Milo had drifted into auto-listen; the question caught him by surprise. “I…I don’t know, Mrs. Underhill. I hope so.”
“Call me Leslie. Only vice presidents get the last name treatment around here, and then just the ones who make a big stink. Well, you’ll be doing data entry, nothing to overtax your brains, though did Ellie say you know accounting?”
“A little. Beginning stuff.”
“Still, that’s good. Now over here is the copier….”
Milo trailed her around the very wide aisles. He vaguely recalled a woman in a wheelchair at the funeral. He wondered what her physical ailment was, but at the rate she talked he would know before lunch. He also remembered that after his dad started at Wolverine he’d taken the good headphones into work, saying he liked to listen to music sometimes. Now Milo was sorry he’d objected.
He understood other things, too. People here remembered Tim Shoemaker. Milo thought of Ellie’s reaction to his name. It was odd to meet people he’d never heard of who clearly had heard of him. His father hadn’t talked much about his coworkers at home. But obviously he’d talked to them. Leslie Underhill had worked closely with Tim. Unless she was a much better actress than she appeared—and Milo doubted she could keep a secret to save her life—Leslie had no reservations about Tim’s work or his character. Whatever Mr. Gordon Pearce had discovered about Tim’s fraud, he hadn’t passed it on to other employees. Whether that had been from consideration, or plain face-saving, Milo didn’t know, but he was grateful. It was easier to pretend he’d forgiven his father for being a thief and a coward when that information was not public knowledge.
Leslie was describing the tasks he’d be doing. There would be some matching of purchase orders with invoices, some preliminary processing of accounts payable and receivable, but his main duty would be entering payroll data.
A gray adding machine as hefty as a shot put sat at his workstation, beside a computer. “I don’t suppose they teach 10-key by touch in high school,” Leslie said gloomily. “Or that you even know what that is.”
Actually, he did. The summer before, during a rainy July when rentals were slow, Bert had signed Milo up for an online keyboarding course. Milo hadn’t minded; being able to do bookkeeping meant he got more hours than the regular movers. “I’ve done some of that,” he said.
Leslie’s eyes brightened. “You wouldn’t kid me, would you?” She handed him a sheaf of invoices. “Just go down this column till I tell you to stop.”
Feeling the pressure—he hadn’t done this in a year, and the feel of this machine was different—Milo sat down, stretched his fingers, and began. The sudden quiet from across the office told him Amber and J’azzmin were watching. By the third line he’d found his rhythm. By the fifth he was starting to zip, keeping his eyes on the copy as he’d been taught. He reached the bottom of the page and looked up.
“Hit Total,” Leslie said.
He hit Total.
“I don’t believe it.” She was dazed. “A high-school boy who can do data entry.” She scanned his entries and compared them with the copy. “And without one mistake. I’m in heaven.”
Milo shrugged. No big deal, didn’t everyone know this stuff? But Leslie made Amber and J’azzmin come over and look, and they ooh-ed and ah-ed and kidded him about being a girl in disguise, which made him laugh, and at that moment Ellie Farnon stuck her head in the door.
“Nobody’s having this much fun in Human Resources,” she declared. “Leslie, can I take the new boy to lunch?”
***
Chapter 6
They went down the stairs this time, and from this perspective the rear view of Ellie wasn’t quite so mind-bending. Milo tried to ignore how her hair swung in its jaunty ponytail. The daughter—or whatever she was—of Alf Farnon was off-limits, even mentally.
They came out at the lobby near a side door, which Ellie took. Outside on the walking path, the first thing Milo saw was a worker in khaki overalls weeding a flowerbed.
He signaled Ellie to wait, and walked over to the patch of fresh mulch. “Did you rip off some prisoner’s jumpsuit?” He kicked one of the size twelve sneakers.
Zaffer sat back on his heels. “Regulation uniform for Security and Groundskeeping Crew. Don’t worry, I kept my own boxers.” He wiped his forehead. “I asked my boss how many weeds I had to pull before they gave me a gun.”
“And?”
“He’s going to get back to me on that.”
Behind them, Ellie gave a silvery laugh.
