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  Up on the modern fourth floor, he quietly entered the dark, sterile-smelling room. Daddy was upright in bed, sleeping. Travis set the bag of biscuits down, then went to the window and pulled up the blind, knowing his father would want to see out when he awoke. His color looked better, more like the ruddy brownish-reddish color he usually was.

  Travis ducked back out into the hallway, keeping the door open with his foot. “Excuse me—Candace, is it?” He addressed a plump young nurse in aqua scrubs, whose shiny brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

  “Yes?” Her eyes shifted and cheeks reddened, as if she was surprised he knew her name.

  Shoot, we’ve been here how many days now?

  “Has Galen Randall eaten breakfast yet? Right here in 411?”

  She looked at her watch. “It should be coming soon. You’re one of the sons, right?”

  “Travis.” He nodded. “I know I asked this before, but can he have waffles ’stead of eggs?”

  “They should know that by now in the kitchen.”

  Travis smiled and went back into the room, doubting they would get the order right. People didn’t care about their jobs anymore. Not like Daddy had taught LJ and him—to do your job well, respect others, please the customer, go the extra mile.

  Travis sat himself down in the green vinyl chair. His father was fit as a fiddle for seventy-eight. He stood only about five foot nine, but he was lean and stubbornly strong. His forearms were thick, and his hands were small and tough as metal. He could reach unreachable places on an engine, unscrew things, bend, clamp, tighten, and manipulate a motor with his hands like most people couldn’t do with a full set of tools. And nothing ever seemed to hurt those hands, or him—until now.

  His father’s face was full of gray beard stubble. He looked older. Of course he had to be fatigued from all this hospital business. They still had the oxygen tube stuck up his nose, but it looked like they had reduced his IVs from two bags of fluid to one. Good.

  Travis just hoped he could get Daddy home soon, because that house and that garage and that piece of property were his life, especially since Momma died. Daddy’d been going to church quite a bit since then too, and that seemed to give him a lot of comfort, which was fine with Travis. Daddy even managed to get LJ and him to church once in a while, when he promised to take them to Ryan’s afterward for the all-you-can-eat buffet.

  It wasn’t like Daddy to sleep late, but he was probably still drugged up. Travis stood, took his parka off, and laid it over the chair so Daddy would see it when he awoke. Then he set out to get a paper and some of the vending machine coffee he “loved” so much.

  He had the route down pat—out the door, turn right, down the hall, around the nurses’ station. He admired nurses and doctors—people who helped people. Maybe they didn’t make them like they used to, but most were still compassionate and good at comforting those who were hurting in all kinds of ways.

  The cramped sitting room was bordered by red chairs. Only one was occupied, by a middle-aged man with blond hair and a cleft lip that had been surgically repaired—and poorly at that. He wore a black overcoat and sat hunched over, elbows on his knees, cell phone glued to his ear. Several coffee tables were strewn with newspapers and magazines. A TV in the corner blared Good Morning America. The vending machines were in a nook off to one side.

  The seated man didn’t acknowledge Travis, which Travis thought was rude. But the man looked like he was in a pretty deep discussion—who knew, his wife or momma or daddy might be on their deathbed.

  Travis put his money in the machine and hit dark roast. It was as weak as the coffee they served at Daddy’s church, but he needed some go-joe. He picked up the steaming cup from the machine and turned around, and the blond man was gone. Good. Travis plopped down on the edge of a chair and went through the reading materials.

  Wouldn’t you know it … smack-dab on top was a recent Sunday edition of the Trenton City Dispatch, featuring a huge color picture of Leonard Bendickson III, CEO of Demler-Vargus. And sure enough, it was written by none other than their buddy Jack Crittendon, who had just ridden in Travis’s Jeep!

  How do you like them apples?

  Bendickson’s picture had been taken as he stood inside the plant in an expensive-looking suit, a roll of blueprints under one arm, a hard hat and goggles on his head, one shiny shoe perched on the edge of a fancy fiberglass boat. Behind him was a massive puzzle of heavy-duty machinery—tanks, air ducts, conveyor belts, tubes, scaffolding, drums, gauges, and a giant furnace throwing flames and sparks. Travis dropped back in the chair and began to read.

