by Dana Killion
“Exactly. What is your testing process on raw materials? How do you know that you’ve gotten what you’ve ordered? Or you’ve gotten the quality you ordered?”
Again she was silent, and her eyes searched the restaurant as she ran through the possibility in her mind. I chewed on a cherry tomato, washing it down with some iced tea as I waited for her response.
“I guess we wouldn’t know. Not really, it’s not like we test every batch,” she chewed on her lower lip as she thought. “That would take a lab. We certainly don’t have time to send everything out. Is that what all this is about? The cops I mean?”
“I’m just speculating about possibilities. CPD will be looking into all of this.”
The waitress came over, delivering Olivia’s cake and topping off my iced tea. I squeezed some lemon into the glass and resisted the urge to order a slice of my own.
As Olivia dived into her chocolate, I said, “I know we talked about this before, but to be clear, Martin, and his predecessor Luke Cavanaugh, were responsible for sourcing the raw ingredients. Correct?”
“Yeah, they found the vendors. They had the relationships with the salespeople. They did the production planning. You know, how much to order, when to bring it in, price negotiation, things like that. I wrote up the purchase orders and sent them to the vendors, tracked that everything was going to show up on time, and confirmed the receivables so that accounting could pay the invoices.”
Talking about the basics of her job seemed to help her relax, or maybe it was the heavy meal.
“And how many vendors were you buying raw materials from?”
“We had three vendors for each of the primary ingredients in the drink. And two that supplied flavoring and coloring.”
“Why multiple vendors?” I asked.
“It didn’t start that way, but our first company wasn’t able to keep up, so over the last year we decided to bring in more. You know, as back up. Don’t want to put all your chickens in one basket.”
“So how many vendors in total would you say there are?
“At last count, I think we had seventeen.”
I mentally filed that away. That complicated narrowing down the source, although, given what I knew, lowered standards seemed inevitable.
“When the raw materials come in, do you have any way of identifying which vendor supplied that particular raw ingredient or do they all get mixed?”
“I’m not sure I understand your question,” she said, scraping the last bite of frosting off her plate.
“I guess what I’m asking is can you track raw material A from a vendor, once it’s in the final product or does raw material A become mixed with the supply from vendors B and C?”
I envisioned testing of raw materials as the next step and was curious about how far back into the timeline and the pipeline the contamination had occurred. It was entirely possible that the bad raw materials were long since used up which meant determining the source might be impossible.
“You can tell the supplier from the packaging as we receive it,” she said. “But when we are filling a hopper, we don’t really care which vendor supplied the ingredient. Everything would be mixed.”
“So the control numbers on the bottle would identify the batch which would tell us when the product was made, but not who the supplier of that ingredient might be. All three could potentially be mixed in the hopper and therefore mixed in individual bottles,” I said, restating the process.
“That sounds right. I never thought about needing to keep track. I don’t know how we’d ever track it back to a vendor.”
Michael had his job cut out for him, I thought, wondering about the production calendar and how quickly he could get forensic analysis on the raw materials.
“What do you know about the financial investors? You said there was someone who had some pull with Seth.” I intentionally left out a name wanting to see where Olivia went with the subject.
“The money guy?” Olivia said, but her eyes went flat, as if he were someone she disapproved of. “What about him?”
“Did you see him around much? Any idea how active he was in the business?”
“See him?” she scoffed. “No, he never came around. Not when we were there, but I heard enough to know he’s a money hungry pig.”
My ears perked up at her tone which was harsh and judgmental. What was that about? It sounded personal.
“What do you mean?” I watched her face closely. She’d turned away, staring out in the room as if daring the man to walk through the door. She turned back a moment later, her eyes hard.
“He’s been hanging in the background for a long time. At least that’s what I hear, but he’s only been showing his face around the plant for the last year or so. Not that he pays any attention to any of us. Martin says he slinks in after the second shift is gone. Probably doesn’t want anyone to see his cowardly face.”
She drained the last of her Coke and let out a breath before continuing. “He’s the guy that got Luke canned. I think they ousted him so they could pay Martin half his salary. Martin’s a nice man, but he’s getting screwed over too. Ever since Luke got the axe, all we hear about is budget cuts. It isn’t Martin’s fault there’s nothing left to cut but the payroll. These bottles aren’t going to fill themselves.”
“I thought sales were extremely strong, why the budget cuts?” This wasn’t the first time I’d heard about finances being tight, but nothing that explained why.
“It’s not like they tell me, but Nadell, Natell, whatever his name is, is a financial guy, right? All they care about is getting every damn dime. I know I told you that we started adding extra vendors so we could balance out our shipments, but these new vendors are also about 30% cheaper. Not the same quality. Hard to believe that he didn’t have something to do with that.”
I needed to understand the timing. “Olivia, can you get me into the plant? Tonight?”
32
Walter purred contentedly, limp in my arms. There was nothing like the simple pleasure of a happy cat. If only human life could be so easily satisfied. I was in the pantry pulling out a bag of Greenies, Walter’s favorite. He squirmed anxiously for the treat. I tossed two pieces into his bowl, then went to my bedroom to change into jeans and a sweater.
