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By Tuesday, Haley still hadn’t received any case updates. She headed over to the Wheelbarrow for dinner, hoping Mindy had heard something.
“You’d think the DNA and fingerprint results would have come back by now,” Haley complained after placing her order.
Mindy propped her hip against the counter. “You’ve gotta understand, honey, this is Sobaco. We ain’t in a rush for everything like you big-city folks. We take time to breathe and enjoy life here.”
“We’re talking about criminal evidence, not one of my client’s stupid spreadsheets,” Haley argued.
She didn’t understand what was taking so long but figured it had something to do with Sobaco not having any forensic facilities. And given the town’s disinterest in building a reliable Internet infrastructure, if the Lane County Sheriff’s Office had emailed the results the police might never notice them.
Mindy’s face brightened. “Speaking of spreadsheets, I’ve gotta introduce you to Owen Moreno, the owner of our little town’s pride and joy.”
Haley followed the direction of Mindy’s finger, where an overweight man in his sixties sat alone in a booth. He had an old-model laptop open in front of him, a plate of meatloaf and volcanic mashed potatoes on one side, and a full glass of iced tea on the other. It looked like a disaster waiting to happen.
“He’s working on his company’s finances,” Mindy told Haley. “He reckons his business has a leak somewhere, and he’s trying to pinpoint the problem.”
Haley grimaced. “Wish him luck for me.”
“Oh, I did better than that, honey. I bragged to him and the missus about you and how you manage software in the big city. I told them if anybody could help out, you could.”
Haley’s heart dropped. She had enough issues dealing with MIT’s mess of data. Looking over a small, family company’s finances ranked as the least enjoyable way she could imagine spending her free time—excluding being jailed for withholding witness testimony. She wouldn’t doubt that some well-meaning but incompetent relative had put together Moreno’s accounting “system,” which undoubtedly would be even more of a nightmare than the MIT files.
Mindy bustled around the counter and grabbed Haley’s arm. “Come on. I’ll introduce you. If you’re lucky, maybe Owen’s got that spreadsheet open right now and you can take a quick peek and tell him what’s wrong.”
Haley groaned as Mindy led her across the dining area. “It doesn’t work like that. It takes time to sort through data.”
Owen Moreno looked up as Mindy barreled in his direction. When she plopped down in the booth seat across from him, he didn’t seem fazed, as if waitresses were supposed to seat themselves at their patrons’ tables.
“Owen,” Mindy said, “this is Haley, the computer genius I told you about the other day.”
Haley perched on the seat next to Mindy and offered Owen a tight smile. She left one leg hanging in the aisle so she could exit when the first opportunity arose. “‘Genius’ is a bit of an exaggeration,” she told him.
Mindy slapped her on the arm. “Aw, now don’t be modest. Everybody in here knows you work for a big Seattle software company.”
Haley eyed the other diners, wondering what else Mindy had told them about her.
Mindy grabbed Owen’s laptop and pulled it to their side of the table, miraculously managing to avoid bumping his food or drink in the process. “Why don’t you take a look at Owen’s computer here and tell him what’s wrong,” she said, thrusting the laptop in front of Haley.
Haley looked at the screen, finding herself staring at a half-completed crossword puzzle.
Owen laughed as he reached around and closed the puzzle. “You caught me in the middle of a little break. Here’s the spreadsheet.”
Just as Haley had feared, it seemed to be a crude amalgamation of incoherent data. The columns at the top either had one-word headers that didn’t tell her much or were missing a label altogether. A number of different tabs lined the bottom, all of them designated as Sheet followed by a number. She suspected the data on each sheet was just as haphazard as the one she was looking at.
Mindy latched her fingers around Haley’s arm and yanked her deeper into the booth. “Owen, come on over and show Haley what you need.”
Owen swung around to their side, forcing Haley to squish her arms in front of her. Neither of her neighbors appeared to share her discomfort. Judging from their smiles, they were both delighted to have her trapped between them.
“This is our starting inventory, and here’s a list of our purchases for July,” Owen explained, pointing to several columns on the spreadsheet. He slid his finger to the next three columns. “And these are our outgoing sales.”
“Not only do they run the store here, but Moreno’s also delivers plants and flowers to businesses all over Lane County,” Mindy said, beaming as brightly as if she had something to do with the garden store’s reach.
“That we do,” Owen agreed. “But unfortunately, I have a shrinkage problem.”
“Shrinkage?” Haley repeated, trying not to let her gaze wander toward Owen’s crotch.
