The Dirty Secret

by Brent Wolfingbarger

  Rikki muted the TV, reactivated the music and continued running, lost in thought as the treadmill whirred along. Although she was a loyal Democrat who had enthusiastically voted for Senator Wilson, the campaign’s ties to Mazniashvili made her uncomfortable. Though they frequently clashed on political matters, she had never known Dave to speak untruthfully about anything. He had foibles and flaws, for sure – some of which she found utterly maddening – but dishonesty was not one of them.

  On the other hand, she hadn’t spoken to Dave in almost fifteen years. A good deal of that time Dave had lived and worked in D.C., a town not exactly renowned for truthfulness. Who knew how much he might have changed after a decade and a half in that environment?

  But as she stared at the television, intensely studying his face, her heart told her Dave had not changed at all. That self-confident glint in his green eyes. That fiery tone of defiance in his voice as he belittled his opponent’s arguments. No, that was not some changed man from her past she barely recognized. The handsome, smiling face she saw staring back at her on TV belonged to the same brilliant, incisive, passionate, articulate, funny, infuriatingly conservative and pigheaded man she had fallen in love with so long ago. She was certain of it.

  Red lights on the treadmill’s display began flashing and the conveyor belt slowed down. Have I really been running for 45 minutes? Her labored breathing coupled with the streams of sweat flowing down her arms, back and legs rendered that conclusion irrefutable.

  Rikki’s pace slowed, as she caught her breath and lowered her heart rate. Toweling off her face and neck, she turned off the TV and walked upstairs to get ready for the day.

  Entering the master bedroom, Rikki kicked off her shoes and socks and stripped out of her sweaty workout clothes. Strolling into the bathroom naked, she pulled back the shower curtain and turned on the water.

  Waiting for the shower to heat up, Rikki exhaled deeply. Running her hands through her long, sweaty black hair, she stared in the mirror. Even though she was pushing forty, she thought she had taken pretty good care of herself over the years. Sure, she might not be as perky and tight in certain places as she had been in her twenties, but she knew she still turned men’s heads. Her face was unlined, causing most people to underestimate her age, and she knew she had an exotic look that frequently elicited questions about the precise nature of her ethnicity.

  Turning away from the mirror, she stepped into the shower and closed the curtain. The water felt wonderful, and she closed her eyes as she stuck her face beneath the showerhead and wet her long hair. As she worked a big handful of shampoo into her hair, her mind ran rampant.

  Why am I suddenly so distracted by thoughts of Dave? For years, she felt confident she had put their breakup behind her and moved on with her life. Now she had doubts. Maybe it was the recent conversations with her mom and Jack, or maybe it was because she had seen him on TV so much lately. Regardless, she wasn’t happy with the situation.

  Rikki rinsed the shampoo from her hair and poured a mass of fragrant orange body wash into a loofah sponge, reflecting as she lathered it onto her arms. She hadn’t been a shrinking violet since breaking up with Dave; far from it. She had dated numerous men on a short-term basis and had a few longer relationships as well. She honestly could not remember a time when she had lacked attractive romantic options, including several viewed as “keepers” by her friends. But for whatever reason, she inevitably found her suitors lacking in some way. And then it was just a matter of time before she would end the relationship, much to the frequent exasperation of those around her.

  Oh, well. There’s no sense getting all worked up about it. If she was destined to fall in love again and perhaps even get married, she had faith it would happen when the circumstances were right. And if not … Well, if that were the case, she thought she would be okay with that too.

  Rikki shut off the water and grabbed two thick cotton towels. Drying herself off, she wrapped her long hair up in one of the towels and stepped onto a bath mat before making her way into the bedroom.

  Forty minutes later, she was fully clothed in a comfortable baby blue sweater, designer jeans and a pair of snazzy black boots. Sitting alone in her breakfast nook, she sipped on a cup of coffee heavily flavored with cream and sugar as a plate with toast crumbs and dried egg yolk sat in front of her. Sunshine poured into the room through a bay window overlooking her back yard, and the cloudless sky greeting her this morning was a mesmerizing, flawless shade of blue.

  Staring out the window, she saw two whitetail deer walk cautiously out of the woods into her unfenced yard. A big, healthy-looking doe and her fawn were enjoying the warm weather, blissfully unaware that the woods would be swarming with rifle-toting hunters in only eight days. Just as Rikki began wondering how the doe would fare, her thoughts were interrupted by her cell phone ringing. She answered the phone without even looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Rikki. It’s Jack. How are you doing?”

  “Good,” she replied energetically. “I just finished breakfast, and now I’m debating whether I can squeeze in time for church today. What’s going on?”

  “I need to get those financial records to you. And I was hoping we could get together to go over a few things, including an interesting email I received this morning.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who was it from?”

  “I should just show you the email in person. Let’s just say I found it very interesting, and it’s very sensitive.”

  “You’ve piqued my curiosity, Jack. How does two o’clock at the courthouse sound? I need to start moving my stuff in there because I may be taking over sooner than expected.”

  “That’s what I heard. Sounds smart, especially if Joe’s health is as bad as they say.”

