Company Man

by Joseph Finder

  36

  Something about the way Scott went through his depressing presentation—his dry, monotone, doom-and-gloom voice-over to the PowerPoint slides projected on the little plasma screens in front of everyone—was almost defiant, Nick thought. As if he knew full well he was hurling carrion to the hyenas.

  Of course, they didn’t need his little dog-and-pony show, since they’d all gotten the charts in their black loose-leaf board books, FedExed to everyone yesterday, or couriered over to their hotel. But it was a board ritual, it had to go into the minutes, and besides, you couldn’t assume that any of them had actually read through the materials.

  Nick knew, however, that Todd Muldaur had read the financials closely, the instant he got them in Boston, the way some guys grab the sports section and devour the baseball box scores. Todd probably didn’t wait even for the printouts; he’d surely gone through the Adobe PDF files and Excel spreadsheets as soon as Scott had e-mailed them.

  Because his questions sounded awfully rehearsed. They weren’t even questions, really. They were frontal assaults.

  “I don’t believe what I’m seeing here,” he said. He looked around at the other board members—Dorothy, Davis Eilers, Dan Finegold—and the two “invited guests” who always attended the first half of the board meeting: Scott, and the Stratton general counsel who was here in her capacity as board secretary. Stephanie Alstrom was a small, serious woman with prematurely gray hair and a small, pruned mouth that seldom smiled. There was something juiceless, almost desiccated about Stephanie. Scott had once described her as a “raisin of anxiety,” and the description had stuck in Nick’s mind.

  “This is a train wreck,” Todd went on.

  “Todd, there’s no question these numbers look bad,” Nick tried to put in.

  “Look bad?” Todd shot back. “They are bad.”

  “My point is, this has been a challenging quarter—hell, a challenging year—for the entire sector,” Nick said. “Office furniture is economically sensitive, we all know that. Companies stop buying stuff practically overnight when the economy slows.”

  Todd was staring at him, rattling Nick momentarily. “I mean, look, new office installations have plummeted, business startups and expansions have slowed to almost nothing,” Nick went on. “Last couple of years, there’s been serious overcapacity in the office furniture sector, and that, combined with weaker demand across the board, has put serious downward pressure on prices and profit margins.”

  “Nick,” Todd said. “When I hear the word ‘sector,’ I reach for my barf bag.”

  Nick smiled involuntarily. “It’s the reality,” he said. He folded his arms, felt something crinkle in one of the breast pockets of his suit.

  “If I may quote Willard Osgood,” Todd went on, “‘Explanations aren’t excuses.’ There’s an explanation for everything.”

  “Uh, in all fairness to Nick,” Scott put in, “he’s just seeing these numbers for the first time.”

  “What?” said Todd. “Today? You mean, I saw these numbers before the CEO?” He turned to Nick. “You got something more important on your mind? Like, your daughter’s ballet recital or something?”

  Nick gave Scott a furious look. Yeah, it’s the first time seeing the real numbers, he thought. Not the fudged ones you wanted to fob off on them. Nick was sorely tempted to let loose, but who knew where that might lead? Nervously, he fished inside the breast pocket of his suit and found a scrap of paper, pulled it out. It was a yellow Post-it note. Laura’s handwriting: “Love you, babe. You’re the best.” A little heart and three X’s. Tears immediately sprang to his eyes. He so rarely wore this suit that he must not have had it dry-cleaned last time he wore it, before Laura’s death. He slipped the note carefully back where he’d found it.

  “Come on, now, Todd,” said Davis Eilers. “We’re all dads here.” Noticing Dorothy, he said, “Or moms.” He ignored Stephanie Alstrom, who had no kids and wasn’t married and seemed to shrink into herself as she tapped away at her laptop.

  Calm, Nick told himself, blinking away the tears. Stay calm. The room revolved slowly around him. “Scott means the final figures, Todd, but believe me, there’s no surprise here. I take heart from the fact that our profit margins are still positive.”

