A Family Divided

by Tom Berreman

  “I thought you were trying to ignore me,” Allison said as he answered. “I’ve called your cell three times.”

  “Oops, sorry. Forgot to take it off silent after my meeting.”

  “No worries, just giving you grief. Would you mind grabbing Chinese takeout on your way home? Ryan’s spending the night at Aaron’s, and I don’t feel like cooking.”

  “Sure, the usual?”

  “Yup.”

  * * *

  Filled with Kung Pau Chicken and Moo Goo Gai Pan, Jason and Allison sat at the umbrella table on the deck. He refilled their glasses, emptying the bottle of Chardonnay. They had often ordered Chinese takeout when they were dating, which was why he knew the usual. It was yet another reminder of their past.

  Was it Allison’s attempt to pick up where they’d left off thirteen years before?

  Their conversation over dinner was nothing more than idle chitchat, each of them avoiding talk about Jennco. But they also avoided an even more difficult conversation. Now that the estate battle was over Jason’s reason for coming to California was resolved.

  And he would soon return to Minnesota.

  “I have a Saturday morning working session with the product development committee,” Jason said. “Consensus of the group was to start at seven, so we can get done early and get on with the weekend. So, I think I’ll turn in.”

  “I’ll clean up,” Allison said as Jason stood and started to gather the glasses and plates. “After all, you cooked.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Jason said as he smiled. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  * * *

  After clearing the dinner dishes Allison returned to the deck with a fresh glass of Chardonnay. She looked out at the western skyline, a dim light having replaced a once brilliant sunset. A full moon had assumed lighting the sky. It cast a peaceful glow, occasionally darkened behind wispy clouds drifting by. It was quiet; the stillness interrupted only by the rustle of palm leaves disturbed by the light ocean breeze.

  As she leaned against the deck railing, she battled mixed emotions. She never should have accepted Jason’s offer to come to California. He was doing an exceptional job guiding her through the legal gauntlet she faced, she couldn’t have expected anything more. But being close to him day in and day out was reviving her long-suppressed feelings. A single tear rolled down her cheek and salted her upper lip.

  She recalled the day over a decade before when Jason cancelled their Saturday night date at the last minute. He said something had come up but was evasive, and wouldn’t answer when she asked if something was wrong. He cut their conversation short and disconnected the call.

  She learned what the something was when her best friend called a few hours later. She had seen Jason and another woman at an uptown restaurant. They carried on as more than just friends, and she asked why Allison hadn’t told her she and Jason broke up.

  She cried for an hour.

  She learned later that Gretchen, Jason’s girlfriend before they met, returned from Haiti the day before.

  After they broke up, she tried as hard as she could to hate the man, but she couldn’t. Her love for him was too deep and her only defense was to see other men. After a blind date with a friend’s co-worker she entered a stable, long-term relationship, leading to her marriage and three kids.

  But she never stopped loving Jason. He was handsome, successful, athletic, smart, patient, funny…, everything a woman would want in a man. Anybody he met liked him, and Ryan took to him the first day they met. And this realization, having spent the last two months with him, forced her to accept her marriage was a farce. She never loved her husband, but fell into the trap of wanting a family, a house in the suburbs and a white picket fence.

  And she was never more alone.

  “Damn you Jason Burke!” she shouted, not concerned whether he might hear her through his open guest house window.

  * * *

  Jason lay awake, staring at the ceiling, his mind racing with a myriad of emotions. “Damn you Jason Burke!” echoed through his mind over and over as he struggled to fall asleep.

  Chapter 50.

  Scott Jorgensen burst into Hartwig’s office, ignoring Jane Cornelius’ pleas he was not to be interrupted. He slammed the door behind him.

  “Mr. Hartwig will call you back,” he shouted into the speakerphone before disconnecting the call.

  “You fucking idiot! You just cut off the president of our biggest customer.”

  “No, you listen to me, you fucking idiot,” he said as he slammed the morning paper on his desk. The headline read Cal Tech Student Found Dead in Local Park.

  “I told you I could take care of Chelsea Williams, but you said you’d do it. If I recall you said ‘I know a guy who can discretely manage delicate situations like this.’ So, let’s read the first line of the article. Chelsea Williams, a Cal Tech student working as an intern at Pacific Coast Industries, was strangled in Horatio Smith Park Tuesday evening. Well, that was a fucking discrete solution!”

  Hartwig read the article in the paper dropped on his front steps first thing that morning, but scanned the copy Jorgensen delivered as though reading it for the first time.

  “You really thought you could get away with this?” Jorgensen continued. “The same reporter who wrote a scathing article accusing you of being an unethical corporate spy told the cops Chelsea approached her, claiming to have internal company memos detailing less than ethical corporate behavior at her employer. She felt compelled to be a whistleblower, and made arrangements to meet the reporter in the park, but she never showed up.”

  “Give me a break,” Hartwig said. He ignored Jorgensen’s anxious diatribe, instead pointing to the article on his desk. “Police found no documents on her body, and a later search of her apartment uncovered nothing to support her allegations. That confirms she was a disgruntled intern who felt it was beneath her to perform tasks not to her liking.”

