Fatal Greed (17 page)

I plopped down in a chair in Paula’s office, sloshing a bit of my morning coffee on her teal-blue carpet. “Oops, sorry.”

“No answer yet,” Paula said as I leaned over to dab at the spill.

“How’d you know what—”

 
“
Kamal
hasn’t budged on bringing you in. Jesus! I’m going to have to tell him about my pregnancy, even though I’m just in my first trimester. He’ll know it before my parents do.” Paula tossed her pen on the desk.

I could see Paula wasn’t in the mood to play bullshit games. Perhaps she had a bit of morning sickness. Who knows? I was clueless when it came to reading pregnant women. I went to my office and waited for the call. Ten minutes after
Kamal
arrived, I was summonsed.

I hesitated in his doorway, then stepped into his office with my hands in my pockets. “Morning,
Kamal
.”

“Michael, welcome. Welcome to the transition team.”
Kamal
motioned to Paula, who sat to my left, arms folded and legs crossed.

“I just want to help J&W and PHC grow to be an even better, more profitable company.” Countless handshake pictures and business trophies lined
Kamal’s
office walls, like he’d been in this place for years instead of days.

Kamal
offered to run to the
breakroom
for coffee. “Paula, I don’t want you to move. And I’m assuming you want decaf,” he said and winked. I shook my head and held up my hand, knowing my bladder would explode if I drank more coffee.
Kamal
left his office.

Paula and I stared at each other for a couple of seconds and then giggled like school kids when the teacher left the room.

“You think I need to tell Greg he’s got competition?” Paula said.

“Be sure to tell him it’s a guy who has multiple personalities.”

She grinned. “Honestly,
Kamal
is all over the place with the way he acts. He’s usually stubborn. Then, he acts human, like he cares how I’m feeling. It’s disorienting,” Paula said. “It could be a cultural thing, where he’s not sure how to respond to certain situations, like partnering with a woman.”

“I guess we’ll find out if it’s an ethics thing,” I said.

Paula lifted an eyebrow, then
Kamal
walked in with two coffees.

“The timing for bringing in Michael is perfect.”
Kamal
folded his miniature arms across his oversized desk. “I’ve learned from Paula all the key services your firm provides, as well as your, let’s say, simplistic process for business development. And we’ve reviewed each current account. I believe we can accomplish the same operating revenue with a much-improved profit margin. And this is where I need your help.”

Paula and I cut our eyes toward each other, then back to
Kamal
, who’d paused, obviously waiting for us to jump in with questions. We remained silent.

“I’ve developed something I’d like to review with you.” He handed us hard copies of a spreadsheet with at least twenty column headings. Within seconds, I understood the purpose of this thing called an HR synergy target tool. I’d been handed a guillotine with a shiny new blade.

“I assure you we can go through this process with fairness and dignity for everyone involved.” He held up his pen like he was carrying a sentimental torch for the average employees, our friends.

Heat crawled up my neck and into my face. I glanced at Paula, who rubbed her temples, then affixed her hand to the bottom of her chin.

“
Kamal
, I have to say I’m a bit shocked.” The pitch to Paula’s voice was higher than usual. “I’ve asked you directly about your ‘synergy targets,’ what I call job cuts, and you said nothing. I spoke with
Turug
about this same issue before the deal closed, and he denied layoffs were part of your strategy.”

“My dear Paula, I don’t recall such questioning, but—”

“I’m sorry?” Paula interrupted. “You don’t recall me asking you if you expected any layoffs? I find that hard to believe. In addition, I made a compelling business case for how we can continue to grow the business and improve operating margin by using our current approach.”

“I’m not going to get into a ‘he said, she said.’ I will only say
Turug
and the PHC board expect to take any newly acquired business and make it more profitable than we found it. That is how we make money.”

Paula moved to the edge of her chair.

“You make money by delivering on your commitments to your customers. You make money by giving incentives to your employees to deliver outstanding service.
That
increases your sales.” Paula jabbed her knee with each key point. “We have no millionaires working at J&W. How many do you have working at PHC?” Paula had launched her first major attack.

“I had hoped we would see eye to eye on this very important aspect of this transition process.”
Kamal
sorted papers on his desk. “But we are not changing our plan.”

Paula leaned back and started swinging her leg. I clicked my pen.

