The clattering noise overhead caused Sam to look up. Her eyes squinted in the noonday sun. The helicopter flew in low and then turned back around to make a second pass; gaining altitude, it began to fly a tight circular pattern above the house. Sam cursed under her breath. Jose was seated, handcuffed, in the back of the patrol car. “Do you want me to take him in for booking now?” Officer Lopez asked.
“Not yet,” Sam said. “Our friends in the media have decided to pay us a visit. We’ll need to set up a perimeter around the house. Call for backup.” Sam did not need any more aggravation today, not after Jose Ramirez’s carefully planned arrest had gone so painfully awry. She should have insisted on arresting him at the racetrack as she had originally planned. But feeling that she owed Rios’ family something for all the tips that he had given her, she had unwisely acquiesced to Adela’s request to arrest him at her home. Her fatigue from the fire must have impaired her judgment. And, just as she had feared, Officer Lopez had proved too inexperienced for the task. Jose had become agitated when he realized that he was about to be arrested, and Officer Lopez had unwisely drawn his weapon. His sudden move had prompted Jose to pull out a knife and take Adela hostage.
The citizen heroics that followed had almost turned a manageable situation into something tragic. Just when Jose was about to hand her the knife, here comes Georgina Graham lunging forward, hitting him full force in the back of his knees. And then Nate Carmichael grabs at Jose’s right hand for the knife. It was sheer luck that Carmichael had been able to wrench the knife from Jose’s grasp before Adela was hurt. Now the media was sure to turn the episode into a major story. Sam could already see the headline: “Heiress rescued from knife-wielding assailant by plucky citizens while police stand idly by.” She wanted to throw up, thinking about the mess that she had created.
Aware that the helicopter news crew was filming her from above, Sam walked into the house without looking up again. She found Adela reclining on a loveseat in her office. Georgina, Nate, Mark and Wahl were seated around her. “There’s a news chopper overhead,” Sam told them. “I’ll have to ask you all to stay here while I set up outside for crowd control.”
“Oh, no,” Adela groaned. “How did the media find out?” She raised herself up on her elbows. “The whole reason I wanted to arrest Jose this way was to avoid publicity. What are we going to do now?”
Mark took Adela’s hand. She laid her head back on the loveseat’s plump pillows. “You could send a written statement out to them,” he told her. “I can draft something if you like.”
Sam knew that a written statement would not satisfy the media. “May I make a suggestion?” she said. “They want a sound bite and a picture and they’re going to stay out there until they get it. If we hold a press conference they will go away. I can say what happened from the law enforcement perspective and someone else could say something from the family’s end of things.”
“Wouldn’t speaking out publicly just add fuel to the fire?” Adela asked.
“A press conference might be a good idea,” Mark said. “I can stand in for you. If we do this right we can put an end to the media’s interest.” Adela looked unsure but nodded her head in agreement.
Less than an hour later Sam and Mark approached a bank of microphones set up outside the gate to Adela’s property. Three large video cameras were positioned in front of the microphones and a crowd of photojournalists knelt down in front of them. Sam read from a prepared statement. “I’m Detective Samantha Mori. That’s M-O-R-I. This morning Mr. Jose Ramirez was arrested at this address on suspicion of embezzlement of funds from his employer, the late Alejandro Rios. Mr. Ramirez resisted arrest and took the owner of this property, Ms. Adela Rios, hostage. Two citizens intervened to subdue Mr. Ramirez—Ms. Georgina Graham of New York City and Dr. Nathaniel Carmichael, a local resident. Ms. Rios was unharmed and Mr. Ramirez has been taken into custody. At this point I would like to introduce Mr. Mark Webber who will speak on behalf of Adela Rios.” Mark also read from a prepared statement. He said that Adela Rios was grateful to Ms. Graham and Dr. Carmichael for her rescue and to the police for making the arrest. Sam returned to the microphones. She said that she would take a few questions.
