1 Executive Lunch

by Maria E. Schneider

  He stared at the list. "Any of the others?"

  I shrugged. "Those were the only ones that I noticed. I have no idea what all those businesses are or if they are real. All I know is that an outside caterer doesn't make sense and, hang on, I'll get you the list of the companies that Strandfrost really uses to do signs."

  I dug out the list while Huntington grabbed his cell phone.

  He was already talking by the time I handed him the list. "There's a quick way to check on these," he informed me.

  I wandered back and forth between the kitchen and the table. The casserole was done long before he was, so while I waited for him to finish checking his sources, I started eating.

  By the time he got off the phone I was almost done. "I could ask around some more at work," I offered.

  He started shoveling food into his mouth. Around his dinner, he explained, "Yeah, but I wanted to do some additional tracking." He continued eating, attacking his food in place of an invisible enemy. "There is a Debra Honel, just as you said, but she is the only one that even remotely exists. There is no sign company anywhere in the United States named after her."

  I got up, cleared my plate and started making cookie dough while he talked.

  He kept eating, but worked his way down a checklist. "There is a business listing for a Catering for You, but I talked to the manager at Tamarron. You were right--they don't bill for outside caterers. If they do have to use an outside source, the manager assured me that I would never know it as a customer, unless I asked."

  "Wow. So who billed Strandfrost?"

  Huntington rubbed his chin, watching me mash butter and sugar together. It looked like cooking therapy would do him good, but I was worried about my bowl getting smashed so I didn't ask for his help.

  "It gets worse," he grumbled, crushing one of the papers in his fist and throwing it at the balcony door. "I went over the conference charges with the Tamarron manager. There were several things listed that don't look legitimate. I'm going to have to check every single vendor listed as part of that conference." He looked at me like it was my fault.

  "Hey," I protested, "I just thought I'd find out whether Miss Debra did signs."

  "Why in the world would anyone use her name in the first place?"

  I dumped flour into my mix and stirred vigorously. "Looked to me like anyone studying the bill would just assume Debra ordered the signs. Her name in the company field would look like an innocent typo. Of course with her name in the wrong spot, it would be hard to figure out exactly who got paid." I patted out a few cookies and put them in the toaster oven.

  "My question for you is, if you're so good at noticing things, why didn't you notice this at the conference when it might have done some good? For that matter, you might have noticed that equipment for several demos just disappeared!"

  I dusted flour off my hands and glared right back at him. "The equipment was there. I saw it. So did Kathy. Maybe not all of it, but a lot of it was still there on Thursday when I checked."

  Huntington began pacing. "They order it ahead of time. It shows up, but no one needs it. It gets piled out of the way. Someone very helpfully takes it out of there. When everything comes home, no one even knows it is missing because they never needed it in the first place."

  "Maybe whoever I heard behind the partition wasn't someone taking a hard drive or two like I was--maybe it was someone rounding up the extra equipment not in use. Put it all in one place for easier stealing." I frowned. "But that doesn't tell us how they get it out of the conference, no matter where it is. Maybe they haul it out at night?"

  Huntington shook his head. "They can't get it out at night. The place has security."

  "They can't walk it out of there one hard drive at a time!" I thought about it. "But there are guys coming and going all the time. I saw a couple with small dollies, but I think they were caterers."

  "Did they have boxes?"

  I hesitated. "I saw them bring boxes in. They unloaded boxes of donuts every morning. I don't think I saw anyone go out and certainly not with anything as large as a server, but I was there doing actual work--watching my own stuff, getting ready and so on. It's possible they took some things out during the conference."

  Pacing back into the living area Huntington asked, "So just how much money are these people making off of us?"

  The stacks of boxes behind Dan's setup represented a healthy amount of equipment and there easily could have been other stacks around the perimeter. "My guess is a lot. And my guess is that Allen figures you haven't found all the areas he's been milking. Or," I tapped my foot quickly, "he isn't the one that is milking this particular cow. The only time management pays a whole lot of attention to attendees is when money is running short. Then they cancel people like lab technicians, not actual demonstrations."

  Huntington stared at me. "They cancel people like you if you had been in your old position."

  "Well, yes." I turned back to check on my cookies, but they were still soft and gooey in the center.

  "Seems to me that since you know so much about how this all works, you could be a little more useful in finding evidence against the culprit," he said. "You get the perks out of the company, and you can't even con a single thief into approaching you."

  "Hey, this wasn't my idea! And frankly, nice as this place is, I'd still move back to my own. I don't really care about all your--"

  "Right!" he shouted. "That's the reason you wanted to add furniture. Not enjoying yourself at all." He stomped to the door and flung it open. "Don't get too comfortable."

  "I'd leave, believe me," I yelled after him, even though he shut the door before the words were out.

  He was just mad that Strandfrost had been taken for a bigger ride than he knew.

  Chapter 27

  Abba was expecting me Saturday morning. I lived through it and had bruises to show my parents on Saturday evening when they came through on their way back from Denver. They slept at my place, and we all trouped to church together on Sunday morning.

  Mom beamed at Derrick the entire Mass. I didn't get in trouble for sighing, not once, because I was too exhausted. Between my various appointments and running between my real home and the condo, I was turning into a raving lunatic.