Kamal
avoided Paula’s glare and addressed me. “I will be sending both of you this file electronically. But in order to meet our deadlines, we need the first round completed by Friday. Help Paula with this spreadsheet.”

I dug my fingernails into the wood of the chair arm. Paula jerked the spreadsheet closer.

“By when will the first round be notified?” Paula asked.

“A week from Friday,”
Kamal
said.

“What’s the goal of this whole exercise?” Paula flapped the paper.

Kamal
ignored her question.

“Lowering our cost will provide more bonus potential for the people who remain, especially those in management, such as yourselves.”
Kamal
smiled as if he was trying to sell us a used car.

“So, you’re saying we can get satisfaction through all this if we fire our friends and dedicated colleagues, all because of some mythical bonus,” she fired back.

“I wouldn’t word it that way. And there are many factors that go into calculating bonuses at PHC.”

“So, the promise
Turug
gave me, where J&W would operate as a separate business unit under the umbrella of PHC…that was just a pile of horseshit?” Paula said. I sat motionless in my chair, stunned at her defiant attitude and proud that she flew directly into
Kamal’s
crosshairs on behalf of the people of this company.

 
“Paula, I can assure you we made no such promises.” It was obvious
Kamal
knew he had the upper hand regardless of where the discussion went.

Paula wouldn’t back down. I made sure my jaw stayed closed.

“Okay, so let me ask again, since you appear to be hard of hearing. What is the goal of this exercise? How many layoffs are we expected to make and by when?” Paula spoke with even more force.

“You know this information must be held in the utmost confidence.”
Kamal
eyed each of us. “For this initial round, we are looking at fifteen percent. But all businesses can cut fifteen percent without affecting their operations. That is a known fact.”

“You might have learned that fact in some expensive business school, but it doesn’t work that way in the real world,
Kamal
. Not if you’re trying to grow the business, which you say is the point.”

“As you might imagine, we will be redeveloping our revenue targets and goals for the year. While we go through this process we will be expected to maintain our current level of service.”
Kamal
looked at his monitor, then his fingers rattled the keyboard.

“Let me ask again, how many rounds are we going to have? And what is the ultimate target layoff number?” Paula’s veins were bulging in her neck.

“We haven’t determined the final number, but we believe our synergy contribution could reach between fifty and seventy-five percent. Some jobs will be replaced by our outstanding employees in India, while others will be absorbed by remaining employees. Of course, the higher percentage, the better your bonus potential,” he said with his Cheshire Cat grin.

There goes the carrot again. We weren’t biting. I wanted to jump into the fray, but Paula had taken the reigns. She had little to no ammunition but had uncovered their concealed transition plan. She dropped her hands in her lap on top of the now-crumbled spreadsheet.

“Okay, you’ll have it by Friday.” Paula stood abruptly.

“Paula, we will evaluate more numbers when you have cooled down,”
Kamal
said to her back. “We also need time to review the severance package.”

She ignored
Kamal
.

“Michael, please come to my office,” she said.

I did, looking into her eyes, dark circles beneath them, her teeth clenched. I had only one thing to say. “It’s an ethics thing.”

I galloped up the stairs in Arthur’s building, purposely avoiding the elevator route. My body welcomed the exercise after being cooped up in a stagnant office for hours. I pushed off each knee on the last flight, scaling three stairs at a time. When I got to the top, I bent over and caught my breath.

I’d intended to spend time thinking about possible strategies on the newspaper’s coverage of the murder. Instead, I spent most of the day dealing with
Kamal
. Then Paula and I worked to formulate our first draft of the fifteen-percent cut.

I entered Arthur’s office, which now resembled the early stages of a war room. Arthur was as energized as ever.

“Good evening, Michael, my son. Please join Stu and me. I have some refreshments, if you’d like a drink. I like a little nip to get the spirits going.” Arthur sipped a mixed drink he’d already prepared.

He began to talk as I perused my options at his bar. Stu remained quiet.

“Now, I think we need to discuss where we should next focus our coverage,” Arthur said.

“Or, where to start?” I blurted as I plunked ice into my glass.

Stu glanced in my direction. Perhaps my tone was more direct than I’d intended.

“Stu, I know you’ve been split between multiple beats, so don’t take this personally. But the perception out there is a girl was murdered, the police arrested an employee at J&W, and that’s it. No details of the facts, no insight into motive, no understanding on how the police concluded that Reinaldo had murdered Tiffany,” I said, now sitting in the Queen Anne chair opposite Arthur, who was standing next to his whiteboard.

