“You don’t do anything!” Lucy accuses. “You’re so worried about your reputation among those debutantes you hang out with in Houston. ‘Oh my goodness. Maybe they won’t invite me to the gala or something.’ Why can’t you see past your silly little life? Why don’t you want something with more meaning?”
“Like sitting in a jail cell? That kind of meaning?” I ask, furious. “I don’t expect you to want what I want, but you need to know that I am on your side here. We agree on a lot of things, Lucy. I just want to take time to pull it all together. If you release information too early, people have time to spin it their way. You know how to read environmental records, but I know how to investigate things. That’s what I do. So let me investigate my way.”
Lucy looks at me, and I can tell the wheels are spinning under that mop of red curls.
“Okay,” she says finally. “But you have one week to take action on this Longview plant. There are real people who will get sick, and I am not comfortable sitting on that knowledge without taking action. The pipeline thing you can figure out on your own, or call me if you need more help. But I’m not like you, Tanzie. I feel too deeply for people.”
Point taken once again, Lucy. “All right. Fair enough.” I am instantly relieved I had not burdened Lucy with the meeting notes about the Bishop cover-up. I can see now that would have been a disaster.
“So what about the meeting? What did you hear?” Lucy pumps as she drains the rest of her wine.
“Not too much. Just posturing. Insurance stuff. Nothing too conclusive,” I lie.
When I get to my cube the next morning, I have two things I want to investigate: Do hot flashes burn calories, and who is BQR Environmental Services?
If hot flashes in fact do burn calories, then perhaps there is an upside to the discomfort I have been feeling lately and I will be wearing smaller pants soon. Google has conflicting answers and nothing scientifically compelling, so I move on to the second item. There is nothing on Google regarding BQR. So I look at the payment register, noting what looks like a monthly $5,000 payment to them dating back as far as the report goes. I write down the check number for one of the payments and take the elevator up to Corporate Accounting on twenty. I have been here a few times before while doing walk-throughs for my audits.
I see Cindy in the file room and ask if she can pull a canceled check for me.
“Check 260112 from the general account.”
“We don’t get the checks,” she explains, “but we get copies from the bank statements.”
“Does it have the back side, so I can see the endorsement?”
“No. But I can request it from the bank. Do you want me to?”
“How long will it take?”
“Not sure. Maybe I can get online and see if I can access it without bothering them.”
“Thanks, Cindy. I appreciate it.”
Cindy is one of the most efficient people at Bishop. She is a tad grumpy and her dress is so flashy that it borders on clownish. Her permed platinum hair is festooned with sequined combs, and she favors costume jewelry in the form of huge earrings, numerous bangles, and a ring larger than most plumbing fixtures. Cindy’s bowling-alley style notwithstanding, she is usually invaluable for getting information quickly and accurately. In the time it takes me to check out the coffee bar and get a glass of ice water to cool down the inferno blazing from my neck, Cindy has gotten what I need.
“Here you go, Tanzie,” she says, proudly handing me the documents.
I take the check copy and look at the endorsement, noting the first of many red flags. There is no stamp “For Deposit Only,” used by most companies to restrictively endorse the checks they receive. Instead, the check has a name signed on the back. I can’t decipher the signature. Only the Q between the first and last names is legible. I take the check copy with me back to my desk on six and ponder what to do.
I decide to go to the TCEQ website, and there is, of all things, an organization chart going all the way from the governor of Texas and other elected officials to the field-level flunkies responsible for doing the inspections. The letter Q stands out as the middle initial of Bonnie Q. Reynolds, a field inspector in the north Texas region for air quality. Now this makes perfect sense. Bonnie is looking the other way on the Longview plant and taking a nice payment for the effort. I wonder how many other inspectors are on the take. I also wonder if similar arrangements have been made with the DOT for the Houston pipeline. Why hasn’t the Department of Transportation done their inspections? No one said anything at the meeting the other night. I am deep in thought and speculation when Todd stops by my cube.
“What’s up?” I ask, shoving my paperwork into my desk drawer.
“It’s Wednesday. Don’t tell me you forgot. Coffee Wednesday. You weren’t here last week.”
“Oops. Sorry, Todd. I was … um, sick … well, out of town, but don’t tell anybody.” I smile sheepishly. I grab my purse and we head to the elevators.
“That new coffee in the break room is horrible,” Todd says as we wait. “Did you know they changed from Starbucks?”
“Yeah, I think I read it somewhere.”
We walk over to a trendy little place adjacent to the Bishop building that I can only assume will triple its revenue given the switch to Best Java at Bishop. I pay for Todd’s coffee and my latte and walk over to a booth near the front window.
“Wanna hear something funny?” Todd begins. “Baldwin called the Help Desk Monday because he needed to change his password. He didn’t know how to do it unless it was about to expire and gave him a prompt. He needed me to walk him through it. Here he runs this huge company and can’t figure out how to change his password.”
My shaking hand starts to make little waves in my latte.
“Why did he need it changed?” I ask trying not to act too interested.
“Well, actually he thinks his computer got hacked,” Todd whispers, leaning toward me.
