The Senators' Suitcase

By Mitch Engel

Senator Beth Davenport was a rarity in Washington-a revered statesperson with a spotless reputation who served the public interest. But away from the halls of Congress, she was an enigma. Among her belongings, her son, Troy, stumbles upon a suitcase containing millions in cash and now questions whether she was just another dirty politician. In searching for answers, he pieces together the mosaic of his mother's life and tries to reconcile the public persona with her private one. Along the way, he also falls head-over-heels for a remarkable woman who becomes his sounding board and wailing wall. The Senator's Suitcase is Mitch Engel's fourth novel, and like his others, The Senator's Suitcase weaves contemporary themes with timeless values. This thought-provoking work is intriguing and satirical, but never heavy-handed, as it draws to an unexpected conclusion. In this tumultuous election year, The Senator's Suitcase will cause readers to ponder the complex background and conflicted motivations of a genuine national stateswoman...and ultimately wish someone like her was running for our highest office.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Apr 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781977225825

Mitch Engel

Mitch Engel’s stories weave contemporary themes with timeless human values. His previous novels, Deadly Virtues, Noble Windmills, Crimes of Arrogance, and The Senator’s Suitcase, are widely available. After heading one of the country’s largest ad agencies at age 36, Engel later became a senior executive with a Fortune 500 company. He and his wife split time between Ocean Ridge, Florida, and Lake Forest, Illinois. 

Book preview

Introduction

I heard a click. In a literal sense, it signaled the door was unlocked at last. Figuratively, the same could be said because I suddenly was experiencing a rush of emotions I’d been trying hard to suppress. Apprehension being foremost.

Next came the scraping sounds of steel against steel as the young security guard struggled to remove a cartoon-sized padlock from an enormous flange welded to the doorframe. Eventually, he managed to pull back a hefty metal latch that could just as easily have been the keel to a small battleship. All the mammoth hardware looked as though it was crafted for a giant sitting atop a beanstalk.

After so much waiting, I finally could open the door. The moment of truth had arrived.

Before shuffling off toward the elevator, Eric Meyerhoff handed me a plastic box. Take as much time as you need in there, Mr. Davenport … and when you’re done, just buzz me with that pager there, and I’ll be right up to escort you back to the lobby.

Just moments earlier, the eager-to-please Meyerhoff had turned almost giddy while he was reciting specifics on how the locks and hardware at Riley’s-On-Raymond were custom-manufactured in Halmstad, Sweden. Thankfully, that had been Point Sixteen in The Riley’s-On-Raymond Sixteen-Point Security Guarantee, which my new pal was obliged to enumerate in excruciating detail during our trip up to the third floor.

Number fifteen was a dissertation on climate control. Regardless of the weather outside, your personal possessions are safely preserved at an air temperature that never exceeds seventy-three degrees or drops below sixty-eight.

I probably should have registered a more positive reaction, but what if my mother had been stock-piling ice sculptures or rare orchids? Anything was possible. I had no idea what I was going to find inside the storage locker.

But at least we’d knocked off all sixteen points. After Eric completed Point Fifteen, there had been some doubt. That was when he couldn’t find the key I’d handed him in the lobby before we set off on our shared journey – because, of course, Point Four specified every client must be personally escorted to and from their respective storage units. I assumed these sixteen commandments were engraved on stone tablets somewhere in the vicinity of a burning bush.

After fumbling around, Eric did find the key in the breast pocket of his white button-down shirt – which sported a neon-red logo on one sleeve and a series of food stains on the other.

So, now I was standing alone, pondering what awaited me on the other side of door #34. After all these years, could I possibly be on the verge of having answers? Were there items inside this locker that could fill-in the countless blanks she left behind? Or at least a few of them?

Let me go back. You need to understand what my life had been like in recent weeks – or for that matter, what my life has been like since the moment I took my first breath in the delivery room. It was the second week of September when I received the dreadful call from the White House. Then eight days later, we held a memorial service for my mother – down in Evansville. I use the term we rather loosely, since all I needed to do was show up. Her staff took care of everything else.

The following morning, I sat through a lengthy meeting with the family’s lawyers, who informed me of my inheritance. Not surprisingly, my mother bequeathed all her tangible assets to yours truly. I was her only child – in fact, her only living relative. The solemn attorneys lining the other side of a long wooden table went on to apprise me of a great deal more, but I’ll get to those details later.

