Environmental Hazards Ch. 02

"Did Jimmy Shell ever call you here at your office?" I asked.

"No." said Rollins.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Are you absolutely certain that James Shell never attempted to contact you at all here at your office?"

"No, I have never spoken to anyone by that name." Rollins insisted.

"Mr. Rollins," I said, letting my voice get harsh. "Lying to a State Agent, not to mention a duly deputized Police Officer, is a felony offense in this State. So I will give you one more chance to tell the truth: did Jimmy Shell ever contact you by phone?"

"Since you're insinuating that I'm lying," said Rollins, "and since I feel like I'm being set up here, I refuse to answer any more of your questions without a lawyer present. Now get out of here and don't come back without a warrant."

"Oh, I will be back, Mr. Rollins." I said. "And you would be wise to have a lawyer by the time I do come back... the very best lawyer you can afford." I nodded to Kimberly Wesson and we walked out.

When Cindy and Steve came down, I said "I think we should get a warrant for Rollins's arrest."

"Might not do much good." Cindy said. "How do we prove it absolutely was him on the phone with Shell, even if it is his extension?"

I grimaced. "Yeah, that's a point. But I don't care. Here's what I want you to do, Steve and Kimberly: I'm putting in for a warrant to arrest Rollins as a material witness, and also for suspicion of lying to a State Agent. Make the arrest and lean on the guy. He'll probably demand a lawyer; take note of who that lawyer is and the firm he or she represents. He'll probably be advised to take the Fifth. After that, just follow the legal process, and if he gets out, so be it..."

Part 8 - Lab Results

Cindy and I were driving in the Black Beauty up the Interstate to the City. I had put the blue light on top and plugged it in, and it was a good thing: she was driving at high speeds and we passed several Police vehicles. They all radioed asking who we were, and after I got on the radio and told them, they did not pursue.

"If one of them had come after us," I said, "we might have had to shoot them." Seeing Cindy's shock, I said "Cindy, get ready, and wear your armor at all times. We're up against some powerful, well-financed interests on this one. They'd like to stop this investigation before it even gets started, and they might choose... desperate means to do that."

"I hear you." Cindy replied. "So why did you have the Midtown guys arrest Rollins?"

"I want to scare the living fuck out of him." I replied. "I also want to draw a lot of attention to him. If Jimmy Shell contacted him and then he was the one that called FENL and told them Shell was the whistleblower, then Rollins is an accessory to murder. As such, certain well-funded entities might want to do to Rollins what they did to Shell. Quite frankly, if Rollins is on the take like that, he will get what he deserves and deserve what he gets. If he comes correct and confesses what he knows in exchange for immunity and witness protection, then maybe we're another step to nailing these bastards to the wall."

"May I speak freely? Truly freely?" Cindy said.

"By all means." I replied.

"Two points: you seem to be very 'into it', when it comes to this lab. Any angers from the past welling up?"

"Let me answer with a question." I said. "If the Miss Physical America Tour had been rigged and totally corrupt, and years later you had the chance to nail some of the corrupt types to the wall and make an example of them, how would you feel?"

"I'd feel the same way I think you feel now." Cindy said. "And there's nothing wrong with that. What I wonder about, and this is my second point, is that you are really hanging Rollins out to dry. He could end up dead because you're having him arrested on thin grounds."

"You're right." I said. "But there's almost nothing worse than corrupt Government officials. Do I even need to mention Jack Lewis and Richard Ferrell? If Rollins is dirty, I'm not going to lose sleep over his fate catching up to him."

Cindy said nothing as we drove along. "Are you okay with that?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah." she said, sounding anything but okay with it. "I'm just sensing a ruthlessness from you I haven't felt or seen out of you in a long time."

I realized her words were right, and I had not realized that of myself...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Arriving at the southern suburbs of the City, we found the office building that housed Forbes & Sehgal Engineering. Forbes Environmental National Laboratories was in the basement of the building, and I could see the fume hood scrubbers hidden in the shrubbery on the backside of the building.

Cindy and I were not here alone. Joining us in the parking lot were SBI Agents Norm Chow and Ted Orosco. Also with us was City Police Detective 'Sapper' Warren and four Uniformed City Police Officers.

