Chapter 3 - The Name Nobody Could Find
The day after Christmas, I hired an attorney with money I had intended to use for a new transmission.
Her name was Denise Alvarez.
She worked above a bakery, wore reading glasses on a chain, and interrupted me whenever I tried to describe how unfair everything felt.
“We’ll get to unfair,” she said. “First, tell me what you can prove.”
I liked her immediately.
By noon, she had requested preservation of my employment records and told me not to contact witnesses about what they should remember.
“Write down your own recollections. Keep originals. Don’t go digging around company systems.”
“I’m the facilities supervisor. Digging around is most of my job.”
“Today, your job is listening to me.”
My phone buzzed.
Alder Ridge had placed me on paid administrative leave.
I stared at the notice until Denise held out her hand.
“Send it to me.”
Outside her office, I called Mara.
She answered on the second ring.
“They suspended you too,” I said.
“How did you know?”
“You sound like somebody sitting at home in work clothes.”
A brief silence.
Then, “That is disturbingly accurate.”
The board had temporarily transferred executive authority to Everett while an outside accounting firm began reviewing the disputed payments.
Mara had agreed to the review.
She had objected to Everett overseeing the company during it.
Her objection had been recorded.
That was apparently the most the board would give her.
“Can they do that?” I asked.
“They have.”
She sounded tired now, in a way coffee wouldn’t fix.
I wanted to say something useful.
Instead, I said, “Tessa packed leftover pie for you.”
“That might be the best news I get today.”
At home, I spread my own records across the dining table: appointment calendars, paper work orders, old pay statements, and the spiral notebooks I had carried for years.
My predecessor had taught me to keep them.
“Computers remember what people enter,” he used to say. “Write down what happened.”
I found the October seventeenth entry.
Tessa—surgery. Luis covers all calls.
Below it, in different ink, was a note I had added the following Monday.
Ask accounting why emergency work order closed under my ID.
I remembered the conversation.
An accounts payable analyst had told me it was a routing error. She had promised to correct it.
Her name had been Hannah Mercer.
I called the company’s public number and asked whether she still worked there.
The receptionist hesitated.
“I’m not supposed to transfer calls from you, Mr. Price.”
That hurt unexpectedly.
“Okay. Thank you.”
I hung up before she could apologize.
Denise made the inquiry through the company’s counsel.
An hour later, she called.
“Hannah Mercer resigned in November.”
“Did they give a reason?”
“Personal circumstances.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It often does. It doesn’t prove anything.”
I copied the notebook page and sent it to her.
At four, Luis called me.
We had worked together for eight years.
He usually began every conversation with a complaint about a pump, his knees, or the Pirates.
This time, he said my name twice before continuing.
“I’m sorry, man.”
“For what?”
“They interviewed me.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That you weren’t there October seventeenth. That I covered your shift.”
“Then why are you sorry?”
“Because they asked if you’d ever borrowed my access card.”
I closed my eyes.
“Have I?”
“No. That’s what I said.”
He breathed heavily into the phone.
“They made it sound like helping you could put me in the report.”
After we hung up, I sat motionless.
This was how it happened.
No dramatic threat.
Just a suggestion placed carefully beside a mortgage payment.
At five, Mara arrived with groceries.
I opened the door and stared at the bags.
“You brought food?”
“I didn’t know whether showing up empty-handed twice would violate the rules.”
“You’re suspended from your company and worried about manners?”
“Yes. It’s one of the few problems I can currently solve.”
Tessa took the bags.
Mara waited until she was upstairs before speaking.
“Hannah tried to see me in November.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“Did you meet her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Everett said she was leaving after a performance dispute. He told me HR was handling it.”
“Did you check?”
“No.”
She didn’t soften the answer.
“I should have.”
I wanted to comfort her.
I wasn’t ready.
Then my phone lit up with an unknown number.
A message appeared.
May you like
Stop asking about Hannah.
Beneath it was a photograph of Tessa leaving her grandparents’ house.
