Chapter 6: A Telling of Truths

… Reggie plays his hand…

…and Linda begins her search for truth…

Linda strode down the hall to Reggie’s office, cutting a lean confident figure in a trim dark skirt, white blouse with frills and black high heels. She nodded and smiled to the co-workers she saw everyday. She wondered if anyone sensed the uneasiness she felt.

Reggie’s door was open and she rapped twice on the sill. He acknowledged her without smiling and motioned her to a chair. Something inside her wound even tighter.

“Thanks for dropping by,” he said, rising to close the door. “You don’t mind, do you?” She shook her head.

“What’s this about, Reggie?”

He sat down again and picked up a small stack of hard-backed cards. He shuffled and studied them like a poker player, then he looked up, his brown eyes wide, guileless.

“It’s about work…Joseph…and you.”

Linda flashed hot and shifted in her seat. Then a chill descended on her. He couldn’t be questioning her job, she thought; not like this. When he mentioned Joseph, he was overstepping his bounds. She tensed, ready to set him right.

“Well?”

He shuffled the cards again and turned one over. “This”.

It was a photo of a man and a woman, holding hands. The man looked like Joseph.

“She works at Rightway and has been stealing from us.”

Before she could say anything, he set another photo down. “They met in front of your address and went inside.”

Then another, of the man getting out of Joseph’s car. Linda’s mouth gaped open taking in air, unable to articulate words.

Another photo. “He left at 1220.”

And another. “She followed 30 minutes later.”

Linda felt vulnerable, exposed and embarrassed, and the words burst out. “How dare you! How dare you invade my privacy!” She hunched over, falling silent and employing all her energy to keep from crying.

Reggie leaned back in his chair waiting for the wave of indignation to pass. Then, taking advantage of her silence, he explained about the investigation and assured her it had nothing to do with Joseph or her. No one else knew, he added, about Stacy’s connection through Joseph to her.

She was at the same time relieved and wary. Reggie seemed embarrassed about it. He wasn’t sticking it to her or gloating, but he knew something that could in some crazy way threaten her standing with the company. She took the measure of the large man with the frown on his face and decided she had to trust him.

“Who is this woman?”

Reggie told her more about Stacy Wallop, adding that she’d be brought upstairs to be interviewed and arrested that day.

“Does she know who I am?”

“I don’t know.”

***

Back in her office with the door shut, Linda laid her head on her desk and closed her eyes like she used to do in school. Her mind skipped, back and forth, from present to past and back again.

Joseph was attractive to women, she knew. She, herself, was testament to that. But when they decided to live together she thought his commitment equal to hers. Did she fool herself into believing it? She wasn’t sure.

She thought of her childhood. An only child, when she closed the door to her room, she felt safe and cozy in a world she created. Later she shared a place with girlfriends and new people were always passing through. She liked some; others she didn’t. She longed for that safe, cozy feeling again and, when she got with Joseph, she was striving for it. But he let that woman in her home. Did they talk about her? That bothered her, too.

She thought back to the ruffled bed and how he insisted the only answer was that she forgot to make it. Her face flushed red.

It nagged at her he was with someone who was stealing from the store. She wondered if he knew and if it mattered to him. It should.

Reggie told her Joseph doesn’t have a criminal record according to a cursory background check. He didn’t say if they did one on her. How humiliating.

The line between Joseph and Stacy and she hadn’t been drawn on any paper, but what would Stacy reveal when questioned? Again, her mind nagged: did he know, could he be involved?

A fire starts in a dark corner in a rundown house. It grows until the house is engulfed, then spreads to houses nearby. Soon the whole block is ablaze. The flames are hot and suck up air; the sky is a confusion of black suffocating smoke. Linda wakes up, acrid smoke causing her nose to flare. She falls out of bed onto the floor. Crawling to the door, she prays flames aren’t on the other side. She reaches out to feel the door. If it’s hot, don’t open. It’s warm. She panics. Is warm hot? Is warm not hot? She doesn’t know. Behind: smoke. Ahead: the door. She grows dizzy. She must push through…

She jerked awake, gasping for breath. A thin line of drool stretched from her lips to the desk. She checked her watch; fifteen minutes had passed.

She worked the rest of the afternoon at her desk, waiting for Reggie’s call. About six, the phone rang. Reggie told her Stacy Wallop was being taken to Security for her interview. It could be long or short, depending on her willingness to talk.

Linda guessed short, so she donned her suit jacket.

She took the stairs to the third store level, where major appliances were sold. From there, she rode the escalators down. Stepping off on the second floor, she walked through Men’s Suits and Sports Clothes to the next down escalator. On the first floor she passed Women’s Wear and Men’s Furnishings towards the main entrance.

She noticed several sales people clustered together without pretense of working. They scrutinized her for any clue to what was happening. They didn’t know her but the badge clipped to her lapel identified her as an employee.

She stood waiting, looking towards the escalator. She knew Stacy Wallop would follow the same path through the store, her hands cuffed, being led by a sheriff. It may not have been intended, but it was the best example she knew of a ritual of public humiliation.

***

Gliding down, the green worsted trousers appeared first and then the officer's torso, clothed in a short sleeved khaki shirt. Stacy followed in a short blue skirt and then a second officer. She was sandwiched between the two sheriffs, one male and one female. Her tawny arms pulled behind her, she seemed to gaze without comprehension at the world. Her nose was red and her eyes overflowed with tears. Conversation on the floor ceased in astonished amazement.

Linda stepped into the middle of the aisle, blocking the way.

“Step aside, miss. Please.”

She stood her ground as they approached then jerked to a halt. Stacy blinked, looking at the woman before her. Linda saw a young and frightened girl who didn’t seem to know her. They pushed past and out the door.

Next, she had to see Joseph.



The concluding chapter will be posted by December 31. Thank you for reading my work. You may post your thoughts in the Comments section of any post or by sending an e-mail through my Profile page.