Kelly Cavanaugh had been the first to become ill, at least as far as we knew. Since I could pinpoint when she’d gotten sick, I thought maybe I could connect the timing to one of the new vendors. And hopefully trace the source of the belladonna that way. CPD had taken the computers, but Olivia thought hard copies of purchase orders might still be in the office. She’d agreed to give me access, provided I didn’t remove anything.
We’d arranged to meet outside the plant at 7:00, after she was certain the cleaning service was done for the night. As I changed and pulled my hair back into a low bun, I ran over the day in my mind.
Conversations had fueled my instincts, but the details were sparse. VTF was a high-growth business struggling to keep up with demand and in the process, letting supplier standards get lax. Its CEO had lied to me repeatedly. The company had a financial investor that seemed to want to stay in the background, yet felt emboldened enough to cancel orders in the dark of night. And there was a shitload of money dangling in their future if they could make rumor and accusations go away. But so what? Lots of businesses were sloppy and greedy.
Could the company survive the PR disaster they seemed unable to avoid? It seemed the only way to do that was to figure out the source of the belladonna, eliminate it, and fall on the mercy of the public, the courts, and the bankers. Doable, but hardly a cakewalk, especially for a small company with limited cash. The more I thought about it, the more I kept going back to behavior. Something Seth had told me flooded back. He said he suspected tampering around the time that Kelly got sick. That they’d isolated the batch, recalled product. That was months ago. Yet just days ago, I was able to pull a dozen contaminated bottles out of Lane’s fridge. Was Seth lying about the whole thing?
> I was searching in vain for a pair of oxfords when I heard the familiar ping of a text coming in. As I walked to my bag to retrieve the phone, my foot tagged the corner of a box of tile, sending shooting pain from my little toe up my ankle.
“Damn!” I shouted, momentarily frozen with the agony, then hobbled to the kitchen for a bag of ice, leaving a trail of blood as I walked. I then sat on the sofa, foot raised, packed in ice, with a kitchen towel underneath to protect the furniture. Walter sat at my feet smirking.
The text I’d rushed to get had been from Michael. “Can I see you tonight?” I sighed, leaned my head back on the cushion debating, then replied. “My place at 9:00?”
Olivia was leaning against the door when I drove into the parking lot. Shadows hid her face, but I recognized the army jacket and thick knit scarf wrapped around her neck. I parked, double checked that my phone was fully charged, and walked over to meet her.
“What happened to you?” she asked as I got close. “You weren’t walking funny this afternoon.”
“Dinged my toe. It’s nothing that a minor amputation won’t cure. Lead the way.” Each step felt like a shard of glass burrowing into my flesh.
She looked at me and laughed. “And I thought I was a klutz.” After unlocking the doors, she walked quickly through the reception area to the hall on the far side and flipped a light switch, then continued toward the production office, not waiting on me.
I limped after her, feeling my toe swell. The plant was eerily quiet. Gone was the bustle of the production line, the hum of the conveyor system. The hulking machinery sat ominous in the dark recess of the warehouse. Olivia had turned on two desk lamps in the office and I followed her, parked myself into the first desk chair I saw.
“That bad?”
I shrugged and took off my coat. “You said you might have purchase orders in hard copy. Correct?”
Olivia undid her scarf, and then pulled a 3-ring binder out of a desk drawer.
“We try to run paperless,” she said. “But I got caught in a bind a few times when our system fritzed out, so I started making copies and putting them in a binder for backup. I’m the one who gets the phone call when the accountant is reconciling billing so I figured it’s kinda essential to my job. Martin would get on my case about the cost, so I just don’t tell him.”
She laid the binder on the desk between us and opened the cover.
“What do you want to see?”
I pulled myself closer to the desk to get a look at the contents. “Kelly Cavanaugh died in the middle of August so we know that the drink had to be contaminated prior to that. What I’m wondering is whether we can figure out which raw material vendors might have been new to VTF in the months prior.”
I hadn’t identified the deadly ingredient to Olivia, nor did I intend to. Not now.
“You think one of the new guys gave us bad stuff?”
“Maybe. It’s just a theory. I want to start with the things that changed.”
She flipped pages scanning the dates.
“So this PO was received August 10th. It’s the flavorings shipment closest to when she died. But I don’t think the timing works.”
I looked at the document, thinking about a reasonable calendar. “I agree. Production, shipping, getting it onto the shelves. There wasn’t enough time. But we can use this as the cutoff point. Do you have any little Post-its or flags?”
She pulled open a drawer and handed me a pad. I flagged the page.
“Okay, so let’s work backwards. Flip through the POs from here back through March, and read me any names of vendors that were new, or established, but providing a new ingredient.”
I pulled out a notepad and my phone while Olivia began scanning the purchase orders. As she identified a new supplier, I photographed the purchase order, and logged the date and company name. The identifying item numbers, what Olivia called SKUs, were undecipherable to me. Once we’d narrowed our list, I’d have her translate.
Moments later she paused on a page, her eyes narrowed.
“Something odd?” I asked.
She opened the binder and pulled out the document, handing it to me. “See this,” she pointed at a line of text. “This line that’s crossed out and a new SKU handwritten below? That’s not me. It’s not my handwriting.”
