Job or death in Philadelphia
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It was a late spring Friday. In anticipation of a nice long family dinner and a romantic evening with my husband. I made a mountain of sandwiches and went to drop some food at Joe's office. I wheeled into the parking lot with Joe's Ford and somebody's Honda parked there. I didn't want to interfere, just to come in, place a package with lunch on a kitchenette table and leave.
"Rachel? Come here this instant."
Joe, who spent part of his life in the Navy, had a booming husky voice that could reach you and stop you in your tracks from a block away. I entered his office and greeted him and his client, a short bulky woman with brown hair.
"Listen, you nincom… Rachel, this is Deborah. Mrs. Cooper, this is Rachel, my assistant and my right hand. Can you please repeat your story to her? I found it very important that she would hear it from you."
Deborah looked at me. Her slightly bulging eyes welled with tears.
"I had just started a new job and my co-worker accused me of stealing money and jewelry from her. She was leaving for a new location, and I was taking over her position. I waited for this position for four months," she interrupted herself, sobbing. I brought her a cup of coffee, and she told us her story.
Debbie Cooper was from a family of college professors and scientists. In her parents' house, people discussed numbers and laws of physics as if it was breaking news and weather updates. She had known the multiplication table since she was five, thanks to her uncle Bruce, who made it a routine when coming for dinner to play a numbers game with her he called Number of the Day. "You can't go wrong with math," he liked to say. Being a genius mathematician himself, he worked for years on Wall Street as a market analyst, and after retirement at thirty-five, he took a tenured position at Princeton. His sister-in-law Elizabeth, Debbie's mother, herself was a professor of physics at the community college. Debbie's father used to be a financial analyst for Vanguard Group, but died a year ago of pneumonia complications.
Debbie's love of numbers made it very easy for her to get an honorary scholarship at NYU. She graduated with a Bachelor of Finances and became the youngest woman to work as an accountant for Goldman Sachs. That is where she had met her husband, Pitt Cooper, working for the IT department. Ten years older, he was a big, forceful man who always knew what to do, and to her, a calm, scholarly girl, he looked like a safe haven. They had their share of city dating, which means fast, quick and in a hurry, before their roommate or parents showed up. They got married after sixteen months of dating, got a Tribeca apartment and had two children one after another. Debbie worked part-time, trying to concentrate on her sons, especially the oldest son, Matthew, who developed ADD at the age of four.
She had wanted to move to the suburbs, she said, and after seven years, God heard her prayers: Pitt became the Head of the IT department at Gordon's Electronics in Philadelphia. They bought a spacious house in Cherry Hill and moved. Relaxed and happy in her new life, Debbie gets pregnant again, this time with a girl. Pitt, forty at the time, was completely crazy over this `little angel,' as he called her.
Away from the New York intensity, Matthew seemed to outgrow his emotional problems. Life was perfect until Debbie realized Pitt had a drinking problem. She suspected him of having affairs: he was coming home late or not at all. The final straw was his moving in with his lover. Debbie filed for divorce.
"It was five years ago," she said, drying her eyes with a tissue. "We finalized our divorce only two months ago. It was all custody issues. He didn't want to give me the kids. He just tormented me."
Their family house was sold, and she and the kids rented a house. They couldn't stay in their family house because Pitt took it as a habit to come over every night, shouting and cursing her, and blaming her for their paradise lost. Deciding to buy a house, she took a full-time accounting and case-working job in the city with NOSE: The National Office of Services to Emigrants. She started on the 4th of May, and five days later, she was accused of stealing by her co-worker, a job developer, Mrs. Gamma Woods.
"I worked in the corporate world and I know the rules, so I filed an Irregular Incident Report the next day."
She opened a manila folder and read slowly, first, then faster.
"At the beginning of our conversation, Mrs. Gamma Woods notified me that she and her husband were coming at 8 pm to pick up the boxes with teaching materials from the office we shared for four days. When I told her that she was welcome to store her books and materials as long as it was convenient for her, she said that she wanted to pick up all her stuff on Monday night because she was concerned about the safety of her materials."
