Irreparable Harm (A Legal Thriller)
Page 13
Chapter 11
Sasha walked back to the office. Her stomach was sour. It wasn’t from the gin. She realized she couldn’t intrude on Mrs. Calvaruso. Not today. She’d be no different from Mickey Collins and his band of ambulance chasers if she showed up unannounced at the widow’s house.
She needed to get information about Calvaruso’s job. She didn’t have to get it from his wife. She took her Blackberry from her bag and pulled up Peterson’s cell number. The call rolled straight to voicemail.
“Noah, I’m not going to see Mrs. Calvaruso today. I don’t think it’s the right course. I’ll call Patriotech and talk to someone in human resources. I’ll probably get more out of them than a grieving old lady, anyway. Don’t worry, I won’t mention RAGS. Will you call me after you talk to Metz and Vivian so we can regroup?”
She tossed the phone back in her bag, already feeling better. One thing Krav Maga had taught her was to follow her instincts. Always.
Back in her office, she ignored the lopsided pile of mail threatening to spill off her desk and her blinking voicemail light. She Googled Patriotech, and the first hit was the company’s website. It was bare bones. There were no details about Patriotech’s products; no press releases; no investor information; no management bios—nothing but a photo of the outside of an anonymous-looking building in a business park, with a main contact number and a street address below it. She memorized the number and closed her browser before dialing it. She didn’t like to be distracted when she was on a call.
A pleasant, accented woman’s voice answered on the second ring. “Good afternoon. Thank you for calling Patriotech.”
“My name is Sasha McCandless. I’m an attorney with Prescott & Talbott in Pittsburgh. I’d like to speak to someone in your HR department.”
After a pause, the voice said, “Uh, you’ll want to talk to Tim ... I guess.”
The woman didn’t sound convinced, so Sasha asked, “What is Tim’s title?”
“Oh, he’s our Human Resources Director.”
“That’d be great.”
Sasha listened to an instrumental version of an old Journey song while the receptionist transferred the call.
“Um, this is Tim Warner. I’m the HR Director here.”
Warner sounded very young and no more certain that he was the right person to handle the call than the receptionist had been.
Sasha repeated her name and explained that she was an attorney calling from Pittsburgh, then she quickly launched into the reason for her call. “I represent Hemisphere Air, which operates the flight that crashed last night. I understand one of your employees was on the plane. I’m very sorry.” Sasha hoped she sounded sincere. She was very sorry.
Warner mumbled something about it being a tragedy. Sasha didn’t think it seemed particularly heartfelt.
She plowed ahead, “It would be very helpful if you would send me a copy of Mr. Caruso’s personnel file. Of course, if you prefer, I could get a subpoena duces tecum from the court ordering you to turn it over. Obviously, if you agree to send it voluntarily it would save everyone involved a lot of time and expense.”
She was banking on Warner being intimidated by the Latin and too green to know it wouldn’t be quite that easy to serve a subpoena to produce documents on Patriotech.
First, she’d have to get an attorney licensed to practice in Maryland involved, because she’d need the Maryland federal district court to issue a subpoena on Patriotech.
Then, if Patriotech got counsel involved (unlikely, she thought, given that the company drafted its own indemnification agreement with Hemisphere), there’d be objections, request for extensions, negotiations over the scope of the subpoena, and probably a demand for a confidentiality agreement that would also have to be negotiated.
And, she’d have to serve Collins, who would undoubtedly try to gum up the works, claiming the information she was looking for was irrelevant or, at a minimum, premature; and, frankly, he’d be right about that. In the context of the suit Collins had filed, she had no current need for Angelo Calvaruso’s personnel file.
In short, she needed to convince Warner she was doing him a favor and get those files out of him informally.
“A subpoena?” Warner repeated, “Would there be a public record of that?”
“Certainly.” She waited in silence while Warner weighed that information. After a long minute, she heard the clack of keys on Warner’s keyboard and smiled.
Warner said, “Patriotech would be happy to cooperate, Ms. McCandless. There’s no need to involve the court. What exactly do you need from us?”
“I appreciate that and, please, call me Sasha. I’m looking for whatever documentation you have regarding Mr. Calvaruso’s job duties, benefits and salary, any performance reviews, an employment agreement, that sort of thing.”
“Hmm . . .” Warner scanned the file names on his computer’s directory. “Mr. Calvaruso only joined us about a month ago and he was technically a consultant, not an employee, so his file is going to be pretty thin. Can I just copy all the files I can access on our server that relate to his position or contain his name? I mean, if electronic files are acceptable? We try to operate as paperlessly as we can.”
“Electronic copies are fine,” Sasha assured him. “Actually, they’re preferable. But, when you say all the files you can access, does that mean there are files you don’t have access to?”
Warner paused before answering. “His voice was sheepish as he explained, “Well, given the, uh, nature of our business, the R&D, and, um, proprietary confidential information, Patriotech takes measures to ensure the secrecy of our research.” He hurried to add, “But, I think I can access all the files related to Mr. Calvaruso.”
Sasha heard a desk drawer roll open, then Warner said, “Okay if I copy these to a thumb drive and pop them in the mail?”
“That’s fine. If you wouldn’t mind, please overnight it. It’s really rather urgent.”
“No problem. I have your firm website up right now. Should I just send it to your attention at that address?”
“That would great.” Sasha thanked him warmly and hung up. She felt just the tiniest bit bad about how easy it had been to bluff Patriotech’s human resources director, but she knew Noah would be thrilled to have the files.