“What was Jose Ramirez’s job with Alejandro Rios?” a reporter asked.
“Mr. Ramirez managed Mr. Rios’ barn,” Sam replied.
“Rios was found dead in his barn,” another reporter said. “Was Ramirez involved in his death?”
“Mr. Ramirez is charged only with embezzlement,” Sam replied.
“But what about Rios?” the reporter persisted. “Are you investigating his death as a homicide?”
“No,” Sam said. “The Medical Examiner’s Office has determined that Alejandro Rios died of natural causes.”
Adela watched the news conference on a small television in her office. When it was over she swung her legs to the floor and placed her hands on the loveseat cushions to support herself.
“You must be wondering what the all the fuss was about this morning,” she said to Georgina and Nate. “Since you saved my life, I feel that I owe you an explanation.”
“Last night Detective Mori came here to inform me that Jose had been stealing from my father’s racing operation. That distressed me because I’ve known Jose for years and I trusted him. Detective Mori asked me whether I wanted to press charges. I wasn’t sure what to do. I called Mark and asked him to come over to advise me. I was reluctant to go the route of a trial. It seemed easier to fire Jose and write off the loss. But Mark told me that if I did that, I would jeopardize my authority as the new owner of Rios Capital. He said that these things always end up on the rumor mill. If I let Jose off the hook, then I should expect fraud from other employees in the future. So I decided to go ahead and press charges.”
“Jose has been staying in the groom’s quarters at the racetrack and Detective Mori wanted to arrest him there, but I opposed doing it in such a public place. I was worried that word would spread and generate publicity on the eve of my father’s memorial service. So I came up with the idea of using the veterinarian’s visit that I had already scheduled for this morning as a pretext to ask Jose to come over here, where he could be taken into custody in private. It never occurred to me that Jose would panic. Apparently he thought that he was being arrested for murder.”
“Why Jose thought that my father was murdered is beyond me. Detective Mori told me on the day of the autopsy that my father had had a heart attack while he was getting my horse from his stall. His head hit a watering basin as he fell, and that caused a wound on the back of his head. The pathologist who did the autopsy wanted to examine his brain to determine whether the fall contributed to his death. The Medical Examiner’s Office is waiting for that report before they make the results of the autopsy public.”
“So that’s what led up to this morning. I can’t thank the two of you enough for rescuing me and to show my appreciation, I want to give each of you a reward. Dr. Carmichael, the reward will be in addition to the sum that Rios Capital has already agreed to pay you for your company.”
Georgina looked apprehensively at Nate. She had not talked to him since the encounter with Jose and did not know what he was thinking.
“You’re very generous,” Nate said to Adela, “but I learned something this morning that has made me change my mind about the deal. When I negotiated to sell my company to Rios Capital I didn’t know that your father planned to liquidate it. I thought that he was going to invest in the company and grow it, or at worst let a larger company buy it and do the same. But shutting the doors and laying off my staff was never discussed.”
“No one told you about the liquidation?” Adela asked, perplexed.
“Philip Wahl talked to me about various scenarios,” Nate replied, “but he never said anything about closing down the company.”
“Philip, what’s going on here?” Adela demanded.
“Your father did not run companies,” Wahl said uneasily. “His business
model was to buy distressed companies and sell them immediately, either to another company or piecemeal in a liquidation.”
“Wasn’t it also my father’s business model to divulge this strategy when he made an offer for a business?” Adela countered. “It certainly was when I was working for him.”
“When the offer is for 100% of a company, there’s no reason to say what will happen to the business once it’s acquired,” Wahl said.
“There’s no legal reason, Philip, I understand that,” Adela said impatiently. “But what has happened to integrity at Rios Capital? Did Mark know about this?”
“Mark was fully apprised of the situation,” Wahl replied. “He never raised any objections. And in fairness, Adela, no promises were ever made to Dr. Carmichael about what would happen to his company after he sold it. He chose to believe what he chose to believe.”
