The trouble with coyotes and raccoons is that they think they are smart when they are merely crafty. They start thinking they are the apex predator when in fact they are in the middle of the food chain.
Lois Gale-Leinhart-Diaz was, at heart, a coyote.
At 10:00 am she slid a card across the table to Terry Branch. It said, “Turn off the video recorder.”
Terry stood up, stretched and nonchalantly placed his hands in his pockets as he walked over to the corner with the video recorder. He was tall enough to reach up and press the on/off button. The bright green LED slowly faded.
Lois exploded. “This is complete and utter bullshit! Fucking ‘Ivory Tower’ executive director has no fucking idea how the world works.”
Terry asked, “What’s going on?” He had never seen his boss loser her cool like this.
“Fucking Executive Director of Enforcement just told me to let the Izzo bitch off the hook.” Lois spat. “Those people on the top floor have no idea how hard my job is. The only thing that makes it doable is to put the fear of God in the rabble’s heart. You get something on these people, you put your boot on their throat and you never let up. The only thing they respect is power and the only way to prove you have power is to use it.”
Lois sat quietly for a minute. “Terry, we are going off the reservation on this one. She will never notice that the green light is off. We are doing this to protect the Department, to protect the fucking cunt who sits in the Executive Director’s office. Just follow my lead… and leave the fucking video recorder off.” Terry just nodded.
Ten minutes later Mardi walked into the office. She suspected that she was the first appointment of the day and she had been left in the waiting room to “show her how unimportant she was”. She was correct.
Lois started, “We have decided to grant you clemency. You are on probation for the next five years. You will be subjected to random audits and spot checks. You may not leave Tulare County without our advance permission and we require two weeks-notice to process your out-of-county travel request. You may leave.”
Mardi asked, “When will you release our computers and other devices?”
Lois gave a causal wave of her hand. “I believe that you can collect them from the evidence room on Monday or you can wait until we mail them to you.”
Mardi asked, “And when would they be mailed?”
Lois said, “Probably before the end of the month. That is not in my silo.”
Lois said, “You have five minutes to exit the property or I will have you charged with loitering. You may leave know. Have a great day.” Lois said it with a sugary-sweet voice and a brittle smile, leaving no doubt that Izzo’s troubles were just beginning.
After Mardi left, Lois told Terry to turn the video camera back on.
The possibility that the power switch was a dummy and that high definition recordings of the event had been permanently stored in server farms in Cupertino, Mountain View and a dooms-day, continuity-of-government site in Grass Valley, Cali never occurred to them. Nor did the fact that the key word fields of those recordings were automatically populated by the “resource scheduling” software, the voice recognition software and the voice-to-text software.
Those recordings were accessible to all officials, Executive Director and higher.
Chapter Five
Mardi and Chad leaned back in their chairs on the front porch. Their feet were on the rail. A small libation of Cali Whiskey and Branch Water was at hand.
“Thanks for picking me up in Visalia. I did not know if you would make it in time.” Mardi said.
“Ya, no sweat.” Chad said. “That’s what we do. At least Juan had a Burley cart, otherwise bringing home the computers would have been a real chore.”
As it was, the Suzuki dirt bike had not been the friendliest of towing vehicles. It was a racing bike with a very narrow power band and stiff-as-hell springs. Two passengers went a long way to softening the ride, but two passengers raised the center of gravity. Lack of attention by the driver could result in the bike pulling a wheelie that would pitch both people off the back end of the bike… even in second gear. Pulling a trailer only exacerbated the bike wanting to go ass-over-teakettle.
“So how was it that you were able to get the computers before Monday?” Chad asked. “You got me curious.”
Mardi said, “I ran into a custodian mopping in the cafeteria. I asked him where the evidence room was. I wanted to scout it out before I made a decision. He told me it was in the basement, something I would have figured out if I had taken the time to think about it. So, I went down to the basement.”
“And then…” Chad prompted. Like many guys he liked the shorter version of the story.
“Well, one of the guys in the evidence room noticed my Detroit Tigers ball cap. Turns out he is a HUGE fan of an old show called Magnum P.I. He wanted to know what it would take to buy it.”
“I told him that if he liked it that much I would just GIVE it to him. After all, to me it is only a hat.”
“After that, it was like I was his favorite niece. It was like I had made his month.”
“Not only did they redeem our ‘evidence’, they gave me some of the backstory on Mz Lois Gale-Lienhart-Diaz.”
“It seems like Mz Lois used to be just Mz Lois Gale-Lienhart. Gale is an ambitious woman and she bullied her partner into bringing a Latina woman into the marriage to gain extra EEO points. That would be Mz Diaz.”
“Gale was never a pleasant person. In fact, the guys in the evidence room were eager to help me if it would twist her nose. Like I said, she had never been a pleasant person to work with but her personality definitely went into the ditch when her first spouse decided he liked sharing a bed with a sweet-talking, compliant, Latina hottie rather than a frumpy, menopausal, harpy. “
“Seems like she would have just taken Mr Lienhart to court, divorced him and cleaned him out. You know how the courts in Cali are.” Chad observed.
“That is what I thought, too.” Mardi resumed her story. “But if a three-way marriage dissolves, the vast majority of the assets will follow the most ‘oppressed’ member, in this case, the young Latina. Game, set and match… Lois Gale-Lienhart-Diaz is screwed and tattooed.”
“Damn!” Chad said.
“Yup.” Mardi agreed. “And after they logged out our computers, they loaned me a tote and arranged a ride to the bus station. It all happened real fast.”
“About that tote,” Chad said, “how do we get it back to them?”
“Easy-peasy.” Said Mardi. “It is Department of Education property. Just drop it off at any Elementary school and it will find its way back.”
“All in all, I think we got lucky.” Chad said.
“I am not so sure. I think I made an enemy for life. I got that vibe that this woman is making it a personal mission to destroy us.” Mardi said.
“Wow. I have never heard you be that negative. I never took you to be a drama queen.” Chad said.
“You weren’t there. She makes me think of the witches in Macbeth or a fat spider at the center of a web. It is as if her ego is a black hole and it warps the time and space around her. She has the aura of evil.” Mardi mused.
“If I were in her shoes I would bide my time until harvest. That is when we are the most distracted and are really working the kids. My gut feeling is that we better be at the top of our game when the potatoes start coming out of the ground.” Mardi said.
Chapter Six
“Look. You have to clip the fence to the posts in five spots. Yes, I know everybody else uses three clips. But here, you gotta use five and most of them need to be near the bottom.” Chad told the crew.