Scrupulous Storekeeping

George whistled, hands in his pockets, as he walked to work. It was only a quarter mile walk, and his old Dodge Challenger was a bit of a gas guzzler.

He passed by a little playground where he could hear the sound of young children laughing, squealing, and calling out to each other or parents. He paused, smiling to himself and watching them for a moment.

George Bailey was not good with women. He didn’t know how to properly look at them, let alone speak with them. The closest he had gotten to a real relationship was in third grade when he had been chased on the playground and picked on by Amelia Scott. His attempts at dating had ended before they began. It seemed that every time he tried to politely ask a woman out, he ended up tripping over his own tongue, getting so tied up that he forgot how to speak entirely.

But with all of this, George still loved children. He loved the way they never ran out of energy, the way they could smile and laugh at most anything. He had always thought it would be fun to be a father, but first he had to get a good, steady job.

Hopefully that would begin today. He continued on his way to work, not wanting to be late for his first day.

***

Agent Hart studied the scattering of papers spread out before her. She moved between them with the frenetic energy of an excited monkey who had too many bananas to choose from.

The papers contained information regarding the movement of various toxic substances, explosives, and firearms. Some of the exchanges were perfectly legal, others were a bit more…shady. One report looked innocent enough at first glance, but upon inspection, it was quite strange. An exorbitant amount of cleaning fluids had been shipped from multiple suppliers to a several large warehouses. The warehouses were all listed as owned by separate people, but it hadn’t taken long for Hart to determine that those people were all fake. Or rather, they were dead. Whoever was using their names must’ve bought their social security numbers off the black market.

But why cleaning fluids? She frowned, studying the other lists, comparing them. Most of the interactions seemed like legitimate business deals or typical gang activity. And all of those ones actually involved things that were dangerous, like guns, grenades, and toxic gases.

Rubbing her temples, she sat back in her seat. Dang it all, she needed Harley. Where was that man?

***

George Bailey had been working for only one week when they moved him to night shift. He didn’t mind. Much. Night shift was fine, it was just a bit…dull. So few people came to shop between ten pm and six am.

Well, he was determined not to let that spoil his work. He’d found ways to engage himself, yes indeed. He-

Someone walked in through the doors. He brightened immediately, walking over to greet the short woman. She was middle-aged but had the physique of a gymnast.

“Welcome to Walmart!” he exclaimed warmly. Did she look familiar from somewhere?

She gave him a brief, tight-lipped smile and tried to walk away.

“You look familiar,” he said. “Have we met?”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you.” Again, she moved to leave.

“Huh,” he mused. “I could swear I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“Perhaps it was here,” she said, sounding more impatient. “I am a regular customer.”

He chuckled. “Not at this time of night, I hope.”

She gave him a blank look. “No, I just forgot something earlier in the day. Have a good night, sir.” She practically scurried away.

George sighed, shaking his head. He wasn’t sure what he had done wrong that time. Ah, well. He went back to his vigil. He checked on some of the shelf stockers. Julie and Anna were on schedule, but Jason was lagging behind. George went to help him for a few minutes before continuing his circuit. There was Horas, and Ferdinand, and…where was Kalista? Oh, right. Maternity leave. Who was covering her shift? Oh, right. Him. Well, the cereal looked pretty well stocked anyway. The pop tarts could use some help. He would take care of it after finishing his round.

He made his way down each aisle, finally reaching the fresh produce section. He looked over at all the vegetables arrayed in their little black cartons. He checked his watch. And frowned, glancing back at the vegetables. He waited a few moments more, then checked his watch again. Why weren’t the misters turning on? They turned on at consistent intervals which he had memorized. They never varied, except for that one time when someone had accidentally bumped the switch the turned them off. Fortunately, George had noticed then too and quickly fixed the problem.

He made his way to the back where the water supply for the misters was kept. He frowned. It was still on. He leaned in a bit closer, inspecting the lines for any sign of clogging.

Then he jerked back, making a face. Heavens above, what was that smell? It wasn’t super potent, but enough to make his head feel a little fuzzy and his nostrils sting. It seemed to be coming from the water supply. That did not seem good.

He pulled out his radio-which still made him feel quite professional-and called his supervisor to report the issue.

***

The cleaning supplies were shockingly hard to trace after they left the warehouses. However, with Harley’s help, Hart was able to find patterns. The ones they were able to track had been sent out to supermarkets all across the northeast. That wasn’t all that odd. Walmart sold cleaning supplies, after all. However, the oddity was in the consistency. The shipments were all set to arrive at their destinations on the exact same night. That indicated an intense level of coordination between all of the warehouses. The real question was, why? What was the point?