“Ellie, this Marine wanna-be is my friend Ben Zaffer. He started today, too. Zaffer, meet Ellie Farnon.” Milo tried to catch Zaffer’s eye. But Zaffer had better things to look at.
“Pleased to meet you.” Zaffer stood up and brushed wood chips from his knees. “Is that Farnon, as in daughter of Alf Farnon?” Damn. How did he make it sound so natural? Girls melted to Zaffer like butter.
“Why, yes it is. And is that Zaffer as in Zaffer’s Jewelry and Pawn of Greater Monroe?”
This shook Zaffer’s practiced manner. His jaw dropped. “You know it?”
Her laugh was more like a little choke, Milo decided.
“Only because my car broke down across the street from it last month. I went inside to wait for the tow truck. You’ve got some cool stuff in there.”
“You should see what we have in back.” Zaffer winked.
“Maybe I should.” She hadn’t wasted that sexy smile on Milo.
Milo burned at his friend’s cluelessness. They weren’t in high school any more. Didn’t he know better than to hit on the president’s daughter?
But Ellie was inviting Zaffer to lunch as though she hadn’t heard about this rule either. Zaffer dodged Milo’s elbow to toss his spade under a bush. They walked to the far end of the complex, Zaffer somehow keeping Ellie between him and Milo, where they bought sandwiches from Big Mario’s Lunch Truck. Milo handed over $5.50 for a Reuben and wondered how cheap he’d look if he started bringing his lunch.
“I thought we’d go up on the roof.” Ellie pointed at the assembly plant. “Great view.”
“You’re the boss,” Zaffer said amiably, and rewrapped his sandwich. “Or close enough.”
They’d only gone a few steps when the fattest raccoon Milo had ever seen appeared from behind the lunch truck. It caught a piece of crust a worker tossed it, scarfed it down, and waddled off. He looked around. No one seemed to think it strange, a raccoon out in daylight and as tame as a dog.
“Fatso,” Ellie said, seeing the direction of his gaze. “I think he’s gross, but people seem to like him.”
They took the lobby elevator to the Observation Deck on the fourth floor, then used a covered walkway to reach the new assembly plant. Milo stepped into the landscape he’d first seen from Farnon’s office in March. It had changed.
The original plant stood across from them, with a flat tarred roof no one would rush to eat on. But where they stood, a dozen employees picnicked at tables shaded by giant sun umbrellas, beyond which a sea of greenish-gray, ankle-high vegetation stretched into the distance. Milo had driven past this building to park and never noticed its length. It was like falling through a doorway into Narnia.
“Sedum.” Ellie’s gesture encompassed the whole roof.
“See who?” Milo asked.
“See-DUM,” she said, laughing. “That’s what it’s called. A ground cover. Never gets higher than that and it never needs mowing.”
“Thank God,” Zaffer said, “because I know who’d be dragging the mower up here.”
“Really saves on heating and cooling, and supposedly it makes the roof last longer. And the skylights mean you only need half the lights.” Ellie dispensed more tour guide information as she steered them toward an empty table at the edge of the roof. There were no railings. Milo let the other two sit on the outside. No point tempting fate.
Eight pairs of glass skylights as tall as Volkswagens were spaced evenly down the roof. Between them more skylights, flat to the ground, reflected the b
lue June sky like little square lakes. Milo saw what Ellie meant—any space under all that glass would be flooded with light. Or rain, or snow.
“Like Hogwarts,” he said.
Ellie cocked her head as though she’d hadn’t quite heard.
“Wizards. Milo leads a rich fantasy life,” Zaffer said comfortably.
“Are you into werewolves and vampires, too?” she asked Milo kindly, as though he was ten.
“I don’t read that crap.” Orcs were nothing like vampires. He kicked Zaffer under the table. His friend was only at Wolverine because of Milo, what was he trying to prove?
“We have our standards,” Zaffer told her, but not as though he thought Milo a geeky loner misfit, more as though the two of them read the same things—which they did. Though apparently one of them knew better than to prove it to girls. “So how’d your dad come up with this idea, Ellie?”
