Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions

by Rosemarie A D'Amico

  I was just opening Dan Thornton’s file when Carrie stuck her head in the door and told me that my dad was on the phone. Singing to her.

  “Yeah, sorry about that Carrie,” I apologized. “He can’t help himself.”

  “I loved it. He asked me if I knew the song Stardust and I told him I did so he sang it to me.” She was smiling as she left the office.

  “Dad, stop harassing the staff,” I teased him when I answered the phone.

  “Harassing the staff? I doubt that. Everyone loves my singing.” He was chuckling.

  “So? Do you have anything for me?” I asked him.

  “I do. Your Mr. Northland is okay. He checks out.” I felt a little bit better at that news. “Trusted by the brass, even though he was a meathead. Worked his way up, retired as a staff sergeant. My guys tell me he was known as a hard worker who always got the job done. Thorough. Didn’t cut corners. Did everything by the book.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I told him.

  “You in some sort of hot water?” dad asked me.

  “Not at all,” I lied. “Just getting to know the people here. He manages our security department.”

  “Did Tommy hire him?”

  “As far as I know he did.”

  “Then he’s got to be okay.” Dad had always been head over heels in admiration of Tommy and never quite got over the fact that our marriage didn’t work. “Tommy would never have hired someone he didn’t trust.” Dad sounded so sure of himself.

  “You call me then if you need anything else,” he said, hanging up abruptly. Dad was not one for long phone conversations. Unless he was in the mood to sing a medley of Perry Como songs to you.

  Kelly Northland was sitting in a guest chair outside my office when I went to ask Carrie to call him.

  “Have you been sitting here for the past hour?” I asked him.

  “Yes ma’am. Figured I wouldn’t go far because you’d be wanting to talk to me sooner than later.” He stood up.

  “Well come on back in.”

  We sat in the same places at the table and Kelly couldn’t help but notice that I had been going through the files. They were strewn about the table, not in a neat alphabetical pile, Marine-style. With hospital corners.

  His eyes met mine, square on, across the table and he waited for me to speak first.

  “Apparently, you are trustworthy. I have it on good authority,” I told him. He nodded. “I needed to find out about you for myself, by myself,” I explained.

  “No need to explain. You did the right thing.”

  “You’re not off the hook yet, Staff Sergeant.” He smiled at my mention of his previous rank. “I want to know what you’ve been up to the past two weeks.” I sat back and waited for his explanation.

  “I’ve been watching out for you ma’am. Lou, your driver, keeps me posted on your whereabouts as best he can. He sure doesn’t like it when you go off on your own.” That explained why Lou had conniption fits every time I sent him home early.

  Kelly continued. “After I heard about you getting mugged at Mr. Connaught’s apartment, I made sure your back was covered at all times.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about this explanation. In fact, I found myself getting angry again.

  “Did you have me followed?” I demanded. Kelly nodded his head. Son of a bitch. What else had he done?

  “Did you put bugs or listening devices in my apartment?”

  “No ma’am!” he said, quite indignantly. “I’m just watching your back. I would never invade your privacy by listening in on conversations or anything like that. It’s my job to protect our employees and you are our number one employee.”

  “Okay,” I told him reluctantly. “I don’t know whether I should be grateful or not.”

  I leaned over the table a little towards him and whispered, “Do you carry a gun?” You know, being a Canadian in the country where every four year old can cite the Second Amendment to the Constitution, was a little intimidating. And I’ll admit to being a teensy bit tainted by Hollywood and all those gun-toting ‘Mericans.

  “Yes ma’am, I do,” he told me.

  “Okay, Kelly.” I sat for a few moments and thought about the whole situation. There were only two people who knew everything that I did about Tommy, Global Devices, and where we stood today - Jay and Cleve. I wondered if it was time I brought someone else into the picture. If I did that I would have to open my kimono for someone I had only met that morning. Someone who allegedly was ‘looking out for my back’. How was I to know if he was trustworthy? Based on my dad’s recommendation and report, I should be good to go, but I was a little gun shy these days, excuse the pun. Admittedly, I was finding it hard to trust people ever since the murder of my best friend Evelyn, and the events that happened after that.