  Trenton City’s Person of the Year—Leonard Bendickson III

  Mastermind of the Fiberglass Universe

  by Jack Crittendon

  As one might guess from his formal name and expensive taste in clothes, Leonard Lee Spalding Bendickson III, known as Lenny B to his yacht club pals, was reared in a wealthy Virginia home, attended Ivy League universities, and never wanted for anything.

  And he doesn’t plan to.

  Since taking the helm as CEO of Demler-Vargus thirteen years ago, Bendickson has steered the Fortune 500 company to unfathomable heights. The $7.9 billion corporation has consistently surpassed Wall Street expectations on its way to becoming one of the world’s most prolific manufacturers of fiberglass—all kinds of fiberglass.

  “When I was asked to take over as CEO, the Demler Corporation mainly produced fiberglass insulation. I knew that was the tip of the iceberg,” Bendickson said.

  It didn’t take him long to make waves. Within eight months of his arrival, the Demler Corporation had acquired Vargus International, a huge player in the fiberglass arena, based in Brussels and with plants around the globe. Over the next five years the companies consolidated nine plants into five. Since then, each has become a perennial powerhouse in the world of fiberglass manufacturing.

  Travis let the paper crumple in his lap. He had never met Bendickson, though he’d seen him once at the bank on the square downtown. He wondered what the truth was. Could LJ be right? Were pollutants from Demler-Vargus hurting employees and neighbors? Were they what had killed his mother and made his father sick?

  The Demler-Vargus plant on Winchester Boulevard on Trenton City’s east side is the largest of all, churning out dozens of kinds of fiberglass, which is then shipped to manufacturers worldwide and used to produce boats, car parts, buildings, sporting goods, windmills, insulation, fabric, bulletproof vests, and more.

  “We hit our stride when we purchased the old Trenton City refinery and its 225 acres,” Bendickson said. “We built the new plant, and that was the turning point for Demler-Vargus. We’ve never looked back. We are always exploring new ideas, techniques, and venues for our products.”

  Although Demler-Vargus has been the subject of complaints about air pollution from Trenton City neighbors over the years, Bendickson insists that the company has worked diligently to comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

  “I love the natural beauty of our land, lakes, rivers, and seas; that’s one of the reasons I studied environmental engineering at Rutgers,” Bendickson said.

  “Being a good environmental steward and a leader in green initiatives is one of my passions. When it comes to educating and properly fitting our employees with the safest, most state-of-the-art equipment and resources, we lead the way. And when it comes to reducing overall hazardous air pollutants in our community, Demler-Vargus is at the cutting edge. You won’t find a more conscientious corporation.”

  Travis couldn’t take any more in one sitting. He glanced at the elevators outside the waiting area and noticed a boy in an Ohio State ski cap pushing his gray grandpa in a wheelchair. If LJ saw the story, he would go directly to the moon, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. But if Demler-Vargus was dirty, wouldn’t OSHA and the EPA have caught on and st
opped them? Was Bendickson lying, or was he running a clean shop?

  Jack was a good writer. Travis wondered if he would really pursue a story about Demler-Vargus. He took the paper and coffee and went back around the nurses’ station.

  “Good morning.” A different nurse was behind the counter now, an attractive brunette.

  Travis looked behind him and, seeing no one there, concluded that she was speaking to him. “Hello. How is the morning treating you?”

  “Very well.” Her name tag read Meredith. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Ahh …” Travis wanted to keep the conversation going. “I’m Galen Randall’s son. He’s in room 411. I was wonderin’, is he gonna get to go home today?”

  She flipped through pages on a clipboard and paused. “His doctor is supposed to come by this morning and give him a look. He has definitely shown improvement. It shouldn’t be too much longer.”

  “Very good, then.” Travis tapped the counter, wishing there was more to talk about. “By the way, my name’s Travis—Travis Randall.”

