Beloved Evangeline (15 page)

When I went to the window, however, I realized the question was moot. Though the sun hadn’t yet risen, and none of the kids’ faces were clearly visible, I could instantly tell this was a larger group than usual. I’d initially assumed it was the usual elementary school crowd, forgetting that I was typically just getting into the shower at this time. Relief washed over me... these were middle school kids; therefore, James and Billy were not among them. Mr. Vaughn was terrorizing a different group of boys... and girls. These older kids should be fine. They won’t need my help.

I cracked the window to listen, just in case. “I said, whoa there, sport. Where do’ya think you’re going?” Mr. Vaughn yelled.

“
Uh, we’re just walking to school, sir,” replied one of two 12- or 13-year-old-looking boys.

“
And does the path to school lead you
across my grass
? Well, does it, kid? Does the school require you to stomp all over my well-manicured lawn? What sort of a grade would you get for that, exactly?” He turned, looked at the grass, and whirled back around, raising one hand theatrically, “I’d give you an A+, if your assignment was killing my grass, that is. Now, I realize that kids like you, who’ve never had to work for a thing in your video game-playing little lives, wouldn’t know the first thing about the hard work that goes into keeping a lawn looking this good, so ... how about common courtesy then? Would common courtesy keep you off another man’s lawn? No, is that what you said?” Mr. Vaughn continued, holding his hand to ear as if he were straining to hear, “I didn’t quite catch that...”

There was really no sense fighting it. I sighed deeply and gulped down the rest of my tea.

Again.

Guess I’m going in to work early today, after all, but I wasn’t yet dressed. I dashed to my room, and the article of clothing that immediately caught my eye was my favorite pair of dark wash trouser jeans. Denim of any kind is frowned upon in corporate culture, but seeing as I was already becoming something of a renegade—and had likely already been fired—adding another violation to the list didn’t seem like such a big deal. I smiled at the thought and grabbed the jeans, a fitted gray cashmere cardigan twin set (which I bought ages ago but never wear because it’s too nice and I’m convinced I’ll ruin it somehow), and a rugged brown pair of funky contrast-stitched high-heeled Mary Janes. When I was finished dressing, I thought I looked quite nice, denim or no. Maybe no one would even notice. Or maybe I was out of my mind.

After sneaking out my front door, dashing to my car, and making some necessary adjustments, I backed slowly out of the driveway, carefully avoiding eye contact with Mr. Vaughn but feeling quite sure he had his eyes on me.
No backing out now
...

When I was directly in front of old Bruce, I depressed the brake. He fixed his gaze upon me, his black eyes narrowing in challenge.

It is
so
on
, I thought defiantly.

I rolled my window down and stared back. My finger poised in front of the stereo power button with deliberation, my eyes flashing.

Mr. Vaughn cocked an eyebrow in apparent confusion. The moment was perfect.

I let him puzzle for several long moments. The suspense was fantastic. As we continued to stare at one another, I pressed the power button forcefully, and the audacity of my favorite
Rage Against the Machine
song commenced at full volume.

Mr. Vaughn’s wide-eyed attention on me was so complete that he completely forgot the kids. I was the one he really wanted to fuss at, right?

The kids only had the chance to gape for a moment. With the slightest of nods, and without even a sideways glance in their direction, they scattered immediately. Mr. Vaughn, in his focus, didn’t even notice. We were in the throes of a full throttle, hairy-eyed stare-down.

It seemed he had finally pushed me too far, and I had snapped. Either that or... the recent events in my life had had a more profound effect on me than I’d imagined. I didn’t feel like thinking about it too hard at the moment. Common sense could only weigh me down at this point.

We may have remained deadlocked all day were it not for some kind of a strange delivery truck arriving at Mr. Vaughn’s house. The delivery driver got out of his truck, clipboard in hand, and slowly walked up to Bruce. The poor man clearly did not know what to make of us, a grown woman and a crusty oldish man engaged in modern day battle of good vs. evil, using only rock music and the wasting of people’s precious time and patience.

“
Bruce Vaughn?” the driver called out. “I have a delivery here...”

At last, Bruce’s concentration was broken by force, as the driver put his clipboard in front of his face.

“
I need a signature for this?” The driver continued uncertainly.

I imagine Bruce turned his attention to the delivery matter, but my view was obstructed. I took full advantage of the distraction, speeding away tactfully, graciously refusing to acknowledge the victory, and without even burning any rubber.

No one was in the office when I made my arrival, which actually felt like kind of a letdown. When my computer blinked to life, the time on its clock read 6:45. I went through my email first, thinking that was as good a place as any to start. Incredulously, after only one week away from the office, I had over 400 unread email messages. Most of them were completely pointless, and I deleted them immediately. The ones that caught my attention were the ones from Mr. Oxley. I pulled up those next, cringing in horror at what they were going to say. I went through them all quickly and found... nothing. None of them were actually addressed to me. They were just general emails about various work procedures or our monthly group luncheon or time he was taking off for the upcoming holidays. Absolutely none of the emails were addressed to me. Mr. Oxley and I typically exchange email messages on a weekly basis so I found the fact that he’d not sent anything to me alarmingly unusual. Then again I don’t know why I was so surprised. Of course I knew there were going to be repercussions for my irresponsible behavior, whatever the motivation behind it.