“Really.”
“What I heard is that he tried to log in to his computer over the weekend but it was locked. The error notice said he was the user locking it. Then when he was able to log in, the screen was in some confidential file or something. I’m not sure, but he was pretty hot about it. There’s some forensic specialist coming up here from Dallas next week. I have to get a workspace set up for him down on our floor.”
“What will he be able to do?”
“Well, he can create a list of the IP addresses accessing Baldwin’s account and then see where they are coming from.”
“Oh really. How can they tell where the IP address comes from?” I ask, trying not to spill my latte as I bring it to my mouth.
“Well, they can only get within a geographic range, like Moscow or New York. In order to find out who owns the IP address, it usually takes a court order, and that could take over a year.”
I relax a bit as I take in that last factoid. “Sounds complicated.”
I look at my watch. “We need to head back, Todd. I’m sort of in the middle of something.”
“Sure. No problem.” Todd and I get up and head back to the Bishop building.
“Thanks for the coffee, Tanzie,” Todd says as the elevator door opens on the third floor.
“You’re very welcome, Todd. Very welcome.”
I sit at my desk and try to process this new information. I make a mental list of all the places from which I have hacked into Baldwin’s computer. There is the Internet café in Houston, but I used cash. There is the library, but surely the librarian won’t remember me. Even if she does, the description of a dumpy middle-aged woman with expensive shoes will hardly be incriminating. Then I remember my initial login from Grant’s computer. That could be a problem. Still, if Todd is right, Baldwin and his investigator will not have that information, so I needn’t take immediate action. I calm down and focus on the positives. At least I know what is going on, so I have that in my favor.
I am not finished investigating the payment to Ms. Bonnie Q. Reynolds yet
, so I go up to nine and park myself by good old Mazie’s desk.
“Hi, Mazie. Do you remember me?” I ask.
“Why, of course I do,” she says. “What brings you to my part of the woods?”
“I am looking for the vendor setup form for a vendor named BQR Environmental Services. It’s probably a few years back, but I am wondering if you could pull it for me.”
“Why do you need to see that?”
“I’m in Internal Audit, didn’t I say?”
I see the blood drain from Mazie’s face.
“Anyway I’m doing a test of vendor setup records,” I say. “I requested a bunch of them last week from your supervisor, but this is an extra item that needs to be pulled.”
I watch as Mazie tries to stay calm. I cannot imagine the stress she is feeling at this particular moment, with the realization that auditors are looking at vendor setup.
“Well now. Just give me a minute here to look this up,” she says, and I watch her trembling hand click through a few screens on her desktop. “Looks like we set their record up in 2003. I’m not sure we still have those files on-site; they may be in storage somewhere.”
“Can you check, please?” This is not Cindy I’m dealing with.
I can see that Mazie wants me gone and is probably thinking maybe the fastest way is to find the document, give it to me, and hope that I will not return to stumble across her illicit activity. Too late, Mazie. But still, she returns in minutes with a document.
“Do you need a copy, or do you just want to take a look at this?”
“I just need to look at it.”
Mazie hands me the paper. I turn it over and look at the approval signature.
“Hal!” I do not believe my eyes at first, but when I consider it, this does make sense. Hal had overseen all those operations back then. Still, I cannot picture Hal—the great guy Hal, the father figure Hal—involved in a bribery scheme. He is the person who approved the setup of BQR. There are no other authorizations on the page. I suppose if I pull the monthly invoices, I will see his signature on them too.
“Mazie, would you mind if I make a quick copy of this?”
“Help yourself.” She seems relieved that I am not asking for anything related to MCAL Electric or Larson Consulting.
When I return to my cube, I call Lucy on her cell. Her voice sounds like I just woke her up.
“Meet me for coffee?”
“Where, when?” she groans.
“Starbucks Utica Square, in fifteen minutes.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lucy looks as beautiful as always. For a fifty-three-year-old woman who just rolled out of bed, that is something of an accomplishment. She is reading a book and drinking herbal tea, so I place my coffee order without disturbing her.
“Let’s move outside so we won’t be overheard,” I say.
We settle under an arbor away from other patrons.
“And you’re surprised by this?” Lucy asks after I tell her about Hal.
“Yes! Why shouldn’t I be? He is a sexist and condescending, but I never did think he was a crook.”
“Did it ever occur to you that the entire management of Bishop is crooked? Baldwin certainly knows what Hal did because it was in his secretary’s files, right? This is no secret.”
Lucy is right about this, and it occurs to me that corruption extends deep into the Bishop organization. In controls talk it’s known as “tone at the top.” This means that if the most senior executives cheat, others below will see that behavior as acceptable and will cheat as well. It works the other way around, too. If executive management sets the tone that cheating or skirting the rules will not be tolerated, others below them fall in line. The trouble is that executives always say that they expect everyone to operate with integrity, but then they wink when the top sales guy takes a kickback or their big deal maker spends thousands in strip clubs.
