Crimes of Design: A Patrick MacKenna Mystery

By Peter H. Green

To save his beleaguered city, his career, his family and his very life,
Patrick MacKenna must confront a ruthless saboteur and killer

When architect and city planner Patrick MacKenna discovers the body of the city manager, his staunchest advocate, in the controversial new city-within-the city he has planned in the protected floodplain of the Missouri River, within hours he’s a murder suspect. He must help solve the crime to clear his name. But his judgment is clouded by his lingering guilt over the death of his wife in an accident during a Christmas Eve ice storm, blinding him to the solution of the case.

As attacks against the infrastructure increase, Patrick, a widower with an eye for beautiful women and fine old things, must outwit the law and navigate a nether world of unseen actors, questionable protectors of the public trust. He is aided by dedicated, sexy FBI Agent Bobbi Romano and Meg Stewart, the developer’s project manager, who must overcome her own troubled past to help solve the mystery and win his heart. When Patrick suspects that the plot’s masterminds are people he once trusted, he learns the greatest threat to the built infrastructure is not nature, but man himself.

PRAISE FOR CRIMES OF DESIGN

Peter Green’s Crimes of Design—a "flood-plain noir" mystery—weaves a complex tale of murder, eco-terrorism, love, lust and betrayal... Set in St. Louis at the confluence of the great Mississippi and Missouri rivers, the novel dredges up fascinating facts about the rivers' pivotal roles in Midwestern Americana— wetlands law, floods, barge traffic, levees, locks, pumping stations, agricultural commodities trading, corn futures, and how they all interrelate. —Rick Skwiot, Hemingway First Novel Award-winner and author of FAIL

Politics, murder, and the river. Green knows St. Louis, all right. Crimes of Design is a tightly plotted and told urban mystery featuring plenty of action and twists and turns. Who knew living in St. Louis was such an adventure?
—John Lutz, Edgar- and Shamus-Award-winning Author of Serial.

Peter Green’s latest techno-thriller Crimes of Design weaves a tale of murder, intrigue, romance and suspense ... The geographical terrain, the history of the Midwest and his extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the federal government contracting system, the private construction business and the United States Army Corps of Engineers... achieves the right mixture of everyday life, mystery and technical detail.
—Colonel (Ret) Michael R. Morrow, Former District Engineer, St Louis District, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Author of Kuwait Journal, an illustrated diary from the first Gulf War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenskills Press d/b/a/ Greenskills Associates LLC
• Release date: Nov 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781941402054

Peter H. Green

In his career as an architect, Peter Green has seen enough close calls, suspicious acts and outright skullduggery to lure him into writing mysteries. In Peter’s curiously autobiographical debut novel, Crimes of Design, architect Patrick MacKenna, discovers the body of the staunchest advocate for his controversial flood-protected dream project in the site’s storm water pumping station during a record flood in St. Louis. He is forced to become an amateur sleuth to save his career, his family and his very life.A writer, architect and city planner reared in a family of journalists, Peter found his father’s 400 World War II letters, his humorous war stories, his mother’s writings and his family’s often hilarious doings too good a tale to keep to himself, so he launched a second career as a writer. After years of architectural work and proposal writing for his design firms, he went back to Washington University to study creative writing with such accomplished authors as Catherine Rankovic, Robert Earleywine and Rick Skwiot, resulting in the release in 2005 of his biographical memoir on the often hilarious antics and serious achievements of his dad’s World War II adventure, Ben''s War with the U. S. Marines (2005, 2014) and his mother's humorous biographical memoir, Radio: One Woman's Family in War and Pieces.Peter earned a Certificate in Creative Writing and Bachelor of Architecture degree from Washington University, St. Louis, and a B.A. from Yale University. He is Vice President, Programs, for St. Louis Writers Guild, a member of Sisters in Crime, St. Louis Publishers Association and Missouri Writers Guild. Among design organizations, he is a member of the American Institute of Architects, American Planning Association, American Institute of Certified Planners and past St. Louis Post President and Fellow of the Society of American Military Engineers. He lives in St. Louis with his wife, Connie, and has two very young married daughters and three small grandchildren. The life and times of the last pet he owned. “The Night We Ruined the Dog,” can be found on his website, www.peterhgreen.com .

