Southern Justice, Part 37

I’m Fixin’ To present part 37 of Southern Justice:

At 20 minutes before nine o’clock Patty Osborn walked into her office and proceeded with the first item on her mental list. It was the six case files on her desk which consisted of the initial interviews with clients desiring to file sexual harassment lawsuits, the ones that had not as yet been passed on to her boss, B. Wendell Hormel. She took the three most promising ones

out to her car and locked them in the trunk.

The next item on her list was in the conference room. When she got there she picked up the dark green folder, the one with the coffee stain on it, took it to the fax machine with her and opened the file. She laid the Haselton Senior will aside and took out Jackie’s will, which had not been filed at the court house yet. Then she dialed her fax number at home and sent the widow’s will through the machine.

It was when she was replacing the two wills back into the dark green legal folder that she noticed the handwritten list of Rick Senior’s possessions wasn’t there. She went back to the conference room where she checked the floor and all around the room, but no list was to be found.

Deciding that B. Wendell must have secured it in his locked office after she had left on Friday, she simply returned the folder with its contents to its original position on the conference table. She had what she wanted.

After exiting the conference room, a little niggling feeling caused her to check the law library to make sure she and Chris hadn’t left any telltale signs of their liaison there on the past Saturday evening.

Scanning the room, everything looked normal, but just before turning to go, something caught her eye. It was the lock on the window. It was pointed straight out toward her in the unlocked position. She approached it, examined it closely and thought, How strange! Then she stepped to the window, secured the lock and exited the room.

The four junior female clerks on B. Wendell’s staff drifted in, each one marveling at the transformation in Patty’s appearance.

B. Wendell Hormel didn’t show up until almost 11 o’clock. Ray McKinley pulled into the parking lot seconds behind him and was right on his heels as they entered the office.

“Need to talk to you right away, boss,” Ray called out with a shrillness in his voice.

B. Wendell was his usual sloppy self with his tie loose around the neck of his wrinkled shirt, but he did appear to have gotten some sun on his face.

“All right, all right,” he called back over his shoulder to Ray. “Come on in my office with me.”

Patty got up from her desk and was standing in the door of her office when the two of them walked past. When they saw her they both stopped dead in their tracks and stared at her bug eyed.

Ray was struck speechless, but as his eyes traveled up and down her B. Wendell managed to say, “Damn! Is that you, Patty? What the heck is going on with you?”

“I need to talk to you, also,” Patty told him.

“Well, sure, absolutely! Just give me a minute or two with Ray,” B. Wendell told her as the two of them disappeared down the hall way.

After about 10 minutes Ray exited B. Wendell’s office. On the way to his cubbyhole he stopped at Patty’s open office door and said, “The boss is ready to see you, Patty.”

She could feel Ray’s pig eyes burning into her back as she made her way toward her boss’ office door.

Patty knocked on the door and pushed it open. B. Wendell looked up from his desk and said, “Come on in, Patty, or should I say the New Patty. Have a seat and tell me what’s on your mind. But before you do that I need to ask you something.”

Patty took a seat and said, “Okay, what’s the question?”

B. Wendell leaned back in his chair, placed his hands atop his ample belly and said, “Ray had a conversation last night with a couple of the office park security people. It seems we had a prowler behind the building Friday night. When the officers closed in on him, they said he jumped that big damn hedgerow in the back like he was Superman or something. It’s probably nothing, but I just wondered if you had noticed anything unusual around the office?”

(tmdunagan@aol.com)