by J. D. German
Chapter 12 – Lynn/Cindy
Lynn showed up at the personnel director’s office early Monday morning. After signing several forms and receiving her ID badge, she was directed to her desk in the Inventory Management Department. The department head showed up a few minutes later and introduced himself. “Hi. I’m Warren Ziggler. You must be Cynthia Carson.”
“Please, call me Cindy.”
“Okay Cindy. I see from your records that you have done this job before – at our Pittsburgh plant.”
Yes. I’m familiar with the job. It may take me a day or two to learn the specifics of how things work here, but I’m a fast learner.”
“Nancy has been filling in until you could get here, so I’ll have her walk you through the daily grind. Nancy, come meet your replacement, Cindy.”
“Hi Cindy. I’m so glad you’re here. Computers are not my strong suit, so I’ve been struggling to keep up. I’m way behind on my inspections, so why don’t we go down to the shipping dock and start there.”
“Great. What do I need to take with me?”
“I just ran off this inventory printout. That and my clipboard are all we need.”
Nancy led her to a freight elevator near the back of the factory. It didn’t look very stable so Lynn stepped onto it gingerly. “Does this thing every break down?”
“It stalls between floors now and then but they usually get it running after a few minutes. Sometimes I welcome the break . . . at least when there’s no one on it with me.”
Lynn thought she detected a note of fear in Nancy’s voice and wondered if there was a particular person she didn’t like to get stuck with. “Who else uses this elevator?”
“Oh, some of the guys from the shipping floor . . . Mostly it’s Jake, the dock foreman.”
“Can I meet him this morning?”
“Definitely. He’s the one who signs off on the shipping bills of lading. When your inventory numbers don’t match up with his shipping documents there’s big trouble.”
“When happens then?”
“Uh . . . we discuss it and he ends up having his way.”
“Is that the way things are supposed to work?”
“No. I’m supposed to climb onto the loaded trucks and do a count with him, but I don’t like to do that.”
Lynn looked at her with concern, “Why is that?”
“He . . . he scares me.”
“Is that all he does?”
“N . . . I don’t want to talk about it. He’s coming over here.”
A large, heavily muscled man with tattooed arms walked up them. “Well, this must be our new inventory gal. What were you two been talking about?”
Nancy looked down at the floor, but Lynn stepped up to him and reached out her hand. “Hi. I’m Cynthia Carson. And you are?”
He eyed Nancy intently for a moment, then looked up at Cynthia. “I’m Jake Dillon. They call be Big Jake.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Dillon. And what is your responsibility here on the shipping floor?”
Jake glanced at Nancy again then looked Lynn/Cynthia hard in the eyes.
“I’m in charge down here, Ms. . . . Cynthia. I control everything that goes in or goes out of the factory. Nothing moves without my signature. If something should happen to delay a shipment, then whoever is responsible answers to me.”
“Well, as long as everything on my inventory shows up in the right truck, you won’t get any trouble from me, Mr. Dillon.”
Jake was silent for several seconds, then looked her in the eye again. “You aren’t going to make trouble for me, are you missy. Nancy and me worked real good together and I expect the same from you.”
“We’ll see Mr. Dillon, we’ll see.”
With that, Lynn took Nancy by the arm and led her back towards the elevator. She could feel Nancy’s arm trembling. When the elevator was moving upward Nancy turned to her with tears in her eyes. “You shouldn’t have said that, Cindy. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I can handle myself, Nancy. Lets get you upstairs and back to your regular job so you won’t have to deal with ‘Big Jake’ anymore.”
By noon the next day Lynn had re-organized the inventory tracking system to focus on the shipping part of the operation. She could call up every munitions crate on the computer and know what it contained, where it was in the factory, and when it was loaded and trucked out to a destination. Then she went through the shipping records for the past six months looking for a pattern in the missing crates – when they were manufactured, who packed the crates and loaded them on the trucks, who the drivers were, where they were shipped to, what route they followed, where they stopped along the way, and who signed off the receipt documents at the delivery point.
Lynn thought a bit, then asked herself a question. “Why can’t I see a pattern here somewhere – days of the week, individuals involved, specific truck drivers. It all seems random.”
Lynn was back at the shabby apartment eating pizza for supper. She figured that’s what her undercover self would eat. Her mind wandered back to the stolen inventory problem. There were so many places along the path from shipping out of the factory to receipt at the military depot where someone could slip a few of crates off the truck. Maybe even while the truck driver was busy picking up some woman at a bar. To find out, each truck would have to be followed, but with and average of thirty-two trucks leaving every week that would take too much manpower. And the crate theft didn’t happen to every shipment, only about one out of ten or twelve truckloads, and then only a few crates at a time.
As she pondered the problem the answer popped into her mind. If Big Jake was keeping Nancy from doing a full inventory check on the loaded trucks, that meant the crates went missing right here at the factory, not after they were shipped. Nancy signed the shipping list as if all the crates were on the trucks, but she never actually checked to see if there was a full load. Jake had her so intimidated that she was afraid to do her job. With that answer, Lynn knew what she had to do tomorrow. She had to do a complete inventory on every truck just before it left the factory.
