Chance Encounter

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2010

Autumn Writer

CHAPTER 3 – A Price Must be Paid

Paul buzzed Marge.

“Marge, come in for a minute, please,” Paul spoke into the speaker.

Marge Bates had been Paul’s secretary for over a dozen years.  When Paul ascended to top management, he brought Marge with him.  They were a likely pair.  She was a prim-and-proper type, about the same age as Paul.  Marge was quiet and correct at all times.  She was tall, neither slender nor stocky.  Her usual manner of dress at work was a pleated, plaid skirt with a coordinating blazer.  Sometimes, she wore a suit.  Her brown hair showed a little gray.  She wore glasses for reading, which hung on her neck by a chain when she didn’t need them.

She was a widow.  Her husband lost his battle to cancer several years prior to Sally’s untimely death.   Sally and Paul befriended Marge in those sad times.  There wasn’t a lot that they could do, but as she told them, it was enough to know that they cared.  When Sally was killed Marge understood Paul’s suffering more than anyone else could.  She returned the friendship bestowed on her.  In his grief, Paul had become preoccupied and forgetful.  Marge kept him on track.  There were a few times that Marge spotted errors that Paul made, and made sure that no one else saw them.

Marge had excellent technical skills that Paul appreciated, but more than anything else, he knew that it would be easier to break into Fort Knox than to pry a secret from her.  That was what Paul was counting on at that moment.

“Marge, sit down for a second, please,” Paul asked as she entered the office.

When Paul said this she knew that she was to be burdened with another secret.

“Marge, I need to let you in on something because this will probably pass by your desk, and I’ll need to count on you to keep it between us,” Paul started.  Marge leaned forward, listening.

“I’ve started seeing someone—a woman—who lives in Chicago.  I have feelings for her.   I think that she likes me a little.  I’m going to be making calls and traveling from time to time.  I might need you to help me with some arrangements.”

“Paul, I think that’s wonderful!” Marge exclaimed.  “Why the big secret?  Is there something … you know …?”

“Oh, no!  She’s single and unattached, as I am.  Unattached, that is, except to our jobs.  We would just like to keep things low-key.  It’s easier that way.  There is a little complication right now that’s not of our making.  She works for the same university as the one involved in that lawsuit against us.  Ted Wilson told me it should be alright.  That was a big relief.  I’m going to call her and tell her in a few minutes.”

“Who else knows, Paul?” she asked.

“Jim Spencer, Harry Carmichael, and Ted Wilson,” Paul answered.  “I asked each of them to keep it quiet.  When the time is right, we’ll go public.  This lawsuit makes it good sense to keep it under wraps for awhile.”

Marge nodded. 

Paul settled back in his chair.  He looked away for a second, but knew the difficult question that was on his mind wouldn’t go away.

“Marge, do you think that I did the right thing in taking up with someone else?  After all, Sally’s been gone over five years and …”

“Oh, Paul!” Marge interrupted.  “Of course it’s alright.  Everyone, including me, has been wondering why you haven’t.  You know, Paul, sometimes you just think too much!”

“That’s what everyone tells me,” laughed Paul.  “I thought so, but I needed to hear you say it.  You always know what to do.”

Marge cast her eyes down, and tried to hide the pleasure his compliment brought her.

“C’mon, Paul, why would you ask these things of an aging widow?”

“Marge, why didn’t you try to find someone after Carl?” Paul asked.

“Who says that I didn’t?” she retorted.  “The right person just didn’t come along.”

“Maybe ‘yet’ should be the operative word,” Paul said.  “You’re still a pretty good looking female.”

“Oh, stop it, Paul’ you’re embarrassing me!” she giggled.

They sat across the desk looking at each other for a few seconds.  It occurred to Paul, as it had scores of other times, that Marge was a unique person that he could not do without.  Marge was very adroit in crossing the line from secretary to friend to confidant, then back again.

“What would I do without you, Marge?”  Paul asked.  “Wait!  Don’t answer that.  I don’t want to know.”

Marge waved her hand at him to make light of the compliment.

“Give me that name and number and I’ll put that call through for you,” she said.

************* 

Marge buzzed.  “Your call to Miss Mahoney is waiting, Mr. Crane.”  Marge always used ‘Mr. Crane’ when she might be overheard.

Paul picked up the phone.

Paul: Glenda, it’s Paul.  I have to talk to you about something important.  Can you give me a minute?

There was a long silence.  Paul waited for a response but there was none.  He started speaking, anyway.

Paul:  Glenda, there’s a lawsuit involving …

Glenda:  I know about that, Paul.  I can’t talk now.  I have to hang up.  I’ll call you from my home after work.  I’m going home early this afternoon.  I‘ll be home at four.  I’ll speak with you then.

Glenda hung up.

Paul could tell from her voice that she was upset.  He knew what it meant.  Glenda had the same conversation with her employer that he had with Ted Wilson earlier in the day, but with a different result.  The lawsuit would be a problem for them, after all.   

