The voice was low and soft. "Scott, I need to talk to you."
Without moving my head, which was staring at my screen, I said, "The Wicked Witch is here. What does she want?"
"Scott, please, this is important. I promise to be good."
"You have to do better than that. I need a date tonight or tomorrow night."
"Scott! Quit fooling around. There is a VP from headquarters here and he needs a very private conversation with you immediately."
I turned around. My beautiful Marsha was right there, a deep frown on her face, a beige suit on her body.
"You sound like I have to do this, whatever it is, right now?"
"Yes. I don't think you will be back today, so shut things down and come to my office as soon as you can."
"This better be good. If you are doing one of your numbers on me, your backside is going to be very red."
"For once in your life, be serious. This guy is all business."
She looked as tense and nervous as I'd seen her. And every inch the professional HR exec as I watched her tight behind sheathed in expensive wool disappear down the corridor.
I walked into her office a few minutes later to find a beefy looking guy sitting in one of her desk chairs, giving me an unfriendly look.
Marsha introduced him as Mark Cooper, and he gave me a company business card that said "Corporate Compliance" on it.
"Scott, we have reason to believe there is a major data leak going on out here. We need your assistance to analyze the problem and identify who is doing it."
"If this is security related, that's not my area. You should talk to Roy Callaway."
"I was told that you are the data guy. I think we need you."
Marsha was looking at me unhappily. I wondered how HR was tangled in this, whatever it was.
"My job is to be a data analytics consultant to line managers and developers across the company. I don't have operational responsibilities except at times of system deployment and testing. By the way, if you don't have a copy of the corporate data access policy, you should get one from Marsha. The audit committee of the Board is tough as nails about observing it. Roy can fill you in."
Cooper was beginning to look pissed. I said to myself, this guy is an ex-cop of some kind and he wants me to drop everything and join his hunt. Trying to be more agreeable, I said, "Who did you talk to back east that gave you my name?"
"Actually, one of my friends in the FBI told me. He said Scott Thurston was the smartest data person on the west coast."
"Damn. I told Karl he did not have permission to spread my name around. But he is a good guy. I was able to save him some grief on a big drugs case."
"So you'll help me."
"If it's within my capability, and not fenced out of bounds, I'll be happy to try."
"What do you mean "out of bounds?"
"If you want broad data access, there is a form letter that requires a detailed statement of scope and need to know. And at least one, and sometimes more than one EVP signature on it."
Marsha was looking even more unhappy. It dawned on me that she had gone off the reservation and was now eating crow. Cooper did not look like the type of guy who enjoyed asking permission.
I said, "I've got an important project coordination meeting the rest of the afternoon. Why doesn't Marsha help you with the necessary paperwork?"
Trying to figure out what was going on, I grabbed some Thai takeout on my way home. I changed and was just sitting down to eat when my cell went off with a call from Marsha.
"Scott, I'm sorry for this afternoon. That didn't go off well at all, did it?"
"I was sitting there trying to figure out how a data investigation got this far without any of the clearances and permissions. Did you get blindsided or what?"
"Can I come over and cry on your shoulder?"
"Are you serious? After the way I treated you last fall?"
"I'd like to think I am a reformed woman. Can I come over and cry some on you?"
"A reformed Marsha Wilson? That I've got to see. If you haven't eaten, there is enough Thai takeout for both of us. But the beer supply is thin."
"I can be there quicker if you let me use your shower and borrow some sweats."
"Get your gorgeous body over here and I'll see if there is anything clean enough to lend you."
That was an inside joke. I'm a bit of a neat freak, and Marsha does a great job of dropping clothes anywhere and everywhere. We were an item for a while last year, and then career frictions got in the way, we had a big fight, and agreed to be friends. Which turned out to be very distant friends as various stories about why we weren't together anymore circulated through the building.
Twenty minutes later, I was letting her in and she thrust a sixpack of beer in my hands as she headed for the bathroom. By the time I put the beer in the fridge and followed her to find something to wear, there was an untidy trail of upscale feminine clothing on my bedroom floor, a location she knew well from past acquaintance. I took a fresh sweatshirt and a pair of my sister's capris and put them down in the bathroom. The shower was nicely steamed up, but I figured I would get show and tell later anyhow.
Warm plates and warmed up Thai were on the living room table when she came out. I handed her a beer and said, "I expect you need more than one of these?"
"Damn right." She leaned over and gave me a sloppy wet kiss.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, until she said, "That guy is a creep. He sweet talked me into arranging a visit here by dropping east coast office names, and I took him for genuine. I told him after you left that we needed to do a complete reset. I discovered that the Board resolution authorizing his office is only a week old, and there is nothing in any executive file detailing duties or responsibilities. I spent a half hour on the phone to my HR counterpart on the east coast and found out that one of the Board members, a former White House national security type, got this all started a few weeks ago when the Chairman got a call from the head of the FBI about a suspected leak of sensitive information from someone inside the company to the Chinese. Cooper is the result and nobody knows him from Adam."
She finished her plate, crawled into my arms and said, "Give me a kiss and tell me I'm not a silly bimbo who just screwed up her job."
