Chapter 8 - Twenty Thousand DollarsEthan agreed to meet Detective Alvarez at the police station on Monday morning.
Nora Jacobs accompanied him.
The money had been discovered in a canvas bank bag inside his former locker.
Twenty thousand dollars in mixed bills.
Wallace claimed it had disappeared from a weekend tournament cash reserve.
Alvarez placed photographs on the table.
"Do you recognize this bag?"
"No."
"Did you ever handle tournament cash?"
"No."
"Who had access to your locker?"
"Until Thursday, I had the padlock key. After I was suspended, management removed the lock."
Alvarez looked at her notes.
"Your supervisor confirms the padlock was missing when he saw the locker Thursday night."
"Then anyone with access to that room could have put the bag there."
"That's one possibility."
Nora leaned forward.
"Are you seeking an arrest?"
"Not on the evidence currently available."
Ethan exhaled slowly.
Alvarez continued.
"I need to understand the timeline. Management first reported the money missing Friday morning. They say the tournament reserve was counted Thursday afternoon."
"What time?" Nora asked.
"Four thirty."
Ethan looked up.
"I was already gone."
"We know."
"And the locker had been unsecured."
"We know that too."
"Then why am I here?"
"Because I need your account before determining whether this is a theft, a bookkeeping error, or something else."
He leaned back.
For an instant, the old anger returned.
People with power made allegations.
People without it spent their lives disproving them.
Alvarez slid another photograph across the table.
It showed the locker with the canvas bag inside.
"Something else concerns me," she said.
Ethan studied the image.
"What?"
"The bag is positioned on top of your folded work pants."
"So?"
"Your supervisor says he saw your uniform packed in a plastic sack before you left."
Ethan remembered.
"I put the shirt and pants on the bench. Todd said he'd handle the rest."
Alvarez nodded.
"The photograph appears to show someone repacked the locker after the lock was removed."
Nora looked at her.
"Have you obtained the maintenance-building access records?"
"Requested them."
"Preserve the original files," Nora said. "Not screenshots supplied by management."
Alvarez's expression suggested she appreciated the distinction.
When Ethan left the station, he did not feel relieved.
He felt exhausted.
Outside, Nora stopped beside her car.
"This is important," she said.
"Which part?"
"Someone may be trying to create a second reason to discredit you."
"Because the first one didn't work?"
"It worked well enough to cost you your job."
Ethan looked toward the gray sky.
"Twenty thousand dollars. They could have put ten dollars in there and still made me look dishonest."
Nora nodded.
"But twenty thousand is a specific amount. It leaves a trail. We need to find out where it came from."
At Alder Ridge, Wallace sat in his office with Marc Dane, the company's chief financial officer.
Marc was forty-eight, thin, meticulous, and habitually nervous.
He placed a set of account summaries on the desk.
"Vivian says we should report the cash loss to our insurance carrier."
Wallace looked up.
"We haven't established that the money was stolen."
"She wants the claim filed."
"Marc, the detective is asking for access logs."
"I know."
"And the last time anyone checked that locker, the bag wasn't there."
Marc rubbed his temples.
"Then perhaps don't volunteer conclusions we can't support."
Wallace's eyes narrowed.
"Who told you to use the locker?"
Marc's hand stopped moving.
"What?"
"Twenty thousand dollars appeared after Morales was gone. Somebody put it there."
Marc looked toward the closed door.
"I don't want to know."
Wallace leaned forward.
"That's not an answer."
"No," Marc said quietly. "It isn't."
He gathered the account summaries.
Before leaving, he added, "Vivian has a meeting with Vale Development tomorrow. She's told me the sale must close before the bank's next compliance review."
Wallace stared at him.
"What bank review?"
Marc paused.
Then he opened the door.
"Ask her about the creek-restoration account."
That evening, I drove to Alder Ridge without calling ahead.
The clubhouse was nearly empty.
The autumn wind pushed leaves across the parking lot.
I found Wallace in his office.
"I want the maintenance access records," I said.
He looked at me warily.
"Daniel—"
"And I want the original incident report."
"Your mother's counsel is handling—"
"I'm not asking what my mother is handling."
He leaned back.
For a moment, he seemed to be deciding whether I was still the man who had slapped a groundskeeper or whether something had changed.
Then he opened a drawer.
Inside was a small black flash drive.
"I made a copy before IT transferred everything," he said.
I stared at it.
"Why?"
Wallace gave a tired smile.
"Because I've worked here twenty-two years, and lately people have been asking me to forget things."
I took the drive.
"What's on it?"
"Access records. Email instructions. The incident report's revision history."
He hesitated.
"And Daniel?"
"Yes?"
"Your mother was in my office at two thirty-five Thursday afternoon."
I frowned.
"That was before the incident."
"She asked for a standard disciplinary incident form."
"Why?"
May you like
Wallace looked directly at me.
"She said we might need to remove Morales before the end of the day."
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