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Chapter 31

Kennedy Carter

Watcha Cove, July 2015

Kennedy watched the ringer on her phone go off and silenced it. She saw that Tashia had called her three times in a row, probably because she had seen the news, but she couldn’t talk right now. They were still meeting with Jermaine.

Jacqueline was speaking as Kennedy debated whether or not to turn her phone totally off. “If information gets out, bad information, what are the potential consequences?” Jacqueline asked. Kennedy snapped to attention.

“Well, it depends how bad, of course,” Jermaine said with a sad smile. “William was a pretty buttoned-up guy, pretty aboveboard on everything. I mean, there might be some unorthodox business practices here and there, but that’s run-of-the-mill rich-guy stuff. There’s always been people who think they are going to expose or take down the big business interests, but they are mostly internet wackos. Nothing that we aren’t already prepared for. We aren’t going to uncover anything personally scandalous, I’d imagine, but if anything criminal comes up, specifically, then we are talking about an end to life as you know it.”

“What does that mean?” Asher demanded.

“Well, if there was anything illegal, it would lead to an investigation. In the meantime, your assets or any assets acquired with money that was potentially used to commit a crime would be frozen, seized. You’d be ...”

“We’d be poor?” Asher shouted, voice rising in distress.

“You’d certainly be unable to access your money and your homes, cars, and art. Anything of value acquired with any illegal funds would be repossessed,” Jermaine said.

Jacqueline held the bottle of Kentucky bourbon that Asher had requested and reclined in the chair she was sitting in. She smiled a twisted smile that made Kennedy uneasy.

“Someone’s been after William,” Jacqueline said. Everyone turned back to look at her. “It’s been going on for at least a year. Someone’s been poking around the business.” She took a sip straight from the bottle, but Kennedy was the one who gulped.

“Kennedy, I swear to God,” Asher said, shaking his head.

Kennedy was crying now and everyone in the room was uncomfortable. “Mom, it was me,” Kennedy said in a whisper.

“Jermaine, can we have a minute? I think the family needs a second,” Jacqueline said. The blood was rushing in Kennedy’s ears, and everything sounded far away. She was coming to the realization that maybe Asher was right, that her little film project on their father did have something to do with his death. But even worse than that was the thought that her actions had put their entire family and their future at risk. Kennedy raced over to the nearest trash can in the room. She felt the brass cool against her fingers before she threw up, her sobs and the alcohol helping to heave out whatever was left of the junky snacks she had been eating.

“What did you do?” Asher growled at her, feral and accusatory.

“No—nothing,” Kennedy stammered, still huddled over the tiny trash can.

“That’s vintage, dear,” her mother said gently, coming over to wrestle the vessel from her grip. “It’s a Fornasetti.”

Kennedy released it and leaned against the desk. “It’s been me. I was working on that thing you asked me to do, Mom, but I just wanted to make it interesting, to say something real. It was on the company, and Dad, and how he became this incredible success, and I was doing that, but then so many weird things kept coming up. Like, I found this photo of Dad and this man named Kofi, and then I found out that the company had been paying this woman who was a housekeeper a lot of money, like, a lot over a lot of years, and I—” Kennedy stammered through her confession, beads of sweat forming at her temple.

“You found Gifty?” her mother interjected incredulously.

“Yeah, I—wait, how did you know? You know about Gifty?” Kennedy asked, dumbstruck.

Jacqueline put a finger to her lips. She crept over to the door, opened it, and stuck her head out to see if anyone was listening. The hallway was empty, but she still motioned for Asher and Kennedy to be quiet.

“Let’s take this back upstairs,” she said.

Asher and Kennedy dutifully followed, confused but willing. Asher’s demeanor was frosty, and Kennedy slunk away from him. It had already been such a weird day.

Jacqueline ushered them, the remaining living Carters, into the primary bathroom, the last place William had been alive. She turned the shower on full blast, and the packed punch of all seventeen jets working together made the sound of a waterfall. She also turned on both sinks and the faucet of the bathtub. She closed the door.

“Go on,” she said to Kennedy.

Kennedy and Asher exchanged a puzzled look, but Kennedy pressed on.