“Luke?” She shook her head no. “It was marked as received June 6th. Does the SKU mean anything to you?”
“No. And I was out that week.”
Michael was waiting for me in the lobby of my building when I returned at 9:05. My head was so focused on the altered PO, I almost didn’t see him sitting in a chair, elbows on his knees.
“Ms. Kellner, what have you done to yourself now?” Norman the night doorman asked. He’d arrived for his shift while I’d been at the plant. At this point, my toe felt swollen to twice its size and my limp was impossible to hide.
“Just a dumb accident.”
Michael stood, looked at me, then my foot, and shook his head. I shook my head and gave him a kiss.
“I’ll tell you upstairs,” I said.
I tossed my coat and bag on a chair when we got into the apartment, then plopped onto the sofa to remove my shoes. Michael stood over me, scowling as he noticed the trail of blood I hadn’t bothered to clean up earlier.
“Can you get me some ice? And help yourself to the scotch.”
I pulled off the sock and the Band-Aid. Yep, purple, puffy, getting bigger by the minute. Michael returned with an ice pack and a towel. He propped my foot on a throw pillow and played nurse. Then returned to the kitchen, this time bringing back a glass of Cabernet for me and a scotch for himself.
“Thanks.” I raised my glass, and then took a much appreciated drink.
“What happened?” Michael nodded at my foot.
“Jammed my foot into a box of tile. A reminder that it’s time to finish this damn reno, I guess.” He held my eyes for a moment as if he wanted to say something. Or do something. Something I had a feeling would confuse me.
“And you rushed out of here so quickly after, that you didn’t even wipe up the blood?”
“I, uh, had a meeting.” I didn’t see a reason to give him more detail.
He took a drink of his scotch but didn’t press. We sat in silence for a moment toying with our drinks. Walter sat on the floor between us looking up and eyeing Michael suspiciously. He seemed to be suffering from an even worse case of caution than I was. Erik had never shown him the time of day, so I assumed he was making a judgment about men in general. Smart cat.
Michael pulled a catnip mouse out of his pocket presenting it to Walter who promptly turned on his heel, ignoring the gift.
“Is he ever going to like me?” Michael asked, confused, not for the first time, by Walter’s indifference. At least he’d realized it wasn’t the toy.
“Hard to tell,” I said. The man was bribing my cat, I was in trouble.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night,” he said, his voice low. “But I’m having trouble understanding your reaction. Nothing happened. That part of my life is over. It’s not something I want back. Explain to me why you’re so upset.”
“You chose not to tell me you were seeing your ex,” I said. “That was a conscious decision. A lie of omission. Lies, of any kind, aren’t something I’m willing to have in my life anymore. I’m coming from a relationship where my husband thought explaining and lying were interchangeable concepts. I’ve used up all the benefit-of-the-doubt I have in me. When, I saw you kiss her, that’s where I went.” Michael was silent.
“I thought you knew enough about my history to have understood that, but maybe I was wrong.” I could hear the sadness in my own voice, as regret and memories flooded back.
Michael stared at the floor and worked his jaw. “I guess I don’t have an answer. Don’t you trust me?”
He took another drink of his scotch and scrunched his eyes, clearly unhappy with how the evening was proceeding. Welcome to the club. He’d been here all of ten
minutes and already it seemed as if the evening would not end well, but I wasn’t in the mood to massage his ego or anything else for that matter.
“That’s exactly the point.” I was trying hard to control my emotions. Michael clearly didn’t understand the impact of the devastation I’d experienced. “If you’re comfortable omitting this, I can only wonder what else you won’t tell me.”
Michael seemed confused. But I wasn’t. There was no room in my life, or in my heart, to let in more hurt.
“I didn’t tell you because I thought I’d be opening a wound,” Michael said, his voice low. “That I’d be reminding you of everything you went through.” I heard him sigh. “Obviously, I’m an idiot, but it never occurred to me that you’d draw the conclusion that I was hiding something.”
“Then your detective skills are slipping,” I said. I sipped my wine, thinking about lies, and who else might be telling them.
33
Ouch! For the first time, the three-block walk from the parking garage to the Link-Media office seemed an excruciating distance. My toe had swollen to the size of a walnut overnight and was starting to turn a beautiful shade of eggplant. Finding a pair of shoes in my closet that didn’t pinch had been an impossible task. The best I’d been able to do was a pair of square toed oxfords. So, I’d chosen a pair of skinny black pants and an oversized sweater to go with, hoping it could pass as today’s fashion look.
With a messenger bag slung across my body, I held a travel mug of Earl Grey in one hand and clamped the collar of my jacket closed with the other. As I pulled open the door to the building, a delivery guy brushed past me, dinging my injured foot. I winced with pain nearly dropping my drink.
The day was off to a bad start.
My evening with Michael had ended abruptly. He was confused and hurt, but also couldn’t explain why he’d been secretive. And I was shutting him down, projecting my experience with Erik onto him. Was it fair? Maybe not, but self-protection was the best I could manage without going back into therapy. I threw my coat on the hook on the back of my door and settled in with my tea and email.