Deception on All Accounts

by Sara Sue Hoklotubbe

  “No, I mean anyone…you know, not from around here.”

  Donnie thought for another moment before he answered. “No, can't say that I've noticed anyone. Why?”

  “No reason, really. Just curious.”

  Sadie resumed her early-morning treasure hunt, adding two apples, a container of orange juice, and a large bottle of water. Donnie pecked at the cash register and bagged the items one at a time.

  “That'll be nine thirty-six, Sadie.”

  Sadie pulled out a ten-dollar bill and handed it to Donnie. She picked up the brown paper sack and headed for the door.

  “You'd better keep all of that, Donnie. You forgot to add my coffee.”

  The young clerk blushed and looked down.

  “And thank you for not asking about the robbery. I've spent all weekend dodging phone calls and trying to forget it, and, well, I'm afraid when I get to work this morning all that trying won't amount to much.”

  Sadie smiled and waited for him to look at her before she winked at him. The cowbell clanged again and then the store fell silent as Donnie watched Sadie drive off.

  The Monday-morning traffic in Sycamore Springs reminded Sadie of how much she disliked the thirteen and a half miles of twisting highway she drove to work every day. Then, it seemed like she always managed to catch every red light on MLK. As she sat at the Harvest Street intersection, she could see the bank parking lot. Stan Blackton stood flailing his arms, deep in conversation with Tom Duncan, the branch manager. She wondered if Tom had stayed out of reach the entire weekend. If so, he would be suffering the repercussions of Stan's wrath for it now.

  A quick check of the time showed she had twenty minutes before she was officially due to clock in. Careful to evade Tom and Stan's parking lot meeting, Sadie drove past the bank and up the Harvest Street hill. When she got to Jefferson, her luck changed and she sailed through two green lights in a row. Moving away from the major flow of traffic, she turned left on Tenth Street, then took a quick right down an unmarked alley that ended under the expressway. There, beneath the shelter of a concrete embankment, she could see the large cardboard box. Sadie gathered up her small bag of groceries and walked a short distance through an empty lot of overgrown weeds and broken glass. She stopped at the corner of a broken fence, her self-imposed boundary.

  “Happy?” Sadie's voice was soft against the hum of traffic rushing overhead.

  Her arrival generated no movement in the box. No sign of anyone. She placed the brown bag in the regular place and picked up a sack of trash that included empty cans from her last delivery.

  “Happy, I brought orange juice.”

  Still no one stirred. Sadie waited for a moment, looked at her watch, and went back to her car. She would check on him again in a few days. She realized she couldn't support all the homeless people in Sycamore Springs, but Happy was different.

  The first time she met him, her front tire had gone flat just as she was leaving the Wal-Mart Super Store. She had pulled back into the huge parking lot and while attempting to retrieve the spare tire from her trunk, he appeared from nowhere. His presence, first announced by the pungent smell of body odor, caught Sadie off-guard. The man's kinky, black hair and beard harbored tiny flecks of dried grass and he clenched a green garbage sack in his filthy right hand.

  Sadie picked up the tire tool from the trunk and stepped back. “Don't come any closer,” she warned.

  Ignoring her stance, the man placed his trash bag on the ground, walked over, and took the spare tire and jack out of the car. He got down on his hands and knees and carefully pushed the jack stand under the edge of the bumper. With a puzzled face, he looked at the tire tool in Sadie's hand as if he knew he needed it but was unsure how to get it. Sadie hesitantly surrendered the tool and watched while he changed her tire.

  Dumbstruck by the man's kindness and embarrassed for her initial reaction, Sadie offered to pay for his help. He just shook his head, unable or unwilling, Sadie was unsure which, to say a word. He left her standing and sauntered over to the nearby Dairy Queen to pick through the trash for something to eat.

  Sadie slammed the trunk of her car, drove to the fast-food eatery, and ordered cheeseburgers, French fries, and chocolate shakes until he could eat no more. The unlikely pair, a young woman in her business suit and a smelly, disheveled man, sat at an outdoor picnic table while he ate and she talked.

