Disclosure

"But this is a column. An opinion piece."

"This column alleges facts. And it alleges them in a sarcastic and wildly overstated manner."

"lt’s an opinion piece. Opinion is protected."

"I don’t think that’s certain in this case at all. I’m disturbed that I allowed this column to run in the first place. But the point is, we cannot claim to be absent malice if we allow further articles to go out."

Walsh said, "You have no guts."

"And you’re very free with other people’s guts," Vries said. "The story’s killed and that’s final. I’m putting it in writing, with copies to you, Marge, and Tom Donadio."

Fucking lawyers. What a world we live in. This story needs to be told."

"Don’t screw around with this, Connie. I’m telling you. Don’t."

And she walked away.

Walsh thumbed through the pages of the story. She had been working on it all afternoon, polishing it, refining it. Getting it exactly right. And now she wanted the story to run. She had no patience with legal thinking. This whole idea of protecting rights was just a convenient fiction. Because when you got right down to it, legal thinking was just narrow-minded, petty, self-protective-the kind of thinking that kept the power structure firmly in place. And in the end, fear served the power structure. Fear served men in power. And if there was anything that Connie Walsh believed to be true of herself, it was that she was not afraid.

After a long time, she picked up the phone and dialed a number. "KSEATV, good afternoon."

"Ms. Henley, please."

Jean Henley was a bright young reporter at Seattle’s newest independent TV station. Walsh had spent many evenings with Henley, discussing the problems of working in the male-dominated mass media. Henley knew the value of a hot story in building a reporter’s career.

This story, Walsh told herself, would be told. One way or another, it would be told.

Robert Ely looked up at Sanders nervously. "What do you want?" he asked. Ely was young, not more than twenty-six, a tense man with a blond mustache. He was wearing a tie and was in his shirtsleeves. He worked in one of the partitioned cubicles at the back of DigiCom’s Accounting Department in the Gower Building.

"I want to talk about Meredith," Sanders said. Ely was one of the three Seattle residents on his list.

"Oh God," Ely said. He glanced around nervously. His Adam’s apple bobbed. "I don’t-I don’t have anything to say."

"1 just want to talk," Sanders said.

"Not here," Ely said.

"Then let’s go to the conference room," Sanders said. They walked down the hall to a small conference room, but a meeting was being held there. Sanders suggested they go to the little cafeteria in the corner of Accounting, but Ely told him that wouldn’t be private. He was growing more nervous by the minute.

"Really, I have nothing to tell you," he kept saying. "There’s nothing, really nothing."

Sanders knew he had better find a quiet place at once, before Ely bolted and ran. They ended up in the men’s room-white tile, spotlessly clean. Ely leaned against a sink. "I don’t know why you are talking to me. I don’t have anything I can tell you."

"You worked for Meredith, in Cupertino."

"Yes."

"And you left there two years ago?"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave?"

"Why do you think?" Ely said, in a burst of anger. His voice echoed off the tiles. "You know why, for Christ’s sake. Everybody knows why. She made my life hell."

"What happened?" Sanders asked.

"What happened." Ely shook his head, remembering. "Every day, every day. `Robert, would you stay late, we have some things to go over.’ After a while, I tried to make excuses. Then she would say, `Robert, I’m not sure you’re showing the proper dedication to this company.’ And she would put little comments in my performance review. Subtle little negative things. Nothing that I could complain about. But they were there. Piling up. `Robert, I think you need my help here. Why don’t you see me after work.’ `Robert, why don’t you drop by my apartment and we’ll discuss it. I really think you should.’ I was-it was terrible. The, uh, person I was living with did not, uh . . . I was in a real bind."

"Did you report her?"

Ely laughed harshly. "Are you kidding? She’s practically a member of Garvin’s family."

"So you just put up with it . . ."

Ely shrugged. "Finally, the person I was living with got another job. When he came up here, I transferred, too. I mean, of course I wanted to go. It just worked out all around."

"Would you make a statement about Meredith now?"

"Not a chance."

"You realize," Sanders said, "that the reason she gets away with it is that nobody reports her."

Ely pushed away from the sink. "I have enough problems in my life without going public on this." He went to the door, paused, and turned back. `Just so you’re clear: I’ve got nothing to say on the subject of Meredith Johnson. If anybody asks, I’ll say our working relationship was correct at all times. And I’ll also say that I never met you."

Meredith Johnson? Of course I remember her," Richard Jackson said. "I worked for her for more than a year." Sanders was in Jackson’s office on the second floor of the Aldus Building, on the south side of Pioneer Square. Jackson was a good-looking man of thirty, with the hearty manner of an ex-athlete. He was a marketing manager at Aldus; his office was friendly, cluttered with product boxes for graphics programs: Intellidraw, Freehand, SuperPaint, and Pagemaker.

"Beautiful and charming woman," Jackson said. "Very intelligent. Always a pleasure."