Sometimes the higher-ups give the message to work within the company guidelines of honesty, excellence, stewardship, and all the other “who we are” statements, but then supervisors place extreme pressure on line management to make their quotas. “Rank and yank” is the term used at evaluation time to forcibly rank all employees and then fire the bottom-feeders who, for whatever reason, have fallen short. No excuses, just results.
At Bishop, management receives their annual bonus based on earnings and nothing else. Winston used to say, “You get what you pay for.” So if all you care about is the bottom line, people will do everything they can to increase that figure, even if it crosses into unethical territory. It might start innocently enough, but it can quickly end up in shifty accounting and sidestepping costly regulatory requirements.
Top management gets to be top management because they are competitive people who want to be winners. They might gamble with their employees’ safety as well as the safety of communities so that they don’t end up as the guy with the shitty quarterly earnings and miss their bonus targets. The poor fellow who says, “Well, we didn’t make any money, but everyone is safe, and we are beloved by the community in which we operate” gets zilch and a quick boot to the curb.
Perhaps not all Bishop main managers are crooks, but the environment is perfect for managers to slide into the world of bribes, kickbacks, and manipulated financial results.
I think about Hal and the pressure he must have been under to succumb to illegal activity. I wonder what the conversation with the Bishop brothers was like when they discussed what to do about the Longview plant. The thing was old and held together with the engineering equivalent of duct tape. Necessary repairs would have been costly, and Hal would never have been able to meet his financial targets if fines were levied.
Maybe Hal set up this bribe and then got his promotion to oversee all the gas plant operations. Perhaps the Bishops appreciated his resourcefulness in saving all the capital maintenance dollars required to get the Longview plant up to spec by bribing the state inspector. He probably got rewarded with extra bonus money for going the extra mile. A new house for Nancy and Disney World vacations with the kids probably soothed whatever gremlins ate at his conscience.
The pressure to succeed can be formidable for men like Hal. They have been winners all their lives, and the idea that their career might get sidetracked can be devastating. No wonder he seemed despondent when he left the other day. He had played the game and then got sacked two yards from the goal line.
“Lucy, these things are more complicated than you think,” I say. “Morality is not black and white—it has lots and lots of gray.”
“Oh really. And exactly what shade of gray is bribing government regulators to look the other way when you spew carcinogens into the breathing space of unsuspecting citizens?”
“I’m not talking about the end result. I’m talking about how people—you know, the ones you feel so deeply for—find themselves able to commit unthinkable acts. It can be a very slippery slope.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes it is. They don’t start out wanting to break laws and hurt people. They just find themselves backed against a wall and make really bad decisions. It’s really sad, Lucy.”
“I don’t feel sorry for them. Not even a little bit. I feel sorry for the people who live in Longview who are getting sick while you’re sympathizing with the guys responsible.”
“Okay. You’re right,” I concede. I take a sip of my coffee and look around; we are still alone. “We need to figure out what to do about this.”
“I am serious about the one-week deadline, Tanzie,” Lucy says. “I’m not comfortable sitting on this, especially since we now know that Bishop bribed the regulators.”
“Agreed.”
“Maybe you should call Dan and arrange to be a confidential informant.”
The same thought had crossed my mind on the way to Starbucks, but I feel conflicted. There is a slim chance that I could keep my job at Bishop, and I don’t want to take a chance of screwing that up by having anyone know that I snooped around Bi
shop’s files. I am also smart enough to realize that confidences can be broken through negligence: slip of the tongue, a discarded memo. A further complication is the cyber investigator that Todd told me about yesterday. I am unclear what techniques this guy might have at his disposal to identify me as the hacker, and as compelling as the Longview situation is, I am not willing to risk getting caught. Yes, I am a very selfish person.
“I think I like the anonymous informant idea better. If we provide enough detail, surely someone can get Hal or Ms. Bonnie Q. Reynolds to admit guilt, or we can give enough details to get an investigation going.”
We go back to my condo and spend the rest of the morning documenting the Longview plant situation. Lucy writes a memo in environmental science-ese outlining the discrepancies between internal plant measurement and compliance reports filed with the TCEQ. I decide to spare Lucy from knowing about Baldwin’s discovery that his computer was hacked and his engaging a security specialist. I only warn her not to communicate with me via email on any of the particulars of Longview or Bishop.
She has a flight to catch at 1 o’clock, so she packs up and we get in my car to head to the airport.
“We’re doing the right thing on this, Tanzie. Really we are,” Lucy begins as I drive.
“I know,” I say, looking ahead.
“I didn’t mean those things I said last night about your life being silly.”
“Yes you did,” I tell her. “And it is sort of silly. I know that. But I’m just trying to get my life back, Lucy. It’s been a tough year for me.”
We are silent for the next few miles. I am trying not to cry, and Lucy gives me time to compose myself.
“This has been so much fun,” I finally say, just as the floodgates open.
Lucy doubles over in a combination of laughter and tears. “Oh God. Don’t make me feel bad!”
“No. I really needed you here, Lucy. We don’t always agree, but I really did need someone to work through this with me. I feel very alone on this, and you’ve been a lot of help.”
Revenge of the Cube Dweller Page 17
