A few of the volunteers tittered among themselves over the staggering number of meals delivered each day. Cooper stared at the photographs again and finished drinking her coffee.
“It just goes to show you,” someone mumbled amiably. “Nobody likes to cook anymore.”
“In addition to our elderly clients,” Lali continued, “we also serve younger adults with disabilities and community members who have recently been discharged from the hospital and only require our services on a temporary basis. Those of you who have elected to adopt a route,” she nodded in Trish’s direction, “will get to know a handful of our clients on a personal level. This can be an extremely rewarding experience.”
A giant of a man appeared through a doorway on Lali’s left. His black T-shirt, which was decorated with an iron-on of a wolf riding a motorcycle, was stretched over his skin so tightly that it seemed to be digging into the flesh of his thick arms and neck. He wore pants with an elastic waist, undoubtedly because regular pants couldn’t handle the circumference of his meaty legs. His huge feet, which were even bigger than Nathan’s, were encased in construction boots and he had grown out his brown goatee long enough to fasten into a two-inch braid. The end of the braid was held by a pink rubber band. Cooper was intrigued by the man’s appearance.
Noticing the burly biker out of the corner of her eye, Lali beckoned for him to join her. “Meet Campbell Perkins. The kitchen is his domain.” She smiled at him fondly. “He’s going to review how to load and label the prepackaged meals and go over any questions or concerns you might have about how long to spend at each stop, what to do if a client seems unwell, or any other issue of concern to you, our volunteers. It is our goal to do whatever we can to make our clients and our volunteers happy.”
She touched Campbell on his upper arm, which was as thick and powerful as the body of an anaconda, and bowed her head. “Again, thank you for being here today. Your gift of time, and of costly gas, will fill the hungry stomachs of our neighbors. More importantly, your friendly faces will light up what might have been a lonely day for our clients. Bless you all.”
As Lali walked away, Campbell cleared his throat and began his lecture on packing food into the red-and-white-checked Door-2-Door soft cooler bags. His posture and tone were reminiscent of an army drill sergeant training a fresh battalion of recruits.
“First!” he barked. “You must label every single thing that you pack with your client’s name. You don’t want to give a vegetarian client a hunk of meatloaf and you don’t want to give a diabetic client the meal that comes with cranberry sauce, baked apples, and chocolate mousse with whipped cream. Got it?”
The volunteers nodded meekly, silently wondering how the brawny young man had come to find employment with Door-2-Door. As Campbell held up some examples of properly labeled meals for the crowd to see, Cooper felt an uncomfortable tightness in her bladder. Glancing at the sixteen-ounce cup she had just finished, she tried to ignore the call of nature and focus on Campbell’s instructions. However, when he began to discuss the types of liquids the clients were served, absently jiggling a full liter bottle of spring water as he talked, a small groan emanated from between Cooper’s clenched lips.
“Be right back,” she whispered urgently to Nathan and then left the room by the door they had entered. Returning to the main hall, her eyes darted around in search of a sign indicating that one of the many closed brown doors concealed a restroom. As they all looked the same, Cooper began to open the doors. One revealed a closet, another was locked, and the third led to a new hallway.
Something about the sudden stillness in the hallway caused Cooper to momentarily pause, as though she might be intruding into an area not open to the public, but the mere sight of the water fountain a few feet ahead urged her onward. Finally, she found a door bearing the placard of a woman’s outline. Cooper practically ripped the door handle off in relief, only to discover that it wouldn’t turn at all. It was locked and therefore already occupied.
“Arrggh,” she moaned and continued her quest until she ended up at a stairwell. Praying that the ladies’ room on the second floor was vacant, Cooper took the stairs two at a time and found a restroom a few doors down from the stairway. All four stalls were empty and, out of habit, she chose the stall furthest from the door.
Cooper’s good fortune in finding a bathroom was quickly forgotten as she reached for the toilet paper; only a shredded square remained on the roll. This would do if I were a Lilliputian, Cooper thought wryly and opened her canvas purse, hoping to find some clean tissues inside.