Paul had two and a half hours to wait for Glenda’s call.  He knew Hopkins was behind it in some way and he started to get angry.  What was worse was that he was on ice until Glenda could call him at four.

He turned his attention to work projects.  There was the analysis on the Corpus Christi Plant, the Engineering Standards Project Report, and he reminded himself to get filled-in by Jim Spencer on that junior engineer from the State Environmental Agency that he noticed the other day at the Peoria Plant meeting.  Paul put in a call to Jim Spencer.  He wasn’t there, but left a voicemail.  He turned to the recommendations in the Corpus Christi Analysis.

He had finished working on the Corpus Christi analysis and was halfway through the Standards Project Report when Jim Spencer appeared at his door.  “Fill me in on that young lady who was at the table at the Peoria Plant meeting on the State side.”

“Her name is Audrey Wright,” Jim began as he took a chair in front of Paul’s desk.  “She’s not as young as she looks.  She has a masters’ degree from U. of Illinois and has been with the Agency for three years.  She came to them right out of school.  That would make her about twenty-eight.”

“What kind of engineering did she take her degree in?” Paul asked.

“Actually,” Jim answered, “she’s not an engineer at all.  Her degree is in Environmental Science—undergrad in Biology.  She’s very intelligent.”

“Do you think that she knows what Grafton was up to?” Paul asked.

“Hard to say,” Jim said.  “Before the meeting I would have said ‘no’, but saying what she did about him going to Montgomery, now I think that she did.  I don’t think she just blurted it out.  That wouldn’t be like her.  She was pretending to be naïve, but I think that she was really trying to clue us in.”

“Do you think that she’d help us get Grafton?” asked Paul.

“I think that she’d be our best hope.  She already helped us once,” replied Jim.  “I wouldn’t trust Morehead, though.”

Paul nodded.  He was determined to take Grafton to task, and if a Grafton-Hopkins-Montgomery link could be shown, it could be helpful in the pending legal battle.

“I’m going to have Marge get a meeting with Wilton set up in Springfield.  It will be to ‘discuss the lawsuit’, for the record.” Paul said.  “Once she has the date she’ll let you know.  I want you to call Miss Wright and set me up with her for the day before—secret and off the record.  I don’t want to be found calling her, myself.  By the way, it is ‘Miss’ Wright?”

“I’ll get right on it,” Jim assured him.

“Now, Jim, let’s change the subject.  I want you to stay on top of the Peoria project, but there won’t be much happening soon, because of the lawsuit.  In the meantime, take over the Standards Project.  Harlow just isn’t getting it done.  I’ll let him know.  You can keep him on as your number two man.  He’s good, technically, but needs better people skills.” 

By the time Paul finished talking with Harlow it was ten minutes past four and Glenda hadn’t called him.  Lateness always concerned Paul.  In his business, one hitch led to another, then another.  He didn’t want any more ‘hitches’ with Glenda.  What they had found together had already defied all odds.  Paul calculated them.

For example, he thought, what were the chances that Glenda would have spotted him in that store and then recognized him after all these years?  What were the chances that they would have blended together so easily after so many years apart?  Paul knew the longest odds; it was that he, a widower set in his own difficult ways, could be reopened by any woman.  Glenda had untied the knot named Paul Crane.  He didn’t know how she had done it, but she had made it look easy.  Paul multiplied the probabilities together.  The result made him feel very fortunate, indeed.   

 Paul’s phone rang and it interrupted his brooding.  It was four-thirty.  Marge told him that Glenda was on the line.

Glenda:  Paul, I’m sorry.  I told you that I would call you at four.  I was putting it off.  I just couldn’t bring myself to make this call.

Paul:  Glenda, I’m sure that this is over the lawsuit.  Something can be done to straighten it out.

Glenda: No, Paul, it can’t.  They told me that if I didn’t break it off with you that they would fire me.  Paul, I don’t want to do it, but I have to.

Paul winced as the he heard the words and Glenda began crying.  It struck like a body blow.  His assumption of solvable bureaucratic entanglements was up in smoke.  It would require something of greater proportion to make Glenda act this way.

Paul:  Who is ‘they’, Glenda?  Why can’t you just ask for a transfer?

Glenda:  I asked for a transfer, but they won’t do it.  It was my boss, Dean Judson.  There was another man there.  He’s the client; his name is Hopkins.

It was all Paul had to hear.  It was payback; it was what Hopkins meant by his threat.  Hopkins’ vendetta had escaped the bounds of business.  It was personal.

Glenda:  I would quit, Paul.  I could find another job, but I can’t do that.  I need eighty points to retire at full pay.  I’m fifty-four years old and have twenty-four years’ service.  That’s seventy eight points.  If I quit now, I’ll lose half my retirement.  I have no choice.  They mean what they say.  They even made me sign a paper letting them tap my phone.  They might be listening right now.  They have me cornered.  I can’t stand it, but I can’t escape them.

Paul: It’s my fault, Glenda.  Hopkins has a grudge against me.  He’s getting at me by using you.  Look!  We can still see each other; we’ll just have to careful.

