She didn’t answer my call, so I rang Beverly.
“Mom, did Natalie buy something yesterday?”
“Why?”
“There’s a charge on her card.”
“Mallory needed to pick up a few things. Natalie said it was fine.”
I frowned.
“What things?”
“Wesley, we’re busy caring for your family. Do you really want to interrogate us over every little purchase?”
She hung up. I began fearing I’d made a serious mistake by leaving.
The Missing Papers and an Unexpected Discovery
Nearly three days reviewing Dayton’s freight manifests revealed that inventory was intact. No goods were missing; eleven signed delivery receipts had vanished, falsely suggesting thousands in lost merchandise.
Late Wednesday, I discovered that a former accounting assistant had mistakenly filed them under an obsolete vendor account. Every shipment had arrived and been paid for. The $41,200 problem was bookkeeping, not theft.
Curtis sounded relieved when I phoned.
“You just saved this department a nightmare, Wesley.”