Chapter Fifteen
The Saturday before Labor Day, Ted Fuller was in a meeting at Socoro. The Chief Financial Officer was Ted’s boss, with whom he had called the meeting of the top executives of the company and its selected members of the legal team.
“The FBI does not make courtesy calls. This was more of a heads-up,” said Socoro’s General Counsel, Terry Longman.
Ted was as shocked as anyone in the room when Longman made the announcement that the FBI informed him they were serving subpoenas on the day after the holiday. “The Schoolcraft Family Foundation has learned, through its auditors, that a very large amount of money from its grant for the P1601 project is unaccounted for. We have reason to believe that a member of Dr. Bisette’s team has embezzled as much as $230,000 over the past year. Now, we are pretty sure Dr. Bisette was not involved, but pending a full investigation, no one is excluded from suspicion. I expect the FBI to show up early Tuesday morning with boxes they will want us to fill with paper and hard drives.”
“Won’t this jeopardize the research?” asked the CFO. “This drug is about to go to the FDA for approval. We’ve got a marketing team working full time on this.”
“The FBI is only interested in financial records, but they will take computers to make a full sweep. Their position is they take everything and return what is not relevant. Everything related to the research is backed up on the company’s doomsday servers, so that work can continue,” said Longman.
“True, but we can try to minimize the delay by getting in front of this, cooperating with the FBI and making all the financial and payroll records available.”
“If this is garden variety embezzlement, Socoro can handle it and keep it out of the media,” one of the legal team said. “This isn’t our first experience with this kind of thing.”
“If there’s a criminal prosecution, it will be public record,” said Ted.
“Embezzlement at this level is rarely prosecuted. Socoro will try to recover the money, terminate the employee with a very strict confidentiality agreement, and continue with business. That’s how it’s done.”
“Someone should alert Dr. Bisette. She should be here when the FBI arrives. It’s her lab, her records.”
The CFO thought a moment and nodded. “Agreed. Ted, will you take care of that?”
“Yes.”
“Keep in touch. I want to hear from you after you’ve made contact with Dr. Bisette. If she does not respond innocently, I want to know it right away,” said the CFO.
After the meeting broke up, Ted went to his office to make some calls. He had little respect for his boss, the CFO. Now, he had to make that asinine statement about Rachel responding “innocently.” Ted booted his computer and smiled, “Once a suit, always a suit,” he muttered. As much as the thought of trying a case in court terrified him, Ted was glad his parents pushed him to get his law degree. He pulled up the company directory. He remembered Rachel spent holidays with relatives in New Hartford. One of her team members was bound to know where the relatives lived, and if Rachel had gone there for the Labor Day Weekend.
* * *
Rachel always spent Labor Day with Uncle Henry and Aunt Pansy. They closed up their house early in October and headed to New Mexico with the snowbirds.
After a dinner of grilled salmon, tomato and cucumber salad from Pansy’s garden and a rich caramel custard, Rachel leaned her head back and looked at the sky.
“I can smell the river. How lucky you two are.”
“You can move in any time,” said Pansy.
“Tempting,” Rachel sighed.
“Come with us this year. At least as far as Santa Fe. You always say you will come next year, but you never do,” said Henry.
“I have to work.”
“We know. We just want to remind you that the invitation stands.”
Henry and Pansy carried the dishes into the house. Rachel closed her eyes and listened to the breeze in the leaves above her head. After a few minutes, realizing she could easily fall asleep, Rachel sat up. On a table beside her was a stack of magazines. The top issue was an anthropology journal. She picked it up and thumbed through it. Henry joined her in the back garden, under the trees.
“Come with us to New Mexico, and you can see some of those digs up close,” Henry said. He was still trying to sell Rachel on joining him and Pansy.
“It looks hot and dry in these pictures,” Rachel said.
“Desert usually is.”
Rachel flipped a few more pages and then stopped at a picture of a sand painting. “Healing sand painting,” she read aloud. “Maybe Socoro should try that.”
“Maybe they should,” said Henry.
“They are lovely,” said Rachel. She stopped at one picture of an older woman with long gray hair bending over a sand painting. “It is so much work for such an ephemeral piece of art.”
“That’s part of its power, I think,” said Henry. “Keep the issue. The article explains the power of the paintings better than I can.”
“Were you and daddy always interested in Native Americans and the Southwest?” Rachel asked.
“Albert definitely was. From the first time he saw the desert, he was hooked. I got into it later, out of curiosity more than anything. I found some of your dad’s unpublished writing—the manuscripts I gave you—and read them shortly after he died. My little brother was brilliant. It was humbling, I can tell you. I was always the loud, boisterous one. Albert was quiet—like you are—and understood things I still can’t fathom, like these sand paintings. If your dad was here, he could explain them to us so we understood.”
Rachel closed the magazine. She barely remembered her father. She read his articles and manuscripts and believed he was brilliant. She wondered, though, if he had lived whether they might have had so much in common, intellectually. Rachel believed in science, in the verifiable. She shared her father’s belief that mankind was capable of much more than he moved himself to accomplish. Albert thought the part of man that was neglected was the spiritual. For Rachel, it was the logical. They would probably have had some real dinner table debates, if he had lived.
