Rescuing a Snow Angel Ep. 03

Mr. Worthington gave me the nickel tour of the ground-floor facilities, then walked me to my office and the adjoining suite of rooms. As we walked in, I noticed one spartan office; almost bare, with glassed-in walls facing the park. It held a desk and two chairs. It didn't take a genius to figure out that would be my hangout. The second office looked like an interior decorator's hands had been all over it. Clearly it had a woman's touch. The central area between them held a large conference table; ideal for spreading out documents for reviews. Opposite the conference area was a file room with never-ending rows of file cabinets. It was certainly open and well lit. Any sense of confinement anxieties would be minimal. I began to feel at ease. I followed Mr. Worthington's lead and took a chair across from him at the conference table.

"Mr. Rawlings, I have some unfortunate news to share with you." He began as we sat down. From his tone, I expected that to be about the situation concerning Mortenson, but I was wrong about that. The news was worse.

"Your colleague, Gina Anderson, should be the one to provide you with the intake procedures and bring you up to speed on our record processes, however, she is taking a leave of absence. Complications with an early Christmas delivery -- her baby came four weeks early. So, you will be relying on Sally for some initial guidance and directions. She took some accounting classes a few years back, but it's just enough to grasp the basics. But she knows the clientele extremely well and has an excellent handle on the various reports and time frames each one of them needs for submissions. Some we handle payroll for, others we only do quarterly reporting, IRS preparations and similar documents. None of our clients are under audit, thankfully, Gina always had everything in order for that."

A pregnant pause settled between us, as he studied my face for clues on how I was receiving the news about being thrust into a new job without a proper foundational background -- or a support person to lean on. I just nodded with a look of acceptance. I'd have to take on a platoon's work, alone. Just another dark cloud following me. Nothing unusual about that in my military life.

"Now, for some more bad news," he fueled the flame in his dialogue, "Chris Mortenson's account has become our number one priority and it's not pretty. Nothing wrong on our end -- but it still needs a serious due diligence investigation. One that only gets shared between us -- not even Sally, understand?" his low voice indicated the tone of seriousness that he was giving this conversation, even though it was just he and I in the room.

"Yes, sir." I answered matter-of-factly. I waited for his take on Mortenson's earlier conversation with me.

"During your interview, you said that you were looking a challenge and could handle long hours. This is going to be a test of that desire, Mr. Rawlings. I saw your course work listings, a lot of credit hours in forensics, as I recall."

"Yes, sir. Mostly labs and scenario-based investigations -- somewhat like my 96C and OB courses out in Arizona," I responded, studying his face, looking for some light of recognition regarding my comment. From the expression on his face, I could tell he understood it. As an ex-GI with a former military clearance, I still had to adhere to my exit-briefing restrictions. Even though I'd been out the service for almost two years, now; honorably discharged, decorated, and with a medical disability rating. Unspoken in that non-descript classification on my DD-214 discharge papers was the fact that the Army didn't have further needs for a faulty-wired, potential stick of dynamite, to continue walking around inside of the Army. I got the medals, got the honorable boot, my muster-out pay, and was able to make use of the GI Bill, thankfully.

"Then, I'll let Chris know you and I will accept his added business deal," Worthington's serious and somber tone answered. Then he added, "He found out the week before Christmas that the guys he deals with in the supply chain, are known for some shady-business practices. They're also said to bend or break the law; if it's necessary for them to succeed. So, this could get messy. You understand, that if they get wind of this, we could be dealing with a lot more than paper shuffling?"

Again, I nodded.

With that, he stood up and walked me back to HR; where Sally had greeted me enthusiastically when I signed up. But there was no hug this time. I don't know if that was because her Daddy was present, or it was the presence of the mostly gray-topped ladies she introduced me to. They looked at me as though I reminded them of younger days -- I thought it was with lascivious eyes, but then, it could just have been my imagination. Sally, on the other hand, was a different persona altogether. Perhaps because, today, she was in business attire and the last time I saw her she was wearing jeans and an overcoat; getting ready to bolt out the door for Christmas. I didn't remember her looking this radiant when I first saw her--as attractive as she is now. Her hour-glass figure certainly sets off that red, form-fitting dress she's wearing. It didn't help my imagination that she was also drop-dead gorgeous; now that I had a chance to study her more. She picked up where her Daddy left off and conducted my dime tour, as her dad headed upstairs for a conference call.