  “No surprise?” Todd said. “No surprise? Let me tell you something, I don’t really care how the rest of the sector’s doing. We didn’t buy Stratton because you’re like everyone else, because you’re average. We bought you because you were marquee. Same reason we use Stratton chairs and work panels and all that in our own offices in Boston, when we could have bought anything. Because you were the best in your space. Not just good enough. As Willard’s so fond of saying, ‘ “Good enough” is not good enough.’”

  “We’re still the best,” Nick said. “Bear in mind that we did our layoffs early—at your insistence, let me remind you. Everyone else waited. We got ahead of the curve.”

  “Fine, but you’re still not delivering on your plan.”

  “To be fair,” Scott pointed out, “Nick’s plan didn’t assume the economy was going to get worse.”

  “Scott,” Todd said in a deadly quiet voice, “Nick’s the CEO. He should have anticipated turns in the economy. Look, Nick, we always like to give our CEOs a lot of rope.” He gave Nick a steady blue stare. What did that mean, anyway? Give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself—was that it? “We don’t want to run your business—we want you to run your business,” Todd went on. “But not if you’re going to run it into the ground. At the end of the day, you work for us. That means that your job is to protect our investors’ capital.”

  “And the way to protect your capital,” Nick said, straining to remain civil, “is to invest in the business now, during the downturn. Now’s the time to invest in new technology. That way, when the economy comes back, we kick butt.” He looked at Dorothy. “Sorry.” She didn’t respond, her icy blue eyes focused on the middle distance.

  Todd, leafing through his board book, looked up. “Like spending thirty million dollars in the last three years in development costs for a new chair?”

  “A bargain,” Nick said. “Design and retooling costs, twenty-six patents, two separate design teams. And that’s actually less than Steelcase spent on their Leap chair, which turned out to be a great investment. Or Herman Miller spent on developing the Aeron chair. I mean, don’t forget, product design and development is a core value at Stratton.” Todd was silent for a moment. Score one for the defense. Before he could reply, Nick went on: “Now, if you want to continue this discussion, I’d like to move that we go into executive session.” The motion was seconded and approved by voice vote. This was the point when Scott, as an invited guest but not a board member, normally got up to leave. Nick caught his eye, but Scott’s expression was opaque, unreadable. He wasn’t gathering his things, wasn’t getting up.

  “Listen, Nick, we’re going to ask Scott to stay,” Todd said.

  “Really?” was all Nick could think to say. “That’s—that’s not the protocol.”

  Now Davis Eilers, who’d barely said a word, spoke up. “Nick, we’ve decided that it’s time that Scott join the board formally. We really feel that Scott’s become an important enough part of the management team that we’d like his official participation on the board. We think he can add a lot of value.”

  Nick, stunned, swallowed hard as he racked his brain for something to say. He tried to catch Scott’s eye again, but Scott was avoiding his glance. He nodded, thought. The Dan Finegold thing was outrageous. But now, adding Scott as a board member without even telling him in advance, let alone pretending to seek his opinion? He wanted to call them on it, bring it all out into the open, but all he said was, “Well, he can certainly add value.”

  “Thanks for understanding,” Eilers said.

  “Uh, Nick, we’re going to be making a few changes going forward,” Todd said.

  As opposed to what? Nick thought. Going backward? He said, “Oh?”

  “We t
hink this board should be meeting every month instead of quarterly.”

  Nick nodded. “That’s a lot of travel to Fenwick,” he said.

  “Well, we can alternate between Boston and Fenwick,” Todd said. “And we’ll be looking to see the financials weekly instead of monthly.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” Nick said slowly. “As long as Scott doesn’t mind.” Scott was examining his board book closely and didn’t look up.

  “Nick,” said Davis Eilers, “we’ve also been thinking that, if and when you decide to fire any of your direct reports—any of the executive managers—that’s going to require board approval.”

  “Well, that’s not what my contract says.” He could feel his face start to prickle.

  “No, but it’s an amendment we’d be in favor of. Sort of making sure we’re all on the same page, personnelwise. Like they say, the only constant is change.”

