Double Tap

by Steve Martini

  “She was lead on IFS.” The answer comes not from Havlitz but from Harold Klepp at the other end of the table.

  “Ah, that would be the Information for Security program? Read about it in the newspaper,” I say.

  “She held that and a couple of other projects,” Klepp adds.

  Havlitz cuts us off before I can start a dialog with Klepp: “I have to say I’m uncomfortable getting into any of this. Specific programs, I mean. We discussed this, Harold, and I thought I made myself clear.”

  “I’m sure that Harold was only trying to be helpful.” It’s the redhead next to me, Rogan, trying to come to Klepp’s defense.

  Havlitz cuts her off at the knees. “I don’t care what he thinks he’s doing. I laid down the ground rules before we started.” He turns to me, speaking from the heart now. “I hope you understand there is no effort to conceal anything. But there are proprietary issues here.”

  “Also security concerns.” This from the lawyer Sims across the table. “Information requires clearance from the government on certain programs.” He looks at me and arches an eyebrow.

  “Precisely,” says Havlitz. “We simply cannot discuss certain matters. I trust you understand.”

  “I don’t need to know the details or specifics,” I tell him.

  “Let’s move on.” Just like that, the lawyer Sims decides the issue.

  “Fine.” I move to the next item. “Maybe you could tell me how the decision was made to terminate the personal security detail for Ms. Chapman.”

  Havlitz is suddenly a face full of wonder. “Why is that important?”

  “Happening as it did just a few weeks before she was killed, let’s just call it a curiosity,” I reply.

  “Oh. Oh, well, I suppose,” he says. “It wasn’t a corporate decision. I mean, the decision to terminate security, if you want to call it that, was made by Ms. Chapman herself.”

  “Can you tell me why she made the decision?”

  Havlitz shakes his head, shrugs a shoulder. “As I understand it, she simply didn’t think that the level of security was necessary. I didn’t really discuss it with her. She simply made the decision.”

  “Had something changed?”

  “What do you mean, ‘changed’?”

  “Well, as I understand it, the board of directors decided that executive security was necessary. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve been told there had been a number of pieces of threatening correspondence—phone calls, crank letters, that sort of thing—as well as an incident involving an assault… .”

  “Assault. I don’t remember any assault,” he says.

  “An incident at a shareholders’ meeting. Somebody tossed a cream pie.”

  “Oh, that,” he says. “Yes. Ah, that was regrettable. Unfortunately, someone got past security at the door. We don’t know how it happened. Looking back, I suppose that was the event that led to the issue. Executive protection, I mean. It was brought up by the board after that unfortunate experience. I see how someone could key in on that, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  He looks at me as the conversation dies. “What was your question again?”

  “What had changed to cause the board or Ms. Chapman to believe that there was no longer any threat to her security?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose you would have to ask her that.”

  “That’s a little difficult,” I tell him.

  “Of course,” he says. “But I don’t know what else to tell you. She made the decision that she no longer needed security. I certainly wasn’t in a position to second-guess her. Perhaps she found it to be an invasion of her privacy.”

  “Did she say anything to you about it at the time? Explain her reasons?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Did you have executive security in your position?”

  “No. No. I didn’t think there was a need.”

  “Were there any others: members of the board, other people in management?”

  Havlitz looks to Karen Rogan sitting next to me. She thinks for a second, then shakes her head.

  “I think the issue was Ms. Chapman’s public visibility—her name recognition,” says Rogan.

  “Of course. She was sort of the embodiment of the corporation. She was Isotenics, Incorporated. Whenever anyone thought of the company, they thought of her. It’s probably why most of the threatening letters were directed to her.”

  “Was there a lot of this hate mail?”

  “What’s ‘a lot’?” he says. “One letter was too much, as far as I’m concerned. Most of it was the typical. Class hatred. Rambling tirades written in an unintelligible scrawl spouting conspiracy theories. That sort of thing. We turned them over to security. But then, what do you do? And as you say, after the incident with the pie, it could just as easily have been a gun.”

  “Perhaps Ms. Chapman spoke to someone else on staff regarding her reasons for ending the security detail.” I look around the table, my eyes finally settling on Karen Rogan.

  The redhead is studying the wood grain in the surface of the table, avoiding my stare.

  “Is it possible that Ms. Chapman might have prepared a letter or a memo on the subject explaining her reasons at the time?” I ask.

  “Umm, Karen?” Havlitz gives her permission to speak.

  “Not that I can recall. I’d have to look.”

  “Could you do that? And while you’re at it”—I lean over and open my briefcase on the floor at the side of my chair, pull out a large manila envelope, and hand it to her—“you probably want to give that to your lawyer.”

  “What’s this?” Sims looks at the thick envelope as she slides it across the table to him.

  “A subpoena duces tecum, for the production of documents. It’s fairly detailed.”

  Sims sits up straight in his chair, takes the envelope, and opens it. Time to earn his keep. He pulls the papers out, a generous portion of a ream, and hefts the weight, looking at the pile with an expression as if to say, “You can’t be serious.” Sims knew this had to be coming, but he’ll make a show of it anyway, if for no other reason than to impress the client. We are likely to spend the next several weeks trading paper, subpoenas met with motions to quash, the lawyer’s version of a ticker-tape parade.

