Center Courtship (29 page)

“Shouldn't you be in Independence dealing with Elsu's house fire?”

“Oh, I got that all under control already Mae-Belle, don't you worry your little head over that.”

“And Casper?”

“Innocent, Mae-Belle. He didn't do it. Elsu's just a sore loser.”

“Then what do you want?” I said as I glared at him.

“Apparently, Casper left something very important in the glove compartment of his car and after the dinner, it was gone.”

I crossed my arms in front of me.

“Now, here's the thing, Mae-Belle…there are only three people who were in that car last night.”

“Three?” I asked.

“Yes, three. Casper, you, and the driver from the valet parking.”

“What are you saying, Carl?”

“Here, take a look at this, Mae-Belle.” He pulled a small stack of photographs from the inside pocket of his coat. He slid them across my desk and I sat down to look. “I'm not sure if it was coincidental or not, but the same man who
parked
the car, also
retrieved
the car at the end of the night.”

The first photograph showed Greg getting out of Casper's Corvette. The next one showed Greg standing beside someone whose face was hidden in a shadow. They were talking or interacting in some way. “That
is
the valet driver, correct?”

“It's one of them,” I nodded.

“And that man he is talking to,” he took the top photo and slid it aside to reveal the next one. This time the face of the second person was obvious. Aaron.

“I have video from the surveillance camera, Mae-Belle.” He pulled out a tablet and played me a few minutes of the feed. There was no sound, but I could see Aaron talking to Greg. They shook hands, and Aaron left the shot.

“Ok,” I said.

“What do you suppose your employee, Greg, was discussing with your friend, Aaron, there?”

“I have no idea, Carl.”

“No? Are you sure, Mae-Belle?” He pulled a white envelope from his pocket and pulled out another photograph. “Do you see this, Mae-Belle?”

I looked close at a posed picture of Casper. Carl's tapping sausage finger forced me to focus on Casper's hand as it gripped a basketball. “I see it. It's a ring.”

“Do you know what
kind
of ring that is, Mae-Belle?”

“I don't,” I said angrily.

“When a basketball team wins a championship, the entire team gets rings.
That
ring is from when Casper went to Nebraska.”

“Nebraska?” I asked stupidly.

“It's a state, Mae-Belle. Keep up.”

I glared at him. “What are you getting at, Carl?”

“What do you think would happen if it came out that one of Grandpa's Chop Shop's employees
stole
from one of the Whoopsters players?”

“You have no proof,” I said.

“But I do have pictures of Greg…what
is
his last name?” Carl looked at something on his phone. “Rousch. Greg Rousch getting out of Casper's car. We have video AND photographic evidence of him talking to Aaron…Carver?” If nothing else he was good at intelligence gathering.

“I didn't know talking to people was a crime,” I said.

“OH, it's not. However, if you watch this video closer.” He hit play on the tablet again. “You will see that it wasn't just a handshake that happened there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something exchanged hands right…there.” He paused the shot.

I looked closer at the screen. There was definitely something between the hands of the two men. “That's supposed to be this ring? The ring that we have no proof existed except for Casper's word?”

“And again, Mae-Belle, you'd think you were on top of this. However, let me show you something else.” He picked up his tablet and brought up Facebook. Not just any Facebook page either. “Do you know this Colette…Anderson?”

I stared unblinking at this evil, horrible man.

“I'll take your silence as a yes. Apparently she posted this picture of you and Casper before the big dinner last night.”

I couldn't believe it. There in all our glory, stood me and Casper cheesing it up for the camera. I pulled out my phone and saw that I had sent the picture to Colette. She must have done it while I was getting ready. I hadn't even checked my phone to know I had been tagged in it. She didn't know when she posted it that it would be something I'd want her to take down later.

“Let's do a zoom, Mae-Belle.” He used his two first fingers to enlarge the photo. There on Casper's right hand was the ring in question.

“So he wore it to the dinner.”

