Having arrived at Nick King’s house, I drove past it and parked a safe distance up the street. I quickly scanned the area: All of the front yards that I could see were empty: No one was doing any final leaf raking, or clearing out the winter dregs of a flower garden. Nor did I see any faces peaking out from behind the curtains of any windows.
Beth had informed me that Nick King bragged among the plant workers about owning a pit bull named Tyson. I assumed that this was a reference to the retired boxer and not the chicken company. I’ll never figure it out: Why men of a certain socioeconomic class regard pit bull ownership as the ultimate display of masculinity.
I was ready for the dog, though I hoped that I would not have to encounter the beast. A pit bull is nothing to mess with, even under the best of circumstances.
I made my way down the sidewalk toward Nick King’s rented house. It was a ranch house with white siding. The driveway was cracked and a few clumps of dead weeds were poking up between the gaps in the blacktop. I walked along the driveway toward the backyard. My strides were long and quick, but I dared not run. There is nothing more conspicuous than a grown man running through a residential neighborhood.
When I reached the back door, I put on a pair of latex gloves that I had stashed in my pocket. Then I took out a small leather case that contained a lock-picking kit. As I had anticipated, the backdoor lock was an old-style pin tumbler type, which is the easiest kind to pick. I was able to unlock the door with the most basic tool from the lock-picking kit.
I opened the door and stepped inside. I was immediately alert for any sound of a burglar alarm—or worse—the pit bull named Tyson. I didn't hear either. I closed and relocked the door behind me.
The house was the epitome of primitive bachelor mess decor. In the kitchen, dirty dishes overflowed in the kitchen sink, and excess garbage was simply piled around the overfull trashcan. On the kitchen table was an ashtray that contained about a third of a joint. I pulled out my cell phone and took two photos of this—both a close-up, and also one from a wider angle.
The photos of the joint would be icing on the cake; but the marijuana had probably been smoked by an underworld business associate or a visiting female friend. TP Automotive had already tried unsuccessfully to bust Nick King for drug use. His test results had been clean on three occasions over the past four months. The company couldn't risk the harassment charges that might result from another attempt. I needed photos of the stolen goods, not snapshots of half-smoked joints.
The front rooms of the house were nearly dark, as every curtain or blind had been pulled shut. I didn't think that Nick would store power tools and copper components in his bedroom, and the house had no basement from what I could tell. I decided that the garage was the logical starting point.
I passed through the living room and a little hallway that contained a utility room, where I found the door to the garage. I pulled the door open and saw all of the evidence I needed.
There were four wooden pallets in Nick King’s garage, arranged in a square pattern that consumed most of the available floor space. Atop the pallets were some of the items that had come up short in UP&S’s inventory records: power tools, hand tools, lengths of copper tubing, and copper and brass welding tips. I also saw a hand-held digital multimeter that would have fetched four or five hundred dollars on the open market, as well as a small electric generator that was easily worth a grand.
King and O’Rourke must have been convinced that their scheme was untouchable if they had removed these latter items from the plant. The multimeter and the generator would have certainly been missed. Companies tend to keep close tabs on expensive equipment of that type. I wondered how much the two thieves had made from their operation thus far. They weren’t getting rich from reselling any of this stuff; but all the money that they did make was one hundred percent profit.
The evidence in this garage was more than adequate for my purposes. Moving around the room, I took perhaps a dozen photos from various angles. The close-up photos established the presence of company property, and my wider-angle shots established that the setting was indeed Nick King’s garage.
Now all I had to do was go back the way I came. As long as no one surprised me at the back door, I would be able to make my getaway and drive back to UP&S. This had been relatively easy.
I was standing in the rear hallway of Nick King’s house, closing the garage door behind me, when I heard the rapid footsteps. And the growling.
It was Tyson: perhaps one hundred and sixty pounds of muscle, sinew—and teeth. The grey-coated dog paused at the point where the rear hallway joined the living room. Tyson had bloodshot eyes, and a head and jaw that seemed to be as wide as a shovel. Where had the dog been until now?
A split second later, Tyson bolted around the corner, making a beeline for me, the intruder who had invaded his home. In that instant, I was profoundly frightened—more frightened than I had ever been in my life.
I dove into the utility room, which was occupied by a large washer and dryer, plus the house’s water heater. I didn't have time to close the door. I leapt onto the washer butt-first, swinging my legs clear of the floor just as Tyson snapped at them. I stood up, my head only inches from the ceiling, and seized upon the first object that caught my attention among the jumble of miscellanea on the overhead shelf: A baseball bat. In that moment I was actually thankful for the hoodlum proclivities of Nick King: Who else but a hoodlum would keep such an object in his laundry room?
I swung the bat at the pit bull. The dog backed up, avoiding the bat, and then made a serious leap upward that would have carried him onto the washing machine had I not deflected him again with the bat. I couldn't allow Tyson onto the washing machine. In the close quarters atop the appliance, the bat would be all but useless, and the dog would be able to maul me at will.