  From another section of my briefcase I slide a copy of an article from a magazine, a national business weekly. The stark and unflattering black-and-white picture of Madelyn Chapman glaring out from the front page appears to have been taken with a fish-eye lens up close so that every feature of the woman is distorted. The headline reads:

  CEO’S: THE NEW CORPORATE ARISTOCRATS

  Shareholders? “Let Them Eat Cake”

  From the picture as well as the content of the article, it is clear that Chapman had been blindsided by the publication, probably led to believe that it would be a corporate puff piece extolling her management of Isotenics. Instead, the six-page feature piece is a sniper attack par excellence. It includes two other pictures, one of them showing Chapman boarding a corporate jet with an entourage of security; the second, another fish-eye exposé, this time of a uniformed chauffeur holding the yawning back door of a stretch limo open as if the camera’s lens is about to be swallowed up.

  I can almost feel Karen Rogan shudder in the chair next to me as she glances sideways at the pictures. No doubt she has seen them before, probably moments after Chapman went ballistic, raging through the building with a machete on a head-hunting expedition to her own PR department.

  “I assume you’ve seen this before?” I slide the stapled pages along the table toward Havlitz, who takes one look and then clears his throat.

  “Umm. Yes.” He flips a page or two and then leaves it untouched on the table.

  For the moment Sims abandons the subpoena and its attachments and turns his attention to the article. He grabs it and starts flipping pages, studying the pictures.

  “From the date, it would appear that the article was published less than a week before Ms. Chapman�
�s personal security detail was withdrawn.”

  Havlitz and Sims hover over the piece, studying the date and exchanging glances. Then Havlitz looks at me. “I don’t know. I’d have to check. If you say so.”

  “The date of publication speaks for itself,” says Sims.

  “It does, and it would appear that the publication of this article and the humiliation visited on Ms. Chapman in a national business publication may well have caused her to abandon security,” I continue.

  “That’s your assumption,” says Sims.

  “You’ll notice on the second page, the article goes into some detail criticizing her ‘security entourage,”’ I tell him.

  Sims flips to the page. I have highlighted this with a yellow marker so he can’t miss it.

  When he’s finished, he looks up at me. “Your point is?”

  “The article likened Ms. Chapman’s security to that of a head of state. And you’ll notice the picture.”

  One of the shots, the one showing Chapman boarding the plane, has one of her bodyguards carrying what is obviously a woman’s overnight bag up the stairs behind her. If they could have stuffed a toy poodle with a diamond collar under the guy’s arm, they would have done it.

  “I see it,” says Sims.

  “I’m wondering whether anyone here or on the board of directors had an opportunity to talk to the reporter who wrote the piece, or anyone else at the magazine, before it was written.”

  “What are you getting at?” Havlitz asks.

  “I’m wondering where they got their information, the reason for the story. I have to assume they didn’t pick your boss by throwing darts at a list from Forbes.”

  “Are you suggesting that somebody here put them up to it?” says Havlitz.

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m asking whether anyone in the company talked to the reporter or anybody at this magazine either before or after the piece was published.”

  “We’ll have to check on that and get back to you,” he says.

  “I’m told that there was a faction on the board that was at odds with Ms. Chapman. That this group may have wanted to wrest control of the corporation from her.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Is it true?”

  “No, it’s not true. There’s always some dissatisfaction on every corporate board,” says Havlitz. “That doesn’t mean somebody inside the company wanted to push her out the door. She was well liked. Highly regarded. She was the founder of the company. Why would somebody here want to kill her?”

  “I said they wanted to wrest control of the corporation from her.”

  “Well, yes, but the inference …”

  “And unless she was shot twice in the head by accident, somebody wanted to kill her. From my reading of that article, there are a number of unidentified sources close to the corporation who fed the reporter information. That kind of detail could only come from people working inside the company. Since the article wasn’t terribly flattering, it would be difficult to view them as friends and supporters of the victim. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Sims puts a hand on Havlitz’s arm before he can get into it with me. His chest shrinks a size or two. He settles back into his chair.

  “What is your point?” says Sims.

  “I’m simply trying to find out why a woman, the head of a significant corporation, would want to get rid of her own personal security detail just weeks before she is killed.”

  “And my clients have told you they don’t know.”

  “No. Mr. Havlitz has told me he doesn’t know. I haven’t heard from anybody else.” I look toward the far end of the table, hoping to be able to take a poll, maybe open some lines of communication. No one wants to look at me except Harold Klepp.

  “I know she wasn’t happy about that arti—” he says.

  Havlitz cuts him off. “My answer goes for everybody at the table.” The corporate answer.

  Klepp leans back in his chair and shuts his mouth.

  “So I guess we have to leave it that whoever engineered the article may have had a hand in effecting the removal of Ms. Chapman’s personal security, at least indirectly.”

  “As I said,” says Sims, “that’s your assumption.”

