Russ was nothing if not determined to do his duty. Clare knew he’d rather be manning the speed gun next to the old barn on Route 9 (which, he had informed her, smelled like rotted hay and mice) than having the same conversation over and over and over again with summer people. He was good at it, though. Clare had long thought he was the best representative the movement to save the department could have, probably because he genuinely believed the things he said about community policing and making the three-town district better and safer for everyone.
The rooms grew more crowded. Seeing so many partygoers with drinks in their hands was not good for her; her craving for alcohol was like a mosquito whining in her ear. She could feel her heart rate rising. Standing next to Russ as he tried to explain to a concerned forty-something couple that the “person” who kept opening their gate was probably a bear, she tried to distract herself by surreptitiously people-watching. Joni was back out on the deck again, as far away from her father as she could be while still on the same floor. Margy and Jack Liddle seemed to be performing the same sort of song and dance she and Russ were doing—two police chiefs for the price of one! What a bargain. Margy didn’t touch Liddle and he didn’t touch her, but even from across the room Clare could see they were connected by something. Tension? A past? Russ was oblivious to whatever it was, which might be just as well.
An arm slipped into hers and she turned her head to see Audrey Langevoort. “How are you doing?” she asked.
“Fine. Great. Russ has been able to answer lots of people’s questions.”
“Summer residents have just as much at stake as year-round ones do when it comes to policing. Maybe more. Full-timers don’t have houses that stand empty half the year.”
Clare looked up at the soaring ceiling, braced by gleaming logs easily a foot and a half in diameter. “This place looks year round.”
“It is. We came up in the winter more frequently when Joni was a—” She caught a word before it could escape. “—a teen. We skied most weekends. Drove up as soon as he got home from school and spent all day Saturday on the slopes. Church on Sunday morning, then I got to relax with a book in front of the fire while the guys, while Joni and Kent, got in some more time on the mountain. I’d make a meal we could eat in the car and we’d be back in New York by ten or eleven.” She was looking into the middle distance with a complicated smile. “Those were good times.”
“You’re going to miss this house.”
“Oh, am I ever.” Audrey sighed. “But it goes with the business. Like an entailment in England in the olden days. Everything goes to the firstborn son.” She glanced toward the deck.
“Which should have been Joni?”
“That was Kent’s dream.” Audrey shook her head. “Joni—she wasn’t Joni then, of course, but—she struggled through an economics degree to please her father. Then she got an MBA to please her father. He blames her quitting the firm on her gender issues, but the truth is, she never enjoyed the work. She felt called to the priesthood since she was in college. It’s just that when she finally came out as a woman, it seems to have freed her up to come out as someone who hates finance as well.”
“I can’t imagine the kind of bravery that must have taken. You must be very proud of her.”
“You know? I am.” Audrey gave Clare’s arm a little shake. “Let’s rescue your husband from the Neilsons, and I’ll introduce you to the fellow Kent picked to take over all this.”
Russ was more than happy to be pulled away. “How hard is it for people to keep their trash cans locked up?” he asked rhetorically.
“They’re new,” Audrey said. “They’ll learn. And here’s someone else new to the area. Bors, this is Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne and his wife, the Reverend Clare Fergusson. Russ and Clare, Bors Saunderson.” They shook hands. Saunderson was pale and damp, more like a nineteenth-century invalid who came to the mountains for the air than someone who might hike and ski and swim in the river. Clare supposed climbing to the top of Barkley and Eaton didn’t allow a lot of free time for outdoor sports.
“A police chief and a minister.” Saunderson gave an unconvincing laugh. “I feel like I ought to start confessing.”
Russ looked him straight in the eye. “Do you have something you need to confess?”
Clare slapped his arm. “Excuse my husband.”
“Actually, Bors, the Van Alstynes are here tonight in part to take the heat off of you.” She turned to Russ and Clare. “Bors is a genius in the C Suite, but he hates being the center of attention.” She shifted. “The town this house falls in—your house, soon—is proposing to abolish the police force. It’s coming up for a vote this fall, and Russ is going to tell us all why that’s a bad idea.” She raised her voice slightly as she spoke, bringing in several nearby onlookers. “And you’re all going to write a big check to the Save Our Police fund, so we can sleep safe at night in the city, knowing someone is keeping an eye on our houses!” Several people laughed in an appreciative way. A caterer caught Audrey’s eye, and she nodded. “Let’s move outside for dinner, shall we?”
“Outside” proved to be down a set of wide stairs that followed the wraparound decks to a lawn that fell away in a wide bowl to the tree line. Clare could see the house had been built into the side of a steeply raked hill, with a full walk-out story beneath the first floor. “See?” Russ said. “This is what I’m thinking about for our place.”
“Your place?” Mr. Liddle asked.
“We’ve bought a small house—” Clare began.
“A small wreck,” Russ added.
“On Lake Inverary. It’s in a protected area, so the only way we can expand is up.” She glanced up to where the deck railing was silhouetted against the bright lights inside. “Except that’s got to be twenty feet high.”
“Obviously, ours won’t be that tall.” Russ turned to Jack. “We can’t actually move the footprint to cut into the hill, so I’m thinking of a suspended walkway from the road to the top floor—”
Fortunately, Audrey Langevoort corralled him before he could launch into his really detailed description of his future construction plans. “Russ, you’re sitting at my table. Clare, if you follow Bors, you two will be at Kent’s table.”