"She said, `My money and jewelry were stolen from my handbag on Friday May 8. I left my bag on the desk and was in and out of the office. Around lunchtime, I put the bag in the desk drawer. I took my bag from there around 8 at night and found that my money and jewelry were stolen. I thought that you would take care of my bag and look after it. I thought,' she said, `that you would constantly be present in the office, making your phone calls, and would watch my handbag. Now, $110 and my jewelry has been stolen from my handbag. I have been working here for twenty years and it has never happened before.'"
Joe listened, looking at Deborah with a funny expression on his face. His eyes were laughing.
"Did you see this damn handbag?" he asked, when Deborah stopped reading and reached for water.
"I did not see Mrs. Woods' handbag among her other belongings and teaching materials," she said firmly, as if he were a judge.
"Did she ask you to take care of her possessions?"
"She did not ask me to watch her bag. Why did she assume that her new co-worker was supposed to watch her bag?"
"I don't know," Joe replied. "I don't know what this woman is doing, but she definitely knows what she's doing. She's trying to destroy you. Anything else, ma'am, that you want to tell me?"
Deborah wiped her nose with a tissue. "Yes. I think it's very important that she had a financial transaction in the nearest drugstore from 3 to 3:30 pm, buying an inhaler for her husband, Mr. Woods, who was having an asthma attack. She had her handbag with her. If something was missing from her bag, why didn't she tell you about it at the time?"
"I don't know," Joe said. "And I would ask her a couple of questions. What items of jewelry were missing? Can she present photographs of her jewelry? You said that people from the Carolinas Institute had been moving the furniture. How many of them? Who was moving the furniture? Why didn't Mrs. Woods notify the police?"
"I found out," Deborah replied, "that Gamma Woods contacted everybody in our local office and in the head office and told people that her money and expensive jewelry had disappeared from her handbag while I was in the office. Last week everybody was talking about it. It's like a slap in my face. I never took even a match from anybody. It's simply not me. I can't work, I can't concentrate. I feel I should quit, but I have waited for this job for so long. I have bills to pay. I have to put food on the table." Deborah blew her nose. "Please, help me. I have to sue this woman. She wants me to be fired because I took over her position."
"It's a terrible way to keep your job," Joe muttered and lit up a cigarette. He was lounging in his chair, looking up at the ceiling. "How long has she been working there? Gamma Woods… Right?"
"Right." Debbie nodded solemnly. "She has been working there for twenty years. She is a Philippine woman who came to this country about twenty years ago. I don't think she has as good an education as I do, but she has got tons of experience. She knows exactly what this job needs."
"Why was she getting removed?" I asked, still a little stunned by Joe calling me his `assistant.' Until now, he hadn't called me anything but `nincompoop.'
"I don't know the real reason," Debbie responded. "She seems very well fit for this place."
"She definitely sounds so," Joe laughed, and then coughed. "You, ninc…, I mean Rachel! What would you do if you worked for twenty years for a company, and then got replaced and even fired?"
"I would cry," I said after a brief consideration. I never worked over six months in one place, but I didn't want Joe to know that.
"Well, Gamma made somebody else cry. Deborah, this is my little scenario for you for the next two weeks. In a couple of weeks, they will fire you for something, for anything: using too much toilet paper, having blue eyes, being right-handed or wearing gray business skirts." Joe puffed his Newport.
"No, they can't fire me. I'm a very good worker. I have great education and experience." Debbie started sobbing, this time becoming angry with the attorney she decided to hire. Honestly, I felt like throwing my shoe at the guy.
Joe just smiled. "They can, and they will. Babe, what poked you in the eye to take a job for a Philadelphia company? You live in New Jersey, so get work in New Jersey. Go and work for your kids' school district. You will be around them. You can always take a day off; you know all the news. You're a single mom! Leave the corporate world to bitches like Gamma Woods. Pennsylvania is an At Will state. Employers have all the rights there. They can fire you at any time for any reason at all, and you can't sue them for that. But there's something else here. Seems to me you've got in the middle of something. You want to sue them? Let's sue them! File a libel, slander and defamation of character lawsuit. Are they a corporation?"