That’s what she was going to find out. She pulled up at precisely one o’clock am into the Walmart parking lot. There were an unusually high number of vehicles outside. She frowned, stepping out of her car. In the dim lighting of the parking lot, she recognized police cars and a couple of poison control units. She quickened her pace. At the door, she was stopped by a police officer.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “We are currently in the process of controlling a situation.”

She flashed him her badge. He looked confused.

Blast. He probably wasn’t high enough rank to know what her badge indicated.

“Trust me, I’m authorized to enter,” she said, then pushed past him before he could stop her. She could feel him watching her back. Finally, she heard him talking into his radio, likely to report her entrance. But he didn’t try to stop her.

Inside, there was a commotion around the fresh produce section. A nervous looking Walmart supervisor stood nearby, wringing his hands. She strode up to him.

“Sir, my name is Agent Hart. What is happening here?”

He barely glanced at her. “Hmm? Oh, some sort of contamination in the sprinkling system.” He sounded very distracted and didn’t even stop to ask who she was. “Some sort of bleach-based cleaner? They can’t fathom how it got in there. No signs of sabotage, and video cameras show no one entering or leaving the back room.”

“How did you figure out that it had been contaminated then?” she asked.

“Someone gave me a tip,” he muttered off-handedly. “Said the misters weren’t on schedule, and the water smelled funny. I got poison control here to check it out right away. Good thing, too. This could’ve ruined us if all that produce had started making people sick.”

Hart perked up. That was it! If everyone across the northeastern coast got food poisoning from supermarket produce, it could cause some serious chaos.

And those other stores likely haven’t discovered the contamination yet!

The thought spurred her to action. She turned and sprinted for the door, yanking out her cell phone.

“HQ,” she said briskly. “Get Harvey. Tell him to pull up the locations of the shipments. He’ll know what that means. Send agents to each of them. We have to make sure nobody buys those dang vegetables!”

***

Hart was annoyed with herself. In her haste to contact HQ, she hadn’t stopped to ask who had given the tip that the water was contaminated. She had her suspicions. But if she was right, then he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to identify himself to the Walmart supervisor anyway.

She sighed. At least they had managed to avert the crisis. Agents had arrived in time to get the stores shut down for a thorough cleaning or disposal of produce. They swept the rest of each supermarket for other oddities just in case, but everything else seemed clean.

“Agent Hart,” she turned to see Harley grinning at her. She smiled back tiredly.

“Formality, Harley?”

He shrugged. “It seemed fitting, seeing as you are one step away from being promoted with all of your recent successes.”

“Not that I can be credited for that,” she muttered.

Harley rolled his eyes. “A few anonymous tips hardly overshadow all the work you’ve done, Pheobe.”

She sighed. He was probably right. Still, it ate at her that this mysterious stranger seemed to know so much about her, AGENT, and ROZ, while they knew nothing of him.

Harley stepped forward and slapped her on the back. “Cheer up, Hart. You didn’t die today. That’s a pretty big win, if you ask me.” He winked at her. Despite herself, she chuckled.

“True enough. True enough.”

***

“George, can we talk?”

George looked up to see the store manager coming towards him. Kirsten Gloria was young to be a manager, but plenty intimidating. George immediately felt himself begin to sweat.

“Er, yes, of course.”

He followed her to her office. She gestured for him to sit in the chair across from her desk.

“I’ve noticed a bit of a problem,” she said, hand resting lightly on a sheet of paper on her desk.

“Oh?” George asked, his voice slightly higher pitched than normal.

“Kalista has been on maternity leave, as you know.”

“Yes,” George said, brightening. “Oh, it’s so exciting!”

A small smile cracked Kirsten’s face, which made her look much nicer, in George’s opinion. “Yes, but let’s stay on topic.”

George cocked his head. She had brought it up, not him.

“I believe you were specifically assigned to cover her responsibilities on night shift,” Kirsten continued, one eyebrow arched. “Yet your supervisor reports that you seem to spend your time walking in circles?”

That was unfair. His circuit took him in a winding, extensive route, not a circle.

“Her work has not been getting done, and customers have complained about shortages in the isles she is supposed to stock.”

George grimaced. Yes, his supervisor had mentioned this to him. But surely they didn’t need seven boxes of Cheerios and five flavors of pop tarts out at all times? What he did was much more productive, as proven by his discovery of the cleaning fluid problem.

“You have been warned multiple times, George,” Kirsten said, voice and face growing hard.

He felt his shoulders slump a little. But then he smiled. Well, he’d seen an ad that Subway needed help. And they were paying more, anyway.