The Bookkeeper's Daughter

CHAPTER ONE

At precisely 9am on a rainy November morning, the Puget Sound Steel and Wire Products plant in Tacoma, Washington, was hit simultaneously by a total power outage and the loss of all communications.

When the factory suddenly fell silent as overhead cranes stopped rolling, arc welders stopped buzzing and manufacturing machinery ground to a halt, mystified staff in the adjacent administration building were left staring at blank computer screens and listening to dead telephone lines.

Seconds later, blue and white-collar workers alike were still wondering what had happened, when a small army of men burst from vehicles outside the plant and rushed into the premises. The intruders told bewildered employees they were United States Department of Justice officials. They said a raid was in progress and everyone was to remain exactly where they were and that no one was to attempt to make any calls on cell phones.

David Martin, the manager of Puget Sound Steel’s wire products division, was walking though the general office on his way to preside over his regular Monday morning sales meeting in the conference room when the raid commenced. As he watched the Justice Department people seizing computers and filing cabinets and wheeling them out of the building, his mouth went dry and the palms of his hands became clammy.

Martin looked on anxiously as two men who were plainly in charge of the raiders, spoke with Jim Farrell, the youthful CEO of the company, who had come out of his private office to see what was going on. When Martin saw his boss raise his arm and point a finger in his direction, he felt his heart rate quicken. And when the two men hurried towards him, his hands began to tremble.

One of the men looked to be in his mid-fifties. The other was barely half that age. The younger man carried a black briefcase. Both men eyed Martin coldly.

‘Are you David Martin?’ the older man asked.

‘Yes, I am,’ Martin answered as firmly as he could.

‘I’m Lyle Cook,’ the older man said. He gestured to the young man with the briefcase. ‘And this is my assistant Phil Cusack.’ Cook glanced around at prying eyes of the general office staff. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Martin led the men back to his office, ushered them inside and closed the door. ‘Well, gentlemen?’

‘Mr Martin,’ Cook said gravely. ‘At this moment, Department of Justice raids are also being carried out at various other steel plants here in Washington State and neighboring states. All are companies which we believe are members of a cartel in which you and your employer are principal players. These raids are the culmination of an investigation into firms suspected of collusion, price fixing and the illegal allocation of market share of steel products throughout the Pacific Northwest.’

Cook spoke softly but his words resonated loudly in Martin’s head. He had lived in fear of this day for a long, long time. But now the moment of truth had finally arrived, his fear and apprehension seemed to melt away, leaving him with a profound sense of relief. As his heartbeat eased and his hands stopped shaking, Martin sank slowly into the chair behind his desk and cradled his head in his hands.

‘Such offences carry stiff fines and possible jail sentences,’ Cook continued, ‘and I must also tell you that we are in possession of a sworn statement given by someone in another firm involved in the cartel, in which you are referred to as, the bookkeeper. I think you know what that term means.’

Martin sighed and lifted his head from his hands. ‘Sit down gentlemen,’ he said resignedly, gesturing towards two chairs on the other side of his desk.

‘You are entitled of course to have legal representation during any interview with us, Mr Martin,’ Cook said as he and Cusack sat down. ‘But I can assure you that if you cooperate fully with us now, the Department will take that into account when formal charges are laid against you.’

‘I’ll cooperate, Mr Cook.’ Martin loosened his necktie. ‘What is it you want to know?’

Cook and Cusack exchanged surprised glances. Early cooperation from corporate executives accused of white-collar crime was rare. Cusack opened his briefcase, took out a tape recorder and placed it on the desk.

‘Now, Mr Martin,’ Cook said. ‘The Justice Department has evidence that you have personally been administering a system of market share allocation of major wire rope and cable contracts for members of a cartel which has been engaged in illegal collusive tendering and bid rigging. Is that true?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘And are you prepared to provide us with details of all fraudulent commercial activities that you have engaged in as an employee of Puget Sound Steel?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘And what of the steel fabrication and other departments in this company? Do you know if they have been engaged in price fixing?’

‘I know nothing of what goes on in any other department,’ Martin said truthfully, ‘each division in the company is run as a separate profit center.’

‘But I take it you have kept records of the allocation of contracts to your department and to the other firms in the wire rope cartel.’

‘Yes.’

Cook nodded toward a computer sitting on Martin’s desk. ‘Are all these records on your hard drive?’

Martin shook his head and opened the top drawer of his desk. He took out a simple bookkeeper’s ten column analysis book and handed it to Cook.

