Chapter 7 - Laurel’s Desperate Visit
On Tuesday morning, the temperature plummeted to single digits, turning the snow in Ravenna into hard, crystalline crusts that squeaked underfoot.
I was in Bay 2, checking the brake lines on an elderly widow's Buick LeSabre, when the bell above the shop’s waiting room jingled incessantly. Mack poked his head out from under a Dodge Ram.
“Boss,” Mack whispered, his face tight. “You got high society in the lobby. Looks like she got lost on the way to the country club.”
I wiped my hands on an oily rag, tucked a steel flashlight into my back pocket, and pushed through the swinging door into the waiting room.
Laurel Voss was standing in the middle of our linoleum floor, clutching a mink coat tightly around her shoulders as if the smell of motor oil and rubber might stain her soul. Her makeup was applied with a heavy hand, but it couldn't hide the dark, bruised circles under her eyes or the trembling of her lips.
“Leona,” she said, her voice lacking the condescending purr she’d used on Thanksgiving. It sounded brittle, like dry birch bark. “We need to speak. Privately. Woman to woman.”
“This is my shop, Laurel,” I said, resting my hip against the wooden reception counter. “Anything you have to say can be said right here across this counter. That’s where business gets done.”
Laurel looked around in disgust at the vintage tire posters, the rack of fan belts, and the coffee pot Mack had scorched three years ago. She took a shuddering breath and stepped closer.
“Wallace’s accounts have been frozen,” she whispered, leaning over the counter, the smell of expensive French perfume clashing violently with WD-40. “The bank in Columbus sent receivers to the warehouse this morning. They’re locking the gates, Leona. They’re taking Wallace’s car. They’re threatening to attach our home in Upper Arlington!”
“Sounds like Wallace should have spent less time laughing at women on dining room floors and more time reading his commercial loan covenants,” I said.
“He’s an old man!” Laurel suddenly snapped, her veneer cracking. “Do you want to see him die of a stroke? Do you want to see Grant in prison? Grant is twenty-nine years old! His career is over! He was fired yesterday morning by Arthur Sterling! Fired!”
“Grant is a thief, Laurel. He forged his wife’s name. He stole sixty-five thousand dollars from her equity, and he stole eight thousand dollars from my business checking account. Did you think that was just going to disappear because your son wears cashmere?”
Laurel’s eyes filled with tears—real tears of humiliating terror, not the theatrical weeping she used to manipulate her husband. She reached across the counter, trying to touch my grease-stained sleeve with her manicured fingers. I pulled my arm back.
“Please, Leona,” she begged, her voice dropping into a frantic whisper. “We’ll pay you back. Wallace has a cousin in Cincinnati who can give us a twenty-thousand-dollar loan. We’ll sign an agreement. Just call Detective Miller. Tell him it was a family misunderstanding. Tell the sheriff Arden remembered signing the document. If Grant gets an indictment, he’ll never work in finance again! He’ll be a felon!”
I looked at Laurel Voss. I remembered her covering her mouth with her linen napkin, her shoulders shaking with laughter while I lay flat on my back on the hardwood floor, struggling to draw breath. I remembered Grant standing over me with a sneer, telling me I didn't own the house I had paid for.
“You know, Laurel,” I said quietly, “when Thomas died, I had twenty-two dollars in my checking account and a shop mortgage with an eight-percent balloon note. You know what I did?”
Laurel stared at me, blinking rapidly.
“I didn't forge anyone's name. I didn't beg for mercy. I put on my coveralls, crawled under cold trucks at five in the morning, and worked until my fingers bled to keep my daughters fed. You and Wallace taught your son that rules are for grease monkeys, and that people like me exist to be used, mocked, and discarded.”
“Leona, please—”
“No,” I said, cutting her off like a cold blade. “Tell Wallace to find a good public defender. And tell Grant that when the sheriff serves his grand jury summons, he’d better wear that cashmere sweater. I hear the county jail in Ravenna gets drafty in December.”
Laurel stared at me for three long seconds. Her face twisted into an ugly, venomous mask of pure hatred.
“You’re an evil, vindictive peasant,” she spat, her voice shaking with rage. “You’ve destroyed my family!”
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“No, Laurel,” I said, picking up my flashlight and turning back toward the bay. “Your family was an old engine running without oil. I just happened to be the one who pulled the dipstick.”
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