"Yes, they receive government money for working with immigrants. It's a big corporation. I actually found it very bizarre the way they treat refugees. They have this interoffice code, and they call their immigrant clients `moo-moos'."
"I like that. I truly do." Joe frowned. "Let's sue them for a couple of million dollars. You'll get a half million-dollar settlement, buy a new house and start working for your local school district."
Joe pulled a pile of paper out of his drawer and offered Debbie an agreement to sign. She even smiled, listening to his intense speech. I heard him once in court arguing on my behalf and knew that he could be loud and eloquent in defending his clients.
Walking her to her car, I promised Debbie that everything would be great. She grabbed my hand. "I'm so glad you're a woman. You can understand me; how terrible this is! First divorce, then this… I try to do everything I can for my children, but I have to work and pay bills. I don't understand why I must suffer so much. Please, work on my case. This woman is evil."
I promised her to do everything in my power and returned to the office. Joe was sitting in the kitchen, munching on sandwiches.
"So? Why did you call me your assistant? This poor woman really hopes we will work on her case."
"So? Do you believe she is not a thief?" He had this horrible habit of giving you a question for an answer.
"I believe her. She's a single mom, and she needed this job desperately. The other woman was losing her job. They wanted her out after twenty years. It's not good either, but Debbie has nothing to do with it."
"Are you sure?" Joe looked at me with his impossible black eyes. "What if Debbie had a relationship with their boss? What if they're lovers? You're a nincompoop. Somewhere, somehow, there is a reason she got into this situation. If we find the reason, we find the best way to defend her in court. Now you, young lady, just look for this reason."
"Me?"
"Who else? Not me, thank you very much. I'm staying in my office because I've got other stuff to do. Some very urgent and important stuff. If you like her, if you like this case, be my assistant. Interview her co-workers, take depositions, arrange a polygraph test for her. If she doesn't flunk it, we will take her case to court. They bid for federal money, they need a squeaky-clean reputation. And in this case, their reputation won't be so squeaky-clean anymore."
Getting outside, I squinted at the shiny spring afternoon. I thought it could happen only to a book character, to have your life completely overturned in a moment. This morning I didn't know what to do and felt useless while my life was slipping through my fingers. My husband worked day and night looking for war criminals and defending their victims. My daughters opposed my slightest attempt to mother them. My house was cleaned, and food cooked by somebody who was making a living out of my laziness. Suddenly, it all started to make sense because I realized what I should be doing my entire life. I would be a lawsuit investigator! I would gather all the bits and pieces of information that would constitute our victory over evil.
Angels blew their trumpets, it was my life calling, I knew that.
"I'm a lawsuit detective," I repeated to myself over and over again, driving home. I felt a sharp intense energy boiling inside of me. "I'll become the damn best lawsuit detective ever." Since it was almost four in the afternoon, I decided to start my investigation right after dinner.
CHAPTER 4
The monkey see, monkey do principle would be the best way to describe my way of life until this point. I have always been worried about my future. I felt terminally ill most of the time. I always hoped to end up with a bigger paycheck and a balance of my long-term investments. And always, I was taking on new relationships and new jobs with the mad enthusiasm of somebody who has never been beaten and never been abandoned.
Pulling into the driveway, I cursed secretly, because Larissa's car was parked right in the middle of it. Larissa was my aide, but somehow, she tried to take a special place in the family. Alex insisted on hiring her as a part-time shopping aide for me and a part-time tutor for our girls. My husband believed modern children need a grandmotherly influence in order to grow into stable and mature adults. He used to say that in his old country, grandmothers constituted a special social institution: more influential than the Orthodox Church, and more advanced than an academic school.
We couldn't possibly get a grandmother in our own family. My mom was still working on her retirement plan. My husband's mother was a grand dame, socialite and full-time Londoner. There was no way she could fit two teenage girls in her schedule between lunch with the Prime Minister and dinner with Rupert Murdoch. That's why Larissa, being an old Jewish lady, fit right into our puzzle.
Entering our home, I received a doggy attack from Elvis. Forgetting that he had begged me out of my breakfast this morning, this source of eternal love jumped and slobbered all over me.
