“I’m at home, with your father. He came racing out of the house to get me. He’d seen you on the news.”
“Well, tell him I’m fine.” I briefly filled her in on the events of the previous night and promised to call later.
“And mom?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for always telling me to wear clean underwear.”
I heard her laugh as I hung up the phone and it felt good to take one thing off my list of mental notes.
My heart broke at the sight of Sadie Weinstein, sitting in the lobby of the police station. It seemed she had aged overnight, and the forlorn, lost look on her face made me wonder if she would be able to cope with what she and Philip were about to face. She didn’t recognize either Jay or myself as we passed her with our escort to the second floor for our meeting with Detective Leech.
Leech’s sorry excuse for an office consisted of a desk, a chair and a telephone. I was sure there wasn’t room for a cockroach, let alone two guests, so we met in one of the small rooms where we were told they questioned suspects.
“Not that you’re suspects,” he quickly said. I gave him a smile because I believe in encouraging humour and I also believed that we were never too old to develop the skill. Besides, I was starting to like Leech. When this was all over I might speak to him about possibly changing the pronunciation of his name to Lesh or Latch or something that didn’t make him sound like a Bay Street lawyer.
After we had passed the pleasantries and he had served us some coffee that tasted just the way the television cops described it, he told us that Philip was being arraigned that afternoon on attempted murder charges and that the Crown Attorney was calling on the RCMP Fraud Division for their assistance in investigating a myriad of other possible charges. Leech told us that after they had explained to Philip what ‘hard-time’ in a prison was all about, he had agreed to a plea bargain. Lesser charges for squealing on Chris Oakes and Larry Everly.
Chris Oakes was in a hospital lock-up under a psychiatrist’s care. He had been totally incoherent when the police attempted to question him the night before.
“The only thing he said, over and over, was Baby,” Leech said.
“Well, I certainly hope they have voice mail in the loony bin. He can have his sessions with his shrink over the phone.” I silently chastised myself for what had just come out of my mouth and hoped that in a couple of days, or weeks, I would have more charitable feelings towards these bastards. But, Leech didn’t get the joke and Jay just shot me one of those looks. The kind of look your mother used to give you when you were little. You might be at your great-aunt’s house for dinner and during a pause in the conversation you make a comment about her moustache. Unable to kick you under the table, your mother shoots you that look.
“What about Larry Everly?” I asked.
“The NYPD are co-operating with us and have picked him up and they’re holding him there until we can nail down all the charges. Philip Winston told us some pretty unbelievable things last night and I have no doubt that Mr. Everly will be going away for a long, long time.”
“Care to share any of that with us?” I urged him.
“Winston tells us that he allegedly witnessed Everly and Oakes murder his father. Why he never came forward with that information is a question that will probably not get answered. So, he blackmailed them. He got himself well educated and worked his way around the country in various high technology companies. About a year ago he saw his opportunity. He told us he had been following Oakes’ career so he was watching TechniGroup very closely. TechniGroup was acquiring a lot of companies and that was when Philip approached Oakes. He was going to make Oakes pay, and pay big time. He wanted money, and lots of it, so he came up with the plan to have Oakes buy the company he was working for and get him into a senior position at TechniGroup. He also knew that your company had been ripe for a takeover for some time and as part of his master plan, he figured Larry Everly, with his connections on Wall Street, would be more than eager to go out and find a buyer. Turns out he was right.”
“Finding a buyer for a company our size, isn’t that easy,” Jay said.
“Easy enough when you’re motivated,” Leech told us. “The other side of this nasty deal was that Philip insisted on stock options. And lots of them. I’m not much of a brain when it comes to all of this high level corporation stuff, but I had a quick lesson this morning from my brother-in-law. He’s an actuary,” he said proudly.
Jay and I barely suppressed our laughter when the old joke came to mind. Question: Why did you become an accountant? Answer: Because I didn’t have the charisma to be an actuary. Every profession has its cross to bear and because actuaries do such incredibly boring work, they are perceived to the outside world as lifeless people with no personality. I was sure this was the only joke in history that had been told about an actuary.
“He explained to me about how the price gets set and how you make money on them,” he continued. “Everly and Oakes were to get the stock price down so Winston’s options would be given to him at a low price. So the two of them started passing rumours around. Winston said they talked off the record to some people on the floor at the stock exchange and to industry analysts. Those are the folks that follow your specific industry and make predictions about the business,” he told us needlessly. “I’m getting to like using these buzzwords. I guess the rumours were nasty enough to have the stock price go down and that’s exactly what Winston wanted.”
