Suspicious Minds

It starts as a friendly argument over money. Eugene Meltsner asks permission to use the computer in John Avery Whittaker's office, since the machines at the college are always taken by the time he arrives, and he mentions that he has been saving for a computer of his own and is now only a hundred dollars short. Connie Kendall thinks a computer is a waste and says that if she had that kind of money she would put it toward a car - she has her driver's license now, and she is a hundred dollars away from buying what she proudly calls a brand new 1967 Ford. Eugene points out the contradiction. Connie accuses him of calling her a swine. Whit escapes upstairs before either of them can drag him into it.

That evening, the totals do not add up. Whit counts the day's cash twice and comes up sixty dollars short of what the register receipts say he should have. Connie searches the floor behind the counter and turns up nothing but a wad of leftover Christmas napkins. Eugene observes that only three people carry a key to the register, and that all three of them are standing right there, which leaves the uncomfortable possibility that someone else has managed to get a copy made. Whit refuses to go down that road. Most of the people who walk into Whit's End are friends, he says, and the money will turn up. But once he takes the cash to the safe, Eugene and Connie agree between themselves to watch the register very closely.

Their stakeout is a disaster. Connie crouches among the artificial houseplants in camouflage grease paint while Eugene lurks behind the counter, and the first person they catch is Bernard Walton, who has come to wash the windows and is reaching for paper towels. Eugene snaps handcuffs on him and starts talking about pressing charges before Connie can explain. Bernard is not amused. Neither is Whit, who spends the afternoon convincing a dozen customers that his employees have not lost their minds, and who suspects another dozen were offended enough never to come back. Then he finishes the day's totals and discovers that another forty dollars is gone.

Sixty and forty make one hundred - and suddenly each of them remembers what the other one needs exactly a hundred dollars for. The accusations fly until Whit shuts them down and sends everyone home.

Neither of them lets it go. Connie quietly counts out a hundred dollars of her own savings, planning to slip it into the register so that Eugene will not get in trouble, and Bernard catches her at it. He tells her that her heart is in the right place, even if her brain is missing in action. Downstairs, Bernard then finds Eugene wiring a car battery and a warning bell to the cash drawer, a trap meant to zap whoever opens it, because Eugene has decided Connie is the guilty one. Bernard helpfully suggests sending her to the bank for quarters, tests the switch himself, and gets a jolt for his trouble.

What follows is an afternoon of two people trying to get each other out of the room, which Bernard watches from a corner with enormous enjoyment. Connie finally sends Eugene to the freezer for chocolate ice cream, opens the drawer, and is caught mid-motion by Whit. The trap never even fires.

Whit sends them both home. Then the register drawer refuses to close. He works it loose with a soda spoon and pulls out a hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills, caught in the slot and dragged behind the drawer all along. The most difficult problems, Eugene admits, often have the simplest explanations. Whit makes them apologize to each other, and reminds them that trust is hard enough to earn without being so easy to break.