He nodded, thankfully unaware of her thoughts. “I believe we have an employee stealing from us.”
Haley exhaled. “Oh.”
Mindy gave her a stern look. “It’s a very serious matter.”
“Oh, no, I realize that.” Haley twisted toward Owen to avoid Mindy’s glare. “Tell me what you’ve concluded so far.”
“Sometimes items reach a critical inventory level before the sales figures indicate they should,” Owen said. “Records for the month ended are particularly disturbing.”
“Can you show me an example?”
“I sure can.” Owen pointed to one of the columns. “Here’s our starting inventory, and here are our soil purchases for the month.” He moved his finger across the screen. “And these are the sales according to the front registers. See the difference?”
Haley performed the mental math. “You’re saying Moreno’s doesn’t have seventy eight-quart bags of potting soil on hand?”
“No. There are around forty bags in inventory.”
“Any idea where the other thirty bags went?”
“As best I can tell, that’s where our shrinkage comes in.” Owen used the laptop touchpad to open one of the many spreadsheet tabs, this one labeled Sheet4. “I have the specific purchase data here. It tells you what we ordered when, and the quantity and price.” He clicked a smidgen to the right, on Sheet87. “And here’s the same information for sales.”
“The eight-quart soil bag only sells for five dollars?” Haley said, wondering why anyone would bother stealing one.
“I know it’s not much money. It’s more the principle of the act that I find troublesome. You see, I try my hardest to take good care of my employees.”
“They get a thirty-percent discount,” Mindy informed Haley. “Even Timmy ain’t that generous.”
Owen’s downcast eyes complemented his sagging jowls. He looked so dejected over the possibility of one of his trusted staff members stealing from him that Haley found herself melting. As much as she dreaded combing through another spreadsheet, she couldn’t leave this man floundering if there was a way she could help.
Besides, she needed something to occupy her thoughts other than the forensic evidence lingering in the county’s testing facilities. Maybe studying Owen Moreno’s spreadsheet would distract her in a way that MIT’s data hadn’t proven able to.
“Well, I can’t guarantee anything,” she said, “but if you send me a copy of your records I’ll take a look.”
Owen’s face lit up like a halogen bulb. He couldn’t look more pleased if he were in the throes of renal failure and Haley had offered him one of her kidneys. “I’ll get it to you right away.” His fat fingers scrambled to open another program. “What is your email address, please?”
Haley recited it for him, resisting the temptation to transpose a couple letters.
Owen attached his spreadsheet and typed out a string of numbers. “This is my personal cell phone number. When you discover the issue, please call me.”
“I might not find anything,” Haley reminded him.
“You can phone anytime, day or night,” Owen continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
He pressed a button and all three of them watched the status bar creeping toward completion as the restaurant’s wireless chugged. Haley wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or deflated when the transfer completed.
Owen scooted back to his side of the booth to let Haley out. He beamed at her as she stood up. “You are a goddess sent from heaven.”
“I might not even be able to help,” she reiterated, flushing. Stan Williams had never called her a goddess.
Owen dismissed that possibility with a flick of his pudgy wrist. “I will appreciate your efforts no matter what fruits they might bear.”
Haley considered that her fruits might attract more vermin than appreciation, like Mindy’s neighbor’s peach tree.
At least with MIT, Stan Williams always expected her efforts to end in disappointment.
* * *
At home, Haley’s mind churned as the Moreno’s spreadsheet blurred before her. She was accustomed to messy data, but the extent of the Moreno’s chaos tested even her abilities. She’d already spent three hours working through what Owen had provided and hadn’t even yet reached the point of analyzing the information. She was still struggling to organize it into something coherent.
Haley wrenched her eyes away from the monitor and clutched her skull, feeling the beginning kernels of a headache developing. Thankfully, Moreno’s was a relatively small company. If MIT managed their data this poorly, she’d probably have quit her job a long time ago simply to avoid dealing with the insanity.
Sighing, she turned her attention back to the computer screen. Deciding she’d done as much as she could to sort the information, she forced herself to study the figures. She concentrated on the soil numbers that Owen had used as an example earlier, figuring whatever she discovered about that discrepancy could be extrapolated to the other missing items.
She started by examining the purchases, comparing them to the reported sales and the store’s beginning and ending inventory. The figure she calculated tied to Owen’s earlier estimation of thirty soil bags being unaccounted for. How could thirty eight-quart bags of potting soil just disappear?
Either the garden store’s record-keeping system took the prize for the most abysmal she’d ever seen, or someone extremely daring had been bold enough to pilfer a lot of merchandise.