"Our warrants from yesterday are still good, sir." said Chow. "We confiscated everything remotely pertaining to Pine Valley yesterday, so I'm not sure what else we can get."

"It's what we don't get that might be important today." I said. "Okay, let's go in and rattle some cages."

Going inside a side door service entrance that was also a truck loading/unloading dock, we went down the hallway. Strangely enough, the first person we saw was Oscar Williams.

"Oscar!" I said with false joviality. "Take us to your leader, please... literally."

As he led us down a side hall, I asked "Why did you guys come back up here?"

"I don't know." Oscar said quietly. "They just called last night and said go back to the City."

Before we entered the door that said it was the offices, I said to Oscar "Here's my card, Oscar. If there's anything you want to share with me, give me a call." Oscar took and pocketed the card, then led us through the door, which indeed contained... offices!

"What are you doing here?" asked Jeremy Forbes, his face betraying his unhappiness at our presence.

"Following up." I said. "Mr. Forbes, you didn't really think you could run away from me, did you?"

"I'm not running away from anything, Commander Troy of the TCPD." growled Forbes.

"Then why did you close up the annex at Pine Valley?" I asked.

For just a second, I thought I saw surprise on Forbes's face. But he masked it quickly and well, then snarled "We can do that if we want, and we sure as hell don't need your permission."

"Well!" said a higher-pitched voice coming up, which belonged to the weeble Paul Brandon, dressed in a white shirt, black pants, and a striped tie that I fully expected to curl up like cartoon character Dilbert's at any time. "If it isn't the Iron Crowbar and his fellow Officers. Surely you have everything your warrants allowed you to get last time?"

"That's to be determined," I said, "especially after you abandoned your Pine Valley annex lab like thieves in the middle of the night. Why did you order that to be done, Mr. Brandon? And don't insult my intelligence, I know just standing here that it was you that ordered that."

"Er, why don't we go into our conference room here." said Brandon. The conference room was one of the offices with a table and some chairs in it. Me, Cindy, Chow and Orosco joined Brandon and Forbes in the room, while Sapper and the Uniformed Officers made sure we were not disturbed.

"To answer your question, Commander," said Brandon once we were in the room and the door closed, "we were planning to shut that annex down and bring everyone home weeks ago. It was costing us more than it was worth, and our Field Sampling teams could just bring the samples back to this lab or ship 'em by FedEx."

"I can understand some of the cost." I said. "But the lab was up and running, and you were charging the Pine Valley people for the apartment rentals of your people down there. So besides cost, why would you shut that annex down, and in the middle of the night... and right after your employee was murdered?"

"Hold on, Brandon." said Forbes as Brandon was about to answer. "Troy, I told you out there and I'll tell you again in here: we don't need a reason and we sure as hell don't need your permission to decide how best to run our operations. You already have obtained all the data you could, and we brought all the papers from that lab up here, so we're not hiding anything, and I demand you prove otherwise or shut your fucking mouth about it."

"There are a few things I need." I said. "I want all the data of the pre-screenings that were run on the Pine Valley samples, either down there or up here."

"We don't keep that data." said Brandon. "We destroy it. It's not a part of our legally defensible package we provide our clients."

"Funny..." I said, my eyes boring into Brandon's, "I would think pre-screening data would and could only bolster your legally defensible packages, though the numbers wouldn't be reportable."

"As the Lab Manager just told you," said Forbes, his voice a mixture of anger and being offended, "we are not required to keep that data, and we destroy it when we are done with it. There is nothing illegal about that. We follow all protocols, regulations, and the law here. Now either show some reason to continue to be here, or get out."

"I have two more things." I said.

"I have something, too." Cindy said. "I want to speak with your Chief Chemist, Robert Ferris; and your Q.C. person, Clifford Ewing."

"Robert is not here today, he had a long-scheduled vacation day." said Brandon, his perma-grin seeming to be slightly wider as he spoke the words. "I'll take you to Cliff."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Detective Warren, get the time sheets that were turned in today, and any past time sheets that they're keeping on record." I said to Sapper when we came out of the meeting.

"Now just a minute!" gasped the lawyer. I turned and confronted him.

"Either the staff here cooperates, or I start making arrests. And then I start going through every fucking piece of paper in this entire Engineering firm. Which do you prefer?"