Book preview

CRIMES OF DESIGN

A Patrick MacKenna Mystery

Peter H. Green

Greenskills Press

St. Louis

Crimes of Design

A Patrick MacKenna Mystery

By Peter H. Green

Greenskills Press, an Imprint of Greenskills Associates, LLC

P.O. Box 11292, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

Cover Design by Linda Houle

Interior Design by Greenskills Press

Copyright © 2012, 2014 by Peter H. Green. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in a review.

This is a work of fiction, and is produced from the author’s imag-ination. People, places and things mentioned in this novel are used in a fictional manner.

e-ISBN: 978-1-941402-05-4

For Connie;

for Lisa, Richard, Kennedy and Max,

and for Lori, Jeff and Brandon.

Contents

Cast of Characters

Part I: Unnatural Designs

Part II: Flight

Part III: The Nature of Crime

Author Peter Green

Acknowledgments

Join Peter’s Readers

Before You Go

Also by Peter H. Green

Error: Reference source not foundCast of Characters

THE FIRMS

Patrick MacKenna ..... Architect and Planner, Principal, Childress & Marks

Doug Marsh ..... Real Estate Developer, Marsh Development, Inc.

Megan Stewart ..... Project Manager, Marsh Development, Inc.

Nita ..... Executive Assistant to Doug Marsh

Whitey Gustafson ..... Job Superintendent, Hunt Enterprises, General Contractor

Chaz Hunt ..... President, Hunt Enterprises

Ken Hong ..... Principal and Chief Engineer, Childress & Marks

Mark Hastings ..... President, Childress & Marks

Jim Harvey ..... Executive Vice President, Childress & Marks

Janet Saunders ..... Project Engineer, Childress & Marks

Mona Springer ..... Newspaper Reporter.

THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS

Col. Steve Matthews ..... Commander and District Engineer

Brooke Ford ..... Chief, Hydraulics and Hydrology Branch

Wallace Olds ..... Hydrological engineer

THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS

Steven Mueller ..... Environmental engineer

Gus Duncan ..... His friend and fellow environmental advocate

THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Erin MacKenna ,,,,, Daughter of Patrick and the late Kitty MacKenna

Liza Sharpe ..... Mother of twin girls, teammates at rival school of Erin’s

Kelley Epley ..... Erin’s best friend and teammate

THE CITY OF RIVERDALE

Roger Gray ..... Mayor and Chairman of the Board of Aldermen

Sven Olson Alderman and Broker, North American Commodities

Sandra ...... Assistant to Sven Olson, North American Commodities

Mayhew Woods ..... City Manager

THE LAW

Frederick Trembley ..... Detective, St. Louis County Police

Adam Reiner ..... Assistant U.S Attorney, General and Economic Crimes

Bobbi Romano ..... Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation

LEVEE BOARD MEMBERS, CITIZENS OF RIVERDALE, ST. LOUIS AND COZUMEL

We must embrace the Darkness, too, as part of ourselves.

—T. W. Fendley, Zero Time

Part I: Unnatural Designs

One

It was the last thing Patrick MacKenna expected—the final vestige of a life well lived, drenched and still, soaking in a concrete tomb.

His forehead dented, hair matted with blood, familiar old grey suit clinging to his legs, his colleague lay face up in the bilge of his project’s storm water pumping station, snatched from his family and friends without a kiss, a hug—not even a chance to say goodbye. With great effort Patrick lifted his friend by the shoulders and hugged him, his tears mingling with the splash.

What might he have said to Patrick, his friend, his confidante?

They don’t like this project, Pat. Don’t let them get away with this. Stop them.

Who? Who are they, and why? Patrick’s words echoed off the concrete walls.

But he didn’t answer, and he never would.

Dammit, this man deserved better. Dammit, we all did.

Patrick might have expected trouble after last Friday’s blowup.

As he had headed eastward toward downtown St. Louis, a mantle of gray brooded overhead, hiding the misdeeds of men from the gods. This summer of endless rain—the Corps of Engineers said the floods might even beat 1993—had threatened levees, shortened tempers and deepened Patrick’s funk.

Despite his best efforts, he arrived at the Corps offices late. By the time he entered the conference room the meeting was in full swing.

Each person in the room was righteous. But as he now saw it, only one of them was right.

This project will provide new jobs and growth for the city, harped Doug Marsh, Patrick’s developer client.

