Union Jacked

by Diane Vallere

  “But that doesn’t make sense. Harvey and Victoria left for a meeting, and they went inside Tradava together. Harvey came out and told me Victoria wanted me to meet her inside. I was on my way in when the shots were fired.”

  I thought back to the morning of the shooting. Victoria had left me alone under the flag while she and Harvey went into the store. Harvey had returned. And Victoria had vanished from the scene.

  According to Harvey, the two negotiators had reached an agreeable solution. Twenty-four hours later, Harvey was dead, Victoria’s company was backing out of their contract to buy Tradava, and John claimed not to know what had transpired.

  I hadn’t thought much about Victoria leaving me to take a meeting with Harvey, but I also hadn’t realized one clause in the contract for Piccadilly Group to buy Tradava could be blown apart so easily. Victoria had been on the front lines of the buyout. She knew better than anybody what was being asked of her company and whether Ribbon would welcome a British retailer to town.

  And the more I thought about it, the more I knew we wouldn’t. Not the way she was looking to set things up. She must have seen my growing frustration with the way she steamrollered every one of my suggestions.

  “John, how well do you know Victoria? She must have spent time working with the Tradava executive committee. Was she happy with the collaboration? Did she think things were going well? Did she have anything to say about the strike?”

  “She wasn’t the most readable person, but she was decisive. I remember thinking Harvey would have his work cut out for him. It’s a shame,” he said quietly. “He accomplished what he set out to do, but the real victims will be the employees.”

  Something John said tickled the back of my brain, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “Did Victoria know about the strike when she got here? Or was it a surprise? Do people strike in England? Or is this one of those rude American things?”

  “The strike alone would not have forced Piccadilly’s hand. The shooting and subsequent death of the strike captain would.”

  I shivered. Again, I found myself wondering about Harvey. Too many questions surrounded him for me to see him as innocent.

  John twisted at the waist and picked up a folder from his desk. He opened it, and his eyes moved back and forth as if reading the contents. He closed the folder and looked up. “I’ve been in touch with every retailer in a sixty-mile radius, and the vast majority of them were willing to fax me a list of their open jobs. Many promised priority screening to any candidates we recommend.”

  I’d been so focused on Harvey that I barely realized John was talking to me. I picked up the sheet of paper in front of me, the one that had “Samantha Kidd” filled out on the blank line, “bankruptcy” on the reason for termination line, and “six months severance” on the buy-out-package field. He rifled through his inbox and pulled out a manila file folder, flipped it open, and plucked out a sheet. He stared at it for a few moments, as if considering whether it was a good idea to show it to me.

  “Let me be frank, Samantha. You’ve made a name for yourself around Ribbon, and it’s not necessarily a good one. Even if I did put your name on this list, that sixty-mile radius might not be big enough for you to get away from your reputation. Nothing about this is guaranteed. Things happen around you, and more than one person on the board of directors would be happy to see you in the unemployment line.”

  “But you’re not one of those people, are you? Because if you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I tapped the page with the mostly unreadable text. “You wouldn’t have even told me about these opportunities. If you wanted me to be unemployed, you would have told me to sign on the dotted line, and you’d report to your superiors that you did your job.” I set the paper on his desk. “I’ve done a lot for this store, and if they don’t see it now, they’ll never see it. I’ve done every job that’s been thrown at me since the advertising department dissolved, and I haven’t complained once.” Slight lie, but Eddie wasn’t going to tell on me. “I’m tired, John. I’m tired of working for a company that doesn’t care about my dedication or want to hear my ideas.” I stood up, collected my bag, and headed for the door.

  “Samantha, don’t leave,” John said. “Have you heard any news about Detective Loncar?”

  I was wary of the question. “Why would you expect me to have heard news? I’m just a regular citizen.”

  “Samantha, you’ve been involved in more than one criminal investigation since you started working here. I wouldn’t expect you to try to change now.”

  “He’s in a coma,” I said. “It’s been over twenty-four hours, and the doctors are starting to worry. The longer he’s unconscious, the higher the odds he’ll never wake up.”

  John grabbed a chair and turned it to face me. He sat and crossed his ankle over his knee. I put my hand on the back of the chair closest to the door but remained standing.

  “Five years ago, my wife moved out,” John said. “I had a hard time adjusting to being home alone, and one of the guys in my card game picked up on it. We were all neighborhood guys, and he and his wife used to invite me over—dinner, or the game, or whatever they came up with that was an excuse to let me know I wasn’t alone.”

  The change in subject was odd but not unwelcome. Everyone who worked for Tradava had been impacted by the shooting yesterday. John had the same amount of unresolved emotions wrapped up in the company dissolution as I did.

  I lowered myself into the chair next to me and remained quiet. I suspected John had a point, and even if he didn’t, for now, I was being paid to listen. But there was an intensity to the way he talked. There was more urgency in his voice now than when he’d talked about Tradava or Piccadilly or job opportunities in a sixty-mile radius.

  “You were lucky to have friends like that.”

