Fatal Debt

by Dorothy Howell

  Nick Travis bounced around in my head, though I didn’t want him to. He kept popping in there, probably because of his tie to Mr. Sullivan’s death.

  Probably.

  Seven Eleven trotted along beside me as I stumbled to the kitchen. She rubbed against the cabinet door where I kept her food, and meowed her little head off.

  You have to be a truly committed pet owner to face canned cat food first thing in the morning. I popped the lid and dumped it into her dish, and she happily lapped it up. When I dropped the smelly can into the trash I spotted the discarded Chinese take-out containers from last night.

  It was way too early for any more deep thinking—another matter I intended to address when I took over the world—but as I sat at my kitchen table with toast and orange juice, Nick flashed in my head, followed by Mr. Sullivan, and then—ugh—Manny. How was I going to explain to him that I didn’t have any money to post to the Sullivan account today—or the television he’d told me to repossess?

  I forced all those thoughts away and got ready for work.

  I’d rented this two-bedroom apartment with the intention of getting a roommate but before I could find anyone, the second bedroom had filled up with all kinds of things: exercise bike, skis, my desk and computer. I could have found a place for that stuff, but I couldn’t do without the closet. I’d filled the walk-in in my bedroom ages ago—with clothes, of course—and was now working on the one in the second bedroom. So unless I could find a roommate content to live life with a couple of wall hooks, I was on my own.

  I showered and dressed in a black and white skirt, white top, and black jacket, a suitably business-like outfit that wouldn’t give our office manager Inez Marshall a heart attack—they note stuff like that in our personnel files—but then I spotted a pair of slightly slutty peek-toe stilettos. I couldn’t resist—not that I tried very hard. I slipped them on and left.

  As I pulled into the Mid-America parking lot it occurred to me that the shoes I’d purchased a few days ago—only marginally more slutty than the stilettos I was wearing—were still riding around in my trunk and might look even better with this outfit. I grabbed them, and went into the office.

  Inez Marshall already sat at her desk, demonstrating strict adherence to her own personal policy of always arriving thirty minutes early for work. She took her responsibilities seriously.

  No one else, however, took her seriously—or maybe it was just me.

  If Inez had ever been married, it was decades ago. She had no children. Mid-America was her life. She’d worked there for over forty years and droned on endlessly about the old-school methods of doing business back in the day.

  “You’re early,” Inez said, glancing at the wall clock. “We received a memo from Corporate regarding overtime. I’m covering that in my meeting today.”

  “And good morning to you, too, Inez,” I said, as I walked past her desk.

  Inez lowered her half glasses and gave my stilettos the evil eye.

  “Dana,” she said, “I just addressed Corporate’s dress policy last week. Didn’t you read my memo?”

  Seven people in our office and Inez sent a memo. Good grief.

  Like Inez should talk about corporate dress. Three times a year—Easter, Labor Day, and Christmas—she bought clothes. Always the same four pieces: pants with an elastic waistband, an A-lined skirt, a vest whether it was in style or not, and a jacket, all the same color. She added two blouses, a scarf and a brooch, then mixed and matched until the next holiday rolled around.

  Evidently, Inez didn’t own a full-length mirror or she’d be as sick of looking at the same clothes as the rest of us were. It was only late October and we’d already seen enough of Labor Day’s brown-orange-yellow ensembles.

  Come on, Christmas.

  Inez had sent a suggestion to Corporate that the company should go with a uniform. I’d sent in a suggestion that the Employee Suggestion Program should be discontinued as it incited violence in the work place. We never heard back on either suggestion.

  Corporate dress police. That’s something else I’m going to change when I take over the world.

  Officially, Mid-America employees reported to work at eight-thirty. We opened to the public at nine. That, according to Corporate, gave us a half hour of uninterrupted time to catch up on work, get organized, and formulate a plan for the day.

  Yeah, right.

