William Bernhardt - Primary Justice

The judge stared stonily at Derek, not as if he were an oral advocate, but as if he were an unusual kind of bug.

“In this case, Your Honor, the only possible answer to that question is: yes.”

Ben had to admire Derek. His delivery was very smooth. Although he had never laid eyes on the script before, he did not seem dependent on it or tied to it. He managed to both read and establish eye contact with the judge.

“In every respect, be it color, design, or decor, interior or exterior, Eggs ‘N’ Such has intentionally mimicked Eggs ‘N’ Stuff for the express purpose of creating confusion amongst the Eggs ‘N’ Stuff clientele and unfairly diverting Eggs ‘N’ Stuff business. In the words of the great French existentialist—” He paused.

Ben realized there was a problem.

“—Albert Camus—” Derek got it entirely wrong. He pronounced the t in Albert and read Camus as if it were came us .

And then a miracle happened. The great Stone Face cracked. Schmidt tossed his head against the back of his chair and began to laugh, a loud, staccato clucking sound that reverberated throughout the keenly acoustic courtroom.

The judge rubbed his hand against his forehead. “Came us,” he murmured quietly, and then he began to laugh again.

Derek tried to continue, but stopped, realizing the futility of proceeding until the court had had its little joke. He turned and stared frigidly at Ben.

Ben received the chilling glance. He noticed Tidwell writing furiously in his notepad. Ben returned his attention to the table, shuffled some papers, and began formulating his future response. Inevitably, this was going to turn out to be all his fault.

20

“OKAY, LET’S SEE WHAT we’ve got here.”

Sally Zacharias removed the documents from their envelope, extracted a pocket calculator from her purse, and began to scrutinize the five columns of letters and numbers.

Ben, Christina, and Sally, Christina’s friend from the bookkeeping department, sat around a table at Angelo’s. Christina had suggested that since Sally wasn’t going to get paid for her services, she was at least entitled to a decent meal. Ben had given Sally the papers they found in Adams’s office without telling her the name of the corporation to which he believed they referred. She stared at the mysterious documents for about ten minutes while Ben and Christina chitchatted over wine and garlic bread.

Eventually Sally announced her conclusions. “These appear to be summarizations of the annual financial reports of your unnamed, but apparently very rich, corporation over a number of years.” She continued to scribble on her napkin and punch the buttons on her calculator. “I say appear because all the identifying labels in the left-hand column are either coded or abbreviated so that only an insider can read them. I can tell what the numbers are, but I can’t tell what categories they represent.”

“Why would anyone code their financial report?” Ben asked.

“It’s not that unusual, especially with major corporations. They’re always afraid of a hostile takeover or a shareholders’ derivative suit or the fall of civilization as we know it. They’re required to disclose some things to some people, but not all things to all people. Not unless the IRS or the SEC or the Justice Department forces them.” She flipped through the papers. “This compilation was clearly not intended for public perusal.”

“Is there anything in the report that anyone would want to hide?” Christina asked.

Sally reached for a slice of garlic bread and dipped it in marinara sauce. “Hard to say. There is something unusual about the way this is formatted. See for yourself.”

Ben leaned forward in an attempt to feign understanding. He hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about.

“There seem to be three separate sources of income, or perhaps types of income, calculated independently. Then, on the final pages, the totals from each of the three sections are combined. And down here is the grand total. Over thirty-two million bucks.”

Ben whistled. “Not bad.”

Sally continued. “Now I can’t be certain, but I’d be willing to bet that the figures in the middle right column represent the year’s expenditures, and that this lower number reflects what’s left over. In other words, how much money your mystery company made. Logically, this final page should indicate how those profits were distributed, but the numbers don’t jibe. I haven’t added it up but, oh, twenty thou and forty, fiftyish thou is about seventy, carry the five … let’s call it twenty. Twenty million in expenses.”

“That’s a lot of expenses,” Ben said.

Sally nodded. “We’ll make a typical deduction for the inevitable tax losses, although this company probably has shelters built into the corporate structure to take care of a lot of that. We’ll assume the impossible and suppose that no capital gains or depreciation skullduggery is going on. Subtract what appear to be line-item distributions and, oh, I’d say the difference is at least three million bucks. Just to give a ball-park figure.”

Ben was totally confused. “Three million what?”

“Three million dollars made but unaccounted for in expenditures or profits.”

“How could a mistake like that be made?” Ben asked. “Surely someone would notice.”

“So it would seem,” Christina said quietly.

“No one could divert three million dollars and get away with it.”

“That depends on how many people had access to this summary,” Sally said. “A lot can be hidden in annual reports and financial statements, especially if you keep your base financial data secret and can afford the cleverest accountants.”

She tossed the papers on the table. “To most people, an annual report is just fifty pages of financial gobbledy-gook. Everyone looks at the bottom line and assumes the rest is accurate. Someone else has checked it, right?” She took another bite of garlic bread;

“Can you tell if anyone did anything … improper?”

“Not unless you can break the code in the left-hand column. Now, if I knew what company we were talking about … well, sometimes I hear things. So come clean. Who are you doing this for?”

Ben took the papers and placed them in his briefcase. “For a little girl with a lousy memory.”

Sally’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t understand. What’s this all about?”

“I wish I knew,” Ben replied.

After lunch, Ben returned to his office and found a hand-delivered envelope waiting for him. Mike had sent over a copy of the MUD sheets from the phone company. The sheets listed every phone call made to and from Jonathan Adams’s home and office phones during the seventy-two hours preceding his death. Next to the numbers, some staff person had written the name of each caller or callee and, frequently, a brief identification of the person named. There were no surprises. Several calls to other Sanguine executives and employees. Two calls to his wife. Four calls to franchisees in Michigan and Illinois.

Ben studied the names identified as Sanguine personnel. He pulled the Sanguine personnel directory out of the Eggs ‘N’ Such file and matched names to positions. Two of the interoffice calls, one on the day of the murder and the other on the day before, caught Ben’s eye. The recipient of the calls was Harry Brancusci, a member of the Sanguine Enterprises accounting department.

Ben dialed the number.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Harry Brancusci?”

A pause. “Who’s this?”

Ben told him who he was. “I wondered if you could answer some questions for me regarding some Sanguine financial documents.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but Sanguine accounting records are confidential.” Did Brancusci’s voice seem to quiver, or was it just a bad connection? “As a public corporation, we have to be very careful about revealing financial information. The SEC regulations are very complex—”