Chương 7
“What do you think I should do?” she asked.
“I think you should decide whether you want her number.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
She recognized her own sentence from the truck and almost resented him for using it correctly.
“Send it,” she said.
Marisol came to Leah’s apartment that evening carrying a three-ring binder and a foil pan of enchiladas. She was thirty-four, wore hospital scrubs, and apologized for the food before setting it down.
“My mother thinks nobody should discuss trouble without eating,” she said. “She also thinks enchiladas are appropriate for every trouble.”
Marcus stood near the window. Leah had told him he could come only if he remained quiet.
Marisol opened the binder.
Her mother, Elena Vega, had been stopped at the same Northway exit on November 18. Todd claimed the security alarm indicated concealed cosmetics. The store’s incident report listed one plum-colored lipstick valued at $8.49. Elena signed a trespass notice written only in English, a language she could read slowly but not confidently. Todd had marked a box stating that an interpreter was declined.
“She never declined,” Marisol said. “He told me she said she understood.”
“Did she?” Leah asked.
“She understood he was threatening to call police.”
The binder contained copies of receipts, emails, a photograph of the lipstick, and a letter from Northway’s corporate office. The company had concluded that store staff followed “reasonable merchandise-protection protocols.” No security video was available because Marisol’s request had been received after the system’s thirty-day retention period.
“You requested it on day twenty-seven,” Marcus said.
“They said the request wasn’t processed until day thirty-two.”
Leah touched the plastic sleeve holding the trespass notice. “Did your mother pay them anything?”
“Seventy-five dollars in civil recovery.”
Marcus leaned forward.
Marisol looked at him. “You’re supposed to be quiet.”
He sat back.
“They said it wasn’t an admission,” she continued. “Just a way to resolve the inventory loss. My mother paid because she was scared they’d put her name online.”
Leah gave a small laugh that contained no humor. “That worked out.”
Marisol studied her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You didn’t post it.”
“My cousin sent me the video. My mother saw Todd’s face and started shaking. She thought he would come to our house because she spoke about him.”
“Did anyone else contact you?”
“After I commented under the video, two people messaged me.”
Marcus said, “Two?”
Marisol gave him a look.
He closed his mouth.
One message came from a sixteen-year-old boy Todd had accused of stealing earbuds. Another came from a retired teacher who had been detained over a bottle of skin cream found beneath her cart. Both incidents had ended without police reports. Both customers had accepted store bans in exchange for being allowed to leave.
Leah looked at the documents spread across her table. “Why would he do this?”
“Numbers,” Marcus said.
Marisol shook her head. “Money.”
“Control,” Leah said.
All three answers could have been true, and none yet proved anything.
The enchiladas cooled in the pan.
Leah eventually served them on mismatched plates. Marcus ate standing at the counter until she pointed at a chair. Marisol told them her mother refused to shop anywhere with electronic gates now. She drove fifteen minutes farther to a small grocery where the owner kept oranges in wooden crates and wrote prices on cardboard.
“She says the produce is better,” Marisol said. “It isn’t. The tomatoes are terrible.”
Leah asked what Elena wanted.
“An apology.”
“From Northway?”
“From Todd.”
Marcus said, “She won’t get one worth having.”
Marisol looked at him. “Maybe she gets to decide what’s worth having.”
He returned to his enchiladas.
Later, after Marisol left, Leah found Marcus washing the foil pan.
“You don’t have to clean that.”
“It’s soaked.”
“You’re scrubbing it with a paper towel.”
“I’m adapting.”
She leaned against the counter. “You think Todd did it to make his numbers look better.”
“I think a manager under pressure can turn people into statistics fast.”
“Pamela said something about pressure.”
“She said what happened wasn’t created in one minute.”
“You called her.”
Marcus continued scrubbing.
“I told you not to call.”
“I called before you told me not to.”
“You called from my apartment after I left.”
He stopped.
Leah’s voice remained calm, which made the anger beneath it harder to avoid. “I saw the call in your phone when you showed Marisol the message.”
“I wanted the footage preserved.”
“You wanted to do something.”
“Yes.”
“You always do something before you ask.”
“If I waited, they could erase it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know they erased Marisol’s.”
“You didn’t know about Marisol then.”
Marcus placed the pan in the drying rack. “What do you want me to say?”
“That you understand why I’m angry.”
“I understand the words.”
She flinched.
He heard how cold it sounded only after it had left him.
Leah went to the table and closed Marisol’s binder. “Go home.”
“Leah.”
“I asked you here because I thought you could help me listen. You were building a case in your head before she sat down.”
“There is a case.”
“It’s my case.”
He reached for his vest.
She did not look at him. “You don’t get to save me in ways I didn’t ask for.”
Marcus left without answering.
The next morning, Northway Market released a public statement. It described the incident as “a concerning deviation from customer-care standards” and confirmed that one employee had been suspended. The company denied any policy encouraging false theft stops and warned against “online harassment of store associates.”
Todd’s name did not appear.
Leah’s did not either, but her face appeared beneath every article.
A corporate investigator named Alison Shaw called just before nine. Her tone was warm, practiced, and slightly too slow.
“We want to understand your experience in your own words.”
Leah sat at her kitchen table with Marisol’s binder closed beside her. “Is this call recorded?”
May you like
“Only with your permission.”
“Do you want permission?”