Your planning is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, fretted Brooke Ford, chief hydrologist. You’re putting everyone at risk behind a levee that might not meet strict Corps standards—it could fail. She was responsible for approving their flood protection system. And I don’t relish the fight with that hippie Steven Mueller and his cronies over so-called damage to the river’s ecology.

This project will be good for the environment, Patrick insisted. Design with nature, reduced auto traffic, less air pollution and a short walk to work, school and shopping.

Undeterred, she rattled on. Besides, you’ve jumped the gun by starting construction. It will take us several months to review your plans, gather the comments from a half dozen other federal agencies and issue the levee permit.

You’ll kill the project, Doug said. My interest cost runs thousands every day.

As Patrick’s Irish father would say, it was like having four Germans around a table—you had four political parties.

Except that the fourth person in the room was Mayhew Woods.

Woods showed up one day at Riverdale City Hall as the new city manager. Born in Possum Neck, Mississippi, a gifted and earnest student, he’d led his class at Ole Miss, an engineering major and biology minor, and once played left tackle for the New Orleans Saints. A Creole of mixed racial origin—black, white and Hispanic—he’d married a white woman and moved north after Hurricane Katrina in search of work. Despite the locals’ reluctance to accept outsiders, especially non-whites, he chose to live in the country among the hills and fishing streams. He fronted for Patrick with city staff and elected officials, explaining complex plans and arcane federal rules. Humble and devout, he kept his choir robe on the coat tree in his office.

Patrick relied on Mayhew. A skillful manager and a friend, he had broad shoulders; he took responsibility and acted in the city’s best interest. They shared a common belief that, whether or not protected flood plains are good for the earth’s environment, greedy men will develop them anyway. Their comparable duties—both good public service and an architect’s ethical responsibility to his serve his client’s best interests—required them both to keep the public safe at all costs.

Now folks, we all want this project, Mayhew said. His bulldog jowls flapping, he emitted gruff tones from deep within his unassuming, bulky form, clad in a baggy business suit. Our city needs growth. Patrick will provide a state-of-the-art urban design. And the Corps’s mission is to support local sponsors with environmentally sound, economically feasible programs. Let’s cool off over the weekend. Next week we’ll hammer out a solution that works for all concerned.

And so their Come to Jesus meeting was planned for nine o’clock on Monday morning.

He hoped Mayhew Woods’s project guidance could avert a train wreck.

Again this morning, his head buried in his pillow, Patrick had fended off the day. If not for his daughter Erin, he would have overslept.

Bye, Dad. I’ll be home late tonight.

Huh? Wait. Patrick uttered, emerging from the deep, icy waters in his nightmare.

He forced open one sleep-encrusted eyelid. Outside his window a dismal sky hovered over the tree-lined creek. Raindrops drummed on the roof overhang. The only spot of color in the grayscale palette was Erin’s orange hair as she peered around the doorjamb.

It’s our big game with Assumption. If we win, we’ll go to the finals. You might think about coming.

Honey. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. He rolled to his

side to lean on one elbow, and squinted at her.

Really? You always say that, but you’re never there for the good stuff.

I’ll be there, do or die.

Guess I’ll see you then. She sighed and disappeared from his view.

Be careful, he called after her. He was fully awake now, alert to her peril as a new driver.

A door slammed. Silence. He flopped down on his back.

Despite their undefeated season, with her team headed for the league field hockey championship, he’d missed over half of her games. Although he had important reasons each time he failed to show up, she had a point—some father.

Patrick lay there for a while, brooding like the leaden sky. With his wife Kitty gone these past three years, the color had also drained from his world. He struggled to rebuild his faltering career, act as father and mother to Erin, and run the household. These days he lacked the heart to fend off the opposition that sprang up from every quarter—environmentalists, bureaucrats, even colleagues at his own office. Strategies that had paid off in the past—long shots, big gambles and high risk ventures—didn’t work any more. He’d lost his edge, missing important clues in his dealings with others. What happened to his former zest for success? Disparate thoughts crossed his mind. He ached for Kitty’s shy giggle and her soft, yielding flesh, which would never receive him again, until he thought he would go mad.

When he saw the time, he sat bolt upright. With a startled squeal Parnell, his high-strung cockapoo, scurried off the bed and scrambled for safety underneath. He’d promised to meet Mayhew at the site before the crucial meeting. Struggling to stand up, he leaned too hard on his shaky knee and cringed with pain. He lurched toward his first cup of coffee.