A rectangular white tent lit from within by hundreds of twinkling lights was settled, like a barge in a fairy tale, at the flattest spot in the curving landscape. Servers were going in and out of a smaller tent, pitched discreetly to one side.
“A second kitchen?” she asked her escort.
“Must be,” Bors said. “Otherwise, they’d need hiking boots to get back to the house.” He led her through the crowd of people performing the dance of the name tags—picking one up, putting it down, moving to a new spot. She saw someone nab a cherry tomato off the salads waiting for them. She prayed it wasn’t hers, and her prayers were answered when, ahead of them, Kent Langevoort stood up and waved.
“Here you are. Welcome.” He pulled out the chair next to him, in front of what seemed to be an untouched salad. “Reverend Fergusson.”
“Please, call me Clare.” She took her place. Saunderson, after a glance at his name tag, sat down next to her. The grandmotherly lady on Kent Langevoort’s right hand was the wife of the COO, while Saunderson’s other partner was a summer resident Clare knew slightly from her efforts to promote recycling programs throughout the three towns. The rest of their dinner companions were a similar mix of high-level Barkley and Eaton people and well-connected seasonal locals. Audrey knew how to plan a table. Clare wondered if Bors realized everyone was here for his benefit.
Langevoort was deep in discussion with the grandmother, so Clare turned to Saunderson. “Have you spent much time in the Adirondacks?”
He shook his head. “Just on trips here, with Kent. He likes to throw a boys’ weekend a few times during the year.”
Clare suspected the glass ceiling was more like a glass wall at Barkley and Eaton. Surrounded by a glass moat. “Well, you’ll have a lot to discover once this place is yours. I’m originally from southern Virginia, so it took me awhile to get used to it, but now I snowshoe and cross-country ski right alongside the natives.” She couldn’t help looking toward Russ, who was two tables away, paying close attention to an elderly woman she thought might be part of Margy’s native plants project.
Saunderson glanced toward Langevoort. “I don’t anticipate spending that much time up here. I prefer the city.”
“Oh.” She speared a forkful of delicate greens. “Does your spouse work there as well?”
“I’m not married.” He looked at Langevoort again. “It’s hard to combine a social life with climbing the corporate ladder.”
“Really? I knew a Barkley and Eaton guy who was quite sociable. Hugh Parteger.”
“Oh, Hugh.” Saunderson made a dismissive gesture. “That’s his job. Schmoozing the prospective clients, keeping little old ladies and golf-playing geezers happy.”
Clare smothered her laugh in her napkin.
“Hugh could probably make a deposit into the bank if one of the secretaries helped him. The actual business is complicated.” Saunderson’s face took on some color. “We’re not just a hedge fund. We’re a private bank, and an investment firm, and there has to be a wall between those two sides. We serve clients all over the world, with every sort of investment vehicle, and we’re also starting to get into direct corporate capitalization.”
“Like, um, venture capitalists? The guys in Silicon Valley?”
“Right.” Saunderson stabbed his fork toward her. “That’s my baby. It’s the future, right? B and E’s motto has been ‘Preserving capital, growing wealth’ since it was founded. But we can’t keep on doing things the way they did in the roaring twenties.”
“I can see why Kent chose you to be the next CEO.”
“Owner. I’m going to be the next owner of B and E.”
“Really?” Clare tried not to sound too startled. “I thought … I mean, I assumed…”
The grandmother next to Langevoort leaned toward Clare. “I know, it’s odd. Barkley and Eaton has always been a privately held company. But instead of diluting the shares through family members, the owner picks a new head and everything goes to him. Or it could be a her, I suppose.”
Langevoort grunted. Clare turned toward him. “So … after you retire, you won’t have any continuing interest in the company?”
“We have a pension plan. And of course, I have my private investments and savings. But no, once the business transfers to Bors, I’m out.”
“I’ve never heard of that sort of arrangement.”
“Mr. Barkley came up with it. He said if it worked for the Romans, it would work for us.”
“The Romans?”
“In ancient Rome, for the most part, they didn’t pass imperial rule from father to son. Instead, the emperor would choose the most talented man of the next generation and adopt him. That way, they kept continuity but didn’t risk idiot or incompetent heirs.”
Clare raised an eyebrow. “What about Caligula? Or Nero?”
“They prove the point,” Langevoort said. “They were blood family members. Have you heard of the Five Good Emperors?”
“Maybe?”
“The greatest century of the empire. All adopted as adults by the previous emperor.”
“It sounds odd, but it works,” the grandmother said. “Barkley and Eaton has thrived as a private company for eighty-four years. There are very few other businesses that can say the same.”
“Actually, the period of the Five Good Emperors also lasted eighty-four years.” The activist summer resident smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. Classics major at Barnard. I can’t stop myself.”
“What happened after eighty-four years?” Clare asked.
“Civil war. Power grabs. Assassinations.”
“In other words, a typical week on Wall Street.” The finance guy next to the grandmother laughed.
Langevoort gave him a quelling look. “Eventually, the Romans ran out of men who were willing, able, and competent. We, fortunately, have escaped that fate.” He raised a glass to Bors, and the rest of the table followed suit. Clare stared at her sparkling water, as if she could change it into wine with wishing. “To Bors Saunderson,” Langevoort said. “Who’s willing to do the hard, relentless work to get the job done.”