‘Every contract that resulted from rigged tender prices is listed in there,’ he said.

Cook opened the book and skimmed over the first few pages. ‘You mean this journal contains the details of the illegal allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars of wire rope and cable sales to federal, state and local government agencies, and to shipping, logging, mining and construction concerns throughout the Pacific Northwest, Mr Martin?’

‘Yes. That’s why they call me, the bookkeeper.’

‘That will be all for the moment.’ Cook tucked the journal under his arm and stood up. ‘Mr Cusack and I will now start interviewing Mr Farrell and the other department heads to see if they have anything to say.’ He smiled sympathetically. ‘In light of your admissions this morning, Mr Martin, you might wish to leave the building before we do. If so, you are free to do so.’

*

David Martin sat huddled over the wheel of his company Oldsmobile parked on a high bluff on a quiet road overlooking Puget Sound. Deeply depressed, he stared vacantly out through the windshield, lost in thought, his eyes seeing nothing. There was nothing to see anyway. During the morning the rain had eased to a light drizzle. But now low cloud and fog obscured what, on a fine day, was a magnificent view of the southern end of the narrow, hundred mile long, inland sea. Occasionally, the foghorn of a distant ship pierced the gloom and the mournful sounds only added to Martin’s melancholia.

Unwilling to face Jim Farrell after the Justice Department raid was over, Martin had made a hasty exit from the office, intending to drive straight home to his wife. But along the way, the reality of what had happened that morning sank in and he realized the welcome release from fear and guilt he had felt earlier was only temporary. The inevitable loss of his job would bring financial ruin, and with criminal prosecution for price fixing likely to result in a hefty fine, a jail sentence, or both, things had only gone from bad to worse.

As he neared the sanctuary of his comfortable suburban home, the knots in his stomach that had plagued him for so long, began to return with a vengeance and he had pulled over to take some Valium to settle his nerves. It was then he had decided to drive up to the lookout a few miles north of the city, to try and think things out before going home and breaking the news to his wife.

Another foghorn wailed out over the sound. Martin looked at his watch. He had been parked on the shoulder of the road on the bluff for almost two hours now. The more time he spent pondering his predicament, the more despondent he had become. As the butterflies in his belly grew worse, he took more Valium. When he had trouble swallowing the pills, he reached for a bottle of rye whisky in the glove compartment to wash them down.

Martin took a long pull from the bottle, then another. The liquor burned his throat and made him gasp. He took another long swallow and closed his eyes. Past caring about himself, his mind focused on his wife, Lois, and his daughter Paula, the only two people in the world he really cared about. As another wave of guilt and despair swept over him, he opened his eyes and adjusted the rear view mirror to take a look at the man he had become.

Five years ago he wouldn’t have recognized the haggard, deeply lined face, the furtive blue eyes and prematurely graying hair of the man who stared back at him from the mirror. But five years ago he had looked fifteen years younger. Five years ago he didn’t have a care in the world. He owned Puget Sound Steel and Wire outright then. Admittedly, it was a much smaller concern, but he and Lois had built it up over the years from scratch. A lifetime of hard work and honest trading had rewarded them with the respect of the local business community, clear title to their lovely home and money enough in the bank to meet any family needs, including their daughter’s college education.

But that was before Ackerman Industries of San Francisco had started to squeeze them out of business. After the Martins had refused to sell Puget Sound Steel and Wire, which they had always assumed would fund their retirement, Ackerman’s spent the next two years selling steel and wire products below cost to force them into submission.

During that time all the company’s cash reserves were eaten up. To keep the business afloat, the Martins were forced to borrow heavily, including remortgaging the family home to the limit. Too late they had realized that trying to fight Ackerman’s was a fatal mistake. In the end, when Puget Sound Steel and Wire was on the verge of bankruptcy, Ackerman’s took over the company for one dollar in cash and by assuming its financial liabilities.

It was then that Jim Farrell, the slick young wonder boy executive from Ackerman’s head office, had come to Tacoma to take over the running of the firm. He came with a big budget to expand every facet of the business and offered continued employment to the best of the existing staff. Martin was surprised and even a little insulted when he was offered the job running the wire products division. But at forty-five years old, with no prospect of employment elsewhere and a mountain of personal debt, he swallowed his pride and accepted the position.

Martin heard the hiss of wheels on wet pavement. He turned away from the face in the mirror and saw a small car whoosh by the Oldsmobile in a cloud of fine spray. He took another long pull from the whisky bottle, closed his eyes again and leaned back in his seat.