  Rikki shook her head and smiled. Dear Lord! Yet another reminder of just how quickly news spreads around here. “So does two o’clock work for you, Mr. Chatty Cathy?” she asked with a giggle.

  “Two will be fine.”

  “I’ll meet you at the door facing the refinery,” Rikki clarified.

  “Gotcha. See you then.”

  Rikki hung up, finished her java and carried her plate and mug to the kitchen sink. I wonder what this email is all about? Did he catch Tabatha fooling around? Between politics, his crazy wife and the Schoolcraft lease cancellation suit, it could be anything.

  Two hours later, Rikki opened the heavy glass courthouse door with one hand while clutching a stuffed banker’s box beneath the other. After six trips lugging boxes from her hybrid SUV up three flights of stairs to her new office, her breathing was labored.

  Maybe I’m not in as good shape as I thought I was!

  As she prepared to lock the door behind her, a car horn blared. Glancing up, she saw a gray Durango stopped in the road between the courthouse and a rusting oil refinery. The barrel-chested figure of Sheriff Vaughn was behind the wheel. “Howdy, Rikki,” Vaughn’s rich bass voice called. “What’re you doing here today?”

  Rikki propped the door open with a box and strolled toward the cruiser, her black boots pounding the pavement with each step. Crossing the street fluidly, her light blue sweater and designer jeans tastefully accentuated her figure without clinging to it. “Just moving in some of my things, getting ready to take over. How are you doing?”

  The Sheriff’s lower lip bulged with snuff and he lifted a paper cup to his mouth, spitting a stream of vile-looking brownish residue into it. “No complaints.”

  As always, a man of few words, Rikki noted.

  Squatting down, she rested her elbows on the open window sill while staying safely away from the Sheriff’s spittoon. “Sometime soon, we need to go over all of our pending cases. Make sure we have everything we need for trial and that we’re all on the same page with things.”

  Vaughn nodded, fixing Rikki in the same screwball-eyed gaze that had made her uneasy since she was a kid. Quickly remembering that Vaughn’s scar was beneath his left eye, Rikki focused on his functional right one.

/>   Vaughn’s good eye flashed. “Sure thing, as long as it’s before the end of next weekend. Next Monday is the first day of deer season.” He shot her a toothy grin. “Good luck finding me then.”

  Rikki threw back her head and laughed aloud. “So fighting crime takes a back seat to deer hunting around here, eh, Sheriff?”

  Vaughn spit into his cup, nodding and grinning sheepishly. “Something like that. Unless something big breaks loose, I figure it can wait ‘til rifle season is over.”

  Jack McCallen walked around the corner of the courthouse carrying his own bankers’ box. “Don’t you go distracting my lawyer, Doug! I need her full attention today.”

  The sheriff set his spittoon down in the cupholder and waved. “No problem, Senator. I need to hit the road anyway. Ya’ll be good.”

  Vaughn shifted the vehicle into gear and Rikki stepped away from the cruiser. Rolling up the window, the Sheriff saluted crisply and drove away.

  Meeting Jack on the sidewalk, Rikki tapped his banker’s box. “Looks like you’re about to get a hernia.”

  McCallen snorted. “If so, it will be your fault for making me dig through our storage unit for these old records. This lawsuit’s going to be death of me!”

  Rikki giggled, picked up her own box and held the door open with her foot. “Quit your belly-aching, Jack. This is a painful, but necessary part of the process. If we don’t produce these records, we have no chance of winning. And you don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  “No,” he grumbled, trudging up the stairs. “It’s just a pain in the ass.”

  Rikki locked the door and followed suit. “I know. But complaining about it won’t make it any better. Do you think I like being cooped up inside on a beautiful day like today?”

  “All right, all right. You’ve made your point. I’ll keep my griping to a minimum.”

  They wound their way upstairs and entered the prosecutor’s office where half-empty boxes were strewn throughout the place. “Sorry about the mess,” Rikki apologized. “I hope to have a handle on things by the time the Commission meets on Wednesday.”

  McCallen set his box down on an empty patch of table space in the conference room. “Is that when they’re appointing you to finish out Joe’s term?”

  Rikki hefted the box she was hauling onto the table. “Supposedly. But I won’t know ‘til tomorrow if they got it on the agenda in time.”

  A few minutes later, the conference table was clear enough to spread out Jack’s files for review. Methodically, they pored over the documents and separated them into two piles: One for those that had to be disclosed to the plaintiffs and a second for those that did not fall within the scope of materials covered by the discovery requests or were protected from disclosure due to some sort of privilege. All the documents were run through a “Bates” machine and imprinted with unique identification numbers. For each document believed to be privileged, Rikki made notes regarding why it was not required to be disclosed.

  Nearing the end of the process, Rikki hunched over the table and rubbed her temples with both hands. “According to the production logs, when did you last generate any marketable volume of gas from the wells on this property?”

  Clad in a black and gold Pittsburgh Steelers sweatshirt, Jack paced along the far side of the table. His hands were buried in the front pockets of his mud-stained blue jeans as he closed his eyes, scanning his memory. “Just a little under two years ago.”

  Rikki winced. “I thought you said it was one year.”

