Irreparable Harm (8 page)

Sasha saw tears in his eyes and forced herself not to look away. “Noah, if that’s really how you feel, why don’t you retire? You have more money than God.”

“What about my clients? Do you think Metz could navigate this morass without me?”

“What about your wife?”

Noah shook his head. “Retirement? What would I do? Legal consulting?”

The cloudy feeling was growing stronger again. Sasha ignored it and said, “Then what about the P&T Sabbatical Program?”

The Sabbatical Program was another of the Prescott & Talbott Work-Balance Committee’s misguided attempts to improve attorney morale. Any equity partner could apply for either a six-month or twelve-month paid sabbatical to recharge, pursue a passion project, travel, teach a class, volunteer, whatever. When the program was announced, it had an effect on attorney morale all right, just not the intended one.

Most of the morale issues had been raised by junior attorneys who felt they were being overworked and not given professional development opportunities and by young income partners who felt they were being overworked and undercompensated. A program for the guys at the top of the pyramid to take a one-year paid vacation while their underlings picked up their slack hadn’t been wildly popular. It sounded like Peterson could use it, though.

“The sabbatical program, hmm. We could rent a villa in Spain. Maybe Italy. No, France. Laura likes France.” Peterson sat up straighter. “I’m going to call Laura right now and suggest it. Thanks, Mac.”

Sasha finally broke through her cloud as he was going on about his big plans. “Wait, please. Something you said about retiring. Legal consulting. That would be a logical second career for you, right?”

“Yes, Mac. What of it?” Peterson was impatient to plan his year in Provence.

“Just hear me out, Noah. Angelo Calvaruso was a city laborer. You know, the guys who drive the snow plows in the winter and cut the grass and trim the trees at the city parks in the summer. So, he retires and starts a job as a consultant for some Bethesda company? What sense does that make?”

Peterson just looked at her.

“None, right? It’s been bothering me all morning. And I can’t believe it didn’t hit me when we were talking to Metz. The name of the Bethesda company that hired Mr. Calvaruso as a consultant was …”

Peterson beat her to it. “Patriotech.”

Sasha picked up her bag and slid off the barstool. “I’m going to visit Mrs. Calvaruso.”

Peterson nodded. “Take someone with you. And, Mac, be discreet. I guess I’ll need to talk to Metz and Vivian about reporting this today after all.” He signaled for Marcus to bring him a third scotch to fortify him for the conversation ahead.

“Good luck,” Sasha said as she turned to leave.

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.

Chapter 12

Bethesda, Maryland

Tim slid the thumb drive into a UPS envelope. He strained to think of a clever note to include, finally settling for “It was a pleasure to speak to you today. Please let me know if you need anything further.” After addressing the envelope, he took one more look at the attorney’s picture on her firm website. Sasha McCandless was a hottie. Dark wavy hair, bright green eyes, and a tight little body that her suit jacket couldn’t hide. Tim thought he saw a hint of a smile playing on her lips.

Maybe he should ask Irwin if he could go to Angelo Calvaruso’s funeral as a representative of Patriotech, he thought. He
was
the Director of Human Resources, after all. It seemed appropriate for him to attend as a gesture of … something. And he could call Sasha and ask her to get a cup of coffee or maybe a cocktail.

Tim checked his watch. It was close enough to five. He decided to call it a day and drop the package into the UPS box in the parking lot on his way out. He’d tell Irwin about the call tomorrow; presumably, he’d be pleased that Tim had shown the initiative to keep Patriotech from getting dragged into court. Irwin
hated
publicity. In fact, Tim thought, as he pushed in his desk chair and turned out his lights, Irwin might actually reward him for this one. That’d be a change.

* * * * * * * * * *

Jerry Irwin watched from his floor-to-ceiling window as his worthless human resources director scurried to his dirty Honda. It wasn’t even five o’clock and there was Warner sneaking out of work. Not that it mattered, Irwin thought, Warner was essentially useless and had been hired mainly because Irwin knew he’d be too stupid and inexperienced to ask any questions or to follow-up when he was fed a line of bullshit. Besides, by this time next week, Patriotech would be shuttered, he’d be long gone, and his hapless employees would be someone else’s problem.

He swiveled his chair back to his desk and returned to the long-hand calculations he’d been working out on a legal pad. He knew he was counting unhatched chicks, but he couldn’t resist running endless variations on how much he would profit from the sale of the RAGS technology. Even with the 40% split with his partner and even assuming even a very conservative winning bid, Irwin knew he’d been hard pressed to spend his share of the take in his lifetime.

Behind him, on the return of his immaculate L-shaped desk, his computer screen displayed a pop-up alert notifying him that Warner had access flagged files. But Irwin was lost in thought, trying to settle on which of the islands on his short list would become his new home.

By the time he turned his attention back to his monitor and saw the notification, Warner was long gone with copies of files related to Calvaruso and his replacement.

First, Irwin pounded his fist on his desk until his knuckles bled. Next, he retrieved the prepaid phone from his desk drawer to tell his partner about the breach and his plan to remedy it. After explaining the situation, he hung up and returned the phone to the drawer.