LITMIR.BIZ

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attend a weekend fund-raiser she’d be at. He’d arrested spiteful persons in short sheriff tenure and before that as a sergeant. All could be prime suspects harboring and plotting revenge. Office files could refresh memory with names.

      While spreading the backyard juniper branches, his mind wandered as to how. Seemed simple. A cowardly bastard interlaced meat with readily available hardware store poison. Any large dog would’ve gulped it down, yet a far-ranging search ended with no poison container found.

      At his office desk, a detailed review of jailed individuals produced no solid prospect. In the last two years he’d detained six persons overnight. The most likely candidate remained in prison for robbery. Jonas discounted three men jailed for drunk and disorderly. The last two were domestic assaults. A woman assailant relocated. As to the second arrested, Jonas’s computer search failed to spit out the man’s current address or hint at current whereabouts.

      He didn’t seriously believe Webster’s poisoning ranked as a juvenile prank, although he’d keep ears open to see if town gossip indicated a dare.

      * * *

      Thursday morning at Jove Foods headquarters, VP Stark sorted out unconfirmed circulating rumors about the union executive committee’s special membership meeting. Her impromptu forklift jaunt through fluorescent-lit warehouse foodstuff aisles proved unsuccessful in locating Noel. She nodded in response to rank-and-file worker stares. A brief chat with the foreman she handed the forklift key to still left union-strike-date rumors unconfirmed.

      She’d seen known nonunion employees gathered apart from union adherents. Dino, not scheduled to work, tipped a coffee mug to waiting lips in the break room when she passed by. She assumed, based on supervisor’s piecemeal reports of overheard employee hushed conversations, she’d better accelerate HR strike plan implementation. As she walked tiled headquarter corridors, the downcast office employee eyes presented conduct she interpreted as a harbinger of an impending strike. The office workers, a separate bargaining unit affiliated with warehouse Amalgamated Union Local No. 1, would, coerced or willingly, honor the warehouse employees’ picket line.

      At nine thirty a.m., Melanie joined President Chesterton and five Jove Foods executives assembled in the walnut-paneled first floor conference room to update strike strategy. Melanie kept well versed in industry watcher’s accounts of Chesterton’s activities and reputation. While he lost prior job for being explosive and temperamental, he’d acted attentive and soft-spoken during her initial official job interview. After noting two lustful bosom gazes, she employed intentional hand gestures in front of uplifted chest to accentuate answers and exploit his ravenous eyes.

      Later, she surrendered her all to obtain a vice presidency.

      Melanie spoke highly of him to a visiting representative of the out-of-state investor group owning a majority of Jove Foods stock. With gusto the visitor praised Chesterton’s sales successes, not mentioning concern about Chesterton favoring comely females or micro-managing executives. Melanie ingratiated herself into Chesterton’s good graces by parroting his managerial opinions.

      Today, she leaned forward, head cocked toward her boss, hands clasped on the room’s conference table. “No small group of employees should threaten the welfare of the company. They can all be replaced. What skill exists driving a forklift or picking product off a warehouse rack that can’t be taught to anyone with basic intelligence and minimal physical dexterity.”

      “Melanie,” CFO Vern Stutzel taunted, “are you ready to load a few trucks?”

      “After you.” She glared at Vern and glanced at Chesterton sporting a creeping smile.

      “You know I am. I may be only five foot, four, and weigh more than Twiggy, but I’ve a forklift operator’s license willing to challenge anyone.”

      Melanie scanned the room’s male faces. “Are you first, Vern?”

      Stutzel slumped into armed wood chair. How dare he challenge her? Her glare undiminished. He couldn’t operate an office desk chair lever without assistance. She peeked sideways at the admiring smile adorning Chesterton. A face she’d traced with fingertips in dim storeroom light.

      When childish air of superiority hit the ceiling, she tried to temper challenge realizing she might need Stutzel’s alliance later. “Tell me when you’re ready. I’ll give free lessons. Your nimble calculator fingers should have little trouble guiding a forklift gear shift.”

      Chesterton’s bass voice interrupted her jousting with Stutzel. “Revalidate all your contacts. Begin phase two today.” He gazed at each attendee. “Anything new?” No executive spoke. Chesterton’s two code words announced the meeting’s end. After he flipped bulging day planner closed, he gazed at her. “Melanie, please see me in my office, say eleven?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Chesterton shifted gaze to the chief financial officer. “Vern, good cost analysis on outside vendors. We’ll need all of them delivering to stores if the union strikes.”

      Melanie watched Sales VP Glenn Dingo shrug as their boss and three others left. Why Chesterton hired the wimp surprised her. Never mind. She’d displayed and offered all-important qualifications at Chesterton’s Campbell Motel job interview. She endured his rocking upper position to be able to exploit a male conquest ego and achieve personal goals at and away from work.

      “You didn’t say much, Glenn.” Melanie trusted VP Dingo less than Vern.

      “Not much to say. Union strikes. Sales and profits fall.” Dingo haltingly ambled to the conference room door as he rotated body front from her. “We’ll all be toast.”

      “Get a grip.”

      Dingo departed without a response. Melanie’s thoughts returned to Chesterton. From all outward community appearances, Chesterton and his wife lived happily married with no children that she knew of. Melanie’s mother never enjoyed a happy marriage, bombarding Melanie with habitual, derogatory curses directed toward two specific unnamed men and all men in general. They’re worthless, mother lamented time and time again.

      Melanie wouldn’t complain. In life she capitalized on every opportunity to reach employment’s nirvana, out maneuvering male competitors with hidden glee. The San Francisco investor contact hinted at a Chesterton transfer to a larger sister company if he smashed sales goals or fired if profits evaporated. Dingo’s expressed fear a strike would pummel profits wouldn’t hurt her presidency prospects as proposed replacement hire plans, given three month strike, would boost profits with labor costs cut thirty percent. She gazed at Vern. He’d been slow to grab wooden cane.

      “All kidding aside, Melanie, do you believe the union will actually strike?”

      “I’d be surprised if they didn’t.” Voice exuded prediction confidence. “You’ve read the company’s hardball contract proposals for take-backs. Following strategies to create a nonunion company may bite us.” Conference room ajar-door caution drove voice to a whisper. “Being nonunion, contrary to Jove’s history, seems to be our president’s myopic goal.”

      “You sure?” Vern ran a bent finger across a creased pale cheek.

      “You betcha. He’s spouted every union busting consultant cliché written in contemporary management magazines. He desires a strike to clean out union workers and to justify hiring lower-waged replacement workers readily available in a recession economy.”

      “Between you and me, the upcoming quarterly numbers won’t be rosy ... with or without a strike. To save his own hide he’ll scapegoat and sacrifice one or all of us when all hell breaks loose.”

      “Personally, I’m not worried.” Melanie reached behind her back to tug bra strap lower.

      * * *

      Voices in unison shouted. “Scab. Look at us, scab. We’ll remember.”

      Seven Amalgamated Warehouse Workers Independent Local No. 1 strikers banishing picket signs on the strike’s day one yelled at two coworkers suspected to be riding in a white Econoline rental

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