As none of the remaining emails merited immediate attention, I turned my focus toward my inbox. Empty. No papers of any kind. I would’ve probably noticed that straightaway if I hadn’t been so absorbed with checking my email messages. The thought occurred to me that my desk had probably been emptied of its contents by now, which caused me to immediately set about opening drawers. After a cursory search, my belongings still appeared to be intact, but... maybe they’d just been overlooked. I pondered that thought for a moment and finally decided I’d just ask Gregorio personally when he came in. In the meantime, I finished checking the remainder of my email inbox.

People began arriving to the office after 7. Lyle popped his head into my office shortly thereafter. “Hey! You’re not dead!” He exclaimed excitedly.

“
No, Lyle,” I said slowly, “I’m
not
.”

“
I thought for sure you’d become the latest victim of Steve’s killing spree.”

“
Good morning, Nice to see you, too. What’s that? Oh, yes, I’m having a
smashingly
good day, so far.” I replied with sarcasm.

He rolled his eyes. “You know I don’t do small talk, Evangeline,” he snapped.

I smiled and nodded knowingly. I loved giving Lyle a good ribbing, but only because I didn’t like small talk, either. Oh, I don’t flat out refuse as Lyle does, but there are times when I certainly wish I could. A small measure of warmth seemed to be growing inside me. It felt good to be around friends again.

“
So enlighten me... why do you keep saying it’s Steve?” I finally queried.

“
By using a system of graphs, I’ve been able to deduce that the killer is someone who works in this office,” Lyle announced sincerely. He retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and pulled a folded piece of paper from it. “These graphs represent the normal cycles of our work production. The timing of the murders all coincide with the conclusion of our work cycles.” He pointed to a series of graphs on the paper. “I like to keep a track of our work trends... it helps me brainstorm ideas for the future and predict patterns in our customer behavior. I like to stay one step ahead of the customers, that way I can offer them what they want before they even know what . Each of the spikes represent when were at the busiest, which usually coincides with somewhere between the 11
^th
and 15
^th
of the month for us. At the down slope of the work curve for the last eight cycles, a different woman has died mysteriously. See, right here.”

There was a hand drawn “x” and a date scrawled at the bottom of each of those curves for the last eight cycles. I pulled a puzzled expression. I wasn’t as confident in these statistics as Lyle, but I had to admit, it hardly seemed coincidental.

“
What about our customers—or similar companies--wouldn’t their work cycle graphs look the same?”

“
No, I thought of that, too. Our customers have basically a reverse of our graphs. That one is back at my desk. Come by later, and I’ll show you. They start ramping up only when they get the specs and products from us. Their graph picks up where ours leaves off. And I ran the numbers to the best of my ability for our two strongest competitors. They don’t process orders as quickly or as efficiently as we do, so the arcs on their graphs are longer by a good three or four days. Only the schedule of our work cycle fits the pattern exactly.”

I stared at the cyclical patterns on the piece of paper before me.
Was it possible
? Someone working here could actually be a murderer?

“
Why Steve?” I asked. “Couldn’t it be somebody, anybody else working here?”

“
I dunno know. Could be someone else, I guess.” Lyle responded with a shrug. “Just don’t like him.”

“
How
scientific
.” It was my turn to roll my eyes.

“
So now you’re defending him because of....” he paused, apparently fumbling for the right word, “the party?”

I nodded thoughtfully to myself. I hadn’t quite worked out how I was going to address The Steve Ordeal, but I had at least decided that I wasn’t going to explain myself to anyone.

“
I’m not defending anybody. I just thought you must have some evidence, that’s all.”

“
Touchy
. I didn’t mean anything, Evangeline. I just thought you must like Steve after...”

“
I
don’t
,” I interrupted flatly.

Lyle’s head went back in surprise, his eyes widening. I’d never snapped at him before.

“
I’m sorry, Lyle. I just
really
don’t want to talk about it. Friends?”

“
Friends—always.” Lyle nodded, smiling. “I’ve got a meeting at 7:30, but stop by my office later and I’ll show you the rest of my graphs.” Lyle turned quickly and disappeared down the hallway.

“
See ya,” I called after him belatedly, having been drawn back into the pattern before me. Was it also possible that everything in life could be deduced to a pattern as easily readable as this? I thought about my own behavior, which occurred to me would look like the reverse of these slopes. My moods tended to dip way down and then after a time level off. Would a graph show a predictable pattern to it? Just the thought of it was dispiriting. I didn’t want to believe all behavior, particularly my own, fit into any neat little pattern that someone could graph and study.

Mr. Oxley was usually in by 7:30, so I set off to grab a cup of tea to help me man up before going to see him. I walked into Mr. Oxley’s office, tea cup in hand. His back was turned to the doorway as he busied himself with his computer.

“
Mr. Oxley?” I called, anxious now to get this over with.

“
What? Oh, Evangeline, you startled me.” He rustled some of his papers and quickly clicked off the screen on his computer.

He seemed uncharacteristically preoccupied, and I wondered if this really was the opportune moment to bring up my own problems.

“
How are you feeling? On the mend, I see.” He eyed me appraisingly.

Despite whatever was going on, I had obviously
not
been fired. He didn’t even seem to notice I was wearing jeans. I felt a twinge of shame and remorse for my childish rebellion.