  I made up my mind quickly then to push on. I needed all the help I could get. It had been two weeks since Tommy’s murder and our company was in a crisis.

  “We need to start working together on this mess,” I told Kelly. “You said you were an investigator at NCIS?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. Time to dust off those skills.”

  chapter thirty-nine

  The next while was spent bringing Kelly up to speed. Just like I had with Cleve the night before. Only this time, Kelly interrupted and asked questions. And, he took copious notes. When I finished my narrative covering the last two weeks, we sat in silence for a few minutes. I had no idea what Kelly was thinking about, but I was a little relieved to be sharing the burden of all this information with him. If he had experience in law enforcement and was trained as an investigator, maybe now we’d start tying up all the loose ends of information we had.

  I broke the silence. “So Kelly. What do you think?”

  “I think this is a lot of information all at once. I’d like a couple of hours to think this through.”

  He gathered up the R and D team leader’s files. “First thing I’m going to do is pass these off to one of my team. Have them do some deep background checking. I’ll also pull the files on all staff who’ve worked on the Global Devices projects. Do some checking there too. Then I’m going to touch base with some of my contacts at NYPD.”

  I asked him if he knew Detectives Bartlett and Shipley.

  “No ma’am.” He shook his head. “But I did ask around about them. They’re both supposedly solid cops.”

  This didn’t make me feel any better about the lack of progress on Tommy’s case. They may be solid but they weren’t getting any results.

  Carrie stuck her head in the door and interrupted us. “Ms. Monahan, there’s a call on your line that I think you may want to take.”

  “Who is it Carrie?”

  “Dr. Pritchard,” she told me. “From Global Devices.”

  Well colour me surprised.

  Kelly stood up. “I’ll go then. I’ll stay in touch.”

  I nodded my head but I wasn‘t really listening. Dr. Pritchard was on the phone, calling me. As nice as he was to me yesterday when I visited him unannounced, I was pretty certain I wouldn’t be talking to him again, anytime soon.

  I picked up the phone and hit the flashing light on the console.

  “Kate Monahan.”

  “Miss Monahan,” he said. “Bill Pritchard here.”

  “Yes, Dr. Pritchard. How are you today?” I asked.

  “Confused, worried, and frankly, just a little overwrought,” he told me.

  His use of the old-fashioned word overwrought had me a little puzzled. As far as I knew it meant really upset, but his tone of voice was fairly calm.

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Dr. Pritchard,” I told him.

  “Not your place to be sorry, Miss Monahan. Although I have stated that Global Devices will have nothing more to do with your company, I seem to be plagued with some lingering after-effects.”

  You and me both, Mister, I thought. Like a shortage of about $50 million in revenues. I bit my tongue.

  “Some disturbing news has come to my attention
since we last talked Miss Monahan,” he continued, “and I wish to speak with you about it.”

  “That’s fine Dr. Pritchard. What can I do for you?”

  “I don’t wish to discuss it over the telephone. Would you be available at the end of the day?”

  “I am. Shall I come to your office?” I offered.

  “No, this is a subject to be discussed over a fortifying beverage. Can you meet me at the Blue Square Tavern?”

  We agreed on six o’clock. Apparently, the Blue Square Tavern was close to his office and Dr. Pritchard was sure I would have no trouble finding it.

  I spent the next couple of hours doing things that apparently keep chief executive officers busy. Answering emails. Returning phone calls to bankers. Ignoring phone calls from analysts. Reading internal progress reports on projects and contracts. Trying to decipher government bulletins on taxation issues. Learning how to understand our internal financial statements. Sometime around four o’clock, I looked up from the monthly income statement to find Cleve Johnston standing in front of my desk, smiling at me.

  “What? Geez, you scared me.”

  “Ah, you make me proud,” he said.

  “Oh shut up,” I shot back.