The kitchen had been ransacked. The trashcan, overflowing with microwave popcorn and pizza cartons, sat on a counter. A mop handle dangled from the sink, immersed in grey rinse water. The microwave and two cabinet doors hung open. The gallon milk jug from the fridge yielded only a few drops for his cereal. Dammit, Erin.

Erin had just tried to do right, hosting her best friend Kelly last night, so they could study. Why did she annoy him so?

He carried the brimming can outside, delaying his departure for the dreaded battle at the Corps. Everyone thinks they’re doing the right thing, he mused, just ask them. That’s what causes wars.

He left through the kitchen door into the garage, now his workshop, cluttered with the partially refinished frame of a Louis XV sofa, a couple of turned wooden lamps needing re-wiring, and three side chairs in various stages of sanding and finishing. The other half housed Erin’s first plastic Big Wheel tricycle, her 16-inch bike, with its training wheels still attached, her 20-incher and the twelve-speed lightweight racer that had set him back fivehundred dollars, idle since her new love affair with her mother’s old Chevy. The cars were now relegated to the driveway, where the morning air, which had only fallen to 80 degrees overnight, affronted him like a steam bath. The fresh white shirt he’d just put on stuck to his arms.

♦

A half-hour later, Patrick teetered on a rain-soaked scaffold beside the parapet of the stormwater pumping station. Before him surged the mighty Missouri in flood, a deceptively calm silver lake extending a half-mile to the tops of drowned trees on the opposite bank. Some twenty feet below lay the levee-protected land where he’d just parked his car.

He inhaled the pungent scent of damp earth and the river. The vast flood plain, flat, silent and calm, normally comforted him. Like the job superintendent Whitey, who was always here early, Patrick treasured these quiet moments, when man’s works harmonized with nature. But today the dank smell of rot and decay overwhelmed his senses. The flood menaced the difficult terrain, belonging neither to the land nor the river. Despite the advanced computer calculations of his engineers, he questioned their faith that the levee would hold. The flood barrier for the new project looked too flimsy to restrain the deluge beyond; the massive earthen rampart shrank in the distance to what looked like the single stroke of a feather quill.

The thunder of temporary dewatering pumps against the concrete walls, struggling to rid the structure of accumulated rain, broke the spell and attacked his aching head. He sneezed as the acrid fumes and the moldy air invaded his sinuses and watered his eyes. The pumps’ racket, the sultry air, lack of sleep, allergies and weeks of tension tightened muscles in his neck and reinforced the pounding in his temples, heading him for a dull, day-long migraine.

He shook off his fog and called up his vision for the stately farmland before him. Large ponds of water lay at the rear of the thousand-acre site, back along the bluff line. Once the drainage channels were complete and ponds reshaped, they would store excess stormwater and double as attractive lakes, a perfect setting for fine offices, workshops, warehouses and homes.

From his elevated perch he spotted the city manager’s white city car parked not far from his, behind a grove of trees. He looked around but couldn’t see him. Maybe he was back at the far side of the structure, checking out last week’s concrete pour.

He peered into the deep rectangular well of the structure. Water gurgled as the pumps sucked it out. As his eyes adjusted he thought he saw some rumpled tarps in one corner. Surprised at Whitey, the job superintendent, who kept his work site neat, he grunted and descended the interior work ladder to collect the debris.

When he reached the bottom, a sunbeam struck the parapet wall above, reflecting light down into the shaft. The pile of rumpled cloth had legs and arms. He plunged, Rockports and all, into six inches of water and sloshed toward the form—a human form, lying face up on the floor of the structure. With great effort he lifted one shoulder to see a dented forehead and hair matted with blood. He recognized the face.

Mayhew Woods, his unseeing eyes staring upward.

Oh, God, no, Patrick said.

Still hugging his friend, he remained in the water. He closed Mayhew’s eyes and gripped him, overcome with this loss and the memory of paramedics struggling with an unconscious woman by the side of a dark, icy highway—his beloved Kitty—and her stubborn refusal to wake up. If only he had left earlier, beaten the ice storm… Since that night those thoughts assailed him constantly, his guilt murdering sleep and causing him to accept more than his share of blame for every mishap.