“Point well taken, Michael.” Arthur looked at Stu, who put his head down and scribbled on his notepad.

Arthur asked me to share what I’d learned in my conversation with Jeanne. Stu, apparently, had yet to either receive the new lead regarding Jeanne’s phone call with the emotional lady, or to act on it. I was witnessing a team that was not moving at record-breaking speed. Events in the case were probably taking place at this very moment, and God knows when, or if, they would ever hit the pages of our newspaper.

“I know both of you think I’m a slacker, but I’ve got a lot on my plate,” Stu said. “I’m still working the entire city beat, the zoning commission stories, the city council. You name it, I’ve got it.”

It did sound overwhelming. But I had no stake in the newspaper operations, only in Tiffany’s murder case.

For the next several minutes, Arthur reviewed some of the obvious questions still left unanswered. Intermittently there were large segments of dead air—no one talking, just the three of us staring at the whiteboard. We appeared to be three misfits. I had no idea how to write; Stu had no internal drive or time; and Arthur hadn’t covered a major story in decades.

Still, I couldn’t leave the office until we had a plan, some way to pull together relevant information and report on it, and to start holding people accountable.

“I’m not sure if it’s my place to do this.” I chose not to look at Stu. “But let me chime in with a couple of ideas on how we can tackle this thing.”

I approached the whiteboard.

“We need to start putting pressure on the DA’s office, asking questions about formal charges and evidence connected to Reinaldo, and what type of motive they believe is behind the murder.” I scribbled words, shapes, and connecting lines on the board. “The defense, if they think Reinaldo is innocent, should
want
us to start digging. We need to build a rapport with his lawyer, Gentry. If he doesn’t provide us information, then we should ask ourselves
why
. We need to understand how they will plea. If Reinaldo pleads not guilty, then what are they saying happened? Where was Reinaldo when the murder occurred?”

Arthur nodded. Stu jotted down notes, his pen moving quicker than any part of his body since the meeting had begun.

“We’re aware the coroner’s office had doubt on the cause of death. Wouldn’t the cause of death have to be determined before someone is arrested or charged? I know I’m a novice at this, but I think we need to ask those questions and get them on the record. There is a lot going on here, and we should serve notice to everyone that the game has changed.”

I had four eyes fixed on me. While not completely confident in myself, I continued to drive the conversation.

“Given the odd, one-sided chat Jeanne had with Tiffany’s mother—”

“Who’s to say that person was Tiffany’s mother? Why wouldn’t she call the police? It sounds like a crazy person harassing Jeanne Greenberg,” Stu said.

“Maybe so, maybe not. My point is we need to start digging into these other leads. We can’t wait for the DA or police to say to us, ‘We messed up. Please assist us on finding the actual killer.’ That’s not going to happen.”

Stu touched his pen to his cheek. His mind was opening ever so slightly, it appeared.

I wiped smudged ink from my hands. “I need to get approval from my CEO at home, but if I can verify Tiffany’s mother lives in Stillwater, then I should travel up that way and find out everything I can from her about Tiffany, about the men she mentioned on the phone with Jeanne. Maybe she has insight into why someone would want to harm Tiffany.”

Arthur raised his forefinger on his right hand.

“But Michael, you’re not an employee of the paper. Even if I allow you to be a special contributor or something along those lines, you’re not prepared to be writing hard news, let alone investigative stories.”

“We have computers. I’ll take my laptop. I’ll write up the facts, gather quotes, and even throw in my opinion on what it means, then send it to you and Stu. You guys can write the story and figure out the headline.”

“Do you have a digital camera?”

I nodded.

Arthur continued. “Take pictures of anything germane to the investigation, even if it’s just a headshot of Tiffany’s mother. It helps make the story more real.”

I told Arthur and Stu I’d complete some research over the next day or so. If I found what I expected to, I would drive to Stillwater on Saturday and hopefully be home by Saturday night.

“Michael, I’d like to thank you for stepping up and leading our discussion today.” Arthur draped his arm over my shoulder as we walked toward his door. “I believe this meeting will jump start our investigation.”

I made a mental note to delete all the sexy photos off our camera…ones Marisa and I had taken on Christmas night.