Why Did You Do It?

Okay, here is another writing prompt inspired short story.  How would you handle it if you kept getting notes asking, 'Why did you do it?' No one wants to take the credit for it and you have no idea what they're talking about; or do you? 

This IS a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, place, company, or event are purely coincidental.

Jessie walked into her office and sat her double latte down on her desk. She dropped her briefcase on the sidebar, straightened her Harvard diploma on her wall, and sat down to start another day of working on the marketing campaign that had earned her the title of vice-president. It was a big account with one of the largest companies in the country, Medicorp, and they had just been bought out. She had to impress its new CEO Cassandra Thompson. The first meeting had gone well and Jessie saw it as a chance to move up in the company. She spotted something under her Starbucks cup and moved the cup to see the note. She knew she had left the desk clear of all notes when she left on Friday.

"Why did you do it?" she read out loud. "Do what?" She looked around to see if she could figure out who had left the cryptic message on her desk. She buzzed her secretary. "Liz, could you come in here please?"

Liz came in with her steno pad and a freshly sharpened pencil. "Yes, ma'am, what can do for you?"

"First, stop calling me 'ma'am'."

"Yes, ma'am, I mean, yes, Ms. Dyson."

Jessie looked down at her desk annoyed. "Did you leave this message on my desk?" She held up the note.

"No, I hand you any messages I have when you come in."

"Well, did you see anyone else come in here?"

"No, Ms. Dyson." She tapped the pencil on the steno pad. "Is there anything else?"

Jessie got up. "No," she answered. "I'll ask around before I get started."

Liz went back to her desk and began typing while Jessie headed to her boss's office. "Sandy, is Mr. Kramer available?" she asked his secretary. After a short nod, she went into the office.

Mr. Kramer sat behind a mahogany desk the size of Jessie's office. She often dreamed she would have this office someday and sit at that very desk. He had a carafe of coffee ready on one corner if he wanted a refill and he offered her a cup, which she declined. The sun shone in the windowed wall behind him that overlooked the city. Yes, she very much wanted this office.

She placed the note on his blotter. "Is this from you?" she asked him.

He glanced at it a second. "I know nothing about it, but I'll see if I can find out who left it."

"It's no big deal really; I'm just curious who left it and what it means."

"I'm sure that was the desired effect. Don't worry about it. It's probably just a prank."

"I'm sure you're right, sir." She left the note with him and went back to her own office.

By Thursday she had received the same note three more times and she still didn't know what to make of it. It distracted her from her work. Mr. Kramer had questioned the night cleaning crew and the other office staff to no avail. No one had any idea what was going on. She decided to work late and find out for herself. That campaign was nowhere near done anyway and she couldn't concentrate at home.

At midnight she threw her takeout container in the trash. The cleaning crew had long since gone and she was a little spooked by the quiet in the office late at night. She grabbed her briefcase and started to leave when she heard the bell ring on the elevator. Off stepped the new CEO of Medicorp. She was slender and dressed in black slacks and a red sweater. She held her head high as she marched right for Jessie's office. Jessie turned off her desk lamp and sat down in her chair and waited.

Cassandra Thompson only mildly started when she saw Jessie. "I wondered how long it would take you to wait for me," she said.

"Why did I do what?" was all Jessie said.

"You really don't recognize me; do you?" Cassandra asked. "I guess it has been a few years and I have dropped a few pounds. And since the accident, or so they called it, I had a little reconstructive surgery on my face, so it doesn't quite look the same either."

"What are you talking about?" Jessie said.

"I saw your diploma and wondered how on earth you got it. So I did some checking. You see Thompson is my married name. You used to know me as Cassandra Dunlap. I was ahead of you in Harvard Business and you just couldn't handle someone being ahead of you. You sure made no secret of the fact that you had to get better than me at any cost. Then I found my laptop's memory erased with all my work gone. Luckily I had a backup. Then, my car tires were flattened, my books mysteriously disappeared and somehow I got really sick just at exam time. I'd not really been the type to get sick before then."

"I vaguely remember a Cassandra from class. Why should this interest me? If memory serves, you transferred schools, and it doesn't seem to have hurt you any," Jessie said tersely.

