Chapter 1
“Have you seen this?” Michael asked, bursting into Nora’s office and tossing several sheets of the printed email onto her desk. His face was flush and sweat broke out at his temples. Even his breathing was labored; his shoulders and chest heaved with every breath.
Nora reached for the pages, picked them up, and glanced at them for a quick second. “I have, Michael. Sit down.”
“Something needs to be done about this,” he said, ignoring her request that he sit. His heart was pounding in his chest so hard he could hear it thrumming in his own ears. “I want you to call Dave right now and get his people to delete the damn thing before everyone reads this. And I want Allan to make sure that…that…lunatic is not allowed on campus anymore.”
“Michael, please sit down before you get yourself sick,” Nora tried again. This time, she got up from behind her own desk and came around front to where he stood. In her late fifties, Nora was not unattractive. She still had a nice figure and fair skin that made her appear younger than her age. Her blonde hair was so light that it almost appeared silver, giving her a mature, stately presence. She put a hand on his shoulder and guided him into one of the plush chairs in her small sitting area.
Falling into one of the chairs, Michael said, “I am sick about this. The lies he’s spewing are…they’re just incredible. I am sick to my damn stomach just reading this trash. Nora, he sent it to the whole university for Christ sake!”
Settling into the chair beside him, Nora said, “I know, Michael, it is very unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate? This is criminal, that’s what it is.” Leaning forward now, ready to spring out of the seat, Michael said, “People that I work with every day are going to read that. Students that I personally counseled or mentored are going to read that. Hell, they may have already read it. I don’t know how you can be so calm about this.”
Nora squirmed in her chair and adjusted the hem of her wool skirt. She cleared her throat and said, “Michael, one of us has to remain calm and right now that has to be me. Trust me when I say that I am as deeply disturbed about this as are you. And we will get to the bottom of this.”
“This is so embarrassing.” Michael put his face into his hands and rubbed his cheeks roughly. Looking up again, sharply, his eyes boring into Nora, he said, “He’s attacking my credibility as an administrator. He’s portraying me as unethical. The son of a bitch makes me out to be some political puppet using my clout for my own personal gain!”
“We both know none of this is true,” Nora replied. She held up the printed pages and shook them slightly for emphasis. “All this is just the ravings of a disgruntled employee. I fail to see why anyone who knows you would give any real merit to what he has to say.”
Michael looked at his boss with shocked indignation. He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand wildly on end. He knew he must look like a man desperately close to falling over into the abyss of uncontrollable anger, but he was determined not allow that. At the same time, he was not going to sit here and listen to her diminish the severity of the damaging email.
“It doesn’t matter who will fail to give it merit. What he wrote is damaging to my character and my reputation. People will remember all these lies and before you know it everything I do will seem questionable. And this just isn’t about me. What about the folks he says I coerced into doing my dirty work? He’s accused me of having an affair with Melissa. How do you think she feels about this, Nora? No, something has to be done about this and I’m not letting this go just because you think no one will give merit to his remarks.”
Slipping on her reading glasses, Nora leafed through the pages and read some of the damning passages. Although she had glanced at the email briefly on her screen this morning when she found it in her inbox, she hadn’t really given it a good read. Reading it now she realized Michael was right, this was quite bad, indeed.
Michael got up from the plush chair while Nora read, but sat back down again when she peered at him over her reading glasses and said, “Sit down, Michael, you’re making me anxious.”
So, he sat and watched her as she read, nervously bouncing his right foot. The more he thought about the email, the more enraged he became. He realized he had a splitting headache that throbbed from his left temple down into his left cheek. His forearms and shoulders ached with stress tension because he kept balling his fists together unconsciously. In dramatic fashion, he pulled at his tie to loosen the knot and then undid the top button of his shirt that suddenly felt as though it were cutting off his air and suffocating him.
Finally finished, Nora set the pages down on the table in front of her. Peering at Michael over her thin reading glasses, she looked at him for an uncomfortable amount of time before she said, “The man is obviously unstable and you were right about that.”