The dog made yet another leap and I thrust the bat like a spear. This time Tyson clamped his teeth down on my weapon. He began to shake the bat to and fro, the object locked in the vise grip of those powerful jaws.
With Tyson momentarily distracted, I reached into my pocket with my free hand and withdrew the plastic baggy that I had brought along with me for such an eventuality. This was not easy, as Tyson was whipping my body from side to side via the baseball bat that we both held.
The baggy contained a handful of raw hamburger meat laced with a veterinary tranquilizer. I turned the baggy upside down, nearly slipping to certain death in the process. Luckily, the ziplock seal on the baggy was weak. The hamburger fell to the floor, landing at Tyson’s feet with a wet plop.
The bat finally slipped from my hands. However, Tyson immediately noticed the hamburger, and the temptation proved to be more than the dog could resist. Tyson let go of the bat and lowered his head to devour the meat. To whatever extent that the canine brain is capable of planning, Tyson probably intended to take a quick meal and then finish me off at his leisure. After all, I had not demonstrated myself to be much of a threat so far.
He gobbled up the hamburger with surprising rapidity. Then the dog looked up at me and growled again. I pressed my body against the rear wall and shelf. I had a few seconds to contemplate the irony of being mauled to death only moments before Tyson fell unconscious as a result of the tranquilizer in the hamburger.
The dog crouched down as if to jump. Then it paused and let out a low moan. Tyson turned abruptly away from me and began to walk in the opposite direction. Each step was more unsteady than the last. Convinced now that I would probably live, I uttered a silent prayer of thanks.
Tyson collapsed in the doorway of the utility room. A man was never so glad to see a dog go to sleep.
I climbed down from the washing machine and hastily repaired the evidence of my encounter with Nick King’s dog. I wiped my footprints from the top of the washer, and picked up the empty plastic baggy. The fallen baseball bat was defaced by teeth marks that had not been there previously. Since there was no way to remove them, I simply slid the bat back onto the shelf in a
near approximation of its original position.
I walked carefully past the slumbering pit bull. I knew that Tyson would awake within an hour or two, giving him plenty of time to recover his normal level of hostility before his owner arrived home. But he would remain asleep until I had gone.
In Nick King’s kitchen, I unlocked the back door, stepped outside, and pulled the door closed behind me. The lock made a satisfying click in its chamber. I pulled off the latex gloves and returned them to my pocket. A quick scan of the back yard confirmed that no one had seen me and summoned the police. I had accomplished my mission, the law and Nick King’s four-legged security system notwithstanding. The dependable Craig Walker brand of luck had come through for me yet again.
Chapter 52
TP Automotive didn't want to waste any time in firing the two embezzlers on the loading dock. I emailed the photos to Beth Fisk when I returned to the office, shortly before lunchtime. King and O’Rourke found themselves in the clutches of corporate justice by mid-afternoon.
The company sequestered O’Rourke prior to summoning Nick. Beth told O’Rourke that his name had come up for a random drug test. If O’Rourke was worried about a drug test, he didn’t show it. Like Nick King, apparently he was clean in that respect, at least. He had no idea of what was actually waiting for him.
Nick King was summoned shortly after that, and Bernie had decided to open with a full frontal assault. “Nick, you’re here today because the company has decided to terminate your employment. It has come to our attention that you’ve been stealing company assets.”
“Bullshit,” Nick said. The poker face. He leaned back nonchalantly in his chair. A man like Nick King had spent a lifetime in confrontations like this. He was used to telling authority figures to go fuck themselves. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then maybe you’ll understand this,” Beth said. She opened a folder that contained screenshots from the AS/400, copies of the relevant bills of lading, and the photos I had taken in Nick’s garage.
I had taken around twenty photos at Nick’s ramshackle house. There were photos of the stolen goods from every possible angle, and they left no margin for doubt regarding Nick’s guilt. The photos of the joint in the kitchen ashtray were also thrown in for good measure.
Nick was initially dumfounded by the evidence spread out before him. Per the account that was later relayed to me, the manifestation of a sinking feeling spread across his face. It was the resignation of a man who had been caught red-handed.
But that was quickly replaced by what might be called the false bravado of righteous indignation.
“You guys have been in my house,” he said. “That’s fucking illegal!”
“Maybe,” Bernie said, unruffled. “And maybe not. You’re going to have a hard time proving that, when you consider your position, and how careless you’ve been. Maybe these photos were forwarded to us by a concerned third party. Perhaps one of your girlfriends, Nick. A woman you did wrong—a woman who wouldn’t mind sticking it to you. Or maybe one of your buddies, who noticed the stolen items when he was visiting your house, drinking and getting high. Maybe that friend isn’t such a friend after all. Maybe he’s secretly jealous of you, making all that under the table money illegally at your employer’s expense.
“Here's what it comes down to Nick: we've got you from three different directions. First of all, there are the AS/400 screenshots that don't match the bills of lading. Then there are the photos that establish the existence of stolen company property in your personal residence.”
Bernie paused, as he prepared to deliver his coup de grace.