Cassandra snorted. "Is that what you recall now? I recall my brakes going out on my car after I had just had my car inspected and it passing with flying colors. I recall waking up in a ravine with glass all in my face and a ruptured spleen. The mechanic told me someone had done a very good job of tampering with my brakes; left no evidence as to who it might have been."

Jessie stared at her with a blank expression. "Go on, this is getting interesting. You see, I still don't know what this has to do with me."

"I wondered how you got that diploma, especially since I kept tabs on you after I changed schools. I had a cousin also attending Harvard so it wasn't hard. She told me you poisoned someone else who got ahead of you and you got caught. You did three years through a plea agreement and got tossed out of school. They weren't likely to let you back in, much less graduate. Did it cost you a lot to forge that diploma? I checked with Mr. Kramer and he assured me you top of your class and he had the transcript to prove it. You even supplied it to them yourself."

Jessie sat back in her chair, her face going from red with anger to pale as a sheet. A tear slid down her face. "I did it because if I wasn't top of the class, my father was going to take away my trust fund."

Cassandra shook her head. "And you lost it anyway," she said with a laugh and a sigh. "You should know a copy of your true transcript and your arrest record has been mailed to Mr. Kramer. You are washed up. Clean out your desk. I don't think there is a statute of limitations on attempted murder. I'll have to check on that." With that, Cassandra turned and walked out, leaving Jessie with her head down on her desk.

The Shoebox

"Honey, will you please clean the garage this weekend? You've been promising me for months," Patty reminded her husband Cecil.

Cecil hung his head. He wanted to watch that ballgame today, but he had to admit that he had been promising and had not yet done it.  He looked up at her and replied, "Yes, honey, I'll do it today." He smiled as he thought about the fastest way to do it. Do I really go through things, or just toss it all and play dumb? "Well, you wanted it cleaned out," he'd tell her.

Box of heavy duty garbage bags in hand he began stuffing in small boxes randomly. He jumped a foot when Patty tapped him on the shoulder. 

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

 "You wanted it cleaned out; I'm cleaning it out."

"Those are the few things left of my mother's after the sale when she went into the nursing home. There are supposed to be family pictures in there somewhere."

"So, you're saying don't just toss it; look at it first." She nodded vigorously. He groaned. His recliner and the ballgame were getting further away by the minute. He looked up at her and saw her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at him. "All right!"

Cecil spent an hour giving cursory glances inside the boxes before he tossed them searching for important papers and photographs. He couldn't imagine what else she might want to keep. He finally came across one with a lock of hair tied up in a tiny pink ribbon and a tag that read Patty's first hair cut. "I can't believe she kept that in a shoebox," he muttered. There were other treasures from his wife's childhood in the box so he set it aside, thinking he'd surprise her and get her a proper container for the keepsakes. Then he found the photographs she wanted to keep and another box of papers he thought should have been in a safe deposit box. He shook his head at the thought that they had been sitting in his garage for two years. Finally he found several that actually contained shoes and tossed them. Hopeful that he had at last run out of 'keepers', he quickened his pace.

He was happily tossing the boxes into the large black bags when one fell and hit him on the foot. He swore as he hopped around on one foot. "I didn't know I'd need steel-toed shoes for this job." He picked the box up and realized it had been heavily taped shut. "Well, I guess the old girl didn't want that pair getting away," he commented, but then realized it weighed more than the other ones. He peeled off the tape and carefully opened it and then whistled loudly when he saw what was in it. 'Patty!" he called, "You have got to see this."

Cecil and Patty sat at the kitchen table and stared at the neatly banded stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills. First Patty started giggling and then Cecil smiled and then they started laughing.

"Where in the world did my mom get forty grand?" Patty asked.

"You'd have to ask her," he replied between chuckles.

"I doubt she remembers; she's got dementia," she pointed out. She picked up a stack and studied it. "Look at the date on here," she said fanning the bills, studying each one, a stack at a time. "1960. They were brand new. These are original bands."

"What were you? Five? Do you remember anything happening back then?" Cecil asked her.

"I was staying with my grandparents for a few years. They said she kept poor company and she let me stay with them rather than drag me around. She straightened up when I was probably nine and I went back to live with her and my step-dad. So, I don't know what happened with her in 1960."

