I would have to think about that. For now, though, I would spite him in a small way, by returning to the office and going back to work. Maybe I would even work late tonight. That would show him.
Donnie, Bethany, and Ellen Watson were all in the office; but I did my best to ignore them. It was a surreal experience: working amid three people who were likely involved in some kind of conspiracy with Sid. Wheels within wheels, layers on top of layers.
I didn't work late, but I did stay at my desk until 5:15 p.m. I waited just long enough for the other three to make their way out of the building ahead of me. I didn't want to be on the elevator with any of them.
When I did board the elevator, it was crowded—not unusual after five o’clock on a Friday. I squeezed in among four other Thomas-Smithfield employees.
The Brown-Eyed Girl was one of them.
This time she was chatting with another young woman, so talking to her was more or less out of the question. She still captivated me, in some way I could not quite define. But I guessed that the Brown-Eyed Girl was a lost cause now. So far my efforts to get to know her had amounted to nil; and I couldn't even predict if I would be with the company this time next week.
On the first floor, the elevator dispersed its human cargo. The mad rush for the front entrance. I noticed that the Brown-Eyed Girl headed in the direction of the first-floor offices, while the woman she had been talking to headed for the parking lot.
As the two separated, I heard the Brown-Eyed Girl say, “Have a good weekend, Theresa.”
“Have a good weekend, Ellen.”
I was halfway through the doorway of the building’s main entrance before I grasped the full significance of what I had just overheard.
The Brown-Eyed Girl’s name was Ellen.
Chapter 34
Sitting in my car, I told myself to calm down as I started the ignition.
The Brown-Eyed Girl’s name was Ellen.
That didn't mean that there was any connection, necessarily, with the Brown-Eyed Girl and the conversation I had overheard a few days ago. But it did reveal a radical gap in my initial assessment of the situation.
I had assumed that “Ellen” meant Ellen Watson, our group admin, as if she were the only Ellen that Sid might have been referring to when he’d said, “we need to eliminate Ellen.”
This assumption hadn't been completely illogical, of course. Ellen Watson was the only Ellen in my immediate proximity at Thomas-Smithfield. When I or someone else said “Ellen” at work, the default reference was almost always Ellen Watson.
A stupid, rather obvious mistake on my part. I had been making assumptions; and I had now entered a land where all my normal assumptions could no longer be trusted. From here on out, I couldn't assume anything.
I went home to my apartment and used my employee ID and password to access the company network. I was gratified to see that for once Sid hadn't anticipated my next move. Whatever he had said about me quitting my job, I was still able to access the network like always.
Instead of checking my 401K balance or my recent direct deposit paycheck stub, however, I went to the company directory. This included the name of every employee at the Thomas-Smithfield headquarters, along with a photo (the same ones that were on our ID badges), and company contact information: email and telephone extension, company-issued cell phone if applicable. The department, functional group, and title of each employee was also included.
I went to the directory’s search engine and executed a search for “Ellen”. I was amazed at how many Ellens were working at the Thomas-Smithfield headquarters: There were eight of them. To me, that seemed like a lot for a relatively uncommon name.
The Brown-Eyed Girl was the second-to-last Ellen in the alphabetized search results. Her name was Ellen Trevor, and she was a staff accountant in the accounting department.
I cautioned myself: I would gain nothing by hastily jumping to conclusions again. With Ellen Watson eliminated from the list of Ellens to be “eliminated”, there was only a one-in-seven chance that Ellen Trevor, previously known as the Brown-Eyed Girl, was the Ellen that Sid and his motley band of conspirators were targeting. For that matter, Sid could have been referring to an Ellen who didn't even work at Thomas-Smithfield, someone from outside the company.
It was possible. And it was equally possible that Sid was planning to “eliminate” Ellen Trevor.
Chapter 35
I left for Dayton mid-morning on Saturday. Needless to say, I had a lot to think about, a lot of decisions to make. I tried, though, to put my work-related problems in a separate mental compartment so I could concentrate on the time I would spend with my daughter.
I laughed at my own absurdity. This was more than a work-related problem. When your boss tells you to pick up your pace or be more attentive on the job, that’s a work-related problem. When your boss waves a gun at you after you’ve overheard him talking about “eliminating” people, that’s something else.
Well, anyway, I would do my best. I couldn't wait to see Olivia.
I took only a casual notice of the dark green van with tinted glass that was parked several rows down from my car in my apartment complex’s parking lot. While I knew that I had to be extra-cautious at the office henceforth, I didn't want to become an around-the-clock paranoid, flinching at every shadow.
I started my vehicle’s engine and took a cursory look over my shoulder. I disguised the motion to make it appear that I was adjusting the shoulder strap on my seat belt.
The dark green van’s engine also rumbled to life.
No big deal, I told myself. I had never noticed the van in the parking lot before, but that proved nothing. New residents were moving into the complex all the time. And when had I ever bothered to keep tabs on the vehicles that my neighbors were driving?
Then I remembered what I had earlier told myself: I could not assume anything. The dark green van might mean absolutely nothing. And then again, it might be Sid behind the wheel, or someone who was in cahoots with Sid.
