The Talk of the Town (24 page)

Taking the blue lading sheet in hand, the warehouse owner examined it closely. It was dated exactly a week earlier, the previous Monday. By all rights, it should have been caught by Roxie when she was preparing last week’s ledger for his perusal. But that was her first day back at work after her fiasco with Luke and she had obviously fallen down on the job.

“Another Monday mess,” he muttered under his breath and then glanced up at Fesol. “I assume that you’ve told no one else about this discrepancy.”

The statement was in actuality a question, and Fesol promptly assured his employer that he’d told no one. He gazed down his long nose at Roxie in a way that made her feel totally incompetent and then looked back at Layton Stewart. “I naturally wished to call it to the attention of the two of you before drawing any conclusions.”

But it was perfectly obvious that he had already drawn a conclusion. And it was the only conclusion that seemed logical. No one uttered the word, but Roxie knew they were all thinking it.

“Naturally,” Layton Stewart said in a tone intended to sooth the clerk’s offended sensibilities. “Please continue to keep this matter to yourself for the time being. I intend to make a thorough inquiry.”

“Of course.” With a brisk nod, Fesol made his exit.

Harmonizing with the click of the door, Layton Stewart heaved a melancholy sigh. “He’ll expect a raise for this, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know how I missed that,” Roxie murmured, more to herself than to him. But in fact she did know. She had been too engrossed in her personal problems to properly do the job she was being paid to do.

Patting the chair beside his desk, Layton Stewart told her to sit down. “You’ve been moping around here for over a week now.”

She slumped there in a dejected heap. “I know.”

“Whatever it is that’s bothering you will just have to be shelved for the time being,” he said. “I’d like to help you, even tell you to take some time off to get back on track, but this has to come first. We can’t let a possible embezzlement wait for anything.”

Though he’d spoken kindly, his speech was lashed with enough of a sting to prick her out of her mood. “Thank you, Mr. Stewart, but I’ll cope. As you say, this matter must come first.” A disquieting chill snaked up her spine. “Do you really think it could be . . . embezzlement?”

“I don’t know.” He looked down at the ledger. “As you well know, the entries in here are taken from the ladings, so the first thing, I suppose, is to find out who accepted payment on this shipment last week and how much was actually received.”

“And who tucked it in the back of the ledger,” she added.

“Then we’ll need to determine who made the bank deposit that day.” He picked up the blue lading. “I’ll give you the easy one. You check this out.”

Roxie took it and stood. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Be as discreet as you can—even though I know this will be all over the warehouse in a matter of minutes,” he said gloomily.

As she went out she could hear him grumble, “Mondays.”

All paperwork was supposed to be signed by whichever employee handled it. Although she had been working at the warehouse long enough to recognize some of the signatures, she couldn’t always read every one of them. Whether it was because they were in a hurry or because they had really poor penmanship, people sometimes scrawled something resembling hen scratches across the bottom. That was the problem with this one. It was impossible to tell who had signed it.

Roxie walked to Gary’s office. As she wended her way through the warehouse, she looked up and down the aisles but did not find Luke. She wasn’t certain whether she was disappointed or relieved.

She found Gary at his desk, barking into the telephone. “Hell, I’m sorry, but with two of my men out and one having just quit, I’m backlogged here. All I can tell you is that your order will get out as soon as I can get it out.”

While he continued his conversation she tried not to survey anything beyond the glass window that looked out into the warehouse. She failed miserably. Her gaze continually flicked, searching, seeking, and, at last, finding. Luke strode down a row, coming closer and closer. Her heart lurched painfully. Then he turned abruptly and disappeared from view. It had just been a glimpse, but it hurt. After nine days it surprised her that the wound could feel so agonizingly fresh.

“What can I do for you?” Gary asked, sounding as harried as he looked.

Jolted out of her misery, she handed him the lading bill. “Can you tell me who received the payment on that? I can’t read the signature.”

He glanced at it, then at her, his eyes narrowing. “Is there a problem I should know about?”

“We don’t know yet,” she replied, wondering why she suddenly felt like she was in the wrong. “I’d like to speak with whoever handled this.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

“We’re pretty rushed today, what with the—”

“Today,” she broke in firmly. “It’s important.”

