False Accusations (7 page)

“What kind of problem is Ricky having?... So what? What’s that got to do with his job?... Okay, okay, put him on. Wait—let me call him from the car—ma?... Oh, hey Ricky…how you doing, bud?”

Elliott shouted from inside the car: “C’mon, Dad, talk to Uncle Ricky later. We have to go! You promised!”

Madison sat down on the workbench and nodded at Elliot.

Ricky had been institutionalized at birth upon his pediatrician’s recommendation. It was the doctor’s opinion that with another young child at home, trying to deal with the burden of a son with mental retardation would deprive the other child of important attention and time. Reluctantly, the Madisons agreed and Ricky was sent away.

For ten years, they wondered if they had made the right decision. The nagging concern that they had taken the easy way out weighed heavily on the Madisons until a week before Ricky’s eleventh birthday. At that time, new research was released indicating that institutions were not only ineffective but unnecessary because individuals with mental retardation could largely care for themselves and be contributing members of society. Shortly thereafter, Ricky was deinstitutionalized, an event that brought tremendous joy to the Madison household. He returned home and was immediately enrolled in a special education school within the local public school district.

Instead of resenting Ricky’s presence, Madison immediately took to him and often assisted his parents with his brother’s care. As the years passed, however, Ricky’s caseworker, who had been present regularly in the early going, was increasingly less available. To fill the gap and to solve problems, the Madisons turned to big brother Phillip—but the call usually came when his own wife and children needed his time. This created a great deal of friction with Leeza, but deep down she understood and felt sorry for Ricky. She would voice her complaint and then let it pass.

Madison was shaking his head. “I got it, Ricky, don’t worry. I’ll call tomorrow and take care of it...It’ll all be okay tomorrow, all right?...Now put Mom back on the phone....I love you too.”

After telling his mother that he would straighten everything out, he explained to her again that he had to go, and hung up.

Leeza was waiting in the van. She would not look at him, artfully avoiding his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Ricky had a problem at work—”

“Let’s just go,” she said.

“Yeah, Dad,” Elliott said, “let’s just go.”

After ten minutes’ travel down Highway 50, Leeza turned to Madison. “So what’s wrong with Ricky?”

“He had a problem with his boss at work. No big deal. Just a misunderstanding and Ricky doesn’t know how to express himself and give his side of the story. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

“Sometimes I feel like your life’s not your own. You give everything you have to help people get better and improve the quality of their lives. You give your time and money to several charities, you-name-it to your brother
.
” She threw up a hand. “You’re always doing for others do you realize that?”

Madison shrugged.

“It got worse when you became vice president of the Consortium. That was five years ago, Phil. And then when you took the presidency—”

“I’d rather not go through all this again, Leeza. Please.”

“I don’t want to keep bringing it up. But your life hasn’t been yours ever since. It hasn’t been ours either.”

Madison sighed. “Soon as Donna returns, my time should free up.”

“Donna, at the Consortium? I didn’t know she was out.”

“She was having some psychological problems, and it kind of got out of hand.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Irritability, forgetfulness...sometimes she just, I don’t know, spaced out. The last week or so it seemed to worsen. I don’t know if she’s having problems at home or if it’s a delayed reaction to the death of her sister, but she’s taken time off to get her head together.”

“How long is she going to be out?”

“Who knows. She could be back in a couple of weeks—or maybe never. Murph’s looking into it. He said he was going to call me tonight to discuss it.”

“Who’s gonna handle the fundraising?”

“Donna’s assistant. Murph just hired her a few weeks ago. I haven’t even met her. Her name’s Brittany...Brittany something. She was originally hired to help with the backlog of membership accounts receivable collections. Then, when we had that glitch with the licensing board, Donna had to free up some time. She gave Brittany some of the fundraising duties. Good thing, because at least she had some idea as to what Donna was doing, and how she was doing it.
Harding
, that’s her name. Brittany Harding.”

“Phil, you can’t continue to carry the organization on your back. It’s time for someone else to run the agency. You’ve given it everything you’ve got, and it’s time to pass the baton.”

