Bergamot And The Extremely Hostile Takeover 

Renowned local private investigator Abraham Bergamot exited his inner office to find Sandra gazing out the window at the street.  “He won’t get here any faster with you staring like that.”  

“I know, but I’m just too excited.  Malcolm Dunnings has the most handsome of any client you’ve ever had.”  

“Just because—”  Bergamot stopped.  “Did you just say ‘has the most handsome’?’”

“Did I?  I meant ‘money.’  He has the most money of any client you’ve ever had.”  

“Still, he’s just a client.  One who happens to run a successful start-up.”  

“Are you kidding?  ThumBIT could end up being the third biggest rideshare company after Lyft and Uber.  After their IPO, Malcolm Dunnings will be a billionaire.”  

“There are more important things than money, Sandra.  Like scheduling a consultation during regular business hours and not expecting special treatment just because you’re rich.”  

“That’s just how rich people roll.  They want to do stuff on their own schedule.”  

“How would you know?” Bergamot scoffed.  

“If that’s a reference to how poor I am, I wholeheartedly agree.  Should we discuss giving me a raise?”  

“Darn it, I would, but I think I should remain focused on the important client coming in,” Bergamot quipped back.  He had approached the window to look out as well.  They both watched as a taxi pulled up out front, and the vibrant young CEO they were discussing got out and started toward their office.  They hurried from the window to make it appear as if they hadn’t been waiting.  

“Be nice, Abe.”  

“When am I not nice?”  

“Fine.  Then just be… less you.”  

Their front door opened, and the thirty-year-old wunderkind executive entered carrying a small overnight tote slung over his shoulder.  He unleashed an impossibly incandescent grin at them both.  “Sandra, right?  We spoke on the phone.  Great earrings, by the way.”  Sandra blushed and couldn’t help touching her ears.  “And you must be Abraham Bergamot.  So grateful you could make the time.”  

“My schedule was wide open, since I don’t usually see clients after five o’clock.”  Although Bergamot kept smiling at Dunnings, he noticed Sandra staring icily at him out of the corner of his eye.  

“I was still in San Francisco this morning and came here straight from the airport, but I really do appreciate you staying late for me.”  

“Shall we step into my office?”  He gestured Dunnings toward his inner sanctum.  

“Absolutely,” the man replied before turning to Sandra and adding with a quick wink, “and nothing for me, thanks.”  

Sandra was caught off guard.  “Oh, did you want me to get you any coff—”  But Dunnings was gone, having already answered a question she hadn’t even asked.  

“Still think he’s handsome?” Bergamot teased before following Dunnings into his office.  

“Oh good God yes,” she said out loud to no one.  

Inside Bergamot’s office, Dunnings had already made himself comfortable in front of the desk.  Bergamot slipped into his own chair behind it.  

“So.  You’ve probably heard a lot about my business.”

“Of course,” Bergamot replied. “Pork belly futures, right?”  

“Wha—  No,” Dunnings stammered, surprised that he’d have to explain himself to anybody.  “My partner and I run the hottest rideshare service around.”  He suddenly realized that Bergamot was messing with him, so he tossed off another of his sparkling smiles.  “Ahh, you got me.  That was pretty good.”  Still, something flashing in his eyes told Bergamot that he didn’t actually think it was pretty good.  

Bergamot leaned forward in his chair.  “Malcolm Dunnings, age thirty.  Co-founder and co-CEO, along with your childhood friend Jonathan Kryswecki, of ThumBIT, an app riding the coattails of earlier, more successful companies…” – Dunnings scowled a bit at this – “…to an IPO next month and an expected market cap of three billion to five billion dollars.”  

“I think we’ll get to seven,” Dunnings added as casually as he could.  

“Seven’s not as high as three billion.  In fact it’s almost three billion lower.”  

Dunnings was confused a second time.  “But it’s—  No, I meant seven billion.”

“Oh.  Well yes, that is more than three billion.”  