As she rummaged around, relieved to find a squashed package of travel tissues wedged in between the pages of her checkbook, the bathroom door opened and two women engaged in a whispered conversation entered.
“Not again!” exclaimed a voice that sounded like Lali’s.
“Mrs. Jensen’s daughter called. She said her mother’s gold and diamond necklace is gone. It was the most valuable thing in the house.”
“Is she sure?” Lali sounded desperate for the information to be incorrect.
“Positive,” the other woman answered. “Mrs. Jensen kept it hidden inside a box of Ritz crackers. According to the daughter, the necklace has been there for over ten years. The daughter cleans it whenever she visits and Mrs. Jensen tries it on in front of a mirror. It’s one of their regular routines. Lali, both of them are really upset.”
“What is going on, Anita? This is the fourth call about missing items this summer!” Lali’s voice trembled. “Nothing like this has ever happened to our clients before.”
There was a pause and Cooper was afraid to move. If she made a sound now, it would be obvious that she had listened to the entire exchange, so she raised her feet off the ground and tried to be as inert as possible, praying for forgiveness for her subterfuge.
“It’s not necessarily one of our volunteers, Lali. Yes, we’ve got people bringing those clients meals every day, but that doesn’t mean that one of them is a thief. It’s just a coincidence that the folks missing things are all clients of ours.”
Lali sighed. “We bring them meals, fix things around the house, do yard work, light cleaning, and deliver pet food as well. Come on, Anita. None of the clients who have noticed things disappearing from their homes have anything else in common besides us. Door-2-Door is the only common denominator, so that means someone from this organization is stealing from our clients.”
“But that’s unthinkable!” Anita couldn’t contain her anger and forgot to whisper. Her voice reverberated off the bathroom tiles and, after being shushed by Lali, she immediately softened her tone. “To steal from the old and the infirm! Who would do that?”
“They’re easy targets,” Lali replied, sounding sorrowful but unsurprised. “I can’t picture a single member of our regular volunteer group doing anything cruel. I’ve seen all of their faces—have come to know personal things about most of them, but I guess we don’t know enough. Someone is hiding their true character from all of us.”
One of the women turned on the water in the sink and then quickly turned it off again. “I’d better clean these glasses,” Anita remarked with ire. “From now on, I’m going to make it my job to keep both my eyes on all the volunteers over the next few weeks. I’m going to chat with them until I know them better and I’m going to watch them like a hawk. We can’t let anything else get stolen!”
“I appreciate your help, Anita, but what about your other responsibilities?” Lali asked. “No one can get to know all of our volunteers. We operate on trust here.”
Cooper heard the sound of a paper towel being balled up and tossed into the trashcan. “My other tasks can wait. I’ve got to figure out which one of our volunteers is the thief. I can’t have this program’s reputation tarnished because of one wicked individual. Somehow, I’ll think of a way to flush the snake from the grass.”
“I hope so,” Lali agreed without sounding very optimistic. “I don’t want our clients to suffer.”
The women
stopped talking and left the restroom. Cooper washed her hands and hurriedly followed suit.
As she headed back downstairs to rejoin her friends, she wondered whether to mention the thievery to them. After all, she was not meant to have heard the conversation between Lali and Anita. On the other hand, she knew that if the Sunrise members became aware that one of their fellow volunteers was an immoral scoundrel, they would do their best to uncover the mystery surrounding the thefts.
Guide me on this one, Lord, Cooper prayed silently. If we can do some good, have me tell them. If we’re going to make things worse, then I’ll just stay quiet. Cooper waited for a moment, but no inner voice spoke to her, so she hastily added, You can get back to me on this one, Lord. I’ll be listening for your answer.
4
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?”
Genesis 4:6 (NIV)
The Sunrise Bible study members spent the remainder of the morning learning how to properly load coolers with prepackaged client meals. As the Door-2-Door Dinners facility was closed on Sunday, many clients received food boxes in addition to their regular Saturday meals to help see them through the twenty-four-hour stretch when no meals would be delivered to their homes.
