The Appearance of Impropriety [The Horsemen] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Skye Michaels

  “Yes, sir. I have not found any references to Mr. Talbot in any of the discovery materials. We are still working on the e-mail archiver and web filter,” he responded in a subdued voice. He knew he shouldn’t have expected to get past old Bob Grossman with any legal tap dancing.

  “What do you mean you are still working on them? We have a deposition scheduled on Wednesday, and there is no time for any bullshit. Who have you got working on this?”

  “I sent it out to an outside computer consultant for analysis…”

  “You what? We represent one of the biggest software and systems support companies in the country. Why didn’t you get together with Chuck Jackson to work on this?”

  “Well, sir…”

  “Get him on the phone while Cindy and I finish this up,” he said, shaking his head as Gene rushed out of the room to follow up on his boss’s orders.

  Bob looked at Cindy with a grimace. As they both knew, new associates were usually more trouble than they were worth for the first several years of their employment. By the time they figured out how to find the courthouse, the suit was over. A seasoned paralegal or legal secretary who knew the ropes was worth her weight in gold, and the thankless task of breaking in and training new associates usually fell to them. It was their cross to bear. Of course, a top-notch, experienced paralegal usually made substantially more per year than a new associate.

  Cindy grinned back at Bob. “I talked to Chuck about the e-mail stuff, and he’s got someone working on it in-house. We’ll be able to review the activity reports this afternoon.”

  “Thank God someone’s head isn’t up their—”

  “Bob! Chill. It’s under control. Gene’s trying. He’ll probably be a great attorney—sometime before both of us retire.”

  “Oh, please. Save me. When is Zack coming in to go over this stuff?”

  “Tomorrow morning. You should have the e-mail material with plenty of time to go over it before he comes in. It could prove interesting.”

  “I’d like to have some good news for him. This whole thing could get very unpleasant for him…”

  “And for Ms. Alvarez, who not only had the bad judgment to represent that slime ball, Alex Green, but also the bad luck to fall for Zack Talbot.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “We have some interesting material here, gentlemen,” Bob Grossman said with a grim smile as he reclined in his maroon leather executive chair. The stress was starting to show on Zack, and Bob hated to see his friend so twisted up. “Chuck sent over the activity reports and searches for the e-mail archiver and web filter yesterday, and truthfully, there wasn’t much of interest to anyone except for several very strange transmissions in early May of last year.”

  Chuck Jackson turned to Zack and said excitedly, “Yeah, very strange. It looks like our buddy, Alex, fowarded the ZApp 2.1 program files to his FTP domain, FTP.greenco.com, on nights he was supposed to be working late. We found it using the web filter. It looks like he spent a lot of time late at night on the website sending out a tremendous amount of material. There were also a lot of e-mails back and forth between Alex and another of our programmers, Rachel Dominquez, who also sent out a lot of material.”

  “You’re kidding. That program is huge. It must have taken a good amount of time to transmit it all.”

  “It looks like he exported gigabytes, not just megabytes, over several nights. The transmission times were between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. or so for three days in a row…coincidentally, about two weeks before he resigned from Z-Tech.”

  “Bob, what do you think?” Zack asked as he leaned forward expectantly.

  “I think we have him. The dates of the transmissions are interesting not only because they preceded his resignation by two weeks, but also because the Articles of Incorporation of Green’s new company were filed with the Secretary of State in Tallahassee two weeks later.”

  Chuck shook his head and continued, “He had to be savvy enough about hardware to know that when he deleted the files from his outgoing e-mail, they did not just disappear into cyberspace. As we all know, nothing is ever truly deleted. It was all sitting right there on the archiver waiting to be found.”

  “Thank God for backup,” Zack said as he collapsed back into his chair with a faraway look in his eyes. “He probably thought we just wouldn’t look for it.”

  “No kidding. I have to get back to the office. Bob, call me if you want any other documentation.”

