by Linda Seals
* * *
Liar, liar, pants on fire! I thought, as Barry Correda guided me out of his office. A well-dressed man was just walking into the waiting room as I walked out. He gave me a courteous nod and walked directly into Barry’s office, saying as he went, “Correda, what about the Ramson files? We have a meeting in twenty minutes.” Barry Correda followed the very important person immediately into his office, turning to give the receptionist, and me because I was in the vicinity, an intimate smile before shutting the heavy oak door.
As I waited, I thought I’d use the opportunity to talk to the secretary. She was a woman in her late forties, early fifties, and judging by her dress and make-up, trying to look a lot younger. That she didn’t pull it off successfully was only my opinion, I thought ruefully, glancing down at my own generic—apparently old-lady-looking—clothes. I gave her my name and address, and she took the information and entered it into her computer. She buzzed Barry on the house phone, spoke a few words, and then, smiling at me as she hung up, said that Mr. Correda was checking on something, and would get back to her shortly. I thought we had time for me to ask some innocent questions, but I didn’t want her to think I was a friend of Shannon’s, so then she’d be more inclined to tell me the gossip about Barry Correda and Shannon Parkhurst.
“I’m just here to arrange for a trunk pick up for Shannon’s aunt,” I started out. “But what a beautiful office! You must really like working here.”
“Oh, yes,” she gushed and started on a half-monotone, half-sing-song rendition of the brochure version of the wonderful things Binder Enterprises had accomplished, obviously memorized.
When she paused, I interrupted to ask, “How long have you worked in this unbelievable place?”
“About a year or so. I started out in the front office like everybody else. I was glad for the job, you know what I’m sayin’?”
I nodded. “Did Shannon start there, too?”
“Yeah, I knew her there. She was there about four months before she got herself promoted, you know what I’m sayin’?” she said with more than a hint of jealousy in her voice.
“Promoted?”
“Yeah, to account rep—working with Mr. Correda. Me and Tina used to have lunch with her,” she said. “But she, well, she was too prim and proper, least it seemed to me. Guess she thought she had to be, trying for account rep and all. Couldn’t be late, wouldn’t talk about the office, wouldn’t even have a glass of wine at lunch. Not even a glass of wine!” she sniffed.
“So’s we felt like we couldn’t have a couple either, like Tina and I usually did. Hmmm. Who was she trying to fool? Wouldn’t ever join us after work, neither. Said she had something else she wanted to go do. Guess she thought she was better than us, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“Yes, I do know what you’re sayin’!” I said, wanting to egg on her on. “Then, with Mr. Correda?”
“Well, Mr. Correda got her promoted, and then … well, we didn’t see much of her. After a while, I started hearing she’d started drinking with a vengeance—I mean, I guess she was? And that maybe the company was going to have to fire her if she didn’t get help?”
“Personnel department suggested she go to rehab?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Correda himself stepped in, no need for Personnel, he said. He was such a wonderful man to do that, you know what I’m sayin’? I heard him tell Corrine that it was inevitable, the drinking. He’d tried to make her stop, but ‘all drunks drink again’, he said.”
I wanted to disagree, but I kept my mouth shut. “So Mr.Correda—”
“Mr. Correda is so nice!” she broke in. “He’s always so sweet to me, and last month he gave me a raise! Of all the officers, I’m so glad I work for him!”
“Do all of the officers have offices here in this wing?”
“No, most of them are in the main building with Mr. Cowboy Binder’s old office.”
“Was Shannon’s office there?”
“Yes, Shannon’s, er, Ms. Parkhurst’s office was there, when she wasn’t here in a meeting with Mr. Correda.”
“Important meetings, I bet? Mr. Correda’s an important man?”
“Oh, Mr. Correda is very important! That was Mr. Philip Binder himself just now, coming to talk to Mr. Correda about something, well, crucial, I’m sure, about their meeting with a big client.”
“So Shannon joined Mr. Correda in these other meetings?”