Just as Rachel and Henry were starting to doze, a car horn blasted in the front of the house. It blasted two more times before Pansy made it out of the house, and Henry ran around to the front.
“How on earth did you find me here?” Rachel said, rising to greet him.
“GPS, of course,” Ted grinned. “You can run but you can’t hide.”
* * *
It was dusk when Ted and Rachel started to drive back to Hartford. Ted wanted time to talk to Rachel. Henry and Pansy agreed to bring her car into the city later. They needed to do some shopping, anyway. Ted hated admitting that he was slightly glad about the investigation. Of course, he believed that Rachel couldn’t have been involved in the loss of grant funds, but the idea of being able to protect her was appealing to him. She would get a glimpse of him as something more than a company executive and, therefore, her boss.
“Explain to me what it is I’ve done that the FBI is after me?” Rachel asked. Her voice sounded controlled, but just barely. Ted could not tell if Rachel was about to cry or laugh.
“You have done nothing. That’s your story; stick to it.”
“It’s the truth, too.” Rachel’s eyes filled with tears. Ted did not expect to find Rachel so vulnerable.
“Any place we can get some coffee?” Ted asked.
“Not for about a million miles. Middlebury is the next town of any size.”
“Perfect.”
“Everything’s probably closed by now. We’re in sleepy little New Hartford, remember?”
“I’ll find coffee somewhere. I’ll wake the mayor’s wife to brew us some, if I have to,” said Ted.
Rachel drew her legs up into the seat and laughed silently. After a few seconds, she sat up and combed her fingers
through her hair. She looked out the car window at the dark forest on her right side.
“This is a common psychological reaction to disaster, you know. It’s called the ‘disaster giggles,’ I think. It’s a venting mechanism. I’m not as drunk as you think.” Rachel twisted around and pulled a bag from the back seat. She removed a thermos and two plastic cups. “Aunt Pansy makes strong coffee.”
Rachel poured two cups of coffee. When they had both finished about half their cups, Rachel spoke, “Do I need a lawyer?”
“You might. I’ll give you some names, if it gets to that. Well, you can get a lawyer any time you want. I didn’t mean… .”
“Can’t you represent me?”
“I represent Socoro.”
“I work for Socoro. I still work there, don’t I?” Rachel asked.
“Of course. I just meant, it could become a conflict of interest. If both the company and you are defendants, it is just better if you have your own lawyer.”
“Is Socoro going to hang me out to dry on this?”
“No way. Their first interest is protecting P1601. No offense.”
“None taken. Jesus, how did this happen?”
“Happens more often than you think,” Ted answered. “Scientists aren’t always the best administrators. No offense.”
“Stop saying that.”
“That’s why Socoro insists on managing grant money above the project level. This one got by us. The company has egg on its face, not you.”
“This can’t hurt us with the FDA, can it?”
“At worst, it’s a delay.”
Rachel tasted her coffee. It was cold already. She put her window down and tossed the dregs. The night air felt good against her face. The smell of pine was enticing. She left the window down and breathed deeply. Finally, Rachel shivered and had to acquiesce to putting up the window. She pulled her knees up to her chest and warmed up.
“How did it happen?” Rachel asked.
“How many people are on your team?”
“Four, besides me.”
“How many have left over the course of your research?”
“I’d have to look at my records. We get graduate students from Dalton in the summer. I’d say, at least twenty have been through the project.”
“We’ll have to talk to all of them,” Ted said.
“How did it happen?” Rachel repeated.
“I don’t want to tell you. The less you know, the stronger your claim of ignorance and, therefore, innocence.”
“Claim?” Rachel nearly clawed the car seat, she was so angry. “Tell me, now!”
“Hypothetically, you understand, a person on your team with an accomplice in payroll could create a bogus team member. Actually, he or she might create an independent consultant. That person could, hypothetically, submit statements for fees and expenses. This person might even get as much as $10,000 in mileage. That would be enough to have driven across the country 7 1/2 times. Anyway, the beauty part of independent contractors is no one checks on them until the 1099s, the records of payments to contractors, are sent to the IRS. So, whatever they can get away with in a year, they get.”
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.
“The money was direct-deposited to an account and wired to an off-shore account. Money gone!”
“Socoro can get it back. Can’t they retrace the money’s route?”
“Not once it’s off-shore. If someone is waiting online to wire the money out as soon as it is deposited, then the money is just gone.”
“The person who took it pays it back.”
“Gone means they don’t have it. Off-shore means we can’t get it. Socoro has already replaced the grant money. We called the president of the foundation this morning. We think everything is going to be OK. The foundation can’t pull the rest of the money, anyway. It’s contracted.”
“How did I not know this was happening?” Rachel said.
“You’ve had your head over a microscope for five years. Research team members came and went over that time. You didn’t know them all. Don’t worry. This happens more often than you can imagine. Someone will quietly go to prison, and your drug will come out, more or less, on time.”
Rachel relaxed a bit. Ted could be very reassuring when he was in lawyer mode. Ted stretched and put his seat back one notch. “How much longer until we’re out of these woods?” he asked, quietly.