Again, Dunnings looked thrown until he realized that Bergamot was still having fun with him.  “Oh, ha ha, that’s pretty good.”  Another smile, and another flash of his eyes disagreeing.  

“So tell me more about the threatening letters.”  

“Right.  You got the copies I sent?”  Bergamot nodded.  “We get crackpot ‘I’m going to kill you’ stuff from time to time, and we always just pass it on to the police, out of an abundance of caution, mind you, I never think anything’s going to happen.  Still don’t, actually.”  

“So then why call me?”  

“Well, my partner Jon just found out about them.  I kept him in the dark about the earlier ones, and he’s a bit of a worrier, so when he saw these he got pretty upset.  He thinks we should take them more seriously.”  

“And what do you think?”

“I think our work is very much in the public eye, and it just comes with the territory.”  

“But isn’t your territory a little bit different?  After all, your company routinely faces lawsuits from disgruntled employees—”

“They’re not employees.  They’re independent—”

“Independent contractors, yes.  Heaven forbid any of those IPO billions find their way into their hands.”  

“I didn’t come here for you to judge my business, Mr. Bergamot.”  

Bergamot raised his hands placatingly.  “Of course.  I merely wished to illustrate where these threats might have arisen.”

“To be perfectly honest, Jon and I were recently discussing reclassifying our contractors as employees.”  

It was Bergamot’s turn to be confused.  “But wouldn’t that cost you a lot of money?”  

“Of course.  And as co-CEO I have a fiduciary duty to my investors not to do it.  And I don’t want to.  But as Jon has pointed out, there are more important things than money.  He has me convinced it’s the right thing to do.”  

“Convinced?”

“Well, almost convinced.”  Dunnings chuckled.  “We each own forty-five percent of the company, so we have to agree on everything to get anything done.”

“Who owns the other ten percent?”  

“Jon’s father.  He staked our first two rounds of V.C. out of his own pocket, so if you ask me, he earned it.  But his aren’t voting shares because Jon and I want to make all the decisions just the two of us.”  

“Fair enough.  Now, you said it might be beneficial for me to look over this so-called ‘fan mail’ to tell you if I can determine where any of them originated and perhaps more accurately assess the level of threat?”

“Yes.  Investigation is your area of expertise after all.  I’m not sure I quite know how to describe mine.”    

“How about ‘Changing the world one ride at a time.’”  

Yet another small flare in Dunnings’ eyes.  “Who said that?”

“You did.  On your website.”  

Dunnings chuckled.  “Of course.”

“Now, Mr. Dunnings, I’m not sure how much help I can be in determining the provenance of any of the letters.”  

“I understand, but I think Jon and I – mostly Jon – will sleep better knowing we at least looked into them.”  

“Well, if you wish to proceed.”  He stood up.  “Just let me tell Sandra she can head home for the night.”  He exited to the outer office.  

Dunnings took a moment to take in his surroundings.  The office was mostly bare, but there was a floor-to-ceiling set of shelves near the desk that was crammed full of books.  He turned his head sideways to read the titles, all of which seemed a bit monomaniacal:  Encyclopedia Botanica, Native Plant Species of North America, 2014 USA Gardeners Almanac…

“She wants to stay,” Bergamot said as he reentered the room a minute later.  “I suspect your presence here has something to do with it.”  

“In my experience, people sometimes tend to get a little infatuated with my fame.”  

“And the wealth?”  

“Well, the two go hand in hand, obviously,” he smiled back.    

Dunnings helped Bergamot download a ZIP file onto Bergamot’s computer that contained PDFs of the dozens and dozens of threatening letters his company had received over the last couple of years.  These varied from a tersely misspelled “I kil you” to a thirty-four-page handwritten diatribe about the evils of capitalism.  

The pair spent the next two hours combing through the notes individually, looking for any common threads or details that might be worrisome.  Dunnings explained to Bergamot what some of the messages referred to – those that had been written in response to something specific the company had done – while Bergamot was able to sleuth out some additional clues to several of the senders’ identities by pointing out unique properties in the types of paper used and the postmarks.  