The lawyer glared at me with hatred in his eyes. "You think you can just bully these people around, but we've got friends that can push back. Hard."

I stepped up to him. "Is that a threat?"

"No, it's a prediction." said the lawyer, squaring up to me.

"Bring it on." I said. "I've got something for your politicians and your Mob buddies. It's red, and it's going to hurt like hell when I shove it up your ass and theirs."

The lawyer was stunned, seeing the fire blazing in my eyes. For the moment, he backed down.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Norm Chow and I went into the small room. It had been meant to be the office of someone in charge of the large open space, which could be a sample receiving and control room, but was right now a storage room. The small room had a couple of G.C.s. A haggard looking man, with brown hair and a full beard and mustache like Forbes's red facial hair, dirty shirt and blue jeans, and wearing a labcoat and his eyeglasses, was loading samples on one of the instruments.

"This is Bert, who pre-screens samples for us." said Paul Brandon. "He's also a student at State Tech. We have a strong cooperative program with State Tech, giving their students experience with us while getting their degrees, then hiring the best of their graduates."

"Bert!" I said, "do these G.C.s record their runs on a computer?"

"It's not much of a computer, and it's hardwired to the instrument." said Bert dully.

"And do you download the data onto tapes or a server when the hard drive gets full?" I asked.

"No." said Bert, almost as if her were reciting a memorized lesson. "I print out the report and give it to the supervisor of the lab I'm running the test for. Then I erase the data when the hard drive is full."

"Do you keep copies of the reports you give to the supervisors?"

"No." Bert said.

"All right, then." I said. "Thanks for your time." I led the way back into the hallway.

"Okay, where is Mai Ling?" I said. "I want to talk to her again. And I want to talk to Chris Maple."

"Not without our lawyer present." said Brandon.

"Call him up, then." I said. "Because I'm not going to wait. And I'll arrest Mai Ling and Chris Maple as material witnesses and take them to our Westphalia SBI offices, and we can wait for their lawyers there."

"Good Lord, are you kidding?" Brandon said, that perma-grin on his face irritating the hell out of me.

"Not one bit, Mr. Brandon." I said coldly.

But we were stymied. "I sent Chris Maple to handle the final details of moving out of the Midtown Annex." said Brandon.

"Call him on the phone then." I said.

"I am not making my phone available for Police use." said Brandon. "The secretary can give you his number, and you can call him on your cellphone's time."

"Whatever. Where's Mai Ling?"

When asked, the Mass Spec supervisor said that Mai Ling had not come in at all. "Her mass spec just got here and has to be unpacked, so we didn't need her anyway."

"Did she call in?" I asked.

"No." said the supervisor. "Well, she didn't call me. Maybe she called the front office." I noticed the tone of her voice, which connoted chronic disgust with the front office as she looked right at Brandon.

"We weren't expecting her to be here in the first place." said Brandon. "She may be packing her stuff in Midtown, and she'll be back here Monday morning."

"I hope so, Mr. Brandon." I said, again coldly. "For your sake, I hope so."

I did call Myron and have him get any phone number belonging to Chris Maple. The number he gave me matched what the FENL office gave me. Alas, there was no answer to several attempted calls.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Hello, Mr. Ewing." Cindy Ross said. "My name is Captain Ross. I'd like to touch base with you on some issues related to our investigation."

"Sure, sure." Ewing said quietly. He was an older man, looking like he was in his sixties, tall, slender, fairly distinguished looking with perfectly styled gray hair and spectacles. He also looked as if he were chronically disgusted with his surroundings.

"So where is Mr. Ferris?" Cindy asked.

"I don't know." said Ewing. "He didn't come in this morning."

"Did he mention an emergency, or a family-related matter? Maybe vacation day?" Cindy pressed.

"He didn't say anything." said Cliff. "First I heard of him not being here was when I came in this morning."

Cindy nodded. "So you check all of the testing results that come through the lab?"

"Yes, I---" Cliff started, but was interrupted as the door to his office opened without a knock. A lawyer for the company stepped in.

"I'm here to monitor this conversation." the lawyer said. Cindy thought he looked a lot like Richard Ferrell, especially with his droopy mustache.

"No." said Ewing, shocking Cindy. "I don't need you nor do I want you here. Get out."

"You don't have a choice in this." said the attorney. "I will be present, on the company's behalf if not yours personally."

