Original fiction · Chapter 2 of 2
Eleven Missing Dates
I had gone to the food pantry on a Saturday because the leak was directly over the shelf where they kept the diapers. I asked Paul for a fresh roll of sealant and told him to forget the time sheet. The woman who ran the pantry wrote my name on a paper plate of sandwiches, and I kept the plate until the grease went through.
The check Jordan remembered had come from a local business owner who wanted to cover a new roof. Paul had told him we’d done the whole job at a discount. I found the scanned deposit the next morning. The signature was large and careful. It reminded me of the way people sign birthday cards when they want the recipient to know they’ve taken their time.
Paul let himself in at seven. He looked at the spreadsheet on my monitor and put both hands into his pockets.
“How far back did you go?”
“Far enough. Where did the money go?”
“At first? Payroll.” He gave me the name of the week, and I recognized it. Two checks from a general contractor had bounced. Our crew still got paid. I’d taken that as evidence that Paul knew what he was doing.
“And after that?”
He sat down in Dad’s old chair. “After that I got used to buying time.”
He’d used some of the money for bills at home. The rest went into moving older obligations out of sight. Every time somebody asked for an update, he found something to send them. A roof inspection from another address. A paid invoice with the name edited. Pictures from a crew that thought it was finishing its ordinary Friday.
I asked why he put my name on the last invoice.
“People know your name,” he said. The answer came so quickly that I could tell he’d thought about it before.
We brought in an independent accountant and turned the records over for review. I sat beside Mrs. Ellis while she asked the adjuster to correct the claim file. She brought the same folder she carried to our office, held shut with a grocery-store rubber band. When we finished, she asked if the repair was going to hold through winter.
“I’ll check it again Thursday,” I said.
I sold the newer work truck to cover part of what the business owed. The food pantry’s donor got a written accounting and his money back through the repayment plan. Two crew members left, which I understood. Jordan stayed on for a few months, then left to take an apprenticeship he’d been talking about since the day I met him. He said he wanted a job where someone would show him how to do complicated things slowly. I gave him a reference.
Paul signed an agreement to step away from the company and contribute to restitution. For a while we only spoke with someone else on the line. The first time he called just to talk, I let it ring. The second time I answered and told him I could give him ten minutes.
In April I went back to the pantry for an inspection. There was a bucket by the door. I felt sick until the woman who ran the place dropped an umbrella into it.
The patch over the diaper shelf was dry. When I got back to the office, there was a note from Mrs. Ellis in the mailbox. She’d written that her ceiling was dry too. Below that, she’d added a recipe for lemon cake and crossed out the part about using a mixer. A fork will do, she wrote.