Glenda:  Paul, they even have pictures of us swimming nude in the lake!

Paul:  In a year you’ll have your eighty points.  We’ll just put it on hold until then.

Glenda:  No, no, no!  A year is too long.  They will think of something else.  No, it just has to be this way.  I made you promise that you wouldn’t try to possess me.  That means that I can’t do that to you, either.  This was just not meant to be.

Paul:  Take a few days and think in it.  You’ll feel differently in a few days.  You won’t have to use the phone.  I’ll give you my e-mail address.

Glenda:  No, Paul.  It won’t work.  It was never in the cards.  I’ll never regret that we came together, but now it has to be over.  I’m so sorry.  Good-bye, Paul.

Paul heard a loud click as Glenda hung up the phone.  It rang in his ears like a gunshot. 

************

At Glenda’s home her phone rang.  She knew that it had to be Paul.  She picked up the phone.

“Please, Paul,” she cried into the phone, “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“Glenda,” the expressionless voice on the line said, “This is Dean Judson.  At our meeting we neglected a detail.  When you come in tomorrow, we will ask you to sign an additional agreement allowing us to set up a link to your computer that will allow us to monitor your e-mail.”

Judson hung up; Glenda gasped.  The tap on her phone was already in place.  She sat motionless trying to understand what was happening to her.  It had all turned upside-down in so short a time.  Her memory of the weekend in the cabin was still fresh in her mind.  It was like it hadn’t yet ended.  She thought again and realized the ending was far more profound.  

Humiliation…isolation…loss…confinement…dependence…loneliness…helplessness…

fear.  As she sat alone she parsed each emotion as it bit her in its turn.  They descended upon her one by one in a heavy pall of acrid, black smoke, choking away hope.  The smoke blocked all view.  In the middle of it all she could see nothing.  There was nothing left but resigned compliance.  Happiness and survival fought for the same space in her life.  How many times must she learn that lesson?  Only she knew the answer, but knew it well. 

It was a just result meted out by unjust men, she told herself.  The events of her life flashed back to her.  She saw the logic.  If she had studied harder in high school … the abortion … the two divorces.  She was convinced of God’s retribution and despaired of God’s mercy.  It was not Paul’s fault.  She had been wrong to reach out for more.  

Glenda buried her face in her hands, sobbing at first, and then wept for what had been, what could have been, and the inescapability of it all. 

*********** 

Paul sat at his desk trying to analyze the ugly turn of events.  It was a nasty move—even for Hopkins.  It was hard to believe, but there it was.  Sure, he had been tough on him after their latest meeting, but it was not enough to explain it.  That had been business, but Hopkins had made it personal.    He should have foreseen what Hopkins would do.  If he had, Glenda wouldn’t be suffering.  Paul wished that Glenda had more courage.  Who was he to say?  It was a bitter sadness. 

Paul knew that he would have to draw a line between his personal troubles and his responsibilities to the Company.  His personal problems would have to wait.  He wondered if he had the integrity to stand up to it.

If Glenda had allowed him, he would have helped her fight her employer’s edict.  He had his own money to hire lawyers, and contacts to help her find a new job.  The pension problems weren’t all of it, he knew.  Her position was what she had carved out for herself, after starting over two decades ago. 

“It would be easy for me to say ‘fight it out’,” he thought to himself.  “I’ve never been on the bottom, looking up.  Glenda knows that feeling.  She has to decide for herself.” 

Paul thought of her, sitting alone in her home in Chicago—wished he could be with her.  He would be in a few hours if she made a call to him.  It was up to her.  She had accepted the unacceptable.  How could he blame her?  Paul missed her already.  He wondered if she missed him.  Probably, she did

Anger … vulnerability … impotence … suffering … loss … sorrow … hate.  The feelings boiled in him as he sat brooding in his office. 

“Who am I supposed to hate?” he asked himself, almost out loud.  “Surely, not Glenda.”

He regarded Hopkins as worthy of hate, but too small a man to earn it. 

People often told Paul that he ‘thought too much’, but sometimes it worked for him.

By the time he finished his meditation is was nearly six-thirty.  There was a knock on the door and Marge stepped in and closed the door behind her.

“I haven’t seen you for a few hours.  It has to mean that the call with Miss Mahoney didn’t go well,” she said.

“You always know the answer in advance, Marge.”

“Only because I know you so well, Paul.”

Paul narrated the story.

“I’m so sad for you, Paul.  What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, Marge,” Paul sighed.  “If I knew what to do, I would be doing it now.”

“It’s so unfair!” Marge said. 

“I’m back where I started.”

“No, that’s not true,” Marge countered.  “Now you’ve had a taste of not being alone.  It was taken from you so cruelly.  You’re not even.”

“You’re not cheering me up, Marge,” Paul said.

“Paul, you and I know loneliness like few people do.  It’s an understanding between us.  We know what hurts the most—and what makes the pain go away.”

What Marge said was so true.  She had actually made him feel a little better, despite what he said.  She said what he was thinking.  They touched each other in that way.  Paul guessed that it was a kind of therapy for Marge, too.

