Circle of Shadows (13 page)

No one mentioned the fight in the
motel hallway the night before. Lili could see Hank sitting at the next table.
He met her eyes and gave her a friendly wave, just as he usually did. She
wondered if Ken had had the promised ‘talk’ with them and what he’d said. If
so, all seemed to have been settled and back to normal, much to her relief.

Lili spent the afternoon much
like the morning. She walked between the rows of booths in the huge auditorium
until she felt she never wanted to see another company rep, or hear another
pitch about how much she could save per case if she would only book this item
today. By four o’clock, the crowd was thinning as people headed home.

Ken found her sitting on a chair
near the fresh pineapple and strawberry display. “Ready to go?” he asked,
picking up a toothpick and spearing a strawberry from the paper plate of
samples on the long table behind her. He followed it with a juicy wedge of
pineapple. She watched the luscious morsel disappear between his lips and
shivered at the sensuous tremor it created in her insides. She remembered what
those lips had done to her skin only last night.

“Anytime you are. Where are you
putting that? I don’t think I could look at another food item.”

“What do you mean? It’s been four
hours since we ate lunch.”

“Lunch? It was a full meal.”

“No wonder you stay so skinny.
You don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.”

“Ha. I used to believe that line,
until I heard that birds eat several times their weight in food every day.”

“Do they really?” He stared at
her, and speared another golden wedge of pineapple, chewing it thoughtfully as
he considered that. “You just decked my favorite saying. Don’t tell that to
Renee. I’m trying to get her off of her perpetual diet so that she’ll bake me
some more of her luscious cinnamon rolls.”

“Renee knows how to bake bread?”
Lili asked incredulously.

“Indeed she does. Very good
bread. She makes it from scratch. It’s light as a feather.”

“Will wonders never cease. I can
imagine her doing something sophisticated or arty, but I would have never guessed
that she had a domestic streak under that sleek hairdo.”

He laughed, rising to his feet.
“I always thought baking good bread was an art.”

They wove their way through the
aisles, waving good-bye to a few people as they went. Some vendors were already
starting to tear down their displays and pack up their merchandise.

She and Ken stepped back out into
the late afternoon sunshine and strolled down the street.

“Renee is really rather nice when
you get to know her,” he said, continuing their conversation as though they
hadn’t spoken to a half dozen people in the interim. “There’s really no need
for you to be jealous of her. She’s been with me for a long time, and considers
it her prerogative to mother me on occasion.”

“I’m not jealous,” Lili
protested.

Ken raised one eyebrow
disbelievingly. He unlocked his car and opened the door for her. “You could
have fooled me.”

Lili settled into the soft plush
seat of the Mercedes with a sigh of relief. Was she jealous? After last night, her
feelings were certainly in turmoil. However, jealousy suggested more than that.
It suggested she was feeling possessive of him. In love. Was she in love? She
was too tired to be sure of the answer right now. She’d think about it
tomorrow.

“Tired?” Ken asked, casting a
sympathetic smile at her as he swung smoothly out into traffic.

“
Mmhm
,”
she murmured in reply, letting her head drop back against the high headrest.

The next thing she knew she was
waking up to Ken’s swearing. His brakes squealed as he slowed to allow a
passing car to get into the lane in front just in time to avoid an oncoming
car.

With a start, she sat up.
Embarrassed, she realized that she had been sleeping cuddled against him as he
drove.

“Sorry about that. Some guy
passed where he shouldn’t have.
It’s
okay, go back to
sleep.”

“No, really, I’m fine.” She
glanced at the surrounding countryside, looking without success for a familiar
landmark. It was growing dark, and although she could see lights in the
distance, she had no idea which town they might represent. “Where are we?”

“Almost home. That’s
Kerelli’s
restaurant and gas station coming up. Are you
hungry yet?”

“Surprisingly, yes,” Lili
admitted.

The chilly evening air revived
her as they walked into the restaurant. The menu was limited, but the food was
good.

“Mm, this hamburger is made from
fresh ground beef, not a frozen patty,” Ken declared. “How’s your chef’s
salad?”

“Perfect.”

The waitress refilled their
coffee and they were back on the road in record time.

The question of her real feelings
toward him nagged at her, so that she was quieter than usual, wondering if he
felt any differently toward her. She almost fell asleep again on the remaining
short drive home.