  He nodded. “One night, I don’t know if I had too much to drink or too little rest, but I fell asleep on my buddy’s sofa. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like a jerk. I didn’t want to be there when he and his wife woke up the next day. My friend’s wife and I—let’s just say I didn’t want to be the source of more friction between the two of them. I let myself out and headed home. What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t have known, was that some punks had been watching my house and knew it was empty. They broke in. My ex-wife had come over earlier that night to reconcile. She was asleep in our bed while they were robbing the house. It was only a matter of time before they found her.”

  John’s story had taken a turn into darker territory that wasn’t the stuff of Hans Christian Andersen. I knew crimes like this took place in our city, but outside of what I’d experienced myself, I’d never met anyone else with a story to tell. “What happened?” I asked gently.

  “When I left my buddy’s house, I tripped a silent alarm. He came downstairs to check on me, saw that I was gone, and figured out what happened.” He got quiet for a moment and then continued. “My buddy was a cop. New to the city. When that alarm rang at the security company, it also rang at the police station. Dispatch sent a car before they found out it was a false alarm.”

  “But it wasn’t a false alarm, was it?”

  “The police cruiser pulled up with lights and siren on full blast. Woke up everybody in a two-block radius. Two guys ran out of my house, and my buddy caught up with them before they reached the end of the alley. When I went inside, I found gasoline cans and rags by the front door. That whole night, what could have happened, what didn’t happen, it gives me nightmares.”

  “Why are you telling me this story?”

  “Samantha, my buddy, the cop, was Detective Loncar. You’re not his only friend at Tradava, but you should know that by doing his job, he’s made a lot of enemies.”

  “Do you think the shooter was after him?” I asked.

  “I think this isn’t the first time someone’s wanted him dead.”

  15

  We’re Not England

  John continued. “When I took this job, Loncar told me
to keep an eye out for you.” He put his palm on top of his shiny bald head and rubbed in a circle. “I understand that you want to find answers and a person to blame. But your friend—our friend—is in the hospital. I think it would be far better for you to focus on him than worry about the fate of the store.”

  I left Human Resources and went to my office to pack up my desk. A ceramic double-decker bus sat by my phone. The vehicle was filled with chocolates. It was a gift from Victoria, on the first day she’d shown up at Tradava. Since then I’d seen the very same item at three different discount stores in the area. It was either a last-minute token gift, or she was mocking the stereotype of Americans who loved all things English. (My wardrobe since hearing the Piccadilly news had done little to undermine the stereotype, but that’s how I roll.)

  The conversation with John had left my thoughts cycling in several different directions. The information about Harvey was damning and made me wonder what else I’d find if I scratched the surface. But then there was that story about Detective Loncar. A story that could be one in a thousand that had been routine in Loncar’s career. How many enemies did he have? How many criminals held a grudge against him?

  Was this about Harvey, and Loncar was the accidental victim, or was this about Loncar with Harvey caught in the crossfire? How was I supposed to figure this out?

  “Simontha.”

  I’d thought I was alone, and the surprise of Victoria’s voice from the doorway caused me to jump. “I was hoping we could have a word.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  She sat in the chair opposite me. It felt odd to sit in an office, neither one of us behind a desk. She crossed her legs, and the raw edge of her suede skirt jiggled while her knee bounced.

  “I guess there’s no point asking how the negotiations went yesterday,” I said. “I heard you and Harvey reached an agreement, but so much has happened since then.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Well. It’s a shame. The store had so much promise.”

  I felt my blood start to boil. “You were wrong about us,” I said. Victoria looked up from her planner and studied me. “About the store and the community. You had this idea in your head about who we were and what we’d want, but you were wrong. Ribbon may be on the small side, but people here like what Tradava sells. We’re a three-generation store. Our assortments satisfy the grandmother, the mother, and the daughter. Do you know how rare that is?”

  “It’s not rare in England,” she said.

  “But we’re not England. We’re not going to be England. We like novelty items and fashion and sales and trends that are in this year and out next year. We like our parties to be fun. Why would people want to attend a party in the parking lot when there was no entertainment?” I hadn’t realized how much I’d bottled up about the collaboration with Piccadilly, and now that it didn’t matter, I couldn’t shut up. I forced a shrug. “I suppose I should thank your company for pulling out of the deal.”

  I stood from my chair and turned my back on her. I wanted to rattle her, to shake that proper royal attitude and make her react. I wanted her to see that we weren’t just chess pieces, that this wasn’t just a building, that our customers weren’t just wallets with people attached. I wanted her to acknowledge that by invoking the act of God clause, she was saying she believed God wanted Loncar shot and hundreds of dedicated employees to be unemployed.

  Behind me, I heard a sniffle.

  Slowly, I turned. Victoria was hunched over with her face pressed into a tissue. Her spine was curved too far to be normal, and her shoulders shook. Her strawberry blond hair had come untucked from her ears and hung like a curtain, shielding her face.

  “Victoria?” I said.

  She looked up from the tissue. Her face was flushed pinkish red, and with her mascara cried off, her eyelashes were as fair as her hair. “This is all my fault,” she said between erratic breaths. She held the tissue a few inches from her face, but when her nose started to run, she seemed frozen and not capable of wiping it.

  I pulled my chair closer to hers and sat back down. Had I been too hard on her? Or was she about to confess to something far worse than I’d imagined?