“Philip, you discussed scenarios with Dr. Carmichael that you knew would never happen, and then you deliberately failed to discuss the very scenario that you knew would happen,” Adela said. “That’s not how I do business.”
“That’s not how I do business either,” Georgina interjected. “When I negotiated with Dr. Carmichael I was unaware of the liquidation plan. I first heard about it this morning when Mark discussed it with you. I was the one who told Dr. Carmichael about it, because I felt that he had the right to know that his staff would be laid off if he signed the sale documents.”
Adela rested both elbows on her desk and interlaced her fingers. She let Georgina’s revelation hang in the air. “You have come to my rescue twice today, Georgina,” she said finally, “and this time you have prevented me from doing a deal that violates my principles. However, I expect Mark will have a very different opinion about what you’ve done. Now, how are we going to get out of this predicament?”
“I think I can solve the problem,” Georgina said. She turned to Nate. “Dr. Carmichael, may I have a word with you, privately?” They stepped outside on to the patio. “How serious were you when you said that you wanted to have more time with Gordon?” Georgina asked. “Because if you’re serious, I can make it happen.”
“I’m completely serious,” Nate replied. “What are you talking about?”
“Here’s my idea,” Georgina said. “What’s been wrong with this deal all along is the price. I can get Adela to pay you top dollar for ZIFIX, because she’s an honorable person and we just rescued her. I will tell her that neither of us wants a reward. but we would like to renegotiate the deal. A drug company would own your patent, that’s true, and ZIFIX would be liquidated, but I promise you that I can get you more than enough money for you to move your staff to your research laboratory at the medical school and keep your project going for years. And with all your work effort in one place and no need to write grants, you’ll free up lots of extra time for Gordon. So, what do you say? Deal?”
He’s not a bad person, Adela thought, as Wahl pleaded with her to keep his job. He’s just insecure and trying too hard to please other people. Her father had exploited these traits in Wahl to make him do his bidding and, she guessed, his wife played on the same vulnerabilities to achieve the upper hand in the marriage. So the poor man had it coming and going. But in his favor, Wahl knew the business. Under her guidance some use could be made of him.
Adela cut Wahl off. She informed him that things would be done differently at Rios Capital, now that she was in charge. Deals would be carried out in a more ethical manner, and therefore might be less profitable than they had been on her father’s watch. There could be a place for him in the new organization, she said, but on two conditions. One condition was that he would have to forgo this year’s bonus. Wahl swallowed hard when he heard this but he nodded yes. And the second condition was, she said, that he must never reveal to Mark that Georgina had told Dr. Carmichael about the plan to liquidate ZIFIX. Wahl looked surprised at the second condition, but he agreed without comment.
The French doors to the patio opened. Georgina asked if she could present a proposal.
Adela quickly embraced the new plan. Buying ZIFIX at a higher price offered her a graceful way out, and she was more than ready to do it. But it did not solve the entire problem. There was still the issue of Georgina’s vulnerability, now that she had admitted to disclosing the liquidation plan. Adela wanted to protect Georgina, because she saw in her much of herself when she was a young woman starting out in business. Adela knew that Mark would fire Georgina if he found out what she had done. Assuring Wahl’s silence would not be enough. Mark was sure to question such a dramatic change in the price that she was willing to pay for ZIFIX. Adela she needed to come up with a plausible explanation for changing the terms of the deal.
She recalled how Mark had often cautioned her against her “overly large” charitable contributions. The fact that he saw her as a soft touch could be the key to smoothing over the situation. She decided that, when Mark returned from the press conference, she would be a bit of an actress, emoting over how Dr. Carmichael had saved her life. She would then tell Mark that to properly reward him, she wanted to give Dr. Carmichael her share of the profit from the ZIFIX deal. As long as Mark got his cut, she knew, he would not care who got the rest.
Chapter Twenty-Two