“So yeah, Gifty, she’s this woman who lives in Ghana, and she’s a housekeeper, and Dad, well, the company has paid her, like, millions of dollars since it was founded. Millions. It just seemed so weird. So I called her, and her daughter said she couldn’t say much about why, and then she told me to look into Kofi Asare. And so I did, and Kofi was a guy who used to live with Dad, and he died, and something just seemed so weird, and I don’t really know what is going on. I was trying to think of how to just explain more about Dad and everything. I didn’t think it would get like this.” Kennedy rushed all this out, speaking so fast and frantic, like saying it out loud was putting the answer within reach.

“Are you hearing this?” Asher said, looking at his mother for assistance.

Jacqueline was staring back at Kennedy with a look that was a mixture of admiration and disgust. Her eyes seemed to be saying at the same time, How brilliant, how hideous.

“And also, there’s a lot of evidence that the company does kind of horrible things to people, and I don’t know. Are we going to lose everything?” Kennedy finished, sniffling again.

Jacqueline took a breath. “Well, I think that’s up to you. First, of course your father found out about the video you were making. He was too busy to stop you, it seems, but he was aware that you were snooping, so to speak. I think that someone else was conducting an investigation of their own, and I don’t know who that was. There’s something that you should know about your father that you can never repeat to anyone for any reason, ever.” Jacqueline, suddenly very sober, looked between her two children for a verbal confirmation, like a flight attendant making sure that the person in an exit row could perform the specific duties. Not that they ever flew commercial, but she’d seen it happen.

Kennedy and Asher both fell quiet, the sound of the rushing water and the hurricane outside competing to make the world’s most dramatic ambient noise.

“Your father was paying Gifty. She was blackmailing him, so to speak,” Jacqueline said plainly.

Kennedy’s breath caught. She was so close to destroying their entire lives. Had she immortalized this in a film, everyone would have seen it.

“What for?” Asher asked shaking his head.

“Well, it’s complicated. When your father was in college, he had a roommate, Kofi. Kofi was the one who was responsible for the signature product that the Carter Corporation makes. He was an architecture student from Ghana, and he hoped to make something meaningful in his home country. They were partners, but they disagreed about how to get the company started. One night, your father and Kofi had an argument, and in a terrible accident—yes, I am sure it was an accident—Kofi died. The circumstances around his death would have implicated your father, and so your father faked Kofi’s suicide. He’s not a killer, but yes, that’s still a crime. And Gifty knew, and so your father paid Gifty, which, yes, technically, is also a crime.”

“Whoa,” Asher responded.

“So now you know,” Jacqueline replied.

So that explained the journal, the last entry that detailed that Kofi did not want to partner with Ross Financial. It did make her father look guilty of something. Kennedy didn’t know what to say. This was a far worse conclusion than she was expecting, and it might have taken her years to come to it, if she ever did at all. She thought of her father lying several feet outside of this door, unable to speak for himself ever again. She was crying for the millionth time that day. She got up and walked to get herself a tissue.

“I’m so sorry. I never thought—I—” Kennedy started.

“You couldn’t have known,” her mother said to her. “It took me years to figure out— years . And even then, I didn’t have all the pieces. I thought Kofi and your father might have been lovers.”

Kennedy’s eyes bulged.

“They weren’t, but that might have been nice for him. Your father wasn’t one for romantic love from any source,” Jacqueline clarified.

Kennedy felt like she would be crushed by the speed and ferocity of her own thoughts. She was tempted to get into the running shower. So far, the crimes were obstruction of justice, hindering a police investigation, concealing or withholding evidence, bribery, and theft of intellectual property. Kennedy wondered if all of those were bad enough to freeze their assets. She zoned out, imagining a bank vault covered in ice. Even as she imagined this, though, she wondered which was worse: the fear of losing everything or the freedom of having nothing. She considered if she had the strength to survive. She looked at the shower with its multitude of jets and knew that she would be absolutely fine with just one. But then, as she looked at the stricken faces of her mother and brother, she knew that they would not be.

“So we can never tell anyone about this,” Asher said, waking her from her daydream. “Ever, Kennedy. And also, while we’re being honest, Dad told me how the company runs, and I’m sure it’s legal but it’s not ... great, and I don’t think we want anyone finding out about that either.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“So what, are we like the Mob now? I mean what is this—organized crime?” Kennedy asked.

“Well, it’s not very organized right now,” Asher said pointedly.

