The new salary was not particularly good and the benefits were minimal, but Jeff saw some possibilities in this opportunity and he quit at once, to the anger and annoyance of virtually everyone. Maureen was furious, but grudgingly followed her husband. This was the last straw for her highbrow family and they cut off her allowance and family credit cards, leaving her solely to subsist upon Jeff's limited income. It was no surprise that real problems began to arise in their relationship almost immediately afterwards.
He enjoyed the challenging work at Hudson Boots & Shoes, Inc., but keeping the plant functioning each month was a constant challenge. For every problem solved, at least two more hidden ones reared their ugly heads.
The owner, Ralph Hudson, was a decent boss, but his knowledge of modern accounting and business management techniques was nearly non-existent, and he had a bad heart condition that limited both his time on-premises and his attention to important details. The plant was hemorrhaging money each month, and with all of the accounts being kept on paper and in no particular sort of filing system. Sales were decent but not exceptional and somehow expenses always managed to exceed income. With nothing computerized, it took Jeff a couple of years to finally trace exactly where all the money was disappearing to.
There was waste and inefficiency everywhere, but some of the most serious losses were going into the pockets of the Sales Manager, Dave Westin, his primary management rival within the company. Every time Jeff suggested an improvement to the company's operation he could be sure that Dave would argue the exact opposite side. He was the champion of the 'status quo' at the company and against any form of accounting modernization and computerization, and now Jeff knew exactly why.
Soon it became very clear that the two of them were implacable rivals for controlling the future of the company and Jeff soon came to detest the smirk that Dave always seemed to have on his face, as if he were enjoying some private joke at Jeff's expense. Jeff prepared himself extremely carefully for each management meeting and soon was winning more boardroom battles than he lost, but it caused him to work lengthy hours and not give Maureen the amount of attention that she was used to receiving. Their home life began to suffer accordingly nearly immediately.
Dave apparently led a very expensive lifestyle and, according to Jeff's best estimates, had been fraudulently skimming off about $70,000 a year from the company for at least the last five years ... probably longer. He managed the Sales and Purchasing departments and always dressed in expensive suits, owned at least three expensive Rolex watches and drove a fancy BMW convertible. Way too much for his salary which was scarcely larger than Jeff's. He had also in addition been receiving personal kick-backs from our buyers and suppliers for everything he bought or sold. The quality of the leather the company had been receiving was continually decreasing, but our cost for it kept increasing. Now we knew why sales had been going slowly down while our expenses kept continually increasing.
It goes without saying that his personal expense accounts were also excessive to say the least also, and showed that over the years Dave had been living the good life indeed at the company's expense.
Convincing the owner Ralph Hudson to fire Dave was a hard sell, as everyone at the company was enamored of the smooth talking thief Dave, but in the end the proof of Jeff's investigations couldn't be denied (with the help of a financial audit team and a pair of independent private investigators) and Dave was finally at last fired. This should have been a great triumph for Jeff; he had removed his chief management rival in the company and he had been now promoted as the new Director of Operations, and with a slight pay increase too, but he arrived home to an even greater surprise. Maureen had moved out and had left him for Dave!
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It ought not to have been that great of a shock. Maureen had always been one of Dave's biggest supporters and she had taken a liking to him right from the very start. She liked his flash and his swagger and constantly tried to get Jeff to follow his example. At some point, the two of them had started an affair ... probably about the same time over a year ago that Dave's smirk became a permanent fixture on his face. Well, Jeff had had the last laugh, but it didn't seem nearly as funny now.
There was some discussion about filing fraud and theft charges against Dave, but in the end, Ralph Hudson declined. He wasn't all that forgiving in nature, but the extremely delicate financial state of the company couldn't handle the strain of a public fraud investigation or a trial. Even the faintest hint of the chronic financial mismanagement the company had endured for nearly a decade would be enough for the suppliers to cut off their business credit, effectively dooming the company. Instead, it was decided that everyone would keep the fraud secret, bite their lips shut, and thoroughly restructure the company from top to bottom ... and pray that they were just in the nick of time to save the company from bankruptcy at all.
Of Dave and Maureen, Jeff had heard little. They left town together immediately and she filed for a quickie divorce in Vegas. She had completely cleaned out the family bank accounts before she left and had recently taken out a large home equity loan on their house. As part of the divorce settlement, she now also wanted another $10,000 for "moving expenses" and a large amount of monthly alimony.
Jeff counter-filed fraud charges for the illegal home equity loan, showing that his signature on the loan document was forged, and proved that the other fingerprints on the document matched Dave's, not his. It took awhile, but her alimony and moving expenses requests were declined by the family court judge, who also declined to stick Jeff with Maureen's extensive legal bills. In the end, both Maureen and Dave plead No Contest to the fraud charge. Both received a stiff lecture and a suspended sentence with no jail time. Maureen got to keep all of the money she had previously taken, but it was all long spent anyway with no hope of repayment.
The divorce done, they went their separate ways. No one was quite happy with the end verdict and his own legal fees kept Jeff flat broke for several years afterwards. Still it shut the door closed on that painful period of Jeff's life.
About two years later, Jeff heard through the grapevine that Dave was up to his old tricks again at a new company in California and had been caught once more with his hands in the cookie jar. Dave quickly married Maureen about this time — apparently so that she as his wife she couldn't be forced to testify against him. This time he was prosecuted, and at the sentencing hearing, details of some of his earlier frauds were brought up in evidence. He was sentenced to fourteen years in state prison and expected to serve at least five before parole. In addition, his suspended sentence in Nevada was overturned as a result of this parole violation, and he would then have to serve another two full years there for that old forgery crime after his release.
Jeff didn't feel the slightest bit sorry for him. Dave was crooked to his very core and had gotten pretty much what he deserved. He was surprised to find that Maureen had indeed waited faithfully on him those seven years that Dave was in prison. He couldn't help but wish that she had been even half as faithful and loyal to him when they were married. Love is such a strange thing.
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"Well, Maureen, it's been a pretty long time ... you're looking well. Doing alright, I guess. You look unchanged — as if you'd hardly changed much at all either. A little heavier maybe and a little grey on the sides, but it suits you. You look good. Age and gravity sure are bitches, aren't they. It seems like only yesterday we were together and probably fighting about something silly. Funny how time speeds up on you when you get older." Maureen agreed and they drank their drinks in silence for a few minutes.
"I saw Dave out there in the hallway with you before you came in. You two still together?" She nodded.
"We're here for the sales convention. He's getting some minor award tomorrow — something about selling the most appliances in his district last quarter. He's ... better now, not quite as much of an ass. He's always been a good salesman, but now he's gotten his life in order and he works hard. Things were very hard for us for a while, but they're slowly getting better."
"Things were very ... challenging at the factory for a while after you left. Dave left us in a pretty bad spot and we very nearly had to lock up the doors for good."
"He regrets that now, looking back. We're actually grateful that Hudson decided not to press charges. That would have been a third strike on Dave and he'd still be jail. While he was inside, I had to go to work to support myself and pay for his legal bills. I wasn't used to it and can't say that I like it even now ... but I've learned to respect people that have to work for a living."