“Paul, let me make it easier for you,” she whispered.  “You shouldn’t be alone tonight.  Let me stay with you.”

“Marge, I don’t think that would be right.”

“Have I aged so much?  I didn’t think so.  I want to be with you.  Paul, please say yes.”

“Marge, you still have your looks.  Looks aren’t the issue.  We’ve known each other a long time.  This could go all wrong.  I won’t risk it.”

“Please, Paul!” she cried.  “I haven’t been with a man for eight years.”

Her eyes welled with tears.  She jumped from her chair and onto Paul, seated behind his desk.  Marge crushed her face to his, kissing him deeply and with hunger.  Paul told himself to fight her off, but found his arms paralyzed, unable to push her away.  Paul felt the wetness of Marge’s tears on his skin.  He gave in and kissed back.  Marge felt good pressed against him.  He wondered if the act he was committing was good or evil. 

“Please, Paul!” she whispered.

“Follow me home in your car,” he said. 

************* 

Paul lived about fifteen minutes from the office.  He drove up his driveway and Marge was right behind.  Paul’s house sat back on his property, so that Marge could park near the house and not be noticed.

During the drive Paul reconsidered what was about to happen.  It was so tempting.  The promise of a human touch after sadness could be a balm to the body, if not the spirit.  Glenda had shown him how soothing sex could be, and how it could solve loneliness and many other things.  Glenda was gone, so he would be without—but he need not be so.

It was their closeness that tempted him to think that it might work out, just for a night. 

He waited for Marge inside the house.  He would explain to her why it was all wrong.  They would have a few drinks together—maybe a light dinner—and part, still friends.  He watched Marge step from her car and then hurry into the house.  She came through the door and ran into his arms.

“Hurry, Paul!  Let’s do it right away,” she gasped.  Her lips were inches from his.

Paul didn’t push her away, but didn’t kiss her, either. 

“Marge, I thought about this on the drive over and …”

“Paul, I knew you would ‘think it over’.  I know you too well to think that you wouldn’t,” she told him.  “Please don’t call it off.  My mind’s made up.  I would never think of doing this with anyone but you.  I know what I’m doing.”

Paul felt Marge’s body pressing against him.  He felt her breath.  She felt good.  He put his finger under Marge’s chin and lifted gently.  He kissed her and she kissed back.  They sent each other a mixture of affection and desire through their parted lips.  They held the kiss for at least a minute, and then broke to take a breath.  They engaged all over again. This time tongues caressed lips and danced together, and they allowed the pleasure of being caressed to fill them. 

Marge took Paul by the hand and led him up the stairs.  They went into Paul’s bedroom.  Marge had been there five years before when she sorted through Sally’s things for Paul.  Nothing had changed.

“Give me a few minutes to get ready,” she said.  She gave him an ‘I’ll be right back’ kiss and turned to claim the master bathroom.  Paul slipped in ahead of her.  He grabbed his robe and toothbrush and disappeared to the guest room bath down the hall.

“Help yourself to whatever you find in there,” Paul called through the closed bathroom door.  She didn’t answer. 

It was early in the evening.  It was still dusk in the summer months.  It was hot outside but the inside of the house was just right.  Paul returned to the bedroom.  The lamps were turned off; the shades drawn.  In the half-light he saw her sitting in the bed waiting for him.  The sheet was pulled over her beasts, leaving only her bare shoulders as sole evidence that she was nude.

“Let me see you, Marge.” He grasped the sheet and pulled it gently downward, but she stopped him.

“No, I’m a little shy; you first,” she said in a subdued tone.

Paul untied the belt of his robe. He threw it open and stripped it off.  He faced her, his naked body displayed.  Though in his fifties, Paul had retained much of his athlete’s physique.  Only a little bit of thickening betrayed his age.  His penis was erect, pointing straight at her. 

Marge held back a gasp as Paul revealed himself, and he heard her.  It made him stiffen harder.

“Now, your turn,” he said.

He tugged the sheet from her fingertips and drew it off her body.  As the sheet peeled away, Marge slid lower to a lying position, as if chasing it.  Her hands were folded together just beneath her breasts.  Her head was turned to look at Paul.  One leg lay flat on the bed.  The one closest to Paul was bent so that her raised knee hid her center.

Paul stood alongside the bed, viewing her.  He saw her start to breathe faster, and her eyes widen as she inspected him.  Her tongue parted her lips and licked them.  In the shadows of the dusky light he saw a woman’s figure, not a girl’s.  It was full, but not flabby.  Her breasts were ample and the nipples pointed at him

Marge turned on her side.  It revealed her mound and thatch of dark hair.  She raised her top leg, which had the effect of opening more to view.  Marge stretched out her arms toward him.

“Please, Paul.  Come to me.  Don’t make me wait any longer.”  Her voice had grown husky and filled with desire.

