Rose Marie is trying something a little different, serializing a book she has written — "The Evil Men Do." Each month she will be sharing a chapter with you. As the months go by, you will be able to go back and re-read previous chapters if you wish to. This book is presented here exactly as she has written it. We welcome your thoughts on both the book itself and the process we are trying. So — jump in!

If you missed previous chapters, they can be read here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10

The Evil Men Do — Chapter Eleven

The marsh, subject of the controversy between developers and conservationists, was born about fifty thousand years ago when an enormous sheet of ice, the Laurentide Glacier, came down out of the north and pressed across Canada and the northern part of the United States. Rocks, sand and gravel, carried along by the ice sheet, were deposited at its southern limit. Suddenly the climate began to change, become warmer, and the ice started melting. As the glacier melted, the level of the sea rose, and, as the pressing weight of the glacier lifted, the land too rose. Then there came a time when ice remained only in the far, far north. The sea’s advance slowed, and plants began to grow on the edge of the sea.

That was the beginning.

The first humans to settle the area, the Indians, made little or no impression on the land. Later, the first European settlers arrived. To them the marsh and surrounding lands meant open spaces, abundant fish and animal life and, most important at that time, freedom. 

To their descendants a couple of hundred years later, the marsh no longer served a purpose. The movers and shakers that made up modern society could not tolerate the absence of productivity. The marsh’s demise became imminent. By the 1970’s, the marsh represented only more land to be bought, sold, filled in, built up—developed, to use the modern euphemism the developers employed. 
Some people fought to keep areas like the marsh free from industry, but, when the industry in question threatened to move to another town or another state if not allowed to build in that particular area, they caved in. Prudhomme, of course, had always been on the side of the developers. Stu wondered, when had that changed? And why? Again he wished he had been more enterprising, less passive, wished he had asked questions.
All his life he had heard rumors stating that not only waste products were buried in the marsh but that the gangster word found it useful for other burials as well.
What, Stu wondered, was Jenkins’ interest in the marsh? What was he really doing with the measuring tape that day?

When the telephone rang, Stu was standing by the window drinking a second cup of coffee, his gaze on the thin green ribbon between the brown land and the blue sea. He picked up the phone eagerly, thinking—hoping—it might be Janet. Instead he heard Reed’s voice. His father’s partner sounded hesitant, unusual for him. “Stu. Glad to find you home. I need your signature on a few papers, wonder if I might drive out there later on this morning, catch you at home and get you to sign them. Will you be there?”

“Why do you need my signature?”
“You didn’t know? Your father gave you Power of Attorney.”
“No,” Stu said. “I didn’t know. When did he do that?” And why?  Would Reed know?
“Not long before he died.”
“You know why?”
“I’m afraid it’s because he planned to commit suicide.”
“You know I don’t believe that.” Silence from Reed. “You don’t have to drive all the way out here. I’ll meet you at your office. Say in an hour?”

Reed chuckled. “What’s come over you, you used to avoid coming to the city, said you hated it.  Isn’t that true anymore?”
“I guess I don’t hate it as much as I thought.” He rationalized his decision: he had to find something to do with his time if he wasn’t going to paint. Plus he had to think about the long run. After he figured out what had happened to Prudhomme, who killed him, then what? He had no intention of sitting around and staring at the four walls all day. How bad was the firm’s financial condition? Any chance of bringing it back? That’s what he wanted to do, make his father’s company viable again. If possible. With or without Reed. With or without Jenkins. Preferably without.

Jenkins was sitting across from Reed when Stu entered Reed’s office. Stu found himself resenting his presence. He was hoping to get Reed to tell him the reason behind Jenkins’ hiring, who he was, what his background was, impossible with Jenkins sitting right there. Reed handed him some papers, and Stu commenced reading. “I can summarize the contents,” Reed offered. “Save you some time.”
“I promised my father I’d never sign anything without reading it first.”
“Sound advice.” Reed not minding, Jenkins frowning. 
Stu stopped reading. He frowned. “It says here you’re making Jenkins a partner.“
Reed coughed. “That’s right.”
Stu laid down the pen. “How do you justify that?”

Reed was squirming now. “I need someone else to help if we’re going to turn it around.” 
“You think there’s any chance of that happening?”
Jenkins butted in. “Never know till you try. Too bad your dad and Reed here decided against developing the marsh. That was a sweet deal.”
“Sweet deal?” Stu repeated.
“I was out there,” Jenkins told Reed, who went pale. “Would have made a nice little development. Even have a name picked out. Forest Acres. I don’t know why you’re so attached to it.”
Warning bells went off in Stu’s head. He lay down the pen. “Who are you, Jenkins?” he asked.  “You only came to work here a short time ago. Where’s you come from?”

