It's Natalie, she said. A pause. Not hostile. Just careful. I know, he said.
I need to talk to you, she said. Not about us. About Pacific Crest. Another pause. She could hear background noise, the workshop, she thought.
Or somewhere like it. The sound of a radio. Tell me, he said. She told him. She laid it out the same way she had laid it out for herself.
The inspection discrepancies, the materials grades, the falsified signoffs, the ownership chain. She did not editorialize. She gave him the facts in the order she had assembled them and let him follow. When she finished, there was a long silence. I filed a written concern in March, he said.
I found it this morning, she said. It was in the procurement file. Nobody acted on it. I called the site supervisor after I filed it. He said.
He told me the readings were within tolerance and thanked me for my time. They weren't within tolerance. No, he said they weren't. She waited. Natalie, he said, "You don't owe me anything." She said, "I know that.
I'm not calling because I expect you to help. I'm calling because you're the only person who looked at that system before the signoffs were falsified. And if there's documentation from that visit, photographs, readings, anything, it establishes a baseline that proves the discrepancies aren't wear and tear. It proves they were there before the inspections were logged. I have all of it, he said.
I always document site visits. I know, she said. Another silence. How long before you have to make a decision about the opening? He said 72 hours.