Paul climbed onto the bed.  She embraced him and they kissed long and slow.  Paul thought to ease himself alongside her to proceed in a gentle way.  Instead, with a sudden inspiration, he pushed her over onto her back and straddled her.  He placed his hands aside her shoulders.  There was a look of eagerness on her face.  He leaned down and kissed her.  The kiss was hard and probing.  Paul could feel himself pressing and rubbing against Marge’s belly and triangle of pubic hair.  He knew that she would have had to feel it, too.  She showed him that she did by the groans she issued into his mouth as they continued the kiss.

Paul raised himself up and slid down her body a little bit.  He treated his lips to the pleasure of her nipples.  He brought a hand up to hold one breast, which isolated the tawny bud.  He alternately sucked it and danced his tongue over it.  Marge pressed her chest up at him to deepen the contact.  Paul knew that she liked it, and did the same on the other side.     

There was more to be done.  Paul slid lower.  Without hesitation, he plunged his face into the cleft below her mons.  He licked her labia and searched out her clitoris.  He felt Marge’s hands on top of his head, pressing him down harder on her.  She was moaning, spreading her legs wider, thrusting her pelvis up at him.  She abandoned all the shyness that she’d brought to the bed with her.  Paul heard her give a high pitched sigh and felt a small contracting spasm.  Marge held her breath as the little orgasm came over her.  Paul pressed his tongue to her clitoris and held it there until she resumed breathing.  It wasn’t a huge climax, but a good start.  Paul knew that it was the first time that a man had given her one since her late husband.

Paul lifted up and looked at her.  He waited for a cue to tell him that she was ready to resume.  He saw that her eyes were closed and hands were stretched over her breasts.  It was a beautiful sight to him, because he knew that he quenched a thirst that had parched her.  It was his lesson learned during his times with Glenda after his own years of doing without.  He would have never understood Marge’s need without the experience.

She flexed her hips to press her mound back up at him.  He would give her a chance to satisfy him.   He wanted her to have it because that feeling is the best that sex has to offer.  He ascended back up to be face to face with her again.  As they joined in a kiss, she showed him her approval by mewing into him.  It excited him and spurred him to more boldness.  He lifted off her once again and straddled her chest, so that his manhood was inches from her face.

Marge accepted the invitation and took him into her mouth.  Paul pressed gently forward to send himself into her throat.  Marge sucked and squeezed him with every soft tissue in her mouth and throat.  Paul withdrew before he came.  To end it then would have been too soon.

He slid back down.  They were face to face again—pelvis to pelvis.  It occurred to him to re-excite her vulva.  He could have tickled her with his fingers, but chose not to.  His crown would do nicely.  He touched her with it, just at the gate of her womanhood and it found a little pouch of skin.  He raised himself up and down to find the right place.  Soon he did, judging by her reaction.  He let himself linger there.  It was soft, wet and warm.  The bumping of his penis against Marge’s clitoris brought her great pleasure.  Soon her rhythmic rocking changed to a ragged fury, trying to catch his throbbing and bobbing head within her labia, desperate to maintain the contact.

She issued primal grunts and moans.  Paul knew that he had brought her to that special place again.  He thrust into her, all the way.  He pushed through the long-neglected flesh that was happy to receive him.  He felt Marge’s legs wrapped around him; before long, he felt her climax approaching.  They thrust to each other with a purpose.  Paul released his own feelings, letting in the pleasure that he knew was there while he let out his fluids into her.

As Paul ejaculated, Marge yelled out.

“Carl!  Carl!” 

She climaxed with great force.  Paul was happy.  The physical release had brought with it an emotion held deep inside her that needed to escape.  They had no words at the moment.  As they lay together Paul appreciated what had taken place.  Tomorrow they could relax and talk over breakfast.  Paul would tell her to take a sick day from work.

***********  

Early the next morning, Paul made the coffee and toast.  Marge scrambled the eggs.  They moved about the kitchen like nothing had happened. As they finished their eggs, Marge was the first to speak.

“It was lovely, Paul.  I don’t know if we’ll ever have a chance to do it again.  I’m glad that we did it this time.”

Paul just smiled and nodded.

“I’m sorry that I yelled out Carl’s name.  Did it upset you?”

“No,” Paul assured her, “I’m glad that you did.  You needed to.  You know now about Carl what I do about Sally; that they will never leave us.  Any lovers we may take are not in place of them; they’re something new.  One thing that I found in Glenda is that she understood it so well.” 

“Were you thinking of Glenda, or maybe Sally?” she asked him.

“No,” Paul replied, “I was thinking of you, and how you were thinking of Carl at that moment and how you needed to be thinking of him, and that I was glad that I was there to help you do it.” 

“Don’t worry, Paul.  Things in the office will be the same.  It will be our secret.  Nothing is changed,” she assured him.

“I was worried about it before we started, but afterwards I knew that it would be alright.  Things are not the same, though.  We’ve lost nothing, but there’s something new.  We’ll handle it,” he replied.

Paul felt that Marge still had something on her mind.

“If you need me to prove it, I can give some extra typing,” he joked.

“That’s not what is bothering me, Paul.”  