  Jack shook his head. “The mineral owners’ last royalty checks were cut about a year ago. But only a marginal amount of gas is reflected in the production logs for the past eighteen months, probably just free gas provided for the mineral owners’ homes. Our records don’t indicate we’ve sold much gas from those wells during the past 30 months or so.”

  “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  McCallen sighed. “Yeah. It looks like we haven’t been fully developing or marketing the gas from those wells for almost two years.”

  Rikki put aside the folder and nodded. “Not good. But then again, it’s been nine months since they filed suit to cancel the lease, and they were harassing your crews well before that.”

  Jack whirled on his heel and faced her. With his hands spread apart, palms upward, he declared, “How could we get gas from those wells after they shot at us and ran us off the land?!”

  “If the jury believes your crew’s testimony, that’s fine,” she replied. “The plaintiffs wouldn’t be able to hold that period of time against you. It all comes down to whether your actions marketing the gas from those wells to third parties and exploring the possibility of drilling additional wells on the property were reasonable. But reasonable is in the eye of the beholder, which means the judge might deny our motion for summary judgment and let a jury look at the facts for themselves.”

  McCallen’s face turned red. “We’re going to have to go to trial on this damn thing?”

  Rikki stiffened. “If the production logs and sales invoices don’t show more gas going through the wellhead meters than the plaintiffs have used in their own homes, I’d say so.”

  Jack looked dumbfounded. “You’ve got to be kidding me! That means this suit will still be hanging over my head until July! I thought it all would be wrapped up by May!”

  “That’s still a possibility. But our judge hates to take cases away from a jury. Especially when you’re dealing with property rights.”

  McCallen closed his eyes, slumped his head and leaned forward, resting his hands on the back of a chair across the table from Rikki. “I can’t make it that long,” he said softly.

  Rikki cocked her head, turning her left ear toward him. “What did you say?”

  Jack raised his eyes. “I can’t make it that long. Between the expenses from this lawsuit, the cost of trying to get other old leaseholds back into production before they lapse, and trying to make payroll, I’ll be bankrupt by July.”

  Rikki sat silently for about twenty seconds. “I had no idea things were that tight, Jack. Why didn’t you say something to me about it earlier?”

  “And what could you have done about it, if you had known?!” he half-shouted. “The plaintiffs have made it clear from the get-go their only objective in this suit is to get my lease canceled. Not modified, not broken into a bunch of smaller leaseholds. Canceled. And we both know that’s because one of the big boys is trying to backdoor me by promising to sweeten the pot if bidding on that leasehold comes open again.”

  Rikki didn’t deny his assertion. “So what are you going to do? Can you get a credit line to make it through this suit and get the other leases back in production?”

  McCallen laughed bitterly. “I’ve applied for loans with every bank within a hundred miles of here. I’ve even talked to banks in Columbus and Pittsburgh. No takers.”

  “How much money have you asked for?”

  “Three million. The problem is, the bankers all know about this lawsuit because it’s disclosed on my application as a contingent liability. Plus my credit scores took a hit last year when I had to juggle some bills to replace the drill rig that blew up.”

  “I remember that.” Rikki’s absent-mindedly tapped an ink pen on the table, first one end, then the other, pondering her client’s predicament.

  “And while we’re discussing my financial illiquidity,” Jack segued. “I want you to look at this email.” He reached into his rear pocket and extracted a piece of paper folded into quarters.

  “I still don’t know what to make of it.”

  Rikki unfolded it and began reading:

  Partnership Opportunity

  From: alex.beria@petromica.com

  To: Jack@mccallenresources.com

  Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2:31 pm

  Attachments: mccallen.xls

  Dear Mr. McCallen,

  In exploring new investment opportunities, our analysts have identified your company as a potential partner. The purpose of this email is to
provide you with some information about us, and to gauge your interest in joining forces.

  Petromica is a privately-held Bahamian limited liability company focused on energy investments. Over the past five years, our gross revenues and net profits have grown significantly. During the last fiscal year, Petromica’s net profits totaled $45 million and our investments’ net worth exceeded a quarter of a billion dollars. For more information, including independent financial audits, visit our website at www.petromica.com.

  We’ve thrived by identifying opportunities that more conservative firms might deem too risky and acting aggressively to exploit them. After examining the publicly available information, we believe McCallen Resources offers us a prime opportunity to obtain significant investment returns at a tolerable risk. Moreover, partnering with your firm would allow Petromica to expand its footprint into the Appalachian Basin, which we believe possesses some of the most under-developed natural gas deposits in the world.

  Please review the attached spreadsheet our analysts have prepared in the course of their research. If the same accurately reflects your company’s current financial condition, please be advised that Petromica would be interested in partnering with McCallen Resources (“MR”) along the following general lines:

  1. Petromica would invest a total of $25 million dollars in MR for the purpose of fully developing its existing inventory of mineral leases, focusing on drilling new wells at depths exceeding 6000 feet on existing leaseholds and an emphasis on horizontal wells penetrating into the Marcellus Shale.

  2. In exchange for its investment, Petromica would get a 49% equity stake in MR.