100 Malicious Little Mysteries

Office Party by Mary Bradford

Everett Willis left the main entrance of the industrial controls department at dusk after the Thanksgiving party at the office. He had hated being there, but it was the annual turkey-and-basket-of-cheer raffle and he had to oversee it. He had tried to stop the practice this year but everyone protested. Now the party was over — but the night wasn’t.

It was sleeting a fine coat of ice on the vast parking lot for three hundred company cars. Everyone else had gone home. Willis stayed to the end to make sure no one had passed out behind the Xerox machine. It was always a little lonesome finding your car the only one left, he thought, and a little eerie. His car was parked in the middle of the lot.

But one thing had been a master stroke this night. He smiled to himself. And it was all wrapped up inside the small gray cardboard box he was carrying close to this side. The box contained the kickback payoffs from the shipping crew he had caught selling company goods after circumventing inventory records. The office party had been the perfect night to split the cash he knew they’d received that afternoon. Now he could meet his new car payments and the mounting credit card bills that snowballed in each month.

The sodium lights cast a strange pall over the lot as he hurried toward his car. He waved goodnight to the security guard as he passed by the old man whose head was bundled up in a scarf against the biting cold. It would be three-quarters of an hour before he got home where his wife was waiting dinner and his eldest son was waiting impatiently for the car.

His son would leave early, and after dinner his wife would walk the two blocks to Walnut Lane to baby-sit for her sister for a few hours. His two younger children, as usual, would be glued to the TV set in the family room. Willis would put the money in the metal box in the locked cabinet above his tool bench in the basement.

He opened the door on the driver’s side, placing the box carefully on the back seat. He started to slide into the seat when he noticed a large woman slumped on the passenger seat. Startled, he jumped back out.

“For God’s sake, who are you? What are you doing here?”

The woman pulled herself up to a sitting position. She had a wild, unkempt black hair and was wearing a green polyester pantsuit which she overflowered like molten lava. She had on a green parka jacket with a hood of ratty-like fur framing her face. She was very, very drunk. “You take me where I want to go or I’ll scream. I’ll scream that Everett Willis attacked me in the plant’s parking lot, and the security guard’ll come running.”

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, getting back into the car out of the hard-driving sleet and wind.

“Who am I? That’s a good question. Whom am I?”

She turned full face toward Willis, who recoiled from the smell of cheap alcohol.

“I don’t know who I am. But I know where I want to go. Mr. Boyd of marketing put me in this car. Mr. Boyd said you were a great guy and would see that I got home. That was not a nice thing to do,” she broke out tearfully. “He should have taken me home himself, he should have. You take me to Mr. Boyd’s house, and we’ll tell him so, the two of us.”

Willis swore under his breath — Stan Boyd, the office clown. He’d get even with Boyd if it was the last thing he did. My God, he thought, of all nights for this to happen. He had the box with him. He had to get it home. And now that clown, Boyd, had dumped this on him.

“Why didn’t someone take you home? What happened?”

“We were having a party like yours in Building A, waiting for the raffle drawing, and some drinks were passed around. You know how it is at those parties. And they had the raffle and you know I never won anything in my whole life, not even when I was a kid, and you know what, Mr. Willis of industrial controls? Yes, I know you. I read the employees’ newsletter faithfully, very faithfully. You are in charge of shipping, you coach a Little League baseball team, you’re on the industrial controls bowling team, and you’re a Sunday school teacher. You have a wife and three children — one, two, three — and you have been with the company for ten years — one, two, three, four...”

Willis exploded. “Okay, you know all about me. What about you? I don’t remember seeing you around, Miss, or is it Mrs.? What’s your name and why did that clown, Boyd, bring you here?”

“I was telling you. I had never won anything in my whole life and you know what — I had to win that damn turkey! Now what the hell do I want with a twenty-pound turkey. I live alone. I don’t need a twenty-pound turkey. I need...”

She tossed her head back and laughed. “You know I left that turkey on top of the file case and after this three-day holiday it will be a little ripe, don’t you think so, Mr. Willis of industrial controls? Say, let’s go get him. Let’s go get Mr. Boyd of marketing. Now, let’s go now. If you don’t, I’ll scream. You want to hear me? I can scream good and loud. I’ve had lots of practice.”

Willis sat back in the seat and rubbed his face in his hands. He felt hot and his throat was dry. The sleet was coming down heavier, and the windshield was icing up. He started the car to defrost the windshield.

