Chapter 4 - The Lobbyists
The hearing room in the state capitol in Richmond smelled of wet wool, floor polish, and the peculiar, deadened air of buildings that hadn't seen an open window since the Carter administration.
The mahogany paneling was dark and high, carved with the seals of Virginia counties that no longer existed except on old tax maps. At the center of the horseshoe-shaped dais sat Senator Thomas Vance, a man whose hair was so white it looked like spun glass and whose suits were tailored by a man in London who clearly didn't charge by the yard.
"Mrs. Miller," Vance said, peering over his half-moon reading glasses at the papers on his desk. "The committee has received your written statement regarding House Bill 1404. Before you begin your oral testimony, I want to note that we have also received a communication from counsel representing Arthur Harris, Esq., suggesting that your competency to manage these funds is under legal review in Fairfax County."
The room went very quiet. In the back row, behind the low oak partition, I saw someone shift—a young man in a charcoal suit with a silk tie the color of a wet slate shingle. One of my father’s junior associates. They had sent a scout to watch the execution.
I didn't look back at him. I placed my hands flat on the walnut reading ledge, feeling the cold, smooth grain beneath my palms.
"My father’s counsel is mistaken about my competency, Senator," I said. My voice didn't echo; it was too steady for that, too flat, like water in a galvanized bucket. "I am entirely competent. For the first time in six months, I know exactly what I am doing."
Senator Vance nodded slowly. "Proceed, Mrs. Miller."
"Six months ago today," I said, looking not at the senators, but at the empty space above their heads where the state seal hung in tarnished brass, "my husband and my two children were killed on Interstate 95 outside Richmond. A truck driver named Gary Vance—no relation to the Senator—had been awake for thirty-eight hours driving a load of dry wall from Jacksonville to Baltimore. His company’s dispatcher had altered his electronic logs three times that week to keep the rig moving."
In the back row, the junior associate shifted again, his leather briefcase clicking against the brass leg of the bench.
"When I called my parents from the hospital chapel," I continued, "while my hands were still covered in the ash of the SUV’s upholstery, my father told me that he couldn't come to the funeral because my sister’s thirtieth birthday dinner at Le Diplomate in Georgetown had been booked for weeks."
A murmur ran through the press gallery along the left wall—the low, sharp hiss of notebooks snapping open and pens scratching against legal pads.
"When the settlement from the civil suit was awarded last month," I said, my voice rising just enough to fill the high-ceilinged room without shouting, "my family did not call to ask if I was sleeping. They did not call to ask if I was eating. They called to ask if I could finance a town house in Georgetown and pay for twenty-four thousand dollars in non-refundable wedding deposits."
"Mrs. Miller," Senator Vance interrupted gently, "while the committee is deeply sympathetic to your personal loss—"
"I didn't come here for sympathy, Senator," I said. "I came here to tell you that eighteen million dollars isn't enough to bring my children back. But it was enough to build twelve weigh stations between here and the North Carolina line. And House Bill 1404 is enough to put dispatchers who falsify logbooks into cells next to the drivers who fall asleep at the wheel."
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I turned my head then, looking straight down the center aisle toward the back row where my father’s boy sat with his mouth slightly open, his pen frozen over a blank yellow legal pad.
"My father’s firm is currently liquidating its assets in Northern Virginia," I said clearly. "They are finding out, as I found out on a rainy Tuesday morning in July, that some ledgers can't be balanced with other people's blood. Pass the bill."