  I stowed my handbag and pried the top off the shoe box only to look up and see that Inez had followed me to my desk.

  “Dana,” she said, taking off her glasses and letting them dangle from the chain around her neck, “as you know, I was at our district meeting yesterday and there are a number of items I need to address with you.”

  “If you say one more word, Inez, I’m putting this down for overtime,” I told her.

  She pressed her lips together and glanced again at the wall clock.

  “I’ll get back with you, Dana,” she said, and trotted to her desk.

  I spent the next few minutes trying on my new black shoes, stretching out my legs, admiring how they looked. Carmen, the branch cashier, came in—I have no idea how she always got to work on time with a child to deal with every morning—and in the middle of our discussion of heel heights, Jade Crosby arrived.

  Jade was one of Mid-America’s financial representatives who worked directly under Inez; it was her job to process loan applications. I didn’t like Jade. I strongly suspected she’d made up her own first name probably around the time of her divorce, but that was several years before I met her, so I couldn’t be sure.

  What I did know for sure was that she was suspended in some sort of time warp and didn’t realize she was in her thirties, had given birth to two children, and needed to buy clothes that actually fit her, rather than the sizes she’d worn in her pre-children days.

  Jade wore her blonde hair long and straight. It occupied most of her time. It must have taken most of her energy, too, the way she constantly flipped her head around, swinging her hair from one shoulder to the other.

  I sat behind Jade. It was like living on the set of a shampoo commercial.

  She whipped her hair back and sauntered to my desk. Today she had on a knit dress that stretched tight across her butt and dipped way low in the front. Her thighs made a little swishing sound when she walked; if Spankx were under there, they weren’t working.

  “New shoes?” she asked.

  Clever, with me scrunched down in my chair and my foot in the air, and Carmen and me talking heels.

  “I got them last weekend,” I said, turning my ankle right, then left.

  Jade swiveled her head, swinging her hair to the other shoulder.

  “I got this dress last night,” she said, and ran her hands down her hips. “Size four.”

  Her butt hadn’t seen the number four in the last decade.

  “Four?” I rocked forward in my chair. “In what, Jade, dog sizes?”

  She gave me another hair flip and went back to her desk.

  Our front door swung open and Manny Franco hustled inside carrying a brief case and a travel mug, and looking stressed out.

  “Manny,” Inez said, leaping out of her desk chair in front of him. “I want to go over what I’m covering in today’s office meeting.”

  “It’s office meeting day again? Holy crap.” Manny cut around her. “Whatever it is, I’ll hear it in the meeting.”

  “But I want you to know ahead of time. After all, we are supervision,” Inez said, following him to his desk.

  Inez and Manny were both second in command on the office’s who’s-the-boss ladder of succession, with Inez in charge of lending—and also doubling as office manager—and Manny running collections. Their supervisor was Mr. Burrows, the branch manager, who had the only private office in the place and whom we almost never saw.

  “I’m covering OT. Overtime,” Inez went on. “That applies to your employee.”

  “I’m right here, Inez,” I said, from my desk twelve feet away. “It’s okay
to use my name.”

  Inez ignored me, ensconced in supervisor mode big-time, and said, “Corporate is cracking down on OT. It’s a controllable expense. We have to watch it.”

  “Dana gets the job done,” Manny said. “Anybody’s got a problem with her time sheet, they can talk to me.”

  I beamed a big smile at Inez. She gave me prune-face and went back to her desk.

  At precisely 8:30, Inez rose from her chair.

  “Attention, please, attention,” she announced. “There will be an office meeting commencing immediately. Please gather around my desk at this time.”

  Inez used to use a plastic megaphone to announce her meetings until it mysteriously disappeared. It reappeared a day later in the closet of my second bedroom.

  Carmen, Jade, and I dragged chairs to Inez’s desk. Lucas Finley, the branch’s other financial rep, wandered out of the breakroom, grabbed a chair and joined us. He was barely in his twenties, slender, short, had dark hair and wore glasses. Apparently he didn’t own a jacket because he always wore a white shirt and one of three ties.

