A Simple Errand

Chapter 3:

Gerald Hoffman spent three days in St. Mary's Hospital with a fractured right hip, two cracked ribs, and a bruised elbow that turned the color of an overripe plum.

He told everyone who asked — the nurses, the doctor, the police officer who came on Wednesday morning — exactly what happened. Two employees at Circuit Depot on Bellmore Avenue pushed him down the staircase and took his laptop and phone.

The police officer, a young man named Reeves who looked like he'd graduated from the academy about fifteen minutes ago, wrote everything down in a small notebook with a pen that kept running out of ink. He asked Gerald if he'd had anything to drink before the incident. He asked if Gerald had any previous balance issues. He asked if there was anyone who could confirm what happened.

"There were customers in the store," Gerald said. "And there was a girl. A young woman. She worked there. She was behind a shelf, and she was recording with her phone."

Officer Reeves wrote that down. "Did you get her name?"

"I was lying on a staircase with broken bones. No, I didn't get her name."

"We'll follow up with the store."

Gerald knew what that meant. It meant they would call Circuit Depot, ask to speak with a manager, and the manager would say whatever the manager was going to say, and that would be the end of it. Gerald had lived fifty-eight years in this country. He knew how things worked when you were a heavyset retired pipefitter with no witnesses and no video and your word against a corporation's.

But Gerald had something the police officer didn't know about.

He had Linda.

Linda arrived at the hospital forty minutes after he called her, still wearing her Channel 9 lanyard, her face a mixture of fury and terror that made her look so much like Diane that Gerald had to look away for a moment.

"Tell me everything," she said, pulling a chair to his bedside. "Every detail. Start from the parking lot."

So he told her. Everything. The way Marcus looked at him. The way Derek smirked. The way they followed him to the staircase. The hands on his back. The fall. Waking up on the steps with his cheek pressed against metal. Marcus leaning over him, saying "Looks like you tripped." Derek carrying his laptop and phone to the service counter.

And the girl behind the shelf.

"She was recording," Gerald said. "I saw the phone."

Linda's eyes changed. Gerald had seen that look before — when she was fifteen and a teacher accused her of cheating on a history test she'd actually studied three weeks for. It was the look that said: someone is going to answer for this, and I'm going to make sure of it.

"I posted on Facebook," she said. "Forty-seven shares so far."

"Facebook," Gerald said.

"Don't start. It works. Someone called me already — a woman who was in the store. She didn't see the push, but she heard the fall and saw the two employees picking up your things."

"That's something."

"It's not enough." Linda leaned forward. "I need that video. The girl who was recording — I need to find her."

"How?"

"I'll figure it out."

On Thursday, the day after Gerald filed his police report, Circuit Depot released a statement.

Linda read it to him from her phone while he ate hospital Jell-O that tasted like sweetened plastic.

"'Circuit Depot takes customer safety very seriously,'" Linda read. "'We are aware of an incident involving a customer who fell on our in-store staircase on Tuesday afternoon. Our team members responded immediately and offered assistance. We are cooperating with local authorities and have reviewed our security footage, which shows the customer losing his balance on the stairs. No employee misconduct was observed. We wish the customer a full recovery.'"

Gerald set down his spoon. "No employee misconduct was observed."

"That's what they said."

"They reviewed the security footage."

"That's what they said."

Gerald stared at the ceiling. "Then they erased it. Or edited it. Or the cameras don't cover the top of the staircase. One of those."

Linda nodded. "I already thought of that. I'm going to request the footage through the police report. If they've altered it, that's destruction of evidence."

"And if they just say the cameras don't cover that angle?"

"Then we need the girl's video."

Gerald closed his eyes. His hip was throbbing despite the medication. His ribs ached every time he took a deep breath.

"Linda."

"Yeah?"

"My laptop. The one they took."

"I know, Dad. I'll get you a new one for Olivia—"

"No. Listen to me." Gerald opened his eyes. "Before I went to Circuit Depot, I was at the library. Using their computer. I found something."

Linda waited.

"You know how your uncle Frank worked at Circuit Depot's warehouse before he retired? He told me something last month at the barbecue. He said Marcus — the one who pushed me — has been running a return scam for over a year. Customers bring back items, Marcus processes the return in the system, gives the customer their refund, but then he re-enters the item as 'damaged — no resale value' and takes it home. Laptops, phones, headphones. Thousands of dollars."

Linda's mouth opened slightly.

