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CHAPTER twenty-seven

  Suddenly I was very tired and realized that my whole body was trembling slightly from the aftershock of finding out what the police wanted. My psyche had steeled itself for a disaster - a personal shock - and when that didn’t happen, my body didn’t react and get back to normal as quickly.

  Harold’s door was still closed as I went past and none of the legal support staff were in their area so I closeted myself in my office and lit a cigarette.

  The red light was flashing on my phone and I knew I had to get back to work. I had accomplished little today and if things kept going the way they were, I wouldn’t feel too good about leaving at five. And I was leaving at five. Harold may have a short memory, but I didn’t.

  I grabbed my notebook and dialled into my voice mail. THIRTEEN new messages, the computer voice intoned. Thirteen new messages in two hours. It certainly wasn’t a record for the most messages received in two hours but it was close. I guessed things had been busier than I thought.

  I worked my way through the messages, making notes about who I had to call back. Harold had left me three, describing things he needed done. None of them mentioned Rick Cox or the papers from Cleve.

  Two of the messages were from Danny and one was from Jay. I decided to call Danny first.

  The phone rang a couple of times on the other end and when Danny answered he sounded out of breath.

  "Hello."

  "Hi Danny. It’s Kate. How’re you doing? You sound out of breath."

  "I was upstairs. Cleaning out Mom’s room. Trying to sort through her things."

  God, that must be an awful job, I thought. It would tear my heart out. I hoped he wasn’t calling to ask me to help him so I quickly changed the subject.

  "You left me a couple of messages. What’s up?"

  "I just wanted to let you know that they’ve released her body and I’ve made the funeral arrangements. There’ll be visitation tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening and we’ll bury her on Wednesday morning. We’ll have a service in the chapel at the funeral home before we go to the cemetery. I’d like it if you could come by, Kate."

  "Oh, Danny. Of course. I’ll be there. Tomorrow afternoon and evening. Both. If you want. Anything. Are you doing okay?"

  "I’m getting there," he said. He did sound a lot better than he had on Friday night when I last talked to him. "We’re all getting there. Little Sarah is still pretty upset. She keeps asking if Grandma’s an angel now."

  My throat tightened up.

  "Well, I’ll be there. Which funeral home, Danny?"

  "The Hillson Memorial Home, on Clark. It’s near Exhibition Stadium."

  "I know the one. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. Call me in the meantime if you want anything," I said.

  "Uh, Kate. One other thing. I went to the police this morning," he said quietly.

  "I know Danny. Why’d you do that?" I asked him softly.

  "Because it didn’t seem right. The autopsy said she’d died from an allergic reaction to peanuts. And they ruled the death accidental. But the coroner told me she had very high levels of peanut oil in her system. It didn’t make any sense. First of all, we both know mom wouldn’t eat anything she suspected might have peanut oil in it. Secondly, if she couldn’t confirm the ingredients in something, she just didn’t eat it. You guys all knew about her allergy didn’t you? She trusted you. And look what happened." He started to sob. "Someone did this to her. I just want to know why. This wasn’t accidental. I’m sure of it."

  "We’ll let the police decide that Danny. It had to have been an accident," I tried to convince him. "Who would want to kill your mother? Think about it. If there was anything wrong here at the office she would have told me or you. She didn’t have anything to hide. Danny, I think this was just a horrible accident."

  "Did the police come and see you? I told them to talk to you."

  "Yes, a police officer came by a little while ago. She took away some food to have it tested. We’ll know better when they get the results if it was something she ate at the party."

  "It had to be something she ate at the party. Peanut allergies kick in right away. It’s not like food poisoning you know," he said.

  "I know. Look, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?"

  I hung up after we said good-bye and put my head in my hands. This day was an emotional roller-coaster. I thought about leaving Harold a message that I was sick and going home but thought better of it. If Danny wanted me at the funeral home tomorrow afternoon, I’d only be in the office for the morning. And with the funeral on Wednesday morning, I’d be so behind by Wednesday afternoon, I’d never catch up.

  I wondered if I should let anyone here at the office know that the police were now involved. They’d probably find out soon enough though. If Constable Lofaro had been waiting for any length of time in the reception, everyone would’ve known about it because tongues wag very quickly around here. Except for Harold there wasn’t one officer of the company I trusted to take the situation seriously.

  Before I did anything else I called the office manager again. I got her voice mail and left her a message. I asked her to send a broadcast e-mail message to all employees letting them know about the funeral arrangements for Ev. I also asked her to send some flower arrangements to the funeral home.

  I made a quick call to Vee to find out about the stock price and was shocked when she told me it was down two dollars so far for the day.

  "That brings us close to seven dollars," I said unnecessarily.

  "I know. We’re getting close to the price the shares were at four years ago when Oakes joined us. If the company lasts and we keep our jobs, I hope the shareholders fry his ass at the next shareholders’ meeting," she said vehemently.

  "Gee, Vanessa. Don’t beat around the bush. Just come out with it and let us know how you really feel," I joked. She laughed reluctantly.

