“Hello, I’m the jerk you likely believe to be partly responsible for your child’s illness.”
Hopefully, she was only still ill. He had yet to hear or read any reports of the girl having died. And hoped things would stay that way.
With a shake of his head, he went through the door himself and was ushered into Dr. Munger’s office not a minute later. He had spoken with the man on several occasions before, of course, their two jobs being intricately linked. Their last visit had been only a week earlier, when the second-grade student had died after eating lunch at a St. Peter school. Then, Dr. Munger had made the appointment with Preston in order to discuss possible issues with food quality. Preston had assured him that their plant followed FDA regulations to the letter, and that there could be nothing in the resulting products that could have caused a problem.
This time – yesterday, as a matter of fact – the regional president of the company had asked Preston to call another meeting. “We need to make sure that the school district,” Guy Polowsky had told him, “and especially every parent of every kid in the district, understands that these incidents have nothing to do with our food.”
Preston certainly hoped this was the case. But if forced at gunpoint, he might just admit that his confidence in his company’s food quality had taken a dive during the past couple of days.
But he wasn’t being forced at gunpoint now. Although, if the looks on the faces of the two men looking at him now could kill, Preston would have to scream, “Uncle!”
The cold from outside suddenly seemed to have followed him into the room, and he had to work to paste a professional smile on his face. No matter his opinion, he was there to represent Delico Foods, a national company that had been filling grocery store shelves with a wide variety of products for decades. And he was to represent it as a shining, flawless star in the food manufacturing industry.
Dr. Munger nodded with fiery eyes in response to his smile, waving his hand at the chair across from his desk. Preston took this as an invitation to sit down, and so he did – though he would have preferred to remain standing. He had a twisty feeling in his gut that told him something was wrong. Very wrong.
He felt like he should be prepared to flee at a moment’s notice.
Dr. Munger briefly introduced the attorney by his side. Then he stated, “This has to stop.”
That was all. Amazing how the rotund man managed to fill four small words with such a tenor of venomous accusation.
Preston let his fake smile fade. “There is nothing wrong with the food we are providing to your school district.”
That was bad. He was getting defensive, and making assumptions. In essence, pushing himself into the exact corner Munger wanted him to be in.
The nutrition director leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “And I hope the inspections find just that, Mr., uh, Brenner.” He looked over Preston’s shoulder at the office door. “The last thing we need is an uprising from parents such as the one who just left this office.”
Preston mirrored Munger’s stance, down to the narrowed eyes. “That woman’s daughter is very ill. She must be in a very emotional state just now. I’m sure whatever she said to upset you meant nothing.” Why Preston felt obligated to rise to her defense, he had no idea. But the first time he met Munger, the man had seemed sympathetic and compassionate, truly wanting to discover why kids were getting sick from school lunches. Today, he was almost a different person. Arrogant. Harsh. Unyielding.
“Nothing,” Munger repeated with a deepening frown. “A presumptuous remark to make, since you weren’t even in the room at the time, don’t you think?” Then he leaned back slightly and raised his brow. “Or did you happen to overhear?”
The tone in which Munger asked the question indicated that if Preston did hear anything from the last meeting, it had not been merely accidental.
Preston chafed. Since when was he the bad guy? And why was he letting this peon get the better of him? Preston probably made three times the salary of a school district nutrition director, and certainly had more clout. He knew he needed to regain control of the conversation, but was afraid it might be too late.
“I came into the building as the lady was walking out.” He forced a smile. “I like to think that I have enough human compassion to imagine what a person in her shoes might be going through. Regardless,” he added quickly, as Munger opened his mouth to give what was likely going to be another retort, “the fact remains that Delico Foods has nothing to hide or be ashamed of, whether from you or from any of the parents in the St. Peter school district.”
Dr. Munger cut his eyes toward the lawyer, who had sat stiff and unmoving, his sly smile stuck to his face, the entire time. Mr. Johnson merely lifted one shoulder a hairbreadth in reply to what appeared to be an unspoken plea for help.