Accepting crumbs from Jim Farrell’s table had been his second great mistake. Over time, through Farrell’s insistence on professional networking, Martin found himself being drawn inexorably into a loose association with his opposite numbers in competing firms in the Pacific Northwest. This eventually led to the formation of the price fixing cartel. Too late, he realized that his gradual loss of business ethics was the price he paid for the six figure salary on which he depended to service his outstanding debts and provide for his family.

Martin took yet another swig of whisky and cursed Farrell. Of course, the CEO had been careful to distance himself from any direct involvement in the cartel. To protect himself and Puget Sound Steel and Wire from prosecution, it was standard Ackerman Industries policy to require all executives to sign letters of resignation on the day they were hired. Such resignations would come into effect immediately if they were ever indicted for any form of illegal collusion with competitors. And Farrell was careful enough to never mention the cartel to Martin if there was anyone else in the room, so there were no witnesses to his knowledge of its existence. Martin grimaced. Ackerman’s had even taken out key man insurance on him. Even in the event of his death the bastards would turn a profit.

Martin figured in the first few months of the operation of the cartel, Ackerman’s would have netted enough from price fixing and bid rigging, to more than make up for any losses they incurred while driving him to the wall. Three years later, Puget Sound Steel became a public company and Ackerman’s made a fortune from the sale of shares after picking up the company for peanuts. And now, at fifty years old, all he had to look forward to was a criminal record, no hope of future employment and the prospect of he and Lois living hand to mouth on social security in their old age. How could he have failed his family so badly?

The newspapers would be full of it in the coming weeks and months. How could Lois cope with the awful publicity, the snickers of neighbors and the forced smiles of friends? And with Paula just finishing her post grad studies at Stanford, one of the ten top universities in the United States, the news would shatter her, and ruin his and Lois’ plans to attend her master’s degree conferral ceremony.

Martin’s head was swimming from the effects of the liquor and tranquilizers as he continued pondering the bleak future of his family. Somehow, through the haze, his thoughts turned to his key man insurance and he remembered that in the event of death, the policy provided for the half million dollar settlement to be divided equally between the company and Lois.

Martin was still thinking about the payout when he heard the whine of a truck as it geared down to climb the steep road up the bluff. He quickly started the Oldsmobile. When the heavy transport appeared out of the gloom near the summit, he pulled off the shoulder onto the roadway and started the descent on the other side of the bluff.

Partway down, there was a hairpin bend. As he approached it, Martin checked the rear view mirror to make sure the Olds was in full view of the truck behind him. Then he tramped down hard on the accelerator. Moments later, tears were streaming down his face when the car crashed through the guard rail of the tight curve and plunged two hundred feet down onto the rocky shore of Puget Sound.

CHAPTER TWO

Paula Martin chose to cram for her final examinations for her Master of Business Administration degree at an off-campus, upmarket condominium in Palo Alto, rather than at her own university subsidized apartment, she shared with another female student. The luxurious condo was the California home of Vincent Milletti, a twenty-six year old lawyer from Los Angeles, who was taking postgraduate studies at Stanford Law School after being admitted to the State Bar of California.

The arrangement would have been unthinkable just a few months earlier. Unlike the University of Seattle, where Paula had breezed though her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in spite of playing the field, she had promised herself that if she were accepted at Stanford she would knuckle down and avoid any campus relationships. After Seattle, she had worked for a year but she still had to take out a huge student loan for tuition fees at Stanford. And she still relied heavily on financial assistance from her parents for day-to-day living expenses.

For an attractive, fair-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-four year old, with a winning smile and engaging personality, keeping her nose to the grindstone for two long years amid all the distractions of the Santa Clara Valley and the thousands of male students at Stanford had been no easy task. But determined to graduate with honors again, and afterwards, to go out and smash as many glass ceilings as was necessary to make her mark in the business world, Paula had never allowed herself to get sidetracked. At least, not until she met the charming, worldly, and apparently well-heeled Vincent Milletti.

Paula looked up from her pile of books on the dining room table and glanced through to the living room. Oblivious to her, Vincent sat amid a stack of his own books at a roll-top desk in the corner of the room.

She smiled. How handsome he looked when he was serious, deep in thought, brow furrowed, his strong jaw set firmly with his lips pressed tightly together. For hours, he had been plodding though a hefty volume of United States Supreme Court judgments. Suddenly he looked up and caught her staring at him. He grinned and lazily ran a hand through his thick dark hair.

‘What time is it?’