“What is it, then?” he asked.  He leaned closer to her.

“I need to know something, Paul, and you must tell me the truth.  I would choose a cruel truth over a kind lie.  Did I … did I please you?”

“Yes, Marge.” Paul answered gently.  “Yes, I couldn’t have asked for more from any woman.”

“Well,” she said with a little laugh, “I know that I can please an old man like you!”

“I didn’t hear any complaints!” Paul retorted.

Marge stood up to clear the dishes.  Paul stacked them to be cleaned later.  He would clean them himself.  The housekeeper would arrive later, but he wasn’t ready to share their secret with her.

“Thanks, Paul,” she whispered, and kissed him on the cheek.  She stepped back from him.  “I’ll be at my desk right after lunch.”

In a minute Marge was in her car backing out of Paul’s driveway and Paul was cleaning the dishes.

************** 

It was in the afternoon some days later and Paul was on an airliner en route to his conference with Larry Wilton. That would take place the first thing the next morning, but first he had an appointment with Audrey Wright to listen to what she had to say.  She was eager to speak to him, according to Jim Spencer who had arranged the secret meeting.  She would meet him at his hotel after he checked in.

Paul was thinking about all that surrounded the purpose of his trip: Grafton, Morehead, Hopkins, the delayed construction in Peoria.  Faced with a multi-year lawsuit, the City Council of Peoria had already abandoned ship and they were promptly rewarded by Hopkins who lifted them from the list of defendants.  Jim Spencer had kept them tentatively tied to the project by having them freeze the enabling zoning, to keep the property open ‘pending the resolution of issues’.

The pilot’s voice came over the speaker.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you look to your right you will be able to see the city of Chicago just below us and to the west.”

Paul didn’t look.  Maybe if he ignored the city passing below him he could escape having Glenda in his thoughts.  Even their times together brought pain when he recalled them. The memories were so beautiful.  They should be making more of them right now.  He admitted to himself that she had found a place in him.

He wondered how Glenda was doing.  As time passed he suspected more and more that they would never reunite.  He had tried to contact her.   He called her home, but only got the voicemail.  He left messages that were never returned.  He found out her address and sent letters in the mail.  There had never been a response. 

Grafton was at fault in this, and so many things.  If he had played it straight from the beginning everything would be right.  The plant would be operating.  The workers in Peoria would have their jobs.  He and Glenda would be together.  He wondered if he and Glenda would have revealed their secret by now.  There were so many places to go together, experiences to share.  People like Grafton, Paul thought, would ruin this world if they weren’t stopped. 

Paul found out that Grafton’s job at Montgomery was ‘Director of Governmental Relations’. 

“A fox in the henhouse,” he muttered to himself

Grafton would have Montgomery paying off regulators right and left. Dunn Chemicals would be out in the cold if they didn’t follow suit, and that was something that Paul refused to do.  It was clear that putting Grafton out of business was the right thing from a number of standpoints. 

“It’s something that I’ve got to do.” 

Paul was still thinking about things when the plane touched the runway..  Soon he was at his hotel, waiting for Audrey Wright.  If she could fill him in, or even give him a hint of what to look for, he could start putting the pieces together.  At least, it would help pressure Wilton if he could appear to have something besides bad-appearing coincidences.

Paul’s hotel room phone rang phone rang.

“Hello, Mr. Crane,” said a female voice on the phone. “This is Audrey Wright speaking.  I’m in the lobby of your hotel.  May I come up to room right away?”

A few minutes later Paul opened the door for her.  She rushed in. 

“I don’t want to be seen,” she whispered.  “This is a government town.  You never know who you’ll run into.  I could lose my job over what I’m doing.”

“So much for formal introductions, Miss Wright.  You know that I’m Paul Crane.  I’m glad to meet you.” 

Audrey smiled, but looked embarrassed.  They shook hands. 

“If anyone asks you,” Paul said, “tell them that you had a job interview.  I’ll back you up.  They won’t like it, but they can’t fire you for it.”

Paul motioned for her to sit down.  There was an easy chair in the room.  Paul went for the wooden chair at the desk. 

“No!  I’ll take that one,” she said as she hurried over to the harder chair.  “You are a lot older than I am.”

Paul offered her a drink from the mini-bar, and she asked for Club Soda.

“It’ll be Geritol for me!” Paul joked.         

“I’m sorry,” she sighed, “I’m just nervous.”

“Well, stop being nervous.  This is important.  We’ll need to get down to business,” Paul answered.

Audrey stopped blushing and nodded.

Paul noticed how good looking the young woman was, but in the mood of the moment, it was irrelevant.  In fact, Audrey was beautiful.  She was tall with golden, blonde hair.  She was dressed in business attire, but her slender outline suggested a body that had been honed by swimming or running.  Her face was one of those scrubbed, fair, Nordic ones, with bright skin, blue eyes and a pleasant visage.  Her wavy hair, parted in the middle, framed it, and then descended past her shoulders.  If she had put her hair in braids and worn an iron helmet, she would have passed for a Viking maiden.  