  Lucas lusted after Jade. Something about her Betty Boop figure and Marsha Brady hair drove men crazy. Personally, I didn’t get it. Jade took delight in leading Lucas on, and Lucas never realized he was being led on. I didn’t get that either.

  “We’ve just received a new memo from Corporate,” Inez announced.

  She turned toward Manny still seated at his desk, working.

  “Manny, the meeting has begun,” she called, in a voice that reminded me of my third-grade teacher.

  “I can hear you,” Manny said, not bothering to take his eyes off his computer screen.

  “Are you sure?” Inez quizzed.

  “I’m hanging on every word,” he said.

  Inez pursed her lips and said, “I’ll cover everything with you later.”

  She turned to the rest of us and said, “Effective immediately, each branch will designate one employee as its safety coordinator.”

  Safety coordinator? This could only mean that an employee somewhere had sued Mid-America, and in typical corporate fashion, everyone up the chain of command had grossly over-reacted, causing the rest of us a lot of extra work.

  “The safety coordinator will conduct safety meetings with the staff,” Inez said, “and will ensure all corporate safety guidelines are met, and will report accidents or injuries to the corporate office.”

  Those people at Corporate. They just don’t have enough to do.

  Inez pulled a three-inch bound report and four packages of shrink wrapped forms from a large envelope, and thrust them at me.

  “Dana will be our safety coordinator,” Inez declared.

  “What?”

  “Look these over, Dana, and we’ll have your first safety meeting tomorrow morning,” Inez said.

  “I don’t want to be the safety coordinator,” I said.

  Inez looked as if she couldn’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to be the safety coordinator.

  “I’ve already reported to Corporate,” she said.

  So, my fate was sealed. Shrink-wrapped and sealed, actually. I took the safety coordinator materials and glared at Carmen, Jade, and Lucas.

  “I’m telling you right now,” I said. “If any of you hurt yourself and cause me to have to fill out a form, I’m slashing your tires.”

  Inez droned on for a while longer and finally we were released from office-meeting purgatory.

  “Did you get the Sullivan payment last night?” Manny asked from his desk.

  “No,” I said.

  “You pick up the TV?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sensing a story here.” He looked over at me. “Better be a good one.”

  I left my desk and dropped into the chair beside his, and explained what had happened to Mr. Sullivan last night.

  “Rough,” Manny said, with a mournful shake of his head. “You okay?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “Excuse me.” Inez appeared at Manny’s desk. “I heard what you said, Dana. I think I should be in on this.”

  I saw my first safety report on the horizon.

  “It’s handled,” Manny told her.

  “First of all,” Inez said, “did the customer have credit life insurance?”

  I couldn’t believe she’d actually said that.

  “The man died, Inez,” I said. “Did you miss that part?”

  Inez turned to Manny. “We should advise Corporate. Dana is a witness. The legal department might need to get involved.”

  Manny waved her away. “Run with it, Inez.”

  Inez drew herself up. “I’ll inform Mr. Burrows.”

  She approached his office door as if she was about to be interrogated by the Libyan secret police.

  Most of us felt that way about going into Mr. Burrow’s office.

  “I have to go to the police station today to look at mug shots,” I said.

  “Do it with your lunch hour,” Manny said.

  Inez whirled away from Mr. Burrow’s door.

  “Actually, Manny,” she said, “that would be considered Mid-American business and, as such, Dana can’t do it on her lunch hour. It will put her over forty hours for the week. Overtime, Manny. Weren’t you listening in my meeting?”

  “No,” Manny said.

  Inez turned to me. “Dana, you heard what was covered in my meeting.”

  “I wasn’t listening either,” I said.

  Manny turned to me, ignoring Inez.

  “Go do it now,” he said. “Take as long as you need.”

  I grabbed my things had left the office.

