Death on Covert Circle Read online

  Still not looking at the woman, the CEO glanced toward the store employees and his gangly assistant, who wasn’t as young as he’d first seemed. “This is the entrenched thinking we have to overcome, since we know meat production is far more profitable when we centralize it.”

  Seemed to me he was faulting the woman for not being happy to sacrifice getting London broil the way she liked it as long as it improved the Jolly Roger’s bottom line … and, presumably, its CEO’s annual bonus.

  Yeah, that’s what most consumers want first and foremost — to fatten stores’ and CEOs’ bottom lines.

  “You’re not producing meat. You’re cutting it,” grumbled a man standing across the group from the teacher, a man in his early forties, dressed in worn jeans, sneakers, and a white shirt, with the sleeves rolled back on powerful forearms.

  The CEO, named Rod Birchall according to Petey, paid no attention. Not to the man, not to the woman voicing the complaint. He seemed to think the matter was settled.

  She didn’t, which was clear from her expression.

  “Your profit relies on having customers, which you will not have with these changes,” the woman said.

  “Plenty of pre-packaged meat available,” the assistant said with nervous heartiness.

  As if he hadn’t spoken, Rod Birchall said, “All the cuts you could want are here. All of them. We offer more choices than ever before—”

  “Not true.” Again, the woman’s support came from the man on the opposite side of the group.

  His right hand was raised slightly. At first, I thought he’d formed a fist. But the position of his hand was more elongated. More like a tennis racquet grip? No, that wasn’t quite right, either. Yet there was something familiar…

  The CEO interrupted my musing. “More choice than ever before and—”

  “No. Prepackaging limits a purchaser’s choices.” Giving up on reading the man’s grip, I read his face. Not a satisfied customer. “A lot of times you’re selling mostly white meat.”

  White meat? But the woman had talked about red meat — London broil. Not to mention, her complaint centered on whether meat could be cut to a customer’s specifications in the store, not white vs. red.

  I might have been distracted by the non-sequitur, but the teacherish woman wasn’t. She took control again.

  “Indeed, there is no choice at all, in effect, because your packages offer only meat that is far too thin. Pork chops you can be seen through — no wonder people say it’s dry. It is like trying to cook tissue paper. That is its flavor, as well. In addition, the supposed London broil in your packages, which could not be sliced to serve, because it would be like trying to slice a pancake.”

  “Some people do like it thin and—” started Jacqueline, the assistant store manager.

  Birchall talked over her, as CEOs tend to do. “Statistically, shoppers prefer thin.”

  “None of those shoppers eat at my table,” the London broil woman said curtly. “Are you going to return to having customers inform the butcher how they want their meat cut?”

  “No,” Birchall said. “Machines are more efficient and cost less. Butchers are remnants of past centuries. Should have moved aside for more efficient and cost-effective means years ago.”

  Didn’t seem to me to be a good strategy to irritate and dismiss people who knew how to handle cleavers. On the other hand, this guy seemed determined to irritate everybody, including customers.

  And he wasn’t done. “We can’t have butchers taking all day with customers. Centralizing meat-cutting provides better use of man-hours. More efficient.”

  “Prices haven’t dropped to reflect any supposed efficiency,” said the vaguely familiar man, a muscle beside his eye jumping.

  Rod Birchall gave him a hard look and I’d swear the odor of putrid fish wafted past us.

  “It’s more efficient and cheaper for the entire chain.” This CEO was not the first person I’d encountered who seemed to think repeating something was the same as making a valid point. He wasn’t any less annoying for not being original.

  “Not for the customers,” the woman said.

  He didn’t even pretend to have listened. “Not to mention it makes the best sense for a store like this — a convenience, rather than a full-service store, like the one in…”

  This time the gangly assistant’s whisper was audible and identifiable. “Stringer. Two stores.”

  “The two stores in Stringer.”

  “If we wanted convenience, we’d pick up things at the gas station,” said the terrier mix’s owner from the dog park. “This place isn’t as convenient at the gas station market and doesn’t have all the things I need. It’s the worst of both worlds.”

  “Then go to our big store — two big stores in Stinger.”

  The assistant winced.

  When Birchall smiled, the center of his top lip didn’t lift along with the corners, reminding me of a jack-o’-lantern. Only not as human.

  “If I’m going that far, I’m going to stores with better products, more choice, lower prices, and without house brands they cram down my throat. In the meantime, this convenient Roger doesn’t carry half the items I want. You’ve got to stop having your checkout clerks ask if we found everything we were looking for, because when we tell them what all we couldn’t find it’s slowing down the lines even worse than usual.”

  “Talk to your store manager.” He looked toward the assistant manager.

  “Kurt Verker,” she supplied. “As I started to say before, he, uh, he had to leave. He wasn’t feeling well. He’ll be so sorry to have missed your visit.”

  The oldest of the red vests, a woman, coughed. The other two appeared caught between horror and a growing fear they’d burst out laughing.