“Miss Wright … do you mind if I call you Audrey … did Jim Spencer tell you why we are interested in speaking with you?”

“Audrey is fine, Mr. Crane.  Yes, I know why we’re here.  That’s probably why I was so nervous a few minutes ago.”

“I would like you tell me your story of the Peoria Project from the start,” Paul said.  “Don’t leave anything out or add anything that doesn’t belong.”

Audrey took a gulp of her soda and began.

“About two years ago I had been with the Agency for almost a year.  The Peoria project was the first big project that I was assigned to.  Ed Grafton and Craig Morehead were on it from the start.  They didn’t care very much for what I had to say.  They seemed to be preoccupied in the drawings and blueprints.  They would spend a lot of time pouring over them.  My specialty is Environmental Science.  I really couldn’t read the drawings very well, at least at first.  Later, I got better.”

“For a while, I thought that I really didn’t know what was going on.  The engineers from your company, and Harry Carmichael’s would submit drawings to us.  There would be a discussion.  Ed would take the drawings away with him and write a report.  Then he would tell us that the review had been extended again.  He would tell us something that showed up in the drawings that wasn’t right.”

“After a while I started to understand things better, I noticed that at the next session of meetings with your company, Ed would talk about some issue that had nothing to do with what he had told Craig and me earlier.  I asked him about it.  He told me that if he didn’t do what he was doing he was sure that the solvents made in the plant would leak into the river.  He said he was stalling for time so that he could prove it.  I was naïve then.  I believed him.”

“So,” Paul interrupted, “he was getting extensions from Larry Wilton on false pretenses?  No matter what we would do, we would never get the permit because Wilton was on the wrong page.”

Audrey nodded.  “And your people would never even know why,” she added.

“There’s more, much more,” she went on.

“One night I was working late on another project.  I was walking through the department.  I saw Ed Grafton working in the CAD room.  He didn’t see me.  No one else was around.  He had the Dunn prints with him.  He got up and went to the cafeteria.  He left his work out.  I went into the CAD room to see what he was doing.”

“The designs had been sent to the Agency through the internet.  We had it in our server.  I hid among the cubicles outside the CAD room when he came back from eating.  He changed the drawings in the server.  He scanned the signature on the real copies and then practiced writing the signature.  He printed everything, signed it and used a fake seal that he got out of his desk.  He put the changed version in the hard copy file and shredded the real ones.”

“Are you aware, Audrey, how serious these charges are?” Paul asked.  “Do you know that Grafton could lose his PE license for what you say he did?  Are you willing to send him to jail?”

“I don’t want to see anyone go to jail, Mr. Crane,” Audrey said, looking him in the eye.  “But if it has to be, then so be it.  I worked hard to become a scientist.  I believe in my work.  I just want to be able to do it the best that I can.  I want to be an honest person.  When Grafton retired and was hired by Montgomery I knew what he had done.  He lied about his concern for the river.  He was just out to get rich.  I don’t want to be like that.  Before Jim Spencer called me, I thought that I would just have to accept it.  I could hardly sleep at night.”

“Why didn’t you go to Larry Wilton?” Paul asked.

“He’s a hard person to get to see.  There are three bosses that I would have to get through just to get approval to make an appointment with him.  I was on loan from another department.  My boss’s boss has a degree in sociology and works here because his father is a friend of the Governor.  What chance did I have?  If I did get in and couldn’t defend myself perfectly, I would be torn to shreds.  It’s an engineering issue, and I’m not an engineer.”

“I believe you, Audrey,” said Paul, “and if you can help me, I’m going to try to do something about it.  Where are the bogus drawings?”

“I don’t know.  On Grafton’s last day I saw him looking for them, and he went crazy when he couldn’t find them.  The lawyers wanted them, too, because of the lawsuit, but they said that they would just print them from the CAD again.  They said that the Dunn people would sign them, since we’re co-defendants.” 

“I’ll bet that a squirrel took them and stored them in his hutch like a bunch of acorns,” Paul said.

“What?  I don’t get it!”

“That squirrel has a name that you know well—Craig Morehead!  I would bet a month’s salary on it,” said Paul.

Audrey put her hands to her face.  “I never suspected Craig!” she gasped.

“Audrey, I have a meeting with Larry Wilton tomorrow and this subject is going to come up.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell him everything and your name won’t surface— yet, anyway.  Try to make yourself scarce tomorrow.  Now, I’ll tell you how you’re going to get Morehead to cough up those bogus drawings.”

Paul poured her another soda and they set about making their plans.

********* 

The meeting the next morning started on time.  The first thirty minutes were consumed by get acquainted chit-chat over coffee and Danish.  In Paul’s book, the meeting started thirty minutes late.

“Always delay bringing in the coffee and pastry until the meeting has been going for at least thirty minutes,” he said to himself.  It was a management axiom that he had learned years ago.

The meeting was held in Larry Wilton’s office.  Besides Larry Wilton and Paul, were Craig Morehead and two faceless lawyers working for the State of Illinois.  Ted Wilson and Jim Spencer were there, too, having caught the early bird that morning.  They all sat around an oblong table.

