The first thing I did was pull the key card logs from the weekend, starting with Friday night. Every associate has a badge with his or her photo. More importantly, they have a chip that grants them access to and from every section of the building, including the parking garage. A computer logs all of the time stamps and keeps it for three years. These logs have proved invaluable in theft investigations and when building a case for termination against an associate. Between a computer log and key card log, we were able to piece together soneone’s entire day, from what favorite gossip sites they frequented to the number of bathroom breaks they took.
It didn’t take long to narrow it down to a single suspect, though the name surprised even me. The associate in question was the administrative assistant to the woman whose office was vandalized.
She was also a thirty-year vet to the organization and quite possibly the gentlest human soul ever to grace this land. She organized the annual Adopt-A-Family charity event that provided essentials to needy families around the holidays. And she’d quietly fill the funding gap out of her own pocket for all the chumps who “forgot” to pay their five dollars for the privilege to wear jeans on Fridays. She held a free knitting class during lunch on Wednesdays, baked homemade cakes for every monthly birthday celebration, decorated cubicles for associate anniversaries, and even volunteered for the job no one wanted, which was floor warden during earthquake evacuation drills, a job that ensured—in the event of an actual earthquake—she’d be the last person out of the building. Knowing all this, I was hard-pressed to believe, despite the mounting evidence against her, that this sweet little lady would come into the office early on a Saturday morning to defecate on the chair of her direct report.
I brought the woman into my office for some “fact finding.” By all appearances, the suspect showed no signs of guilt. She was her usual cheerful self and even remembered that last week was my twenty-third anniversary with the firm. I didn’t want to let on that she was our person of interest in the case and began my questioning in a breezy fashion.
“Oh my goodness,” she started characteristically, “what a thing to do. I can’t fathom someone from this company doing that. It’s simply tragic.”
“Yes, very tragic.”
The woman recapped the morning in concise detail. When she got to the part of the discovery of the excrement, she took a few moments to gather herself. The words did not come easily and appeared to visibly upset her.
“The poor thing let out a scream. I must admit, I feared the worst.”
“Worse than what was sitting on her chair?”
“I thought…she may have lost a loved one,” she said and made the sign of the cross. “It was that kind of scream.”
“You work closely with Ms. Timmons. Can you think of any incidents that we should be aware of? Any conflicts she may have had with other associates?”
“I can’t imagine anyone at the company doing such a thing.”
“I know, you said that earlier. But even small things can lead to larger consequences. People we think we know are capable of doing things we never thought possible.”
I thought I saw her eye twitch, or was it a twinkle?
“Not anyone I know. And I know people.”
“What’s it like working for Ms. Timmons?”
“Ms. Timmons?” she repeated as if there were some confusion on who we were talking about. “She’s a smart woman, very dedicated. Even when she’s not in the office I can see she’s logged on from home.”
“And working with her? What’s that like?”
“Fine. No real issues.” It felt like there was more; it just needed some time to be coaxed out. “Sure, she can be particular at times about the process, but we’re all in this together and in the end we get the work done, which is what really matters.”
And there it was—the root of the issue.
“Does she micromanage?”
“Goodness, no. I didn’t mean to imply that.” Micro-management was a criticism commonly levied against most mid-level managers. “Really, it’s about finding that balance in styles. It all works out in the end.”
It was the second time she used the phrase “in the end,” like there was some inevitable outcome that was beyond her control, one she had to either accept willingly or unwillingly.
“Is she fair?”
“Yes, she’s very clear in what she asks us.”
“And in what she asks of you?”
“We’ve struck that right balance in approaches.”
“And on how you’re evaluated?”
“Very consistently.”
She had the right answers but to questions I wasn’t asking. The woman’s mounting frustration was palpable. She began this manic gesture with her hand, touching her thumb with each of her fingers—pinkie first, then ring finger, middle, and finally index—and then start it all over again. She did it with an obsessive-compulsive rhythm.
One of the dirty secrets in corporate America was this: the good never go unpunished. This administrative assistant was a dynamo, an individual who truly helped make the place run. And to reward her for her good work, she was transferred to Ms. Timmons, a woman whose “approach” had alienated half of the company and run through at least ten administrative assistants over the last seven years. Most either quit or were terminated. And rather than solve the issue head-on by going to the root of the problem, it was decided that a valuable asset like this sweet administrative assistant sitting before me be thrust into the hell that was working with Ms. Timmons.
Old-fashioned harassment—the pat-on-the-ass kind once common—was rare and all but extinct in Corporate America. What cropped up in its place was a more insidious form of harassment that was just as harmful as it was totally legal. This new form was an ultra–passive aggressiveness, meted out in a way that remained within the rules of the company and always with a smile.