"Sounds like we need to pay mom a visit," Cecil said.

"It's too late today. We'll go tomorrow. First, get back to cleaning out the garage, and check those boxes you were just randomly tossing!" Patty told him, getting up to start dinner.

"No kidding," Cecil said gleefully, as he stood and headed back to the garage, his ballgame forgotten.

"Hi mom!" Patty said, placing a vase of flowers next to her mother's bed. "How are you today?"

Her mother looked at her and nodded. "I'm good," she said. "Who are you again?"

"It's Patty, your daughter," she replied, closing her eyes.

"My daughter is little. She lives with her grandparents in Memphis," her mom said.

Patty squeezed back a tear. "Okay, so how old is she?"

"Six," was the reply. "I got a picture of her the other day. She is as cute as she can be, and into everything."

"Yes ma'am, six-year-olds usually are." Patty did a mental count in her head, 1962. I wonder if she can tell me about the money, she thought.

"What brings you here today?" her mother asked.

Patty thought fast. "Oh, my husband and I were going through some boxes and found one of yours. It has a lot of money in it."

Her mother closed her eyes a minute and when she opened them again she looked at her daughter. "Patty?"

"Yes, mom, it's me. I was asking about the box of money. Where did it come from?"

"You found my shoe box?" her mother asked.

"Yes, where did all that money come from? I can put it in an account for your care."

"Oh, no. You can't do that. As it is I have no assets so my care is low. If you come up with money for me, it will go up. That money is yours."

Patty's shoulder's sagged. "Mom, thank you, but I still need to know where it came from."

"I believe it was from a bank robbery," she said matter-of-factly.

"What?"

"I had a boyfriend. Statute of limitations is up; no one was hurt. It should be free and clear." She yawned and went to sleep as though sedated.

"Mom?" Patty sighed. Her mother would be 'gone' again when she woke up, so Patty went home.

A telephone call started Patty and Cecil out of their sleep. The nursing home called to tell her mother had passed away.

"We'll never know who they robbed. Now what?" Cecil asked.

Patty gave him and exasperated look through her tears. "Ask the bank," she said at last. "I have to bury my mother. It's not hers. She gave it all to us two years ago."

"I don't know what to tell you," the bank manager told Cecil. "It's been fifty-three years. I'll contact the FBI and see if they have anything on it. They probably have the serial numbers somewhere. Meanwhile, I wouldn't spend it."

Cecil pulled out his safety deposit box key. "Just get my box and it will sit there until this is straightened out."

A week later, an FBI agent knocked on their door. He introduced himself.

"How are you? Won't you sit down?" Patty offered.

"First, let me express my condolences," the agent said.

"Thank you. What can you tell us about this robbery my mother mentioned?"

Patty and Cecil stared at him expectantly as he sat.

"Well, your mother was correct; the statute of limitations is up. It was from a bank in Nashville, Tennessee that got robbed in June 1960. There insurance paid them for the loss."

"Are they going to want paid back?" Cecil asked which earned him a swat from Patty.

"No," the agent told them. "The company went out of business. As soon as they paid the bank there wasn't anything to recoup for them so they were out of it other than wanting to see the guilty parties go to jail."

"There was more than one person involved?" Patty asked.

"Yes, he had a female driver. They never identified either of them. It might have been your mother."

Patty sat back on the sofa and turned pale. "Oh heavens!"

"Do you know who she might have been with back then?" he asked.

"No, I have no idea," Patty answered. "I lived with my grandparents and I never knew any of her friends. If they did know; they're gone and won't be any help now."

"That's too bad. We would like to know what happened to the other forty thousand," he told her. He stood up and shook their hands. "It was a pleasure meeting you. The money is yours," he added.

Cecil and Patty looked at each other and back to the agent. "Thanks?" Cecil said, and walked him to the door.

"I'll bet those pictures of your mom's has the guy," Cecil told Patty over dinner. He retrieved the box and scattered the black and white photographs on the table, flipping them over to check for a date.

Patty spotted one and turned it over. "It was my father." She said, sighing. "Some family tree I have."