"Rachel!" Larissa summoned me to the kitchen. "I think the girls are upset with each other. Something happened in school. They don't want to tell me what. As a mother, I think you should talk to them."
As a mother, I would rather have a cup of coffee right now, especially seeing Larissa sitting at the table with her cup of Earl Grey and biscuits. Of course, I didn't say that. Alexander thought that the European system of rearing children was superior to the American. In his eyes, Larissa, after teaching English at some schools in Moscow, Berlin, and New York for thirty years, was an embodiment of this system. I went to the entrance hall and shouted for the girls at the top of my lungs. I knew it was a no-no, but I would rather have the girls come down to the kitchen, than walk up to their rooms. Frankly, it is healthy for kids to get in a fight now and then, because this way they build up their conflict-solving muscles for future adult life.
First, Iris showed up with a thunder of heavy footfalls. She was taller than the other eleven-year-olds, with long blonde hair and dark brown eyes.
"Mom," she crashed into a chair with a moan. "When is dinner? I'm starving."
I took her words about starvation with a great deal of healthy doubt, looking at her slightly bulging tummy and peach-like cheeks, but Larissa sprang into action. She turned to me with her well-groomed head with a strawberry blonde hairdo and offered to feed the child with something healthy.
"A couple of spoons of nonfat cottage cheese with a bit of sour cream will do her just fine before dinner," she let me know.
"Sour cream? Yuck." My sweet angel made a retching sound.
"What is so yucky?" Evana asked, entering the kitchen with a quiet grace of hers. She was my daughter's age, but shorter, slimmer, with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes.
"Mom wants us to have cottage cheese for a snack. Can you imagine?"
Evana considered the news for a moment. "Well, it might not be that bad," she said flatly.
I opened the fridge, found a tub of cottage cheese tucked away in the door compartment, and sniffed it. It looked fresh to me, but I tasted it, just in case.
"It's not even sour," I announced after taking a bite. "Tastes kind of chalky, but this is the healthy part, I guess." I spooned the white substance into tiny ice cream bowls for the girls.
"Mom," Iris looked at me with alarm. "Where did you get this jar?"
"In the fridge… No talking, just eat and go. We have to cook dinner."
"Mom," Iris insisted. "Show me the jar."
I showed her.
"Ah, this is not the cottage cheese. This is my dough clay, for my science project."
Somehow, eating clay gave me a burst of energy, because I stayed in the kitchen to help Mark, my British cook, to make turkey soup. I have my special way of cooking turkey soup, which I invented while living in Center City and driving a cab. This soup, like any other great invention, came into existence by accident and lack of resources. It was the day after Halloween, and Iris had overdone it with sweets. Her stomach hurt, so she stayed home from school. I did a six-hour shift and went home. The best treatment for stomach sickness is chicken soup, no doubt about it, but we had only turkey breast. I found two potatoes, a tomato, a white onion, a red bell pepper, and moldy spaghetti squash. Cooking a vegetable stew, I saut,ed chopped onion and pieces of turkey in olive oil. Then I dropped in tiny slices of bell pepper, potatoes, squash and tomato, and I poured some water to top the stew. I let the soup cook slowly for two hours on medium heat; finally, I just added a little garlic and soy sauce to it.
The result was amazing. My strictly no-soup-please daughter finished two helpings and announced that her stomach hurt no more.
After dinner would be the best time to tell Alex about my new investigating job. Five minutes before six, he called and said he was running late. The girls got their dinner in the TV room. Larissa ate in the kitchen, and I just sat in my favorite recliner, reading a mystery novel. Glistening with silverware and china, the dinner table remained untouched.
Around midnight, my husband's car pulled into the driveway. I ran outside to hug him, and his smell made my head spin. It was okay that we missed a family dinner, because at the end of the week we would have two days all to ourselves. I'll be able to be with him for two days!
"I'm starving," he said, entering the kitchen, still in his business suit. "Oh, soup."
I poured soup for him and ran to the bathroom for a quick makeover, feeling all fuzzy and romantic. It took two minutes to shower, slide into my silk nightgown, brush my teeth, and put on a touch of French perfume. However, when I returned to the kitchen, he wasn't there. I ran upstairs to our bedroom and found my beloved husband lying on the bed, still fully dressed.
