Steve Martini - Double Tap

The main offices of Karr, Rufus are not located in downtown San Diego but situated in the heart of the Village in La Jolla. It’s a strange place for a large security firm. Rufus tells me that Emmit Karr, his longtime partner, now deceased, came here nearly thirty years earlier when commercial real estate was a relative bargain. Karr managed to buy one of the larger buildings with an ocean view and now has one of the prime locations in downtown La Jolla. Most of the company’s equipment and security personnel are housed in cheaper quarters, in an industrial park out near La Mesa.

“But you say you would have had to let Ruiz go even if he hadn’t been arrested?”

“Sure. What else am I supposed to do? I’m sure you’re aware he was taken off the executive security detail out at Isotenics at the request of Madelyn Chapman herself. After the rather embarrassing situation.” Rufus is talking about the videotaped incident between Ruiz and Chapman on Chapman’s office couch.

“I take it Isotenics was one of your bigger clients,” I say.

He gives me an expression as if maybe this is true and maybe it isn’t. “Karr, Rufus has clients all over the world. But Isotenics is a substantial account.”

“So the company hasn’t changed security consultants since Ruiz was charged?”

“Oh, no. Why would they? There’s no reason,” he says. “It’s nothing we’ve done.” He calls the whole thing “a difficult situation.”

“When the CEO calls you and tells you that she wants her security detail terminated because she’s not comfortable with the agent in charge, that’s a problem,” Rufus continues. “But her death: we had absolutely nothing to do with that. Ruiz had been told-told emphatically-to stay away from Isotenics. He was assigned to other duties, mostly low-security night-watchman functions for other clients, pending an investigation of the events on the videotape. We would have fired him sooner, but that investigation hadn’t been concluded when he was arrested for her murder.”

“Madelyn Chapman called you directly to have Ruiz removed from security?”

“Yes, she did.”

“What did she tell you?”

“I expect you’ve seen the accounts in the police investigative reports,” he says.

“I’d like to hear it from you.”

“What did she say? What could she say?” says Rufus. “She had been captured on video surveillance with the man in a compromising situation. I wasn’t in a position to ask her questions. She said Ruiz’s conduct was unprofessional, that he took advantage of her in a weak moment.”

“She was on the couch with him, in her office, the head of a large company, Isotenics, and she viewed Mr. Ruiz as unprofessional?”

“That’s what she said. Or words to that effect.”

“How is it possible that she was caught on a videotape in her own office?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, she had to know that the cameras were there.”

“Ah. I see your point,” he says. “Actually, she didn’t know that the camera was there. I mean, it was a small pencil cam, about the diameter of your middle finger. It had a fish-eye lens that allowed it to capture pretty much the entire room. It was connected to a monitor in the security observation area.”

“You mean there were other people watching when Ruiz and Chapman were being taped?”

He smiles. “Actually, no. In that regard you’re lucky,” he says. “The only other witness was this Ms., ah. .” He tries to remember the name.

“Karen Rogan?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Actually if everything had been up and running, there would have been security on the monitor watching. But as it was, the system was still being installed. You see, it was new. The camera had been installed in a small hole in the back of a bookcase just two or three days before the event. Ms. Chapman had been traveling, away on business. The head of security out at Isotenics-who, by the way, was fired shortly afterward-thought it would be wise to install a camera in her office. He was concerned that occasionally she met with people who might not be thoroughly vetted by security. Needless to say, he should have checked with her first.” Rufus has a kind of pained expression as he explains all of this.

“In short,” he concludes, “it was a major screwup. Of course, that doesn’t relieve Ruiz of the responsibility that he violated strict company policy. It’s in our operations manual: no fraternizing with clients or employees of client companies, on or off company time. He knew that. When Ms. Chapman found out that it was all on tape, well, she was embarrassed to say the least. And angry. She called and read me the riot act. I told her we were merely providing the service the client requested.”

He sees me smiling from the other side of the desk and catches himself. “I, ah, I didn’t use that exact phrase,” he says. His face now red, he sits up, leans forward in the chair. “I meant that we had only installed the camera at the client’s request, and I told her that we were operating in good faith on the belief that the installation of the camera in her own office had been cleared by her through her own security personnel, who had requested it. Obviously, if we’d known that the head of Isotenic’s security division hadn’t checked with her first, we would never have installed it. Goes without saying.”

I can believe that Rufus has a vested interest in the outcome of the trial. There have already been reports in the newspapers that Chapman’s survivors, her mother in New York State and a sister in Oregon, have been consulting lawyers with an eye toward suing Karr, Rufus for negligence in assigning Ruiz to the security detail. In the news articles Rufus has been unavailable for comment. No doubt their defense would be that they had no way of knowing that Ruiz might be a risk as an employee. If he can beat the murder charge, the civil liability for Karr, Rufus may disappear with it.

“So you see, we would have been compelled to fire him no matter what,” says Rufus. “There were other reasons as well. I can’t go into everything at this point.”

“Are you talking about reports that Ruiz was stalking Chapman after he was removed from the security detail?”

He is looking down at the top of the desk when I ask this, so that his gaze darts up at me. He seems surprised that I would know about this.

“As I said, there are things I can’t discuss. When they arrested him, that cut it. We discharged him. I’m sorry, but we had no choice.”

“I’m not here to get his job back. I’m just trying to find out what happened.”

“I understand,” he says. “The fact is that you run a business these days and you get sued every time you turn around, at the drop of a hat,” says Rufus.

“What about Ruiz’s military record?” I ask.

“What about it?”

“Was it good, bad, indifferent? Your firm hired him. I assume you checked him out?”

“Oh, sure. He had a good record. Exemplary,” he says.

Of course this is what Rufus would tell lawyers if he were on the stand and his company were being sued for wrongful death on grounds that they had negligently hired a dangerous employee and put him in charge of Chapman’s security detail.

“What did he do in the military? What was your understanding?”

“You’re asking me ? I assume you’ve talked to your own client,” he says.

“I have. But what was your understanding as to what he did in the military?”

He makes a face, sits back in his chair again, and looks at me across the distance. Then finally he says: “I’m sorry, but that’s a personnel matter, and I really shouldn’t go into personnel matters.”

“If you’re called to the stand in his trial, you may have to.”