“I have an M.B.A.,” Jenkins said. Stu paid no attention, focused his attention on Reed. “You’re crazy if you think I’m signing this.”
Jenkins shot Reed a pointed look, and Reed cleared his throat and said, “It was your father who hired Jenkins.”
“As what?”
“A trainee,” Reed said.
“And suddenly you want to make him a partner?”
“If you won’t sign,” Reed said, “it won’t happen.”
“In that case,” Jenkins said, “we’d better reconsider building on that piece of land Stu is so fond of.”
“The marsh? That’s not going to happen either,” retorted Stu.
“Why don’t you see it our way? We’d be transforming a useless piece of land to something useful. A sound investment guaranteed to make money for everybody.”
“Including you?”
“Why not me?” Jenkins let out a mirthless laugh. “I can use the money as much as anyone. More. I wasn’t born rich.” Unspoken the words, ‘like you.’ I’m an orphan.  My mother died when I was born, my father later, but I was still just a kid.”
Reed put a hand on his arm.

“I warn you,” Stu said, “no way would I agree to destroy the marsh to put up another mall.”
“You’re outnumbered,” Jenkins said.
“You’re on his side now?” Stu asked Reed. “What made you change your mind?”
Reed looked away, out the window at the darkening afternoon. Stu shoved the documents into the old backpack he’d found in the car and carried in for just this purpose. “I’ll take these with me.”
“That’s right, look them over,” Jenkins said.

“Not that I’ll ever sign, but something’s going on between you two. I’m hoping these documents will tell me what.” Reed was still looking out the windows. Jenkins smirked as if he knew what the outcome would be. Stu walked out.
Rose was sitting at her desk, and Stu paused. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asked.
“Whatever it is, it’s serious. The firm’s about one week away from bankruptcy.” See his shocked expression, she said, “you don’t need to worry. Your father protected you.”

“These troubles didn’t start overnight,” he said. “When did they?”
“We’ve been hemorrhaging money for a while now, but your father thought he could pull out of it. After all, he’d done it before.” They searched each other’s face, and she said it first. “So it’s possible he did kill himself.”
“I don’t believe it. He’d have found a way. Like you said, he did it before.”
“I thought so too,” she admitted. “He wasn’t upset about it. Reed was more upset than he was.”  She sighed. “Your father and I used to be …close,” she said, “so I felt I had the right to know.”
“Of course you did,” said Stu.”
“He said it was time to start over anyway.”
“You knew what he planned to do?” Stu asked.
“He was going away,” she said. “I don’t know where or for how long. Or who he was going with.”
“No one,” Stu said. “He wasn’t going with anyone.”

“That’s a comfort.” She rearranged the pencils on her desk, turned a few pages of the desk calendar. “So, what have you learned about Jenkins? He walks around acting like he’s the boss instead of Reed, and Reed lets him.”
“Reed wants to make him a partner.” 
She nodded. “So that’s what they’re planning. The question is why?”
“I googled him,” said Stu, “and nothing. He says he graduated from Princeton, but they have no record.”
She sat up straighter. “Did you tell Reed?”
“I will eventually,” Stu said. “If I say anything now, I get the feeling Jenkins’ll make up some excuse, and Reed’ll believe him. Or say he does. I can’t force Reed to get rid of him.” Should he tell her what he discovered about Reed?  She might already know. “Reed served time,” he said, “for manslaughter. You know about that?”
“Yes,” said Rose. “It didn’t happen the way you think.”
“I don’t think anything,” said Stu. “What did happen?” Wondering if she would tell him the same story George did.

And she did. “It was self-defense,” said Rose. “Only it wasn’t himself he was defending, it was your father.”
“You think it has anything to do with my father’s death?” asked Stu.
“No,” she said. “It happened too long ago.”  
Phoning Sharon every time he found himself in the city had become a habit. She told him she had been expecting to hear from him. He heard a question in her voice. “Nothing new to report,” he said. 
“Well, I have something new,” she told him.  “I told you I was meeting Roy, didn’t I?”
“And I told you to be careful.”
“Of course I am, I’m always careful. He knows you don’t like him.”
Stu said he couldn’t care less.
“Well, you should, because he asked to help, and I’m letting him.”
“Please, Sharon,” Stu pleaded.  “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t trust him,” Stu said.
“I don’t trust him either,” she said.  “So what?  Doesn’t mean he can’t help us. I already found out a few things.”
“Tell me.” 
“Why don’t you come over?”

