Save Me - Lisa Scottoline [99]
She hit another video, which showed the same terrified children running from the school, only from a different vantage point. She scanned the video titles backwards in time, reversing the chronology until she was a hero mom. Next to that video was a TV report that she hadn’t seen: More on Moms: Tanya Robertson Speaks with Eileen Gigot. She clicked the link, and after a web commercial, the anchorwoman came onto the screen:
“I’m Tanya Robertson, and tonight I begin my ‘More on Moms’ report, which goes behind the scenes in the life of the single mom whose daughter was trapped in the fire at Reesburgh Elementary. Tonight I’d like to answer the question we all have about single moms—how do they do it?”
Rose watched, intrigued.
“By way of background, Eileen Gigot’s life changed seven years ago, on August 11, in the world-famous Homestead factory, which started in 1948 with a 6200-foot plant that made only potato chips. Today, Homestead employs almost four thousand people and has grown to a plant totaling fifty-six thousand square feet. It makes potato chips, popcorn, and tons of other snack foods, shipping all over the world from right here in Reesburgh, Pennsylvania.”
Rose thought Tanya was angling for a new commercial sponsor until the screen turned to a stop-time photo of the Homestead factory, then morphed into the present-day plant, with her voiceover: “Eileen’s husband, William Gigot, loved his job at Homestead, but he was killed in a forklift accident at the plant.”
Rose eyed the photo they showed next, of William Gigot and three other men wearing yellow Homestead shirts, with nameplates that read WIJEWSKI, MODJESKA, and FIGGS. Bill Gigot was a tall, handsome man with bright blue eyes that would find their way onto Amanda’s pretty face. The screen switched to Tanya, sitting with a teary Eileen, near her breakfront.
Tanya asked, “How did you think you would get along, raising three children on your own?” The camera turned to Eileen, her eyes glistening in a face that looked prematurely lined, and she answered, “I believe that the Lord gives all of us the burdens we can carry, and no more. Of course, I wish it turned out differently. I miss Bill, every day.”
Rose felt a pang, but her thoughts kept coming back to the fire, the polyurethane, and Kurt. She navigated back to the home page, found the story about his crash, and clicked the video. Onto the screen popped the aerial footage, and she watched the coverage again, wondering about what he’d told her.
It’s the GC’s fault, the general contractor, Campanile.
She stopped the video, logged onto Google, plugged in Campanile, and found its website. It had a slick home page with a picture of a huge hotel, and the copy read:
The Campanile Group is a cutting-edge construction corporation, a new way of doing things in an age-old business. The Campanile family gave us our beginnings over a century ago, and though we value our Pennsylvania origins, we have expanded and grown nationally.…
Rose got the gist. Her gaze fell on the About Us link, and she clicked it. There was a photo of another building, but no listing or bios of corporate officers, only a PR person. She remembered that Kurt had said a “buddy” told him Campanile was at fault, and she wondered if the buddy was somebody working with him at the school. Kurt had worked for Bethany Run Construction, so she plugged their name into Google.
A website popped up, much lower-budget than Campanile. The Bethany Run home page showed three men in brown Carhartt overalls in front of a cinderblock foundation. The caption read, Vince Palumbo, Frank Reed, and Hank Powell, our famous founders. The only pages on the sidebar were Current Jobs, Past Jobs, and Contact Us.
Rose clicked on Current Jobs, which turned out to be blank except for a banner that read, Sorry, Our Current Construction Page Is Under Construction! Reesburgh Elementary wasn’t mentioned, and she clicked to Past