For the next two hours, Sally stuffed my head with client details, schedules, and minutia to the point of bursting. In mid-sentence, that fact dawned on her. Breathing deeply, she jutted out her breasts with a large sigh. She didn't seem to take note of that; as much as I did. She announced, "Let's take a break, Mr. Rawlings. I could use some coffee, how about you?"

I nodded in the affirmative -- any coffee sounded good, especially after two hours of intensive briefings."

"There's a break room on the second floor," she said with a gentle laugh, as she led me out of the office suite and headed for the elevator.

Halfway there, I remembered it was completely enclosed and stopped in mid-stride. "I'll meet you up there," I said, trying to evade the confining elevator, "I just need to stretch my legs, so I'm going to take the stairs if you don't mind." It had taken me almost a year of climbing stairs to where I eventually could ride in a glass enclosed one to the sixteenth-floor dormitory where I spent my graduate studies time. Tiger pits can fuck your mind over, if you spend time living in one.

Glancing around the lobby, she responded, "Why, that sounds like a good idea! I'll join you! I don't get much exercise in this weather."

We turned through the doorway into the glass-walled stairwell and climbed upward. As we went, she shifted gears in our conversation. The empty stairwell gave her some privacy to change subjects, I suspected, as she turned to more personal questions. The usual ones I think most girls would be curious about: married, engaged, girlfriend, pets, and half a dozen others. By the time we reached the second-floor break room, she had shot gunned all of those at me and I fielded them appropriately. She learned that I was: single, no girlfriend, no pets, an orphan, was raised in foster-care homes, had spent time in the Army at Ft. Bragg, and in Vietnam. I left out my POW experiences and only allowed that I had been injured and had spent a long time in the subsequent recovery. She would have been a good 96C!

Break time is where I learned my job wasn't going to be as bad as I had first thought. The second-floor level was filled with accounting staff, Sally pointed out to me as we sat in the break room. Hell, I thought from the office configuration downstairs, that my maternity-leave coworker and I were the only accounting team members! When I stated as much to Sally, she laughed out loud, "Worthington and Worthington is the top dog in city accounting, Mr. Rawlings. I thought you knew that, or I would have told you earlier. I see, now, why you looked so pensive this morning. God, I'm sorry I dumped so much on you all at once!"

"Ms. Anderson is the Special OPS team, as Daddy calls her; and you, too; I guess, now. Didn't you read your contract terms?" She asked me with furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. A mark of chastisement, if I'd ever seen one, was fully painted across her face. I'd been carefully, mildly chastised as rightfully due.

"Well, there wasn't much time after I left Friday afternoon -- and there was Christmas and work for Mr. Mortenson -- so I haven't read it, yet." I answered truthfully. There was no reason to say differently. Lies always have a way of coming back to bite you in the ass, I've found. She took a measured moment to study me; to try and discern why I would take a job without knowing its details, or even its pay! I could see the wheels turning, but she didn't pry. Must have some understanding of her Daddy's past role, I guess.

Sally walked me around the accounting floor and introduced me to the operational sub-departmental heads. I was welcomed and greeted politely, although somewhat standoffishly. Halfway through the meet and greet tour, Sally quietly informed me about their aloofness. None of them, she quietly whispered, had any idea of what Gina actually did in Special OPS. They just knew whatever she asked for, meant that she got top priority. They knew she reported only to Mr. Worthington. That was sufficient reason, enough for staff, to provide her top priority status and, now by extension; I had that same level of distinction. I felt like an anvil had been taken off my shoulders. I had help, albeit, it was at arm's length and I was only expected to deal with the forensics; not the mundane accounting tasks that the second-floor team tended to on a daily basis.