Included in her estate was the condo in downtown Indianapolis where I’d spent most of my youth. I wouldn’t say I was raised there, because I’m not sure I was raised. Mostly, I was molded. Molded into what she had needed me to be.

With the condominium and its contents now fully in my possession, I had every legal right to open drawers, cabinets, and closets previously deemed off-limits. More than a right, I had an obligation. As the dutiful son, it was my responsibility to make sure her final affairs had been left in proper order.

But whom was I kidding? No facet of my mother’s life ever had been out of order. She wouldn’t have allowed such a thing.

No, what I really had been granted was a search warrant. Upon returning home to Indianapolis, I devoted every spare moment to unearthing her earthly past. If I wasn’t on campus at Wabash, I was back in her condo boxing up personal effects or sifting through file folders. At last, I would find answers to the seemingly basic questions she evaded throughout my childhood and subsequent adulthood. But after nearly two weeks, I was as perplexed as ever. Maybe more so. What few items of interest I uncovered only added to the mysteries surrounding her.

Then on Friday evening, while rushing out to meet up with a female acquaintance, I accidentally knocked over a pewter lamp in my mother’s bedroom. Picking it up, I heard something rattling inside. It turned out to be a key. One side was blank. On the other, a lone number stamped in brass – 34.

For the balance of my weekend, I played Sherlock Holmes, completely obsessed with key #34. Eventually, I connected a few dots from her credit card statements. For each of the prior three years, she had been billed $1,624.50 by some entity called Riley Enterprises. I couldn’t determine if this recurring charge might go further back because my mother tossed all her records from earlier years. She always had been proficient at discarding the superfluous from her life – but I needn’t bore you with those particulars. Anyway, according to good-old Google, Riley Enterprises owned and operated a regional network of storage facilities, including one not far from the downtown condo – Riley’s-On-Raymond. So presto, there I was, ready to enter my mother’s storage unit.

Okay, it wasn’t exactly presto. In typical fashion, my mother had specified that she and she alone could be granted entrance into her storage unit. Accordingly, those family lawyers I mentioned, they needed to fax letters back and forth with a bunch of other lawyers before I finally gained access.

You see, dealings involving my mother rarely came easily. The mere sound of her name evoked a certain wonderment and prompted otherwise normal individuals to behave strangely.

I guess I should step back again. You need to know who my mother was. Beth Davenport. The late great Senator Beth Davenport. Ever since the accident, late great seems to have become permanently affixed to her name. With the passage of a few more years, I imagine legendary will be substituted. Yeh, that sounds about right. The legendary Senator Beth Davenport.

So now I’ll jump ahead. The contents inside the storage locker would change everything. Not at first, and not for the reasons I might have guessed. But that’s where this story begins – or at least my part in it. As for my mother, one could argue that unit #34 is where her story finally drew to its proper close.

Part I

Unanswered

Chapter 1

According to the security log, not a soul had entered Unit #34 for more than a decade. Not even my mother. Nothing in her personal files suggested anyone else knew about the lease she’d been renewing with Riley’s-On-Raymond for more than a quarter-of-a-century. The family’s attorneys were caught totally unaware when their assistance was required for me to gain entry. Only one conclusion could be drawn. The late-great Senator Beth Davenport had wanted her storage locker to remain a secret. Logically, I figured the same must be true for whatever she kept inside – if logic still existed in a world like hers.

The secured space turned out to be empty except for two ordinary-looking items pushed into the far corner – a small wooden table and an old leather suitcase resting on the top of it. What I found inside the suitcase was anything but ordinary. The contents numbered five-and-a-half million.

Who hasn’t fantasized about discovering an outlandish sum of hidden cash? Who hasn’t dreamt of faraway places and offshore bank accounts? But as I pulled out the endless packets of currency, my thoughts traveled elsewhere. Back to Evansville. Two weeks before.

Saying our Beth will be missed by those fortunate enough to call her a colleague, is an understatement of epic proportions. Senator Elizabeth Davenport will be missed by entire generations who admired and respected her. As this remarkable woman blazed a trail for other women with aspirations for positions of leadership, she also helped make us a more inclusive nation for persons of every ethnicity, every economic stratum, and every political persuasion. She was, and will remain, a statesperson of the highest order. In my forty-three years of public service to this great country, I’ve rarely met a person with so much …

I was seated in the front row, watching as another national figure fell deeper and deeper in love. I had been observing public officials at close range since I was old enough to walk. At thirty-five years of age, I knew full-well how seasoned politicians could find romance in any circumstance. Romance with the sound of their own voices. Not to mention the love affairs they carried on with the batteries of cameras forever trained upon them. Funerals were no exception – especially a funeral for one of their long-time Capitol Hill compatriots. The hordes who had flown in from Washington to pay their respects were now staging an unmitigated orgy.