“Or did he?” he asked as he did yet another bit of swiping. “Here is a picture of you two on the red carpet in front of the paparazzi. Again, he zoomed but this time there was no ring.

“Ok,” I said. I was starting to get nervous.

“Finally, Mae-Belle.” He pulled up another file on the tablet. “This is a video of you two getting out of the car.”

I watched as Casper walked around the car to get my door. I stood, and while I was speaking to Greg, Casper removed his ring, stuck his head inside the car quickly and emerged. Now without the ring.

“According to Casper, he decided the ring would be considered inappropriate to wear with the team when there aren't too many of them who have championships under their belts.”

I stared blankly at the tablet, the phone and the stack of photographs.
Could they really do something like that?
To my knowledge, Aaron and Greg only just met on Saturday when he came to get his cartful of scraps.

I looked at Carl who was smiling broadly. “What do you want?”

“There's only really one thing I want, Mae-Belle. We both know you know what that is. Leave Elsu alone, I'll make sure Casper never knows any of this.”

My chest was getting tight. I had a feeling I was being blackmailed but I wasn't sure how, yet. “Why, Carl? Why do you hate me so much?”

“I don't hate you, Mae-Belle. I'm sure in any other context you're a great girl. A nice girl-next-door kind of woman. Right? But do you know how much money Jonathan Brothers has spent on the team and that arena?”

I shook my head. Not because I didn't know, but because I didn't want to hear the number.

“All told, him and those investors have spent over half a billion dollars, Mae-Belle. As you can imagine, when he hired me to make sure the team did well in the pocketbook, it was done so on a very tight leash. If I screw up, I'm out a job and then I'm stuck in this godforsaken town.”

“Massillon isn't godforsaken,” I said weakly.

“But I came from LA, Mae. I'm used to the big life. There isn't any such thing here. I mean it's getting to be a big-enough area. But it's no LA or New York. But I saw the big name players who were suddenly interested in joining the new team, and decided this would be a great opportunity for me. Between Elsu, Brent, Casper and some of the other guys, it was going to be an easy job. Just clean up the riffraff and the money would start flowing in because their fans would follow. Our
biggest
player of course, was dating one of the big starlets of Hollywood and music fame. Knowing she'd be at the games would be another draw for people. Who doesn't want to say ‘I was at the game and Saraya was there?'”

“She's no saint,” I grumbled.

“Oh, Mae-Belle you need to give her a chance. She's really not that bad. I like her.”

“That doesn't surprise me,” I grumbled.

Carl stood up and leaned on my desk. “You know what you need to do, Mae. Leave Elsu alone.” He turned and waddled out the front door.

I sat back and eyed the pictures that he left. When I was in school with Aaron, he sat next to me and we spent a lot of time talking before and after classes. We even worked together on a group project. I only knew him from school and knew very little about him personally. He seemed friendly enough, but was there a chance he could be involved with something like this?

Greg, on the other hand, I had known for a few years before he started working for me two years ago. He knew Steve through one of Steve's sons. Before he started working for me officially, he would come in and help Steve just for the fun of it. When he first started coming around I had found him attractive, but at the time, I was still getting over some huge hurdles caused by Bart. Therefore, Greg's advances were denied through no fault of his own. Now I see him as an employee only. Could he have done anything like this?

Who do you talk to when you question your choices? I couldn't go to Steve for fear he would say something to Greg. I looked out my wall and saw Bonnie helping a customer. She knew my employees better than I did. They seemed to open up to her on a more personal level because she wasn't their boss. One past employee had been caught stealing and Bonnie let me know as soon as she found out. I let him go without pressing charges when I found out he was stealing to get money for drugs. I paid for a few months of rehab for him, he sent me a letter thanking me and last I heard he had moved out west to be with family.

I try so hard to do right by employees. I have only straight out fired one person. I hated confrontation, but from my grandfather's mentoring I learned that well-cared for employees gives very little reason for confrontation or high turnaround.