  “What’s your fault?” I asked gently.

  She buried her face in the tissue again and then looked up. I extended the tissue box, and she pulled out three more and kept them in reserve. “None of this would have happened if I’d come clean with my employer.”

  “About what?” I pressed. Whatever it was that upset Victoria, it wasn’t the three-generation thing.

  “Simontha, the last time I had negotiations with Harvey, we—I—there was an indiscretion. I thought we could both be professional about it, but he leaked the information to my employer. I was suspended. Since then, Harvey has gotten everything he’s asked for in strike negotiations.”

  “Did he pressure you to sleep with him?”

  “It was consensual,” she said, “It was late, we’d been discussing negotiations for hours, and he made a pass at me. I don’t catch the attention of men like Harvey. I succumbed. I had no idea that he’d privately filmed us, or that he was capable of using that film to force my hand in negotiations. It was an error in judgment that I pay for daily.”

  “When was this?”

  “Years ago. I was given this account because my colleague passed away unexpectedly and there was no one else to make the trip to the States. I had no idea I’d be negotiating with Harvey again, but this time I wasn’t going to make the same mistake.”

  “You and Harvey went into Tradava for a meeting with John, but John said you never made it to his office. Harvey came out of the store, but you didn’t. The rumor is that you reached an agreement Harvey found favorable for the union.”

  As we talked, Victoria’s emotional outburst faded, and in its place emerged an angry, damaged woman. “He threatened me, Simontha. He said he has photos that he would use to humiliate me and undermine my position of authority.”

  “Harvey cared about his record,” I said. “He’d say whatever he could to get results.”

  Victoria’s fist balled up and crushed the tissue. “After what happened in the past, I’d be ruined. I agreed to reinstate all management pay grades and waive the personality tests if he would destroy the photos he took that night. But he was never going to destroy those photos, don’t you see? He would never give up his leverage. For one night, Harvey made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, and he’s treated me like a page-six girl ever since.”

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked.

  She stood up and smoothed her hair away from her face. “I’m going home. My work here is done.” She tossed the mangled tissue in the trash and left.

  16

  Too. Much

  I was more confused than before. Had that been a confession? Victoria said she was to blame. And it was clear she felt Harvey had destroyed her life—both professional and personal.

  There was no question Victoria had a motive. And while Harvey’s behavior was reprehensible and I hated him on her behalf, you can’t just go around shooting the people you wish you’d never slept with. Was her confession suspicious enough to take to the police? Or had that just been girl talk?

  I spent the rest of the day packing my belongings into an empty box that had been used to deliver our last stash of printer paper. I didn’t want to think about how my life had changed from the first time I’d stepped foot in here. I wasn’t afraid of change, but this was too much change at once. Marriage. Lost job. No party. Bankruptcy. Not being able to talk to Nick for another (checks time on computer) ten hours. Favorite detective in a coma.

  Too. Much.

  And then there was the thing I didn’t want to think about because I didn’t know if I was ready. I barely had my own life together. Was I capable of caring for a baby as well?

  There was a surefire way to know whether I should be thinking about it or not. I’d bought four pregnancy tests since Nick left for China, but I couldn’t bring myself to use o
ne.

  I needed help.

  I put my earbuds in and opened my podcast app. There were ninety-five available episodes of Get PoPT! and I’d listened to seventy-three of them. The remaining twenty-two talked about exercise and the importance of healthy eating, and I couldn’t see how that pertained to me. I found episode twenty-two and pressed play.

  “Are you feeling overwhelmed? Like you’re drowning? Like every decision you make could lead to catastrophic results? I’m here to tell you they won’t. You can’t mess this up. Whatever you decide, it’s the right decision. Now, let’s do some four-seven-eights.”

  A wave of calm draped over me. I followed along as the host led us in a breathing technique. Inhale deeply. Hold. Exhale in a whoosh. Repeat. I felt lightheaded. That must be the result of letting go of all the pressure I’d been carrying around.

  Yes. This was working. I was grounding myself. Everything would be fine.

  “Breathe in, hold, and breathe out. Excellent. See how calm you feel? That’s because you released yourself from punishment. Whatever it is that’s causing your overwhelm is gone. Your problems will solve themselves. Whatever you decide, life will go on as it has. Breathe in, hold, breathe out.”

  But I didn’t want life as I knew it to go on. Life as I knew it was Loncar in a coma and a shooter on the loose. It was Eddie out of work. It was Tradava on the brink of bankruptcy and a possible baby.

  Or was it Loncar alive, not yet dead? Was the shooter long gone? Was there another, better job out there for Eddie? Was it better for Tradava to close their doors with their legacy as a family retailer intact than to be taken over by the Brits?

  Was a baby with Nick the thing I wanted most of all?

  I turned the podcast off. I couldn’t allow the universe to resolve things without my input. I had to take action.

  I carried my box out to Nick’s truck, left it in the back, and drove to the hospital. There was one person I could talk to. One person who would listen to my deepest, darkest fears. Detective Loncar. And it’s not creepy because he’s in a coma. People in comas can hear us too . . . I’m pretty sure.