She flashed back on her one visit to the store, wondering how someone could sneak past the registers with even one eight-quart item. As Owen suspected, an employee theft seemed more likely. Perhaps they’d used a back door and ducked into the alley behind the building.
The truck she’d spotted outside Moreno’s popped into her mind. She remembered watching the driver load what appeared to be soil into his truck. Were deliveries documented in Owen’s file?
Haley grabbed her mouse and clicked through the spreadsheet tabs. The sales section didn’t include any record of deliveries to neighboring stores. And although she found a sheet outlining Moreno’s delivery schedule, there was no mention of the items shipped.
Optimistic that she’d uncovered the issue, she dialed Owen’s cell phone number.
“Owen Moreno here.” He answered immediately, as if he had been awaiting her call since they’d parted ways four hours ago.
“Owen, it’s Haley Winequest,” she said.
“Haley! My angel from heaven.”
She frowned at the BlackBerry, wondering whether this call was a mistake. She probably should have sent her request via email. “Um, I need you to send me information on the products you ship to other stores. I couldn’t locate the figures in your spreadsheet.”
“We only ship plants to fellow nurseries. None of our plants have experienced shrinkage.”
“You don’t deliver soil to your partner stores?”
“No. We order the soil ourselves. It’s just as easy for those stores to buy from the manufacturer too.” Owen paused. “Now, plants, on the other hand, we grow in-store. Those are the only items of interest to the neighboring nurseries.”
“Do you ever return soil you’ve purchased?” Haley supposed she could have witnessed the driver for the soil manufacturer loading recalled merchandise.
“No, never.” Owen sounded as if he couldn’t fathom a reason for soil to be deemed defective enough for return.
Haley rushed to conclude the call, not wanting to pique his suspicions until she could confirm her own. “Okay, thanks. That’s all I needed.”
She disconnected and slumped back in her seat. She specifically remembered the man hauling a bag into the truck on Saturday, not unloading it as would be expected by a delivery from a manufacturer.
Not only that, but the driver had looked tense when he’d spotted Haley. At the time she’d figured he didn’t want to field questions from a lost Moreno’s customer, but now she considered that she had caught him engaged in something illicit.
She glanced again at the delivery schedule. The driver visited Moreno’s on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Today was Tuesday, which meant he should be in Sobaco tomorrow. How hard would it be for her to show up at the same time? If she spotted him loading more soil or products other than plants into his truck, she could snap a few pictures to send to Owen.
She supposed she could let Owen bear the burden of verifying her theory, but, thinking about Ricardo Zepeda sitting behind bars, she balked at the thought of fingering another innocent man.
Haley sighed as her thoughts returned to Zepeda. She hoped the forensic results came back soon. She couldn’t let an innocent man sit in jail much longer while the person who should be occupying his cell continued to run free.
She wondered if the drug organization had set up shop elsewhere in town. She doubted any serious drug cartel would give up their entire business after one police raid. Most likely they were working on replacing the plants the police had seized.
Haley froze as that thought percolated. If the drug organization had started over with a new crop, they’d also need fresh gardening supplies.
Like soil, she thought.
She hunched closer to the computer screen and trailed a finger down one of the columns, her heart pounding as she took in the figures depicting Moreno’s missing inventory for the month of July: thirty bags of soil, over sixty planting pots, five bags of fertilizer, six containers of pesticides—all items she assumed would be necessary to start off a new marijuana crop. The time frame fit too. Haley had stumbled upon those marijuana plants three weeks ago.
And if her hunch was right, the Moreno’s delivery driver could very well belong to the marijuana organization responsible for Michael’s death.
Haley grabbed her cell phone and punched a few buttons. “What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked as soon as Mindy answered.
“Earning Uncle Sam some more Christmas money. Why?”
“You work the late-afternoon shift on Wednesdays, right?”
“Last I checked. Why, you fancy covering for me, honey? I won’t complain.”
Haley snorted. “What are you doing in the morning?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Mindy said, a hint of pride in her voice.
“You want to run an errand with me?” Haley had never spied on a man before. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a sidekick present.
“An errand?” Mindy sounded intrigued.
“Well, it’s really more of a stakeout,” Haley admitted. “We’re going to watch someone.”
If Mindy thought that seemed odd, she didn’t let on. “Count me in, honey.”
“Give me your address and be ready by seven tomorrow morning. I’ll pick you up.”
After they disconnected, Haley jammed her BlackBerry into its charger cable. If she needed to capture pictures of a theft in progress tomorrow, she intended to be prepared.
