Steve Martini - Double Tap

“I don’t need to know the details or specifics,” I tell him.

“Let’s move on.” Just like that, the lawyer Sims decides the issue.

“Fine.” I move to the next item. “Maybe you could tell me how the decision was made to terminate the personal security detail for Ms. Chapman.”

Havlitz is suddenly a face full of wonder. “Why is that important?”

“Happening as it did just a few weeks before she was killed, let’s just call it a curiosity,” I reply.

“Oh. Oh, well, I suppose,” he says. “It wasn’t a corporate decision. I mean, the decision to terminate security, if you want to call it that, was made by Ms. Chapman herself.”

“Can you tell me why she made the decision?”

Havlitz shakes his head, shrugs a shoulder. “As I understand it, she simply didn’t think that the level of security was necessary. I didn’t really discuss it with her. She simply made the decision.”

“Had something changed?”

“What do you mean, ‘changed’?”

“Well, as I understand it, the board of directors decided that executive security was necessary. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve been told there had been a number of pieces of threatening correspondence-phone calls, crank letters, that sort of thing-as well as an incident involving an assault. . ”

“Assault. I don’t remember any assault,” he says.

“An incident at a shareholders’ meeting. Somebody tossed a cream pie.”

“Oh, that,” he says. “Yes. Ah, that was regrettable. Unfortunately, someone got past security at the door. We don’t know how it happened. Looking back, I suppose that was the event that led to the issue. Executive protection, I mean. It was brought up by the board after that unfortunate experience. I see how someone could key in on that, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

He looks at me as the conversation dies. “What was your question again?”

“What had changed to cause the board or Ms. Chapman to believe that there was no longer any threat to her security?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose you would have to ask her that.”

“That’s a little difficult,” I tell him.

“Of course,” he says. “But I don’t know what else to tell you. She made the decision that she no longer needed security. I certainly wasn’t in a position to second-guess her. Perhaps she found it to be an invasion of her privacy.”

“Did she say anything to you about it at the time? Explain her reasons?”

He shakes his head.

“Did you have executive security in your position?”

“No. No. I didn’t think there was a need.”

“Were there any others: members of the board, other people in management?”

Havlitz looks to Karen Rogan sitting next to me. She thinks for a second, then shakes her head.

“I think the issue was Ms. Chapman’s public visibility-her name recognition,” says Rogan.

“Of course. She was sort of the embodiment of the corporation. She was Isotenics, Incorporated. Whenever anyone thought of the company, they thought of her. It’s probably why most of the threatening letters were directed to her.”

“Was there a lot of this hate mail?”

“What’s ‘a lot’?” he says. “One letter was too much, as far as I’m concerned. Most of it was the typical. Class hatred. Rambling tirades written in an unintelligible scrawl spouting conspiracy theories. That sort of thing. We turned them over to security. But then, what do you do? And as you say, after the incident with the pie, it could just as easily have been a gun.”

“Perhaps Ms. Chapman spoke to someone else on staff regarding her reasons for ending the security detail.” I look around the table, my eyes finally settling on Karen Rogan.

The redhead is studying the wood grain in the surface of the table, avoiding my stare.

“Is it possible that Ms. Chapman might have prepared a letter or a memo on the subject explaining her reasons at the time?” I ask.

“Umm, Karen?” Havlitz gives her permission to speak.

“Not that I can recall. I’d have to look.”

“Could you do that? And while you’re at it”-I lean over and open my briefcase on the floor at the side of my chair, pull out a large manila envelope, and hand it to her-“you probably want to give that to your lawyer.”

“What’s this?” Sims looks at the thick envelope as she slides it across the table to him.

“A subpoena duces tecum, for the production of documents. It’s fairly detailed.”

Sims sits up straight in his chair, takes the envelope, and opens it. Time to earn his keep. He pulls the papers out, a generous portion of a ream, and hefts the weight, looking at the pile with an expression as if to say, “You can’t be serious.” Sims knew this had to be coming, but he’ll make a show of it anyway, if for no other reason than to impress the client. We are likely to spend the next several weeks trading paper, subpoenas met with motions to quash, the lawyer’s version of a ticker-tape parade.

From another section of my briefcase I slide a copy of an article from a magazine, a national business weekly. The stark and unflattering black-and-white picture of Madelyn Chapman glaring out from the front page appears to have been taken with a fish-eye lens up close so that every feature of the woman is distorted. The headline reads:

CEO’S: THE NEW CORPORATE ARISTOCRATS

Shareholders? “Let Them Eat Cake”

From the picture as well as the content of the article, it is clear that Chapman had been blindsided by the publication, probably led to believe that it would be a corporate puff piece extolling her management of Isotenics. Instead, the six-page feature piece is a sniper attack par excellence. It includes two other pictures, one of them showing Chapman boarding a corporate jet with an entourage of security; the second, another fish-eye exposé, this time of a uniformed chauffeur holding the yawning back door of a stretch limo open as if the camera’s lens is about to be swallowed up.

I can almost feel Karen Rogan shudder in the chair next to me as she glances sideways at the pictures. No doubt she has seen them before, probably moments after Chapman went ballistic, raging through the building with a machete on a head-hunting expedition to her own PR department.

“I assume you’ve seen this before?” I slide the stapled pages along the table toward Havlitz, who takes one look and then clears his throat.

“Umm. Yes.” He flips a page or two and then leaves it untouched on the table.

For the moment Sims abandons the subpoena and its attachments and turns his attention to the article. He grabs it and starts flipping pages, studying the pictures.

“From the date, it would appear that the article was published less than a week before Ms. Chapman’s personal security detail was withdrawn.”

Havlitz and Sims hover over the piece, studying the date and exchanging glances. Then Havlitz looks at me. “I don’t know. I’d have to check. If you say so.”

“The date of publication speaks for itself,” says Sims.

“It does, and it would appear that the publication of this article and the humiliation visited on Ms. Chapman in a national business publication may well have caused her to abandon security,” I continue.

“That’s your assumption,” says Sims.

“You’ll notice on the second page, the article goes into some detail criticizing her ‘security entourage,”’ I tell him.

Sims flips to the page. I have highlighted this with a yellow marker so he can’t miss it.

When he’s finished, he looks up at me. “Your point is?”

“The article likened Ms. Chapman’s security to that of a head of state. And you’ll notice the picture.”

One of the shots, the one showing Chapman boarding the plane, has one of her bodyguards carrying what is obviously a woman’s overnight bag up the stairs behind her. If they could have stuffed a toy poodle with a diamond collar under the guy’s arm, they would have done it.