The Detective and the Tech Guy
Author: Steampunk . Chuckster
Rating: T
Summary: A case of mistaken identity and murder brings Sarah Walker, Pinkerton agent, to sunny California. Protecting the heir to the Bartowski Electronics Corporation should be just business - but Chuck Bartowski fills out a suit nicely and makes a mean martini. Chuck lobbied to hire the Pinkerton Agency, but had no idea the detective they'd send would be as alluring, intelligent and fascinating as Sarah Walker. Will the detective and the tech guy solve the mystery, distracted by the riddle in their own hearts? An homage to The Thin Man movies.
Disclaimer: No money is being made from this story. I don't own Chuck or The Thin Man series.
Author's Note: Thought I owed it to folks to put this up today. The day of my birth! Haha, but most importantly, it's been too long since The Detective and the Tech Guy had their fun. That being said, this arc is going to be...real. Hope that's cool with you folks. Thanks for sticking with me. Appreciate it.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
The Detective and the Tech Guy Versus the System, Part 1
Chuck felt adrenaline coursing through him as he listened to the ringing on the other side of the line. He could do this. He could totally do this.
It was just like that one scene in that episode of Brubaker, P.I. he and Morgan had watched at three AM or whenever when he was visiting him at Stanford after they'd gone to a frat party and poor Morgan was too sick from over-drinking to sleep so Chuck distracted him by putting on one of their favorite 'seventies cop shows.
A voice in his head that sounded a lot like his girlfriend's reminded him that this wasn't like TV shows and it wasn't like movies. It was real life. And he needed to remember that before he got himself or someone else in trouble.
And yet…
When a male voice answered the phone, Chuck slipped right into the same gruff voice Brubaker's sometime-partner Simon used in the scene.
"Hi, listen… I need a favor. This is the front desk, right? I haven't accidentally called my mother-in-law?" He barked out a loud laugh he assumed these types of men used on golf courses when their wives weren't around.
The man at the desk simply said, "I'm not your mother-in-law. This is the front desk. Who is this?"
Chuck cleared his throat, glancing down at the website's STAFF page. "Karl Salcedo, attorney at law. Newberry, Carpenter, & Associates. We're up on the, uh, seventh floor." God, he hoped he got that right.
"Ah. Yes, Mr. Salcedo, sir. How can I help you?"
"Right, I need you to do me a favor, sonny." Sonny? What the hell, was he an eighty year old man in nineteen-fifty-four? He winced. "I'm waiting for some extremely important and sensitive information to arrive and one of the temps from the office across town is showing up at any moment. If she isn't already there. She's a timid little thing, so she, uh, may need some guidance. But this is some serious paperwork and we need it pronto, so you can't let her leave."
"Oh. Right, um… Let me see if I can spot her, Mr. Salcedo. What does she look like?"
"Curly black hair, glasses…tall…"
"Uh, let's see, she—Is she wearing a grey sweater and tan pants? Wait, she's turned around, looks like she's going…"
Chuck sat up and snapped, "What are you doing?! You stupid or something? Didn't I say you can't let her leave? Go get her!"
"Oh! Uh…" He heard a scuffling sound. "Miss! Miss, wait! Hold on! Uh, you're here for…the law office on the seventh floor?"
"Whatever you do, get her the hell up here. I need those files, damn it!" Chuck snapped.
"Yes, Mr. Salcedo, sir. Right away…"
Chuck heard muffled voices and a distant swiping sound, plus the beep of security being cleared, and he wondered if…that had actually worked.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Sarah yanked down on the visor above her, flipping open the mirror and giving herself a quick once-over. She tugged on the curls of the wig she'd donned in the bathroom of a nearby gas station and arranged them so that they drooped into her face, obscuring some of her features. The glasses were large, like a couple of magnifying glasses attached over her eyes, and they would further obscure.