Some time ago, he had realized that Leeza was right, but he had held off telling her that there was no one else who was ready or competent to assume the presidency. Having a brother who benefited from the assistance that the Consortium currently provided to hundreds of area children, youth, and adults, he felt committed to the organization. He couldn’t leave it without adequate leadership firmly in place.

“I’ll look into it,” he said. “Just don’t count on anything changing in the near future.”

“I gave up hopes of that a long time ago,” she said.

By the time they made it to Marine World—or
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
—Jonah had fallen asleep, though he awoke when they arrived. The crowd was large, the weather beautiful yet unseasonably chilly. The dinosaur and shark exhibits fascinated Elliott, but they scared Jonah, and he ended up clinging to his father until they moved on to the petting zoo.

The boys spent the next four hours running, yelling, feeding the animals, and eating com dogs and ice cream dots before finally collapsing in the back of the van on the way home. All in all, it was a good day outdoors with the family.

When they drew close to town, Leeza called Steve’s Pizza and ordered dinner. It was ready by the time they arrived, and Leeza held the warm cardboard boxes on her lap until they made it home a few minutes later.

The phone was ringing as they headed into the house. “The machine will get it, Phil. We’re gonna eat dinner first.”

“But—”

“The machine will get it,” she said, taking him by the arm and steering him toward the kitchen.

The pizzas were devoured in a matter of twenty minutes. The answering machine had a message from Michael Murphy, the regional executive officer of the Consortium for Citizens with Mental Retardation.

Murphy was hired eleven years ago by the Consortium. Based in San Francisco, he would make weekly trips into town to touch base with staff and monitor administrative matters. Murphy’s job was to play watchdog over the other two offices in northern California. He had been personally responsible for hiring Donna, the Sacramento administrative officer, ten years ago.

Madison took his handset over to the family room lounger and punched Murphy’s number into the keypad. The phone was answered two rings later with a boisterous “Hellllooo,” Murphy’s trademark.

“You always sound so damned energetic, Murph. Makes me feel like a wretched old man.”

“Positive mental attitude Phil. Gotta live and breathe it twenty-four/seven, or it doesn’t work. You can’t turn it on only for business meetings or staff conferences.”

“I’ll remember that,” Madison said. “I got your message.”

“Good, good, Phil. Thanks for calling me back.”

“Anything new with Donna?”

“I spoke with her husband. He said she’s seeing a shrink, but he hasn’t seen much improvement. They were taking her to an internist to check for other causes. Other than that, he didn’t say much, and I didn’t want to pry. I think we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“How is what’s her name—Brittany—doing?”

“Fine, as far as I can tell,” Murphy said. “She’s still getting her feet wet. It takes a while to learn all the procedures. She really wasn’t here that long before Donna started having problems.”

“Do you think she’ll be okay?”

“Yeah, she’s got all the tools—she’s a meticulous organizer, good with details, and quite attractive.”

“Murph...”

“In the short term, I think she’ll do fine. With a little training here and there, she should pick it all up without a problem. Kind of like panning for gold—you have to sift through all the sediment to find the value. I just wish I knew how long Donna was going to be out. Hard to plan things when you don’t know who to plan them around.”

“Tell me about it. I have a board meeting in a week and I’ve done very little to prepare for it. Donna usually took care of all that.”

“Let me know if I can be of any help.”

“Count on it,” Madison said.

THE CONSORTIUM occupied what was essentially an old car dealership building. It had been renovated and remodeled by a construction contractor whose son had suffered a severe head injury as a result of a motorcycle accident. In appreciation for all the assistance the CCMR had provided his son, the contractor transformed the building into a respectable facility that proudly housed the services and offices the CCMR required to run their operations. That was twenty years ago, and the structure had an outdated eighties look to it. Still, it was functional and served its purpose.

His conversation with Michael Murphy eight days ago still occupying his thoughts, Madison entered the building and walked down the corridor to the office of the administrative officer. There, he found Brittany Harding sitting behind Donna’s desk with the phone pressed against her ear. She looked up, saw Madison and motioned for him to sit down. She continued her conversation.