  Meredith lost her pretty smile for a split second. She shot a glance at another nurse seated behind the counter, who made eye contact and then looked back down at some paperwork. Meredith gave Travis a sealed-mouth smile. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Randall. I hope your father gets to go home soon.”

  Mr. Randall. See how she immediately shut him down? Slammed the door right in his uneducated, country-bumpkin face.

  “Thank you.” Travis headed back toward his father’s room.

  He was forty-two. His folks had married in their twenties; they were together over fifty years. They’d had their two sons, built a business, taken care of each other and their neighbors—that was living.

  Travis was sick and tired of being alone. It frustrated him that his life was half over and he had no one. The problem was, he never had any opportunities to meet nice women. He didn’t hang out in the bars. Most of the clients at the garage were men or housewives. Daddy told him he needed to go to the singles’ class at church, and he was half tempted to try it. What did he have to lose? But he’d probably only embarrass himself there too.

  ’Course LJ was in the same boat as Travis, but his brother hung out at the Twisted Tavern and the East End Grill now and again, so he had a bigger pool of ladies to draw from—if you wanted to call them that.

  LJ had been married once, to Roxanne. They were the proud parents of Bo. When LJ got a tip that Roxanne might be seeing somebody on the sly, he went after the fella in the Big Lots parking lot—tore him limb from limb. But then the man sent a posse after LJ one night, and they carved him up so badly he lost his left eye. After the divorce, LJ got shared custody of Bo.

  Rounding the corner and walking back down the long hallway, Travis said hey to the nurse Candace, who was typing something at a workstation in the hallway. ’Course she didn’t mention nothing about Daddy’s waffles.

  Looking down the long hallway toward his father’s room, Travis suddenly saw the man in the black overcoat pop into the hallway. The man glanced both ways, held his eyes on Travis for a second, and whipped off in the opposite direction.

  That’s odd.

  The man practically ran out of there.

  Travis picked up the pace. He’d take a look into the room the man had come from. He walked faster. Then his heart kicked up a notch.

  Wait a minute …

  It hit him like a bomb.

  The man had not been near his father’s room—he’d been in it!

  Travis busted through the heavy door, past the bathroom, hoping to turn the corner to see a nurse doting over Daddy, hoping to see his father awake with his glasses on, eating his waffle, looking out the window, complaining about how much longer he would have to stay.

  Travis jammed on the brakes at the foot of the bed.

  The room was still. Everything was fine.

  Daddy slept.

  The breakfast tray had been delivered; it sat on the swinging table next to the bed, but the food hadn’t been touched. Nothing was beeping on the monitors. Travis stared at Daddy’s chest until he saw movement.

  “Phew-wee.”

  Travis hurried back into the hallway, looking for the man in black, but he was long gone. Could he be sure the man had left this room? Perhaps he’d been mistaken.

  He went back in and plunked into the chair, still holding the crumpled newspaper.

  He reached over and lifted the silver lid off the main breakfast plate.

  Egg.

  “Dang.” He dropped back into the chair.

  Incompetents.

  Travis was worn out already, and the day had hardly begun.

  He leaned back, folded the newspaper, and found his place.

  Bendickson felt so strongly about Demler-Vargus’s green initiative that he appointed his son, Devon Bendickson, 28, as the company’s environmental liaison. Devon has degrees from Furman and Rutgers and is Bendickson’s only child, by his first wife, Patricia.

  Enjoying his third marriage, this one to concert pianist Celeste Excelsior, Bendickson resides in a 15,000-square-foot solar-powered mansion in Cool Springs. The glass, metal, and stone architectural award-winning structure has indoor and outdoor pools and spas, tennis and basketball courts, and a professional par-three golf hole designed by golf great and Columbus native Jack Nicklaus.

  Although Trenton City residents may see Bendickson cruising around town in a silver Range Rover, his daily vehicle, the fiberglass king also has a collection of automobiles in his seven-car garage, including his prized-possession, a 1982 DeLorean. He loves boating, mainly in the Atlantic, on his 32-foot yacht, aptly named Fiberglass Slipper, which he docks at the Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.