  “Look at you,” he teased. “Working like a big shot executive.” He helped himself to one of the chairs in front of my desk.

  “Yeah, some big shot executive. I’m sure it’s taking me ten times longer to get through this stuff than an experienced executive.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Kate,” he told me.

  “So, what are you here to tell me?” I asked him.

  “That all’s well. The folks at the SEC tell us that so long as we issue the press release today when the markets close, we should be okay. Barry gave them the background and it helped that we produced the information on all insider stock trades for the past month or so. I’ve heard basically the same thing from our guy in Toronto.” He smiled. “Although he did tell me that the people he met at the OSC were not very friendly, and that he felt the temperature drop in the room when your name was mentioned.”

  My stomach dropped. “Don’t tell me. Missy?”

  He nodded. “The one and only.”

  Missy Goodman, or Melissa as she preferred to be called, was the lawyer I had worked with many years ago at Scapelli’s, who had eventually left the private practice of law and gone to work at the Ontario Securities Commission. The one who I had told to fuck off one day in front of lots of people. I had totally forgotten that she was at the OSC when Cleve told me someone from his office would be meeting with them.

  “Tell me that everything’s okay with the OSC and Missy isn’t holding a grudge against me.” For embarrassing her in front of all those people. Not that she didn’t deserve it.

  “We got the same reaction from them as we did from the SEC. You’ve seen the press release?” Cleve asked me.

  I nodded. “Signed off on it a little while ago and sent it back to Steve Holliday. It’s supposed to be released when the stock markets close today.” I looked at my watch which told me it was past 4:15 p.m. “Which should be any time now.”

  The press release was a dry piece of work, stating that our business relationship with Global Devices had been terminated by Global, with an estimate of the loss of revenues. I fully expected that our share price would take a shit-kicking in the morning when the markets opened. I also expected that Steve Holliday was going to be busy taking calls from the financial press and pissed-off shareholders. He had been advised on what he was allowed to say, and that wasn’t much. I was hoping that the press release would go unnoticed but that was probably naive thinking on my part. The last two weeks had seen enough upheaval at this company that anything coming over the wire on Phoenix would be picked up and picked at by a good financial reporter. It’s not often they get to report on things other than price earnings ratios and cash flows. Although, all the heat in the press these days on Bernie Ebbers and the boys at WorldCom gave me faint hope that the reporters might be so busy chasing down another whistleblowing accountant that our news would go unnoticed.

  The Blue Square Tavern was located on a side street near Bellevue Hospital, and Lou had no trouble finding it.

  The Blue Square Tavern certainly lived up to its name. It was a tavern in the traditional sense, it was painted blue inside and out, and the interior was a large, square room. The only thing non-traditional about it was the large, no-smoking signs pasted everywhere. I found Dr. Pritchard sitting by himself in a large booth along the left wall. The right wall was taken up by a massive bar. Bar stools in front of the bar were full, as were most of the tables and booths. Surprisingly, the noise level was relatively low and the atmosphere was subdued.

  Dr. Pritchard stood and offered his hand, and waited while I sat down before he took his seat again. We ordered a Diet Coke for me and he asked the waitress for a refill of whatever it was he was drinking. Idle chit chat took up the time while we waited for our drinks. He told me that the Blue Square Tavern was a favourite hang-out for the medical staff of the two nearby hospitals. Which would account for the non-smoking signs.

  I looked around the room. “It’s a pretty quiet place for a tavern,” I said.

  “It’s suppertime for the doctors so most of them will be going back to work after they eat,” he explained.

  Dr. Pritchard got down to business as soon as the waitress brought our drinks. He plopped a large, brown envelope on the table and slapped the top of it with his hand. The slap contained a lot of emotion from a man who up until now had been the epitome of reserved, polite and in control of himself.

  He took a long sip of his drink and placed the glass in front of him. The silence between us was deafening, and I could feel the blood pounding in my ears. I was waiting for a tongue-lashing even though I had no idea what this was all about. The man just had that type of persona. His presence alone made you sit up and pay attention. I wasn’t sure if he was expecting me to say anything, so as hard as it was, I stayed silent.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he said, “This envelope contains some disturbing material. I’m hoping that you’ll be able to explain some of it.” His tone was icy.