After a long pause he stepped to the door and hollered out into the warehouse, “Bauer! I need to see you for a minute.”

The hair on the back of Roxie’s neck stood on end. Thunder boomed like a beaten drum and the dock workers dashed inside as the leaden skies opened up and the rain poured down. She stared at Gary and moved her mouth soundlessly. Luke!

The storm had broken.

* * * *

He stopped at the door of Gary’s cubicle. His eyes flashed silver when he saw her, but quickly dulled to a lusterless lead. Gary excused himself and Roxie had to fight to keep from flinging herself on him, wildly begging him to stay. She looked down, around, anywhere but at Luke. But it didn’t matter whether she looked at him or not. Her nerves hummed with awareness of him.

Finally he said, “You wanted to see me about something?”

Caution muted his tone. She darted a look and saw that he held himself warily, alert for trouble. Hating having to do this, she gave him the bill. “Did you accept this payment?”

He didn’t even glance at it. “You must know I did, or you would be asking somebody else.”

She bit her lower lip. “Please, Luke, don’t make this any more difficult for me than it already is.”

After checking the lading, he handed it back to her. “Yes, I received it. Last Monday.”

She riveted her gaze to the figure written on the bill. Swallowing hard, she wished she didn’t have to ask him anything else. “Did—did you actually receive the full amount?”

The silence battered at her until she had to give up and look at him. He met her gaze with an empty stare. She balanced on the precipice of anguished doubt a few seconds longer, then crumpled the bill in her fist and fled.

At the back of her mind she was dimly aware that the dock workers who had come in from the rain had observed the entire exchange through the glass window, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She was too busy trying to cope with all the ugly suspicion and piercing doubt that mauled her. Her heart, her soul, her very being, rejected even the remotest suggestion that Luke could have taken that money. But like the snake in the Garden of Eden, her mind twisted her faith. He’d told her, hadn’t he, that all he needed was money to get out of town. It would have been so easy to pocket the cash.

No
! She fiercely repelled such a shameful supposition. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. She returned to her office, determined to believe it.

Within the hour, the rumor blazed through the company. Money—some said as much as a thousand dollars—was missing, and Luke Bauer had been questioned about it.

Roxie couldn’t bear the rash of accusatory whispers that erupted all around her. She hid in the ladies’ room but didn’t lock the door. She was still there when Barbara burst in, tearfully denying any wrongdoing. She turned to Roxie and said, “All I did was take the packet and deposit slip to the bank after Mr. Stewart added it up!”

The door swung open again, and Barbara angrily swiped her hands over her tear-blotched cheeks before facing Lana and Vicky Sue. “And you two just better not say anything to me ever again. The way you looked at me as if . . . as if I were a thief or something!”

“We didn’t mean anything like that,” Lana soothed. “We know you’re nothing of the kind.”

“Besides,” Vicky Sue put in, “we all know who’s really guilty.”

Roxie’s hackles rose instantly. She rounded on the woman standing by the sink and demanded coldly, “Just what do you mean by that?”

“Well, surely, you can’t believe—”

“I’ll tell you what I believe.” A clap of thunder from outside seemed to echo her angry tone. “I believe you’re spreading a viscous rumor without just cause. We haven’t even determined that anything other than an honest mistake has taken place. Without a crime, I don’t see how anyone can be considered guilty.”

Vicky Sue’s face reddened with indignation at being singled out. “Fesol told us that it was as open and shut a case as he’d ever seen.”

“And Willie says you’ve already questioned Luke Bauer about it,” Barbara added with a sniff. “So why try to defend him?”

“We all knew when you hired him you were making a mistake,” Lana stated on a righteous note that made Roxie’s palm itch to slap her.

Instead, giving them all one furiously contemptuous look, she stalked out. She went directly to Layton Stewart’s office, entering without bothering to knock. “Mr. Stewart, something’s got to be done.”

“I think I’m going to cut Mondays out of my calendar,” he grumbled without looking up from the ledger he was still studying. “What is it now?”

“Fesol has accused Luke of taking the money and even said it was an open and shut case.”