  Travis wasn’t interested in finishing the story. He tossed the paper aside and looked at his father. Why was he sleeping so long? The food had to be cold by now, and Daddy detested cold food.

  Travis would have them heat it up when his father awoke. Until then, he decided to turn on the TV, real low.

  He scanned the room for the remote.

  Wait …

  The silver IV stand had been moved.

  It had been back toward the wall earlier.

  He looked from the wheels up the silver pole to the IV bag.

  A pinkish solution floated with the clear liquid in the bag.

  With three giant steps, Travis grabbed the pouch and followed the tube leading to Daddy’s right arm.

  A sudden, violent cough from his father jolted Travis, drawing his attention away from his task. Daddy’s face was purple as a bruise. His coughing turned to choking, then to a loud, alarming screeching for air.

  “Oh dear Lord.” Travis’s hands shook violently.

  His father gasped, and his arms flailed. His hands moved to his throat. His brown eyes opened and searched Travis in despair.

  Travis snatched Daddy’s wrist and pulled it toward him, fumbling for the IV tube and ripping it away.

  His father’s body went limp, his head grotesquely twisted to one side, and the color was draining from his face like antifreeze flushing from a radiator.

  The monitor next to him pinged and flashed, pinged and flashed.

  “No!”

  “Mr. Randall?” came a voice from the intercom.

  Travis grabbed it with trembling hands and pressed talk. “Hurry! We need a doctor! Emergency!”

  Going one way, then another, uncertain what to do, Travis straightened his father’s torso and shifted his head back to a normal position, trying to make him look right. But the older man’s lips were almost as white as his ashen face.

  Travis sprinted into the hallway and yelled as loud as he could toward the nurses’ station. “Emergency. Room 411! Get a doctor!”

  Seeing that they were scrambling, Travis ran back in and took his fathe
r’s face in his hands. “Come on, Daddy. Hang on. Please … ”

  Travis put his arms around him and hugged. “Hold on, Daddy. Hold on.” As he rocked him, Travis’s eyes fell to the dangling IV tube, dripping a steady flow of the liquid that, he was certain, had been tainted by the stranger in black.

  Chapter 3

  Jack scratched images of smokestacks with a black felt-tip pen on his yellow notepad as he rocked and squeaked in the brown faux-leather executive chair. He was seated at an ancient conference-room table on the third floor of the Trenton City Dispatch, just off the newsroom. The enormous table, with chairs for twelve, now accommodated six. The brown-paneled room with stained Styrofoam ceiling overlooked the Trenton City courthouse, whose clock read ten twenty-five.

  “That’s a wrap,” said editor Cecil Barton, whom Jack had worked with for seven years. “Let’s remember to help each other. Your reporters should be sharing leads, sharing information. It’s your job to make sure they communicate. That’s how we stay on top.”

  Although everything was an emergency to Cecil, whose nerves carved lines around his frazzled eyes and narrow forehead, Jack had to admit he was one of the finest journalists he knew. Not a great manager, but a great journalist.

  “Questions?” Cecil stood and stroked his mound of thinning brown hair. Obviously, from his stature and coloring, he was a man who cared little about food or sunshine.

  “I’ve got something.” Jack stood as the others gathered their things to adjourn. “I know some residents on the east side who think Demler-Vargus is making people sick over there. We’ve covered bits and pieces of their pollution issues, but have we ever done anything in-depth? An investigative series?”

  Cecil took a giant breath and slouched. He was about to respond when his right-hand man, Nigel Waheed, chimed in. “That was Amy’s beat. Whenever complaints were filed, she got wind of them through her contacts at the courthouse. Demler-Vargus has been fined before, but they’ve always complied. We’ve covered all that.”

  Dark-skinned, dark-eyed Waheed—who was always trying to schmooze Cecil—was referring to reporter Amy Sheets, who had covered the east side for years until she moved to Columbus to be closer to her aging parents.