They had slipped into a zone of sorts when the phone in the outer office rang unexpectedly.  They heard Sandra answer.  

“Hello…  Oh, hi, Detective Jackson…  Yes, he’s here late working on a case…  What?...  What?!...  Oh my God, that’s so weird – Malcolm Dunnings is here with us!...  Let me get Bergamot…”

Sandra entered, and the two men turned toward her as she delivered the news.  “It’s Jonathan Kryswecki.  He’s been…”  She shook her head, unwilling or unable to continue.  

“Where?”  asked Bergamot.  

“His apartment.”  

Bergamot turned to Dunnings.  “Can you take us there?”  

Dunnings looked stricken as he nodded.  Without any further words, they all got their coats and headed outside.  Dunnings ordered a ThumBIT ride with two taps on his phone, then they continued in silence to Kryswecki’s apartment.

The street outside Kryswecki’s building was almost empty.  Apparently, news that something had happened hadn’t broken yet, or there probably would have been a media scene.  Malcolm Dunnings was the public face of ThumBIT, but Jonathan Kryswecki was considered its tech guru.  His semi-reclusive life made any stories about him even more intriguing to the masses.  

Jackson must have been waiting for them, because he stepped out of the building as they emerged from the car.  With barely a nod to Dunnings, he started filling Bergamot in.  

“Kryswecki was home alone.  He logged in to some video game thing online where he was supposed to meet up with his friends.”

“He was a gamer,” Dunnings explained, “and Friday nights are his big gaming night.”  

The group stepped onto a waiting elevator.  Jackson turned to Dunnings.  “Any idea who might try to kill your partner?”  

“It’s crazy!  I went straight from the airport to Mr. Bergamot’s office to talk about this very thing.  He may have come up with something.”  

“I do have an idea or two.”  

Jackson nodded.  “Forensics says it looks like poison.”  

“I bet it’s strychnine,” Bergamot ventured.  He shot a knowing look to Dunnings.  “It’s the dependable workhorse of poisons.”  

They stepped out of the elevator on the floor just below the penthouse.  Jackson knocked on the first door they came to, and a uniformed officer answered and let them in.  They all entered, and Jackson immediately led them to the right, into a light-wooded kitchen that opened onto a spacious dining area with a spectacular view of the city.  A serious-looking woman wearing a mask, protective goggles, and rubber gloves stood next to the sink.  She was swirling a solution around inside a small glass vial.  Next to her on the counter was her open chemical forensics examination kit sitting next to a partially-eaten sandwich on its wrapper.  A slightly crumpled to-go bag near the sandwich showed a restaurant logo, “Bogey’s Hoagies.”  

Jackson explained, “Ms. Ackler here is running a series of rapid-response toxicology screens on the food.  Anything?”  

“Well,” Ackler said, “first test showed positive, and second test looks like the same.”  

“Positive for what?”  

“Strychnine.”  

“Devious!” exclaimed Bergamot.  He turned to Dunnings and Sandra.  “Within ten or so minutes of ingestion, strychnine causes the body to spasm and convulse uncontrollably.  It makes the victim physically unable to call for help.  They usually succumb to asphyxiation within two hours when the neural pathways that control breathing are paralyzed.  It is a gruesome way to die.”  

“Oh my God!” gasped Dunnings.  “So while we were sitting in your office, Jon was…”  He choked up in lieu of finishing the sentence.  

Bergamot seemed unmoved.  “Any ideas about where the poisoned food came from?”  

Dunnings didn’t realize at first that Bergamot was speaking to him.  “Oh, umm, no, not really.  He was at the office earlier so you might want to check with our assistant Danny about who all was there.  And of course there are those threatening letters…”

“Mm-hmm,” Bergamot mumbled.  He looked at the small white receipt that was stapled to the bag.  “The food was delivered two hours ago?”  

Jackson nodded.  “Two hours ago, yes, so the time fits.”  

