Chapter 21: The Board

The boardroom of Tilghman Freight ran the length of the top floor on Pier Nine.

One wall was glass over the harbor, and the table was a single slab of oak.

Eight directors sat on one side of it.

Clara walked in on Alexander's left, in a dark blue suit.

She wore her mother's pearls and two rings.

Margery came in behind them in her widest hat, with a black leather folder under her arm.

The detective from the harbor police sat in a chair by the door, and nobody had asked him to leave.

The chairman did not stand.

He was a heavy, silver-haired man who had run the board for eleven years.

He smiled at Alexander without moving his eyes.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "The first item is the motion before us."

"Read it," Alexander said.

"That Mr. Tilghman be removed as chairman of Tilghman Freight, in light of his signed statement to the police."

He glanced down the table.

"It opens a liability for every director here."

"I second it," a woman at the far end said, quickly.

"The second item," the chairman said, "is the transfer of a third of the voting shares to Mrs. Tilghman."

He gave the word a small push.

"A wife of less than a year, who has already left her husband once."

He turned his smile on Clara.

"We gave the fourth wife a month, my dear. It seems we were generous."

Clara did not answer.

She let the silence sit until the woman at the end looked down at her hands.

Then she stood.

"May I speak?" she said.

"You may. You have no vote on the motion."

"I have a third of the voting shares. I'm told that's a vote."

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