“I told you,” Michael said. It came out sounding like a childish admonishment but he didn’t care. He had spent months trying to get Nora to see that Robert Elliott Lang was not only an incompetent employee, but that he was downright paranoid and probably even bi-polar. The man was mentally unstable and in serious need of professional assistance. Of course, Nora had thought at the time that Michael was over reacting in his assessment of the man’s personality to back his request that the man’s employment be terminated.
Nora nodded in agreement now, having read the personal thoughts of Robert Elliott Lang. Sitting back in her chair she crossed her right leg over her left and smoothed her skirt before finally intertwining her fingers over her knee.
“Robert fought hard to keep his position after his employment was terminated. He took his case to the union and Human Resources—not to mention University Counsel—and made a big deal about your letting him go. He spent a small fortune on attorney’s fees. You had to expect some sort of fall out over this, Michael.”
“And what the hell does that mean, Nora?” Michael asked, barely biting back the bitterness of his question. “Are you suggesting I should have just kept this psychopath on and let him harass the staff, make this a hostile working environment because it would have been easier than having to suffer through this?”
“I’m not blaming or suggesting anything, Michael. What I’m saying is that you did what you thought you needed to do and now you must also accept the consequences of your actions.” Nora leaned forward now, her hands subconsciously tugging the hem of her skirt as she moved. “I will help you the best I can with this situation, but I really don’t know what you expect me to do. It is a bad situation, I agree. But I can’t make it go away all together.”
Michael was quiet for a moment, taking in her words, reading between the lines. Although she sounded quite sincere in her offer to assist, what she really meant was that she wanted no part of this, that she wanted to be able to distance herself from the whole situation so it wouldn’t come back to bite her in the ass. He completely understood; being an administrator at the university had become more about politics than leadership over the years.
“Will you at least call Dave in IT and see if there is anything he can do?” Michael finally asked. “Will you do that for me, Nora?”
Again, she stared at him over her reading glasses for a moment—making him feel quite uncomfortable—before she finally pursed her lips and nodded her head. Without a word, she stood and crossed the room. Behind her desk, she sat down, activated the speakerphone, and punched in the extension for Dave Lambert, the Chief Information Officer in charge of the Information Technology Services division. He picked up after the second ring. “Info Tech, this is Dave.”
Nora rolled her chair to the left slightly so that she faced the phone and said, “Hello Dave this is Nora from Enrollment Management. I’m here with Michael Monroe and we have you on speaker phone.”
“Good morning to you good folks in Enrollment Management. What can I do for you?”
“We have a technical issue we’re hoping you can help us resolve,” Nora said. She looked at Michael but continued to talk at the speakerphone. “There was an email sent out to a rather large group of recipients last night from one of our former employees that is, quite frankly, extremely inappropriate, and we’re hoping that you can delete the email or retract it, or whatever the technical term might be.”
“You must be referring to the email that went out from the Psychology Club email account, right?”
Michael nodded his head.
“That’s right,” Nora said.
“Yeah, we’re digging into that mess right now. It almost brought down the system. Certainly, it slowed everything up, but since it was during non-working hours, no one really noticed the hit.”
“Jesus Christ,” Michael sighed. He got up from the plush sitting chair and approached the desk. Leaning over the phone, raising his voice, he said, “Dave this is Michael. How many people did this email go to if it almost brought down the servers?”
“The email was sent to the university community so we’re talking about twenty thousand recipients. Give or take. Probably about seventy percent of those are active accounts.”
Michael suddenly felt like his legs were going to give out. He reached absently for one of the guest chairs and slowly lowered himself into it before his legs dropped out from under. He literally felt like he was going to pass out and took in deep breaths.
“Dave, I really need to know if there is something you can do about that email,” Nora said.
“Aside from a reprimand to the club advisor or the department chair and letting them know they can’t send out mass messages without approval from the VP of Student Life, there’s really no other recourse. Not at an IT level, anyway. Not without violating privacy policies and student government freedom of speech acts.”