Munger sighed and looked back at Preston. For the first time since Preston came into the office, he smiled – though his smile was obviously as fake as Preston’s. “I want you to be aware of something, Mr. Brenner. I was in meetings half the day yesterday with school district officials, who were demanding that I find out what’s going on. When I wasn’t in a meeting, I had reporters knocking on my door and calling me about the situation.
“Over the past two days, a hundred parents have pulled their kids out of the school lunch program and three hundred have threatened to move their kids to another district entirely unless we prove that our schools are safe. I have another meeting this afternoon with my superiors, where I’m sure there will be another pleasant tar and feathering event, of which my rear end will be the main focus. I am under pressure to solve this problem, Mr. Brenner, and to solve it quickly.” He shot his words out at machine-gun speed, his face growing redder by the second. “And right now, my only recourse is to make sure that those who provide our food here are adhering to the strictest regulations of purity.”
This was nothing new. Preston’s last meeting with this man, although enveloped in camaraderie and good humor, had been for the same purpose.
“So, what am I doing here today?” Preston wanted to retort in a clipped voice. His own desk was piled high with unfinished reports and papers that needed to be read and signed. He had phone calls to make, e-mails to initiate and reply to. This meeting was turning out to be not only a major waste of his time, but also a personal attack – on his company’s reputation or his professional competence, he wasn’t yet sure. Perhaps both.
“Our standards and procedures haven’t changed one iota in the past month, Dr. Munger.” Preston practically winced to have to use the elitist title. “Perhaps you need to focus your inspections on the cafeteria ladies who prepare the meals for the kiddos.”
Johnson’s brow arched while Munger’s jaw tightened, his smile abruptly disappearing. The silence that followed Preston’s comment, stated in the most indifferent, professional tone he could conjure, was thicker than Delico’s famous peanut butter.
Finally, Munger straightened his large shoulders, causing the chair to groan under his weight. “I called this meeting, hoping we could put our heads together and figure out a more efficient way to take care of this…problem.” He glanced at Johnson, then turned back to Preston. “But if Delico Foods is unwilling to cooperate – “
“Delico Foods is agreeing to take some serious losses by having to slow down operations while these extraneous inspections take place.” Preston swallowed the rising fury burning his throat. “We will likely lose millions in sales as we take the brunt of the blame for the unfortunate mishaps with those children. Even though,” he leaned forward to emphasize his point, “there is no proof, and likely never will be, that our product has anything to do with any of this. We are cooperating as much as can be realistically expected.”
Another long pause. Preston spent it wondering if he was on the verge of losing his job. If the CEO of Delico – or even his immediate local supervisor – got wind of this meeting and decided Preston had gone too far, he would be dismissed.
The thought made him cringe. He had come too far in his career to have to start over. But he wasn’t about to let this fat, pompous bobble-head insult him any further.
Finally, Munger tore his gaze away from him, grabbing a sheaf of papers and pretending to study them. “Good day, Mr. Brenner.”
**********
“It wouldn’t kill us to eat regular hamburger from a regular store once in a while.” Lucy’s husband, Mario, thrust the grocery receipt back into her hand and stalked into the living room. Barely five-foot-three, his stocky, muscular build made up for his slight height.
Lucy followed him. “How do you know?” She shook the slip of paper in his face as he dropped into his recliner. “What about mad cow disease? What about the steroids that increase the risk of cancer and heart problems?”
It was an old argument, which they usually had when the construction company Mario worked for was having a dry spell. Mario would insist that his family could be just as healthy eating food from a conventional grocery store, and save money – a lot of it. Lucy would disagree, quoting facts and statistics about the dangers of pesticides sprayed on fruits and vegetables, about the questionable quality of meat that had been pumped up with various chemicals.
She’d done a lot of research on food and nutrition after their son Juan died, and within a year had begun shopping exclusively at health food stores. If she could help it, none of her family would ever ingest a poisonous man-made chemical again.