  “What do they call you?” she asked.

  The man chomped on his food, filling his mouth until his cheeks stretched like a chipmunk storing nuts for the winter.

  “Do you live around here? Where's your family?”

  The man laughed, then took a gulp of chocolate shake before cramming more greasy French fries into his mouth with his dirty fingers.

  “Can I take you somewhere?”

  Try as she might, she could not budge a word from his lips. Finally, they sat in silence. The painfully thin man stopped eating and rubbed his belly. Sadie ordered him two more burgers, which he promptly put in his front pockets. Unwanted tears pooled in the corner of her eyes when she saw the happiness she had managed to generate in this silent, gentle man.

  She offered once more to take him home, but instead he stood, belched, and laughed again. Then, to her animated protests, he walked away.

  Intrigued, Sadie decided to follow at a distance. The man walked south on Tenth Street. He stopped here and there, dawdled and picked through trash. Finally, after almost thirty minutes, he reached home—a big brown, empty appliance box under the expressway. When he saw she had followed, he laughed and disappeared into the box. That's when she decided to call him Happy.

  For an entire week after Sadie's encounter with the homeless Samaritan, she called every social service agency in the phonebook trying to find someone to help Happy.

  “I'm sorry, ma'am.” The voice on the other end of the telephone line sounded uninterested. “If he is not a threat to anyone and not a danger to himself he's free to live in a box all he wants.”

  Later that day the blue-haired woman at the Shelter of Grace gave Sadie a boxed dinner. “Here, take this to him and tell him he can come to the shelter. But, you know, honey,” she said, “some people would rather live on the street.”

  Sadie thanked the woman and delivered the warm meal to Happy, leaving it near his brown box. She returned the next day to find the empty food container folded neatly where she had left it. That was when she had started her routine of delivering food and removing trash twice a week, usually on Mondays and Thursdays.

  On this Monday morning, after leaving Happy's homeless world, Sadie sailed through green lights all the way back to MLK and Harvest. She had three minutes to spare. She parked in her usual space and walked toward the bank. Tom stood at the front door meeting each employee as they arrived. Stan was already gone.

  “I see you decided not to come in early by yourself this morning, Sadie.”

  Sadie had to remind herself it was not worth the hassle to verbally duel with Tom. She stopped just inside the glass doors and stood in the vestibule while he turned the key in the dead bolt behind her. She could see in her peripheral vision that the burgundy carpet was gone, replaced with a navy blue berber.

  “It's nice to see you, too, Tom.”

  “Hey, don't look at me like that,” said Tom. “Blackton is the one considering hanging you from the highest tree at sunrise. Only thing stopping him is the fact you're a woman.”

  Sadie frowned. “You mean I'm an Indian woman, don't you? Give me a break, Tom.” Irritation echoed in her voice. “And, can we dispense with the cowboy-and-Indian humor this morning, please?”

  “Okay, Sadie. Sorry.” Tom opened the second glass entryway door for Sadie. She stopped for a moment and stared at the place where Gordy had fallen. Two new overstuffed chairs and a small table were arranged directly over the dreadful spot, flanked by two potted scheffleras. New-account brochures lay scattered across the top of the table.

  Attuned to Sadie's question before she asked, Tom sa
id, “It was Thelma's idea. You know, that way we walk around that area for a while.”

  Thelma worked in the personnel department at the main office. Her main job was to act as troubleshooter and pacify the employees in whatever manner deemed necessary. Her signature went on all the employment records even though the decisions were always made by one of the men.

  “Oh.” Sadie hated the feeling beginning to overtake her. She thought for an instant she heard Gordy's voice coming from the teller area and jerked her head in that direction.

  “We've got some new tellers this morning, Sadie.”

  Sadie realized she didn't recognize any of the employees in the branch.

  “I think Stan half expected to get a resignation call from you, too. But I told him I was sure you could weather this storm.”

  Sadie continued to stare inside the lobby from the safety of the doorway.

  “You are all right, aren't you, Sadie?” Tom's bantering had softened and compassion began to creep around the edge of his voice.

