"Morgan, here's
the problem," said the gray-headed, blue-eyed
Steven Winthrop, president and CEO of Callifonte Inc.
"We have a leak.
We've lost four of the last five contracts we've bid
by less than one hundred dollars. If that happens
occasionally, I can accept it. But when it happens
four out of five times, well...I don't believe in
coincidence."
An ex-Chicago cop and
rapidly approaching thirty-five, I'd hung up my badge
and opted for life as corporate security chief three
years ago.
Since then, my duties
at Callifonte Inc. had amounted to little more than
counting paper clips, pencils, and ink-jet printer
refills.
But that morning, the
scope of my duties was about to change.
"So you think
someone's leaking our bids to the competing firms?"
"Frankly, yes. And
I'm asking you to find out who that is." He drew
his finely arched eyebrows together, studying me
closely for a moment.
"Morgan," he
said, "that's an odd name for a woman."
"Yes, sir," I
answered, summoning up my sweetest little girl smile.
"I don't know why my parents picked it."
"Yes," he
said with a slight chuckle, "I suppose you're
right. None of us get to choose our names, do we?"
I was used to the
reaction. Men can turn defensive about a woman having
a name they traditionally see as male. I'd learned
years ago to shift their displeasure with my handle
from me to my parents.
Life's tough enough
without offending nearly half of the world's
population
"Anyway, these are
the names and addresses of all the people we've fired
within the last five years," Winthrop resumed.
"Plus, there's a run-down in there on the
companies that have won the bids."
"Then you think
the leaks are the work of an ex-employee?"
"That's my
assumption, yes. That's where companies are usually
the most vulnerable. Can you think of any more
information that you need?"
"Yes, I want the
names of all the people who have access to our final
bids. And I want unquestioned access to any documents
I think are important."
"Consider it done,"
Winthrop said. "Run your requests through Judith."
He leaned back in his wide chair.
"Between us,
Morgan, I can't stress enough the need for a quick
solution. We have an important bid coming up in two
month's time. If we lose that, we all may be looking
for new jobs."
*****
I found Judith Banks
seated at her over-organized desk in the outer office.
As Winthrop's executive assistant, I figured her
power within this company was second only to God.
Still, I don't trust
anyone who's considered completely above suspicion. I
ticked off the information I wanted and studied her
reactions closely.
With dark hair,
enormous blue eyes, and a crisply tailored blue suit,
Judith was obviously a tough woman to rattle. She
flinched, though, when I asked for a list of all
executive salaries.
"I'll have to
check that with Phillip," she responded through
a thin smile.
"Fine. Just fax
the information to me when you get the okay."
That said, I thanked
her for her help, turned on my heel, and left the
executive suite of Callifonte Inc.
*****
So that's the way it
started--me, Morgan Miller, called into Winthrop's
office in early July, and told, after three years as
chief of security for Callifonte Inc., there was a
major problem within the firm.
Closing my office door
gently behind me, I dumped my suit jacket onto the
table, pulled out my office chair, and settled in at
my desk. From the papers I'd already received, I
learned that a lot of heads had rolled at Callifonte
Inc. in the last five years.
Most of the
terminations, I noted, were from four years ago--almost
as soon as Phillip Winthrop became Callifonte's CEO.
Stuffing the papers back inside their folder, I stood
and headed to Joe Flanders' office.
His secretary, Liz
Chambers, cool, efficient, and always well dressed,
flashed me a brilliant smile as I entered the room.
Her expensively layered, blond hair swished across
her shoulders as she moved from her computer terminal
to her desk.
A quick flick of her
long, manicured fingers on the intercom soon cleared
me for admission.
As I walked past her
desk, headed toward my boss' office, I caught a whiff
of her perfume. I couldn't place the scent, but I bet
myself it cost plenty and came in very small bottles.
"Hi, Morgan,"
Joe said, looking up from a large stack of papers.
I wondered if the
documents had anything to do with the upcoming bid
and felt my stomach tighten. Then, I quickly
dismissed the thought.
In his mid-forties,
with thinning black hair, thick glasses, and the body
of a cherub, it was hard to picture Joe as an
industrial spy.
For my money, he lacked
the imagination, drive, and savvy it took to play on
that field. A few minutes later I left his office
still smiling, my two-week medical leave granted.
Outside his door, I
instinctively, I reached for my anti-acid tablets in
my jacket pocket.
Internal investigations
are a little like walking through a minefield. Co-workers
have honest-looking faces but can lie better than any
bank robber, thief, or pimp.
They also have a
network of connections that can undermine
investigations and mortally wound the investigator.
I'd learned that lesson three years ago in Internal
Affairs.
My job at Callifonte
Inc. wasn't challenging, but I liked its perks. I had
no desire to retire early--twice.
*******
Twenty minutes later,
the personnel files and I were bouncing along inside
my Honda, headed north on Lake Shore Drive. I was
headed for my little four-room flat about one mile
north of Loyola University.
The address on my
mailbox read Michigan Avenue, but my alley opened
directly onto the beach. It's as close to beachfront
property as any address you'll find in the Windy City.
The day had turned
muggy but there were no clouds. The sun beat down
with a surly glare that had sent people scrambling to
the city's beaches.
As I pulled my Honda
into my reserved parking space in the alley, the
scent of smoking, charcoal grills and suntan oil
washed over me. Ignoring their siren song, I scooped
up the files from my car's front seat and headed for
my apartment.
Once inside, I dumped
Winthrop's files on my living room couch, grabbed my
cordless phone and settled down beside the files.
After twenty minutes of working the telephone, I
learned that four of Callifonte's ex-employees no
longer lived in Chicago and another two were dead.