Mario reached for the newspaper on the coffee table. “How many people do you know of that have fallen ill from mad cow disease?” His dark eyes flashed anger just before he turned them downward.
Lucy got right in front of him, knowing he felt her glare, annoyed that he was ignoring it. “Mario, look at me.”
With an exasperated sigh, he complied. “I know, I know.” He scratched his mustache as he continued, “God wants us to have the best, and He’ll provide it, so I need to stop worrying about how high the grocery bill is.”
Seeing the hardness melt away from her husband’s face made Lucy’s ire begin to fade. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’re getting to be a good husband. Parroting everything I’ve taught you.”
He swatted her wide backside – although not nearly as wide as it used to be – as she passed him, and she turned to see him giving her a sly grin. “Be careful, or I’ll get you while you sleep.”
Lucy giggled. “I might like that.”
“Oh, gross, Mom and Dad!” Their younger daughter, fourteen-year-old Emma, emerged from the hallway. “Now I’ll have bad dreams tonight.” She sat down on the sofa next to her mother, who grabbed her in a playful embrace.
“Oh, I’m sorry, baby,” Lucy said as she squeezed her squirming daughter. “Let Mama kiss it and make it all better.”
“I’m not a baby,” Emma mumbled, but did not pull back from the wet kiss Lucy planted on her cheek. “Were you guys fighting about food again?”
Lucy exchanged a glance with Mario. Before their eldest, Gabriel, had been born, they’d decided their children would never hear them argue. For most of their nineteen years of marriage, they’d managed to keep their resolve.
“No,” Mario said, “we were just having a loud discussion.”
“Whatever.” Emma flopped back, stretching out her legs. “Hey, Ma, how’s that girl—what’s her name?—doing?”
“Oh, Melissa?” Lucy hesitated. How much should she say?
“She must be doing pretty bad.” Emma yawned. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be afraid to talk.”
The insinuation renewed Lucy’s anger, and she turned toward Emma. “I ain’t afraid of nothin’.”
“You better tell God you’re sorry. For lying.”
Emma, thin and athletic, was up off the sofa and down the hall before Lucy could react. She looked at Mario. “Are you going to let her get away with that?”
Mario stared at her for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had dropped several decibels. “I think she has a point. There is one thing you’re afraid of.”
Lucy opened her mouth to argue, but then clamped it shut as Mario turned back to the newspaper. He and Emma were both right.
Death by food scared the daylights out of her.
Chapter Four
Her cell phone rang, jolting Cynthia out of a slumber she hadn’t meant to slip into. She snatched it up off the wheeled table next to Melissa’s bed and answered it, her heart beating a hundred miles per second.
“Mrs. Redman? Dr. Hill would like to see you today to discuss the results of Melissa’s blood tests. Does one-thirty work for you?”
At the appointed time, Cynthia left her daughter’s side and walked down the hall to the elevators. The doctor’s office was on the other side of the large building, and it was a full five minutes before she had located it and announced her presence to the receptionist.
Ten minutes later, she was in Dr. Hill’s office, talking to him.
Neatly trimmed gray hair and a clean-shaven face, coupled with his tall, trim figure gave him a distinguished appearance. The few times Cynthia had spoken with him before, he had carried a kind of reserved cheerfulness. Today, the creases above and around his eyes were deepened with solemnity.
“The laboratory found an unusual concentration of monosodium glutamate and a couple of other common food additives that the FDA has labeled ‘generally regarded as safe.’”
Nothing shocking there. Cynthia wasn’t one to religiously peruse food labels, so she was sure that at both home and school, Melissa consumed her fair share of lab-synthesized flavorings and colorings. But everyone always said such additives were perfectly benign and inert, so Cynthia had never worried about them.
Until now.
She shifted in the pale-green cushioned steel chair, furrowing her brow. “An…unusual concentration? What does that mean?”