  “You guys are hiring me to do the best job I can,” Nick said. “Enough rope, like you always say. And you just said you want me to run the company—you don’t want to run it yourself.”

  “Of course,” Eilers said.

  Todd said, “We just don’t want any surprises. You know, keep things running smoothly.” He’d adopted a reasonable tone, no longer combative. He knew he’d won. “We’ve got an almost-two-billion-dollar company to run. That’s a big job for anyone, even someone who’s paying full attention. Hey, it’s like football, you know? You may be the quarterback, but you’re not going to have a winning team without linesmen and receivers and running backs—and coaches. Think of us as your coaches, right?”

  Nick gave a slow, faint smile. “Coaches,” he said. “Right.”

  When the board meeting came to an end an hour and a half later, Nick was the first to leave the room. He needed to get the hell out of there before he lost it. That wouldn’t be good. I’m not going to quit, he told himself. Make them fire me. Quit and you get nothing. Get fired without cause, and the payoff was considerable. Five million bucks. That was in the contract he’d negotiated when he sold to Fairfield, when the idea of getting fired seemed like science fiction. He was a rock star then; they’d never dump him.

  As he left, he noticed two people seated just outside the boardroom, a thuggy-looking blond man in a bad suit and a well-dressed, attractive black woman.

  The woman Rinaldi had told him about.

  The homicide detective.

  The woman he’d seen at Stadler’s funeral.

  “Mr. Conover,” she called out. “Could we talk to you for a few minutes?”

  Part Three

  Guilt

  37

  Nick took them into one of the conference rooms. Talking at his home base was out of the question, given the way anyone, including Marjorie, could listen in.

  He took the lead. He sat at the head of the table. The moment the two homicide detectives sat, he began speaking. He adopted a calm, authoritative tone, brisk but cordial. He was the head of a major corporation with a million things going on, and these two cops were here without an appointment, without even giving him the courtesy of a heads-up call. Yet he didn’t want to diminish the importance of what they were doing. They were investigating the murder of a Stratton employee. He wanted them to feel that he took this seriously. It was a delicate balancing act.

  He was scared shitless. He didn’t like the fact that they’d just shown up at his workplace. There was something aggressive, almost accusatory about that. He wanted to let them know, through his tone and his attitude, that he didn’t appreciate this, while at the same time communicating his respect for their mission.

  “Detectives,” he said, “I can spare maybe five minutes. You’ve caught me on my busiest day.”

  “Thanks for seeing us,” said the black woman. The blond man blinked a few times, like a Komodo dragon admiring a delicious-looking goat, but said nothing. Nick could tell that he was going to be trouble. The black woman was sweetly apologetic, an obvious pushover. The blond man—Busbee? Bugbee?—was the one to watch.

  “I wish you’d called my office and made an appointment. I’d be happy to talk to you at greater length another time.”

  “This shouldn’t take that long,” said the blond man.

  “Tell me what I can do for you,” Nick said.

  “Mr. Conover, as you know, an employee of the Stratton Company was found dead last week,” said the black woman. She was quite pretty, and there was something serene about her.

  “Yes,” Nick said. “Andrew Stadler. A terrible tragedy.”

  “Did you know Mr. Stadler?” she went on.

  Nick shook his head. “No, unfortunately. We have five thousand employees—as many as ten thousand two years ago, before we had to let so many people go—and I can’t possibly get to know everyone. Though I wish I could.” He smiled wistfully.

  “Yet you went to his funeral,” she pointed out.

  “Of course.”

  “You always go to the funerals of Stratton employees?” said the blond detective.

  “Not always. When I can, though. I don’t always feel welcome, not anymore. But I feel it’s the least I can do.”

  “You never met Mr. Stadler, is that right?” the black woman said.

  “Right.”

  “You were aware of his…situation, though, isn’t that right?” she continued.

  “His situation?”

  “His personal troubles.”

  “I heard later that he’d been hospitalized, but plenty of people have mental illness and aren’t violent.”

