Chương 6
I added the toothbrush.
Marcus Hill arrived at headquarters at seven fifty-eight carrying a laptop bag and wearing a wool coat over sweatpants.
He stared at me in the lobby.
“You owe my wife a holiday.”
“I’ll send flowers.”
“She hates flowers.”
“Wine?”
“She doesn’t drink.”
“What does she like?”
“You not calling me on Christmas.”
Rebecca arrived three minutes later with a cardboard tray of coffees.
“Good morning.”
“No,” Marcus said.
She handed him a cup.
“It can become one.”
He took it.
Sophie sat in the conference room with her laptop, headphones, and the donuts.
Marcus looked at her, then at me.
“She staying?”
“In the building.”
“Not in the meeting.”
“I know.”
Sophie raised one hand without looking up.
“I also know.”
We moved into my office.
Marcus opened his laptop.
“Rebecca gave me the cheerful version at midnight.”
“There was a cheerful version?”
“No.”
He turned the screen toward me.
“I’ve been reviewing the Collins employment group for months.”
I looked at Rebecca.
She lifted her coffee.
“He asked for permission to conduct a nepotism risk review in October.”
“You knew?”
“You approved it.”
“I approved a company-wide review.”
“Exactly.”
Marcus scrolled.
“The problem isn’t that these people are related.”
“What is it?”
“The problem is that your company stopped treating them like employees.”
He clicked open a spreadsheet.
Names filled the left column.
Some were marked green.
Some yellow.
Eleven were red.
“What does red mean?”
“Documented grounds for immediate action.”
“Termination?”
“In most cases.”
Rebecca pulled a legal pad closer.
“Subject to individual review.”
Marcus nodded.
“Yellow means significant performance or structural issues requiring process.”
“And green?”
“They’re doing their jobs.”
I stared at the green names.
There were more than I expected.
“Some are good employees?”
Marcus gave me a look.
“They’re people, Daniel.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
He leaned back.
“You’re thinking of them as a family unit because that’s how they got here.”
I said nothing.
“That would be the same mistake you made hiring them.”
Rebecca watched me over the rim of her coffee.
It was difficult to be self-righteous around people whose job was remembering your mistakes.
“How many green?”
“Twenty-two.”
I looked again.
“Almost half.”
“Correct.”
“And red?”
“Eleven.”
“Yellow?”
“Fourteen.”
I rubbed my jaw.
“Martin?”
Marcus clicked his name.
Yellow.
I stared at it.
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“You said the warehouse incident—”
“Was mishandled by management.”
“Meaning me.”
“Meaning you.”
Rebecca added, “We cannot manufacture documentation retroactively.”
“What about expense reports?”
“Questionable.”
“Vendor conflicts?”
“Potentially serious.”
“Potentially.”
Marcus shut the laptop halfway.
“If you want to fire Martin because he humiliated your daughter, say so now.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
“I want to fire him because he’s bad for my company.”
“Then prove it like you would for anybody else.”
I looked at him.
“That’s why you’re here.”
“No.”
His voice stayed calm.
“That’s why you’re here.”
The words irritated me because they were true.
For years, I had delegated every uncomfortable boundary involving Claire’s relatives.
Now I wanted Marcus and Rebecca to hand me a clean stack of reasons so I could feel righteous signing at the bottom.
I stood and walked toward the window.
Snowplows were clearing the road outside.
A city bus stopped at the corner even though it was Christmas morning.
Two people got off carrying grocery bags.
Life had started again.
“What do the eleven red cases involve?”
Marcus reopened the laptop.
“Three attendance falsifications.”
He clicked.
“Two misuse of company vehicles.”
Another click.
“One repeated safety violation after final warning.”
“Who?”
“Brandon Collins.”
Claire’s cousin.
I knew Brandon.
He had once fallen asleep during a quarterly safety presentation.
Marcus continued.
“Two cases of expense fraud.”
“Fraud?”
“Small amounts, but repeated.”
“Who?”
“Eric is one.”
I turned.
“Eric?”
Rebecca slid a file toward me.
“Fuel reimbursement.”
I opened it.
Eric had claimed mileage on days his company vehicle’s GPS showed it sitting at his house.
Then I saw the amounts.
A few hundred dollars here.
A few hundred there.
Not enough to alter the company’s finances.
Enough to alter how I saw him.
“How long?”
“Seven months.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
Marcus gave me a tired look.
“You were.”
I searched my memory.
Then it came back.
A finance manager had mentioned irregularities in July.
I had told her to verify everything before embarrassing anyone.
She had sent a follow-up email.
I had never answered.
My stomach tightened.
“What else?”
“One harassment case.”
I looked up.
“Who?”
Marcus hesitated.
That bothered me more than the answer.
“Nathan.”
Claire’s younger brother.
“What kind?”
“Repeated comments toward a dispatcher in Cincinnati.”
“Sexual?”
“Yes.”
“Documented?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he still employed?”
Marcus closed his eyes for a moment.
“Because the complaint came to HR six weeks ago.”
“And?”
“And the investigator was told that anything involving a Collins employee needed executive review.”
“By who?”
“By my predecessor.”
“Why?”
Marcus looked directly at me.
“Because that was the culture you created.”
I felt heat rise into my face.
“I never ordered that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Rebecca tapped her pen against the legal pad.
“Daniel, this is the part you need to understand before we move forward.”
I looked at her.
“You’re not cleaning up their corruption.”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re cleaning up yours.”
That stung.
Marcus did not soften it.
“You let your marriage become an unofficial reporting structure.”
I sat down slowly.
In the conference room, Sophie laughed at something through her headphones.
The sound came faintly through the glass.
“How bad is Nathan’s case?”
Marcus turned the laptop toward me.
The complainant was named Jenna Morales.
Twenty-eight.
Dispatcher.
Four years with the company.
There were screenshots.
Statements.
A supervisor’s notes.
Nathan had sent comments about her appearance through the internal messaging system.
When she stopped responding, he began scheduling himself near her workstation.
One message read, You’d be nicer if you stopped pretending you don’t like the attention.
I stopped reading.
“Terminate him.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Not yet.”
May you like
“Why?”
“Because we finish the review first.”