To her relief, he didn’t ask to
come in when they arrived at her house, but merely kissed her lightly, saying,
“Goodnight, sleepyhead. Pleasant dreams.”

* * *

The next week proved
frustratingly busy for Ken. He went from one small crisis to the next, and
seemed to have almost no time for himself. Each day was tightly scheduled from
morning to night. Even his regular weekly visit to Lili’s store had had to be
canceled because of a small fire in Hank’s store that had caused some smoke and
water damage. By the time he had met with the insurance people and helped Hank
with all the forms and decisions that entailed, Ken was exhausted.

By Friday he caught himself
picking up the phone to call Lili at midnight. Only a glance at the alarm clock
beside his bed stopped him in time. He groaned at himself. She would think him
silly to call at this hour.

Instead he lay awake for hours,
wishing she were here.

When he awoke late Saturday
morning, he called her. First he tried her home, remembering that Saturday was
her day off. When there was no answer, he tried the store.

Sally answered, and Ken was again
frustrated to hear that Lili had gone shopping with a friend. He bit his tongue
to keep from asking if the ‘friend’ was a man, and thanked Sally.

An hour later, as he sat in his
favorite easy chair reading reports, he was glad he hadn’t reached Lili. He
needed time to sort out this problem before he talked to her.

He paced down to stand at the
window overlooking the lake, then walked back to the kitchen to get another cup
of coffee. He read through Lili’s latest report for the third time.

Robert had been right. Something
was wrong at Adams’ Foods. He had hoped that the differences in her reports
between her store and his others could be explained away by the variances
between wholesalers. He could no longer excuse the differences that way. Since
Lili now bought from Allied, her profit margins should be comparable to his
other stores. Instead, her margins were lower than on her first two reports.
Much too low.

He went over and over her
reports, looking for unusual expenses, variances in labor costs, anything big
enough to explain this. Nothing.

“Damn!” he said, slamming down
his coffee cup. As if he hadn’t had enough problems this week, already. He’d
been looking forward to a weekend with Lili, hoping to get closer to her.

But how could he, with this
problem hanging between them? For he was sure she had to know—she had to
realize that her store wasn’t making the profit margin it should.

Worse, she might even know why.

Monday morning, Lili was startled
when Ken walked into her office without even knocking. “Good morning,” she
exclaimed, half-rising from her desk.

“Good morning,” he growled.

Frowning at the dark look on his
face, she asked, “Or is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “I lay
awake half the night trying to figure out the problem with this without
success.” He snapped open his briefcase and tossed her profit and loss report
onto her desk.

She stared at it, flushing in
embarrassment. “You don’t like my work?”

“No.”

Her stomach lurched. She’d worked
long hours on that report, getting every detail correct and double-checking
every total. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. I mean, your form and
presentation are very well done. The bottom line is what’s wrong with it.”

Lili gasped angrily. “You said
Dad told you that the store was losing money. So that should be no surprise.”

His eyes narrowed. “
Why
is
this store losing money, Lili?”

She stared at him in
bewilderment. “How should I know?”

He watched her face. “If you
don’t know what the problem is, or how to fix it, why do you want to buy this
store back?”

Heat rose in her face. She stared
helplessly at him, spreading her hands in frustration. How could she explain
small town sentiment to a city person? “Because I love this town. It’s where I
was born and raised. Adams’ Foods has been my family’s tradition. It’s a part
of me.”

Running a hand through his hair,
Ken rose and went to the corner table to help himself to a cup of coffee, as
though trying to absorb what she’d said. “Want a cup?” he asked. At her nod he
filled a second one, handed it to her and sat down. He met her eyes across the
desk. “You don’t understand,” he went on in a calmer voice.

“What don’t I understand?”

“I bought this store because
there is absolutely no reason for it to be losing money.”

“Figures don’t lie, Ken,” she
said, exasperated at his assurance. “Dad didn’t tell us about the problem,
apparently because he thought Mom and I wouldn’t understand. Isn’t that
ironic?” She laughed ruefully, but tears of anger and regret welled in her
eyes. She willed them away and went on. “I have a business degree, but Dad
thought I couldn’t understand that he was having a financial problem at the
store.”

“I know how you must feel....”

“How could you know? You’re a
man....”

He felt like a heel. She was
still grieving, and he was bringing up painful memories. “Lili....”

She drew a deep breath and sipped
her coffee. “You’re right. My father’s attitudes have nothing to do with this
problem.”

