Secure Location by Beverly Long Read Free Book Online Page B

discharged.”
    He scanned the photos, separating white males from the rest of the bunch. There were three. Under each photo was a name and what he assumed was some kind of employee number.
    He cross-referenced the pictures to the list and started sorting.
    “What are you doing?” she asked.
    “Thinking about motive,” he said. “I’m putting them in order of tenure, most to least. With seniority comes paid time off and company contributions to retirement plans. Things a person might not be able to replace right away, even if he did find other work. A guy with ten years of experience is probably more pissed off when he loses his job than the guy with eight months of time into the job.”
    “Makes sense.”
    There was one who had eight years of experience, one that had three years, and one that had five months. He pointed to the man with eight years of experience. He looked to be in his early forties, with a thin face, dark hair and thick black glasses. “What’s this guy’s story?” he asked.
    “Mason Hawkins. Pretty quiet at work, although it was known by most everybody that he wasn’t all that happy with his job responsibilities. He applied for a couple higher-level positions but was never the chosen candidate. His attitude got in his way.”
    “What was his job?”
    “He was an accounts payable specialist and he made sure our bills were paid. Now, most invoices get paid electronically. Bank transfers from our account to our vendor’s account. He was fired because he processed invoices to vendors that didn’t exist. He’d deposited over thirty thousand into his own checking account over a period of eight months before he had the bad luck to need an emergency appendectomy which required his boss to step in for a few days. Bye-bye appendix. Bye-bye job.”
    “Did you get the money back?”
    “He was about five thousand short. He’s making monthly payments in lieu of us pressing charges.”
    Cruz made a note of the man’s address. “What about Tom Looney?”
    Meg studied the picture of the man, maybe early thirties, who had his straight brown hair pulled back in a stubby ponytail. “He worked in maintenance. Had a great record until he suddenly started missing work. Ultimately he missed so much time we had no choice but to let him go. I heard a rumor after he left that he’d lost his house.”
    “Everybody’s got a story,” Cruz said, shaking his head.
    “It’s what makes management really hard,” she said. “For every story you know, there are six that you don’t. It makes making exceptions really difficult.”
    “Good judgment. Isn’t that what managers are supposed to have?”
    “Easy to say. Suppose the manager knows that somebody is late for work because they’re working a second job to pay for their kid’s medical bills. He might want to cut that employee some slack. But the minute he does, that’s when he finds out that three other people are working second jobs—each with their own set of sad circumstances. So the manager fires the guy for being late and feels horrible about it or he lets it go and upper management is breathing down his neck for setting a poor precedent.”
    “You’re pretty high up in the management structure. Don’t breathe so heavy.”
    She smiled. “I’m working on that,” she said.
    She was being too hard on herself. She was one of the good guys. Always had been. Hell, one Thanksgiving, there had been people sitting at his table that didn’t even speak English. She’d discovered in casual conversation that some of the housekeeping staff had no plans for the day and that had been the end of his opportunity to watch a football game in his shorts with a beer in one hand and a pretzel bowl close to the other.
    That’s what made it so hard to believe that somebody at work would want to harm her. But it was the most logical explanation.
    He picked up the last of the three photos. “What about this one?”
    Meg looked at the picture of a man with dark hair