I realized I was staring at Bonnie who was looking at me. She came to my door and walked in. “You ok, Mae?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. I finally stood up and headed toward the garage. I stopped before I entered and watched my employees working. Greg and Steve were working together, two of my other guys were working together and the fifth was cleaning tools. Fridays were tool-cleaning day.

I watched Greg for a while. I hated being suspicious of him. If I confronted him, and he was guilty, he'd probably flee or
something dramatic. If he was innocent he'd probably hold a grudge against me for insinuating that he could do such a thing.

After some more contemplating and a bit of planning, I went back to the car I had been working on previously.

I tried to make my entrance go unnoticed but I failed. “There's our shop star,” said Greg as he came over to me while wiping his hands on a rag. “Where you been?”

“Lunch and a brief meeting,” I said as I continued to work.

“Where'd you go, Akron?” he leaned on my car.

“No, just to Meldrum's.”

“Hmm.” He nodded his head but stayed where he was, looking blankly at the wall of tools behind me. “So, you and Elsu, you're a ‘thing' now?”

“I umm, don't really want to discuss that right now.”
Elsu, what am I supposed to say to him? He'll be living a floor above me, how will I avoid him?

“Are you two exclusive? I mean, it's only been a week since you met.” He ran a hand across the trim of the car. “For instance, if I were to ask you out, would you go to dinner with me?”

I had become so lost in my own thoughts that I nearly missed his question. Let alone its inappropriateness. “I don't date my employees, Greg.” I turned back to the car and started removing a door.

“But if I quit, you'd consider it?”

His question caught me so off guard. So much that I banged my head on the top of the door jamb. “What kind of question is that?” I rubbed my head.
Great! Now I had two sore spots.

“Just asking. I'm not quitting.” He smiled and walked back to help Steve with their car.

“What the hell?”
I whispered to myself as I went back to work.

I continued to work until seven. I went out to the yard and noticed we had a few new cars. With winter in the air, it was time to park Little José in the back building and pick out a piece of shit that was still drivable and hope it would make it through the winter. A blue 98 Camry caught my eye. I looked inside and saw it had been tagged by Steve as we always did. The interior seemed clean, there was a little damage to the body, but nothing too bad. The key was probably in the shop, and I was too tired to
go find it. I hoped I'd get to look at the car before anyone started hacking away at it on Monday.

I went to my truck and debated what to do next. My phone rang and I looked to see Elsu's handsome face. I had to avoid him. Maybe if I just didn't answer his calls he'd get tired of me and quit calling.

I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the apartment then changed my mind halfway there. I went to Max's house. Once Gina had calmed the dogs down, I was let into their home.

Their house was so neat and perfect. It always felt like something you'd find in the pages of a magazine. I got hugs from Mitchell and gave Brandon a kiss on the cheek before sitting in the dining room with Gina and Max.

“This is a surprise,” said Max.

“Yeah, I didn't know what else to do, so I thought I'd come here.” I pulled the pictures out that Carl had brought to me and handed them to Max, explaining each one to him and his wife.

“Hmm,” said Max. “Do you think they did it?”

I shrugged. “Deep down? No. But then again, my deep down thoughts don't usually yield the best results.”

“I don't know Aaron at all, but I know Greg a little,” said Max. “I wouldn't imagine him doing this.”

“But what if he did?”

“Then you fire him, and walk away from it.”

“And I look like I had something to do with it because I went on the date with Casper and I've got the sculpture from Aaron in the front of my property.”

“Hmmm,” said Max.

“I have something else to tell you, Max.”

“Ok.”

“There's a reason Carl is doing all this.”

“Which is?”

“Well…”

“Aunt Mae!” I was interrupted by Mitchell. “Can you come play cars with me?”

I smiled at him then looked at my brother and sister-in-law. “Mitchy honey,” said Gina. “Aunt Mae's kind of busy right now.”