Nora pulled in closer to her desk and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Dave, there is some very embarrassing and damaging—although very false—information in that email. A disgruntled former employee sent it from a student club account. The email has nothing to do with club business and is therefore in violation on that fact alone. I think this type of blatant violation of the use of technology policy coupled with the extremely inappropriate nature of the email demands action more severe and immediate than a simple reprimand. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important, David.”
After a long pause that almost pushed Michael over the edge, Dave finally said, “Nora, take me off speaker phone.”
To Michael’s dismay, Nora picked up the telephone receiver, and quickly raised a finger in his direction, indicating he should remain quiet, and let her handle the situation. “Go ahead, Dave, you’re off speaker.”
For the next couple of minutes, Nora listened as Dave spoke, and she interjected only a few times to ask a question or reassure him that she would fully support his actions. Michael could not sit still and finally got out of his chair and started to pace the small office. He stopped at one of the windows that overlooked a private courtyard between three connecting buildings. It was a beautiful, but wasted space as there was no entrance to the grounds. He found himself wondering how the grounds folks managed to keep it trimmed and flowers blooming.
He turned around when he heard the phone being dropped into its cradle. Impatiently, he asked, “Well? What did he say?”
Those dark brown eyes pierced him over the thin reading glasses still perched on the bridge of her nose. “He agreed to delete the messages that have not yet been delivered, as well as those that have not been opened yet by the recipient.”
A sigh of relief escaped Michael and he returned to the guest chair in which moments ago he sat. “That’s great news, Nora, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said as she took off her glasses and tossed them onto her desk blotter. “What he won’t do is delete those that have already been viewed by the recipient. And before you say anything, know that he’s taking a big risk doing this for me and I’m taking a big risk asking.”
“Did you ask him how many have opened it already?”
Nora nodded slowly. “About four thousand have already viewed the email. I know what you’re thinking, Michael, but that’s only one fifth of the intended audience.”
Michael fell back into the chair, his shoulders sagging under the weight of this messed up situation. With his head leaned back, he stared up at the ceiling and unconsciously massaged his throbbing temples.
“This is so bad,” he whined.
The two sat in silence for a few minutes. After a while, Nora got up, retrieved the printed email from the coffee table, walked over to the shredder, and dropped it into the crosscutting blades. The sharp sound made Michael flinch.
Sitting behind her desk once more, Nora picked up her reading glasses, folded the stems and then hooked the glasses into the pocket of her blazer. “I’m not going to call Allan. Since Robert is still an active student in good standing at the university, there’s really no just cause for the campus police to ban him from campus.”
“No just cause? That’s a laugh.” Michael slapped his palms against his thighs and then rubbed them back and forth nervously. He kept shaking his head in disbelief.
“Michael, I’ve been very patient with you thus far, please, at least try to be civil. I didn’t create this mess for you and I’m only trying to help you. But I’m not going to overstep my authority in this matter or do anything questionable. You should consider very carefully what you ask in light of the accusations leveled in Robert’s email.”
Continuing to shake his head, he looked down at his hands, which were now tightly gripping the arms of the chair. Michael asked tersely, “What do you suggest I do then?”
Nora sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. This was her signature boss move, one that indicated that she was about to give her final word on the subject. “I suggest that you do whatever damage control that you can, and don’t expect anyone to do anything questionable or outside of their authority. This is a very sensitive matter, Michael, and although you are very hurt by Robert’s actions, you need to seriously consider the implications of what you expect others to do in this situation.
“If you go asking the campus police to ban an active student from campus because of this email, that action may lend some credibility to what Robert is accusing. My suggestion is you sit down with the VP in Student Life and you discuss whether there is any action he can take regarding the misuse of technology with any policy in the student handbook. Beyond that, I suggest you leave this matter alone until it blows over.”
Michael closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. He looked at Nora and said, “I’ve been in this business for more than sixteen years now and I’ve never witnessed anything like this. This isn’t something that will just blow over, Nora. This is the kind of thing that follows a man right out the damn door.”