“It worked,” I interjected. “He got a shit-load of options and the exercise price was pretty low. Along with the rumours that we didn’t know about, there were the other things happening that the public knew about and those events themselves drove the price down even more.”
“Right,” he agreed. “The news that your chief accountant was resigning made the price drop.” I smiled at his use of the term chief accountant. Rick would have liked that. “Oakes and Larry Everly told their sources that Rick Cox had been fired. And that made the price drop some more. But when Mr. Cox committed suicide, it got worse.”
“Was it a suicide?” I asked him.
He shook his head and I watched Jay’s face for a reaction but there was none. He had been sitting quietly, stone-faced through much of Leech’s recital.
“We’ll get to that part in a minute. The news that an employee of the company had died mysteriously and that we were investigating it as a homicide, just added fuel to the fire. So all of these events got the desired result. A low stock price, Philip Winston got his big job at TechniGroup with stock options, and there was another company, ripe to takeover TechniGroup. The plan had worked. But then you,” he nodded at me, “and your partner here, got involved. The both of you were too smart for your own good.”
“Not smart enough,” I said ruefully, pointing to the bandage on the side of my head.
“No,” he agreed. “But Mr. Winston didn’t know how much you knew. When he found out that you had visited his mother, he saw all of his plans going up in smoke. He obviously got desperate.”
“Obviously. It was him, you know, who broke into my apartment the other night.”
“He needed to scare you off. I guess it almost worked.”
“Almost,” I agreed. “But then he had to double his threat and bash me over the head.”
“Desperate men do desperate things,” he said unnecessarily.
“I had made up my mind to let you do your job but he pushed the issue. I want to know what happened to my friend Evelyn.”
“That’s where it all started didn’t it? So sad, that such an innocent person had to get involved. This could all have gone off without a hitch, if she hadn’t died,” he said sadly. “No one would have ever known.”
I didn’t need to hear that and once again I was overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and helplessness because I hadn’t been there to help my friend. Tears welled up inside me and poured silently down my cheeks into my mouth.
chapter sixty-one
Jay and Detective Leech bo
th offered tissues and Leech went to fetch more coffee while I composed myself, which took a while. I gave in to the tears and just sat there and let them flow and after a few minutes my tear ducts dried up. I wiped at my face with the balled-up tissue and waited for Leech’s return. Jay remained silent and left me alone in my misery.
Detective Leech backed into the room carrying three Styrofoam cups of coffee.
“So where were we?” he asked needlessly.
“Evelyn,” I quietly reminded him.
“Yes. Well, it seemed that Mr. Oakes and Mr. Winston put a plan together to get Mr. Cox fired. I understand that although Chris Oakes was chairman of the board and president, he didn’t have all the power. He reported to the board of directors and I have been told that Mr. Rick Cox had several supporters on the board. To fire Mr. Cox outright wasn’t going to work. So, the two came up with a plan, backed by Larry Everly, to discredit him. They initiated several small plans, one of which was to make it look like Mr. Cox had fixed the stock option system to benefit himself. To do that, they needed Evelyn Morris out of the way. Philip was adamant that it was an accident, that she was just supposed to be sick for a few days. It would give them the chance to do whatever they needed and when she came back to work, she would discover that something was wrong. As it turns out, Mr. Harmon here discovered it right away.”
“Philip told me that last night. He said they just wanted her sick, for a few days,” I said with disgust.
“They were aware of her allergy to nuts but not aware of the severity of it. They doctored the food with peanut oil and disabled her EpiPen. Philip and Chris Oakes decided to have a potluck - I think they referred to it as that. A potluck, where the employees bring the food. If the caterers had been hired, Oakes and Winston wouldn’t have had any access to the food.”
“The greedy bastards. All of this for money. Philip Winston is more guilty because he didn’t go to the police and report a murder in the first place.” I felt the rage building in me and wanted to pound my fist on the table.
“Unfortunately, their plan backfired when Mrs. Morris died. And apparently Mr. Harmon, you were another victim. Mr. Cox fired you because he knew he had not caused those changes to be made, and right or wrong, he believed it had to have been you. You were supposedly the only one who knew his system password. Is that correct?”
“I agree that I knew his password. But was I the only person he told? I don’t know,” Jay answered.
“Everything apparently fell apart for Mr. Cox and we were led to believe he committed suicide. Philip Winston has informed us otherwise, which confirmed the Police Department’s suspicions. From the evidence at the scene, it was unlikely that Mr. Cox had shot himself. That was confirmed by Philip last night under questioning.”
Detective Leech sipped from his coffee and looked at Jay. “That was about the time you disappeared.”
“I told you I didn’t disappear,” Jay retorted. “I was around all the time but our paths never crossed.”
