteristic tension twisting in his gut–willing Hamilton to get on with the interview.
    “Thank you, Griggs.  That will be all,” Hamilton said.  He waited until the man had left before saying, “My health is poor.  I don’t have a lot of time to waste, so I’ll get right to the point.  I want a definitive biography.  The man who writes it gets my complete cooperation.”   
    Jordan fought to hide his surprise.  Leonard Hamilton had always been as secretive as an Olympic runner with an undetectable steroid in his system.  He preferred to stay in the shadows, letting other men with equal wealth get their names splashed across the papers.  Why had he finally changed his mind?
    Leaning back in his chair, Jordan took a sip of water.  “You’d make a fascinating subject, but if you’re expecting a whitewash job, I’m not your man."
    “You’d get the whole story.”
    Jordan set down his glass.  “So you’d be candid about why your wife left you after thirty years of marriage?  And how you kept your son out of a juvenile detention center after his series of arrests in his teens.”
    They sat across the table staring at each other for several charged moments.  He’d cracked the old man’s veneer.  But he hadn’t gotten what he wanted--yet.
    Hamilton shifted in his seat, then changed the subject abruptly.  “I thought your book on the AIDS crisis in Africa was very well done. How long did it take you to write it?”
    “The research took over a year–including six months traveling around the continent.  The writing I did in nine months.”
    “You’ve always gotten information that other people missed.  Even when you were just starting out at The Baltimore Sun.  
    “You checked that far back?"
    "Further.  Including your grade inflation exposé for The Daily D."
    Jordan hid his surprise with a shrug.  Apparently the old man had poked into his college days at Dartmouth.
    “I’m prepared to be brutally honest about myself and my family,” Hamilton continued.  “And I’m prepared to pay you far more than your last few books earned out.  You can tell the public whatever you want about me.  I’ll make sure it’s worth your while.”
    “I can’t be on your payroll, if I’m going to be free to write an honest book” he said, keeping his voice even.  “I’ll get my money from a publisher’s advance.  Simon and Schuster or one of the other big houses will be willing to pay top dollar for a candid bio of you.”
    Hamilton smiled.  “Good.  Because if you’d jumped at my largesse, you’d be out the door before you could take another sip of water.”
    “So you were testing me with that offer?” Jordan clarified.
    “I want to know what a man will do for money before I make a deal with him.  You can work it any way you like.  I’ll cooperate fully.  But I’m asking something in return.”
    Ah, the punch line.
    “In exchange, I want you to find out what happened to my son.”
    Although Jordan had a talent for throwing an interview subject off balance, he could take lessons from Hamilton.  After a moment, he said, “He and a friend . . . died in a boating accident recently, didn’t they?  On the Chesapeake Bay.”
    The gnarled old man studied him from across the table.  “According to the official report, he and his friend, Glenn Barrow, took out a boat in unsafe conditions.  I think that’s bull."
    Jordan sat forward.  He felt it then, that edge of awareness that grabbed him when he knew he was on the trail of something hot--something startling.  “You have evidence to the contrary?”
    “Yes.”
    “What?”
    “They told me there was an autopsy at the office of the Maryland State Medical Examiner.  But when Todd’s body was brought back from Baltimore, I had additional tests performed.  I have the results.”
    “Why did you go to all that trouble?”
    “My son was afraid of the water.  He wouldn’t have been in any boating accident.  Not unless somebody dragged him out to the middle of the bay kicking and screaming.”
    The old man sounded tired as he continued.  “At first I thought some of his lowlife friends could have killed him.”
    “He was a disappointment to you?” Jordan asked, unable to keep thoughts of his own disappointing father-son relationship out of his mind.  If he were dead, his dad would probably just shrug and go on.
    “I loved him.  I tried to understand him.  But I could never . . . connect with him.  Do you know what I mean?”
    Jordan nodded, understanding the sentiment all too well.  He’d always felt out of place in his own family–like a baby bird accidentally dropped in the wrong nest.
    The millionaire’s face turned sad, then relaxed again.  “I invested a lot of money in my son.  But it didn’t turn out the way we expected.  Todd never fit in with other kids.”
    Again, Jordan flashed on his own memories, then ruthlessly he drove the thoughts from his mind, wondering why he was letting this interview get so personal.  He wasn’t here for a self-analysis session.
    Hamilton was still speaking, his voice thickened by emotion. “As you pointed out a while ago, Todd got into trouble with the law.  And other trouble--too.  I wanted to find out if there was some medical reason for his strange behavior.  And I wanted to know if his death was drug related.”
    “Was it?”
    “Not in the way I imagined,”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    The old man gave him a direct look.  “Why don’t you read the pathology report.  Then, if you think it’s worth the time–find out what the hell he was up to that got him killed.”
    “He was a homosexual, right?”
    Hamilton glared at him.  “And you’re supposed to be straight, but you haven’t had a lot of relationships with women.  You’ve never even come close to marriage.  You’ve never lived with anyone.  You’ve plowed most of your energy into your career.”  He looked like he might be about to say something else but refrained.
    “How is my personal life relevant?” Jordan asked carefully.    
    How is my son’s sexuality relevant?” the multimillionaire countered.  
    “It may have something to do with his death.”
    “I doubt it,” Hamilton snapped.
    Jordan waited for several seconds before saying, “Let me understand.  You’ll cooperate with me on a no-holds-barred biography of you, if I investigate your son’s death.  Are we supposed to include what I uncover in the biography?”
    “It depends on how dangerous you think the information is.”
    Jordan was still digesting that as the old man reached into a canvas bag that was attached to a carrier on the side of the go-cart.  “Here’s a copy of the pathology report.  The original’s in my safe deposit box.  And I had the computer files at the hospital where the tests were done altered.”
    “Oh yeah?  By whom?”
    “Never mind that.  The important point is that the request can’t be traced back to me.”
    Jordan didn’t bother saying that computer files could be recovered–if you had the skill and the time.
    “Do some digging into the material.  If you accept the assignment, I’ll talk to you about my son.  About the circumstances of his birth."
    "Which are?"
    "We’ll get to that later.  We’ll talk about anything you want.    Let me know by the end of next week what you decide.”  
    And if I don’t want to take the job?”
    Hamilton’s eyes turned crafty. “I’ll contact somebody else.  Bob Woodward?  Maybe he’s not too chicken to find out why Todd Hamilton had to die.”

 
     From BEYOND CONTROL,
     by Ruth Glick, writing as Rebecca York,
     Publication Date: August 2005 
     Copyright © 2005 by Ruth Glick. 
     This edition published by arrangement with Berkley Publishing Group.

 
 
 
 
 

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