Picking up the report he’d tossed
on her desk, she stared at it again, then put it down. “I’ve read this over and
over, Ken. I can’t figure out the problem. Apparently, Dad couldn’t either. Can
you?”

“No. I’ve gone over it many
times, too,” he admitted. “Maybe too often. Sometimes if you look at something
too long, you lose perspective.”

“Maybe,” she said doubtfully.
“But it’s been days since I saw this and it still looks wrong.”

“Well, let’s go through it, line
by line.
Allied’s
mark-up percentage is the same for
all my stores, and they all come out with a decent gross profit. So it can’t be
that.”

“Is my percentage of payroll
costs to sales more than the other stores?”

“Well, yes, your payroll is a
little high. But sales per man-hour vary from store to store, depending on the
amount of service given. You’re a full-service store, you do carry-outs for
customers and even home deliveries for shut-ins. Very few stores do those
anymore.”

Lili nodded. “Also we deliver to
some regular accounts, such as restaurants and bars. All that takes extra time.”

“The meat department
sales-per-man-hour is especially low. But Arthur does a lot of special cuts for
customers, doesn’t he?”

She nodded. “Yes. His special
attention keeps his meat department’s percentage of the total store sales
higher than the average in the grocery business.”

“Mm hm. His sausage making takes
a lot of time, too, and requires expensive casings and spices. That explains
why the cost of his supplies is higher than my other stores. They don’t make
sausage.”

“Yes. But the supplies for the rest
of the departments are under budget, aren’t they?”

Ken nodded, making more neat
figures and notes on his copy of her report.

She watched his long fingers idly
doodling with the pen, and couldn’t help remembering in what other ways those
strong hands were capable. He seemed to have forgotten their lovemaking.

She willed her mind away from
that painful thought, and back to the business report that was giving them so
much grief.

“How about cash? Does anyone else
handle the totaling out the tills, and making the bank deposits besides you?”

“Before Dad became so ill, he did
it. Now, I do it myself, except in an emergency, such as when my father died.”

“Who did it then?”

“Sally, my head check-out. I
asked her to do it because she is most familiar with how things such as
refunds, charges, and paid on accounts are handled.”

Ken nodded, remembering Sally as
the older bleached blonde who was always fussing with her hair or nail polish.
She also seemed very sensible and responsible.

“You’ve gone through your daily
sheets, making sure every deposit was credited at the bank for the same amount
as you had claimed on your deposit ticket?”

“Yes, of course. I do that when I
reconcile my bank statement with my checkbook.”

“Anyone else have access to your
office and computer?”

She flushed, and said stiffly.
“Yes, Ken. Everyone. I have never locked my office. If I didn’t trust someone
who works here, then I would fire them.”

“True. However, trust is
sometimes given to those who don’t deserve it. Anyone been especially interested
in your office lately?”

Shrugging, she admitted, “Well,
Ralph has been fascinated with my new PC. He’s a computer nut. But his system
is different, and he was just comparing kinds of hardware and software, etc. He
loves to play games over the internet with some guy in California and said he
was up until midnight the other night, playing chess. But he knows almost
nothing about accounting. I don’t even let him figure his own produce
department’s profit figures.”

“I see. How about the checkout
girls? Any possibility there?”

“I would say very little. Several
of them are more interested in boys than math, and often make dumb little
mistakes. I doubt if any of them are clever enough to be stealing on this
scale.”

Perhaps they’re not, Lili, but
you are.
The
thought came unbidden to Ken’s mind. Ashamed of himself for suspecting her, he
pushed it away, and went on.

Line by line they went through
the details of that Profit and Loss statement, until, frustrated and little
more enlightened than when they’d started, they put it away. Then they went
down the street to Lander’s House for lunch.

Over coffee, Ken admitted, “I
don’t know what the problem with your profits is, Lili, and it’s bugging me.”

“Neither do
I
,”
she said. “And it’s more than bugging me. It’s making me ill.”

He looked at her miserable face,
and wondered if her words were as false as the color of her beautiful
strawberry hair. Sighing, he went on, “There’s one other possibility, you know,
that would easily explain all this.”

“You mean the burglary. But we
could find nothing that was missing. A lot of stuff would have to missing to
explain these figures, and it would be obvious.”

“Not if whoever hit you that
night had been getting in on a regular basis, and taking small amounts at a
time. You know yourself that if they merely went down the aisle like a shopper
and took a few of each item that they wanted, you wouldn’t be able to tell it
had been done. You couldn’t name what a regular shopper took by walking down
the aisles after she filled her cart, could you?”

