I noticed Karen’s car before I even made it through the front doors at work. That probably doesn’t sound important, and under normal circumstances it wouldn’t be, except Karen’s car wasn’t parked where she normally parks it. It was sitting several rows over, backed into a space near the far end of the lot like someone who either wanted a quick getaway or didn’t want anyone noticing they were there. I stopped walking. There are moments in life when your instincts tell you something is wrong, and apparently mine had decided that a coworker choosing a different parking space qualified as one of them.
I stood there for a few seconds staring at the car. Same make. Same color. Same little thing hanging from the rearview mirror. Definitely Karen’s. The sensible explanation was that somebody had taken her usual spot. Unfortunately, my brain had already rejected the sensible explanation due to insufficient intrigue. Why would Karen park all the way over there? More importantly, why would she back in? Karen normally pulled straight into parking spaces like a person with nothing to hide. Backing in suggested preparation. Planning. Possibly escape.
By the time I reached my desk, I’d developed three theories, two of which involved Dave. This was mostly because Dave was already at work, sitting at his computer with a cup of coffee and behaving exactly like someone who knew why Karen had parked differently. Admittedly, that behavior consisted primarily of typing. Still, he was typing with suspicious confidence. I casually asked whether Karen was in yet. Dave glanced toward her desk and said, “Yeah, I think she got here early.” Then he went back to his computer.
Early.
There it was.
I sat down and pretended to check my email while considering the implications. Karen had arrived early, parked in an unusual location, and Dave knew about it. Maybe not everything about it, but enough to answer without hesitation. I looked toward Karen’s desk. She wasn’t there. Her bag was sitting beside her chair, though, which meant she was somewhere in the building. A normal person might conclude that she had gone to get coffee, use the restroom, or talk to somebody. I concluded that she had abandoned her command post temporarily.
My phone buzzed. It was Pandora asking whether I’d remembered to pick up cat food after work. Apparently Mr Whiskers had spent the morning sitting beside his nearly empty food container staring at her like she had personally caused a nationwide kibble shortage. I told her I remembered. Then I stared at the message for a moment because something about Mr Whiskers suddenly seemed relevant.
Last night, Mr Whiskers had been sitting in the window.
The parking lot was visible from our apartment.
Karen’s car had obviously traveled through a parking lot this morning.
I stopped myself there because even by my standards that connection needed work.
Karen appeared a few minutes later carrying coffee and a folder. She smiled when she saw me. “Morning.”
“Morning,” I said, watching carefully.
She walked to her desk.
Nothing else happened.
Which was suspicious.
People hiding things frequently try to appear normal, and Karen was currently putting on an absolutely masterful performance. She set down her coffee, opened the folder, logged into her computer, and started working. Not one nervous glance toward the parking lot. Not one whispered phone call. Not even an unnecessary adjustment of the blinds.
I waited about ten minutes before asking the obvious question.
“You parked somewhere different today.”
Karen looked at me.
Dave looked at me.
I immediately realized I had somehow made this sound much stranger than it had sounded inside my head.
“Did I?” Karen asked.
“You’re over by the far row.”
She shrugged. “Someone was in my usual spot.”
That was exactly the kind of explanation I had predicted she would use.
I nodded slowly. “And you backed in.”
Dave stopped typing.
Karen stared at me for another second. “Yes, Hal. I backed into a parking space.”
There was a silence.
Dave took a drink of coffee.
I could practically hear him trying not to become involved.
I turned back toward my monitor, but the explanation bothered me. Someone had taken Karen’s normal space. Fine. But who? And why today? Parking spaces weren’t assigned, technically, but people developed habits. Karen parked in roughly the same place every morning. Everybody knew it. Well, apparently I knew it, which was concerning enough on its own.
I glanced at Dave.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring at me.”
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s what worries me.”
There was something in his tone. Not fear exactly. More like the exhausted resignation of a man who had watched me turn ordinary workplace events into criminal investigations before. I decided not to press him. If Dave was involved, applying pressure this early would only make him more careful.