Reaching over to the passenger seat, she grabbed her cellphone, sent a quick, "Make the call" text, waited for the "On it" reply, and picked up the stack of files she'd taken from her own filing cabinet in her agency's office.
Swinging out of her car, she slammed the door shut, fixed her bag over her shoulder, and awkwardly rushed in her brown flats towards the entrance to the high-rise office building. She quietly thanked the woman holding the door open for her and stepped inside.
She stopped right in front of the doors, looking up at the massive lobby, the walls mostly glass windows that almost seemed to glow from the large light posts stationed in the entrance courtyard outside.
"Excuse me!" someone rudely snapped, pushing past her. "Maybe don't block the doors?"
Sarah staggered to the side, nearly losing her grip of the files. "S-Sorry. Sorry," she stuttered at the businessman striding out through the door she'd just come in through. "It just—Big lobby. It's… Oh. He's gone."
Clearing her throat, she looked around again, then fixed her eyes on the short security wall beside the front desk. Because most of the offices were either law firms , security firms, or press headquarters with sensitive , high-profile, and classified information, you needed a swipe card or explicit security clearance even to get to the elevators.
And that was why she stood here, in her disguise, shifting her weight nervously, fixing her glasses with her pointer finger, taking in her surroundings. If she could just walk right into an elevator, get to the right floor, and stride right in, this would've all been way, way too easy. She inwardly rolled her eyes at that.
She spotted the fellow manning the front desk speaking to someone on the earpiece in his ear, his finger to his ear. His eyes roved around the lobby idly, looking for someone in particular. Knowing that was her cue, she moved so that she was in his line of sight, cast a frightened gaze around the place, and turned on her heel to leave again, shaking her head as if silently saying screw this mess, this is way too stressful for me.
And then she heard it.
"Miss! Miss, wait! Hold on! Uh, you're here for…the law office on the seventh floor?"
She didn't stop, still headed for the door, trying to escape. But then a hand clamped down on her arm.
"Wait, please! Don't leave. I've…I've got the attorney on the phone, from Newberry, Carpenter, & Associates. He needs those files."
She gave him a wide-eyed look. "Oh. But—"
"No, no. Come. Come on. This way. He needs those right away." He pulled her, hustling over to the swiping station at the security gate. "Yessir," he said into the earpiece he wore. "Right away. I'm sending those files up now." He directed his speech back to her. "Hurry up. Seventh floor. And don't let me see you trying to leave again until those files get to Mr. Salcedo."
"Y-Yes, sir. Of-of course. I'll…seventh floor?"
"Seventh floor. Salcedo." And just like that, he reached in front of her and used his own card to swipe her through. "Now get a move on."
Sarah Walker, Private Investigator, didn't say another word to him, merely hastening to the elevator that seemed to almost be waiting for her, the door gaping open, ready for its cunning passenger.
And she stepped inside, pressing the button for the seventh floor, keeping the meek look on her face until the doors slid shut. And when they did, she did a cursory search for cameras, found none, and she grinned. Hard. "I can't believe that worked," she breathed to herself. She had to give credit where it was due. Chuck's old TV shows just got her through the security on the first floor.
But she would do that later, and deal with the consequences then; namely the fact that her boyfriend wasn't the type to actually say "I told you so" which was somehow worse because he was such a sweetheart. She knew she deserved an "I told you so" and she wished he'd just do it once at least and stop being so damn shiny.
She killed the smirk on her face as the elevator slid to a stop on the seventh floor, the doors opening. She stepped off of the elevator and took in her surroundings. There were still a few people at cubicles as she stepped through the doorway, NEWBERRY, CARPENTER & ASSOCIATES mounted on the wall. A very official looking, professional outfit…
For a bunch of damn conmen.
They didn't even use an Oxford comma in their sign.
This part of her job always left her a bit a torn. She hated how easy it was to slip in and out of places when she covered up her beauty, slouched a little, wore shapeless beige clothing. It was a testament to the damage that toxic views of women since humanity's beginnings had done on society.
