The Conspiritor

“Barry turned you in even though he gave it to you.” Holly said to me.

“Don’t you think I know that,” I returned.

We both knew that, as well as the reason why. Now I had to save myself from being arrested.

“This isn’t supposed to be how it was to go down,” I said aloud.

Holly reached over and placed her left hand on my knee, “I know,” she replied sympathetically.

I thought back to the evening that Holly and I had first noticed the inventory missing from the electronic supply store.

We were assistant managers trying to rise up to the position of manager. That night we were working together to complete a sample store inventory.

“The idea is to get a brief idea of what we might need in the future,” Barry had explained during a training session.

Holly worked on the electronically monitored store inventory. That was based on sales for the week.

I walked through the aisle doing a manual count of items — things were not adding up.

“What in the world are we not doing right?” I asked Holly.

“Nothing — nothing at all,” she said.

Still the inventory count was off. Items that once were counted into stock were gone and completely unaccounted for in either purchases or transfers.

And Holly and I were not scheduled to work the sample inventory again for another month. The company preferred to rotate assistant managers through the chore to prevent possible theft as the same people doing the theft could cover their tracks and not get caught.

The month’s time passed quickly. By this time I had grown suspicious and I told Holly what I thought.

“I think they’re stealing merchandise,” I told her.

“No way!” exclaimed Holly.

“I think someone is stealing stuff and I plan to catch them,” I continued.

I proceeded to run through the details of my plan which included watching the store after hours and calling headquarters to inform corporate security.

So night after night I sat in my car in the shopping centers parking lot and observed the comings and goings of the store. Eventually it paid off.

“I’ve got you now,” I said as I watched a Chris walk out the back door, carrying a large box to his panel van.

I returned to work after having two days off.

The store was quiet and I spent his work hours dusting and reorganizing the merchandise on the shelf. I let the last sales person go home fifteen minutes early and I finished vacuuming the carpets after closing the door and locking myself in.

I had jus finished up the day’s paperwork when there came the familiar sound of keys at the back door — it was Barry.

”Hello — anyone here?” he called out.

I promptly answered him with a “yes” and he appeared in the door way of the little office.

“You’ve been putting in some hours,” he said.

“Not really,” I replied back, “In fact I jus had two days off.”

“Yeah, but you’re here late again,” he shot back.

I thought to myself, “I’m not late,” but responded instead with, “jus’ finishing up some paperwork.”

There was a brief period of silence between the two of us.

Then Barry said,”I noticed you eyeballing that new camcorder we got in.”

I smiled,”Yeah, it’s a real sweetheart.”

“You wanna borrow it on your next days off?” Barry asked.

“Sure,” I quickly responded.

This was not against company policy. All I had to do was sign a slip of paper saying he had been loaned the piece of equipment. It happened all the time.

Five days later Barry brought the video camera and paperwork over to me. Smiling, I signed for the equipment and continued with my work.

The following day Holly called me at home.

“I want to give you a heads up,” she said, “Corporate Security just closed the store down for inventory.”

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach as I was in possession of an expensive piece of merchandise and I had no receipt to show I had been loaned the camcorder.

“Meet me,” I said to Holly.

She agreed and half an hour later she was sitting in the front seat of my car. The camcorder was resting in its case on the floor board.

We discussed how to get the thing back into the store. She had her hand on my knee.

“I think I’ll turn it in to the Reno Police Department,” I finally said.

Holly nodded her head up and down in agreement, then said, “That’s a great idea.”

After she got out of the truck, I drove directly to the station on East Second Street. I carried the camera as I walked in the front door.

“I want to turn in this video camera,” I said to the desk sergeant.

“Jus’ a second,” responded the officer.

He stepped through the doorway behind his desk then reappeared just as quickly.

 The gate buzzed and he said, “Come on through.”

I did as he was instructed and was led down a short hallway and into a small room.

It had a table and four chairs in it. Minutes later a short man dressed in a dark blue suit stepped into the room.

He introduced himself as a detective.

After shaking hands with me, he got down to business, “I understand you’re looking to turn in a camcorder?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Well,” the detective started, “I have a report of one being stolen and your name as the one who stole it.”

It was at that moment that I knew that I had been taken for a fool.

No matter how much I tried to explain, the detective refused to believe me about the massive store thefts I had found. And he refused to believe I had the camera on loan from the store manager.

“He’s the one that signed the complaint,” the detective stated.

Later that evening, I was booked into the Washoe County Jail on grand theft charges. Five months later I would plead guilty to conspiracy to commit grand theft for receiving stolen property even though no other conspirators were named, arrested or charged.

Barry would resign from the company a year later, Holly became engaged and married Chris and I would go down for something I didn’t do.