Paula glanced at her watch. ‘It’s after eight, way past dinnertime. And it’s your turn to cook tonight, Vince.’

He stood up slowly, stretched his tall frame, then walked across the room to her.

‘We could go out to eat.’ he said, closing an open book she held in her hands. ‘We could both use a break from all this, you know.’

Paula got up from her chair and put her arms around his neck. ‘There’ll be plenty of time to relax after the exams, Vince.’

‘You’re nothing but a slave driver, woman,’ he said sternly. He grinned and clasping her buttocks firmly in his hands, drew her close and gently kissed her mouth.

As always, she responded eagerly to his touch. As they kissed, his hands moved slowly from her buttocks to her thighs, then upward over her hips and under her sweater. But when his fingers reached her bra, she laughed and pulled away.

‘You’re incorrigible, Vincent Milletti.’ She pointed a finger in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Now get in there and cook and while you’re doing that, I’ll take a shower.’

His dark eyes widened in mock surprise. ‘What a good idea. I think I’ll join you.’

‘Oh, no you won’t,’ Paula called out as she turned and headed for the bathroom. ‘You get started in the kitchen. I’ll just be a few minutes, then I’ll come and help you.’

Paula had just undressed and stepped into the shower when the bathroom door opened a few inches and Vince stuck his arm inside. Her purse was dangling from his hand. Inside it, her cell phone was ringing.

Vince was standing at the stove frying steaks when Paula walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, clad only in a bath towel. From the distraught, bewildered look on her face, Vince knew something was terribly wrong.

‘What is it, Paula? What’s happened? Who was on the phone?’

‘It was my mother. My father was in a road accident this afternoon. He’s dead.’

*

Lois Martin was a slim, petite, but strong-willed woman in her late forties. Somehow, she had managed not to break down when she telephoned Paula with the awful news. And earlier, through the shock of it all, she had been able to suppress her emotions when the Washington State trooper who had investigated her husband’s accident, drove her to the morgue to identify the body. But the moment she laid down the phone after speaking to Paula, her defenses collapsed and she burst into a flood of tears.

Lois quickly transferred the phone to answering and turned off most of the lights in the house. Then, she sat down in an armchair beside the window of the darkened living room and allowed herself to cry freely until there were no more tears left to cry. As she dried her eyes, she stared sadly out of the window. The rain and fog had cleared during the late afternoon and in the distance, she could see the twinkling lights of traffic on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

After a long time she got up and went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of black coffee, laced it with brandy and returned to her armchair by the window. Paula had said she would catch the first available flight home from San Francisco the next morning. Until then, she would have to grieve alone.

There was no one else Lois wanted to contact. David’s parents were both dead, his only brother was working somewhere in South America, and all her own relatives lived in Idaho. And since she and David had lost their business to Ackerman Industries, they rarely socialized and saw less and less of the few close friends they used to have.

There had been no word from Jim Farrell and Lois was glad. Right now, the young ruthless CEO of Puget Sound Steel was the last person she wanted to talk to. It was because of Jim Farrell and Ackerman Industries that their lives had suffered so much over the last five years. As she watched them slowly trample David over the years, she had always been afraid that something really awful might happen.

Lois sighed as she recalled how David had always said they could withstand anything as long as they had each other, because that was all that really mattered. But now he was gone and she wondered how on earth she could face the future without him. And she wondered too, about something very disturbing the trooper from the Washington State Patrol had said about the accident.

*

Vince Milletti drove Paula to the airport in San Francisco to catch a 7am flight home. Just over an hour later, the Delta Airlines 737 touched down at Seattle-Tacoma International under a clear blue sky. Paula looked deeply troubled when she walked into the terminal carrying just a small overnight bag.

When her taxi pulled into the driveway of the family home, the front door of the house opened and her mother stepped out onto the porch to greet her. Lois looked tired and drawn and although she put on a brave face, Paula could see she hadn’t slept a wink all night. Paula embraced Lois tightly for a few moments then they went inside the house.

‘Have you eaten this morning, Paula?’ Lois asked, as if unsure of quite what to say.

‘Yes, they gave us a snack on the plane, Mom.’

‘Then, I’d better fix you a proper breakfast.’

‘No, please don’t. I’m really not hungry.’

‘Well, let’s go through to the kitchen, anyway.’ Lois’ lips trembled as she spoke. ‘There’s a fresh pot of coffee on the stove.’

Seeing her mother so close to tears, Paula put her arms around her again and held her close.

‘It’s okay,’ Lois said after a moment. ‘I’m all right now. Come on, let’s have that coffee, shall we?’

