Free One Lane Bridge: A Novel by Don Reid Page A

word of consent she walked past him and through the door but stopped when she saw the other three women already standing inside. She turned and said to J. D., “What’s going on?”
    “We need to talk to you. Come on in so I can close the door.”
    She did, and they all three stood with Karlie and looked to J. D. for some sort of instruction or explanation.
    “Sit down. All of you. Find a chair someplace.”
    Katherine was the first to speak. “What’s up, J. D.?”
    “This is not easy for me. For us. But it has to be done. We have a little problem. And we have narrowed it down to the morning shift. I don’t know how to say it except to just say it. We have money missing and a lot of it.”
    Two of the women gasped, and for the life of him he couldn’t tell which two. He was pretty sure it was Crystal and Lottie. But did it matter? Surprise could make them gasp, and by this time the guilty party would know what was happening and could have faked a gasp. He was about to continue when Karlie spoke up from where she was standing behind them.
    “Katherine, Lottie, Crystal, we have been watching this for some time now, and we know that someone, and we’re pretty sure it’s someone in this room, has been taking money from the cash box in the mornings. The last thing in the world we want is to hurt anyone’s feelings. And as sure as someone is guilty, we know that probably two are innocent, and we realize what a chance we’re taking here … but we know no better way to do this.”
    The last five words of her sentence were barely audible. Tears were standing in Karlie’s eyes, and her voice was shaking. She was doing what she had promised to do with as much conviction as she could muster. J. D. was proud of her and felt a need to rescue her.
    “What Karlie is saying is we are doing what we have to do. It makes us both sick to have to do it, but we didn’t ask for any of this to happen. I wish we had another room where we could go and do this privately, but we don’t. So I am going to ask each of you to open your purses and let us look through them and your pockets.”
    Lottie spoke up. “And if we refuse to let you search us like common criminals?”
    “Then we’ll do it legal. We have a police officer on the premises with warrants. We don’t want to do that unless we have to. Unless you force us to.” J. D. was as firm and friendly as he could be with the little bit of anger that was seeping into his voice at Lottie’s challenge. He looked at each of the ladies in question and said, “Who wants to go first?”
    Nobody moved. Nobody volunteered. Crystal looked at Katherine for guidance. Katherine turned and looked at Karlie, and Lottie continued to glare at J. D.
    “J. D., I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Katherine said as she opened her purse and dumped the contents onto the desktop. Lipstick, compact, notepads, ballpoint pens, loose change, and a billfold hit the ink blotter and scattered.
    “Open up the billfold and take the bills out, Katherine.” J. D. waited for her to do as she was asked, but she didn’t budge.
    “You’ve gone this far. You take it out yourself.” She was defiant and angry.
    “Katherine, I’m not going into your billfold. If you insist on doing it this way, we’ll bring the police into it. I’ll have Caywood step in here and make it official.”
    Karlie spoke through her tears and pleaded, “Please, Katherine. Just do it yourself, and don’t make this any harder on any of us.”
    Without looking up, Katherine Kimball reached down, took the money from her billfold, and placed the bills one by one the desk as if she were counting money back to a customer. Four twenties, one five, and four ones. Eighty-nine dollars.
    “Do you want to see the change?” she asked with a sarcastic tone.
    “No,” J. D. assured her. “Put it back in your purse.”
    “Wait. Don’t you want to frisk me?”
    “Katherine, please,” Karlie pleaded again.
    “Crystal. Lottie. One of