Authors: Michael Crichton
“Perhaps we should. I'm sure it can be arranged. Al right. Let's turn to something else. Mr. Sanders said he saw a cleaning woman when he left your office. Did you also see her?”
“No. I stayed in my office after he had gone.”
“The cleaning woman, Marian Walden, says she overheard a loud argument prior to Mr. Sanders's departure. She says she heard a man say, `This isn't a good idea, I don't want to do this,' and she heard a woman say, `You fucking bastard, you can't leave me like this.' Do you recal saying anything like that?”
“No. I recal saying, `You can't do this to me.”'
“But you don't recal saying, `You can't leave me like this.' “
“No, I do not.”
“Ms. Walden is quite clear that was what you said.”
“I don't know what Ms. Walden thought she heard,” Johnson said. “The doors were closed the entire time.”
“Weren't you speaking quite loudly?”
“I don't know. Possibly.”
“Ms. Walden said you were shouting. And Mr. Sanders has said you were shouting.”
“I don't know.”
“Al right. Now, Ms. Johnson, you said that you informed Mr. Blackburn that you could not work with Mr. Sanders after the unfortunate Tuesday morning meeting, is that right?”
“Yes. That's right.”
Sanders sat forward. He suddenly realized that he had overlooked that, while Meredith was making her original statement. He had been so upset, he hadn't realized that she had lied about when she saw Blackburn. Because Sanders had gone to Blackburn's office right after the meeting-and Blackburn already knew.
“Ms. Johnson, what time would you say you went to see Mr. Blackburn?”
“I don't know. After the meeting.”
“About what time?”
“Ten o'clock.”
“Not earlier?”
“No.■
Sanders glanced over at Blackburn, who sat rigidly at the end of the table. He looked tense, and bit his lip.
Fernandez said, “Shal I ask Mr. Blackburn to confirm that? I imagine his assistant has a log, if he has difficulty with exact memory.”
There was a short silence. She looked over at Blackburn. “No,” Meredith said.
“No. I was confused. What I meant to say was I talked to Phil after the initial meeting, and before the second meeting.”
“The initial meeting being the one at which Sanders was absent? The eight o'clock meeting.”
“Yes.”
“So Mr. Sanders's behavior at the second meeting, where he contradicted you, could not have been relevant to your decision to speak to Mr. Blackburn.
Because you had already spoken to Mr. Blackburn by the time that meeting took place.”
“As I say, I was confused.”
“I have no more questions of this witness, Your Honor.”
Judge Murphy closed her notepad. Her expression was bland and unreadable.
She looked at her watch. “It's now eleven-thirty. We wil break for lunch for two hours. I'm al owing extra time so that counsel can meet to review the situation and to decide how the parties wish to proceed.” She stood up. “I am also available if counsel wish to meet with me for any reason. Otherwise, I'l see you al back here at one-thirty sharp. Have a pleasant and productive lunch.” She turned and walked out of the room.
Blackburn stood and said, “Personal y, I'd like to meet with opposing counsel, right now.”
Sanders glanced over at Fernandez.
Fernandez gave the faintest of smiles. “I'm amenable to that, Mr. Blackburn,” she said.
The three lawyers stood beside the fountain. Fernandez was talking animatedly to Hel er, their heads close together. Blackburn was a few paces away, a cel ular phone pressed to his ear. Across the courtyard, Meredith Johnson talked on another phone, gesturing angrily as she talked.
Sanders stood off to one side by himself, and watched. There was no question in his mind that Blackburn would seek a settlement. Piece by piece, Fernandez had torn Meredith Johnson's version apart: demonstrating that she had ordered her assistant to buy wine, to buy condoms, to lock the door when Sanders was there, and to cancel later appointments. Clearly, Meredith Johnson was not a supervisor surprised by a sexual overture. She had been planning it al afternoon.
Her crucial reaction-her angry statement that “You can't leave me”-had been overheard by the cleaning woman. And she had lied about the timing and motivation of her report to Blackburn.
There could be no doubt in anyone's mind that Meredith was lying. The only question now was what Blackburn and DigiCom would do about it. Sanders had sat through enough management sensitivity seminars on sexual harassment to know what the company's obligation was. They real y had no choice.