They sat down at the kitchen table and Paula listened as Lois told her all she knew about the accident. When she had finished, Paula reached across the table and took her mother’s hands in hers.

‘I can’t really believe he’s gone, Mom. How could it happen? What was he doing out on that road anyway?’

Lois shook her head sadly. ‘I really don’t know, dear.’

‘It couldn’t have had anything to do with that business at Puget Sound Steel yesterday, could it?’

Lois frowned. ‘What business?’

Paula reached for her overnight bag and took out a copy of the Seattle Post Intelligencer she had been given on the plane and laid it on the table in front of Lois.

‘You mean you don’t know about this, Mom?’ she said gently, pointing her finger to a headline on one of the business pages.

TACOMA STEEL FIRM RAIDED BY DEPARTMENT

OF JUSTICE ANTITRUST OFFICERS

‘Oh, my God.’ Lois’ hand went to her mouth as she read the headline and the first few lines of the article. Tears began to well up again in her tired, red eyes. ‘So that’s it. I’ve known for a long time that something was terribly wrong at the plant. I’ve watched it slowly eat away at your father.’

‘Did Dad ever talk about it, Mom?’

Lois blinked back her tears. ‘No. After all we’ve been through, he wouldn’t burden me with more worry.’

Paula sighed. ‘I just can’t believe he would ever be involved in anything illegal. He’d have quit his job first.’

‘And what would your father and I have done then?’ Lois said quickly. ‘You know the financial situation we’re in.’

Paula took Lois’ hands in hers again and squeezed them gently. ‘But price fixing and bid rigging is no different from stealing, Mom. A man like Dad would never get implicated in that sort of thing. He couldn’t live with himself if he did.’

Lois gasped as Paula’s words hit home.

‘What is it, Mom?’

‘Just something a state trooper said yesterday.’

‘What’?

‘He said there was a witness to the accident, a truck driver. Thank God there was, or the accident might not have been reported yet. He told the trooper that your father’s car seemed to accelerate into the guard rail before going over the cliff.’

‘Oh my God.’ Paula’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t think he committed suicide, do you?’

‘I don’t know what to think.’ Lois was unable to hold back her tears any longer. She got up quickly from the table and hurried through the house to the living room and stood staring out of the window overlooking the sound.

Paula followed her mother to the window. ‘What happens now, Mom?’ she said softly. ‘I mean, how bad are things? You won’t lose the house will you?’

‘I don’t know. We just have to see how things work out.’ Lois turned to Paula and smiled bravely. ‘Don’t you worry about me, dear. What about you? You’re right in the middle of exams, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, the next one is the day after tomorrow.’

‘You can’t miss it.’

‘But I don’t want to leave you alone, Mom.’

‘Nonsense.’ Lois resumed staring out of the window. ‘I can make all the necessary arrangements here. You go back to Stanford for your exam, then come home again for the funeral. Under the circumstances, I think it’s best to have just a short, simple ceremony. No wake or anything like that.’

‘Oh Mom, are you sure about that?’

‘Yes. I don’t want anyone from Puget Sound Steel to set foot in this house,’ Lois said bitterly. ‘And there’s really no point in any of my family coming all the way from Idaho. Once everything is settled here, I’ll go over there and stay with your grandparents for a while. I’ll need some time away from Tacoma, to take stock and try and decide what to do with the rest of my life.’

‘When will you go, Mom?’

‘As soon as possible. When you’re through at Stanford you can come up and we’ll all spend Christmas together. You haven’t made any other plans have you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I thought perhaps you were getting serious with this lawyer fellow, you mentioned, from Los Angeles.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Paula said. ‘I’ll be with you all in Coeur d’Alene for Christmas.’ She put a reassuring arm around her mother. ‘No one in the world could stop me from being there.’

Lois laid her head on Paula’s shoulder and they stood at the window for some time without a word passing between them. Outside, high above Puget Sound, the sun glinted brightly on a small private jet as it climbed steeply after taking off from the Tacoma Narrows Airport.

CHAPTER THREE

It was a short ride in Harlan Joseph Ackerman’s chauffeur driven black Cadillac from his penthouse apartment on Nob Hill to Ackerman Industries’ head office in San Francisco’s financial district. As always, he rode the elevator up to his forty-second floor office in a towering Montgomery Street skyscraper a few minutes after ten o’clock.

When the elevator door opened onto the lobby of his private suite, Ackerman acknowledged a morning greeting from the receptionist and made straight for his office. On the door,