Nobody saw her walk past their desks, through the rows of cubicles.
And nobody saw her duck into Lewis Carpenter's outer office, shutting the door behind her. She knew Trudy, Carpenter's assistant, had left for the weekend, and so had Carpenter. They always left early on Fridays, just after lunch. And Mrs. Carpenter probably knew exactly what was going on because of course she did.
Shivering in disgust, Sarah pushed that out of her head, again telling herself she didn't have to save every woman from her own decisions, and she tried the door to Carpenter's inner office. She groaned quietly when she found it locked.
Of course it was locked. Carpenter was a swindler, a fucking shyster by every definition of the word, but he wasn't stupid enough to think he'd get away with all of it if he was that careless.
So here she was, standing at a locked door.
She ignored the thought that her boyfriend would flip his shit if he saw her now, kneeling at this door as she pulled her lock pick set out of her bag and got to work. And instead she concentrated on getting the lock open.
It was a rudimentary lock at best, and she'd opened harder ones. So it took her fifteen seconds flat to get in, shutting and re-locking the door behind her. "Still got it," she muttered, grinning proudly.
Reaching into an outer pocket of her bag, she moved her fingers around until they slid against something cold and smooth. She grasped onto it and pulled it out, pressing the button mounted on the side of the travel-size flashlight and sending a bright, concentrated beam through the room.
She wasn't wasting any time.
Sarah went right for the filing cabinet and popped open a drawer, pointing the light down on the file names and thumbing through them with her free hand to see how they were arranged.
She knew what she was looking for and she made quick work of it. Opening the drawer with the D's in it, she went straight for the file labeled "DONOHOE, F.", pulled it out, and shoved it inside of her bag, shutting the drawer again and hurrying out of there.
Sarah took advantage of her invisibility again to get out of the Newberry, Carpenter & Associates offices, into an elevator and out onto the sidewalk again through a back exit, hurrying to her car, climbing in, and driving off.
She used her bluetooth in her car to call Chuck immediately as she made her way back to her office, tearing her fake glasses off and removing the wig, tossing both in the passenger seat.
"What happened? Did you get in? Are you okay? Did it go okay? Are they not letting you through security? Were you caught?" came the flurry of questions after what had to only have been maybe half of a ring.
Sarah couldn't help chuckling. "Jesus Christ, were you this wound up all that time?"
"Sarah!"
"It's fine," she giggled. "I got in and out, easy. You can breathe now."
"…Soooo…it worked?"
"It worked," she said, surprised to find she wasn't even saying it begrudgingly. "It was a good idea. It was completely off-the-wall and bonkers but…it fucking worked."
She winced as his high-pitched and very loud voice erupted inside of her car with a, "WOOOOOOOOOO!" and then she laughed.
"I don't know where in the hell you even came up with something so harebrained but I'm glad I trusted you because it was also kind of genius?"
"Bark and yell at someone like that enough, instill in them the fear of God, specifically an ol'-boys-club-shyster-with-lots-of-power God, and they'll do something they maybe know they're not supposed to do to keep said God off their back." He chuckled. "I'm honestly a little surprised that worked too."
She had a feeling he got it from some movie and simply wasn't telling her. Good. She didn't really want to know.
"Oh, great. So I went into the belly of the beast on a plan you weren't even sure was gonna work? Thanks a lot," she giggled. "Jesus."
"Baby, come on, you know I would've bailed you out."
She barked out a laugh, throwing her head back as she slid to a stop at a red light. "You ass."
"You have the files you need to bust these sons of bitches?"
"I have the files I need, yep. I haven't looked through them yet, but there should be evidence in there that these guys are forging signatures and taking shady pay-outs. Next thing I need to figure out is how to get evidence that they conned Felicity's grandma with this mesothelioma thing."