  “Why, yes. I'm fine.” She stepped onto the new blue carpet and walked over to her desk. Tom followed. Her desk looked just as she had left it, as if somehow it had been suspended in air while the old carpet had been ripped away and the new carpet rolled across the floor. Her small picture of Joe sat right next to her phone where she always kept it, a reminder of strength and beauty.

  “I guess you know,” Tom continued to talk, “the memorial service for Gordy is today at five o'clock.”

  “Oh? No, not really.” Sadie smoothed the front of the black jumper she had unconsciously chosen to wear that morning. “No, I wasn't sure when it would be. Five o'clock?”

  “Yes. Stan asked the family to have it after we closed so the employees could go.”

  A curious look crossed Sadie's face. “You're kidding, aren't you? You're saying Stan told the family when to have their son's memorial service? I can't believe it. On the other hand…”

  “Sadie, do you mind if we go to the service together?”

  “That man is disgusting. Why couldn't we just close down for the afternoon…oh, never mind.” Then, as an afterthought, she answered his question, “Yeah, sure.”

  “Sadie, I'm going to need you to go through Gordy's desk. They've already taken his personal things, but I have no idea what he was working on.”

  The mention of Gordy's name brought a sad smile to Sadie's face just as the phone on her desk rang in short, double bursts, piercing the air.

  “Good morning, this is Sadie. How may I help you?” Sadie's voice took on the sound of a prerecorded message.

  “Sadie. Stan here. You need to get in your car and go down to police headquarters. They've arrested that robber and they need you to identify him.”

  Sadie reached for her chair in slow motion and sat in it as if she thought it would break.

  “Sadie? Are you there?”

  “Uh…yes, sir. I'm here.”

  “They are expecting you. Be sure and clock out.”

  Sadie hung up the phone and looked at Tom. “I don't think I'm going to be much help today, Tom. They need me to identify the robber.”

  “Damn. It's about time they finally caught that guy.” Tom seemed flustered at the news. “Okay…okay, go ahead and go…”

  “I can't identify him.” Sadie had dismissed Tom and was staring out the huge glass window next to her desk. “It's not like I really saw him…”

  An elderly woman with starched, silver hair drove into the handicapped parking stall directly in front of the bank entrance. Her wooden cane appeared from underneath the open car door and began to probe at the concrete as if testing to see if it would hold the delicate old lady up. When she had cleared the sidewalk ramp, she leaned on her cane and shielded her eyes from the morning sun to see if the bank was open.

  “The world just keeps right on turning, doesn't it?” said Sadie.

  “I don't know, Sadie,” said Tom. “I've got to make sure these tellers are ready.” Tom walked away from Sadie and then added over his shoulder, “Just come back here when you get through so we can go to the service together.”

  Sadie unlocked the front door and held it open while the shriveled woman entered the bank, filling the air around her with the fragrance of gardenias. Once the lady was safely inside and teetering toward the teller line, Sadie stepped into the morning sunshine. She looked at the sky and thanked God to be leaving the discomfort of overstuffed chairs and navy blue carpet.

  Chapter 5

  The morning traffic began to thin as Sadie drove the three short miles downtown. She decided to go south on Martin Luther King Boulevard instead of looping onto the expressway, even though that route would take longer. Her mind wandered and then resurfaced, detached and replaying the events of last Friday. And once she arrived at the Sycamore Springs Police Department, she could not remember the familiar scenery she had passed along the way.

  Black-and-white police cars crawled in every direction and Sadie felt like an intruder among members of a secret society. She wavered between the thought of complete safety and a sudden fear of increased scrutiny. Then she noticed a good-looking Indian cop standing next to a parked car, scribbling on a small metal clipboard. “Working on your monthly quota of traffic tickets, handsome?” She spoke aloud to herself and smiled.

  She grabbed a parking space near the front entrance of the police station and disposed of her last three quarters in the parking meter. Pushing her way through the heavy front door of the old building, Sadie found herself engulfed by a large bustling lobby with a shiny, faux marble floor and a high, ornate ceiling. A myriad of sounds echoed in the heavy air as she made her way toward a large, box-shaped directory stationed in the middle of the floor.