If the driver of the van was attempting to spy on me, I wasn't going to make the task easy. Rather than driving directly toward the exit of the complex’s parking lot, I made a meandering route around several clusters of parking spaces. When I pulled out onto the public road, I couldn't see the dark green van in my rearview mirror.
Most of the trip between Cincinnati and Dayton consists of I-75. This long interstate begins on the Canadian border, and terminates in Miami Florida. Along the way, I-75 traverses the entire length of Ohio in a north-south direction.
While I was driving up the interstate, I kept looking around me, and checking my rearview mirror. I didn't see the dark green van.
Good. It really had meant nothing. The dark green van had probably belonged to a teenage boy, or a seventy-five-year-old grandmother, I told myself.
I was a little edgy by the time I arrived at my ex-wife's condo. I had no idea what kind of a reception I should anticipate. Yesterday at the airport, I had practically hung up on Claire, and I hadn't called her back.
Then there was the question of Ryan. Would Ryan be waiting in the living room, playing with my daughter? I hoped not. I simply wasn't up to dealing with Ryan today.
When she answered the door, Claire was a bit frosty, as I had expected.
“Hey,” she said. “Or should I just close the door in your face? Is that the way we’re communicating now?"
I didn't really think that I owed her an apology, but I knew that the day would go much more smoothly if I ate a bit of crow. And to be fair, I had been a rather short with her yesterday, and she had no idea what I was going through.
"Sorry. I had a really awful day at work yesterday, and it wasn't a good time to talk."
"Whatever. Come on in. Olivia's waiting for you."
I stepped inside Claire's living room, and suddenly everything was better.
"Daddy!" Olivia came bounding across the room.
She practically leaped at me, and I hoisted her into my arms.<
br />
"Hey, sweetie. You're getting big!"
I gave my daughter a kiss on the cheek, and squeezed her as hard as I could without hurting her. Whatever else had gone wrong in my marriage with Claire, this was right. Olivia was right.
I now noticed that the three of us were alone in the living room.
"Is Ryan around today?"
"Ryan is spending the morning with his son."
I knew that Ryan had been married before, and that he had a son. I also knew that Ryan's first marriage, like our marriage, had crashed and burned for reasons that no one could fully remember or enumerate anymore.
"That's good. Maybe Ryan should concentrate on raising his kids, and leave us the hell alone."
"Don't start, Frank. You know we have to talk about that sooner or later."
I assumed she was talking about the matter of Ryan moving into her condo.
"Maybe," I allowed. "But we don't have to talk about it right now.”
I took Olivia to Chuck E. Cheese's, that ridiculous pizza place that has the ridiculous mouse as its corporate logo. I have never been able to understand what kids see in that place, or why anyone would want to eat at a restaurant that associates itself with a rodent.
But Olivia loved it, so I cheerfully ate my overpriced slices of mediocre pizza.
On the way out of the restaurant, I scanned the parking lot for the dark green van with tinted windows. I had also looked for it on the way in.
The van was nowhere in sight.
I drove Olivia back to Claire's condo. My ex-wife was tolerably friendly now. But she did raise a financial issue with me. Olivia's school had recently increased the rates for its Montessori program. We were splitting the tuition, and Claire mentioned that I would need to kick in a bit more on the next tuition bill.
"No problem," I said. But I wondered how I was going to do that if I quit my job as Sid had mandated. Last night before I went to bed, I had done a little searching on the online job sites. My job prospects in the Cincinnati-Dayton area weren't all that promising.
But what did Sid care? What did Sid care if I wasn't able to pay my half of my daughter’s tuition? What did Sid care if I had to take a job out of the area, so that I was only able to see my daughter a few times a year?
While I was driving back down the interstate toward Cincinnati (still keeping an eye out for the dark green van) I had what I took to be an epiphany.
Up until now, Sid had managed to stay one step ahead of me, by catching me off guard and doing the unexpected. Uncertain of myself and the situation, I had allowed him to bully me.
He wasn't going to bully me anymore. From now on, I was going to be the one who stayed one step ahead, the one who did the unexpected.
I didn't know exactly how yet, but I was going to fight back.
Chapter 36
Do the unexpected. That was my new motto.
Sid believed that he had effectively rattled me. He expected me to resign from Thomas-Smithfield on Monday.
Monday came and went, and I didn't resign.
On the contrary, I threw myself into my job with a renewed enthusiasm. Judging from my outward demeanor, my trip to North Carolina with Sid might never have occurred.
I wasn't forgetting the whole thing, though, or pretending that it never had happened. I had done some thinking over the weekend: Sid, Donnie, Bethany (and possibly Ellen) were involved in something unethical. I didn't yet know what it was; but it was serious enough that Sid was willing to go to extreme measures to remove me from the company lest I uncover it.
Oh, and Sid also wanted to remove (or to use Sid's expression, "eliminate") someone named Ellen.
Here were the things that I didn't know:
What were they involved in?
Who was the other Ellen?
What had Sid really meant when he talked about "eliminating" this other Ellen?