"I still can't believe you're working a mesothelioma case. After seeing all of those damn commercials growing up, to have my girlfriend be the badass busting those swindlers…. Aw man, I love you so much. You're just too awesome."
Sarah beamed as she aimed her car in the direction of her own office building. But then she thought about Felicity Donohoe and the picture she showed of her grandma, Frannie, in a hospital bed, and she sobered up significantly.
"It's my job, helping my clients. Her grandma got conned out of thousands and thousands of dollars she didn't necessarily have, with the promise that she'd get a massive pay-out from her old job after she came down with mesothelioma and it's basically put her on her death bed and she can't afford proper treatment. Fuck these assholes and their crap commercials promising people they'll win lawsuits against massive corporations. They half-assed her case and lost and now she might die deep in debt." She huffed. "So yeah. I am gonna take them down, and Frannie Donohoe and her family will get justice. And enough money for treatment while I'm at it."
Sarah could hear the quiet on the other side of the line, and when it lasted long enough, she wondered if their phones had disconnected when she'd driven through the freeway underpass, maybe. "Chuck? You there?"
"Uh, yeah," he breathed, hurriedly. "Yeah, I'm-I'm here. This is a very serious thing and I feel really terrible for the Donohoe family and I'm so glad they came to you to get their money back from these very bad, soulless people. I'm just trying really hard not to be extremely turned on by your badass fighting-for-justice monologue thus cheapening the difficulties that family is going through and it's not going well. I am very turned on. That was so hot."
Sarah Walker was very glad he couldn't see the vibrant blush on her face. "Wow. You went there."
"Well, maybe you should stop being such a sexy justice warrior. No, don't. I take it back. Keep being that. Forever." He cleared his throat then. "Sorry, though. I feel really bad for those people because you know they aren't the only ones, and I'm really glad they were brilliant enough to get you in their corner, Sarah Walker, P.I.. Those conmen lawyers are going to get what's coming to them."
"Well, I'm going to do my best, at least," she said, smiling in spite of herself. The way he said these things with so much sincerity made it all feel so good. It went straight into her chest and filled her with warmth and lifted her up in a way nothing else ever had before she met him a few years earlier. Like she could do anything. "I'd better. I'm not exactly sure if I'll get paid by this family if I don't win them back their money," she said with a wince. "And I told myself I wasn't going to do this crap when my agency was just starting out because I can't afford it."
"You have a big heart," he said, as if it made the money problem magically go away.
"I also have big bills and a big rent to pay."
"Ahhhhh, yes. That, too. Oops. They're gonna get their money back. You'll find a way."
"Yeah, well, in the meantime, keep your eyes open for a good lawyer who might be able to drop the hammer on these bastards in a courtroom." Chuck was quiet again. "Chuck? Did I actually lose you this time?"
"No, I'm just…kind of surprised you…Ahem. I mean, are you asking for my help?"
She rolled her eyes, then made a face, sighing. "I suppose I deserved that one."
"No, no. I'm not… No, that wasn't me teasing you. I didn't think you really wanted me to do that sort of thing, helping you with your agency. My own brain and skillsets, sure, but my, um, my money and my connections and influence connected to B.E.C.? I thought you didn't want me prying like that."
Sarah pulled into a parking space along the sidewalk next to her office building and sat with the car idling, taking a deep breath. "I don't really want Bartowski Electronics Corporation to be tangled up with Walker Investigative Enterprises, that's true. But this is for a client who may need a really good lawyer they can actually afford."
"A lot of really good lawyers aren't all that…affordable," he said, and she could hear the wince in his voice.
"I know. And that's why I was hoping you might know one who is. Somewhere."
"Not off the top of my head, but I'll help you find one. Do I have permission to pick my dad's brain? Bigger question: Do I have permission to pick my mom's brain? She's good with lawyers. She went to law school, you know."
"What?!" Sarah snapped without really meaning to. "Your mom—Mary Bartowski—went to law school?"