When Lynn/Cynthia got to her office the next morning she printed out the all the shipping lists that were scheduled to go out that day, then rode the freight elevator down to the shipping dock. The workers had already started loading the trucks under Big Jake’s supervision, but when she hopped up on top of a stack of crates everyone turned to look at her.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, but I have an important announcement. Under the authority of the Inventory Division Manager, there will be a change in policy regarding inspection of outgoing shipments. No truck will leave this facility until I have personally gone through the truck and checked each item against the bill of lading. Mr. Dillon will accompany me as I inspect each shipment. I have a list of all shipments going out today and the scheduled departure time. I will be at the dock fifteen minutes before each departure time to inspect the load. If everything checks out the truck will be closed up and released to the driver. If there is a discrepancy between my inventory count and the shipping bill, the truck will be unloaded and reloaded under my supervision. Are there any questions?”
Big Jake pushed his way through the crowd of workers to stand in front of her and looked up at her with fire in his eyes. “You can’t do this missy! I’m in charge down here and I won’t allow it. It will screw up the entire shipping schedule, and throw all of the deliveries behind.”
Lynn looked Jake straight in the eye to purposely challenge him. “If there are problems we will make adjustments to resolve them. If you have a complaint why don’t you and I go up the Division Manager and discuss it right now.”
He stared at her for several seconds, then turned and yelled “You heard the lady, men. Let’s get these trucks loaded.” With one last menacing look back at her, he stomped off toward the nearest truck and conferred with the loading crew. One of them headed towards the back of the shipping room.
Lynn stepped down from the crates and looked b
usy making meaningless notes on the documents she was holding. What she was really waiting for was to see what would happen next. Five minutes later the man reappeared driving a forklift with two additional munitions crates, which were quickly put onto the truck along with the rest of the load. Then she walked up to Jake and asked, “Is this truck ready for inspection now Mr. Dillon?”
He looked at her with a phony smile and replied “It sure is. Let’s climb in and have a look.” When they were inside away from the other workers Jake leaned in to her ear. “Shipping docks are very dangerous places, missy. Serious accidents can happen that could cripple or kill a careless person – especially a greenhorn like you.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Dillon?”
“Take it any way you want to, dearie.”
At the end of the day, all the trucks left on schedule with complete agreement between the inventory lists and shipping bills. As Lynn was gathering things from her desk Nancy stopped by to ask how things went on her first day. Lynn answered, “If you want to grab a drink with me somewhere I’ll give you a blow-by-blow account.”
Nancy paused for a minute. “I would like that, but I have to be really careful. If Jake or one of his crew saw us talking we could both be in danger. I know a place a few miles from here where none of the workers go.” Nancy scribbled an address on a notepad and handed it to Lynn. I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”
“Great, Nancy. I see you then.”
Lynn gave Nancy time to get out of the parking lot before she walked out to her Miata. She had only been driving it for two days but she felt like a race car driver in it. It was a 1994 MX-5 – the premium model with the big engine, a 5-speed manual transmission, and the Montego Blue Mica paint job that sometimes looked deep blue and other times a deep emerald green, depending on how the sun was hitting it. The upholstery was shot, but it ran great. She checked out that model online and found that only 3,000 were manufactured that year, and that it was a popular model for the amateur racing circuit. Lynn couldn’t wait for a chance to take it out on a straight country road to see what it could do.
Before she left the office Lynn printed out a map to The Brew ‘n Booze Tavern and memorized the route. Six blocks after she left the U. S. Munitions factory she thought she picked up a tail. A silver Ford Mustang was making the same turns, but hanging back a hundred yards or so. Lynn took a quick look at her map and changed her route, making a sudden right turn followed by a sharp left onto a freeway ramp. As soon as she hit the ramp she went through the gears and got her speed up to 85 mph and merged into the freeway traffic. She looked in the rear view mirror to see if she was really being followed or if she had an overactive imagination. . . . “Yep, there it is, accelerating to keep up with me.” She looked at the map again and saw the next exit coming up shortly. She stayed out of the exit lane, looked at the traffic around her to make sure she had room for her next move, and drove just beyond the exit ramp. At the last second she slammed on the brakes, did a 180-degree turn back toward the exit ramp, followed by another sliding turn onto the ramp. As she sailed down the ramp she looked back to see the Challenger miss the ramp entirely and continue on down the freeway. At the bottom of the ramp she circled back under the freeway and re-entered it going the opposite direction. She kept an eye out for the tail until she was sure she had lost them and resumed her trip to the Brew ‘n Booze.
Nancy was already there, nervously watching the door when Lynn entered. She thought about how to approach Nancy to get the information she was looking for and decided not to tell her about being tailed. She just hoped that Nancy hadn’t been tailed by some dock workers herself. After a quick look around she didn’t see anyone paying too much attention and figured it must be safe. When she saw Lynn, Nancy smiled and relaxed. “I was worried you wouldn’t come, Cindy. I thought maybe some . . . something happened to you.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I can take care of myself, even against Big Jake.”