He climbed back to the parapet and stared, barely seeing, at the sodden farm fields. In the distance the job superintendent’s red pickup wended its way toward him along the access road. He stared down at his ruined clothes in alarm as he grasped how the situation would appear. In his deluded eyes a fire truck raced, sirens screaming, to the scene of destruction, alerting him to his own peril. Emerging from his pickup with his right arm raised in cheery greeting, Patrick’s longtime friend and colleague now appeared threatening—his beetled eyebrows glowering, his weathered face grim, his gnarled hand curling like a predator’s claw as he advanced to greet him.

Patrick wanted to run. He hated death, blood and gore—even on television. He’d never aspired to be a cop, not to mention a lawyer, and deal with crime. But as Whitey Gustafson parked the truck and ambled toward the pumping station with his lunch bucket, his momentary panic subsided. Soon the superintendent’s head appeared over the top of the parapet, and he climbed onto the work scaffold.

Mornin’, Pat. A startled look clouded Whitey’s face. Yesus, what’s wrong?

We’re finished, Whitey. The game is up.

What happened?

Mayhew’s dead, he croaked.

No. Whitey looked down in silent meditation. I can’t believe it.

His voice faltering, Patrick pointed to the proof.

Whitey stared into the murky pit. My God, how?

When I arrived I thought I saw some tarps in the corner of the well down there. I thought it was strange, since I know how orderly you keep your worksite. When I climbed down there to check—it was Mayhew.

That how you ruined your clothes?

I jumped in and waded over to him. Then I couldn’t bear to let go.

Whitey shook his head.

His cheek was badly torn—it must’ve caught a form tie on the way down—and he scraped his forehead.

This is a sad day. Whitey wrapped his blue-sleeved arm awkwardly around Patrick’s shoulder, the lines of his mouth set in a dour downward curve.

Thanks, Whitey. He patted the bony hand. We’ve lost a good man, and a friend.

How’re we ever gonna finish the job?

Ha. It’s the perfect excuse for my partners to stop work on the project. We’re months behind on collecting our fees.

Oh, ya? At this hint of default, Whitey looked up sharply, narrowing his eyes. He shared Patrick’s aversion to disorder.

Doug Marsh owes my firm a lot of money. The front end of this project has taken an enormous amount of time—preliminary design, zoning hearings, development permits. And we won’t get paid until Doug gets his loan.

My boss wouldn’t stand for it. He’d shut down the job the day his bill was overdue.

Architects and engineers can’t do that, or there’d be no project. And Woods was our best chance of getting approval from the city and the Corps.

We’ll never finish. Whitey stood staring into space, shaking his head and muttering.

Look, I’ve got to meet Doug and the others at the Corps. Can you call the police and stay to talk to them? Patrick couldn’t face them. Besides, Whitey would need something to do—there’d be no work accomplished here today.

No problem, Pat. Whatever you need.

I’m not looking forward to breaking the bad news.

Ya, I’m beginning to think this job’s got gremlins in it.

Patrick looked away. He didn’t believe in jinxes, curses or supernatural phenomena. There was a reason for everything.

Nauseous, he climbed back down the rungs on the wall. He glanced up at the structure, intended to make life better for thousands of people. Walking around to the side, he looked up at the parapet and fixed his eyes on a dark square of fresh concrete on the side wall, its rectangular shape too regular for a repaired honeycomb in the pour. It had a rough, hand-finished look.

Hey, he yelled up to Whitey, do you know anything about this? That patch was made later, probably yesterday. Another couple of days and it’ll cure and match the rest of the wall.

That’s the time capsule. The boys must’ve installed it yesterday afternoon while I was picking up steel.

Yeah, I remember now. Doug gave me the details to show on the plans. School children wrote stories and made drawings for the time capsule to be opened in a hundred years. He took his digital camera from its belt pouch and snapped a few high resolution shots of the patch.

He waved to Whitey and returned to the car. Popping the trunk lid, he stripped off his ruined shirt and tie, wiped his hands on them and exchanged them for clean ones he kept there for evening meetings. Without Mayhew he didn’t know how they would get all the parties together and continue the project. Heartsick, he wondered how he could carry on.

And he was jumpy as a cornered cat about the adequacy of the flood protection system. No one could afford another debacle like New Orleans. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had tried to warn Congress, but official neglect, local corruption and a chronic lack of funds to implement their plans had set the stage. Precisely the wrong combination of wind direction, unfinished engineering programs and an unusually high storm surge had created disaster. All eyes were on this project, backers and opponents alike. It must not happen here.