  “Oh, give me a fucking break. She brought those documents to the meeting, and I know goddamn well you were behind their disappearance following her untimely demise. If the cops keep digging, which I sure as hell hope they do, they’re bound to uncover your involvement in her terrible, but suspicious, death.”

  A tense silence filled the room. After a moment Hartwig walked to within a foot of Jorgensen, his stocky five foot eight frame dwarfed by Jorgensen at six foot three. He looked up to stare into his eyes and spoke quietly, but firmly.

  “Get the fuck out of my office.”

  Jorgensen stood stoically, returning Hartwig’s stare, saying nothing.

  The standoff lasted ten seconds before Jorgensen turned and left the office, closing the door behind him. It would be his last meeting with Hartwig, and his last day at Pacific Coast Industries.

  His moral compass had been eviscerated.

  * * *

  “I assume you’ve read the article by now,” Hartwig said to Sally Gorman after she entered his office, closed the door and sat across from his desk.

  “How could I have missed a front-page article on the suspicious death of a Pacific Coast Industries’ intern turned whistleblower?” she replied. He had again summoned her to put a spin on bad news, but this time the news rose to a new level of despicable. “Please tell me you had nothing to do with this.”

  “Of course I had something to do with this, I’m the goddamn CEO. But it’s not what you think,” he added after she sighed in disbelief at his admission. “I pissed her off, gave her a reason to seek revenge by approaching that reporter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I asked her to take notes at a meeting, fill a coffee pot once in a while. Repulsed at such menial tasks, she pointed out she was first in her class at Cal Tech. I should have fired her ass on the spot when she complained.”

  Hartwig handed her a file marked Sensor R&D-Confidential–L. Hartwig Eyes Only.

  “These are the emails she copied and planned to turn over to the reporter. Look them over for background
then shred them. Do it yourself, don’t trust a secretary. I want no evidence if the authorities dig deeper. You know…, plausible deniability.”

  She regretted ever using the term with him; he used it all too often.

  “What about the copies she took?”

  “I recovered her copies and shredded them. These are my originals, and the only remaining copies. I also had the electronic versions deleted from the company’s email system.”

  She ignored his confession of illegal recovery and took a moment to scan the documents in the file. All it took was the first memo’s first paragraph for her to appreciate its contents’ sensitivity. It also explained why PCI’s vice president of quality assurance resigned just before the company introduced its new, innovative sensor six months ahead of schedule.

  “I need to speak with Jorgensen about this,” she said. She assumed Hartwig directed him to recover the documents the intern copied.

  “He’s left the company. He caught her rifling through my files after business hours and should have stopped her from taking those copies. But he failed miserably in his duty to protect this company’s proprietary information.”

  “So, you fired him?”

  “No, he just quit without explanation. So, if anyone is responsible for her death it must be him, he was trying to cover up his mistake. Suggest that in our response if the company is implicated in Ms. Walters’ demise, blame it on a disgruntled former employee.”

  “So you’re labeling Jorgenson your scapegoat?”

  He said nothing in response.

  “And her name was Williams, not Walters.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  * * *

  Sally returned to her office and read each email twice, the more interesting three times. The abhorrent actions taken by upper management appalled her, and she questioned Hartwig’s rationale for printing and saving the copies.

  These were communications best left buried.

  He also confirmed her belief he was a technology dinosaur. The CEO of a publicly traded company should know deleted emails never go away.

  She rejected his explicit direction to shred them. She would keep them in a safe place as insurance if she were implicated in this outrageous corporate behavior.

  Chapter 51.

  “How do you guys like your steaks?” Jason asked.

  Allison and Ryan were sitting around the umbrella table enjoying a beautiful, California Saturday evening waiting for the chef to prepare dinner.

  “The coals are just about perfect.”

  Jason was standing at Laura’s wedding present to Curt, a standalone outdoor kitchen. It had a gourmet, restaurant quality stove, refrigerator, microwave and sink highlighted by a granite countertop. But the centerpiece was the hybrid grill that could cook with either propane or charcoal. A grilling purist, Jason never checked if there was propane in the tank.

  “Medium rare,” Allison responded, with a quick “Me too” from Ryan.

  “Great, we’re all in agreement, makes my job easier,” he said as he opened the refrigerator door. “Oops, left the steaks in the kitchen fridge. I’ll grab them and we can get started.”

  As he entered the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Eric Rogers stood outside the front hallway door’s glass.

  “Hey Eric, come in,” he said from the end of the hall.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Eric said, stepping into the foyer. “It is Saturday evening.”

  “No, not at all. I was just throwing steaks on the grill. Would you like to join us?”

  “No, that’s all right. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Okay, so what are your dinner plans?”

  Eric was a confirmed bachelor with little culinary aptitude, and cooking dinner was not in his plan for the evening.

  “Oh, I’m not sure. I’m debating between drive through and microwave.”

  “Shut up and get in here,” he said as he turned and walked toward the kitchen. “Can I offer you a glass of wine? I just opened an excellent Oregon Pinot Noir.”

  “Okay, twist my arm.”

  Jason poured Eric a glass and refilled his own before asking him what made him stop by on a Saturday evening.