  “Even when he is here, he’s not much use,” the dog park woman said. “Promises to special order and call when it comes in, but he never calls and when I ask him about it, he says he couldn’t get it — them. Any of the many things I’ve asked for. When I confront him, he mumbles on about rules from corporate and not enough room.”

  “That’s true,” Jacqueline, the assistant manager, said quickly. “We need to have enough room on the shelves to stock a carton’s worth or we don’t get a product.” Considering the way the assistant manager tried to walk a tightrope between her customers and the CEO, she needed one of those super-long floppy balancing poles.

  “You have plenty of room for more and more house brands,” the dog park woman said. “We’re not stupid, you know. We know stores make more money selling house brands than national brands.”

  “Our brands are a value offer,” Birchall said, “giving you the same product for a lower price point—”

  “That would be great if they were the same product. But most of your house brands are junk. We want the brand names that have proven their worth over years, not some jumped-up imitator.”

  “Our brands are superior—”

  “They’re not. Your lemon concentrate has seeds in it for heaven’s sake. I want the brand I’ve been using for years and don’t need to strain first. If I you don’t offer it here—”

  “If we don’t offer it, it’s because that brand name product doesn’t sell in sufficient numbers to deserve space on the shelves. Blame your fellow shoppers.”

  “Bull,” said the man in jeans.

  The assistant store manager made an abortive gesture that might have been an instinctual plea to him not to antagonize the CEO. Whether the man interpreted it that way or not, he did not elaborate on the single word.

  But the woman from the dog park kept to her point. “My fellow shoppers don’t have a choice. You don’t stock the product in this store.”

  “Because it doesn’t sell,” Birchall said triumphantly, turning away from her and starting off.

  “Are you serious?” She immediately answered her own question. “Yes. Seriously stupid. It can’t sell when you won’t stock it.”

  She said the end louder, because he was walking away, on
a path toward the produce section. He waved one hand overhead without stopping.

  The knot divided.

  With an apologetic smile over her shoulder, the assistant manager, along with Birchall’s assistant, and the trio of employees wearing red vests, caught up with the CEO, their body language conveying reluctance in various dialects.

  And I didn’t think the reluctance was entirely explained by the fact they were moving closer to the home of Brussels sprouts and turnips.

  Most of the grumbling group of customers left. But the man, the possible teacher, and the woman from the dog park headed in the same direction as the Roger employees.

  Maybe they craved Brussels sprouts and turnips, but I doubted it.

  Clara and I looked at each other.

  “Do you need to get home right away?” she asked.

  I blithely threw my writing time under the bus. “No. And this guy has me on the edge of my metaphorical seat to see how much worse he can get.”

  “I know. Let’s go.”

  We followed in the wake of the remaining group.

  CHAPTER THREE

  At the customer service desk, Birchall stopped abruptly, causing a chain reaction of stops for the employees, the three customers, then Clara and me. He reached over the counter and held up a bright blue object.

  “You. What is this?”

  It must have been an optical illusion that the other employees shrank away from the assistant manager, because I’d swear no one moved. But as clearly as if they’d extended their digits, they were all pointing to her as the one responsible for answering.

  “A … uh, stapler?” she said.

  “Of course, it’s a stapler, you cretin. You must have read the memo.” He pointed the butt end of the stapler at her in accusation. “Well, did you?”

  “I, uh, I’m sure I did. I read them all, sir.”

  “Then you weren’t capable of comprehending it. The stapler is to be on the left side of the desk. Left. Not over here on the right. And never — never — are you to use another brand. Always a Jolly Roger brand stapler—”

  “Good heavens,” I muttered to Clara. “They have house brand staplers.”

  “And they write memos about where to place them on the desk,” she muttered back.

  “—at the customer service desk. All—”

  “It kept breaking,” said the older woman in the red vest. But softly enough for the rest to pretend they hadn’t heard.

  “—materials used at the Customer Service desk or the registers or anywhere else customers can see are to be Jolly Roger brand. You.”

  He waved toward the man who certainly seemed to be his assistant. Hard to believe Birchall didn’t know his name.

  Or couldn’t be bothered to use it.

  The man hurried to his side, an effort made more difficult because the CEO strode off without waiting for him. Birchall snapped, “Write it down.”

  “Write, uh … what?”

  “Stapler. Wrong kind. Wrong place. Disregarding memo. No excuse.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Frowning as he looked from side to side, the CEO waved a finger at his assistant. “I have a brilliant thought. Check if switching to thicker meat would lower meat production costs because it takes fewer cuts. We might get rid of more overpriced butchers.”

  At least the woman with the upswept hair would be happy…

  “If it saves us money and we can market it as premium with a premium price, even better.”

  …or not.

  “You.” This time Birchall pointed at Jacqueline. “Your sales are lower than they should be. You haven’t met projections for eight months.”

  “I’ve only been here four, but—”

  “I don’t care if you’ve been here five minutes. You’re responsible. Hit those projections or you’ll be gone. Can’t have dead weight dragging down my numbers.”