Take a simple mistake like printing up the wrong handout for a meeting. A normal person would simply correct your mistake and ask for the right handout. A normal jerk would call you a “dumbass” and then ask for the right handout. Ms. Timmons would do something different. She’d most likely start like this:
“I noticed you printed the wrong handout for the meeting.” She’d wear an expression of honest-to-goodness concern. Then she’d say, “Did you mean to print the wrong handout?” That question alone has no merit, as only a total nincompoop would willfully make a mistake like that. But what it does is force you to answer the question. It wouldn’t end there. “Are there any issues you are dealing with that led to this mistake?” Again, this is all aboveboard. If brought to HR, Ms. Timmons could claim she was trying to identify any obstructions to the associate’s ability to do quality work. Although your answer would be that there were no issues and that it wouldn’t happen again, she would recommend you take a time-management course (God help you if you declined, as this would show an unwillingness to develop) and now you are sentenced to an eight-hour seminar with some hack from a corporate consulting firm. Have this done to you all day, every day and you too might revert to your pure animal instincts and take a dump on someone’s ergonomic chair.
I watched the woman do her nervous finger dance and I was overcome with a great sadness because I had contributed to this mess. All my work in HR had enabled people like Ms. Timmons to exact their torture on people who couldn’t defend themselves. My job was to protect those people and here I was an accomplice in their dirty work.
I don’t know what came over me but I reached out and took hold of the woman’s hand. I could still feel her fingers continue their incessant tapping but I slowly squeezed her hand and they eventually stopped.
She knew that I knew, but it didn’t matter. I closed the case as unsolved and set about a plan to transfer the unnamed administrative assistant to a more accommodating position.
I also decided to question Claire about what we had discovered. I had been avoiding a confrontation with her in the hopes that things would just recon
cile naturally. But that was never going to happen.
Despite whatever promise I made to Cheli, I needed to keep pressing.
IT’S MUTUAL
As an attorney, Claire was skilled at answering questions without ever giving answers, so I decided to confront her directly in the hopes of getting a visceral reaction. Calling ahead only gave her time to work up a response, so I planned to drop by her office unannounced.
I took a shortcut through the Bonaventure Hotel and prepared what I was going to say. I must have been nervous because after five minutes I realized I still wasn’t out of the hotel. With its maze-like structure of half loops and symmetrical concrete cylinders I felt like a hamster running in place on a Venn diagram. I finally found my way out of the rabbit hole and skirted down Flower, under the 4th Street overpass where the city’s bike messengers gathered to smoke dope when they weren’t being bothered to actually having to make a delivery.
The elevator spat me out on the top floor with panoramic views of downtown. The reception desk was staffed by a very attractive woman with green eyes and a low-cut blouse that had the power of an industrial magnet.
The general rule for office “eye candy”: the film industry and real estate firms took it seriously; everyone else hired your great-aunt from Pacoima.
“I’m here to see Claire Courtwright,” I told the young woman.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“Yes, she told me to swing by when I made it downtown. I’m her husband,” I added.
The receptionist’s cool tone immediately changed. Nothing was more desirable than someone who belongs to someone you looked up to. She gobbled up the phone and enthusiastically called Claire’s office.
“She’ll be right out,” the girl announced cheerfully.
I sidled over to the waiting lounge with its cleanlined sofas and glass coffee table. Knowing where their bread was buttered, one of the magazines featured a cover story on Valenti’s philanthropic work. He clearly didn’t adhere to Maimonides’s Eight Levels of Charity, which values anonymous giving. For every dollar Valenti gave to a worthy cause he spent three more dollars publicly promoting how generous he was.
Every Sunday he took out a full-page ad in the Times to thank himself for all the great work he was doing. The ads featured a dozen or so heads of local nonprofits who had benefitted from Valenti’s largesse. All the participants looked like they had been forced at gunpoint to utter the quotes attributed to them in the captions below their faces. Everyone on the page was extremely grateful but it didn’t seem like they had much of a choice.
“This is a surprise,” Claire said behind me.
She looked good in her business suit and hair neatly pulled back in a clasp. The receptionist secretly eyed us while feigning interest in her computer screen.
“Do you have a minute to talk?” I asked.
“Not really,” Claire said and checked her watch. “Is something wrong?”
“I want to talk over a couple of things.”
“You’re acting suspicious.”
“Come on, let’s go grab a coffee.”
Claire reluctantly agreed after looking back to her office like there was some personification of “work” tapping his watch and reminding her of her duties.
“I’m just stepping out,” she said to the receptionist. “I’ll be back in a few.”
We grabbed lattes at the coffee stand in the lobby of the building. I tried to form the words in my head but it was hard to concentrate. The marbled floors, walls, and pillars made it hard to hear anything. All the voices around us merged into a single, incomprehensible echo. The barista banging used grinds from the machine didn’t help.
“Say that again,” I asked, “I can’t hear you.”
“Don’t make me repeat it.”
“Seriously, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”
She looked annoyed.
“Claire, I didn’t hear you with all this noise. Please repeat what you said.”
“I want a divorce,” she blurted out.