“We’re supposed to be better,” she said dejectedly. She thought about the way that she had planned to frame her father for his birthday tribute: a pillar of the community, a person generous with his resources and experience, a humanitarian. But if she had made that video, she would be complicit. This family had made her into a liar.

“No one is better, Kennedy. I thought you knew that by now. No one who lives like this has clean hands,” Asher said.

Kennedy suddenly felt like she’d aged ten years. She looked around the bathroom, spotless and stunning. They had everything. It was all so pristine and opulent but now stunk of rot. And was that true? Was everyone terrible? Her father would always say, “You deserve what you have the courage to take.” There was a faint feeling that this was still not quite right. The taking was the problem. The fortunes built on weapons and pills and bodies were all tainted. Was there any good version of rich? Exploitation was exploitation, and if there was something criminal about the way that he made his money, weren’t the Carters just as culpable? Was it even worse because they were Black? That didn’t seem fair either. Why would they have a different moral responsibility because of their Blackness? They had so many more obstacles, and even with money, it was still hard. Kennedy couldn’t imagine how hard it would be without money.

She had to get out of the bathroom. She was in danger of passing out. She ran to the door and threw it open. She sprinted past her dead father and down the hall to her own room. She didn’t even turn back to look at the faces of her mother and brother. When she was shut inside, she hit play on the video that she had been making and watched the faces of preapproved relatives and friends spew corporate aphorisms about William Carter Jr. He was “the backbone of his company,” “an inspiration,” “he always did his best ...” The quips now felt hollow and fraudulent, but on one hand, in one sense of reality, those things were true. He did represent good things to a lot of people, but as it turned out, to others, he was a constant source of pain and torment. He built himself up on the bones of anyone he could subjugate. He had done, more or less, the same thing to his own family.

Kennedy just wanted all this to disappear. The way that the new knowledge she’d just gained made her question her place in the world was uncomfortable. It was difficult and ugly. She wanted to turn away. She grabbed at every spare piece of paper, every note, every scrap of lies that she could find, and clutched the bounty in her arms.

She clicked on the electric fireplace in her room, and within seconds, it roared to life with flames. She began throwing all her papers, index cards, notes, documents, and photocopies into the fire. The inferno reflected in her irises as she torched it all. She felt a twisted relief watching it burn. She could breathe easier knowing that she no longer had to look at the polished simulation of the horrible truth. She grabbed her computer last and walked it back to her parents’ suite, where Asher and Jacqueline were gaping at her from the bathroom. She must have looked as undone as she felt. She looked at her father, covered in that white sheet, limp and defenseless.

She wished that he could see her now. “This is for you,” she wanted to say. But that wasn’t totally true. It wasn’t only for him. It was for her mom and her brother and also for her. It was to preserve their lives as they knew it. She wouldn’t voluntarily become destitute. She wouldn’t bring down what had been built for her. The damage was already done to everyone else—to Kofi, to Gifty, to her father, to the world. Knowing more wasn’t going to fix any of that, but doing the right thing with the money might, and she certainly had a lot of it coming her way, so long as she never let anyone else know what she had just discovered. She was sweating now. She took her computer, still open, into the bathroom and dropped it into the full tub. Sparks went flying like a firework spectacular before the screen succumbed to total blackness. Jacqueline and Asher jumped back. They all knew what this meant.

“Thank you,” Asher said to her, watching her laptop sink to the bottom of the tub. Kennedy felt her humanity recede. It slipped away beneath the surface like her computer and was replaced by her father’s wishes. It gurgled one last struggling breath. She heard a voice that was not her own utter, “It’s what Dad would have wanted.”

The weight of what she had just buried settled on her.

An urgent buzzing on the intercom broke through the moment. “Miss Carter? Mrs. Carter? A Tashia Carter is here, and she said speaking with you is urgent.”

Kennedy heard Tashia in the background, yelling loudly, “Yes, tell them it can’t wait.”

Kennedy frowned to herself and then looked apologetically at her brother and mother, another disruption, her fault. She quickly walked out of the bathroom and downstairs, where she found Tashia, storm swept and disheveled, sobbing. It registered for Kennedy that something terrible must have happened. Tashia’s tears could not have been about her father.

“What happened?” Kennedy asked, rushing to her friend.

“I’m so, so, so sorry,” Tashia blubbered. “I think I might have done something really bad.”