Returning to the 'Special OPS' suite, Sally continued her drill down as I took notes. Only a telephone call, transferred from HR, interrupted the session. Sally spoke briefly and hung up. Quizzically, she told me that Ma Bell was at the hotel complex to install a phone. I jumped on that, explaining to Sally that Mortenson had arranged for a telephone for night-security purposes. She looked a bit perplexed. I remembered what her Daddy said about her non-involvement.

"I'm a temporary watchman at the construction site for a while, until I can find a place to stay. Your Dad arranged that; remember the number you gave me?"

"Oh! Yes, Chris's number, I remember, now. So, you're working two jobs, then? Chris didn't tell me that."

"Lots of student bills to pay off!" I laughed, "More coffee?"

We took a break and I headed out to let the telco tech inside the office suite to make the installation. Parking next to the telco truck, I tapped on its icy window. The driver cranked his side window down and drawled, "Rawling?"

"Rawlings. Yes, sir," my words floated out into a cloud of steamed air.

"Got an order for some connections for an office somewhere. You are listed as the contact," he commented, as he looked down at a worn, metal clipboard. At that point, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the burly construction foreman bearing down on us. He didn't look too happy as he tromped through a snowbank; rather than go around it to get to us.

"What the fuck is going on?" he growled, to no one in particular, as he strolled up and interrupted the telco guy.

At that point, I introduced myself, "Jim Rawlings," I said, intending for him to know we would be eye to eye with one another. I had put on a smile for the foreman, as I pulled my glove off my hand. Reaching out to shake his hand, I knew he had to see my missing three fingers. He stopped short, avoiding reaching out to take my greeting hand. I had, on occasion, found my loss to have an unsettling effect in similar situations. First off, most people are reluctant to shake hands with someone with a mangled hand. Secondly, they immediately perceive that person as a weakling and of little or no threat to themselves. I was right about the foreman; the offer to shake hands brought him up short. I did my best to mold my demeanor to the rest of the perceptions.

"Mr. Mortenson, must have told you about me staying here as the nightwatchman -- just temporary until I can find a job, you know, when you can't do much with your hands?" I lied, continuing to maintain my smile. "Mr. Mortenson ordered a telephone for the security night desk, so this fellow is here to install it," I added nonchalantly.

Lies are not all bad. In the intelligence games of the world there are 'good lies.' Ones that shield the enemy from garnering the truth of the matter as you exploit the enemies' weaknesses. The difficulty comes when the liar can no longer distinguish what constitutes a lie for good intent or wrongful purposes. I felt the familiar mental hair-raising moment as I recalled telling this lie and the other one, I had told Sally, as I left the building. Both of those were a bit unsettling, but necessary, in my judgement.

At that point, the door of the truck opened and out stepped John Henry -- or at least his brother from the Johnny Cash coal miner song. At least six-foot-six, he towered over the foreman; who backed up a respectful distance. John Henry clearly was not someone you wanted to anger in a barfight on a Friday night. The way he squared off in front of the burly foreman gave me the distinct impression that you'd still be pulling your head out of your ass way past noon on Saturday; if you were stupid enough to mess with him. I opened the office door and the lineman set to work. He was one hell of a lineman--for the county!

Before the foreman could leave, we had some words -- to set some ground rules for engagement. I wouldn't be in his day-work business I told him. Most of that time, I expected to be out looking for work, I implied in our conversation. My job, at night, would be to monitor the gate and the fence lines, but not any other areas. For his part, he made it clear he didn't want me anywhere near the work areas -- too dangerous and the insurance wouldn't cover it for a non-worker, he stated. I nodded, signaling that I understood. I knew that wasn't true, however, I was an employee of Mortenson so the foreman's bullshit wasn't sticking to me. I was okay with that. I wanted him to feel like he was in charge. It made my job easier. If Mortenson was right, the foreman could be a player in the investigation. He had access to everything, took in the deliveries, and signed off on the billables. I had him on my first list of suspects.

I set up operations and filled in Mortenson and Worthington on my plan to surveil the project site. I spent the first week coming to the construction site late in the afternoon and going out in the morning just as the construction foreman came on site. I had established a predicable schedule that soon lulled the foreman into a false sense of security and put him more at ease with my on-site presence.

