Chapter 12 - The Empty Seat at Five
I made it home at 5:03, three minutes later than promised.
Tessa was already at the kitchen table, her laptop open beside a bowl of reheated soup. She looked up when I came in and smiled, but I could see the questions waiting behind it.
“How was your first day as a vice president?”
“Louder than I expected.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I hung my coat by the back door. “The audit has found possible problems with the numbers we reported to the board. Someone also sent me a message telling me to stop helping.”
Her smile disappeared. “Did you tell Charles?”
“Grace is documenting it.”
“Dad.”
“I’ll tell him tonight.”
She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms. “You spent years telling me not to let work swallow my life. Now you have a new title and someone is already threatening you.”
“I’m not letting it swallow my life,” I said. “I came home for dinner.”
“You came home because you promised.”
That was fair. I sat across from her and reached for the soup. The warmth of the bowl steadied my hands.
Tessa had started her job with the state environmental conservation department that morning. She told me about her supervisor, the awkward introductory meeting, and the stack of reports she had been assigned to review. Then she paused over a paragraph on the screen.
“Does Whitmore Logistics use a company called Northline Systems?” she asked.
I stopped stirring. “That’s the vendor for the automation platform.”
“Northline’s on a list of facilities submitting discharge records for stormwater permits.” She turned the laptop toward me. “I’m not reviewing your company. I’m looking at regional reports, but this one caught my attention. It says the Grand Rapids facility has had no measurable runoff violations in eighteen months.”
“Could be accurate.”
“It could. But the report also says all monitoring samples were collected from the north drainage channel.”
I knew the north channel. It drained the paved lot and carried meltwater toward a municipal retention pond. The south channel ran closer to the old maintenance yard, where fuel and cleaning chemicals had been stored for years.
“Was the south channel tested?”
“According to this record, it wasn’t required because there was no active discharge point.” Tessa turned the laptop back. “That sounds odd. I walked around the facility once when I was visiting you. I remember a culvert by the south fence.”
“You did?”
“Dad, you used to take me to pick you up after school. I’ve been around that building since I was little.”
She didn’t accuse anyone. She didn’t need to. Her eyes had the focused look she got when she was tracing an inconsistency.
“Don’t access anything you’re not authorized to access,” I said. “And don’t send me confidential records.”
“I know that.”
“I mean it, Tess. Your department has rules. I don’t want you put in the middle of a company investigation.”
“I’m not in the middle. I’m doing my job.”
She sounded hurt, and I knew she was right to be. I had been trying to protect her by treating her like a child.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You can tell me what you found. I won’t ask you to do anything more.”
She nodded. “The reports don’t prove anything by themselves. But the vendor appears as the preparer on several facilities’ records, all using almost identical wording.”
“Northline?”
“Northline’s environmental consulting subsidiary.”
The kitchen seemed to grow quieter.
My phone rang on the table. Charles Whitmore’s name appeared on the screen.
“Mr. Whitmore,” I answered.
“I’ve heard about the message,” he said. “Grace told me. I want you to come to the board office tomorrow morning. We need to discuss who has access to the audit files.”
“I can be there at eight.”
“Bring the binder. And Nolan, don’t discuss the environmental reports with anyone at work until we understand what they are.”
Tessa looked at me from across the table.
After the call, I set the phone down. “He wants the evidence protected.”
“And you?”
“I want to know whether it’s connected.”
She closed her laptop. “Then we follow what we can prove.”
I looked at my daughter, hearing the words I had used on the warehouse floor for years. She had learned them somewhere.
May you like
Outside, the temperature had dropped. A thin wind rattled the bare branches against the window.
For the first time since Thanksgiving, I understood that the story we had uncovered might be larger than a broken dispatch system. I also understood that the people involved would not be eager to let us find out.