Because she had never volunteered there before, Cooper was paired with an older woman named Penny. Penny, who had dove-gray eyes and an open, gentle face, showed Cooper how to check the shrink-wrapped trays for holes in the plastic, how to pack the food in order, and the proper technique for stacking the coolers onto wheeled carts so they could be delivered to the volunteers waiting outside in their cars.
“Checking for holes and making sure that nobody will miss a meal are the most important things,” Penny explained as she gestured at one of the trays. “If Mr. Joseph here is going to be having fish for dinner tonight, we don’t want it to start rotting before he can get it in his fridge. Most of us drive routes when we’re done with our packing, so we’ve gotten to know all the names listed on these labels.” She showed Cooper the name and route numbers located on each meal.
Nodding, Cooper glanced at Penny as they worked, thinking that the soft-voiced woman seemed so intent on getting things perfect for the Door-2-Door clients that she simply couldn’t visualize the older volunteer pocketing jewelry or other valuables from one of their houses.
Looking around the kitchen, which was spotlessly clean and perfectly organized, Cooper studied the other volunteers. According to Campbell, there were seven “regulars” who showed up every Saturday morning. In fact, Campbell stated with pride as he pulled on his braided beard, “The ‘Super Seven’ haven’t missed a single Saturday in a year’s time.”
The Super Seven were made up of four women and three men, all of whom moved about their tasks with chipper efficiency. Not one of them had shifty eyes, a nervous stare, or the guilty visage of a heartless villain. They were completely normal people. If anything set them apart, it was their willingness to give up fifty-two Saturday mornings in order to load and deliver meals to those in need.
Cooper zipped up one of the coolers for Route #4 and then took a moment to look around the kitchen. She watched Erik, an attractive man in his mid-sixties, slide a crayon into Savannah’s hand so that the artist could decorate a few of the plain cardboard food boxes as the others busily packed. Nathan was paired with a woman near Penny’s age and he seemed to be charming her with his quiet ways and sincere manner, for the two of them were muttering to one another and laughing as though they were old friends.
One of the younger male volunteers, who was very short in stature and had Down syndrome, was partnered with Jake.
“I’m Eugene!” the young man announced to Jake. Jake shook hands and smiled as Eugene proceeded to tell him all about the action movie he had seen on TV the night before. Jake listened patiently for several minutes and then kindly redirected his boisterous partner back to the job at hand. Each time he and Eugene were finished prepping coolers for a route, Jake had to roll up his sleeve and allow Eugene to touch the Celtic cross tattoo on his sinewy bicep before the young man would consent to return to work again.
On the opposite side of the kitchen, Bryant was busy flashing his famous meteorologist smile at both of the woman assisting him. One was a large African-American woman named Brenda who shouted and guffawed in response to everything Bryant said. The other woman, who seemed content to stand in Brenda’s shadow, was a timid, mousy, middle-aged woman whose nametag read “Madge.” Cooper didn’t hear Madge utter a word all morning, but the plain-faced volunteer seemed to glow whenever Bryant paid attention to her.
Trish and Quinton were being mentored by Warren, a thin, rather nondescript man in his mid-forties with a blondish beard and weary-looking eyes. Cooper couldn’t hear Warren’s quiet instructions, but from the look on his face, he clearly took his job seriously. Though he smiled from time to time, it was evident that Warren didn’t want any mistakes to occur with the routes he and the new volunteers were packing. Trish still did her best to impress her teacher by mentioning more than once that her company was sponsoring the food for an entire route for two months. When Warren didn’t seem overly dazzled, she began to ask him if he was happy with his current residence.
“You’re always a saleswoman, aren’t you?” Quinton gently teased as they loaded two sets of coolers onto wheeled carts.
“Yes, I am!” Trish declared. “If you want to be the best at something, you’ve got to work at it every minute of the day. Take your song lyrics, for example.”
A blush immediately appeared on Quinton’s doughy cheeks. He was still shy regarding the subject of the praise songs he had been writing over the past year, preferring to show them only to Cooper, for she was the first person to compliment his lyrics.
