Trouble Down the Road by Bettye Griffin

Author:Bettye Griffin [Griffin, Bettye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, African American, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9780758231628
Google: R9oFUt_hYTYC
Amazon: B003XT5SNY
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2010-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

That afternoon, after he’d seen his last patient, Brad sat at the small conference table in a corner of his office with his bookkeeper.

“I’m so glad we’re finally sitting down to talk about this, Dr. Betancourt,” Chris said.

“It’s my fault it took so long,” he apologized. “It ended up being an especially busy time for me, and I just didn’t get to it. But whatever it is that’s happening, it’ll keep right on happening unless we identify the problem and do something about it.”

“I agree,” Chris said. A woman in her mid thirties, she worked for several small businesses around Jacksonville. She was as professional as she was capable, coming in regularly to both the diagnostic center as well as the restaurant, always dressing professionally in business casual for the few hours at a time she spent working in the cramped business office of the restaurant.

“All right, let’s see if we can figure out why profits are down even though sales are holding,” he said. “Obviously, we had a rise in expenses. We have to identify the problem area and go from there.”

“Utilities are about the same,” Chris replied. “No spikes in payroll expense, either.”

“Well, it has to be coming from somewhere.”

“The only thing I noticed…”

Brad thought she appeared reluctant. “Was?” he prompted.

“There seems to be this slight spike in the amount of meat purchased.”

“That makes sense, doesn’t it? A restaurant with higher sales would coincide with purchasing more supplies.”

She didn’t reply, and instinctively Brad knew there was more to this story, something she wasn’t telling him. “Chris, don’t hold back. If you know something, tell me what it is.”

“I never thought of myself as a tattletale, Dr. Betancourt.” At his impatient gesture for her to continue, she went on. “I couldn’t help noticing how this man has been coming to see Derrick when I’m there in the afternoons, during that slow period after lunch.”

“What goes on between the two of them?” Brad asked.

“The man would come to the restaurant, and then Derrick would go outside and talk to him. At first I thought it was just personal….”

Brad knew Chris was thinking that this man was Derrick’s contact for the weed he smoked, and that had been his first thought as well.

“…but one day I got there at the same time as the man did, and I noticed him getting out of a lunch wagon. You know, a van with lettering on the sides,” she concluded. “I wondered if there might be a connection. I’m sure it was silly of me.”

Brad’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t think it was silly at all. It would take a colossal amount of nerve for his brother-in-law to sell meats and cheeses from the restaurant’s stock and line his own pockets with the proceeds. And no one could ever accuse Derrick Hall of being short on nerve. Like his mother, Arlene, Derrick believed in living off the fat of the land…and they considered him to be the fat.

“You say it’s the afternoons when this guy comes by?”

Chris thought for a moment.

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