Chapter Twenty-Four

Just down the road from the shop, Stacey sat in a grungy diner with Hans Rudder, Dad’s store clerk. He’d been working for Dad for five years and had a wife and two kids. Stacey had always exchanged pleasantries with him when she visited Dad at the store, but she’d never actually held a long conversation with him.

She waited while the waitress wrote down their orders, then took out her paperwork and laid it in front of him. “Could you have a look at these? This is the spreadsheet for the last three months, while Dad was in the hospital.” She laid out another spreadsheet. “This one is from the three months before Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”

Hans leaned forward to look, his face serious.

She pointed to the outgoing sales. “We’re bringing in stock, but the warehouse looks bare. Are you sending out the normal number of items?”

“I see the order come through on the computer,” he said simply, “and I send it out. Same as always.”

“Except, it isn’t the same as always. Look.” She pointed to an incoming order of ten seat covers. “I can see that ten came in. Here, you’ve sent out five. But there are none in the warehouse. Where are the other five? What’s going on?”

He shrugged. “Like I said. I do my job. I send out what needs to be sent. If you want to know where the rest of the stock is, check with Bill.”

“Bill told me to check with you.”

The waitress came with two cups of coffee, but Hans pushed his aside and stood. “You accusing me of stealing?” His face had gone ruddy.

Stacey stood, too. “I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this.”

“Can’t help you.” He put on his bomber jacket.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Bill’s the foreman. Talk to him.”

“I want answers, and I plan to get them.”

Hans walked out, and she had a feeling he wouldn’t be back at work when his leave ran out at the end of the week. And with no one to run the store, she couldn’t reopen.

Great. One more problem to deal with.