I didn't have any of these answers; but it was a safe bet that the secret was intertwined with the business of Thomas-Smithfield. And while parties outside the company might be involved, the answers to my questions would begin at Thomas-Smithfield, I suspected. In the purchasing department.
I recalled what Sid had said while we were in North Carolina, when I was convinced that he was about to shoot me: There is a paper trail associated with our trip today.
Everything we do nowadays—outside of our own private thoughts—leaves a paper trail. Or an electronic trail. Even our private conversations sometimes leave artifacts. Think about all the politicians and public figures who have been destroyed by secretly recorded utterances that they believed to be fleeting and private.
But I probably wouldn't need to happen upon a secretly recorded conversation. This involved Sid, Donnie, Bethany, and yes, probably Ellen Watson. That established a clear link with the job we did in the purchasing department. The whole hierarchy was represented there.
Purchasing departments love documentation, of both the paper and the electronic kind. There was a lot to dig through. But it should all be there, somewhere.
So what did I do? I started digging.
The digging itself wasn't difficult. As a purchasing agent, I had basically unlimited access to the relevant databases and physical files. The difficult part was to determine what I was actually looking for.
Sid passed me in the hall on the Tuesday of that week and I greeted him with a rousing “Hey, Sid!” just like nothing had happened. He played along, as there were plenty of people around, but he looked at me with narrowed eyes as we passed.
I had defied him, and he knew it.
And I knew that there would be consequences. But I didn't know exactly what those consequences would be.
The next day, Wednesday, I was alone in my apartment when Sid made his next move. Sid used one of the oldest tricks in the book, and I fell for it.
I heard a knock on the door that evening, around eight-thirty.
I would not have been surprised to receive an unannounced visit from my manager. Sid had taken me to an empty warehouse in North Carolina and threatened me with a gun, after all.
If Sid did show up at my apartment, I was prepared for him. The first level of my plan was to simply deny him entry. If he pushed the matter, I had a backup plan: a golf club tucked behind my front door, a nine iron.
Yes, I know: a pistol would have been a better option. But I had no experience with firearms, and I didn't think it would be realistic for me to research them, acquire one, and learn how to use it within a matter of days. On the other hand, the nine iron from my old set of golf clubs was immediately accessible. (I had bought the set used nearly a decade ago from Craigslist. The clubs had moved around with me to multiple residences, but they had rarely been removed from my closet.)
My apartment was a ground-level unit, so really anyone could walk up to my front door. When I heard the knocking on the door, I put my eye to the keyhole.
What I saw was unexpected: It was completely dark outside, and I could see nothing. I had a porch light; and a quick glance at the wall switch confirmed that I had turned it on. The light had apparently burned out.
Or…someone had removed it.
I picked up the nine iron.
“Who’s there?” I shouted.
I expected a blustering response from Sid. I was going to tell him to get lost.
But instead I heard a female voice: “My car broke down, and I have a sick child. Help us, please!”
I looked out the keyhole again. Yes, I was suspicious. On the other hand, though, I didn't think Sid was capable of disguising his voice to the extent that he would sound like a woman.
And I was a father. I thought of Claire and Olivia out someplace, in the scenario that the woman on the other side of the door had described. What would I expect a stranger in my position to do?
I would expect that stranger to help them. At least, that’s what I would hope for.
I set the nine-iron down, leaning it against the wall. Not without reluctance, I opened the door.
&n
bsp; It wasn't Sid. But nor was it an unknown woman with a child.
It was Bethany Cox, dressed in her usual black, overgrown goth-girl attire. I was about to ask her what she was doing, knocking on the door to my apartment. (There was no plausible set of circumstances that could bring her here.) Then I saw the male figure who accompanied her.
Donnie Brady had been standing behind her, lingering in the shadows. He was smoking a cigarette.
How foolish I had been. I had been so focused on Sid, I had forgotten about these other two.
I was about to shut the door in their faces when Bethany pushed her way forward, followed by Donnie. They had anticipated my response, and they pushed forward before I could react.
“How’ya doin’, Frank?” Bethany said. I could smell her perfume, the cigarettes she had smoked earlier.
They were both inside my apartment now. Donnie shut the door behind them. He noticed the nine-iron sitting behind the door.
“You taking up golf, Frank?”
He picked up the metal-tipped golf club and tested its heft. He swung it in a slow, mock swing like a baseball bat. This was worse than being on the roof of the warehouse with Sid, I thought. Sid, despite his aberrant behavior of late, had some sense of restraint. Donnie did not.
I was in no mood to entertain any pretext that their presence wasn't threatening.
“Get out of here, both of you,” I said. I hoped my voice wasn't shaking, but I couldn't tell. “Or I’ll call the police.”
Donnie laughed. “And have us charged with what, Frank? We know you, after all. We all work together at Thomas-Smithfield. And let’s not forget, we didn't exactly break in. You opened the door for us.”
Plausible deniability. Donnie hadn't used the term but that was what he meant.
Donnie, moreover, wouldn't have known either the term or the concept. Sid might not be here, present in my apartment with these two, but I could bet that he had directed their visit tonight.
The Eavesdropper Page 10