  Chapter 5

  Dark clouds gathered above the city as I pulled out of the parking lot, but rain had not yet fallen. The weather did nothing to brighten my mood. I didn’t think I could face Nick Travis yet, so instead of heading for the police department I drove to Devon.

  I cruised past the Sullivan house and saw yellow crime scene tape everywhere. A couple bouquets of flowers lay at the gate. Even in the Murder Capital of America, some people still cared. That was nice to know.

  I drove a block over and pulled up in front of Leona Wiley’s house. She and Gladys Sullivan were closer than most sisters. In fact, the whole family was close. I knew this because almost everyone in the family had taken out a loan with Mid-America at one time or another, which meant I’d collected payments from almost every person in the family.

  Leona’s place looked a little better than the Sullivan home. Her husband had passed on but her sons looked after her. Several cars sat in the driveway so I squeezed in at the curb. I got out and knocked on the front door.

  Mrs. Wiley answered wearing a black dress, a hat with a half veil, and a somber expression. She recognized me right away.

  “I wanted to tell Mrs. Sullivan how sorry I was about Mr. Sullivan,” I said.

  I had no intention of mentioning that I’d been at the scene of the murder. Since I didn’t know any of the Sullivans’ neighbors, it was doubtful that I’d been recognized leaving with the police last night. I couldn’t face telling that story, then answering the questions the family surely would have.

  Mrs. Wiley pulled a crumpled tissue from under the belt of her dress and dabbed at her eyes.

  ““Come on in, honey,” she said.

  Mrs. Wiley took great pride in her house. The furniture might have been old but was in excellent condition because it was covered in plastic. Clear runners crisscrossed the white carpet. The lamp shades were encased in cellophane.

  “Is Mrs. Sullivan here?” I asked, stepping into the room.

  “Gladys is lying down,” she said. “Doctor sent over something to make her sleep.”

  Through an archway several people were gathered around the dining room table filled with covered dishes. I recognized some of them, Mid-America customers, members of the Sullivan-Wiley clan come to mourn and pay their respects. I waved. They waved back.

  “Come sit down, honey,” Mrs. Wiley said.

&n
bsp; We settled onto her sofa, the plastic crackling under us. She patted my arm and drew in a ragged breath.

  “You’re so sweet to come by,” she said.

  I wished I could think of something comforting to say, something appropriate. But what do you say to a family when their world has been shattered? What words were good enough?

  “I just can’t imagine how something like this could happen,” was all I managed.

  Mrs. Wiley shook her head. “Me either. Arthur, he was a good man. He made his mistakes—we all did. He never got over losing his son the way he did, him going to prison and dying there.”

  “Leonard’s father?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Arthur blamed himself. That’s why he was so hard on Leonard. He didn’t want his only grandson to make those same mistakes.”

  “I’m sure Leonard appreciated Mr. Sullivan’s concern,” I said, because, really, I didn’t know what else to say.

  Mrs. Wiley touched her crumpled tissue to her eye again.

  “I don’t know what Gladys is going to do with Arthur gone,” she said, shaking her head. “I just don’t know.

  “Please tell her I came by, would you?” I asked.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt and responsibility. It nearly choked me. All this misery, all these sad people and disrupted lives. All because I didn’t arrive at the Sullivan house one minute earlier, and I hadn’t turned my head to the right two seconds sooner.

  “If there’s anything I can do, anything at all, let me know,” I said, and I’d never meant anything more in my entire life.

  We rose from the sofa and I waved good-bye to the folks in the dining room. On the front porch, Mrs. Wiley thanked me again for stopping by.

  “Really, if there’s anything you need,” I said, “just let me know.”

  “Thank you, honey,” she said, “but I don’t—well, wait a minute. Maybe there’s something you can do.”

  Thank God. Something to do. Some way to make up for all my short-comings last night.

  “Could you find Leonard?” Mrs. Wiley asked. “Nobody’s seen him in a couple of days.”