Two

When Constables Walker and Edwards came to Donnie’s Donuts Thursday night, Sarah smiled and waved. Constable Walker tipped his hat and waved back as he walked, not breaking stride as he approached the counter.

“How are you doing with that C-major seventh?”

“I think I’ve got it figured out. Gwen will be so proud of me. Thank you.”

He smiled back. “Any time.” He tipped his head to look up at the menu board. “I’m going to take my chances today and order a sandwich. I’m starving, and I forgot my lunch at home. So I’ll have a Chicken Supreme and a regular coffee. If I get a call, I can always finish it in the car. It’s happened before.”

She turned to Constable Edwards and waited as he read the menu board.

“I’ll just have a bran muffin and a medium coffee. It figures he’d order a meal when it’s my turn to pay.”

While she accepted his money and Kristie made the sandwich, Sarah chatted with Constable Walker about the challenges of learning a new instrument. He snickered and told her about the time his B-string snapped in the middle of a song in which he was accompanying a soloist for his church’s last Easter Cantata. Sarah laughed, telling him she knew that would never happen to her, not because she knew she would never have a string snap, but because she knew she would never be good enough to play for an audience.

Since Constable Walker was eating and not merely snacking today, she left him alone. Even though she wanted to hear more of his stories, she went into the back of the building to the staff lunchroom instead of disturbing the two men.

As she walked away, she mentally kicked herself for worrying about him the day before. The man was a police officer. He faced dangerous situations all the time. Besides, even though they tended to chat a lot and they saw each other frequently, she really didn’t know him.

She could admit she found him attractive. He was a good-looking man, physically fit, and approximately her age. He had a good-paying job, and he was pleasant. Sarah couldn’t help but smile, even though she was technically alone. She supposed she found him pleasant because she was on the right side of the law. She doubted the Ronsky clan and their followers found him, or any member of the police force, “friendly.”

By the time her fifteen minutes were up, the two officers were gone. On her way to clean up the table they had vacated, she noticed a broken cup under the table where the Ronsky clan had been.

To save herself a trip, Sarah left the table as it was, turned around, and headed for the closet. Unfortunately, the lightbulb had burnt out during the day shift, and no one had replaced it. The broom was easy to find, but with the minimal glow reflecting from the kitchen being her only source of light, she couldn’t find the dustpan. She groped along the shelf where it usually was stored until she touched the handle. Unfortunately, because she was smacking her palm down in her attempts to find it, rather than gripping the handle, all she did was knock it to the floor.

The plastic clunked as it landed on the hard vinyl floor, bounced a couple of times, hit her foot, and then slid under the bottom shelf.

Sarah lowered herself to her hands and knees, then down to her elbows, then to the ground until one cheek pressed against the vinyl flooring so she could see beneath the bottom shelf. It was darker on the floor than at standing height, so despite her efforts, she couldn’t see anything at all. However, she really needed that dustpan before someone came in, stepped on the broken glass, and sued Donnie for some kind of injury.

She sucked in a deep breath and reached underneath the shelf, hoping that the cleaning staff was as diligent in the storage areas as they were in the restaurant.

Feeling nothing, Sarah gritted her teeth and groped further. After a while, her fingertips brushed the dustpan’s handle. Since her arm wasn’t quite long enough, Sarah shuffled around, grabbed the broom, and laid it on the floor. She slid it toward the dustpan, intending to knock it forward once she was able to maneuver both herself and the long wooden broom handle in the small closet.

Suddenly, a glowing light in the shape of a rectangle appeared on the wall behind the shelf. She realized it was a vent cover. From her strange position on the floor looking upward through it, she could see into her boss’s private office. Donnie had just walked inside and closed the door behind him.

The small amount of light filtering through the grille allowed Sarah to see what she was doing. Ignoring her boss, Sarah aimed the broom toward the vagrant dustpan, which was so far under the shelf that it was against the wall.

Just as she was about to knock it out, she heard Donnie’s voice.

Sarah froze. Unlike the rest of the donut shop, Donnie’s office was completely silent because Donnie had muted the speaker for the radio station from coming into his office. No one besides Donnie was in the room. He was speaking into the phone. Not the regular phone on his desk, but his cell phone.

“They’re gone, and they won’t be back tonight,” he mumbled quietly. “You can come in now. Have you got it all? Good.”

Donnie flipped the phone shut, shuffled sideways while he clipped the unit onto his belt, and waited.

Sarah’s mind raced. Only two groups of people had recently left—the Ronsky clan and the two RCMP officers. If the Ronskys were bored or got a case of the munchies after their activities, they had been known to return. There were never any guarantees that they wouldn’t be back. As unsavory as they were, they were regular customers, and they always paid cash for their orders.