“No cabs,” she said. “Don’t go back and call me a cab. Take me to Boyd or I scream.”

“I don’t know where the s.o.b. lives! And I’m expected home by six o’clock!”

“I know where he lives. It’s in Lakewood at the corner of Mulberry and Vine.”

It was hot and oppressive in the car. The alcoholic fumes and the stale aroma of cheap perfume were overwhelming. God, what can I do, he wondered. I could take her up to the night watchman, but I don’t want this to get around. No, it’s up to me to take care of it. I’m the senior official. It’s my responsibility. If I take her to Boyd’s, it will embarrass his family. His wife and mine are good friends.

“Look, I’ll take you to Boyd’s. But you stay in the car. I’ll do the talking. Is that understood?”

“Yeah, let’s go to Boyd’s.” She had a self-satisfied smile on her face, and she sunk lower in the seat. Willis opened the window on the driver’s side. The cold, biting air felt good against his hot, dry skin and the dryness of his throat.

“Remember, you stay in the car,” he ordered.

She looked at him through half-closed eyes.

“You know, Mr. Willis of industrial controls, I’m a woman who was never meant to be a career woman. I liked being a dumb housewife. Yeah, you’re looking at a liberated woman, Mr. Willis. I’ve got a lot to thank women’s lib for. My husband liberated me. He didn’t want to stand in the way of my development.

“That Boyd is a so-and-so. He had no right to put me in your car. I thought he was taking me home. I guess I got a wee bit drunk — or stoned — and I was slumped against the file case, and when he was closing up the place he found me. He was really swearing. He picked me up and brought me outside, and I thought he was going to take me home. That’s what I thought, Mr. Willis. That he would take me home. But, instead, he put me in your car and drove off in his own. And that was not a nice thing to do, was it?”

Willis drove the streets of Lakewood through the northwest residential section. He came to the corner of Mulberry and Vine. It was an area of large, pleasant homes. Boyd’s house was a two-story brick with green shutters and a two-garage. It was handsome and impressive.

Willis got out of the car. The sleet was coming down hard now, and he moved slowly across the slick flagstone walkway. The woman remained inside.

Boyd’s wife came to the door and invited him in. “No,” Willis said evenly, “if Stan could just come to the door, please. I have something to discuss with him.”

Boyd wasn’t home. Willis swore under his breath. What am I going to do now, he thought grimly as he returned to the car.

“Now what?” he said to the woman. “He’s not home. Now, look, whoever you are. This is not my fault. I have nothing to do with this. I should be home right now, not driving around with a... I’ve got to take you home or someplace. Do you live in an apartment, a house? Just tell me. Do you have any friends you could go to?”

She sank farther down in the seat. “I’m gettin’ cold. Let’s stop at Marty’s Coffee Shop and get some hot black coffee.”

The coffee shop was empty except for two men at the counter sitting on stools. A young waitress slowly wiped off the table tops of the booths. Willis guided the woman into a booth where she wedged herself into the corner. She seemed to be a little more manageable. The drunkenness was wearing off a bit, he hoped fervently.

The waitress brought them mugs of hot black coffee. The woman sipped the coffee slowly, much to Willis’ relief.

“Look, I’ve got to call home. I’ll be right back,” he said. The phone booth was at the front of the coffee shop. He saw the woman get up and go to the ladies’ room at the back of the shop. He put the box of cash beside the telephone.

His wife’s voice was frantic. “Where are you? What’s happened?” She listened attentively and patiently, as he knew she would. He explained slowly and carefully all that had happened. She was understanding but apprehensive.

The woman was sitting in the booth when he came back from the phone. She had straightened up considerably. She seemed much younger. Her hair was combed, her face freshly made up, and the dark green print scarf at her neck was tied in a fashionable bow.

She lit a cigarette and looked evenly at Willis.

“I do a pretty convincing drunk, don’t I? I’ve had enough practice. I can also be a salesclerk, a garden club president, a mother-in-law waiting for her kids to show up, and a new clerk in the accounting division of a large company. I’m one of twelve women in this state licensed to be a private investigator. I’m fifty-five years old, a grandmother, and being an old lady is no stumbling block in this work.”

Willis’ face had gone ashen white.

“That box you have with you, Willis. Mr. Boyd and another company man are coming in the front door now. And if it’s cash payments for all those company machines and supplies you and the shipping crew have been funneling off on the side, you’ll have to explain it to them.”

Her face was calm and serene — and smiling. Now she looked like what she really was — somebody’s sweet old grandmother.