"Mary Ogden."
"Huh?"
"When she was in law school, she was Mary Ogden." Huh. "And she met my dad while she was in law school, and they got married on the fly right when she finished law school, after her graduation. She was pregnant with Ellie right after that, and taking the bar just…never happened." He made a quiet ooooh sound then. "But don't ever mention it to her because she gets real weird about it."
"Weird?"
"Yeah, like she resents it but is also super defensive about her decision to get married and start a family instead at the same time. I dunno. That woman is an enigma and it's so hard to know what she's thinking."
"I knew none of this."
"Yeeeeah, it's a touchy thing with her. But she knows lots of lawyers. So if you're okay with me picking her brain, she'll find the perfect lawyer if anyone can."
Sarah took a deep breath. "I'm a big girl, Chuck. Let, um…" She winced, fighting to keep it from invading her voice. "Let me handle asking her, huh? I'll ask her."
"…Really?"
"Yeah. I'll ask."
"You're going to…call her, or um…?"
"Sure."
"…Do you…have her number?"
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Chuck, we've been dating for long enough now that I have your mother's phone number."
"Yeeeesh okay. Okay, give her a call, yeah. Maybe you two can have tea and cucumber sandwiches—you're thinking of all the different ways you can kill me in my sleep without anyone knowing it was you, aren't you?"
Sarah bit her cheek to keep from laughing. "…No."
"Convincing. Real convincing, Detective Walker."
She giggled. "I'm at my office now and I'm going to start delving into this file, but will I see you later?"
"To murder me?"
"If I was going to do that, do you really think I'd say it over the phone, baby?"
"…I'm so dysfunctional for how much that lit me on fire."
"Okay, you weirdo," she laughed. "I'm hanging up. I love you and I appreciate you helping me out today."
"I love you too. I'll send lawyer contact info if I find someone I think can help."
"Thank you, Chuck."
"You got it."
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Chuck groaned and erased the edit he'd just made to the reference letter he was writing up for one of his programmers who was trying to get a tech job in Detroit so that he could move in with his boyfriend there. He really wanted Dwayne to get the job, even if he didn't want to lose his best programmer.
But the more he wanted the guy to get the job, the harder it was for him to phrase this right without having the urge to toss it all in the garbage.
He had some time yet, but he wanted to get it done ASAP so that he could get it to Dwayne with plenty of time to spare.
And because Stephen J. Bartowski was an expert at timing, when Chuck heard the knock on his door and called out "Entahhhh, if you daaaare", his father popped his head around the door and gave him a tentative smile. "Can I, uh, come in, son? Or are you busy?"
He smiled. "Come on in, Dad."
Stephen walked in and shut the door behind him, which was interesting. He usually kept the door open when he came in, unless it was something private, and usually the only things Stephen wanted to keep Adisa from hearing were bad things. "So, uh… What're you up to, Charles?"
Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Working on Dwayne's reference letter. Why? What's up?"
"Oh. Dwayne. Right. Yes." His dad nodded and smiled hesitantly, and Chuck saw right through it.
"Dwayne Ncube. He's our assistant programmer? Dad, he's been with us almost as long as I've been COO—"
"Oh yeah! Yeah, him. You know me. Bad with names. Ahem. He leaving?"
"Moving to Detroit to live with his boyfriend who's a veterinarian there. Asked me for a reference letter. That's beside the point, though, Dad, because you're all fidgety like something's wrong, and you shut my door."
The Bartowski Electronics Corporation CEO winced and sighed. "I have the worst poker face."
"Do you even have a poker face, Dad? That's the real question."
His dad gave him a flat look, making him chuckle.
Shaking his head, Stephen moved to sit in the chair across from Chuck's, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. "We've got a problem, here, Charles. And I need my COO. My son, too, sure, but my COO especially."
He sat up straighter and leaned in with his elbows on his desk. "A problem? What's going on?" He had a terrible feeling.