Bergamot turned to Dunnings again.  “Your friend was fond of hoagies?”  

“He, uh—  yeah.  I guess.”  

Sandra was on her phone.  “I’m on his Twitter feed.  Apparently he ordered Bogey’s every Friday night.”  She scrolled a bit.  “In his last post, he said his sandwich tonight was cold, which is worth…”  She counted something on her screen.  “…seventeen frowny faces.”    

“Perhaps we should head to this sandwich shop to investigate further.”  

Sandra bit her lower lip.  “I mean… sometimes sandwiches just get cold, right?”  

Jackson stifled a smirk.  “He means to investigate it as the source of the strychnine.”  

“Oh.  Right.”  

Bergamot leaned toward Sandra and quietly whispered, “This is probably not a good time to bring up your raise.”  

The officer who opened the door stepped into the kitchen and addressed Jackson.  “Manager sent the codes, so we’re ready any time.”

Dunnings was confused.  “Ready for what?”  

“Ready to watch security footage from Bogey’s Hoagies.”  Bergamot winked at Dunnings.  “Now we don’t have to go there after all.”  

The policeman opened up a crime scene laptop and logged in to a video footage database site.  “We used to have to run all this down in person, but now everything’s online.  The manager of the Bogey’s Hoagies sent us a code so we can log-in and look at the in-store footage from earlier this evening without having to actually go there.”  

“The internet wins again!” Bergamot said triumphantly.  He frowned when Dunnings didn’t react.  “Nothing?  Oh come on, your entire livelihood is pro-internet.”  

The officer at the computer finished finding what he was looking for and stepped aside so they could all see the screen.  The image showed a cashier’s stand with a large Bogey’s Hoagies sign behind it.  Next to the stand was a small set of shelves holding several bags that looked just like the one on the kitchen counter next to them.  

“That must be the area where the to-go orders are put when they’re ready,” said Jackson.  

There was no one in the frame, but as they watched, a shadowy figure – in sunglasses with a hoodie pulled up – crossed to the shelf carrying his own paper bag.  He examined several of the receipts stapled to the sides of the bags before finding what he was looking for.  He switched the bag he brought with one on the shelf and attached the receipt to the replacement.  Then he exited the direction he came from with the bag from the shelf.  Jackson paused the video.  

“That’s it?”  Sandra wondered.  “What was that?”  

“That was a suspect switching Kryswecki’s order with something else.”  Jackson unpaused the video and fast-forwarded a few minutes.  He let the video play as a deliverywoman wearing the logo of an online food delivery service entered and, after checking the receipts stapled to their sides, pulled several bags from the shelf, including the replacement.  

Sandra leaned in to read the receipt on the bag on the counter.  “Oh.  So that was Janine.”  She waved playfully at the screen.  “Hi, Janine.”  On the screen, Janine exited with the bags.

“So that person we saw switched Jon’s order with… with poison?!” Dunnings moaned.  

“Presumably,” Bergamot answered.  “Although I’ve never had Bogey’s before, maybe dying is the natural reaction to eating their food.”  

All of the others – with the exception of Dunnings – laughed at this.  “Excuse me!” he protested.  “How can you be making jokes at a time like this?”  

“A time like what?”  

“My partner, my best friend… is dead!”

“What?  Dead?  Who said he was dead?”  Dunnings now looked completely thrown for a loop.  “I never said he was dead.  Sandra, did you say he was dead?”  

Sandra was grinning, happy to have been part of the fun this time.  “I did not.”  

Bergamot turned to Jackson, who rolled his eyes.  “Of course I didn’t.  And just because I put up with your theatrics doesn’t mean I approve of them…”  

Dunnings was stunned.  “What’s going on?”

“Jonathan Kryswecki isn’t dead.  But you don’t have to take my word for it.”  Bergamot gestured for Dunnings to follow him, and they all exited the kitchen and turned the corner to the left to enter the living room.