They would have to fire her.
But what would they do about Sanders? That was another question entirely. He had the strong intuition that by bringing this accusation, he had burned his bridges at the company; he would never be welcomed back. Sanders had shot down Garvin's pet bird, and Garvin would not forgive him for it.
So: they wouldn't let him back. They would have to pay him off.
“They're cal ing it quits already, huh?”
Sanders turned and saw Alan, one of the investigators, coming up from the parking lot. Alan had glanced over at the lawyers and quickly appraised the situation.
“I think so,” Sanders said.
Alan squinted at the lawyers. “They should. Johnson has a problem. And a lot of people in the company know about it. Especial y her assistant.”
Sanders said, “You talked to her last night?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Herb found the cleaning woman and got her taped. And I had a late night with Betsy Ross. She's a lonely lady, here in a new town. She drinks too much, and I taped it al .”
“Did she know that?”
“She doesn't have to,” Alan said. “It's stil admissible.” He watched the lawyers for a moment. “Blackburn must be shitting staples about now.”
Louise Fernandez was stalking across the courtyard, grim-faced, hunched over.
“Goddamn it,” she said, as she came up.
“What happened?” Sanders said.
Fernandez shook her head. “They won't make a deal.”
“They won't make a deal?”
“That's right. They just deny every point. Her assistant bought wine? That was for Sanders. Her assistant bought condoms? That was for the assistant. The assistant says she bought them for Johnson? The assistant is an unreliable drunk. The cleaning lady's report? She couldn't know what she heard, she had the radio on. And always the constant refrain, `You know, Louise, this won't stand up in court.' And Bul etproof Betty is on the phone, running the whole thing.
Tel ing everybody what to do.” Fernandez swore. “I have to tel you. This is the kind of shit male executives pul . They look you right in the eye and say, Ìt never happened. It just isn't there. You have no case.' It burns my ass. Damn it!”
“Better get some lunch, Louise,” Alan said. To Sanders he said, “She sometimes forgets to eat.”
“Yeah, fine. Sure. Eat.” They started toward the parking lot. She was walking fast, shaking her head. “I can't understand how they can take this position,” she said. “Because I know-I could see it in judge Murphy's eyes that she didn't think there'd be an afternoon session at al . Judge Murphy heard the evidence and concluded it's al over. So did I. But it's not over. Blackburn and Hel er aren't moving one inch. They're not going to settle. They're basical y inviting us to sue.”
“So we'l sue,” Sanders said, shrugging.
“Not if we're smart,” Fernandez said. “Not now. This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. They got a lot of free discovery, and we got nothing. We're back to square one. And they have the next three years to work on that assistant, and that cleaning lady, and anything else we come up with. And let me tel you: in three years we won't even be able to find that assistant.”
“But we have her on tape . . .”
“She stil has to appear in court. And believe me, she never wil . Look, DigiCom has huge exposure. If we show that DigiCom didn't respond in a timely and adequate fashion to what they knew about Johnson, they could be liable for extremely large damages. There was a case on point last month in California: nineteen point four mil ion dol ars, found for the plaintiff. With exposure like that, take my word for it: the assistant wil be unavailable. She'l be on vacation in Costa Rica for the rest of her life.”
“So what do we do?” Sanders said.
“For better or worse, we're committed now. We've taken this line and we have to continue it. Somehow, we have to force them to come to terms,” she said. “But we're going to need something else to do that. You got anything else?”
Sanders shook his head. “No, nothing.”
“Hel ,” Fernandez said. “What's going on? I thought DigiCom was worried about this al egation becoming public before they finished the acquisition. I thought they had a publicity problem.”
Sanders nodded. “I thought they did, too.”
“Then there's something we don't understand. Because Hel er and Blackburn both act like they couldn't care less what we do. Now why is that?”
A heavyset man with a mustache walked past them, carrying a sheaf of papers.
He looked like a cop.
“Who's he?” Fernandez said.
“Never seen him before.”
“They were cal ing on the phone for somebody. Trying to locate somebody.
That's why I ask.”
Sanders shrugged. “What do we do now?”
“We eat,” Alan said.