  “Chuck, it would help if you could provide me with copies of Green’s work logs while he was involved in writing the program and a hard copy of the final program for comparison to the transcripts of the web filter activity reports.”

  “Sure thing,” Chuck said as his lanky stride carried him toward the door. “There may be some minor differences because Green threw some kinks into the works before he left. We’re still debugging some of the program’s more complicated operations.”

  “It’s a real bitch. The programmers are going line by line through tens of thousands of commands to find the bugs,” Zack added. “Those e-mail transmissions may save us some debugging time anyway.”

  “I’ll see you at the deposition tomorrow, Zack. It should be real satisfying to see old Alex squirming.”

  “Chuck, I don’t think I’m going to attend. I’ll probably just listen in on the deposition from Bob’s office and keep out of sight.”

  “I think you should be there. Your friendly face at the table will really put him on edge. What could be more important than this?” Chuck asked, a puzzled frown on his face.

  Zack’s face hardened as he continued, “You both know why I can’t be there, of course. I’d like to nail that bastard’s hide to the barn door personally. Maybe we ought to amend the complaint and turn his ‘interruption of business’ strategy against him and ask for punitive damages as well.” Chuck was the one other person he had trusted with the whole story.

  “Amending the complaint is a possibility. I think we now also have evidence of criminal intent. Maybe the threat of criminal prosecution will get Mr. Green’s attention. We may be able to file a complaint under the Federal mail fraud statutes. It’s too bad he didn’t transmit across state lines. I’ll have to do some research, pull some case law, and then we can discuss it.”

  “I’d like nothing better than to see Alex in an orange prison jumpsuit as some big biker’s bitch.”

  “It’s too early to speculate on that. None of this will be mentioned at the deposition, of course. I have no intention of tipping our hand to Mr. Green or his attorney. I’m hoping to trip him up, get him to perjure himself.”

  “Good. I want to be there when you let the cat out the bag. I want to see Green’s face when he knows we have him.”

  “We certainly don’t want to be premature with this information. We may also be able to use it to our advantage, vis-à-vis Ms. Alvarez. I presume that situation is status quo?”

  “Yeah. I really hate not being totally up front with Tori. Where do we stand with the ethics considerations?”

  “I was able to confirm that your name didn’t appear in any of the discovery material we sent her, so the ‘should have known’ angle is covered so far. However, she’s one step away from stumbling over it. If she requests the formation documents and corporate stockholder information for CZT Enterprises, the shit will hit the fan.”

  “Let’s hope we can short-circuit the process. I think we have some impressive leverage with the evidence you’ve uncovered on the archiver so far,” Zack remarked with a sigh as he ran his fingers through his already-rumpled thick, black hair. “This whole situation really doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “Hang in there. We may have a better feel for which way to go after tomorrow.”

  “If you get me out of this one, Bob, I’ll nominate you for sainthood!”

  Bob grinned. “Saint Grossman—it has a nice ring. My old Jewish mother will be thrilled, not to mention my rabbi.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Sha
ron, have we had anything yet from Jorge Martinez?”

  “Not yet. He called about a half hour ago to say he’ll be downloading a lot of material shortly. I’ll let you know when it’s available.”

  “Thanks.” Tori leaned back in her chair, put her stocking-clad feet up on the bleached oak credenza behind her desk, and stared into space, her mind free-wheeling as the beautiful view of Biscayne Bay sparkling below her went unnoticed. Don’t jump to conclusions, suspicions aren’t evidence. Just wait and see. Ha! Easier said than done. She grimaced as the same thoughts cycled through her mind over and over. The dilemma raised by this development refused to stay banished. She had never liked or trusted Alex Green, and it seemed her instincts had been correct.

  The door opened, and Sharon walked in. “Pull up the website. Jorge has downloaded the information from Z-Tech’s e-mail archiver and web filter. Do you want me to start printing, or do you want to review it on screen?”

  “I’ll look at it on screen for now, Sharon. We may want to print some of it later. I’m going to dive in right now.”