Around lunchtime I walked past the window overlooking the parking lot and checked Karen’s car again. Still there. Nothing unusual around it. No mysterious packages. No strangers. No clandestine handoffs. Just a perfectly ordinary car sitting in a perfectly ordinary parking space.
That should have reassured me.
Instead, it made the whole thing worse.
If something actually was going on, whoever was behind it was extremely good.
I started thinking about Karen’s behavior over the past few days. She’d been arriving a little earlier. She and Dave had spoken quietly near his desk yesterday. She’d carried a folder into a meeting room that morning. Individually, these things meant nothing. Together, they also meant nothing, but they meant nothing in a pattern, and patterns are where things get dangerous.
Then Pandora texted me a picture of Mr Whiskers sitting beside his food bowl.
He looked furious.
I zoomed in.
There was absolutely no reason to zoom in.
For one ridiculous second I wondered whether Mr Whiskers had seen something from the apartment window that morning. Then I remembered that our cat had no idea where Karen worked, what she drove, or why any of this mattered. He wanted food. That was the entire scope of his investigation.
I put my phone down.
Maybe I was getting carried away.
Then I saw Karen and Dave talking again.
They were standing near the printer, and Karen handed Dave a piece of paper. Dave looked at it, nodded, and handed it back. Karen said something. Dave laughed.
I knew it.
I didn’t know what I knew, exactly, but I knew it.
I waited until Karen walked away before approaching Dave.
“What did she give you?”
Dave looked at me. “Who?”
“Karen.”
“A printout.”
“Of what?”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Hal, are you investigating Karen?”
“No.”
“You asked me what time she arrived.”
“Conversation.”
“You asked her why she backed into a parking space.”
“Observation.”
“And now you want to know what she printed.”
“Professional curiosity.”
Dave leaned back in his chair. “It was a spreadsheet.”
Of course it was a spreadsheet. That was almost too perfect. Spreadsheets contained data. Data contained information. Information could contain practically anything.
“What kind of spreadsheet?”
Dave narrowed his eyes. “I’m not telling you now.”
That changed everything.
By midafternoon I had constructed an increasingly elaborate theory involving Karen’s early arrival, the displaced parking space, Dave, the mysterious spreadsheet, and the possibility that someone in the office was coordinating something nobody wanted me to know about. I still hadn’t figured out what the conspiracy was actually supposed to accomplish, but I considered that a minor detail. Motive could come later.
Then Karen stopped at my desk.
“You know why I backed into the space?”
I looked up.
She pointed toward the parking lot.
“There was a delivery truck behind me when I pulled in. I had to move around it, and backing into that space was easier.”
I said nothing.
“And the spreadsheet Dave saw was the project tracker.”
I continued saying nothing.
“And I came in early because I have an appointment this afternoon.”
She folded her arms.
“Anything else you’d like to investigate?”
I considered my options.
“No.”
Karen nodded. “Good.”
She walked away.
Dave was laughing before she even reached her desk.
That evening, I told Pandora the whole story while she stood in the kitchen putting groceries away. She listened patiently through the unusual parking space, the early arrival, the conversation with Dave, the spreadsheet, and my brief consideration of Mr Whiskers as a potential witness.
When I finished, Pandora stared at me.
“So Karen parked somewhere else.”
“Yes.”
“Because there was a delivery truck.”
“Apparently.”
“And Dave looked at a spreadsheet.”
“Yes.”
“Because you work together.”
“That is one interpretation.”
Pandora slowly closed the refrigerator.
Mr Whiskers was sitting on the kitchen floor between us, looking up at me.
Pandora glanced down at him.
“Don’t encourage him.”
Mr Whiskers blinked.
I pointed at him. “See? He knows something.”
Pandora picked up the bag of cat food and walked away.
I watched Mr Whiskers follow her.
And that’s when it hit me.
Karen’s car probably wasn’t hiding anything.
But Mr Whiskers?
I’m keeping an eye on him.