“True. But we changed the locks.”

“Change them again. And use a
different locksmith.”

“Ken! You can’t suspect that nice
old man! Oscar would never hit anyone. Besides, if he wanted to rob anyone, he
wouldn’t bother with groceries. He could just help himself to some cash at one
of the banks. He changes the locks at every bank in the area.”

His voice was firm and
unyielding. “Sorry. I’m just trying to cover all bases.”

She shrugged. “Okay, I’ll call
another locksmith. But it’ll cost three times as much, because the nearest ones
are out of the Twin Cities. Their fees are higher down there, and they charge
mileage besides.”

“Still, I think we’d better.”

“All right.”

“One more thing. Until we figure
this out, we’ll do an inventory the first of every month. I’ve set up the next
one already, for next Tuesday. We’ll use the inventory service Harry uses out
of Minneapolis.”

“But why? We’ve always used the
St. Paul one.”

“Just for a fresh look. And to
see if their methods are the problem. One possibility is that someone on the
inventory crew is screwing up; typing up the totals wrong, or is lousy at
math.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“No, I think it’s unlikely.
That’s their business; it’s all they do every day. If the inventory service
were the problem, other stores would be complaining, and they would soon
correct the problems or go out of business.”

“Besides which,” she said
thoughtfully, “a wrong inventory report would not change my bottom line in the
long run. I mean, if the product and money were still here, it would show up in
one way or another.”

“Right. You wouldn’t be having to
replace what you already had, and wouldn’t be short of money to pay bills.”

“But doing an inventory every
month, Ken. That’s expensive, and a lot of work,” she said, groaning.

“I know.” Was this an act? Was
she covering up for someone? Or even herself? “I’ll factor the extra inventory
costs out each month.”

***

“Inventory again?” Ralph asked
Anna unbelievingly a few days later. “We’ve already done inventory twice since
the first of the year. Do you know how damn much extra work taking inventory
is? I’ve got a hot date this weekend!”

“Don’t yell at me, it wasn’t my
idea,” Anna retorted. “Lili told me that Mr. Mills ordered it. And what’s more,
we’re going to be doing it the first of every month, until they figure out
what’s wrong. Some problem with no profits.”

“How can there be no profits? Our
sales are great. We have not only the best, but the only store in town.”

Anna shrugged. “I don’t know.
Just do it and don’t make trouble, please,
Ralphie
boy?”

“Yeah, okay, Anna. Don’t get
maudlin on me, old lady.”

Anna smiled and went back to
punching her order into her handheld computer. She knew Ralph hated it when she
sweet-talked to him. On the other hand, when she did, he always did what she
asked, so it was worth getting him angry to get her way. He always retaliated
by calling her ‘old lady.’ She really didn’t mind that. After all, she was old,
and not a bit ashamed of it.

But the new order for monthly inventories
worried her.
I think whatever is wrong at the store has been going on for
quite a while. Maybe for years. I must tell someone about the missing cases of
groceries. I should have told Lili weeks ago. But what if Lili is involved?
She’ll fire me to keep me quiet. Or if she isn’t involved, and finds out I knew
something and didn’t tell her, she’ll fire me anyway. But if Lili is involved,
who was the burglar and why would he hit her? Oh God, none of this makes sense!
What am I going to do?

In the end, Anna did nothing. She
understood why Ralph and Arthur grumbled at the extra work. They had to count
every item in their own produce and meat departments, while the hired inventory
crew counted everything on the main floor of the store.

On Tuesday morning, a crew of six
college students, each with a calculator on his hip, walked through the store
in just a few hours. They counted items with one hand and tapped numbers into
the calculator on their hip with the other.

“They did the whole store quicker
than I can count all these packs and boxes of meat,” Arthur grumbled. “And it’s
cold in those damn coolers and freezers.” He sniffled and wiped his red
dripping nose. “I’ll be lucky if this cold doesn’t turn into pneumonia.”

Lili overheard and asked, “Shall
Ralph and I finish for you? I believe he’s done with produce, and I can do the
office work later.”

“No, that’s okay,” Arthur said
quickly, the rest of his face turning as red as his nose. “I’ll be okay. The
boys will help me move stuff around in the freezer to count it. We’ll make it,
all right. No problem.”