On the other hand, once Constables Walker and Edwards left, they never came back in the same twenty-four hour period.

Sarah’s heart pounded. She didn’t know whom Donnie was talking to or why it was important the police officers weren’t coming back, but she had a terrible feeling that, whatever the reason, she didn’t want to know. All she knew for certain was that she didn’t want to know any more than she already did.

Still on her hands and knees, Sarah began to shuffle backward, but her rear end bumped the shelf on the other side of the closet. Something rattled on impact. Because her right hand was still trapped beneath the shelf holding the broom, Sarah winced and covered her head with her left hand, waiting for something to fall.

Her heart pounded. She was less afraid of being hurt than being discovered, because this didn’t sound like a conversation Donnie would have wanted any of the staff to overhear.

The objects on the shelf behind her settled. Again, all was deathly silent.

Donnie’s door opened, the click of footsteps on the tile floor echoed slightly, and the door closed. The distinct snick of the lock confirmed that the ensuing conversation was indeed meant to be private.

Sarah opened her mouth to breathe as quietly as she could, using short, shallow breaths. She didn’t want to look but her eyes refused to stay closed. She didn’t know who the man was who had entered, but she recognized him from coming to see Donnie before. Until now, because she worked a regular night shift, she hadn’t thought it unusual that Donnie would have visitors so late. After all, these hours were normal for her. However, a sudden sensation of fear enveloped her as she realized that personal visitors at 4:00 a.m. were not standard practice for friends or business.

The man deposited a soft-sided brown leather briefcase onto Donnie’s desk. “I’ll be back on Tuesday. I expect you to meet your side of the bargain.”

Without speaking, Donnie opened the safe in the wall behind his desk, tucked the briefcase inside, and closed the safe’s door.

The second Donnie spun the lock, the man turned and left without saying another word. As soon as the door closed, Donnie opened one of the desk drawers and picked up a gun. He checked the clip for ammunition, laid it back in the drawer, and locked it.

Sarah’s heart pounded. She didn’t know the ramifications of what she had just seen, but something was very wrong. She could probably convince herself that whatever was in the briefcase could simply be valuable versus illegal, but seeing Donnie with a gun chilled her to her core.

The second Donnie left the office, Sarah nudged the dustpan out from beneath the shelf and stood. Quickly, she brushed herself off so no one could tell she’d been on the floor. Very cautiously and very slowly, she peeked out of the closet. When she was sure that no one saw her, she tiptoed out and closed the door quietly behind her.

Instead of going into the food area to sweep up, she ran into the staff room with the broom and dustpan so Donnie wouldn’t know where she’d just been.

While she stood in the middle of the vacant staffroom, Donnie’s voice echoed from the front counter.

“Kristie, I’m going to be out for about half an hour. Where’s Sarah?”

“She’s on her break. Want me to get her?”

“No. Just tell her I’m gone, and if anyone phones for me, take a message.”

Without further explanation, Donnie left the building.

In a flash, Sarah hid the broom and dustpan behind the door and flopped herself down on the small couch. She was sure her hair hadn’t yet settled from the sudden movement when Kristie appeared in the doorway.

“Donnie had to go somewhere. It’s my turn for a break. If anyone phones for him, take a message.”

Sarah nodded and stood. “Sure. No problem,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice from shaking. Leaving the broom and dustpan hidden behind the door, she left the staff room and took her place at the front counter. She didn’t like to leave the broken mug on the floor, but at not quite 4:30 a.m., the morning crowd hadn’t begun to enter yet. For now, she could pick up the large pieces by hand. As soon as Kristie left the staff room, she would retrieve the broom so Kristie wouldn’t associate that she’d been anywhere near the closet five minutes ago.

On Tuesday, when the man came back, Sarah also had no intentions of being anywhere near the closet. But still, when the man came back, even if she didn’t see what was going on, she knew something was.

Sarah counted on her fingers. Today had been the last shift of Constable Walker’s rotation. She wanted to tell him what she’d seen, but he wouldn’t be there on Tuesday. With the rotation of his shifts, she wouldn’t see him until Thursday night, if he had time to take a break, which he didn’t always. For sure, she wouldn’t see him Friday night, because she started her “day” at midnight, and therefore, she didn’t work Friday nights.

Sarah closed her eyes to picture her calendar. At this point in the rotation cycle, his nightshifts would be on her weekends, so she wouldn’t see him.

She stared blankly at the wall. Donnie’s friend’s words echoed over and over in her head.

She could only wait.