Real consternation sobered Layton Stewart’s grandfatherly features. Saying he’d better have a talk with the payroll clerk, he rose from his chair, and together he and Roxie went to find him. On the way, Roxie explained all that she’d learned in the ladies’ room.

“Everyone just assumes he’s guilty, without even giving him a chance,” she concluded.

“It’s true we can’t make such baseless assumptions about him,” the warehouse owner agreed. “But neither can we blindly assume he is not guilty.”

The words rang like a death knell. They tolled so loudly in Roxie’s heart she did not even derive the least satisfaction from hearing Layton Stewart inform Fesol in no uncertain terms that if he expressed one more opinion, just one, about what may or may not have been done by whom, it would mean his job.

“Not so much as a syllable,” he ordered with rare anger.

For once Fesol gave the appearance of sincerely apologizing. But Roxie hardly noticed. The what-ifs had returned to haunt her. What if Luke had really done it? What if he’d taken the money to get away from her? What if he had planned it all along? What if? Her fear escalated with each what-if that persecuted her.

She trailed Layton Stewart into Gary’s office with a desolate heart. This was the worst nightmare she’d ever lived, far worse than the awful day she had learned Arthur’s wife was pregnant and realized that he had just been using her. This was worse than any nightmare. Nightmares end. This was going on and on until she thought she would scream.

Gary and Luke awaited them. Even as they entered, Gary spoke up. “I want to go on record as saying I’ve got complete faith in Luke Bauer. I’ve let every worker in my warehouse know how I feel, and I’m ready to say the same to anyone else.”

“That’s high praise, coming from you,” Layton Stewart said.

Though she remained silent, Roxie wanted to throw the foreman a wealth of roses. At least one person supported her belief that Luke must be innocent.

Layton Stewart offered Luke his hand. After a perceptible delay, he took it. “I want to apologize to you,” the warehouse owner said in his direct way. “I sincerely regret the unfounded accusations to which you’ve been subjected. But the sooner we can get to the bottom of this, the sooner we’ll have the rumors cleared out and dumped in the trash bin where they belong.”

In her heart Roxie begged Luke not use a sarcastic tone, not to be coldly defiant.

He nodded and said. “I’ll do whatever is necessary to help you find out what happened, Mr. Stewart.”

“I appreciate your cooperation. And your understanding.”

“It’s only natural that you’d talk to me, sir. I was the last to handle that particular shipment.”

With a brisk nod, Layton Stewart got down to business and began grilling him on the receipt of the lading.

Roxie stared in wide-eyed admiration. Despite his tensed stance, despite his closed expression, Luke replied to every question with reasoned calm. How difficult it must be for him, she could only guess, but she knew his self-possession couldn’t come easily. Her heart swelled with pride . . . and love.

Unexpectedly, he looked her way. For a heartbreaking instant, the guard slipped. His gray eyes clouded with pain and longing and uncertainty. Her own eyes blurred with tears as she lifted a hand toward him. The shutter closed. He withdrew into his impenetrable shell. When Layton Stewart dismissed him, he didn’t even glance Roxie’s way. He simply pivoted and strode out.

* * * *

Five o’clock crawled in at long last. Roxie felt as if she’d been through every emotion known to humankind, with a few extras thrown in for experimentation. Layton Stewart’s assurances that they would get the matter settled as quickly as possible hadn’t encouraged her in the least.

Part of her feared the solution. As much as she wanted to believe otherwise, a nasty, nagging suspicion that maybe Luke had taken the money would not be stilled. She felt she would never be sure until she heard it from his own lips, until he told her, “I didn’t do it.”

She was almost home when, on impulse, she made a U-turn and headed back the other direction, past the train tracks and into the section of town where the houses looked as old as time. She had no clear notion of what she meant to do. She only knew that she could not let another night pass without some understanding between them. Nine days of wordless pretense had been bad enough. This new barrier was unendurable.

She parked in front of the boardinghouse where Luke lived and then sat there for a moment, gathering her courage. An overcoat of guilt hung on her as she recalled the day’s events and the part she had played in them. Finally realizing she couldn’t put this off any longer, she got out of the car and, with no umbrella to protect her, ran through the falling rain and across the freshly painted porch into the house.