  Havlitz, squirming in his seat, can’t resist any longer. “From where I sit, we would have been well advised to terminate the security detail much sooner, seeing as your client—one of her bodyguards—is charged with her murder.”

  “I thought you said the corporation didn’t terminate security—that the victim made that decision.”

  “She did,” says Havlitz.

  “But you just said ‘we’ should have terminated it sooner.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Yeah, you did.” Klepp mumbles it under his breath and gets a look that could kill from his boss.

  “Then I misspoke,” says Havlitz. “Let me be clear: the corporation had nothing to do with ending the security detail for Ms. Chapman. That was entirely a personal decision on her part.”

  “But you said you didn’t talk to her about it.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then how do you know that it was a personal decision or, for that matter, what it was based on?”

  “You’re twisting my words.”

  “No, I’m simply asking you a question.”

  “We don’t have to sit here and listen to this.” The large vein in Havlitz’s neck begins to bulge from under the starched collar of his linen shirt. “This isn’t a courtroom,” he says. “I invited you here as a courtesy.”

  “For the purpose of obtaining information,” I tell him.

  “Exactly,” he says. “If you want to know the truth, I’ll tell you the truth.” He is working to a fever pitch. “Your client was stalking Ms. Chapman. That’s right”—he smirks—“why else do you think they arrested him so fast?”

  With the word stalking, Sims’s head snaps back. He looks at his client wide-eyed. He had been preoccupied scanning the magazine article, skimming it with a finger for details, trying to ferret out the unidentified sources. Now he has a bigger problem, but it’s too late.

  “Was this before or after Ms. Chapman ended the security detail?” I ask.

  Havlitz looks at his lawyer, who shakes him off like a pitcher on the mound.

  “Forget it,” says Havlitz. “Just forget I said anything.”

  “Did you tell the police this?” I ask.

  “I can’t remember,” he says. “I’m not sure.”

  But I am. Not only did he tell the cops, they had taken pains to keep it out of their reports. The police made sure not to put it in their notes. They would have the DA put Havlitz or another witness on the stand for some other purpose. Then on cross-examination I would find myself tripping through the tulips in a minefield, working over the witness, only to have him coldcock me with the gratuitous testimony that Ruiz was stalking the victim before she was killed. It’s the kind of bombshell that would cave in the sides on an M1 Abrams tank. You can object all day, but if you’ve asked a question that opens the door, you’re dead. Even if the court strikes the testimony from the record and instructs the jury to disregard it, it’s going to be there like a screaming penny on top of a cash register when it comes time to tally up in the jury room. Suddenly they have a mental image to go with the state’s motive: a jilted lover dogging the victim after she told him to get lost.

  “Did Madelyn Chapman tell you she was being stalked by the defendant?”

  He doesn’t answer but shakes his head. It’s not clear if this is a yes or a no, but if I had to guess, she didn’t. The little vein on Havlitz’s forehead is now pulsing, beading over with sweat. It’s clear he either saw something or heard it from someone else.

  “I think we’re going to have to call it a day.” Sims is on his feet. “I have an appointment,” he declares. He looks at his watch, an afterthought, the obligatory haphazard glance at the gold chunk on his wrist. It’s the only way he is going to get me out the door and he
knows it. “I’ve got to be somewhere,” he says.

  Right. Anywhere but here. I’d love to be a fly on his lapel when he calls the DA to explain how they managed to accidentally detonate one of the state’s major roadside bombs a little early.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “That can’t be Paul Madriani?” If you can visualize a smiling face, round as a cherub’s, Asian and with freckles, it would belong to Nathan Kwan.

  I am walking at a good clip, halfway through the rotunda on the way back to my car, when I see him.

  “Nathan?”

  “By God, it is you.” He is all smiles, five-foot-seven and trim as the day I last saw him more than a decade ago. The only change is a little more gray at the temples so that he now looks the part of the seasoned statesman.

  “Jeez, where have you been?” he says. “I haven’t seen you in so long, I thought you were dead.” He glides toward me across an acre of marble, hand outstretched. When he reaches me, he grabs my hand and drops his briefcase, his other arm going around my shoulder. “God, it’s been such a long time,”

  “It has. What are you doing here?”

  “Business. What else?” He is wearing power pinstripes, a three-piece suit, and is carrying a thin leather portfolio that is now propped against his left ankle on the floor. He has always been the dapper dresser with the right accents.

  “I’ll bet you didn’t recognize me. A face from your forgotten past,” he says.

  “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “How have you been?”

  “I’m fine.” He’s still shaking my hand, engulfing me with the kind of radiance I remember from our earliest days together. Nathan may be shorter than I am, but he is one of those people who stands tall on the ladder of social dominance. He can overwhelm you in any setting with a kind of affable assault on the senses.

  “And you?”

  “I can’t complain. Actually I could, but it wouldn’t do any good,” he laughs. “What ever happened to you? I turn around and you’re gone.” This is how he describes ten years without seeing each other.

  “I moved down here. My partner and I opened an office.” I try to bring the conversation down a few hundred decibels.