"I just got an email from Cherish in our H.R. department and there's been a complaint filed."
"At H.R.? Someone upset about the work environment or something? Did we mess up someone's vacation time?"
"Uh, no. It's…worse. Something I wasn't even slightly prepared for."
"What is it?" he asked, trying not to snap JUST TELL ME at his dad.
"Sexual harassment."
Chuck Bartowski felt the color drain from his face, numbness setting in, and he just stared at the top of his desk, not blinking.
Shit.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
"Dad, are you… I-I mean, is it…you?" He finally found his voice.
"What?!" Stephen snapped. "Me?! Of course not me. You're the one who has the most contact with employees."
"IS IT ME?!" he practically almost bellowed.
"God, Chuck, no! It's not either of us." He swiped his hand through the air.
Well, at least there was that, but he still felt a chill setting in. Sexual harassment was a serious charge, and he felt ill all of a sudden.
"Old Sean Mallery, our Director of Engineering."
Chuck made a face. "Sean?! Sean Mallery?! Friendliest dude in the whole company? Everyone loves him? That Sean Mallery?"
"Been here with us from the beginning practically? Yep. That one."
"He even forewent paychecks for two months while you were trying to get this place on its feet."
"I know," his dad sighed, shaking his head. "And now this is happening and it feels like he's being side-swiped by a freight train or something. After all he's done for us."
"Sexual harassment?" Chuck asked, inadvertently lowering his voice and leaning in closer.
"Yeah. Cherish sent me a whole email about it. Go ahead and pull it up. You still have my email password, right?" Stephen asked tiredly, gesturing to Chuck's desktop computer.
"Dad, I haven't had your email password since I was, like, twenty," he said.
"What? I thought you had been checking my email all this… Never mind. Doesn't matter." He cleared his throat. "It's MaryEllieChuck660. Capitalize the first letter of each name. Think that's it, anyway."
"Awww," he drawled. "That's sweet, Dad."
"Whatever," the other man said with a snort he didn't seem to put much into. Chuck could see he was upset. He put the password in and pulled up the email from Cherish Brown, their deputy director of H.R., leaning in to read it.
The more he read, the darker the cloud that appeared over his head became. This was bad. Bad enough that it would have to be dealt with head on.
"So? What do you think?"
Chuck frowned deeply, turning away from his computer, pushing a hand through his hair. "If-If it's true he's saying things like that to her, then it isn't something we can brush to the side."
Stephen nodded, then shook his head. "I don't know, Charles. It's Sean. He's never stepped wrong while he's been here. He's nice to everyone. What if he was just extra nice and she's not used to having a boss who treats her that kindly?" He grumbled then, waving both of his hands through the air in front of him. "He's such a trusted employee, I can't imagine there's something else we're missing here. She just gets hired and then walks into H.R. and files a complaint about Sean immediately. When all the rest of our engineers just love him and think he's the best boss ever."
Chuck wasn't sure what to say, but he couldn't entirely dismiss what his dad was saying, and he knew it was bad. He knew it was the wrong thing to think, but this woman had just been hired, according to Cherish, three weeks earlier. And she immediately had an issue like this? He knew Sean. He'd known him since he was in college and Sean sent him birthday cards to him at Stanford. And he really had let Stephen skip on paying him for a few months, even though they'd made sure to give him backpay later. He was such a good guy, and had always been good to the Bartowskis.
This just felt all wrong.
"Well, I'm glad you agree we can't ignore it. We can't do that. So I'm going to tell Cherish to forward her email to you."
Chuck looked up at his dad with wide eyes. "What? Me?"
"I gotta wash my hands of it, son. It's too messy for me to get involved in. It's upsetting to me. I just can't think he'd do something like this, so I'm going to let you take care of it, because I know you'll do whatever has to be done and…take care of it." Stephen cleared his throat and pushed back up to his feet. "You're better at pushing personal connections to the side. That whole thing with…you know who…is evidence of that… And I don't mean it in a bad way. This is a knock on me, not you. I trust you to handle this better than I will. Your whole moral center…is…strong." His dad made a fist and pumped it.