  Monday's scheduling nightmare got a reprieve because Gary decided that we needed to discuss last minute preparations for the next company event. It had been in the works for a while, but no one had mentioned it to me.

  I considered kicking Allen under the table, but what good would it do? Even though he was supposed to help me transition into the position, he was a man that under normal circumstances wouldn't care if I succeeded. Given that his ethics code allowed for pilfering from a charity, I was lucky he hadn't hired someone to run me over with a bus.

  I scrambled to take notes and pretended I knew about the event, but my guts churned. Not a single person had bothered to copy me on a pertinent email. Looking around the room, it was obvious I didn't have any friends. Ross might have emailed me if he needed something specific, but Patrick, Allen and Dan excluded me on purpose. Gary would probably have told me, but when? Once the conference was set up, he probably answered individual issues, but he wasn't detailed enough to think about his new manager needing information about a project that had been on tap for a while.

  I tried not to panic, but it was hard. Even if this job wasn't quite real, I didn't have any desire to look like a complete idiot.

  Luckily the event was in town, held at the Whispering Pines Resort. After all day presentations Tuesday, the sales and marketing teams would handle personal customer meetings the rest of the week for any of the guests that wanted custom demos or specific financial negotiations. Of course Strandfrost would be helping them enjoy Denton the whole week by making sure they had golf passes and other amenities.

  I counted my blessings that at least I wouldn't have to travel.

  Dan spoke up. "I think we should offer that chauffeur service from the airport that I told you about last week
. Maybe meet a few of the clients either in the evening for dinner or for breakfast depending on when they are flying in. This is our territory. Let's show them some VIP treatment, let them know we are glad they came out."

  That would take care of his meals for the week and possibly the weekend. Good ole Gary just nodded his okay. "How many are we expecting?" Gary asked.

  Dan ran through the numbers and the sales necessary to cover the expenses. He had already assumed the limo from the airport would be covered. I wondered why someone couldn't figure out that without the chauffeur service the company could keep more of the money it earned, but my job was to blend, not to point out waste.

  I kind of wished that Huntington attended some of these meetings. If Huntington put a stop to the all the skimming, Strandfrost wouldn't even have to catch the bad guys to come out ahead.

  After the meeting broke up I went in search of Sally. She was on the phone, but waved me in. First thing I spotted when I sat down was a box tucked behind her filing cabinet. The top was opened and t-shirts peeked out. "For the conference?" I mouthed so as not to disturb whoever was on the other end.

  She nodded. If no one was going to help me, I'd just have to help myself. This time I'd have freebies to hand out. Since Sally looked pretty planted on the telephone, I took as many shirts as I could carry and left a note asking for an extra pass to the conference in Suzy's name. Suzy would get a kick out of attending. Her husband was an engineer at Strandfrost, so he probably could have gotten her a ticket, but he tended to forget about these things, and he rarely attended himself.

  I called Suzy and told her about the conference. "Free meals. Swimming. You can probably bring Jimmy."

  "Are you kidding? It would be wasted on him! We're talking a day in the sun!"

  "Great. See you there." I hung up with a triumphant smile. I could throw favors around at company cost, just like Dan. Well, almost. One extra conference pass wasn't going to cost Strandfrost very much, and no one had asked me to do the deed. Real thieves wouldn't be too impressed.

  My happy moment disappeared. I had a conference to prepare for. At least we had the proper equipment for the demo. Unless it had been stolen.

  I marched over to Turbo's office to make sure we had what we needed, and that he and Bruce could help with the setup. I felt marginally better when it became apparent that he hadn't known about the event either.

  "I can't believe no one said anything to you either. Who is going to set up all the marketing and financing equipment?" We looked at each other for a heartbeat.

  "Patrick," he said.

  "Patrick's team," I said. "Allen and Dan must have asked him instead of me. I've been dealt completely out again," I moaned.

  "I better call Huntington," Turbo said. "If Bruce and I aren't doing all the setup, it's going to be harder to keep track of the equipment."

  I nodded. I hadn't ordered anything because I hadn't even known about the event. It would be interesting to find out whether anyone else had a special order. "We'll have to see what stuff shows up and whether it all gets returned." This time, I wasn't going to miss any fat piles of equipment, no matter what happened. And I'd do the demo too, just to prove to the fat, happy suits around this place that I could handle the job.

  Chapter 28

  Since the conference was in town, I was able to take my time the next morning. According to the pass card and rule sheet that Sally had given me, I could have stayed at the resort, but I was already losing my identity by trying to live in two places. I managed to squeak into the conference in time for free breakfast.

  Bruce was already at my booth, struggling with the setup. Since Turbo wasn't around, I helped.

  It turned out that the pins on one of the cables was bent, and without a proper connection, the external storage was flashing like a frantic Christmas tree. This was not the type of reliability that customers wanted to see, so Bruce went off to find a cable that wasn't damaged. It would give him a good excuse to look around for extra equipment.

  Unfortunately, that left me with a half working machine, which made me more nervous than I already was. I reminded myself that my first job was to put on a front. I decided to read through my notes to settle myself down.