  I kept my hands wrapped around my Diet Coke to keep them from grabbing the envelope and ripping it open. Dr. Pritchard had called this meeting which meant he got to say how things would unwind. I waited while he took a few deep breaths through his nose. Finally, he slid the envelope across the table towards me but I resisted touching it for the moment. I glanced at it quickly and saw that there was nothing written on the outside of the envelope.

  “Why do you think I would know anything about the contents of the envelope?” I asked him in an even tone. I reserved snarky and bitchy for other folks who didn’t make me feel eight years old.

  “Open it,” he demanded. “Open it and then we’ll talk. I’ll be back.” He marched off towards the back of the tavern to the men’s room, I presumed.

  The envelope was a large one. Probably measuring fourteen by sixteen inches. I used one finger to slide it in front of me and I stared at it, willing it to disappear. Knowing it wasn’t going away, and knowing that Dr. Pritchard would be back soon, I flipped the envelope over and tore at the flap, opening it. Inside was another large, brown envelope, with a white label pasted in the middle, addressed to Dr. Jordan Francis on West 97th Street in New York. There was no return address on the front of the envelope but in the upper right hand corner there was about three dollars worth of U.S. postal stamps. I couldn’t read the date on the U.S. postal service stamp which was inked over top of the stamps. The envelope was cleanly slit open along the top. The materials inside the envelope were neatly ordered and clipped at the top with a black fold-back clip. A sense of relief and deja vu washed over me when I pulled out the papers and saw what they were.

  chapter forty

  When I removed the large, black clip holding the stack of papers together, two distinct packages of papers were revealed. The smaller of the tw
o was a copy of the “love letters” written by Nat Scott and the thicker pile was the same correspondence with the FDA that was in the file folder I found in Tommy’s safety deposit box. My stomach stopped flipping with fright and I willed myself to calm down. These documents were no surprise to me, although why they were in an envelope addressed to Dr. Francis was a big question.

  Dr. Pritchard slid back into the booth and took a quick sip of his drink. “You’ll remember what we talked about yesterday,” he said. I nodded. Of course I remembered. Dr. Pritchard had laid out for me the sequence of events that led to his team discovering that test results had been falsified. By Phoenix people. I was still disgusted at the thought and couldn’t imagine how Tommy would be feeling.

  Dr. Pritchard had some funny business going on at his place as well, because apparently work continued on the artificial kidney project for some time after the date of the letter from the FDA denying the pre-market application. Someone at Global had hidden or covered up this wee bit of news. That someone was obviously Dr. Jordan Francis, the head of the project. And that someone had stolen away into the night about four weeks ago. Dr. Pritchard had told me that he came to work one morning and found Dr. Francis’ resignation letter on his desk. The resignation was totally out of the blue and Dr. Pritchard was shocked at the time. Until he uncovered what had been going on. It took him a couple of weeks, but he eventually found out that the reason the FDA had denied their applications was because of the falsification of test records. By Phoenix people. Global had immediately cancelled all work with Phoenix.

  “Like many in my profession,” Dr. Pritchard had told me yesterday, “I’m litigation adverse. Global Devices could have sued Phoenix over this, but I thought the most efficient way to deal with it was to cancel everything with Phoenix and to try and recoup our losses with another company.”

  “After you left last evening,” he told me, “I found myself in Jordan’s office. Nothing has really been touched since he left. He hasn’t returned any phone calls and his resignation letter said that he was moving and that he didn’t have a forwarding address.” He sipped from his drink. “What’s the word to describe all of this?” He looked at me, but I wasn’t sure if he was expecting an answer, so I kept quiet. “We were such good work friends. We’d been together for so many years. This whole thing was out of the blue and so unexpected.” He swirled the liquid in his glass and appeared lost in his thoughts.