  “Do you want help?”

  “Not right now. I just want to scan through it and see what’s there. Later, I’ll probably want help sorting it out.” As Tori opened the website and began to read, her heart began beating faster. She read Jorge’s e-mail.

  Sorry this took longer than I thought it would. As I told you, the intra-company transmissions appear to be mostly ordinary business correspondence, except for some late night transmissions in early May. I haven’t had time to completely decipher all of the material, but it appears to be a very complex program, possibly for a mobile app. A transcript of the actual transmission is on the website. It was sent from the corporate offices of Z-Tech over three nights—May third, fourth, and fifth last year—in the early morning hours to an FTP domain, FTP.greenco.com, owned by Alexander Green on Harbour Lights Drive. Let me know if you want me to do anything further.

  Jorge.

  Tori was in shock. She opened several of the e-mails and the attachments. Only a techie could make sense of this—what gobbeldegook! Tori scanned through the first several pages. It was like trying to read Chinese!

  Obviously, it was programming language, but Tori couldn’t make heads or tails of the majority of the material. She closed the e-mails containing the damning evidence and turned to the activity reports showing send times, senders, receivers, and lengths of transmission. The early morning transmissions on May third, fourth and fifth had gone to FTP.greenco.com. Then she went to her Contacts in Outlook and typed “Green” in the search bar, and there it was.

  GREEN, ALEXANDER

  332 Harbour Lights Drive, Ft.Lauderdale, FL 33304

  PH: 954-222-1678 FAX: 954-222-1679

  E-MAIL: alex332@yahoo.com

  Tori walked to the expanse of glass overlooking the water and stared sightlessly at the horizon. She was tired. She was depressed. She was disgusted. She didn’t know who she could talk to about this without breaching attorney-client confidentiality. Robert, as a member of the Miami-Dade County Bar Association’s Grievance Committee, and as a good friend and partner, was probably the best choice.

  Tori turned back to her desk and buzzed Robert’s office. His secretary picked up the line. “Mr. Barlowe’s office.”

  “Sabrina, this is Tori. Is Robert in?”

  “I’m sorry, Tori, but he left early for a client luncheon. I really don’t expect him back. You know, it’s the old schmooze-and-booze routine.”

  “I know the routine. Been there, done that. Please have him call me as soon as possible. It’s urgent that I talk with him.” Tori hung up the phone without waiting for a response. Apparently she was on her own, at least for the time being.

  That afternoon, Sharon showed Alex Green into Tori’s office. She looked up from the file on her desk to behold her least favorite client in all his masculine splendor. He was tall, blond, and full of himself. In his midthirties, he still gave off a surfer vibe although she knew him to be a brilliant if somewhat arrogant programmer. He just seemed to her to give the impression of shiftiness. “Good afternoon, Alex. Won’t you have a seat?” Tori asked with a tight smile. “Would you like some coffee or a soft drink?”

  “No, thank you. Let’s just get on with this.”

  “Fine. Thanks, Sharon. That will be all for right now.” Tori turned back to Alex and continued, “I’ve been going over the files and materials gleaned from our discovery motions in preparation for the deposition at Grossman’s office tomorrow, and I’ve prepared a list of probable questions that the plaintiff’s attorney may very likely ask you. Why don’t you glance through them?” she said as she passed him a manila file in which she had placed the list of questions she had formulated as well as copies of several pages from the activity reports for the Z-Tech e-mail archiver and web filter.

  Alex sat back and started to read. Tori watched him as he turned page after page, grumbling under his breath, until at last he came to the program materials. “What’s going on?” he blustered as his face began to get red. “How did you get a copy of my program? This is highly confidential material. You have no right to have this!”

  “That’s right, Alex, and apparently neither do you.”

  “What do you mean by that? Where did you get this?” he repeated as his face continued to redden.