"Oh, great, thanks," Chuck drawled flatly. "You do realize what you're doing here is pushing a big problem into my lap like a massive coward, right?"
"Yep," his dad said, immediately. "I'll owe you one later, how's that?"
"Damn it, Dad."
"I know. I'm not proud of myself. I'll talk to Cherish, have her read you in on everything and you can lead this the rest of the way. I believe in you, kiddo."
He shut the door behind him as he left, Chuck gaping at his father the whole way out. Once the door shut, Chuck snapped out a, "Fuck! Seriously?!"
It wasn't that he minded doing his job, but this? This had what could be catastrophic outcomes floating in the wings, with the potential for lawsuits too. And epically terrible press. There was always that.
Chuck knew he had to go see Cherish immediately, either way. They couldn't put this off. That wouldn't be fair to the accuser, or to the accused.
Because whether he believed this woman or not, whether or not he thought Sean Mallery was capable of touching a woman's backside, whispering in her ear, saying things about how her breasts looked in her top, Chuck knew he had to treat this with the appropriate seriousness and respect. If they blew this, it would look terrible for B.E.C., and worse, there was the potential for someone to walk away feeling like they hadn't been listened to. That wasn't happening on his watch.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
H.R. was on the second floor of the B.E.C. building, and Cherish was situated in the corner office in the back. It was a rare occurrence that he had to make his way down to the Deputy Director of H.R.'s floor, let alone her actual office.
He knocked on her door.
"Come in!"
Pushing inside, he held up a hand in a wave and smiled as she looked up from her desk with a toothy grin. "Well, well. Hi, there, Chuck." She chuckled, standing up and walking around the desk towards him. She bundled him up in a tight hug and he hugged her back.
"Hey, Cherish. How's it going down here?"
"Yesterday? Great. Today? Not so great." She made a face.
"Uh, yeah. My dad's, um, tossed this in my lap so I read your email you sent him. That's…allowed, right?"
She snorted. "Honestly, I love Steve, but he's closer to Sean than you are. And I also think your head is screwed on a little straighter than his when it comes to a situation like this. What I mean is," Cherish said with a wince, pushing some of her braids back over her shoulder, "you'll take this more seriously than I think he will. So I'm glad it's in your lap if that means anything." It kind of felt like it didn't. "But you'll have to make some big decisions, hon."
Chuck nodded. "Yeah, I know. He knows it too and he has absolutely no shame or regret about foisting it onto me." He grumbled.
"Think of it this way, these are two human beings."
That made him wince. "Really good point. Point taken. I'm stopping my grumbling."
She chuckled and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry, I had to do this sort of thing all the time in my last H.R. Job so I'm old hat." Chuck winced at the implications of that. "I've got your back and I'll walk you through it. Kinda jarring having it happen here, I'll admit. Three years at B.E.C. and not a peep of sexual harassment accusations coming across my desk. Usually all I have to do is hire people."
"I'd like to make sure we go back to that for the foreseeable future," he said, wrinkling his nose in discomfort.
"Me too."
They sat down and went over the accusations again. Chuck felt disgusted by the end of it.
"You spoke with her, then? Did she come to you?" he asked when it was over and he found his voice again.
"Not immediately, no. An employee makes an appointment with H.R., they don't sit down with me. They go to Regina. Usually she can solve whatever it is, whether it's a disagreement between cubicle neighbors or something else. Somebody caught stealing the office toilet paper or the coffee filters. You know how it is."
He really, really didn't. This was a whole different part of his company that he never spent even a moment thinking about. And it was a little bit of a trip realizing that. All of the teeny tiny details he completely missed, didn't think about, and let other people deal with. Was that bad, he wondered?