“Oh, yes, and she used that door down there most of the time. Just went on through to Mr. Correda’s office. Guess it was closer than coming through here, you know what I’m sayin’?” She looked skeptical and didn’t really try to hide it. I raised my eyebrows and nodded to show interest in her next opinion.
She shifted her eyes to the boss’s door for a moment and then back to me. She lowered her voice to a heavy whisper. “Probably used that door down the hall there so I couldn’t tell she was soused, or something. I didn’t want to say anything before, but she looked horrible, if you ask me. I saw Mr. Correda half carry her down that hall once, just about a month ago. She was okay before that, or maybe she was just hiding it. Didn’t see her after that, though.”
Now she looked righteous. “Mr.Correda did all he could do for her. He’s important in AA, you know. Pretty high up in the organization, recruitment director, and even he couldn’t make her stay sober, you know what I’m sayin’? He was sorry to have to tell me all that, but he thought it was important to know why she was so, so depressed—enough to kill herself. Everybody knew she was a drunk,” she hissed.
“Everybody?” I asked.
Her house phone buzzed. She picked it up, smiled, and breathlessly said, “Yes, Mr. Correda?” She nodded as she typed something in her computer calendar. She thanked him profusely and buzzed off. “Will this Wednesday at nine a.m. work for pickup of the item?” she asked me.
“Yes, that would be fine. So, everybody thought …” I repeated.
“Well, everybody thought she was except Mr. Cowboy Binder, I guess. I heard him tell Mr. Phillip one time that he didn’t believe him, that he didn’t believe Ms. Parkhurst had a ‘drinking problem,’ you know what I’m sayin’?” She used her fingers to put quotes around the words.
“What did Mr. Phillip say?”
“I don’t know!” she said indignantly, “I don’t eavesdrop on conversations!”
I thanked her and walked back outside to my car. There was too much to think about, and I needed fresh air, so I took a stroll and soon was engrossed in the horticulture at Binder Enterprises. Eyeing a row of barberry bushes, I rounded the corner of the building and spied, next to the rear entrance, a black limo with a red, white, and blue bumper sticker that read “Support Your Rights!” —the limo Mr. Crotchety described that he saw drive off with Bernice Thorton.
Right then a man I identified from the newspaper photos as Billy “Cowboy” Binder stepped out of the main building, into the car, and off they drove. I stood there a minute trying to process this information, and I’m sure my mouth had dropped open a little bit in wonder.
On the drive home, all I could think was “Why?” Every thought started with why this? Or why that? And I couldn’t get past it. After getting a strange feeling about Barry Correda’s behavior, I had abandoned my original intention of giving him Shannon’s trunk, since he’d failed on so many fronts to tell the truth. But why had he lied about everything?
His stumble on the stickers had made me want a chance to take a look at the trunk again, with new eyes and new suspicions. So, pretending I didn’t have the trunk with me at all, I gave my address to the receptionist, and after checking with Barry, she scheduled the trunk to be picked up two days hence. So there wasn’t a rush anymore to get the trunk? It seemed Barry Correda knew I had it, which meant he was a part of the shenanigans to get it from my place? I thought the break-ins were based on someone needing the trunk and its contents immediately. What changed? Did they find what they were looking for in the last intrusion? Did it matter anymore? And now, how did the Bi
nder Enterprises limo fit into the picture?
Everything the receptionist—Nancee Kepler, her nameplate read—said about Shannon was almost verbatim what Barry Correda had spouted to me. It seemed that he was giving Shannon’s storyline out to everyone, and pretty thick, too. Maybe Shannon did lose her sobriety and screw up, but he was giving out dubious information, obviously to discredit her. Right about then I was wishing that the whole mess would just disappear, that I didn’t have to deal with it anymore. But I was beginning to take the whole thing personally, which I knew would suck me in. I also knew it wasn’t my job to take it on, but it didn’t seem that Shannon Parkhurst had anyone to stand up for her.