“You don’t have any idea how violent he can be. That’s why I agreed to meet you – to warn you about what could happen to you. Jake is not one to mess with.”
Lynn paused, then asked in a soft, sympathetic voice, “What has he done to you, Nancy?”
“Nothing. He hasn’t done anything to me.”
“I hear your voice telling me one thing, but your eyes and your demeanor are telling me a different story. You can share your fear and pain with me, Nancy. I’ll never tell a soul.”
Lynn could see that Nancy was struggling with a decision. Finally she said, “Okay Cindy. I’ll tell you what he’s done to me. But only so you can realize how cruel and powerful he is. . . . When I first started as a temporary replacement for Jeanie, the last inventory analyst, I had no idea what I was in for. I should have suspected something – Jeanie had to quit because she was attacked, beaten, and raped in her home. She didn’t report it to the police because she was afraid the attacker would return to kill her. Looking back at what I know now, I believe it was Big Jake who broke in and was waiting for her when she got home from work.”
“Why would Jake take a risk like that? Couldn’t Jeanie identify him as her attacker and have him put in Jail?”
“I talked to Jeanie after the attack and she claimed the rapist was wearing a mask so she couldn’t tell who he was, but I think she was lying to me. I think she was too afraid of another visit from Jake, so she resigned from the company.”
“Why would Jake Dillon do that to her, Nancy?”
“I can only answer that based on my brief time as her successor. I was on the job two days when I found a discrepancy between a shipping bill and the inventory data. When I asked Big Jake about it, he told me that there were always clerical errors in the system and not to worry about it. That didn’t seem right to me so I told him I would have to report it. He said to go ahead – that was my job. I walked back to the freight elevator to go upstairs to report to the manager, but Just as I was closing the door, Jake slipped into the elevator. I pushed the button to take us up, but between floors he pressed the emergency stop button. . . . “
“What happened next, Nancy?”
“He . . . he put his hand over my mouth and whispered in my ear that if I tried to scream he would kill me. I was terrified! Then he pushed his body up against me and grabbed my . . . my breasts. He asked ‘Have you ever been raped, Nancy? It can be very pleasurable, or very painful. I can make it whatever you want.’ I begged him to let me go. He forced a kiss on my lips. It was all I could do not the throw up. Then he stepped back, looked me up down, and told me that, unless I ignored the inventory discrepancies, he would finish what he had started.”
“Oh my gosh, Nancy! What happened to you was terrible. Did you report him?”
“No. He said that if I said anything something even worse would happen to me. After that, I never went into a truck to check the inventory. I just accepted his version of the shipping documents and signed off on them.”
“Did he ever do anything else to you?”
“He would slip onto the freight elevator at the end of a shift now and then and feel me up, just to keep me in line I guess. I couldn’t wait to get home and into the shower to scrub his filth off me.”
“He’ll be sorry if he tries anything like that with me. I won’t be afraid to report him.”
“You don’t understand, Cindy. If you get in the way of his secret operation he could kill you!”
“My husband . . . before he died . . . taught me how to take care of myself. I know a few moves that will make him wish he hadn’t messed with me.”
“I wish I had your skills, and your confidence. I always let men run over me because I’m afraid of them. My father used to beat me when I was little. He would come home drunk, smack my mother around, then start on me. When I started developing as a woman I had to run away because I knew what was coming next. I lived with an aunt until I finished high school then ran off with my first husband – who turned out to be just like my father. After he put me in th
e hospital twice I filed for divorce. He came to the restaurant where I was working and yelled that he would kill me before he let me go. That and the beatings were enough to get him some jail time. I was scared that when he got out he would come after me, but his temper solved that problem. He got in a fight with another inmate and was stabbed to death.”
“How did you get your job at U. S. Munitions?”
“I took some accounting courses at the community college. That’s where I met my second husband. I thought he was such a sweet guy, but that changed as soon as we were married. He expected me to be the perfect wife and homemaker – hot dinner on the table the minute he got home, not a speck of dust or dirt anywhere, waiting on him hand and foot, and ready to please him in bed every night no matter how tired I was. And if anything displeased him, he would whip me with his belt.”
“How awful! Are you still married to him?”
“No. After several months of that I went on strike and did nothing for him. He got tired of whipping me and divorced me. I feel sorry for whoever he gets to replace me.”
“No wonder Big Jake intimidates you so, after how the men in your life have treated you.” Lynn thought for a minute, then asked Nancy, “Your first husband got what was coming to him, but do you ever think about getting even with the second one?”
“Oh yes. I spend a lot of time thinking up ways to get revenge – very prolonged and painful ways mostly. But it’s just fantasy.”
“It doesn’t have to be. I might be able to help you with that. Not right now, but we can talk about this again in a few weeks. I’ll give you my personal phone number.” Lynn said as scribbled it on a napkin.
“Now you have me curious, Cindy. Are there some hidden things about you that I need to know?”
“That’s a topic for another time. I need to get back to my place and get some rest. This first day on the job was a little stressful.”
“Well, thanks for listening to me. I needed to get some of that off my chest.”
“Anytime I can help, let me know.”