  “Sir, we sent in a report to the district manager, you, and the entire executive team. Those projections are not reasonable. We couldn’t reach them without posting nearly forty-percent growth year over year. We have stiff competition from a local store that’s an institution in Haines Tavern—”

  “What does a tavern have to do with it?”

  “Haines Tavern is the town’s name. And—”

  “Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Crush any local competition. Put them out of business. Problem solved.”

  The assistant whispered something I didn’t hear.

  The CEO’s brows snapped together. He focused fully on the assistant manager for the first time — with a scowl.

  “This is the store where a rinky-dink local’s running the same specials before ours? How do they know what’s going to run next? Somebody’s got to be telling them. Are you the traitor?”

  She paled. “As I said I’ve only been here a few months, I don’t even know—”

  “Make a note,” Birchall snapped to the assistant. “Management of this store has two weeks to track down the leak or they’re out.”

  The assistant store manager sucked in a breath. She wasn’t the only one. Several of us reacted to his harsh threat, especially in front of an audience. The teacher clicked her tongue. I wished it were a precursor to taking this man by the ear and dragging him to the principal’s office.

  “And you haven’t fully implemented the multi-tier promotion plan we sent. Do it. Now. Should have been done weeks ago.”

  “Sir, in my memo, I included customer comments showing it doesn’t work for our customer base. I recommended—”

  “Just do it. Don’t try to think and for God’s sake don’t recommend.”

  “We’ll lose customers.” She spoke more strongly. Perhaps she felt she had nothing to lose, not with the two-weeks-and-out threat. “The service we could offer was already suffering before this latest round of personnel cutbacks. And—”

  I’d read about the Jolly Roger chain cutting a lot of store-level jobs, while leaving the corporate workforce intact.

  “—you heard what people said about—”

  “So what if you lose customers or stores, as long as we’ll make more money.”

  “Isn’t that the strategy tried in Idaho before the chain you ran went bankrupt?”

  Good for Jacqueline.

  Though if she thought that would dent his self-satisfaction, she was disappointed. On the flip side, his barely seeming to hear her lessened the chances she’d committed employment suicide.

  He’d reached the produce section, stopping to gaze around him with his hands on his hips and his stern disapproval seemingly focused on the pints of blueberries.

  “The failure was implementation,” he told the blueberries. “Lazy workforce wouldn’t follow the program. Like you. Couldn’t get good people. But the board here saw the brilliance behind it and brought me in to make it work here. Are you on the board?

  “Of course not.”

  “I didn’t think so. But you better get on board or you’ll be gone.”

  His assistant made a sound possibly intended as an admiring chuckle at his brilliant play on words. Birchall didn’t show any sign of hearing and the assistant cut it off.

  From the corner of my eye, I caught stealthy movement. Two employees behind the deli counter side-stepped to get out of view. A third abandoned her post behind a tray stacked with paper-wrapped samples outside the deli and disappeared past an end cap.

  I respected their decision-making.

  If I’d been Jacqueline, I’d have wanted to smack the CEO for his disdain.

  I wasn’t her and I still wanted to smack him.

  But it seemed to fuel her. “The customers’ reactions to the Dynamic Price Reduction Program—”

  “Enough about customers. They have to be led. They don’t run our stores.”

  The customers behind him stirred. It might only take one comment to spark a rebellion. I bet we could chase him back to his posh SUV in seconds.

  A muscle in the assistant manager’s jaw throbbed. “My customers don’t
like the complicated sales. With X number of items on sale for Y days and a different set of four items on sale for three days. Then weekend specials sometimes being for Friday through Sunday, but other times just Saturday and Sunday.”

  “Our data shows dynamic price reductions keep consumers engaged.”

  “It keeps them confused, not engaged.”

  Birchall’s assistant huffed.

  But the CEO did not appear to pay any attention as he gazed around.

  Jacqueline kept on anyway. “We have a fair percentage of older customers here and they don’t like sales with variable rules. They also don’t like the digital coupons that have to be loaded onto smart phones — not all of them have smart phones.”

  I was sure individual customers didn’t like the coupons for those reasons, but it struck me as an unfair generalization. I couldn’t help but think of Petey the cart guy whizzing through his photos and videos on his phone to share his grandchildren’s brilliance with all lookers. Or my Great-Aunt Kit, who I swear could show Bill Gates a thing or two, especially about word processing programs.

  “So they load them on their loyalty card using their computer.”

  “A lot don’t register for the card and not all of them have computers.”

  “Internet cafés—”

  “In Haines Tavern? Have you seen an internet café here? They’re not going to take the time. And they don’t care for all the variables. They might clip paper coupons, but they’re not going to use digital coupons.”

  “Then they pay full price. Even better.”

  Before anyone could respond, he strode off, having turned his attention to a younger demographic.

  A woman with a cherubic little girl with blonde curls, had come around the corner of the last aisle and stopped abruptly, staring at the group clustered in the produce section.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Not only was the girl a pre-school cutie, but she was strapped into the grocery cart seat — not something I often see. And what held her was not the thin, twisted store belt, but a padded shoulder harness connected to the back of the seat, supplemented by straps hooked to the sides, limiting lateral movement.