"… and what she meant to this country. In today’s political climate, we often wonder whether persons of strong moral character can climb to the top in our government and succeed. Beth Davenport’s celebrated career proves they still can … and still do. How fortunate we are to have people with genuine honor and nobility wielding such powerful influence on our lives. The landmark legislations that have Beth’s name attached to them will stand as lasting monuments to her unyielding dedication to social reform during her thirty-seven years as an elected representative of this great state. Beth Davenport was one …"

The leather-skinned face behind the lectern at the front of the church had hit the five-minute mark – his designated time limit. But the majority whip was barely warming up, so I allowed my mind to wander. His comment about lasting monuments had struck a chord. Or maybe it was a nerve. My mental state was riding a rollercoaster, so I’m not sure I could have recognized the difference. Regardless, I wracked my memory bank.

‘Monuments.’ What was it that guy had said? It was rattling around somewhere in the back of my head. I was pretty sure I’d even tossed the quote into a term paper for one of my ancient history classes. Something about wanting no monuments. How did the damned thing go?

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the words fall into place. Perhaps too many brains cells had been squandered since I last contemplated the musings of Cato.

Nonetheless, Indiana’s senior senator would have appreciated how the occasion of her funeral was conjuring up thoughts of famous Roman statesmen. How often had I heard her utter those words? People will be judged by the individuals with whom they are associated. Cato, Caesar, and now my mother. She would have liked being placed in such esteemed company.

After someone has been dead, it is better to have people wonder why there are no monuments erected in their name, rather than ask why they deserve to be remembered at all. Bingo. Maybe that wasn’t exactly right, but close enough. Translating Latin was never a strong suit. It didn’t matter.

I was going to keep this latest surge of cynicism to myself. I’d already prepared enough raindrops to disrupt the afternoon’s well-orchestrated parade – the endless procession of suitably sober faces blathering on and on about their beloved comrade. On this September afternoon, each of them was dutifully paying forward, so that at some future date, similar Washington hordes could airlift into their respective hometowns and produce a communal silk purse at their own memorial services.

"Honor." "Nobility." Those high-bound words had oozed so effortlessly from the man’s lips. What did the majority whip know about Beth Davenport? What did any of them know about my mother? All they cared about were the camera crews perched in the choir loft, capturing soundbites for the next 24-hour news cycle.

Hell, a few weeks later I found myself staring at a mountain of cash extracted from a suitcase. How much did I truly know about Elizabeth Beth Davenport?

I had been slated as the final speaker at her service – that was if some unscheduled bastion of democracy didn’t leap to the microphone and deliver another seemingly spontaneous tribute. Anything was possible in a church bursting with politicians.

Every portion of the afternoon service had been planned by her staff, in the precise manner Madam Senator would have instructed if she’d still been alive. For more than three decades, her teams in Washington and Indianapolis had functioned as a seamless extension of my mother. In her absence, both offices likely could function into perpetuity without missing a beat. Why should her son and sole-surviving relative be allowed to weigh-in on something as routine as her funeral?

That morning, I’d pulled to the side of the highway and watched the tarmac at the regional airport be transformed into a parking lot filled with private jets. The local news broadcasts predicted the funeral would bring the largest throng of dignitaries to the city of Evansville since its founding – which had taken place more than two hundred, mostly unmemorable, years earlier.

If all the visiting hot air could have been collectively harnessed, we might have lifted the whole of Evansville’s downtown commercial district with a single balloon. No doubt, Beth Davenport would have been overwhelmed with humble gratitude by an outpouring of this magnitude. At least publicly. Privately, my mother would have expected nothing less – though that wouldn’t have stopped her from grousing about the amount of time and taxpayer dollars such a gathering consumed. Outward humility and inward contradiction were just two of the more notable hallmarks to her personality.

As the longest-serving female independent in the history of the United States Congress, Senator Beth Davenport’s death had been certain to draw national attention regardless of the circumstances. But the fact that she died in a helicopter crash while visiting a military base outside Doha, Qatar, had magnified the significance of every detail from her life. During the week since the accident, video clips recapping her distinguished career had been running round-the-clock on cable news channels, with even the most inconsequential aspects of her voting record and committee appointments now being portrayed as towering acts of patriotism. Since the time I stopped crawling, I’d been unable to step outside the shadow she cast. From this point forward, her legendary profile might as well be carved onto the side of Mt. Rushmore.