He had not yet met her in person; he had only spoken to her on the phone five or six times during the past couple of weeks. She was much more attractive than he had envisioned. She had long, lustrous auburn hair that was blown back and loosely permed, giving it a playful lift and fluff. High cheekbones of Asian ancestry showcased large brown and gold-highlighted tiger eyes. Her makeup was understated.

Harding’s desk was meticulously arranged, with a blotter in place and messages and notes tucked neatly under the edges. There was an in box, an out box, and a tidily stacked pile of opened mail. There was even a coaster under her can of opened Diet Coke.

A framed photo of an older Asian woman and Caucasian man sat on the bookshelf behind her, beside numerous knickknacks harkening back to her Chicago roots.

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “...Yes, Mr. Ivy, I’ll take care of it. I’ve already told you that I’ll look into the matter... Yes, I will. As I already said, I’ll call you once I have an answer for you... Uh-huh... Uh-huh,” she said, opening a paperback novel to a bookmarked page. Her eyes began moving across the lines of text. “Yes, Mr. Ivy, I’m here...I understand. Okay. Okay. Right. ‘Bye.”

She hung up the phone, closed the novel, and sighed heavily again. “Some people...” she said, her voice trailing off. She arose and extended a hand toward Madison.

She squeezed his hand. It hurt.

“And you are...”

“Phil Madison.”

“Oh, Phil. Glad to meet you in person. Or I guess you prefer ‘Dr. Madison’?”

“Phil’s fine. I try not to be so formal here. I’m called ‘doctor’ all day. It’s kind of nice to hear my real name sometimes. I actually forget what it sounds like,” he said, smiling.

She took a swig of Coke. “Want something to drink?”

“Sure,” he said. “Hot one today.”

She walked into the adjacent room and pulled a can from the compact refrigerator.

“Sorry I’m late,” he called to her. “I had a patient with complications.”

“I thought you flaked out on me. I was gonna leave, but then I got this call and the guy kept me on the line for twenty minutes. All he did was complain.” She walked in and handed him a Coke. “Do you want a glass?”

“Can’s fine. I never bother with glasses.”

“Me neither,” she said, settling back into her chair, crossing her long, slender legs in front of her. She pulled another coaster from her drawer and handed it across the desk to Madison.

“I did call, by the way, from my car. I left a voicemail.”

She glanced over at her phone, where a red light was blinking.

“You said this guy was complaining. About what?”

“Nothing important,” Harding said, brushing the long, thick locks off her face. “We’ve only got a little while before the board meeting. If there’s anything you want to review before we go in…”

“I thought we’d go over the agenda together to make sure we’re on the same page.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out some papers. “How’s everything been since we spoke? Holding your own?”

“‘Holding my own’ would be a good way of describing it.”

“Good. I know it’s tough trying to learn everything in a crash course, picking up someone else’s work in mid-stream.”

Harding removed a cigarette from her purse and began playing with it in her right hand. “Stepping in at the eleventh hour’s not the hard part.”

Madison was about to remind her she could not smoke, but realized she did not intend to light it. “Not the hard part,” he said. “What do you mean?”

“I’m constantly putting out fires. Everything’s a mess. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know, but Donna wasn’t the greatest organizer. When I first started working with her, I noticed some inefficiencies, but I didn’t realize the scope of it all until I took over.”

“We never seemed to have a problem before,” Madison said. “Her last couple of weeks aside, I always considered Donna to be a consummate professional and quite well prepared.” He glanced at Harding’s desk again, the extreme degree of neatness placing her comments about Donna in perspective.

She placed the cigarette in her mouth and pulled a sheet of paper from a bin on her desk. “Anyway, I got your email with the agenda. Why don’t we go through it?”

Madison sat back, a bit put off by her attitude. He rummaged through his file and found the agenda. He would have to be understanding. She’d had a difficult day. He certainly hadn’t noticed indications of an attitude problem during their prior conversations. On the other hand, they were just quick calls to inform her of things that needed to be done, to touch base on board matters, and other items of that nature that did not allow much independent expression of thought.