They reviewed the Complaint Document and commented on the various technical points contained in it.

“They’ve left this so open-ended that they could keep amending and filing for years,” one of the state lawyers blurted out.  Wilson agreed.

Larry Wilton asked on what grounds they thought that the suit could be settled.

“Wait!” said Paul in a loud, firm voice.  “This has to be fought.  If we don’t it will be the template that they will use against us for all time, in every state in the Union.  The permit process in Illinois will lose all credibility.  I don’t think that they’re looking for a compromise.  Hopkins has a free ride on the legal fees. He wants to keep milking the cow as long as he can.”

“All the more reason to settle!” piped up one of the state lawyers.

“No,” said Ted Wilson.  “We have to fight, but we have to be smart at the same time.  Let Hopkins think that we’re running to him with a settlement.  He’ll have to say that he’s willing to negotiate.  That will cut him off from reinventing the suit over again.  We just have to keep a lid on until we know exactly what we want to ‘offer’ him.  It has to be credible.  It will have to be cloaked in technical jargon to throw off the press.”

“That’s why you make the big money, Ted,” Paul said after listening to Ted’s analysis.

“The press could turn brutal.” offered Wilton.  “If they do, I’m not sure how long the Governor’s office will stand up to it.”

“That’s your job!” Paul said in a voice tinged with anger.  He regretted it.   He knew that he had made a mistake.

“You seem to know a lot about my job, Paul,” retorted Wilton.  He, obviously, was recalling the tense phone call between them weeks ago over Grafton.

Larry Wilton was a man in his late fifties.  He was taller and more slender than most men.  He wore a moustache that was salt and pepper-colored, just like the hair on his head.  He had the quiet demeanor of a college professor.  As he sat at the head of the table one had the impression that he should have had a pipe in his hands, with all of the necessary tools for cleaning it and restuffing it with tobacco.  He had, in fact smoked a pipe in the office until the no-smoking bans in state buildings made him dispense with it. 

“I’m sorry, Larry.  What I meant was ‘who but you could handle it’,” Paul countered.

“I’m not sure that anyone can,” he answered, “at least, for very long.”

The subject turned to the missing drawings.  Morehead suggested they use those stored in the state CAD.  Paul could sign off on them.  He would have them printed before he left today.

“I would like our own staff to generate any new drawings that we sign.  I can have a full set on their way to you this afternoon,” Paul said.

He looked around the room.  Everyone was nodding in agreement, except Morehead, who was turning red.

“It’s just a formality; you know, Company policy,” Paul said, looking to soothe Morehead.  “Look, why don’t you use the drawings in your CAD as working copies to mark up?”

“Yes, yes.  That would be fine,” said Wilton.

“As a matter of fact, we should get a hard copy in your office right now,” Paul said, turning to Wilton.

Wilton turned to Morehead.  “Would you take care of that right away, Craig?”

As the participants filed out, Paul stayed behind.  When he and Wilton were alone, he closed the door. 

“We have to talk about Grafton, Larry.”

“There’s nothing to discuss until I have something more in my hands,” Wilton said.

“You and I both know the score with him.  You can’t let him get away with it!” Paul demanded.

“I don’t know anything—just suspicions.  It’s the same with you,” countered Wilton. 

“Well, Larry, you do know that you have a missing set of drawings that were the basis of delaying our permit, and you have an engineer asking me to sign something that no self- respecting engineer would ever sign.  What do you think of that?” Paul’s anger was rising.

Wilton folded has hands and cast his eyes down at them.

“I don’t know what to think,” he said.

Paul’s anger won out over his patience.  He could feel the veins in his neck bulging and heat rising in his face.  He thought of Glenda’s suffering, of his own personal loss, the risks taken by Audrey Wright, of the plant in Peoria that should now be built and the workers who should have jobs there.  Then, he considered the indifference of the cowardly man in front of him. 

Paul jumped to his feet and stretched his hands across the table to support his weight.  It made Wilton look up.  Paul thrust his face into Wilton’s so that their noses were only an inch apart.

“I’ll tell you what I think, Larry,” he yelled at the top of his hoarse voice.  “I think that you should grow a pair of balls.  Then you won’t have to be ashamed of yourself and this foul agency.  Do yourself that favor!”

There was a long silence.  Paul stood up straight.

“You can’t talk to me like that!” said Wilton, in a voice so low that Paul could barely hear it.

“I just did!” said Paul.

“Bring me evidence,” Wilton mumbled.

“Count on it!” Paul said, and strode out of the office.

Ted Wilson and Jim Spencer were waiting outside Wilton’s office.

“They want to take us to lunch,” Ted told him.

“Go if you want to.  I’m catching a cab to the airport.”  Paul answered.

********** 

TO BE CONTINUED

Dear Readers,

Thanks for reading “Chance Encounter”.  I hope that you enjoyed the story so far.  As always, I welcome your comments.

Autumn Writer