Sitting on the couch next to another policeman was Jonathan Kryswecki.  Alive and well.  Dunnings was even more stunned than his previous stunned.  “Jonathan?!”

“Hey, Malcolm.  I’m not sure if you’ve figured it out yet, but these guys all think you had something to do with the poison.”

“But what are you talking— No, of course I didn’t.  How could I have?  I just flew in from San Francisco and went straight to Bergamot’s office!”  

“So you’ve repeatedly told us,” Bergamot answered.  “Great alibi, by the way.”  There was a moment of quiet.  Then Bergamot spoke up again, “Right.  Yes.  Seems like a good time to watch the second video.”  

“Second video?” Sandra asked.

The police officer queued up another video while Bergamot explained.  “The poisoned sandwich required a sandwich, of course – the classic recipe for a poisoned sandwich being poison plus sandwich – so I requested this footage from a different branch of Bogey’s Hoagies, this the one closest to the airport.  Let’s see if we can spot the murderer.”  

“The second video shows the murderer?” asked Sandra.  

“Probably!” Bergamot said excitedly.  

Jackson was slightly exasperated.  “I don’t know why we didn’t just start with the second video.”

“It’s more fun this way, wouldn’t you agree?” Bergamot answered with an impish grin.

The video started to play.  The layout was similar to the first video but was clearly taken at a different location.  Dunnings started to take a step away, but Jackson firmly clamped down on his shoulder.  They watched a cashier sort through some checks for a moment, and then Malcolm Dunnings stepped into frame.  

Kryswecki was apoplectic.  “You tried to kill me?”

“What?  Jon, no…”

“You no good, rat-faced bastard!”

“Ooh, he’s really letting him have it,” Bergamot whispered to Jackson.  

“Jonathan, no, I’m so happy you’re alive…” he added weakly.  They all watched on the video as Dunnings paid cash for the sandwich and exited.  

“So the food came from the restaurant by the airport,” Sandra nodded.  “That’s probably why the sandwich was cold.”  

Bergamot smiled at her.  “Very good, Sandra.  That’s the kind of eye for detail that could get you a raise.”  

“Really?  A raise?” she asked, hopeful.  

Bergamot shook his head.  “Sandra, not now, please!  We’re in the middle of a case.”  

“It’s a good thing it was cold, or I might have eaten it,” Kryswecki pointed out.  

Jackson shook his head in disbelief.  “You weren’t going to eat it because we already told you it might be poisoned.”

“Oh, right.  Still, I order from that place all the time.  It shouldn’t have been cold.”

Jackson rolled his eyes at this before telling the other cops to arrest Dunnings, which they did.  Jackson then turned to Bergamot.  “Alright, so tell me.  How did you know that Dunnings was going to try to kill his partner?”  

“He mentioned that they had to agree on everything but that they couldn’t agree on how to classify their gig workers in advance of their IPO.  If the company announced a decision to accept their workers as employees, it would have cost Dunnings billions.  The hate mail gave him convenient cover to try something.”  

“Okay, but what about this:  how did you know he was going to try to do it tonight?  You called me while he was still in your office.”

“He and Dunnings talked for a few minutes, then Abe excused himself to call you from the extension at my desk,” Sandra verified.    

“That’s because I knew Dunnings was up to something before he even set foot in my office.”  

“Oh come on, Abe.  Not even you are that good.”  

“But it’s true.  And I can prove it – why else would the CEO of a rideshare company show up… in a taxi?”

He reminded them that the ThumBIT app would show all the stops a passenger made, something Dunnings could not allow.  Instead, he traveled by cab, which allowed him to move with anonymity from the airport to the restaurants and then finally to Bergamot’s office.  His hours with Bergamot had been designed to give him an alibi.  

“I suppose since no one died, all’s well that ends well,” Jackon offered.  

“Well, I never got my dinner,” Kryswecki said.  “Who wants a sandwich?  I’m buying!”  

That night, Bergamot had his first ever Bogey’s Hoagie.  And due to the indigestion that kept him awake long past midnight, it was also his last.