When it came to my own paltry accomplishments, I recognized most people in attendance at her funeral service would ascribe to me but one noteworthy deed. Birth. Weighing in at six-pounds-twelve-ounces, Little Troy arrived just two months into Beth Davenport’s first term in the House of Representatives – shortly after she had unseated a Democratic fixture by campaigning nose-to-nose right up until November’s election day while carrying a first child at the age of forty-two. It wasn’t the only time I would become a convenient prop in the molding of my mother’s public image.

A few days before the funeral, I had been handed a script containing personal recollections of what it was like to be raised by a political icon. The series of anecdotes struck a perfect balance of humor, humanity, and poignancy … and for the most part, they were true, as best I could remember. One of the speechwriters even thought to include a reference to my father, since this man, long-forgotten by most, presumably had played some role in Little Troy’s early development – or at a minimum, my conception.

My father died from a rare blood disease in 1988, at age fifty, and his name still appeared as an occasional footnote in news stories related to my mother. At the time of his death, I was five. By then, the unflappable widow, Beth Davenport, had progressed upward to the Senate. She was a year into her first term. Her vigilance during those final months of her husband’s life, combined with the grace by which she coped with the tragedy and transitioned into single parenthood, eliminated any question about my mother winning a second term. So, I guess through the sheer act of dying, my father also had contributed to the Senator’s historic rise.

Over the eight days since the fatal helicopter crash, and that ominous call from the White House, I had struggled to draft my own version of a eulogy. It was tucked into the coat pocket of my dark blue suit – the exact suit I’d been instructed to wear. White shirt, patterned tie, black oxfords. Of course, the black oxfords. Troy, why do you and the young men of your generation insist upon wearing those dreadful brown shoes with dark suits? They look perfectly horrid.

The majority whip was working up to a crescendo. His voice was cracking at just the right moments, and he’d pulled a handkerchief out of thin air to daub his eyes. Shortly, it would be my turn. I patted the bulge inside my coat and smiled, thinking about the entirely different set of anecdotes I’d scribbled onto notecards. Perhaps it was time for the rest of the world to gain new insights into their beloved Senator Beth Davenport. What purpose was to be served by perpetuating a façade?

Shouldn’t the electorate know what type of person the nation really lost in a helicopter crash? Shouldn’t they know that those ever-present warm smiles merely were masking a deep-seated aloofness? My mother was a political automaton. Out of the public eye, she kept her emotions in a closet, just like the fashionable suits and dresses she pulled out every morning. All part of her well-crafted façade. In private, genuine human interactions often appeared to be drudgery. She constantly erected new walls, uncertain boundaries that forever were shifting. To Beth Davenport, maintaining control was paramount.

But once I stepped up to that lectern, I would be outside her reach at last.

Chapter 2

I wanted you to know how truly sorry I was to hear about your mother, Troy. I watched the whole thing on TV this afternoon. She would have been proud of you … so incredibly proud of your impeccable delivery.

Before responding to the other end of the phone, I allowed a few seconds to pass – stifling the urge, the low-hanging temptation. I wanted to deny her the satisfaction of knowing she’d scored. Thanks, Vic. It was nice of you to call.

Vicki Richardson had known exactly what to say. She always could find just the right words. It had been fourteen months since she moved out of my apartment. To be fair, I did miss the fun and sex we once enjoyed, but fun had vacated the premises long before she and the sex did. At first, I’d believed this live-in relationship might be different, more adult-like than my prior attempts. But by the time we finally separated, the once intriguing "Vicki-with-an-i" had morphed into a dark cloud that hovered around my every waking hour. The two of us managed to uncover all kinds of hot buttons during our time together, but she was the most adept at digging under the skin. She was especially skilled whenever the subject of my mother arose.

The perfect, obedient son right til the very end. She made a second attempt at goading me.

I refused to take the bait. I was okay with what my mother’s speechwriters prepared. I decided not to pretend the words in the eulogy had been mine. Now I can move on with the rest of my life, and maybe you might do the same.

This parting shot was my retribution. Vicki had been the one to pick up and leave, without any warning whatsoever, in the middle of a spring afternoon while I was in front of a classroom fifty miles away. But she also was the one who’d phoned at least a dozen times since to suggest we give living together a second shot. At moments like this, I was thankful my masculine pride had prevailed.