Cindy stood up. "You heard the man. Get out of this office now, or I will throw you out. If you resist in any way, I will arrest you and charge you with felony resisting arrest." The lawyer looked shocked, but did not move.

"You heard her, get out." said Cliff Ewing. The lawyer looked at them angrily, then stalked out.

Cindy had not had time to sit down when the door opened again, and Paul Brandon came in, the lawyer following. "Is there a problem here?" asked Brandon.

"Yes, there is." said Ewing, not backing down. "I don't need a babysitter. Get this guy out of here."

"Someone has to sit in on your conversation, Cliff." Brandon said, his voice losing its façade of composure and getting harsh for the first time within Cindy's hearing.

"No they don't." said Ewing.

"What are you afraid of, Mr. Brandon?" Cindy asked harshly. Brandon suddenly changed back to the perma-grin.

"Nothing." said Brandon. "Be careful what you tell them, Cliff. They like to take words and twist them, and trap you into contradicting yourself."

"I can handle myself." said Ewing.

After Brandon was gone, Cindy said "What was that all about?"

"They're paranoid." said Ewing. "Pine Valley is biggest project this company has ever had, and this poor guy dying has them rattled."

Cindy made a hush sign with her finger to her lips as she pulled out her bug detector. As she swept the room for bugs, she asked loudly "Was Jimmy Shell's work good?"

"Very good." said Cliff as he watched. "Always the best. Never a bad standard, the duplicate spikes were always 100%, everything documented perfectly."

Cindy's detector lit up at the base of the desk lamp on Ewing's desk. Another positive result came from the underside of the guest chair Cindy had been sitting on. She handed Ewing her card with a note on the back saying "Call me when you are away from here."

"Did Jimmy ever talk to you about problems with the samples?" Cindy asked loudly.

"No, he never came to me with anything." said Cliff. "But he'd be expected to go to his supervisor, who would then come to me."

"Who was his supervisor?" Cindy asked.

"Chris Maple." said Cliff. "He was the overall supervisor down at the annex facility, and he's the overseer of the Metals and Inorganics Labs here."

"Okay, thanks for your time, Mr. Ewing." Cindy said, then said with great clarity: "And if those guys give you any trouble for speaking to me without a lawyer, let me know. Intimidating a witness is a felony offense, and I know what I just witnessed..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After dismissing the Uniformed City Police, I offered to buy Sapper Warren and my fellow SBI Agents dinner at the City Diner. We were given a table in the back room, which did not yet have any other patrons.

"Norm," I asked, "when you were executing the warrants yesterday, how did the employees react? Were they helpful? Resistant?"

"For the most part, they were reluctantly helpful." said Chow. "The problem was that a small army of lawyers were there, watching our every move. At least one lawyer was in every lab room, and two were in the front office areas where the files were kept. The lawyers didn't say much of anything, but we could tell that the employees were clearly intimidated by their presence, and we knew we were not going to get much of anything from the employees."

"And the lawyers were from the Engineering company?" I asked.

"Yes." said Orosco. "We pulled all the Pine Valley files from the Engineering offices, as well, and their lawyers were screaming at us until Norm here threatened to arrest them for attempting to physically intimidate State Agents."

"Too bad I wasn't here, Captain Ross." I said. "I could've gotten in some crowbar practice for the Police Boxing Matches."

"It'd have been fun, but would not have done you any good for the Matches." Cindy said, making me chuckle. Then Cindy continued: "I had my own issues with Brandon and a lawyer trying to intimidate Cliff Ewing, the Q.C. guy." She relayed her experience, and what she'd learned from her interview, including finding the bugs in the office.

"Okay, Sapper," I said, "what did you get from the time sheets?"

"Everyone completes a weekly time sheet." said Detective Warren, who was a big black man with a deep voice when he wanted it to be. "They put down the number of hours each day they work. Even if they are salaried, they put down the overtime hours. They keep the records each fiscal year, then ship them off to storage. Mr. Brandon said the management says that's done to monitor how many hours are worked, and to see if they need to hire more people, and such stuff as that."

"Yeah, right." I said. "And you've confiscated as much of that data as possible?"

"Yes sir." said Sapper. "We'll scan every one of those sheets into our servers before giving them back. Not sure what we're looking for, though."