He thought maybe that was bad.
"But this sort of thing? A sexual harassment complaint? Apparently Vera was emotional talking about it, crying. She's miserable at work." That gave Chuck a sinking feeling in his chest. "Can't blame her. And Regina felt it was time to bring it up the chain, to me in particular. I've studied the situation and I feel like it's important for me to say this, Chuck… I'm glad you're sitting, because I believe her."
The floor fell out from under him. "You…do?"
"You don't?"
"Well, I…don't know her. And I do know Sean."
"We all think we know the Seans of the world, Chuck. Turns out we don't know the Seans of the world. We do know a lot of Veras though. The problem there is even though we know a lot of Veras, we don't know that we know them. Catch my drift?" She widened her eyes.
Chuck frowned. "I think I do. You're saying a lot of people deal with this in the work place but never say anything about it."
"The thing we have to look at is the power imbalance. And…well…" She paused, chewing on her bottom lip.
"What is it, Cherish? Look, you can give it to me straight, whatever it is. We're pals, but more than anything, I respect your voice and authority in this area and I want truth even if it's…bad."
"I'd be a little more reticent saying this to your pops…" Uh oh. "Part of my job is doing the metrics on the people we've hired. Our engineering department?" She rolled her chair back to the filing cabinet behind her and pulled out a drawer labeled PERSONNEL STATS. Then she pulled out a folder and rolled back to her desk, opening it to a page and handing it over to him.
He looked down at the chart and read the percentages aloud.
"Male, sixty-nine percent. Female, thirty-one percent. Oh, shit."
She just sighed. "The good news is that you're one percentage better than most tech companies in their engineering departments. And in a job like the one Vera is doing, there are even less women doing it at our company."
"Meaning she's in a boys club up there," he said, grimacing. "Does she have any managers or upper management that are women?" he asked then, going through the names in his head. "Oh Jesus, she doesn't, does she? We just hired a bunch of dudes, oh my God."
He was getting utterly rocked by this information. And what was more, he was riddled with shame.
"Which is why I'm telling you I believe her. It isn't easy being in tech as a woman, that power imbalance has had countless books written about it recently, and then having one of your directors do this?" She pointed to the complaint that was in another folder. "It took guts for her to come to H.R. about it. It was a big risk in a successful tech company like this. And I think we owe it to her to do our due diligence and actually conduct an investigation."
Chuck nodded, feeling numb. "No, you're right." He'd let himself think that the new girl in the engineering department had maybe overreacted or wasn't being truthful about Sean Mallery, her director. Even if he hadn't voiced it, he'd thought it. Instead of giving her enough of the benefit of the doubt of not drawing conclusions before conducting an investigation into the matter with Cherish. "I'm going to make an appointment with Regina, then. I'll talk to her about Vera's complaint against Sean, see if she can shed light on any of this. And then…" He cleared his throat, looking up at Cherish. "What then?"
She calmly tilted her head. "Then we talk to Vera, and to Sean. Separately," she emphasized. "And we see if there are any other complaints like this in our files. I've only been here three years, Regina less than that, so if it happened before, it had to be before our time."
"We can find that out, though?"
"We can. We'll have to dig but we can," she said with a nod. "Whoever was here before me had to legally keep records of complaints."
"Okay, good. Good. I'll have a chat with Regina and get back to you, then, Cherish. Thank you."
"You're welcome, Chuck."
He nodded, accepted her hand for a supportive squeeze, and left the office again, drowning in bad thoughts, wondering how he'd allowed himself to ignore such massive inequities in his family's company, and wondering if he was a terrible person for believing Sean over Vera right off the bat.
Something in him still wanted to think this was all some sort of misunderstanding.
And he had a really bad feeling that something in him was very, very wrong.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
A/N: Like I said, I decided to tackle a real subject. And hopefully I do it justice. That's the hope. I would love to read your reviews!
Thanks!
-SC