It didn’t take him long. There was something new, the building had a doorman, and Stu had to show him identification before he was allowed up. When Sharon opened the door Stu remarked on it.
“The management’s idea,” she said.
“I’m glad.” He took in her appearance. “You look good.”
“I am good,” she said, laughing a little. “Nothing like a new interest.”
“Love interest? Don’t tell me that’s what it is.”
“Of course not,” she said. “I’m doing something, that’s all. I feel good about that.”
“Because he has his eye on Reed’s twenty-year-old daughter.”
“The crud.” She turned away from the door, and he followed her into the living room. “Why am I not surprised?”
“No love lost between you then,” said Stud, relieved.
“I’m using him,” she said, “just like he’s probably using me.”
“Using you for what?”
“See how much I know.” She offered him coffee, and he refused. “How’s the painting going? You finding time to paint with everything else going on?”
“No,” he said.
“You need to pick up a brush,” she said.  “Don’t worry about creating effects.”
“Is that what you tell your students?”
“Mostly.”

“I have no desire to pick up a brush,” he said. “It’s not important to me anymore. I’ve just been fooling myself. Like my father. I’m a Sunday painter, like him, and, you know something, I don’t care, it’s all I want to be.”
“Maybe you’ll change your mind when all this is over,” she said.
“If it ever is.”

Whether she admitted it or not, he credited the rise in her spirits to Jenkins’ influence. “Does he know about Prudhomme and you?” he asked.
“He’s very sympathetic,” she said. “I’ll say that for him.”
“I bet.”
She frowned. “What happened today? Why are you in the city?”
“Reed wanted me to sign some papers. I brought them with me. Not to sign, to look at. Must be a reason. He wants to make Jenkins partner, and because my father rigged it that way I have to approve.”
“And you don’t.”
“Of course not. When I said I wouldn’t sign, Jenkins started talking about developing the marsh, and Reed let him. Why, when he and my father dropped the idea. Suddenly it’s okay? I found Jenkins creeping around there the other day with a tape measure,” Stu added.
“He told me it’s his job to look at possible sites for development.”
“He’s blackmailing Reed, that’s what I think, but what’s he got on him, and how’d he get it? He came out of the blue.”

“I’ll find out,” she said, confident in her power to persuade.
“Don’t,” he cautioned.
“Cherchez la femme,” said she.  “It’s easier if I do it.  He trusts me.”
Strange, her echoing Suzanne’s words, in a different context. “Does he question you about my father?”
“He hasn’t yet,” she said. “I met Suzanne the other day. She seemed preoccupied. Is she worried about something?”
“Worried? Probably. About George. He filed away the fact of Suzanne’s unhappiness for future reference. “You know  George?”
“To say hello to,” she said.
“My father didn’t think much of him, but I always liked him.” 
“He seems nervous,”
“He is. What about my father’s other brothers, Edgar and Jonah?”

She shook her head. “Saw them, never met them formally.”
Stu sighed. “Did Prudhomme ever talk about putting up a mall in the marshland near where I live?”
“No. He starting talking about conservation,” she said. “Said there was money in that.”
“Yes,” Stu said. “He explain?”
“I assumed it was because he was leaving.”
“That’s not it,” Stu brooded. “I think he didn’t want it developed and he knew that without him it never would be. And it wouldn’t, except for Roy Jenkins pushing Reed, and now the other two, Edgar and Jonah, are joining in.”
“I wish he’d confided in me.”
“So do I,” Stu said.

“Let me find out what’s going on. I’ll get Jenkins to tell me.”
“I’m still asking you not to,” Stu said. “I don’t trust him.” 
“Why, because he lied on his employment application? Lots of people do.”
“He said he went to Princeton, but they have no record.”
“So he dropped out. People do that too.”
“Why are you defending him?”  
“I’m not,” she said. “I just don’t think there’s anything sinister about him. He’s just a poor schmuck who sees a chance to make some money. You wouldn’t understand.”

Because he’d been born with a silver spoon, etc. “I still don’t like it.”
“Are you jealous?”
How could he make her see Jenkins the way he did. “What about Reed’s daughter? Next time you see him, ask him about her. She says he wants to marry her.”

She shrugged. “So? What is it, he’s a rival?”
Stu felt a wave of anger.  “She’s only a kid.” He said he had to go.
She walked him to the door. “Let me find out what I can. I’ll report back to you.”
He stopped. “Just don’t take any chances.  Remember Paris.”
She smiled.  “Yes, Paris. In the fall. I can’t wait.”

Check Next Month's Issue for Chapter 12