Your company is moving office buildings and you’ve been asked to stay after hours and help pack up the desks. While clearing through one particular coworker’s desk, you find something extremely concerning in his bottom drawer. Call one of your friends and ask for advice on what to do about it.
Admittedly, I was less than thrilled when John announced at our morning staff meeting that I would be the one responsible for cleaning up and packing the last six desks in preparation for our move downtown. I tried to guilt Ellen into helping me, but she had some secret date or something. We had each packed up our own cubicles, and the sterility and plainness of the now-blank walls and cleared desktops betrayed an office in limbo, an office in transition, an office ready to move on and away from the ghosts of its past.
That is, except for the last six desks which, for one reason or another, retained the personality of their occupants and the air of productivity, with computers still humming, inboxes still overflowing, post it notes scattered about and personal effects still on display. Bob and Phil were in Barcelona, entertaining clients on the Davis account. Mary was still on maternity leave. Dan was on vacation. And then there were the two now-vacant desks.
As one who generally tries to respect the privacy of others, I had honestly never spent much time looking at other peoples’ desks. Sure, everyone knew that Jason was a huge Packers’ fan and that Susan had a propensity for collecting Elvis memorabilia. But I never really got into people’s desks. Not even to borrow a stapler or anything.
So as I started packing up the last six desks, my eyes were suddenly opened to a new side of the missing six, and I felt an uneasy, yet exciting increased sense of intimacy with each of them. Who knew, for instance, that Bob was addicted to Butterfinger candy bars? There were at least a hundred old wrappers stashed in his desk. I learned that Mary volunteered as a youth group leader at her church. I found out that Phil’s wife had filed for divorce and fled to Tennessee with her yoga instructor.
As the hours wore on, however, my newfound curiosity had given way to boredom and exhaustion. Where earlier that evening I was carefully wrapping up fragile items and itemizing the contents of each box, I was now haphazardly dumping drawer loads into non-marked boxes. I finished Bob’s, Phil’s and Mary’s, and the desk that used to belong to Heather, the tall blonde Harvard graduate who abruptly and unexpectedly quit six months ago, without even talking to John or giving notice. Most of us suspected that she had run away with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Nick. Her desk was disappointingly barren.
Then there was the desk that belonged to Maggie. I approached it with a sense of reverence. It was her murder, after all, that had prompted John and the other principals to move us to the new downtown location. Though most of us had gotten over the grisly crime scene that Jen, our former receptionist, had had the misfortune of discovering on that fateful Monday morning, some were still shaken, even after the police had arrested Maggie’s ex-boyfriend. I opened her desk and found the normal array of scattered pens, staples, and paper clips. I started dumping them into a box that I had marked “Misc.”
Then I saw it. Tucked away in what looked like a hidden compartment of her desk. It was her diary. My hands shook as I withdrew it from the slot. I took a deep breath and opened it to a random page.
I have to end it. I thought I had made it clear, but yesterday he gave me an emerald ring and insisted that I wear it as a sign of my love for him. I had no idea he could be such a monster…
I flipped a few pages.
I don’t know what to do. I need to get out of this….
Finally, I turned to the end, her last entry, from the Friday before her body was discovered.
I’m so scared. I’ve tried to break free from him but it’s no use.
I dropped the diary into the box, shaken. I no longer wanted to be in the office. I wanted to get out, to breathe fresh air. I wanted to call my wife and tell her how much I loved her.
But I still had to empty Dan’s desk. I grabbed the last empty box, set it in front of his desk and started sweeping all of his belongings into it. I felt sort of guilty, but I just needed to get out of the office. I dumped his drawers into a second box. I pulled open the third drawer and paused. The only thing in the drawer was a small jewelry box. I picked it up and swung open the top to reveal a shiny emerald ring, and a battered Harvard University class ring.
I dropped the box, allowing its’ lone contents to spill onto the floor. My heart raced. I needed to call someone, anyone. I looked at the clock. My wife would already be asleep. Who could I call?
Ellen.
I picked up the phone and speed dialed Ellen. It rang five times before she finally picked up.
“Ellen! It’s Dave. You’ll never guess what I found at the office! It’s Dan! I don’t believe it myself, but it’s Dan!”
Silence.
“Ellen? Ellen, are you there? I know you’re friends with him, but we need to get to the police before it’s too late.”
Silence.
“Maybe…maybe it’s already too late,” Dan replied.
Click.
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