The skin tingled in my face and arms and I felt the blood suddenly pumping through my body.
“Okay, I heard it that time. Jesus…really?”
“I think it’s the best thing for us.”
“I’d ask that you refrain from making judgments about ‘us’ without first conferring with me.”
“Don’t be a nit.”
“Nice, I get delivered this news at a shitty coffee cart in a crowded lobby and then get called names because I don’t like it.”
“You know it isn’t going to work—”
“No, no I don’t know that. And stop making up my mind for me.”
“I know it isn’t going to work.”
It was just like Claire—here I came to confront her about her questionable involvement in the dealings around the Deakins Building, Langford’s murder, and Ed’s disappearance and she undercuts me with her announcement.
“Are you seeing someone?”
“Stop.”
“That tool bag from Valenti’s office, I assume. Boy, you’re really making a name for yourself.”
She didn’t justify my barb by responding to it. She had the quiet equilibrium of a person who had already thought the entire thing through to its very last move. I secretly cursed myself for coming down here. I knew all along this was the unavoidable outcome of our separation and yet I had avoided it as long as I could.
“I didn’t want to hurt you, Chuck,” she said, placing her hand over mine. Taking the high ground was easy when you know you’re the one walking away a stronger person. I mustered the composure to play the same game.
“You’re right, Claire. I’m sorry for what I said.” I placed my other hand over hers so we now had that two-fisted handshake sales guys like to do to prove they care. I then gave that extra squeeze to show how serious I was. She may have taken the high ground, but I took the goddamned bluff above it.
Her eyes started to well up and we stayed locked in that “embrace” for what seemed like an hour.
“I’m happy that we can get through this amicably,” she said, which was code for “let’s not make a scene.”
That part I didn’t agree to.
KNIGHTS ERRANT OF THE PURPLE CRUSADERS
The ascendency of football to the title of “America’s game” coincided with a rash of football analogies in the workplace. We no longer managed a project. We worked on “moving the ball down the field.” And when the project went awry, someone invariably called an “audible.” Never had so many balls been “put through the uprights,” so many “chin straps” been buckled, so many “timeouts” called than over the last year in my office. Luckily, the other true football tradition of towel slapping didn’t catch on. When Easy Mike and I “huddled up” to “run the Xs and Os” on the board of the Deakins game, we threw out those tired gridiron phrases and went old school—we convened in the War Room.
The War Room was actually just a corner of Mike’s office with a dry-erase board and an endless supply of colored markers and Post-it notes. We created a DNA map of the case, the nucleus of which was a circle around Ed’s name. We added all of the players—Claire, Valenti, Temekian, Ashry-whatever-his-name-was, and anyone who might be involved—and then drew lines from names where we knew there was a connection. The line was labeled with whatever information we had. So Claire’s bubble and Langford’s had a note that they brokered deals together. Anything we didn’t know was marked with a question mark. The result was a dizzying web of facts, potential facts, and missing facts.
“This Temekian character confuses me,” Mike said as he tapped a printout of his mug shot. “He’s telling Ed’s kid to sell the building even though Ed is missing. We know he talked to Ed near the day he disappeared. We also know he’s going around threatening people in this block of Holcomb Street, a stone’s throw from the Deakins Building, and forcing them to sell the buildings on the cheap. One thing we don’t know is this.”
He wrote
a new name on the board.
“Who is Salas?” I asked.
Salas, Mike explained, was the name listed on all of the transactions on Holcomb Street where Temekian and his thugs pressured the owners into selling. “So we have a mysterious guy buying up an entire block,” I said.
“I’ve seen this kind of thing before over in Hollywood during the revitalization movement,” Mike said. “Developers snatched up parcels of land under some shell corporation to keep the speculators off their track. They didn’t want to tip their hand too early, until they had secured all the land they needed. The last thing they needed was some opportunist grabbing a plot and then holding them over a barrel.”
“Is this something Valenti might do?” I asked.
“He perfected the technique. His work is particularly hard to piece together. It’s like a shell game—the ball is never where you think it is.”
“This one seems too simple, then. We got a name, an actual person, not a series of phony corporations.”
“We got a name, but we don’t know if this is a real person,” Mike corrected.
“Well, there must be an address on the transaction paperwork. Let’s go see who he is.”
“He is a rental box out in Van Nuys, at a place whose owner has standards. Fifty bucks couldn’t get him to give me any information on the box renter.”
“Let’s stake out the place and see who picks up the mail,” I suggested.
“That could take weeks. And they may never actually check it.”
“We could ask the police.”
“Screw them.”
“But they could get a warrant to find out the rental box owner,” I reasoned.
“I don’t want them nosing in on our story. They’re doing their job—a poor one, I might add—and we’re doing ours.”
“Okay, I just don’t want us to get mixed up with them. Obstruction of justice is a felony.”
“I didn’t know you were an Eagle Scout. What are you nervous about, that clown detective we met at the Police Academy?”
The Silent Second Page 10