“Exactly,” Rachel said. She was already deep into her own thoughts. Stealing from the grant. Someone on my team. Right under my nose. It’s not enough to be a scientist, I have to be an accountant and an HR manager and a freaking psychologist to tell who on my team is lying. She knew she needed to relax so she could focus on what had to be done. There was so much work yet to do in documenting the next rounds of clinical trials. Now, Socoro was pushing for FDA approval. Rachel took some deep breaths, and the rhythm of the ride and her breathing put her into a pre-sleep state. She did not want to fall completely asleep. Ted had the responsibility to stay awake to drive. He had already spent five hours coming to get her. The least Rachel could do was talk to him and help him watch for the exits. Rachel just wanted to relax a few minutes. Aunt Pansy had served a great dinner, and she was generous with the wine, but Rachel knew she would feel guilty if she slept while Ted drove.
Suddenly, Rachel was thrown forward. Her seat belt bit into her shoulder and her abdomen. The brakes squealed, and the tires howled as the car spun. Rachel reached out and braced herself against the dashboard. The car was heading into the trees, and an instant later, the trees were behind the car.
The car was turning a 360. The head lights brought up trees, then the road, then trees again. When the car stopped, the lights shone on a huge bull elk, standing broadside across the highway. Rachel gasped when she saw the head of the animal turned toward the car. The elk appeared to be wearing the mask of a kachina.
“Are you all right?” Ted asked.
Rachel unstrapped the seat belt and tried to open the door. Ted held her by the arm. “We’re OK. We didn’t hit it.”
“What was that thing?”
“A really huge elk. He’s gone, now.”
“An elk. With that head?” Rachel’s eyes were wide with fright, but it was not the elk she feared.
“I’m going to walk around the car and check for damage. I’m not sure why. As the man, I think I’m obliged to do that. Sit tight, OK?”
Ted got out of the car and walked slowly around the car. Left alone, Rachel trembled. What is happening to me? Am I going crazy? Is the stress of the project getting to me? I’m hallucinating. As soon as I get this embezzlement thing resolved, I’m going to see somebody about these damned kachinas. As soon as I get the FBI out of my lab. As soon as I get the clinical trials reports finalized. As soon as we get the FDA paperwork filed. Then, I’m going to take a month off and definitely talk to a psychologist. As soon as …
Ted was back in the car. “The car is OK. Ready to go? Do you need to take a walk into the woods or something?”
“What? You mean to pee or something? I’m OK. You’re a funny old-fashioned guy, Ted.”
“I try to be,” Ted said, laughing nervously.
“Good driving, by the way.” Rachel fastened her seat belt and reached for her purse. She pulled down the vanity mirror and applied fresh lip gloss. “I’m ready for anything now,” she laughed.
Ted arrived at Rachel’s condo shortly after one o’clock. He carried her bag into the front hall.
“We need to talk about the FBI tomorrow. Meet me at the lab.”
“You said they weren’t serving subpoenas until after the Labor Day Holiday,” Rachel said.
“Famous FBI last words. They’ll be there Monday, for sure.”
“What time do you want me to meet you?”
“Early. I wouldn’t mind if you brought breakfast.”
“Don’t you think that’s stereotyping just a bit?” Rachel teased.
“Busted. What kind of muffins shall I bring?”
“Not necessary, counselor, but I like banana walnut, if you insist.”
Rachel smiled. Ted had been kind all day. Ted leaned forward a few inches and stopped. He did not want to proceed with a kiss unless Rachel was accepting. Rachel met Ted’s lips. The kiss was friendly and warm, not passionate. Just right, Rachel thought. Ted was hopeful Rachel might want more than a friendly kiss, more than a “thank you for not hitting an elk and killing me” type of kiss, but Rachel’s lips were sweet, and he would be spending more time with them in the days ahead. Ted pulled back and said goodnight.
There it was: the kiss, the turning point in every professional relationship. Kiss of death, Rachel thought. Professional death. Of course, her career was more in jeopardy from one of her team member’s carelessness or greed.
Growing up without parents, Rachel had believed she needed to be the most independent little girl, to avoid being hurt again by losing someone she loved. Aunt Pansy and Uncle Henry were the most loving and supporting substitute parents anyone could hope to have. No, the truth was that self-sufficiency suited Rachel. Could she accept being a brilliant spinster like Rosalind Franklin? If, and it was a major if, Rachel ever decided to allow a man into her heart, to make her vulnerable and happy, Ted Fuller might just be the one. First, he had to keep her out of the slammer.
Chapter Sixteen
Molly Crane smoothed the sash of her freshly ironed Girl Scout uniform. She earned dozens of badges in her six years as a scout. There were a few patches she missed. As this was Molly’s last year in scouting, she wanted more than anything to fill in the few remaining empty spaces on her sash. She had come to the Tucson Convention Center to participate in the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. The troop selected Molly to present its check for $2,093.00 to a news anchor who was hosting the telethon locally. The network affiliates were given time on the hour and half-hour to identify the station and spotlight local fundraising efforts.
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