“Right. Let's go eat,” Fernandez said, “and forget it for a while.”
In the same moment, a thought popped into his mind: Forget that phone. It seemed to come from nowhere, like a command:
Forget that phone.
Walking beside him, Fernandez sighed. “We stil have things we can develop. It's not over yet. You've stil got things, right, Alan?”
“Absolutely,” Alan said. “We've hardly begun. We haven't gotten to Johnson's husband yet, or to her previous employer. There's lots of stones left to turn over and see what crawls out.”
Forget that phone.
“I better check in with my office,” Sanders said, and took out his cel ular phone to dial Cindy.
A light rain began to fal . They came to the cars in the parking lot. Fernandez said, “Who's going to drive?”
“I wil ,” Alan said.
They went to his car, a plain Ford sedan. Alan unlocked the doors, and Fernandez started to get in. “And I thought that at lunch today we would be going to have a party,” she said.
Going to a party . . .
Sanders looked at Fernandez sitting in the front seat, behind the rain spattered windshield. He held the phone up to his ear and waited while the cal went through to Cindy. He was relieved that his phone was working correctly. Ever since Monday night when it went dead, he hadn't trusted it completely. But it seemed to be fine. Nothing wrong with it at al .
The couple was going to a party and .she made a call on a cellular phone. From the car . . .
Forget that phone.
Cindy said, “Mr. Sanders's office.”
And when she called, she got an answering machine. She left a message on the answering machine. And then .she hung up.
“Hel o? Mr. Sanders's office. Hel o?”
“Cindy, it's me.”
“Oh, hi, Tom.” Stil reserved.
“Any messages?” he said.
“Uh, yes, let me look at the book. You had a cal from Arthur in KL, he wanted to know if the drives arrived. I checked with Don Cherry's team; they got them.
They're working on them now. And you had a cal from Eddie in Austin; he sounded worried. And you had another cal from John Levin. He cal ed you yesterday, too. And he said it was important.”
Levin was the executive with a hard drive supplier. Whatever was on his mind, it could wait.
“Okay. Thanks, Cindy.”
“Are you going to be back in the office today? A lot of people are asking.”
“I don't know.”
`John Conley from Conley-White cal ed. He wanted to meet with you at four.”
“I don't know. I'l see. I'l cal you later.”
“Okay.” She hung up.
He heard a dial tone.
And then she had hung up.
The story tugged at the back of his mind. The two people in the car. Going to the party. Who had told him that story? How did it go?
On her way to the party, Adele had made a call from the car and then she had hung up.
Sanders snapped his fingers. Of course! Adele! The couple in the car had been Mark and Adele Lewyn. And they had had an embarrassing incident. It was starting to come back to him now.
Adele had called somebody and gotten the answering machine. She left a message, and hung up the phone. Then .she and Mark talked in the car about the person Adele had just called. They made jokes and unflattering comments for about fifteen minutes. And later they were very embarrassed . . .
Fernandez said, “Are you just going to stand there in the rain?”
Sanders didn't answer. He took the cel ular phone down from his ear. The keypad and screen glowed bright green. Plenty of power. He looked at the phone and waited. After five seconds, it clicked itself off; the screen went blank. That was because the new generation of phones had an autoshutdown feature to conserve battery power. If you didn't use the phone or press the keypad for fifteen seconds, the phone shut itself off. So it wouldn't go dead.
But his phone had gone dead in Meredith's office.
Why?
Forget that phone.
Why had his cel ular phone failed to shut itself off? What possible explanation could there be? Mechanical problems: one of the keys stuck, keeping the phone on. It had been damaged when he dropped it, when Meredith first kissed him.
The battery was low because he forgot to charge it the night before.
No, he thought. The phone was reliable. There was no mechanical fault. And it was ful y charged.
No.
The phone had worked correctly.
They made jokes and unflattering comments for about fifteen minutes.
His mind began to race, with scattered fragments of conversation coming back to him.
“Listen, why didn't you call me last night?”
“I did, Mark.”
Sanders was certain that he had cal ed Mark Lewyn from Meredith's office.
Standing in the parking lot in the rain, he again pressed L-E-W on his keypad.