“We know that now. But you understand that we had to cover all the bases.”
Jay nodded reluctantly.
“Did Philip give any explanation for why he and Rick Cox were together the night I saw them at Bigliardi’s?” I asked.
“I was coming to that. Philip told us that he was worried that Rick might be on to something so he wanted to meet with him and confirm his suspicions. He got Rick Cox to meet him by telling him that he had information about Oakes that could end his job as chairman of the board. Apparently, Mr. Cox was still interested in working at TechniGroup and would have been happy to see Chris Oakes’ career go up in flames.” He shook his head in amazement as he told us. “The plotting and back-stabbing that went on in this company was amazing.”
“What did Philip think Rick might be on to?” Jay asked.
“One of Mr. Winston’s contacts in the stock market industry told him that Rick Cox had called him asking questions. Turns out this was one of the stockbrokers who had been fed all the false information by Oakes and Larry Everly. When Rick Cox called the broker, the broker took the opportunity to question Rick further on those stories. Suffice it to say that Rick Cox knew he’d been set up. Very complicated.”
“So when Philip called Rick with the cock and bull story about dirty information on Chris Oakes, Rick jumped at the chance to meet him.” Jay added. “Not so complicated Detective, once you’d worked there for a while.”
“I’m a little confused,” I piped in. “Why did Rick end up murdered?”
“Let me guess,” Jay offered. “Because of the information he had. Philip wasn’t about to let anyone screw up his plan so he killed Rick.”
Detective Leech shook his head. “No. You’ve only got part of it right. The next part of the story is what will get Philip Winston his immunity from prosecution, if we can prove it. That night at Bigliardi’s, Rick Cox threatened that he was going to the Ontario Securities Commission with the information that Oakes and Everly were manipulating the stock price. Winston says it was Oakes and Everly who killed Rick Cox. And once I’ve had a chance to question Larry Everly, I think we’ll find out that they did it the same way they killed Philip’s father. Philip probably thought there was some poetic justice there, forcing or blackmailing the two into killing again. The ultimate act of revenge. And that young lady and gentleman,” he nodded at us, “is all of the information we’ve gathered so far.”
I was suffering from information overload but there was one small point that needed clarifying. “How and why did Harold Didrickson get involved?”
“He’s just another sad statistic,” Leech said. “Philip told me that Oakes had been wanting to fire Mr. Didrickson for a long time. For what reasons, we don’t know.”
“He never needed a reason,” I interrupted. “If the wind changed, that was reason enough. The man was a lunatic. Correct that. Is a lunatic.”
“Well, after Rick Cox met with Philip Winston at the restaurant, he called Didrickson. They were buddies?” he asked me and I nodded my confirmation. “Didrickson panicked at the thought of Cox going to the Ontario Securities Commission because he was about to make out big on the intended takeover and he needed the money.”
“Didn’t we all,” Jay added sarcastically.
Leech ignored his comment and continued. “I know it sounds like a plot from a dime store novel, but it seems that Mr. Didrickson and his wife have a little passion for the tables in Vegas. And the track. And the football games. They’re in debt up to their proverbial eyeballs and this was going to be Harold’s big payoff. Typical gambling syndrome. He knew he was going to be fired, but he managed to hang in for a long time. When the end was near and he saw all that potential cash, he couldn’t allow anything, or anyone, to get in his way. Mr. Didrickson threw friendship to the wind and turned into a Benedict Arnold. He called Philip and the rest is history. He was a ready, willing and able participant in assisting Philip in luring Miss Monahan here, back into the trap.”
It was all too much for me to take in and digest. All the pain and suffering that had been caused for the almighty buck. I got up from my chair and wandered over to the window where I stood facing Jay and Leech.
“I haven’t read the papers or watched the news today,” I said to Leech. “How soon will the whole story make the news?”
The thought of the company going down the tubes and all of the hardworking employees who had sweated blood for so many years losing their jobs was too much to fathom.
“Enough of the story is out now. I understand that trading has been halted in the shares and the Securities Commission will be involved shortly. One of the directors of the company was interviewed this morning on the news and he was adamant that they would push on.”
I lit a cigarette and thought about the irony of it all. The remaining directors of the company would push on. Wonderful. A couple of the crooks had been caught and were locked up for the time being, but the rest of the morons were still on the loose with the public shareholders’ money.
The blind were now leading the blind.
I took a drag from my cigarette and blew the smoke out the open window. The smoke wafted through the screen and dispersed quickly in the fresh air and I thought for a moment about finding something symbolic about the smoke disappearing so quickly.
Fuck it. I wasn’t into symbolism, just reality.
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