  As Sadie searched the board for guidance, two uniformed officers, deep in serious conversation, walked out of a crowded elevator and stopped. One large officer stood with his back to Sadie, while the other young man talked expressively with his hands. The two officers both broke out in laughter as the ticket writer she had seen a few moments earlier joined them. She watched the trio from the corner of her eye while she searched the directory for the Robbery Division. The Indian officer continued to capture her interest. He appeared to be about her age, in his mid-thirties. Yet he wore his uniform well with what she imagined to be washboard abs, broad shoulders, and a rock-hard chest. She couldn't help but notice his raven-black hair, shorn in a crewcut, and how it complemented the strong lines of his face.

  When she reached a decision on which path she should take, she turned on her heels, almost colliding with the large officer who was still engrossed in conversation with the ticket-writing Indian while they walked across the lobby.

  “Ma'am?” The sergeant instinctively nodded his head. “Can I help you find someone?”

  “Oh, hello,” said Sadie, relieved to see his friendly face. “Sergeant McCord, isn't it?”

  “Indeed it is, young lady. But you can call me Charlie. You're, uh, from the bank.”

  “You remember me?”

  “Of course I remember you.” Charlie struggled for the pronunciation of her name. “It's Miss Wa—”

  “Walela,” she offered. “But, please, call me Sadie.”

  “Yes, ma'am.” Then he turned and motioned toward the other officer. “This is Officer Lance Smith.”

  “‘Siyo, said Lance.

  “Hello.” Sadie shook the officer's hand and smiled. His light grip reminded her of her father's handshake, unlike the aggressive, firm clasp demanded of all employees by the superiors at the bank. Then she wondered if this handsome Indian might be a descendant of Redbird Smith, the legendary Cherokee who had devoted his life to preserving the old ways.

  “What brings you all the way downtown?” asked Charlie.

  Sadie returned her attention to the big man. “Well, one of the vice presidents at the bank called and said they wanted me to come down and identify the robber.”

  “Oh, they did?” A crease grew between his thick eyebrows and th
en he laughed. “I wondered why all those federal boys were crawling around here this morning.”

  Sadie relaxed temporarily, enjoying the sergeant's good mood.

  “Listen, Miss, uh, Sadie, just have a seat and I'll see what I can find out for you. Monday mornings can be kind of hectic around here.” Charlie guided Sadie to the corner of the lobby to a small waiting area. Then both officers disappeared in separate directions.

  A slim woman with a complexion the color of weak coffee sat on a bench with a preschool-aged child propped against her shoulder. She wore her frizzy, black hair slicked flat against her head. The woman leaned forward, placed her elbows on her knees, and took a drag from a thin smoldering cigarette. Dark circles encased the woman's eyes, sinking them deep into her face. A short skirt barely covered the tops of her long legs, and her tight blouse gaped between her breasts where the fabric was held together with a safety pin.

  Disturbed from her resting place, the child silently climbed toward her mother. The young girl, neatly dressed in worn clothes, bore the sad woman's unflattering facial features. Several small, pink clasps fought to contain her hair.

  “Hope you ain't in no hurry,” said the woman. Before making a place for her daughter on her lap, the woman dropped her half-smoked cigarette on the floor and twisted her worn, high-heeled shoe on it twice before kicking it into the corner where several other discarded cigarette butts lay. “Name's Christine,” she continued. “I been waiting here near all night. They suppose to already let me see my man, Leroy.”

  Sadie could not tell if the woman's slurred speech resulted from lack of sleep or perhaps some other form of incapacitation. “Hello.” Sadie smiled weakly and chose a chair across from the woman. “No, I'm in no hurry,” she added.

  The restless child descended from her mother's lap, walked straight over to Sadie, and stared at her with curious eyes, then held up three fingers.

  “I'm this many,” she said.

  “Candy, don't bother the nice lady.” The woman patted the seat beside her.