"Honey, do you want to take it off?" I pulled the sleeve of his jacket. He didn't respond. Only when I was pulling his pants off, he said, "Phew, what's that smell? It's awful."
I lay next to him in the dark, hoping that he didn't mean my expensive French perfume he praised so much when fully awake.
I tried to shut out the annoying ringing in my ears when I realized it wasn't an alarm clock. It was my cell phone.
"Rachel," I croaked, picking it up. It was two o'clock in the morning, and I hate phone calls in the middle of the night.
"Joe Madnick. How are you?"
"I don't know. I was sleeping."
"Come here this instant. I need your help. Don't ask questions; just come to my office now." He hung up and left me staring at the darkness in disbelief.
Why would Joe call me in the middle of the night? And then I remembered; he appointed me as his detective. I'm a lawsuit investigator! I jumped out of my bed, pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed a jacket and went outside. My red Jaguar greeted me with its lights when I unlocked the door. I looked around our dark property, breathing the chilly spring wind, smiling to the dawn of my new life.
Driving, I thought about some crooked ways life rewards us. I wasn't even thinking of becoming a detective, with all my love of mysteries and whodunits. I didn't have any special training and education. I would never get this job if I tried to look for it. Joe would reject me if I asked him to hire me. But I was in the right place at the right time. He was backed up; I came with a pack of sandwiches. Voila! He asked me to do some investigative legwork for his law firm.
I felt so much pity for Debbie. I have been through the hell of single motherhood. Her case seemed obvious to me. If this Philippine woman accused her new co-worker with such ease, she probably did something similar to other people before. In twenty years, she stepped on some toes. I had to find those people and talk to them. I needed to find a couple of witnesses who would testify against Gamma Woods.
Joe's voice boomed in my ears, "Get out there and talk to people, find as many as possible whose who can tell that Debbie is a nice decent lady. I don't want to paddle to court just to meet a material witness saying that Debbie stole before."
For his office, Joe used his own house, a two-story red brick townhouse with a lawn up front and a parking lot in the back. At two o'clock in the morning, the house looked spooky. All the lights were off. I knocked at the door, and it opened a crack, just enough for me to get in. Once inside, I was grabbed and pressed against the wall.
"Shish!" Joe put his fat fingers on my lips. "Don't talk." Moonlight in the entrance hall was just enough for me to see that he looked exactly like I left him in broad daylight. Which means he wasn't attacked or injured, just mildly paranoid.
"Did anybody see you coming here?"
"I don't think so…"
"Rachel, don't think too much!" he whispered and cleared his throat. "It's my job." He stood plastered on the wall, peeking out the door window in complete silence for a very long time before saying, "Okay, now, it's time."
He opened the door, let me outside, and ushered me into his car soundlessly. With his bulky body, he moved in the dark like a cat, reminding me he served some years as a Navy Seal, doing who knows what, who knows where.
Getting into the driver's seat, he didn't put a seatbelt on, just started the car and pulled off his driveway onto the street. There was something eerie in the way we were moving through the neighborhood, and it took me some time to realize he hadn't turned his headlights on. Plus, the car had tinted windows.
"What's going on?" I whispered. "What do you want to do?"
"I'll tell you in a minute," he whispered back at me. "Just do what I say."
After a couple of miles, he wheeled to the opposite side of the street and parked without turning off the engine. I got out, obedient to his command, while Joe was shifting his big body inside the car, trying to get out. Not having enough room, he put his left foot on the ground and pressed the car horn with his elbow. His honking woke up the whole neighborhood. Dogs barked, and the light went on and off in the next house up the street.
The house on the hill across the lawn from us remained dark and silent. Joe exhaled like a whale and proceeded to the car's rear. He popped the trunk up, pulled out an oddly shaped bag, and handed it to me. It was slippery. He, himself, got a heavy object that looked like a white box. He carried the box to the lawn and left it there. I put the slippery bag next to it. Shaking and sweating, I was trying to kill the thought that those objects were the remains of some annoying material witness who crossed my new boss.