  Tori sensed that Alex was winding up for a major tirade and decided to stop him right there. “It was provided to me by the plaintiff during discovery. It’s a transcript of activity reports from Z-Tech’s e-mail archiver and web filter for May third, fourth, and fifth last year. This material was transmitted from Z-Tech to your FTP domain in Fort Lauderdale between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. on those three days.” Tori sat back in her chair and waited for Alex’s response.

  Alex visibly gathered his wits and took up the attack. “What the hell is this? Who are you working for? You’re supposed to be on my side! You have no right to invade my privacy like this…”

  “Mr. Green, I have been working for you, and in my capacity as your defense counsel, I have made every effort to uncover whatever evidence is available to prove that you, the defendant in this action, are not guilty of breach of contract, fraud, and copyright infringement, among other things. Apparently, according to this material, you’re guilty of much more than mere copyright infringement—how about grand theft, conversion, mail fraud. I don’t know. I’m a civil litigator, not a criminal defense attorney.”

  “That’s absurd. What are you trying to do? Blackmail me?” he stuttered, enraged by Tori’s concise analysis of the situation.

  “Of course not. But as your attorney, I have to know the truth in order to properly defend this suit. Had I known about this before I filed the motions to produce, I never would have brought attention to the e-mail archiver in the first place. Hell! I never would have agreed to represent you in the first place. But now I’m in it up to my neck. As an Officer of the Court, I’m bound by certain ethical standards of behavior.”

  “Don’t be naive! Why would I knowingly incriminate myself or admit this to anyone.”

  “If I can find this out so easily, don’t you think the big brains at Z-Tech, once pointed in the right direction, can do the same?”

  “They’re not such ‘big brains,’” he blustered in return. “I was in on the development of this program from the beginning. I did a majority of the ground work.”

  “For which you were very generously compensated under the terms of your Employment Contract, which by the way has some very interesting provisions, including a prohibition against your competing with the company for five years after the termination of your employment, not to mention a confidentiality clause. In addition, the contract clearly states that your work product during your employment is the legal property of the company and you have no rights to any of it.”

  “What about the countersuit? I’m suing them—”

  “Mr. Green! You know as well as I that I filed the countersuit as a smoke s
creen, a way to slow them down, a way to get greater latitude in my discovery efforts. It’s not worth the paper it’s written on—except as a diversionary tactic.”

  Green sank back in his chair, his face suddenly ashen. “What does all of this mean?”

  “An Officer of the Court can’t knowingly present false information to the court. I cannot lie for you, Mr. Green. I have to review the Cannons of Ethics before I make a final decision, but I believe I will have to withdraw from this case…”

  “You can’t do that! Not after all the time and money I’ve invested in this firm. You can’t leave me stranded…”

  “I’m not making a final decision on this yet, but I have to tell you that I don’t think I’ll be able to see this through to trial. We’ll have to see. Perhaps we can negotiate a settlement. I don’t know. I’ll represent you at the deposition tomorrow and certainly until you can retain other counsel. In the meantime, review the material in that folder carefully. Call me later if you have any questions about any of your responses. I will be working late this evening. I, of course, have no way of knowing exactly what they will ask you, but I think the questions on the list will definitely be among the high points.”

  Tori breathed a sigh of relief as Alex Green left the office a much more subdued man than when he had entered it. Even though Tori thought him a despicable individual, she still had difficulty turning away any person in need. Speaking of need, where the hell is Robert when I need him? She was confused and feeling at a loss, unsure of her legal and moral position. The concept of attorney-client privilege weighed heavily on her mind.

  Chapter Thirty

  Tori stood by the window of her office watching the Miami skyline light up around Biscayne Bay as the sky at the horizon deepened from dark blue to black while she sipped what seemed like her twentieth cup of coffee of the day. She had unbuttoned her charcoal gray pin-striped suit jacket, loosened the bow of her yellow silk shirt, and kicked off her gray suede pumps. She was exhausted and mentally drained. What a day. If they were all like this, I’d be tempted to find a job cleaning stalls. At least the crap you have to shovel is good, honest, horse manure.