A chill came over him, sneaking up like morning fog off the river. Months of delay, determined opponents and now a good man down. Maybe Whitey was right—this development project was jinxed.

Besides, he knew it was no accident. Mayhew Woods had been murdered.

Two

On the highway Patrick turned east, back toward downtown. The low-angled sun peeked beneath the advancing clouds, making him squint and adjust the visor. In a brief respite before the next downpour, the somber sky overlooked another hell, both in the muggy air and on the sopping land. These days he was only content when he journeyed backwards. Back to town, back to his hopeful career and his young family, back to the days when life was good.

Slowed by the rush of inbound traffic, he wondered how they had gotten into this mess. When he came from Chicago, first to work summers for his Uncle Mike in construction and then to practice architecture, he’d learned that St. Louis is surrounded by rivers—the Missouri wraps around the city’s west and north sides and flows into the Mississippi, which forms the eastern boundary; the Meramec River and Ozark hills bound the city to the south. In the absence of more river bridges, St. Louis developers had sought out the flood plains on the city side for flat land to expand. Those river bottomlands required levee protection to avoid seasonal flooding.

Foul weather compounded their troubles. Lightning and thunderstorms had unnerved St. Louisans for months. The newsmen called it another rain machine. As in 1993, it had settled over the sprawling Mississippi basin in early spring and stayed. The stationary front, anchored by low pressure over the Great Plains and a high-pressure system in the Southeast, sent storm after storm down a virtual railroad track across the Midwest, creating a new lake in North Dakota, swelling the Platte, the Kaw, the Missouri, the Illinois and finally the Mississippi out of their banks and reclaiming large chunks of the continent for their waters. The monster flashed its eyes, let out angry growls and kept coming, flooding the land and setting everyone on edge.

Patrick’s mind raced over the past six months. Despite endless hearings and debates over whether this land should remain in the unprotected flood plain or be enclosed by levees and converted for urban development, the community knew the project would grow the economy and increase future tax base; their elected representatives seemed solidly behind the plan. And yet objections and dissent only seemed to increase.

Downtown at last, he entered the room twenty minutes late, still dripping. They had started without him and Woods. Brooke Ford stood at the end of the table, introducing a mouthful of experts. To review the project today, I have invited a hydrologist, a geotechnical engineer, an environmental scientist, an ecologist, two structural engineers experienced in floodwall, pumping station and levee design, a potamologist…

A what? asked Doug Marsh from the opposite end.

A river expert, who… She spotted MacKenna and froze in mid-sentence. My God! Patrick, what’s happened to you?

He crossed the room to the crowded conference table and stood behind a vacant chair. We’ve got a crisis out at the Riverdale job site. There’s a…a body…lying in the bilge water of the pumping station.

He could have heard a pin drop.

The thing is…it’s Mayhew Woods.

Uhh, Brooke uttered. She shook her head gravely. This project is in deep trouble.

Her reaction was not surprising. Besides the shock of losing a man on the job site, she had a sixth sense for crisis. She’d studied civil engineering at Rolla and was known throughout the Corps for her alarming but accurate predictions of near catastrophe during the Flood of ’93. Her premonition of disaster on the current job seemed likewise on target.

Whitey’s there to talk to police, Patrick said. Although I’ve never met them I know Mayhew had a wife and two children.

You should attend the funeral, Patrick. I’ll send someone from our firm as well. Doug sighed. "This job is a can of worms.

But we’ve got to carry on."

Brooke, who said she needed think time, adjourned and postponed the meeting. Patrick stalled, fearing his return to the office with the news, where certain of his colleagues would relish piling on. Only he and Brooke were left in the room.

Patrick, this time Hunt Construction has really stepped over the line. They’ve got to go.

He snuck a sidelong glance at Brooke. As these projects wore on, her voice had become shrill. Her perfunctory manner made him wonder what was eating her. She must be crowding forty. He’d never dared ask her why she hadn’t married. Her slender waist, almost waspish, and her curves, all in the right places, must once have been appealing, but she did her best to hide them beneath dark colored, tailored suits. Her concern for her work bordered on obsession. In a way, he felt sorry for her. Other than this job, she didn’t seem to have a life.

You plan to finish construction yourself? He eyed her quizzically.

"You know