The doctor shrugged. “Could mean nothing, could mean anything. But the lab reports states that the amounts of the substances are up to a hundred times more than what is usually found in a person’s blood, and that’s just after eating a meal.” He turned to the computer screen on the small desk in the room. “And your daughter’s blood wasn’t drawn until early yesterday morning. Hours after she had collapsed in the cafeteria.”
Cynthia drew a long breath. After talking with Lucy, she had expected to hear that they’d found strychnine or some other poison in Melissa’s system. Or that they had found nothing, and that her daughter had simply had some sort of reaction that would never be able to be traced.
She shook her head. “Okay. Are you saying these additives are the reason Melissa is in a coma?”
Dr. Hill rubbed his chin. “Hard to say. But we haven’t been able to isolate any other source for her reaction.”
Cynthia sat back, widening her eyes. “I’ve heard of kids getting ADD from MSG and people breaking out in a rash from food colorings, but…” Then another thought occurred to her. “Was this kind of thing found in the other kids, too? You know, the one who died, and the other one who got sick.”
Dr. Hill stared at her for a long moment. Then, “The results of the autopsy on the second-grader have not yet been made public. As far as I know, nothing conclusive was found in the blood of the other child.” He lowered his hand, revealing thin lips. “Of course, he didn’t go into a coma, and was released after twenty-four hours. His body may have worked out any toxins that caused the problem before they could be detected.”
“What is your professional opinion?”
“I wasn’t their doctor.”
“I mean about Melissa. And the lab results.”
Dr. Hill squinted his eyes, then leaned forward with slightly uplifted lips. “My professional opinion is that your daughter is in the hospital because of something she ate. Beyond that, it’s impossible –“
At that moment, Cynthia’s cell phone rang again. She shot an apologetic glance toward the doctor as she fished it out of her purse.
“Mrs. Redman? This is Jenna, the nurse on duty on the fourth floor. Melissa appears to be waking up from her coma.”
**********
The sound of shoes squeaking on the tile floor outside his office provoked Preston to raise his head. The door was slightly ajar, and it opened further to frame his boss, Guy Polowsky.
Preston’s gut tightened. He knew why he was here. But he smiled, stood, and invited him inside the office.
Polowsky shook his head. “Don’t want to waste your time. Just give me the thirty-second version of your meeting with St. Peter school district.”
Preston could do better than that. “They want to put all the blame on us.” There. A five-second brief, probably the briefest brief on record.
Polowsky frowned. “That was it?”
Preston held up his smart phone. “I recorded the entire conversation, if you want me to upload it and e-mail it to you.”
Polowsky shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.” The band around Preston’s abdomen loosened. “Are they threatening legal action?”
Preston puffed out a breath. “There was a lawyer present at the meeting, but no threats were made. At least, nothing explicit.”
His boss rolled his eyes, then stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. “But a lawyer was present. Anything you said can and will be used against us.”
Preston clasped his hands behind his back to keep them from nervous activity . “Like I said, I have the entire conversation on record – “
Polowsky waved his hand with a loud sigh. “I trust you implicitly, Brenner. Although, you may want to get it on your computer and to your cloud account in case it’s required by somebody else, sometime in the future.”
“Yes, sir.”
That was the end of the conversation, but hardly the end of Preston’s insecurities regarding the whole situation. Three kids in the past month had been adversely affected from eating food in the schools of St. Peter. And most of the food served came straight from the local Delico plant. Not all of it, but, say, sixty percent.
That was enough to make Preston squirm. He wasn’t one to think a lot about children, hadn’t ever seriously thought if he wanted any of his own, but his dad had had a large family and he remembered big family get-togethers during all the major holidays, lots of kids everywhere. Of course, he was one of those kids, but even as a teenager he remembered having the time of his life playing ball with five- and six-year-old cousins-once-removed, and teaching board games to nine- and ten-year old cousins and other oddball relations, both boys and girls.