…”…March. Park on level 1 by the guard booth. I’ll walk you to your car. He’s been waiting on level 3 every Thursday. —Walt, Security.” I stared at the handwriting. Walt. The night guard. The older man who waves at me every evening from his little glass booth by the exit.
I took the log straight down to the booth. Walt looked up from his crossword and nodded, like he’d been expecting me. “I’m sorry I went in your drawer,” he said. “I saw you leave it on your desk Friday and I wanted to add what I’d seen. I didn’t think you’d believe me if I just told you.”
He’d been watching the man too. For two months, Walt had seen him park on level 3 every Thursday and Friday, near my car, and sit inside his own car with the engine off until I came out. He’d filed three incident reports with building security. Nobody had followed up.
“He’s not going to listen to an old man in a booth,” Walt said. “But he might listen to forty-two entries.”
We took the log to the police together. Walt brought his incident reports. A detective read everything in one sitting, then requested the building’s working camera footage from the other levels. It showed the man taking photos of my license plate. It showed him walking around my car, touching the door handles.
He was charged with stalking. The company finally fired him after the police contacted them. My manager apologized to me in writing. HR changed their policy.
Walt still walks me to my car on Thursdays, even though I don’t need him to anymore. Last week, I brought him coffee and a new crossword book. He said it was the first time in nineteen years of night shifts that anyone had brought him anything. I told him it was the first time in my life that anyone had watched out for me without being asked.