“What's the third direction?” Nick asked. His tough guy façade was fading fast. How many Nicks had I seen crumble like this over the course of my career? At least a dozen, I would say. That's the problem with blue-collar crooks. They’re all bluster. They come up with half-baked schemes like this; and then they fail to fully consider all of the relevant angles. Guys like Nick King should leave white-collar crime to people with accounting degrees and MBAs.
“Well,” Bernie began. “Your accomplice has already confessed that the two of you have been running a theft operation. With the evidence that we already have, combined with O'Rourke's confession, we have more than enough to prosecute you.”
Nick pounded his fist once on the tabletop in front of him. “Son of a bitch! I'll kill that fucking O’Rourke!”
Nick King apparently didn't know it, but he had just fallen victim to one of the oldest tricks in the book: the prisoner's dilemma. What should a criminal do when told that his accomplice has already ratted him out? Should he stick to his denials? Or should he confess himself, and try to cut the best deal that he possibly can?
The prisoner’s dilemma is standard fare in a subfield of economics called game theory. In case you didn't take that class, the prisoner’s dilemma is a stratagem that forces the guilty to calculate the probability that their accomplices are loyal. The prisoner’s dilemma is designed to extract a full confession. And confess is what most people do when maneuvered into such a pickle.
“We have no desire to prosecute you, Nick,” Bernie said. “We are trying to run a company here. The last thing we want to do is spend a lot of time with law enforcement agents and prosecutors. But if you try to deny this, Nick, you will leave us no choice. We have irrefutable evidence that you've stolen from us. We have O’Rourke’s confession, and your own confession in so many words.”
“I ain’t admitting nothin’!” Nick shouted.
Bernie gave Nick a pained expression. “Come on, Nick. You’re a smart guy. You can read the writing on the wall here. This only ends one way. The only question is: How bad do you want to make it on yourself?”
“So what do you guys want?” Nick’s eyes were pleading now. I know what he was thinking: he was thinking about the inside of a jail cell. That is a possibility that every guilty man dreads to contemplate. He was completely in TP Automotive’s hands now. He would have gladly signed away his life to the company if Bernie had demanded it.
Bernie produced a contract from the folder that he had carried into the meeting. He slid the contract across the table to Nick, along with a fountain pen.
“We want you to acknowledge your misconduct––your crimes––in writing. And we want you to furthermore acknowledge in writing that you will take no actions against TP Automotive that could result in any form of litigation. Don't worry: You don't have to actually write any of that. It’s all written down in this document. All you have to do is sign. And in return, TP Automotive will suspend our current plans to file criminal charges against you.”
Nick snatched up the proffered contract. After making a brief attempt to read it line-by-line, he quickly gave up on deciphering the legalese, and skimmed through it. Then he signed his name, along with the date.
“Very good, Nick,” Bernie said. “A member of our security team will see you out now.”
Fifteen minutes later, Beth and Bernie went through a similar routine with Michael O’Rourke. The song and dance was basically the same, only now they could truthfully say that their perp’s accomplice had confessed.
After the firings were complete, Beth and Bernie called me into a meeting room to thank me for a job well done. It was nearly five o’clock. The operation against King and O’Rourke had been completed with remarkable speed—even for the Termination Man. Less than forty-eight hours had passed since I had begun my investigation on the loading dock the previous Sunday.
“I’ve got to hand it to you,” Beth said. “I had some real doubts about—the methods employed for this—but I can’t argue with the results.”
Bernie smiled as he examined the signed termination contracts.
“That’s the end of those two crooks,” he said.
But that prediction turned out to be very wrong.
Chapter 53
For the first time since the start of my undercover work at UP&S, I actually stayed late because of my “duties” as a
member of the purchasing department. I did it to help Lucy, really. Since Alan had been gone, her workload had increased; and I was by no means pulling the full weight of a real purchasing agent.
What had to be done this particular night was some simple data entry that would feed the inventory report that Shawn Myers so despised. I remained until shortly after six to help Lucy. It was the least I owed her, given everything that had happened, and everything that would happen. We were going to engineer Lucy’s departure from the company within a matter of days.
When I finished up and walked out into the darkened parking lot, I immediately noticed the woman standing beside my Camry, waiting for me. As soon as I got within shouting distance she hailed me.
“Craig Parker?” she said. “It’s Tina Shields. I met you at Applebee’s last week.”
The parallel between this encounter and my first meeting with Donna did not escape me. I determined that I should now beware of women waiting for me in the UP&S parking lot.
The last time I had seen Tina Shields she had been drunk. At the end of the evening, she had acted anything but dignified, passing out in my arms as I guided her into a motel room. But now her demeanor was almost formal, and more than a little apologetic.
“I’m sorry about the way I acted,” she said. “And for putting you through so much trouble. It's the drinking, you see. I—”
“Don't worry about it,” I said. “And it was no trouble at all.”
I paused, waiting for her to go on. She did not seem to know how or where to begin.
“But what can I do for you this evening?” I asked at length.
“Donna said that you were helping her with her Shawn problem. And she said that you know how to handle a man like him.”
“Donna gives me far too much credit.”
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