Exposed (Rosato & DiNunzio #5)(69)

“Who?”

“I looked him up in the white pages online, which gave his last known address as Lansdale, PA. He lives there with his wife, and her maiden name is Linda Matewicz, which is a name you don’t forget.”

“Is she related to Ray Matewicz?”

“I bet she’s his sister. There weren’t any other families with that surname in the area.”

“Whoa.” Mary made a note on her laptop. “So Todd is tight with Ray’s brother-in-law.”

“That’s interesting to me, especially considering that Ray Matewicz is high up at OpenSpace—and also one of the employees claiming that Simon defamed Todd and the company.”

“Me, too.”

“And if you look up Mo Nustrall, you’ll find that he has a LinkedIn account and he’s a VP of Sales at PowerPlus, which is another of Dumbarton’s subsidiaries.”

“Good to know.” Mary nodded as she typed.

“That leaves Mr. Gallagher, whom the guard said used to be in the foursome. I looked him up online, but Gallagher is such a common last name and I don’t know the first name. There were a lot of corporate and management types in the area named Gallagher, but I cross referenced it with Todd’s clients and found Pollstar.” Bennie went around the side of the table to her laptop and hit a few buttons. “I remembered something from the sales reports that didn’t make sense at the time.”

“What?”

“Last year, according to Todd’s sales, his number two client was Pollstar, a call center in Willow Grove that conducts polls for political campaigns and business marketing. It struck me as strange that Pollstar was so high up in sales last year, but literally fell off the map this year. I remembered it because the guard said that Gallagher used to be in the foursome, but wasn’t lately.”

“I’m following.”

“I assumed the sales dropped because Pollstar did political polls during the election and that was over. But then, I couldn’t figure out why Todd would keep the client, since he prefers the clients that have repeat business.” Bennie thought back to the interview with Todd at OpenSpace. “He strikes me as the kind of guy who networks, rather than makes friends.”

“Right.”

Bennie realized she was a little like that, too. She put it out of her mind. “So he must expect future business from them.”

“Where did you say Pollstar was?”

“Willow Grove, why?”

“Hold on. I saw something like that in an email.” Mary turned to her document index, reading down the email numbers. “He wrote so many emails and he writes a lot each time. I only got through about two hundred of them, and my document index was broken down into basic subjects.”

“What were the subjects?”

“Well, his top clients each got their own subject, and he wrote to Todd about them a lot, and there had been some fussing. Not a big deal, but Simon has a lot of ideas about how the client should be dealt with.” Mary spoke as she kept looking through the emails. “For example, when the clients had complaints about the quality, he always sides with the client.”

“Not the kind of thing that endears you to bosses.”

“No.” Mary located the number of the email, then started going through the numbered stack. “In fact, I made a whole subject for quality control because that’s what he put on the subject line. He had a lot of those emails to Todd.”

“Can I see an example?” Bennie came around the side of the conference table.

“Okay, this is typical.” Mary pulled an email from the stack and held it out to Bennie, who read it:

From Simon Pensiera

To Todd Eddington

Re Quality Control

Todd, I’m really concerned about the quality of the woven fabric on #7251, color Vulpine Gray. I know Pasture is bottom-of-the-line but that shouldn’t matter. Jorge Jimenez at Neshaminy Business Solutions called me and gave me an earful about it, so I went over and saw what he was talking about. He is right. The weave on the fabric at the base on several of his cubicles is uneven and there is a pull in the fabric on one of them. The fabric wasn’t even attached properly, so somebody must’ve been careless spraying the glue. I think the line is slacking and you should talk to Ray about it. I suggested an on-site repair to Jorge and he is willing to give it a try, but we both know that’s not going to do the job.

Bennie handed it back. “I see what you mean. Did Todd write him back?”

“Yes. Hold on.” Mary turned to the second stack, produced another email, and showed it to Bennie, who read:

From Todd Eddington

To Simon Pensiera

Re Quality Control

Simon, I’ll talk to Ray.

“Does Todd always respond?” Bennie handed it back to Mary.

“No. Sometimes Todd responds to the emails and sometimes he doesn’t. I’m assuming Todd also responds by calling Simon, too, and we can ask Simon about that if it matters.” Mary gestured at five stacks of emails. “Those are quality control emails, and I divided them according to the nature of the complaint. So far I have fabric, metal, construction, wear and tear, and paper.”

“What’s paper on a cubicle?”

“There’s paper that goes on top of the drywall. Sometimes it’s not attached properly. It matters because it doesn’t protect the gypsum from moisture loss. I think.”