Uncrossing her arms, Nora leaned forward in her chair again and addressed him. “Michael, you’re still young in this business. I’ve been working in higher education administration for almost thirty years now. I’ve seen a lot of underhanded and devious stuff go on in my time, believe it or not some even worse than Robert’s email. You should trust me when I say this will disappear, fade away into the ether like a distant memory. You just need to give it a little time.”
He looked at her, his eyes rimmed red. “I hope you’re right. This is all I know how to do and I’m not ready give up my career because of the likes of an unstable maniac.” He paused a moment and said, “Tell me though, Nora, you don’t believe the things that he accuses me of doing, do you?”
“No, Michael. I have complete faith in the way you run your unit and I have never had any reason to doubt that you come to work with only the best intentions. I know you take your role at the university seriously and that you have always had the interests of our students at heart.”
“Thank you, Nora,” he said. “That means a lot to me.”
Standing now, Nora came around from behind her desk and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you go home, Michael? Take the day off and give yourself a little breathing room. I know this is difficult and I can’t imagine you’d accomplish anything today anyway with something so heavy weighing on you.
“You might find that some time alone to think things through is exactly what you need. If you think you need more time, take it. Just text me or call me. I’ll do my best to put out any fires around here until you get back.”
“I don’t want to run and hide from this,” Michael said. He stood, too. “But you’re right that I won’t get anything done today thinking about this. I think I will go home today. I just need to get my wind back. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“That’s the spirit. Go on, now. Please let Melissa know if she needs anything, today my door is open. And don’t you spend all day looking at your email on that phone of yours. Turn it off. Forget about work today. That’s an order.”
After leaving Nora’s office, he went directly to his own office next door, grabbed his briefcase, and left without stopping to talk to Melissa. He figured he’d call her when he got home to let her know he’d be off campus.
Michael exited the building, his soft briefcase padding gently against his right leg as he made the short trek to his car. He unlocked the doors using his keyless remote control. After tossing his briefcase into the rear cargo area of the Santa Fe, he made his way around to the driver’s side. When he pulled open the door, the awful rancid smell—like that of rotten meat—hit him. When he saw the dead rat laying on the driver’s seat, a small pool of its blood staining the light gray fabric, he jumped back, repulsed by the sight and smell, and slammed into the car parked next to his own.
One hand instinctively went to his mouth and covered it as if to stifle a scream. His stomach rolled, whether from the stench or the sight of the tiny corpse, or maybe both, he wasn’t sure. No sooner he turned away from the sight of the dead thing, he spewed vomit onto the parking lot pavement, his breakfast spraying through his splayed fingers.
“Son of a bitch,” he managed to say before his gag reflex kicked in again. This time he bent over and wretched again, but thankfully, nothing more came out. Still bent over, sucking in deep gulps of air through his nose and exhaling through his mouth, Michael reached into his pocket, pulled out his handkerchief, and cleaned vomit from his hand. He spat, trying to clear the bad taste from his mouth. He wished he had mouthwash or toothpaste with him in the car.
Still holding the dirty handkerchief in one hand, he dug his cell phone out of his coat pocket with the other. He took a few uneven steps away from the mess he’d made, carefully avoiding stepping into the warm pool. With the cell phone still in his hand, he looked around the parking lot to see if anyone was lurking but he was alone. This time of morning, classes were just underway and employees were at their desks, their workday just beginning.
He started to dial 9-1-1 but paused with his finger over the first one, and then jabbed the cancel button. Shoving the phone back into his pocket without making the call, he walked back to the driver’s side and peered back into the vehicle. The awful smell still hung strongly in the confines of the cabin, but the rancidness of the dead flesh had dissipated enough that it didn’t overwhelm. Leaning forward, he peered more closely at the creature. Sticking out of the rat’s neck was the barrel of a pen. Someone had stabbed the damn thing to death with a Paper Mate.
Immediately, Michael knew who had done this. Robert Elliott Lang. The email and this dead rat were not coincidence. The email was one thing, but this was going too far. Michael retrieved the phone again and this time he dialed 9-1-1.