  “I learned this morning that PCI entered negotiations to be Autonohaul’s long-range laser sensor supplier for its long-haul truck prototype. And their sensor’s functionality is identical to the sensor we have under development.”

  “Damn it,” Jason said. “I met Autonohaul’s CEO for lunch last week, and he suggested we were in the running if we could bring them a sensor that passed the testing protocol in their request for proposal. I told him we were close to completing our quality assurance and should be ready to submit our sensor for consideration soon. At least he could have called me.”

  “But Jason, I’m not sure you understand. I’ve been listening to the buzz in the engineering community. It’s common knowledge that PCI encountered significant problems with their sensor prototype, and best guess it would cost them millions in R&D to get it right. The only way they could beat us to Autonohaul would be to cut corners in their internal testing.”

  “Hartwig has always had a hard on for beating Jennco any way he can. But it would be fraudulent if their testing cut corners, then they claimed to meet the protocol. But there is one other possibility.”

  “Are you suggesting it would be cheaper to buy the technology than to develop it in-house?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But there’s no other company I’m aware of that is close to achieving that level of sensor sophistication.”

  Jason paused, recalling a half million dollar wire transfer to Brent Jennings’ offshore account, before he continued.

  “Except for us.”

  “Oh, hey Eric,” Allison said as she walked in from the deck. “I was wondering what was keeping the chef. How are you doing?”

  “Okay, all things considered.”

  “Eric’s joining us for dinner. We’re just talking shop before I start the steaks.”

  “Oh? What’s so important it can’t wait until Monday morning?”

  “PCI beat us to market with their long-range sensor, they’re in negotiations with Autonohaul,” Jason said.

  “How far away are we?” Allison asked, directing her attention toward Eric.

  “We’re close. But Jennings keeps insisting on additional diagnostics, he’s still not one hundred percent confident we’re there yet. And Ritter won’t overrule him, says he delegated the testing to Brent.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll leave you two to your shop talk,” she said as she refilled her wineglass. “Just don’t take too long, you’ve got a hungry fifteen-year-old anxiously awaiting his medium rare steak.”

  “Funny you should say that,” Jason said to Eric as Allison returned to the deck. “Just yesterday, I overheard two of Ritter’s engineering staff complaining Brent keeps rejecting their test results, making them do them over until they’re perfect. One of their peers even approached the regulators who confirmed our QA testing met, even exceeded, the protocol.”

  “Why is now the first time I’ve heard of this?”

  “Brent fired the engineer, said he had breached his confidentiality agreement.”

  “Damn. I agree we need to produce the best product possible,” Eric replied. “But there comes a point where you have to accept a minimal risk it’s not one hundred percent perfect and move forward, or we’ll never get a product to market. And now is not the time to let perfection keep our sensor off the market.”

  “I agree, and will schedule a meeting with Ritter and Brent on Monday. I’ll tell them I have a good relationship with Autonohaul’s CEO and if we get our sensor through QA soon, he might give us a shot at the contract even though they’re in bed with PCI right now.”

  “I sure hope it works, I’ve dedicated the last year of my life to developing that sensor, I can’t just walk away now.”

  “If he balks, I might just have to pull rank on him. But for now, all we can do is push for
ward with our R&D and introduce the best product we can make. And besides, if you’re right about PCI cutting corners in its testing, there’s a good chance their sensor won’t survive Autonohaul’s rigorous testing protocol, and we’ll be number two waiting in the wings to swoop in when they fail. And I almost forgot to ask. How do you like your steak?”

  “Well done.”

  Chapter 52.

  “Damn it,” Adam Ritter said as he read the meeting invitation in his email. Burke scheduled a meeting with him, Eric Rogers and Brent Jennings to discuss delays in the long-range laser sensor’s quality assurance approval.

  He knew Eric was convinced he had been too cautious in straddling the line between absolute confidence in his testing and the acceptable risk of failure to bring a product to market. But he needed to maintain his status within Jennco’s product engineering department.

  He stood and walked out his open office door to his assistant’s desk.

  “Julie, can you clear my calendar for the next couple of hours? I have a critical report to prepare and don’t want to be disturbed.”

  * * *

  “Hey Adam, what’s up?” Brent said after he knocked and poked his head inside the office door.

  “Hey Brent, come in.” He took a seat in front of Adam’s desk before he continued. “Did you get the meeting invitation with Burke and Rogers this afternoon?”

  “Yeah, what’s that all about?”

  “I don’t know, but it pisses me off when they question our work. Quality assurance is separate from research and development to ensure independent design oversight. They’re eager for us to sign off on the sensor so we can submit an RFP to Autonohaul, but we’re just not there yet.”

  “But Autonohaul is already in discussions with PCI.”

  “They are, but I’m sure Burke thinks we still have a shot.”

  From the first day Adam assigned Brent to be second in command in quality assurance he questioned why the process took so long. When he approved QA diagnostics Ritter often overruled him, telling him to run them again to be sure. He dismissed his concerns as a new guy learning the process. But as time went on, he realized the delay worked to his advantage. Every day Jennco’s long-range sensor was delayed increased PCI’s chances of solidifying the Autonohaul contract.