After hanging up, I laid on the couch and pondered what I had said to my most recent ex-girlfriend. All in all, it was truthful. By the time I made my way to the lectern at the front of the church, I did feel okay about delivering the eulogy given to me by her chief of staff. Just carrying my own version to the front of the church had been enough. That very act was cathartic. Right up to the last second, I retained the option of withdrawing that alternative script from inside my lapel and exploding a few myths about the esteemed Senator Beth Davenport. No one could have stopped me. But it was me, on my own accord, who made the choice not to stir things up. To permit the myths to live on. It wasn’t my mother. It wasn’t anyone from her loyal entourage. It was just me. That knowledge alone had felt adequate.

But as I sat on the bare concrete of a storage locker, surrounded by tightly wrapped bundles of hidden currency, any semblance of satisfaction had vanished. Vicki-with-an-i was right all along. Little Troy had been obedient to the very end.

Chapter 3

By the time I discovered the suitcase, three weeks had passed since the call from the White House. I almost didn’t answer because the number on my screen was unfamiliar. Expecting a survey or sales pitch, I was poised to hang-up. But then I heard an official-sounding voice that couldn’t possibly be faked. Mr. Davenport, please hold for a moment … the President would like to speak with you.

From that day forward, no one with a sense of decency would have dared to utter a negative word about my mother. At her memorial service, I was on the verge of becoming that lone exception. Now I was second-guessing my decision. Maybe the bubble of rarified air protecting Beth Davenport should have been punctured long ago.

What reason other than a nefarious one would a career politician have for stashing away millions of dollars in cash? Before entering the storage locker, I’d already begun questioning other aspects of my mother’s past due to a couple of surprises discovered during the intervening weeks. The first jolt came on the day after the funeral when I met with the attorneys to review her will. I had presumed I would be heading back to my job in Crawfordsville with a healthier bank statement, but I was unprepared for the totality.

I considered my teaching salary more than adequate for the less complicated lifestyle to which I’d become accustomed – especially if I threw in the $5,000 each month I still received as a living expense stipend from the trust fund my grandfather set up for me on my thirteenth birthday. In more recent years, I hadn’t even touched those checks and instead was heeding the advice of the financial mavens who staffed the Davenport family office. The monthly distributions from the trust were accumulating, compounding, and accruing in some fancy investment account they managed on my behalf.

As a senator, my mother pulled in a decent salary – though she’d never been shy about spending excessively on herself. But she’d also enjoyed a lucrative business career before launching into politics. Plus, there was whatever money my father had left her. So, when I met with the attorneys, I would hear the final tally that could be assigned to her seventy-eight years of material existence. I didn’t much care.

The almighty dollar once had been a huge priority for me – at times, my only priority. As a high school teenager, and later as a college student, I couldn’t spend money fast enough. Having five-grand deposited into my checking account each month by a wealthy grandfather was like holding the keys to Fort Knox. I immersed myself in the latest sound systems, computer equipment, and electronic games. I leased a new sports car every two or three years. I spent spring breaks and long weekends in the Caribbean. I picked up endless bar tabs with my drinking crews. My girlfriends were treated to the most popular clubs and restaurants. At sold-out concerts, I usually could be found in the front row with my latest conquest sitting next to me. The money poured in, and with a billionaire grandfather tending to my needs, I had every reason to believe this golden goose would someday deliver an untold fortune.

With my financial future ostensibly secured, my approach to looming adulthood had been carefree. Some might say reckless. I passed through those formative years rather whimsically. Guaranteed affluence allowed me to flip my ambition on and off at will. Schoolwork. Sports. Dating. Career directions. My life experiences were nothing more than a sample pack. A little of this, a little of that. Picking and choosing when to apply my energies and talents. For the sake of my mother’s reputation, I was careful not to cross lines that could be deemed as overt bad behavior. Apparently, aimlessness and apathy were acceptable to her – eliciting only mild rebukes when I might happen to cross paths with the good senator amidst her overbooked appointment calendar.

But my built-up expectations for the years ahead came crashing down after my grandfather died. My anticipated benefactor left me out in the cold. My mother and I weren’t even invited to the reading of his will. Instead, a few days later, one of the junior associates from the family’s legal firm contacted me. Troy, you’ll be happy to know the $5,000 monthly stipends will continue indefinitely. No other provisions had been made.