“If you ever want to get paid for those songs or hear them sung by a band, then you’ve got to get yourself a music agent. You need to write letters and bang on doors and get in people’s faces. In an entirely professional manner, of course,” she added.
Quinton shrugged. “I’m not sure if the songs are ready for an agent to see.”
“They’re not ready or you’re not ready for the feedback?” Trish demanded. “How many have you written by this point? How many have you allowed other people to read?” she continued doggedly. “How will you ever—?”
“LADY!” a deep voice roared, interrupting Trish’s barrage of questions. “Lay off the man, for cryin’ out loud. It’s too damn early for all that naggin’. What are you, his mama?”
The kitchen fell silent as the new arrival dropped a black bag onto the counter with a loud thud. Without greeting anyone, he grabbed one of the empty food trays and slung it onto a stack of other empty trays and then began to pack one of the larger coolers.
Cooper scrutinized him out of the corner of her blue eye. He was of average height but his hunched shoulders made him seem shorter than he really was, and every muscle in his body seemed tense with anger. His dark hair was cut close to the scalp and his eyes were deep brown with large, black pupils. The skin of his entire right arm, which was the shade of roasted pecans, was covered by an intricate tattoo. It took a moment for Cooper to see that the colored shapes curving up his forearm to his shoulder portrayed a panther locked in combat with a cobra. The panther’s mouth was open in a fierce snarl and its claws were unsheathed into deadly points. The cobra’s fangs dripped venom and its eyes were blood-red as it reared back a hooded head in preparation to strike. Cooper was unnerved by the intensity of danger reflected in the ink’s scene and couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to mark themselves with such a violent image.
“What are y’all starin’ at?” the man demanded, standing erect and balling his hands into fists. All of the volunteers quickly averted their eyes, except for Eugene. Even though he was a good four inches shorter than the newcomer, Eugene strutted confidently up to the man and punched him lightly in the stomach.
“You grumpy again, Leo? Why are you always so grumpy?” Eugene frowned.
“Do you need some coffee or a cookie or somethin’?”
Leo’s hard face softened a fraction as he issued Eugene a mock right hook, which ended up barely grazing the bottom of the smaller man’s chin. “Ain’t no cookie gonna help. I got me a lifetime of worries, little man. You wanna be here, but I gotta be here. That makes me mad. Get it?”
Eugene was befuddled. “You don’t like to help people?”
Leo shrugged. “I like to help myself to people’s stuff, but that’s it.”
“That’s not the same!” Eugene responded indignantly. “I know you got in trouble, Leo, but it doesn’t mean you’re bad.” Eugene focused his eyes on Leo’s tattoo and his voice trembled slightly. “At least, I don’t think you’re bad.”
Leo raked his dark eyes once around the room as if determining whether he had an audience, but most of the other volunteers were still pretending to concentrate on packing food or whispering with quiet deliberation to one another.
“Eugene, I’ve gotta drag my sorry ass in here for six months like the judge says, but I won’t be here a day after that, you hear me? There’s nothin’ in it for Leo, see what I’m sayin’?” Leo grudgingly entered the walk-in fridge and reappeared with a wheeled cart that reached to his shoulders and was filled with twenty rows of steel trays. Eyeing the lunch sitting on the nearest tray, Leo grimaced. “Man! Not this nasty fish again. How these folks supposed to live on this crap? Why can’t they have fried chicken or pot roast or something? No wonder they can’t get better so’s they can make their own food. I wouldn’t feed this shit to a dog.”
“The dieticians know better than you do about nutritious meals,” Campbell replied as he entered the kitchen, a clipboard held in his right hand. “So don’t go insulting my flounder. It’s good when it’s heated. Has a nice, light lemon-butter sauce and collard greens to go with it. Baked apples for dessert and a thick, whole-wheat roll besides. It’s a good, solid meal, so don’t knock it,” he added defensively and then put his hands on his hips and glowered. “And don’t you ever use that kind of language in front of the ladies again or I’ll have you gutting fish instead of packing it.”
Path of the Wicked Page 5