"Frank didn't want to get involved. He's sixty-three, he's got his pension, he doesn't want trouble. But he gave me enough details that I did some digging on the public business records database at the library. And I found discrepancies. I printed them out, and I saved them on a flash drive, and I put the flash drive—"

"In the laptop bag," Linda said.

"In the laptop bag."

They looked at each other.

"The laptop bag that Marcus took," Linda said.

"The laptop bag that Marcus took."

Linda stood up. She paced to the window and back. Then to the window and back again. Then she pulled out her phone and called someone — Gerald couldn't tell who — and spoke rapidly for two minutes, hung up, and turned back to him.

"Channel 9 wants the story," she said. "I told my executive producer. He's interested, but he wants more than a family member's account. He wants proof."

"The girl's video is proof."

"If it still exists."

"It exists," Gerald said. "I looked at that girl's face, Linda. She was scared, but she wasn't confused. She knew exactly what she was doing."

"You don't know that."

"I've been reading people for thirty-one years in the pipe trades. The guys who were going to screw you over had a certain look. And the guys who were going to do the right thing, even when it was hard — they had a different look. That girl had the second look."

Linda sat back down. She took her father's hand, careful to avoid the IV line.

"Dad, I need you to know something. If I push this story — really push it — it's going to get messy. The store will fight back. They'll say you fell. They'll dig into our lives looking for anything that makes you look unreliable. They'll pressure anyone who talks to us. Are you okay with that?"

Gerald looked at his daughter. His only child. The girl Diane raised to be tougher than either of them.

"Your mother used to say something," Gerald said. "She said, 'The truth doesn't need you to be brave. It just needs you to not be a coward.'"

Linda's eyes filled. She blinked hard and squeezed his hand.

"Okay then," she said. "We fight."

That same Thursday evening, Sophie Morales was sitting in the parking lot behind Circuit Depot, in her coworker Janet's car, because Janet was the only person at work who gave her rides home when the buses ran late.

Janet was fifty-six, a cashier who'd worked at Circuit Depot for nine years, wore reading glasses on a beaded chain, and called everyone "hon."

"You've been quiet all week, hon," Janet said, pulling out of the lot.

"Just tired."

"Mm-hm." Janet drove in silence for a block. Then: "You know what happened with that man on the stairs?"

Sophie's hands tightened in her lap. "What about it?"

"His daughter's been calling the store. Three times today. Ray told us not to talk to anyone about it. Said it's a 'legal matter under review.'"

"Okay."

"He said if anyone from the press calls, we transfer them to corporate. And if anyone asks us directly, we say we didn't see anything."

"Did you see anything?" Sophie asked, keeping her voice flat.

Janet stopped at a red light and looked at Sophie over her reading glasses.

"I was in the back doing inventory. But I heard it, Sophie. I heard that man fall. And I heard Marcus and Derek come back behind the counter afterward, and Marcus was laughing. Laughing. Like it was funny."

The light turned green. Janet drove.

"Sophie."

"Yeah?"

"I don't know what you saw, and I'm not going to ask. But whatever it was — don't let that boy Marcus scare you into forgetting it."

Sophie looked out the window. They were passing the church with the digital sign. Tonight it read: THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE.

"Janet?"

"Yeah, hon?"

"If someone had a video. Of what happened. What would you tell them to do?"

Janet was quiet for a long time. Three blocks. Four blocks.

"I'd tell them to make sure that video was somewhere safe," Janet said. "Somewhere nobody at that store could touch it. And then I'd tell them to find someone they trusted — really trusted — and show it to them."

Sophie nodded.

"And I'd tell them to hurry," Janet added. "Because men like Marcus don't wait around for justice to find them. They get ahead of it."

Janet dropped her off at her apartment building. Sophie thanked her, went inside, checked on Mateo — asleep, mouth open, one arm around his stuffed dinosaur — and sat on the couch.

She pulled up Linda Hoffman's number on her phone.

Her thumb hovered over the call button.

She thought about Marcus's text. We're all good, right? Team player.

She thought about the eviction notice on her door.

She thought about Mateo's smile when she came home from work.

She thought about the man on the staircase, reaching for his laptop with broken fingers, and Marcus pulling it away.

Sophie pressed call.

It rang three times.

"Hello?" Linda's voice. Alert. Awake. Waiting.

Sophie opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"My name is Sophie," she said. "I work at Circuit Depot. And I have a video you need to see."