In an instant, my view of the world evaporated into thin air. Barely twenty-five, I had lost a fortune that was never mine to begin with. Thoughts of work, or pursuing an actual occupation, suddenly took on greater meaning. Notions of wealth and privilege soon turned alien to me – and over time, borderline repugnant. In retrospect, I guess I chose resentment as a suitable coping mechanism. But I don’t regret those feelings, because eventually I recognized money was not my friend.

At the time of my mother’s death, I was early into my fourth year as an associate professor at Wabash College, where I’d been told I was well along the path toward tenure and a full professorship. My chosen field was sociology.

When I’d declared sociology as my major half-way through college, I essentially was making a statement. Nobody serious about preparing for a legitimate occupation would dedicate their college years to the study of sociology. It was a discipline that frolicked in the gray areas – if sociology could be considered a discipline at all. The degree on my diploma was meant as a badge of honor. I was clarifying for anyone who doubted that Troy Davenport had no intention of ever charting a serious career. I instead would hopscotch through college, learning about the arcane and the abstruse.

But this blithe approach to academia dramatically narrowed my options for finding a job when the prospect of independent wealth disappeared in a flash. So like thousands of other sociology majors, I pursued the one profession for which I was suitably qualified. Instructing other young minds on the idiosyncrasies of human society. I would guide new generations of wandering souls through their weekly escapes from the finite world.

Wabash College was a well-regarded school with nine hundred students and eighty-one faculty members. The institution carried the distinction of being one of the country’s three small liberal arts colleges still offering enrollment to males only. My fellow faculty members appeared to place great emphasis on the vaunted history of Wabash. Pedigrees mattered little to me. This picturesque campus of higher learning was merely a place to work, a job – just like the two that preceded it.

I’d been lured to Wabash by a phone call from a headhunter, informing me of a recently vacated position. I was immediately receptive. Similar calls had led me to teaching positions at Wooster College, in Ohio, and Truman State University, in Missouri. A rolling stone needed to keep rolling. Surprisingly, a few weeks later, this latest open slot was mine.

Like other faculty members at Wabash, I was encouraged to take residence in Crawfordsville, a bucolic town of 16,000 people, fifty miles to the northwest of Indianapolis. I considered the suggestion but ultimately decided on an apartment on the northside of Indianapolis. I’d spent much of my youth in the state’s capital and preferred the city’s size and familiarity. My decision left me with a two-hour round-trip commute – five days a week, plus random Saturdays for football games and glee club performances.

All the while, I had no idea whether the job offer from Wabash or either of the two prior schools had resulted from strings being pulled by loyalists to my mother. In each case, I was told I received superior recommendations. Could there really have been students in my past who were motivated by the approach I took in the classroom? I had no idea. I’d learned long ago to stop worrying about such things. I’d grown accustomed to these types of uncertainties since my earliest memories, when I routinely was assigned to the best play groups or placed on the most competitive little league teams. The deck always seemed to be stacked in my favor and there was little I could do to even the odds. Because of the influence that a celebrated mother and a powerful grandfather could wield, success had been assured in virtually every aspect of my life. I rarely had seen much reason to try very hard. Any sense of achievement only would have been tainted with ambiguity.

My grandfather, the original Joseph Elwood Davenport, had passed away at the anything-but-ripe old age of eighty-seven. This business titan had planned to live another thirty or forty years, but I guess his weakened heart had other ideas.

My father was Joseph Elwood Davenport, Jr., and I would have become Joseph Elwood Davenport III, if not for my mother, who insisted upon a name that carried linkage to her side of the biological equation. Troy, Ohio was where her maternal grandparents resided, and where Elizabeth had visited every summer as a young girl. Hence, the negotiated compromise resulted in the official identity imprinted on my birth certificate – Troy Joseph Davenport.

My grandfather began calling his own son Junior from the moment he was born. He insisted everyone else do likewise. The name stuck and followed my father into adulthood. For the entirety of his life, he was known only as Junior. That always seemed kind of sad to me.

In an act of punctuational overkill, my grandfather adopted the nickname Senior for himself – in theory, to eliminate any potential for name confusion within the family. But others familiar with my grandfather had suggested the elder Joseph Davenport preferred the authoritative ring to his new moniker. Senior. It left little doubt about who was in command. Over the balance of his lifetime, no one called him anything else. Even his grandson. I never dared to call him anything but Senior.

Now they were gone. One by one. My father, my grandfather, my mother. I was left alone to fend for myself. The sole surviving Davenport.

Chapter 4

The meeting was slated for 8 a.m., and since it was scheduled solely for my benefit, I figured I should try to be punctual.