  “Oh?” the black detective said quickly. “How did you know he’d been hospitalized? Did you see his personnel file?”

  “Didn’t I read it in the newspaper?”

  “There wasn’t anything in the paper about that,” said the blond man.

  “Must’ve been,” Nick said. There had been something in the paper, hadn’t there? “Said something about a ‘troubled emotional history’ or something, right?”

  “Nothing about hospitalization,” the blond man said firmly.

  “Someone must have mentioned it to me, then.”

  “Your corporate security director, Edward Rinaldi?”

  “Possibly. But I don’t recall.”

  “I see,” the black woman said, jotting something down.

  “Mr. Conover, did Edward Rinaldi tell you he thought Andrew Stadler was the guy who killed your dog?” the blond cop asked.

  Nick squinted, as if trying to recall. He remembered asking Eddie about this.

  Told her you didn’t even know who the guy was. Pretty much true.

  “I never even heard the name,” Nick had said. “Right? You tell her otherwise?”

  “Exactly. Told her you’re a busy guy, I do my job, you don’t get involved.”

  “Eddie didn’t mention any names to me,” Nick said.

  “Is that right?” the woman said, sounding surprised.

  Nick nodded. “To be honest, it’s been a rough year. I’m the head of a company that’s had to let half its employees go. There’s a lot of anger out there, understandably.”

  “You’re not the most popular man in town,” she suggested.

  “That’s putting it mildly. I’ve gotten angry letters from downsized employees, really heartbreaking letters.”

  “Threats?” she asked.

  “Could be, but I wouldn’t know about them.”

  “How could you not know about threats?” the male cop said.

  “I’m not the first to open my mail here. If I get a threatening letter, it goes right to Security—I never see it.”

  “You don’t want to know?” he said. “Me, I’d want to know.”

  “Not me. Not unless I need to know for some reason. The less I know, the better.”

  “Really?” said the blond man.

  “Really. I don’t like to go around feeling paranoid. There’s no point in it.”

  “Did Mr. Rinaldi tell you why he was looking into Mr. Stadler’s background?” the bla
ck woman persisted.

  “No. I didn’t even know he was.”

  “He didn’t tell you later he’d been looking into Stadler?” she persisted.

  “Nope. He never told me anything about Stadler. I mean, I had no idea—have no idea—what Eddie was looking into. He does his job and I do mine.”

  “Mr. Rinaldi never even mentioned Stadler’s name to you?” the woman said.

  “Not that I recall, no.”

  “I’m confused,” she said. “I thought you just said Mr. Rinaldi might have told you about Andrew Stadler’s hospitalization. Which would sort of require him to mention Stadler’s name, right?”

  Nick felt the tiniest trickle of sweat run slowly down his earlobe. “After the news of Stadler’s death came out, Eddie may have mentioned his name to me in passing. But I really don’t recall.”

  “Hmm,” the woman said. A few seconds of silence went by.

  Nick ignored the sweat trickle, not wanting to call attention to it by brushing it away.

  “Mr. Conover,” said the blond man, “your house has been broken into a bunch of times in the last year, right? Since the layoffs began?”

  “Several times, yes.”

  “By the same person?”

  “It’s hard to say. But I’d guess, yeah, the same person.”

  “There was graffiti and such?”

  “Graffiti spray-painted inside my house, on the walls.”

  “What kind of graffiti?” the black detective asked.

  “‘No hiding place.’”

  “That’s what they wrote?”

  “Right.”

  “Did you receive any death threats?”

  “No. Ever since the layoffs started, two years ago, I’ve gotten occasional threatening phone calls, but nothing quite that specific.”

  “Well, your family dog was killed,” said the blond detective. “That’s sort of a death threat, wouldn’t you say?”

  Nick considered for a moment. “Possibly. Whatever it was, it was a sick, depraved thing to do.” He worried that he’d just gone too far: had be just betrayed his anger? Yet how else would he be expected to react? He noticed that the black woman wrote something down in her notebook.