That still left me with
seven possible suspects to investigate within the
next few weeks. I jotted their names, telephone
numbers, and updated addresses in my legal pad.
Next, I added the name
of Judith Banks to my list of suspects. Anyone
described as completely above suspicion, I figured,
was worth investigating.
Then, heeding my
growling stomach's plea for dinner, I strolled to
Luciani's restaurant a few blocks from my place.
*****
The next morning, I
called Harry Bell, my former partner in Internal
Affairs. He'd retired from the police department
before I had, but he'd been my chief mentor and
surrogate parent for years.
Orphaned at four, and
raised by a single mother, I'd learned to take
support where it could be found. And Harry Bell had
always offered it to me in spades.
As I dialed his
telephone number, I just hoped Bell was sufficiently
bored with his life to help me with this case.
"Ah, it's been a
while Morgan," his dear voice purred through the
receiver. "You still as pretty as ever?"
"Yeah, right."
I chuckled. Short and somewhat chunky, with closely
cropped brown hair and freckles, pretty was a hard
word to swallow.
"So what are you
doing these days Harry?" I asked. "You got
anything going on that can't be put on hold for a
couple of weeks?"
I pictured his florid,
round face as I put my question to him.
"At this moment,
my dear, I'm doing just what I did yesterday and the
day before. I'm watching the grass grow on my
concrete driveway."
"That exciting,
huh? Well then, maybe I've got something here that
could liven up your life."
"If you're talking
an investigation, I'm too rusty girl."
Ignoring his protests,
I outlined the situation for him--explaining what I
did know and what I needed to know. I also filled him
in on the large number of firings the firm had
experienced four years ago.
"Bottom line,
Harry, I need you to talk to the floor workers, check
out the rumors, get their view of what's going on in
Callifonte's Inc. With me on medical, I can't show up
in front of anyone connected with the firm just now."
He diddled and dithered
for what must have been five minutes. Then things
unexpectedly went my way, as he responded with a
terse, "Okay. What's their favorite watering
hole?"
"Sylvester's
Grill, just across the street from the plant entrance."
"Got it," he
groused before ringing off.
I'd no sooner hung up
the telephone receiver on my end, than the faxes
started coming through from Judith.
Mentally, I counted off
the pages as the sheets of paper wound through my fax
machine. When the whirring of the printer finally
stopped, I grabbed the sheets and carried them to my
glass-topped coffee table.
Winthrop thought the
leak was the work of an ex-employee. What he was
overlooking, though, is that anyone outside the firm
needed inside help with this job.
I scanned the list of
people who had knowledge of Callifonte's final
bidding documents. Then, I wondered whose name had
been left off the list.
One thing you learn
quickly in the detecting business is that you're
hardly ever told the entire truth. Sometimes,
omissions could be chalked up to human error. Other
times, though, there was a more sinister reason.
The first name I
noticed missing on this list was Judith Banks.
Reaching for the phone,
I dialed the number for Winthrop's office. Judith
answered before the second ring.
"Hi, Judith.
Morgan here." We exchanged a few pleasantries;
then I settled down to business.
"Got your faxes.
Thank you, I appreciate the information, but now I
need some questions answered. I wonder, could we get
together for lunch tomorrow?"
Judith reluctantly
agreed to meet me at my neighborhood restaurant.
"I don't want
anyone from Callifonte's spotting us dining together,"
I explained, to offset some of her protests at
driving that far north for lunch.
That settled, I changed
into a swimsuit, grabbed an oversized towel, and
headed out my back door for a swim.
*****
When I returned from
the beach some time later, I found Harry camped out
at my back door.
"Figured you'd
sneaked off for a swim," he said, as I unlocked
the door and ushered him into my rooms. "Always
suspected you of being part fish, the way you dive
into water at the first chance."
"Yeah, hot water,
too--sometimes," I answered; we both laughed.
I could laugh about the
hot water I'd landed myself in during my last
investigation for Internal Affairs. But it had been
no laughing matter at the time.
Heading into the
kitchen, I fixed coffee as Harry settled onto my low-slung
living room couch.
"So, what do you
have?" I asked later, handing Harry a steaming
cup of freshly made coffee.
"Well, I found an
old guy willing to talk. Name's...," Harry
flipped through the pages of his tiny notebook,
"George Stein.
“Tells me things
got pretty nasty at Callifonte's just before and just
after Winthrop took over. Stein said he thought
things had settled down pretty well now, though."
"Yeah, right. If
you discount industrial espionage." I tucked my
feet up onto the couch and faced Harry.
"Stein said
Winthrop made some sort of complicated power play
through the company's board to gain control of the
firm. It apparently didn't go well for the ousted
CEO, John Cummings. Cummings committed suicide three
months after the takeover."
"Jeez, ain't
corporate politics fun?" I asked. Harry looked
up, chuckled, then, returned his gaze back to his
notes.
"Anyway, it turns
out Judith Banks had a thing going with Cummings. I
guess everybody knew but the wife. Most folks thought
Judith would leave with Cummings, but, of course, as
you know, she didn't."
"Very interesting,"
I said. "Are there any other names he mentioned
that stand out?"
"Yeah, there's
another guy, Joe Flanders. He was apparently a
distant cousin of Cummings. George said he was
surprised when Flanders stayed on, too."
"Oh great. He's
just my boss and head of operations."
I grabbed the personnel
files from the end table and handed them to Harry.
"Here, I've gone
through these, but a second set of eyes would help.
Take them home with you, look them over, then, bring
them back tomorrow morning. I've got a lunch
appointment with Judith. You can help me work up a
list questions for my lunchtime session."
After Harry left, I
picked up the telephone and made appointment with
another woman who'd caught my attention in this case.