Page 81 of Exposed

“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 isslacking 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.”

“Gypsum?”

“Gypsum is some type of stone that’s in drywall.”