Milo unwrapped his sandwich and busied his mouth with eating before it got him in more trouble. But he listened. Everything about Alf Farnon interested him.
“He loves the Living Roof at the Ford Rouge Plant. They’ve got stuff that we don’t—a whole drainage system for storm water, and they do something with their paint fumes he wants to try—but they don’t have any place where you can eat lunch. Our people really like this set-up. The Valeene Herald was here last week, they’re going to do a big picture spread on it. It’s only been open since May.”
Zaffer then asked Ellie about herself, natural, easy questions Milo wished he’d thought of.
They learned she had gone to a boarding high school in Chicago, and had just completed her freshman year at college there. That she was supposed to be touring Spain this summer, but the friend going with her had broken her ankle falling off a horse.
“So instead of Barcelona I get another summer in Valeene. But I did get a car. Look, you can see it from here. The red one.” Ellie pointed down to the employee parking lot. A few rows from Zaffer’s truck, like a princess slumming with peasants, sat a car Milo and Zaffer had admired on their way in. The “red one” was a Ford Shelby Mustang, convertible model. Top speed of 155 mph, Zaffer had informed Milo.
Now Zaffer choked on a hot pepper. “That’s yours?”
“Technically, but my dad drives it every chance he gets. My first stick shift.”
Pain crossed Zaffer’s face, and Milo knew what he was thinking. A work of art with a six-speed manual gearbox would not be his first choice, either, for someone new to manual transmissions.
“Ellie,” Zaffer said earnestly. “A girl like you, driving around in a car like that, should have some security. As a professional security guard with four hours’ experience, I am at your service.”
She giggled. “Is he always like this?” she asked Milo.
“Afraid so. If he annoys you, let me know.”
“And what do you mean, ‘a girl like me’?” she demanded of Zaffer.
“A girl who…lacks karate training, I meant.”
“I can shoot a pistol,” she said. “That’s even better.”
“You can?” Zaffer’s flirting shifted to genuine respect. “I know a great shooting range. We should go there, then you can prove you can take care of yourself. Milo, what do you say?”
Zaffer just didn’t get it. This girl toured Europe, or could; she knew people who rode horses (and who weren’t farmers, or Amish). She was out of their league. Milo balled up his sandwich wrapper. “Shouldn’t you get back to work? Those weeds don’t pull themselves, last I looked.”
“You are so right, buddy. Ellie, it was a pleasure meeting you. Don’t forget about that shooting match.”
Yet without Zaffer, conversation flagged, and Milo was relieved when Ellie rose and said she had to bring back a sandwich for someone in Human Resources. In the lobby she reached for the heavy side door before Milo could, just as someone jerked it open from the other side. She would have fallen if the man coming in hadn’t caught her.
“Careful there.” Hands grasped her upper arms.
“Oh, it’s you.” Ellie stepped away and rubbed her arms vigorously. “Mr. Pearce is our Vice President of Finance. This is Milo Shoemaker, Mr. Pearce. I believe you knew his father.”
Milo held out his hand to the man who had discovered his father’s fraud. “Good to meet you, sir.”
“You’re Shoemaker’s son?” Pearce’s eyebrows rose toward the widow’s peak formed by his gleaming black hair. “Taking a tour?”
Finally he shook Milo’s hand, a quick, cold grip, nothing like Alf Farnon’s. Cigarette smoke clung to him.
“No sir. I work here,” Milo said.
“Really.” Pearce’s eyes flashed to Ellie and back. “What department?”
“Payroll.” Suddenly Milo realized he worked, indirectly, for Pearce, and that this fact shouldn’t be news to the man. But obviously it was.
Ellie got there too. “My father set it up. Just this morning, in fact.” She made it sound as though Milo had wandered randomly into the plant and Alf Farnon had done the polite thing.
Something flickered in those flat black eyes. “How about that. Just like your dad, are you?”
“In some ways. I guess.”
“Know what reducing asset reserves means? The definition of liabilities? When to recognize revenue in a long-term lease?” Pearce rapped out.
Milo knew. But he didn’t like this man. “Uh…no, sir. I sure don’t.”