A different course of action in the coming weeks was planned to get detailed information on the construction crew's work in progress. The glass-walled building across the boulevard made a good observational tower. It was a bustling place and no one took notice of a clean-cut guy loitering by the fourth-floor lobby window, staring out as the snow fell nearly every day of the week. That became my perch for oversight surveillance. I'd already taken notes of the delivery truck times into the hotel parking lot; they came like clockwork.

My request for bookkeeping and audit records on Mortenson's company were quickly delivered to my brightly-lit and serene office. The one with a spectacular view of the open park across the street. Somehow, I just knew Colonel Worthington was aware of my claustrophobic reactions, acquired from spending three months in dark, shit-filled holes at some asshole's idea of pleasure or retribution. We never discussed it. He knew its depths; however, I had the feeling.

To add some subterfuge to the research, I ordered up two other company records to be prepared -- so that the second-floor staff didn't grow suspicious of my focus on just one company. I had some angst about creating extra unnecessary work for Worthington's staff, but tactics called for a clandestine approach. I did find myself with a little smirk on my face when I thought back to painting rocks at Fort Bragg -- useless make-work chores to keep idle hands busy and out of trouble, was the way the Battalion's Command Sergeant Major explained it to me one day -- long before I made the trip overseas. I'd just done the same thing to my bookkeepers-in-arms!

Friday came quickly. The construction crew rolled out of the complex for the weekend. Driving into the hotel parking lot as the foreman was leaving, I waved. He nodded. I had the place to myself for the weekend -- time to explore. 'Operation Rescuing a Snow Angel' [ORSA] was underway. I'd been given a mission and a purpose in life with meaningful outcomes. My weapons included: forensic accounting knowledge, sleuthing skills born out of human intelligence training, and data analysis used to arrive at a supported conclusion; standing on its merit often before a court of law. In my case, the job is an extension of the skill sets that I honed in battle and was now prepared to wage in a possible war on crime. "Life does have meaning, soldier," the Major would occasionally announce, "Carry on!"

Rachel's round face popped into mind as I coined the operational name--ORSA. Perhaps, between investigating Mortenson's financial losses, I might, now, be able to use some evening time to delve into locating my rescued snow angel in South Bend. I had access to telco, thanks to Mortenson. I just needed to plot a course of action as to how to locate her, if possible.

I arrived at my room; having noted that the parking lot had been freshly scraped and new mounds of snow plowed higher against the fence lines. The girls had been working. A business card, 'Martinez Lawn and Snowplowing,' was stuck between the door and the doorjamb of my quarters. Thoughts of 'Operation Rescuing a Snow Angel' got put on hold for the evening, as I turned the card over. On the back was an invitation to dinner New Year's Eve -- clothing optional was penned in quotation marks.

The smile on my face must have been as bright as the morning sun; I could swear that I saw my reflection beaming off the door in front of me, as I entered. I was prepared for dinner, this time. I would come bearing gifts; like a Magi, just wandering across the snow instead of the dry sands.

After Christmas, I'd wandered into a nearby department store, catering to exotic clothing, just down the street from the construction site. The owner met me halfway across the store. It was an uneasy greeting. But I managed to push through the anxiety. The store had a nice collection of women's apparel. I found two distinctive Vintage Tibetan chokers that would allow me to distinguish between the twins this evening: one in gold, the other in silver. Not expensive, but they looked elegant and would fit snuggly; certainly, wouldn't get tangled up in the heat of tumbling around in bed! The owner, at the counter, gift wrapped them for me, as we chatted.

"Girlfriend's late Christmas gifts?" she asked demurely, as she wrapped them in Christmas paper as I had requested.

"Twin girlfriends' late Christmas gifts," I smiled wryly. "Need to move that apostrophe outside the 's' in girlfriends'." I proffered with a nod.

"Double-Lucky you!" she coyly replied, bowing, and then looking up, as she understood completely.

"If you need something else...I can help, with some twin suggestions! How about something like this? Two 'fer one!" She nodded politely, pointing out a mannequin behind me, wearing a black Criss Cross Bralette, with garter belt and panty.

I glanced around, admiring what little material there was. She grinned, expectantly.