  Fretting about the conference all day yesterday must have destroyed my brain, because when I turned to locate my briefcase, I saw my backpack. The old me had no need for a briefcase, but the new me did, and that was where I left my notes--in the condo, in the briefcase. "Uh-oh." I looked at my watch. If I left to get my notes, I'd be late and completely miss giving the first presentation. If I didn't have the notes, I'd have to bumble through it, and the setup was already hanging by a thread.

  I tried calling Suzy to see if she could run by the condo on her way here, but she didn't answer her phone.

  Right before jumping into the SUV, I remembered Marilyn and the fact that she had a key. I didn't have her phone number. I had no right to call. But she could be planning on coming by to clean or deliver more groceries, right?

  Probably not. It hadn't even been a week. Well, it had been a week since the grocery trip. I thought long and hard about it. In a lot of ways it would be easier to just leave her to her own decisions, even if her life was a mess.

  I called information. They had a number for Ted Harrison.

  If she didn't answer or worse, if Ted did, I'd act like a solicitor. I wasn't far from being one anyway.

  She picked up after two rings. "Marilyn, it's me, Sedona. Can you talk?"

  "Ye--es." Her voice was just as tentative over the phone as in person.

  I explained rapidly about the briefcase. "Do you have the car today? If you run it by here, I'll throw in an extra twenty," I promised.

  The bribe probably wasn't necessary. She was such a nice person, she would have done it without any pushing. "I was going out to run errands anyway," she said.

  "Excellent! If I'm not out front, leave it with the front desk." If she didn't make it in time, I'd still be free to fake my way through the first presentation and collect my notes for later.

  I checked my watch on my way back into the conference room. Marilyn should just make it. Things didn't really get started until nine-thirty. I could probably delay even a little longer.

  I looked up in time to see Autumn arrive on Dan's arm. I couldn't imagine why she bothered to attend the conferences, but maybe it was her only chance to see Dan. More likely than that, it was a chance to hobnob with the bigwigs. She headed straight for Huntington, flying past Bruce as if he didn't exist. Apparently she had figured out that Bruce was only hired help.

  Rather than watch her bat her eyelashes at the various fish in the ocean, I wandered over to the buffet table. At the donuts, I found Suzy. "Hey, couldn't you have come to see me first? I just tried to call you."

  Suzy had a smear of chocolate on the corner of her mouth, which she enthusiastically licked off. "I checked my purse in at the front desk so I can swim later, and I forgot to get my phone out. I was getting a donut to bring to you."

  Since she had two in her hand, it was probably true. Whether she would have been able to actually find me before eating them both was another story.

  I helped myself to the one on top and grabbed a plate for extras. "I need some for Bruce and Turbo when he shows. Want to see the booth?"

  She shrugged, not all that interested in high-level technology. Her interest started and ended with resort amenities and maybe some of the booth freebies--not unlike a number of conference attendees come to think of it.

  We wandered back to my booth anyway. I started to give her one of the free t-shirts I had snagged, but couldn't decide on the size.

  She laughed. "Make it a large, and I'll give it to Robert. He can always wear it. If I keep eating like this, I won't fit in it even after the pregnancy." She beamed, the thought not bothering her overmuch.

  Huntington walked over our way with Autumn trailing along.

  I eyed the other chocolate donut on the plate greedily. Autumn wasn't nearly a
s slim as I, but she made up for it by hiding any sign of fat underneath her boobs. If men never looked past your cleavage, you didn't have to worry about a few extra pounds. Since I didn't have that large a benefit, I left the donut.

  Huntington didn't actually speak to me; he just checked out the booth and Autumn. She gushed about some company or other and, to my surprise, it sounded like she might be working the sale of a printing service. That would explain her enthusiasm for attending these events.

  "--individual deals, individual attention--nothing but the best," she told Huntington. "Come by my office. I'll have some free samples printed up--business cards, announcements, whatever you need." She pointed to a small logo on her shirt, right over her left boob. "This is one of my designs--notice how clearly it printed even on cloth."

  Huntington caught me rolling my eyes. He grinned.

  I picked up the donut and considered how much toilet paper I might need in order to look as "printable" as she did. The good news was that I wouldn't have to unroll the paper. I'd need the whole roll, so I could just shove two up my blouse without wasting any time unwinding.

  Turbo showed up. He managed to greet me before Autumn, but just. Autumn smiled at him like he was a hundred dollar bill. I wanted to make a snipe about overdressed, needy women, but her make-up was minimal and her blond tresses looked natural too. She had a vulnerable quality about her, like she needed Huntington's business and wanted Turbo's help.

  I took a huge bite out of a second donut and pushed around Bruce. There was no point in manning the booth at the moment. Turbo could answer any technical questions and Huntington, if he could peel his eyes from Miss Congeniality, could answer any company questions. One of them might notice a server being carried out, if we were lucky.

  I beckoned Suzy and was almost free of the tangle when Huntington called after me. "Sedona, things are looking good here."

  "Uh-huh." I still had part of the donut in my mouth and used it as an excuse to mumble. "I'll be back. I gotta go buy some Nerf balls."