“Milo’s in Data Entry,” Ellie said hastily. “Though if I don’t get him back in the next five minutes, he won’t be there for long.”
Pearce directed his glinting gaze toward her. “I didn’t realize Human Resources had gone so business casual.” His leer began at her flip-flops and crawled up her legs to her brief skirt, her bare arms, to her face, flushed bright pink over faint freckles. Milo had thought much the same that morning, but now his eyes narrowed in indignation.
“And I didn’t realize my clothes were part of your job, Mr. Pearce,” Ellie said steadily. “I’ll have to tell my father how well you inspect our women employees. HR hates to get complaints about that.”
She pulled Milo back into the stairwell where she stomped up the stairs so noisily he didn’t tell her they hadn’t bought the sandwich.
At the HR landing she left him. “Sorry about that. See you later, Milo.”
Back in Payroll, Leslie had gathered more time cards for him to record. After the excitement of lunch Milo was happy to lose himself in a quiet, repetitive task. At 3:00 Leslie announced it was time for her break, and wheeled away to the employee coffee shop off the lobby. Amber and J’azzmin waited until the elevator closed on her before they slung their purses over their shoulders with identical movements, and told Milo to mind the phone until they got back. Milo listened until their heel clicks faded away—presumably not to the same place as Leslie—then darted into the stairwell. If missed he would claim he’d been in the men’s room. But he’d spotted Zaffer outside wielding a hedge trimmer and suddenly felt the need for a conference.
He had his hand on the stairwell side of the ground-level door where he’d met Pearce when he stopped dead. Outside the open window in the little entry, someone said, “Shoemaker.”
Milo ducked to one side and peeked out. That gleaming black hair was unmistakable. Five feet away from him, beside a bed of ornamental grasses, Gordon Pearce stood smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone.
“He’s the guy’s son! What if he’s a chip off the old block?” Milo heard the glower in Pearce’s voice. “Good with numbers! I’ll say he was…I know it’s your call…but it would be a shame to wreck it this late in the day.”
Perspiration began to soak Milo’s collar under his tie.
“Owe him!” Pearce’s bark was startled. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
Milo risked a glance out the window in time to see Pearce roll his eyes at the sky. “You’re the boss. Like you say, he’s just a kid.” Pearce slipped his phone into his pocket and pitched his cigarette into the
flower bed Zaffer had weeded. Then he cursed, not violently but more in exasperation, and headed for the door concealing Milo.
If Ellie had been watching she’d have seen how well he handled stairs. Milo flew up one flight and bolted into the men’s room on the second floor before the lobby door had finished closing.
“He said, ‘What if he’s a chip off the old block?’ And it would be a shame to wreck something?” Zaffer asked.
They were in his truck heading home. Traffic through Valeene’s two-block downtown was slow this time of day—there was only one traffic light—but Zaffer showed no impatience as they sat through another cycle.
“To wreck it this late in the day,’” Milo corrected. “Like something’s going to happen soon.”
“Something you could screw up,” Zaffer said with relish. Corporate intrigue was more interesting than gardening. “That you could screw up. Well, the possibilities there are infinite, but let’s try to narrow the field—”
“I haven’t screwed anything up so far.”
“Early days yet. The question is, what could you wreck? Something at Wolverine, obviously.”
“You’re quick.”
“He didn’t like you being Shoemaker’s son. Was he your dad’s boss? Did they not get along? Hey—before he died, did your dad mention any big deal going down at work?”
Milo watched a flatbed truck full of hay bales negotiate a tight turn through the intersection. He’d known since 3:15 that afternoon, when he’d emerged from the restroom with hands chapped from the blow dryer and a heartbeat only slowly returning to normal, that he would have to tell Zaffer more.
“If I tell you something will you promise to not tell a single soul?”
Zaffer choked. “Did I tell anyone what Ashley Buchanan wrote in your yearbook? Did I tell Mr. Dannemiller who blew up the chemistry lab? Did I—”
“Okay! Listen. I told you I was working there because of the money. But I didn’t say what money.” Milo took a deep breath. “My dad embezzled a million dollars from Wolverine Motors.”
Unaccounted For Page 5