  I returned some more calls and actually got some work done. Harold had asked me in one of his messages to call all of the out-of-town directors to ask them where to send their packages of materials for the board meeting on Thursday. Is the man in his right mind? If the materials haven’t gone out by now, and past history was any indication, the board members wouldn’t receive any material until they were seated at the table and the Chairman called the meeting to order. It was Monday and there was no sign of the documents being ready in time to send out today. If we sent them Tuesday by overnight courier, the directors wouldn’t receive the packages until noon on Wednesday at the earliest, and by then, most of the out-of-town directors would be on their way to Toronto for the meeting on Thursday morning. This was a lame exercise we went through every time there was a meeting, and I was sick of playing the game.

  Jackie could make the phone calls and take the heat from the directors’ secretaries. They got tired of playing the game as well and would usually get pretty snippy with me. Or, if they were feeling particularly benevolent that day, they’d put me straight through to Mr. Director himself who would proceed to chew me out for not getting the documents out on time. No way. I was tired of going through the motions and being made a fool of.

  I dialled Jackie to find out if Harold’s door was open yet and she said she hadn’t seen him all day and that as far as she knew, the door hadn’t opened.

  "So he still hasn’t received those documents I gave you this morning?" I asked her.

  "Nope. And the courier package from Scapelli’s is still sitting here. Want me to bring them back in to you?"

  "Please." I wanted to get a look at Rick Cox’s severance package.

  The courier package was a large envelope taped up very tightly. The front and back were stamped in red: "Confidential. To be opened by addressee only." Harold Didrickson was the addressee so I opened the envelope. What the hell, I thought. Some secretaries have very strict orders about opening confidential material but I had never received any such orders from Harold. I be
lieve he trusted me.

  The documents inside the envelope were very interesting. The company was kicking in section 4(a) of Rick Cox’s employment agreement. The ‘termination without cause’ section. And termination without cause entitled Rick to three times his annual salary. I flipped to Schedule "A" of the document where they attached a copy of the actual employment agreement. Section 1(a) of the employment agreement stated that his annual salary was $550,000 a year. And that was a couple of years ago. If I remembered correctly from last year’s annual information form, Rick’s salary had gone up considerably.

  I continued reading the main document. He was going to receive just over $2,000,000 in severance and was entitled to his exercisable stock options. I was too sick to do a quick calculation on what he’d make on those. Son of a bitch. I must get me fired one of these days. And then I remembered, I didn’t have an employment agreement, and, I’d be lucky if the company gave me two weeks notice. They could get rid of me for not putting my dirty coffee cup in the dishwasher.

  Well, well, well. I’m sure the two million dollars would smooth Rick’s transition. Make him feel a little better about getting fired for fucking the company. Jay wouldn’t be getting anything.

  I picked up the documents from Scapelli’s and all the other stuff for Harold that had accumulated over the day. I got the keys to his office from my desk drawer. I had decided to barge in if the door was locked.

  Which it was. I knocked and when I didn’t get any answer, I went in. Harold was lying on the sofa in his office with one arm over his eyes and I couldn’t tell if he was sleeping.

  "Harold," I said softly.

  "I asked you not to disturb me," he said.

  "Well, I wasn’t sure if you were in or not," I lied. "I went out for lunch earlier on and I didn’t know if you had gone out." I dropped the documents in his basket.

  "What part of do not disturb don’t you understand?" he asked me snidely. What a prick.

  "The disturb part. I don’t understand disturb, Harold," I retorted. "Disturb means to bother. I’m not bothering you. I’m doing my job. And if you’re finished your little nap, maybe you should do yours." I looked at my watch. It was four-thirty. That meant it was six o'clock in Newfoundland. Good enough for me. Harold continued to lie on the sofa with his forearm covering his eyes.

  "And," I continued. "It’s quitting time. I’ll see you tomorrow for the morning. I’ll be out tomorrow afternoon and Wednesday morning. If anyone’s focused on the board materials by tomorrow morning, I’d be glad to get working on them. If not, it’ll have to wait until Wednesday afternoon. If I come back from Evelyn’s funeral. The family may need me."

  "I expect you to be here on Wednesday after the funeral. There’ll be a lot of things to get ready for the board meeting. We need you to do up a stock option report in the morning. I understand Jay’s no longer with us and you’ll have to do it." He said all of this in a monotone.

  I walked over to where he was lying and looked down at him. He removed his arm from over his eyes and looked up at me. He looked like shit. But didn’t we all these days.

  "In mourning for Rick?" I asked him. I knew I was treading on thin ice here and didn’t care. He’d shown absolutely no emotion when Ev died and I had no sympathy for him.

  He sat up and put his elbows on his knees and looked up at me.

  "Kate. You’re a smart girl. Think about the effect Rick’s departure is going to have on me. Ergo, the effect it’s going to have on you. Have a little sympathy here."

  A hot flash coursed through my veins and I tried, I really tried, to keep my temper in check.

  "Sympathy?" I said quietly through clenched teeth. "Sympathy? You want to know where to find sympathy? It’s in the dictionary. Look it up. It’s between shit and syphilis."

  I slammed the door behind me on my way out.